Military Strength of Russia (and compared to other nations)

Also, you have failed miserably to mention that the US military, along with most of its critical military hardware, is hardened and more so than the Russians are currently.

You may be praying that this is so but sadly hope alone will not be enough.

I see you failed to mention the most disasterous Russian outing to date: Afghanistan?

Hardly disasterous compared to US casualties in the first gulf war and or Vietnam....

As such, the Russians lost how many men there in relations to the US in Iraq and Afghanistan combined?

Far less casualties if one takes the first gulf war as the start of the campaign.

The only comparison is this: Russia's Afghanistan was America's Vietnam. Other than that, your mentions are rhetoric aimed at making the Russian look good and the US bad. How quaint.

The Russians had good reason to intervene in Afghanistan and without US and western intervention there they would not have had the problems they had. The US had no business being in Vietnam ( beside oppression of the independence movement) and compared to their contributions to the Aghani 'resistance' ( i would rather call them crazed terrorist but anyways) the USSR did very little to help Vietnam and what they did were for a VERY good cause.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX

Hardly disasterous compared to US casualties in the first gulf war and or Vietnam....

Soviet dead in Afghanistan during their war : 14,751

Desert Storm Deaths US: 345 Dead

Operation Iraqi Freedom: 2,803 Dead

Please explain how they are similar?

In Vietnam the U.S. had more Troops overall there than the Soviets did in Afghanistan. They were also dispersed much more than the Soviets were and hence involved in more actual combat.

Originally posted by rogue1

Originally posted by pavil
Originally posted by iskander

Here's a fact. After the collapse of Soviet Union, regional wars literally exploded through out the world, more mercenaries were fighting then through out the cold war, and more people have directly and indirectly died from war in the 90s then the ENTIRE WWII.

If this is such a fact, you won't mind supporting it with documentation. Please do so with proof that wars in the 90's resulted in more deaths than World War II. Since you said ENTIRE, that would include military and civilian deaths.

LOL son't expext facts from Iskander. If you do disagree with him be prepared to be labelled uneducated and ill informed desite the fact that he can barely get any facts correct himslef. As seen previously he doesn't even know when the Soviets expoloded their first atomic bomb ( despite being eaily googled - his favourite tol mind you ), so much for being informed

Yup, sorry to say for him that that is true. By the way, Stealth does not mix with hypersonic.

Originally posted by StellarX
The Russians had good reason to intervene in Afghanistan and without US and western intervention there they would not have had the problems they had. The US had no business being in Vietnam ( beside oppression of the independence movement) and compared to their contributions to the Aghani 'resistance' ( i would rather call them crazed terrorist but anyways) the USSR did very little to help Vietnam and what they did were for a VERY good cause.

LOL so what was this justified reasoning for the Soviet intervention in Afghamisan and the murder of 10's of thousands of civilians ?
Also and I had to chiuckle at your lack of knowledge - the Soviets pretty much supplied VIetnam with it's military hardware, where do you think all the weponry came from espceially the SAMs ? Quite simply wothout SOviet help the North Vietnam would hae gone under.

I see you failed to mention the most disasterous Russian outing to date: Afghanistan?

Hardly disasterous compared to US casualties in the first gulf war and or Vietnam....

As such, the Russians lost how many men there in relations to the US in Iraq and Afghanistan combined?

Far less casualties if one takes the first gulf war as the start of the campaign.

Erm lol, aother wrong statement the US sffered around 100 dead in teh first Gulf War, do you research anything you say ?



[edit on 24-10-2006 by rogue1]

rogue1, you sure do know your stuff. Its very funny how you proove people wrong who think they know what they are talking about. lol too

If it makes you so proud to prove Stellar wrong, that only shows me how good Stellar really is.

Russia suffered more losses in Afghanistan, true, but not without aid from the US to make it so.

After the Soviet invasion, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the Mujahideen. The United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia became major financial contributors to General Zia, who, as ruler of a neighbouring country, greatly helped by ensuring the Afghan resistance was well-trained and well-funded.

Compare these two:


-Gulf War
-Afghanistan War

And don't forget that the Afghan war lasted 10 years, while the first Gulf War lasted for less than 6 months.


Another point - when arguing or proving a point it is always welcome to be polite. The way that you present a point is just as important as the facts you support it with, when trying to prove to others it is valid.

[edit on 25-10-2006 by Alex Dude]

Originally posted by rogue1


Erm lol, aother wrong statement the US sffered around 100 dead in teh first Gulf War, do you research anything you say ?



[edit on 24-10-2006 by rogue1]

Wrong Statement???? I dont think so !!!

and
First Gulf War
Someone else has to do the research

[edit on 25-10-2006 by Russian Boy]

www.theregister.co.uk...

Here ya go kiddies have a look see at what the big red star has been up to?

Originally posted by pavil
Soviet dead in Afghanistan during their war : 14,751

Desert Storm Deaths US: 345 Dead

Operation Iraqi Freedom: 2,803 Dead

Please explain how they are similar?

In Vietnam the U.S. had more Troops overall there than the Soviets did in Afghanistan. They were also dispersed much more than the Soviets were and hence involved in more actual combat.

I used the word 'casualty' for a reason and i am surprised you do not know the difference.

www.gulfweb.org... add up the 2800 ( which is a complete lie anyways but a topic for another discussion) to the 21000 official wounded in the current war i do not see the significant difference. If i were counting the dead instead of the casualties you may have had a point.

For interest sake look at the following and tell me how weird it is...

Both sides of the story are told in an article in the Dec. 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine written by Atul Gawande, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who gathered data on casualties and talked with surgical teams that served near the front lines. He concludes that the "military medical system has made fundamental - and apparently effective - changes in the strategies and systems of battle care, even since the Persian Gulf War." In that 1990-91 conflict, 24 percent of the wounded died, or more than twice the rate in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

Forward force

The reduced death toll has occurred despite the limited number of medical personnel available. Gawande says that the shortage means that the Army keeps "no more than 30 to 50 general surgeons and 10 to 15 orthopedic surgeons in Iraq." This relatively small cadre attends a fighting force growing to 150,000 troops.

The surgeons are deployed in small teams of 20 people called Forward Surgical Teams (FST). "Each FST is equipped to move directly behind troops and establish a functioning hospital with four ventilator-equipped beds and two operating tables within a difficult-to-fathom 60 minutes," Gawande

www.sciencedaily.com...

Interesting how the death toll goes from one in four to one in ten in less than a decade!

Even I – and I deal with that beleaguered land seven days a week – was staggered when a Pentagon source gave me a copy of a Nov. 30 dispatch showing that since George W. Bush unleashed the dogs of war, our armed forces have taken 14,000 casualties in Iraq – about the number of warriors in a line tank division.


We have the equivalent of five combat divisions plus support for a total of about 135,000 troops deployed in the Iraqi theater of operations, which means we’ve lost the equivalent of a fighting division since March. At least 10 percent of the total number of Joes and Jills available to the theater commander to fight or support the occupation effort have been evacuated back to the USA!


Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military's Transportation Command told me that as of Dec. 23, his outfit had evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries.

www.veteransforamerica.org...

And that was back in Dec , 2003!

Published on Thursday, September 16, 2004 by United Press International
17,000 GIs Not Listed As Casualties

by Mark Benjamin

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. The Pentagon said most don't fit the definition of casualties, but a veterans' advocate said they should all be counted.

In addition to those evacuations, 32,684 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan now out of the military sought medical attention from the Department of Veterans Affairs by July 22, according to VA reports obtained by UPI. The number of those visits to VA doctors that were related to war is unknown.

The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245 wounded from Iraq. And 27,571 of the veterans who have sought health care from the VA served in Iraq, according to the documents reviewed by UPI.

Among veterans from Iraq seeking help from the VA, 5,375 have been diagnosed with a mental problem, making it the third-leading diagnosis after bone problems and digestive problems. Among the mental problems were 800 soldiers who became psychotic.

www.commondreams.org...

Dear Mr. President:

We are concerned that the Department of Defense has been under-reporting casualties in Iraq by only reporting non-fatal casualties incurred in combat. We write today to request that you provide the American people with a full accounting of the American casualties in Iraq since the March 19, 2003 invasion, including a full accounting of the fatalities, the wounded, those who have contracted illnesses during their time overseas, and those suffering from mental afflictions as a result of their service in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. We are concerned that the figures that were released to the public by your Administration do not accurately represent the true toll that this war has taken on the American people.

As you know, more than one in four U.S. troops have come home from the Iraq war with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment. Thus, with more than 300,000 troops having served in Iraq, this amounts to at least 50,000 cases of mental trauma. Moreover, 101,000 of the 431,000 troops who have returned home from service in Iraq and Afghanistan and who have separated from the military, have sought help. This figure shows the Pentagon's official Iraq casualty count of 2,082 U.S. troops killed, and 15,477 wounded as of today, to be inaccurate by several multiples. What we cannot understand is why you are only reporting the total American casualty figure at just over 15,000 when you know that this figure is not an accurate representation of the facts and does not represent the entire picture of American lives affected by the war. We also need to understand where your numbers are coming from and how you arrived at them given the facts and data that has been released from the Pentagon.

Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Rep. Sam Farr
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva
Rep. Carolyn Maloney
Rep. Betty McCollum
Rep. Jim McDermott
Rep. Jan Schakowsky

www.lewrockwell.com...

It's one thing if journalist say so but is it not of some value when seven members of Congress accuses their own government of hiding the true casualty numbers?

U.S. Troops in Iraq See Highest Injury Toll Yet
U.S. Troops See Highest Toll Yet

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 5, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 4 -- About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas.

U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority.

www.washingtonpost.com...

U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply
Growing American Role in Staving Off Civil War Leads to Most Wounded Since 2004

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page A01

Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Interesting how they do not say 'since the war started' right? Why bother?

I can go on but i since your original question have been addressed...

Stellar

Originally posted by rogue1
LOL so what was this justified reasoning for the Soviet intervention in Afghamisan and the murder of 10's of thousands of civilians ?

Who said the killings were justified? Did i say they were justified or did i say that the Soviet INTERVENTION was more justified than most all of America's in the third world?

Also and I had to chiuckle at your lack of knowledge - the Soviets pretty much supplied VIetnam with it's military hardware, where do you think all the weponry came from espceially the SAMs ? Quite simply wothout SOviet help the North Vietnam would hae gone under.

They sold them weapons as arms traders do and BOTH the USSR and China supplied the USA with strategic materials ( at price ) during the same time. Ho Chi Minh complained that they were getting second hand stuff the USSR were no longer interested in using for themselves

Erm lol, aother wrong statement the US sffered around 100 dead in teh first Gulf War, do you research anything you say ?

As my other posts points out US casualties in this campaign is probably in the region of 60 - 100 000 for all causes not mentioning the 200 000+ casualties of the first gulf war.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
Who said the killings were justified? Did i say they were justified or did i say that the Soviet INTERVENTION was more justified than most all of America's in the third world?

You used the word justified not me.

They sold them weapons as arms traders do and BOTH the USSR and China supplied the USA with strategic materials ( at price ) during the same time. Ho Chi Minh complained that they were getting second hand stuff the USSR were no longer interested in using for themselves

Sold ? I don't think so. The only trade off the Soviets got was a little influenece in the country - the weapons were never " sold ", how could the Vietnamese afford to buy them.

As my other posts points out US casualties in this campaign is probably in the region of 60 - 100 000 for all causes not mentioning the 200 000+ casualties of the first gulf war.

200 000 US casualties in the 1st Gulf War, yoiu must be studying history from a different dimension. I would ver much like to see your information on this, What are you caliming that 40% of Americans suffer from teh mysterious Gulf War Syndrome ? LOL, what BS.

Originally posted by Alex Dude
If it makes you so proud to prove Stellar wrong, that only shows me how good Stellar really is.

Russia suffered more losses in Afghanistan, true, but not without aid from the US to make it so.

After the Soviet invasion, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the Mujahideen. The United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia became major financial contributors to General Zia, who, as ruler of a neighbouring country, greatly helped by ensuring the Afghan resistance was well-trained and well-funded.

Compare these two:


-Gulf War
-Afghanistan War

And don't forget that the Afghan war lasted 10 years, while the first Gulf War lasted for less than 6 months.


Another point - when arguing or proving a point it is always welcome to be polite. The way that you present a point is just as important as the facts you support it with, when trying to prove to others it is valid.

[edit on 25-10-2006 by Alex Dude]

No I wasn't talking about Stellar, I meant iskander.

[edit on 25-10-2006 by wildcat]

Actually now that I think of that, I worded that post wrong. It should say, "how you proove iskander wrong." Now that one made me laugh.

Russia’s new missile fails again in test launch

Thought this was pretty interesting and would fit well will this thread.

The Bulava missile was launched from the Dmitry Donskoy nuclear submarine underwater in the White Sea toward a testing range on the far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, but it veered off its designated flight path minutes after the liftoff. The missile self-liquidated and its fragments fell into the sea, the navy said in a statement

Its particularly interesting because they are current building the ships to house these missles.

"The failure means that the entire new class of submarines has no missile to be equipped with," Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst, told The Associated Press. "That's a big problem for the military."

From the looks of it some of russia's 'musle' was taken down a notch.

According to Russian news reports, the Bulava has a range of 6,200 miles and is designed to carry six individually targeted nuclear warheads.

It is universal as well being able to execute with conventional weapons .

All this means is serious problems for the Russian naval component of its nuclear forces.

[edit on 10/25/2006 by Nathabeanz]

Originally posted by Nathabeanz

Its particularly interesting because they are current building the ships to house these missles.

They are building submarines that will be equipped with them but what gives you the idea that the three typhoons still in service can not be equipped with these weapons?

From the looks of it some of russia's 'musle' was taken down a notch.

Only if one forgets completely about the 10 or 12 Delta's and two typhoons they are still operating with a few hundred missiles between them. One obviously has to complete forget about their land based missile forces which are generally considered superior to that operated by the USA....

It is universal as well being able to execute with conventional weapons .

All this means is serious problems for the Russian naval component of its nuclear forces.

If one employs a great deal of imagination and denial i suppose this conclusion can in fact be reached.

/me Shrugs.

Stellar

Originally posted by rogue1
You used the word justified not me.

And i used it in a context which you have chosen to ignore.

Sold ? I don't think so.

What you think may be good enough for you but i have learned not to trust your thinking on most topics.... If you want to dispute it feel free.

The only trade off the Soviets got was a little influenece in the country - the weapons were never " sold ", how could the Vietnamese afford to buy them.

They in fact had to pay for whatever they got from the USSR even if the terms were very lenient the majority were only written off a few years ago when Putin visited Vietnam. The US gives away weapons for free ( export credits) and these are employed by countries such as Indonesia to killed hundreds of thousands in East Timor. At the very least we can say with amazing clarity that the USSR backed the right side in Vietnam and were the side that chose to support human decency and the right to self determination.

200 000 US casualties in the 1st Gulf War, yoiu must be studying history from a different dimension. I would ver much like to see your information on this, What are you caliming that 40% of Americans suffer from teh mysterious Gulf War Syndrome ? LOL, what BS.

You really need to start studying reality.

WCCO-TV) Twelve years ago we fought in Iraq, and completed the entire ground offensive in 100 hours. 157 soldiers were killed, but the number of sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen who are now listed as casualties of that war is higher than in any other modern war we've fought.

Casualty. The Defense Department defines it as any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status - whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured.

Most of us don't know how many casualties were suffered in the war with Iraq. 722,000 Americans fought in the 1991 war. The Gulf War Veterans Association lists 207,000 of those as casualties. The government says that number is high, but not by much.

Tom Boland is a Gulf War Veteran's advocate. A veteran of the 1991 conflict, he returned with symptoms. A mystery illness. He thinks the illness he suffered, and others are still suffering, was caused by a soup of drugs administered by the Defense Department to protect the fighters.

"A term, chemical mix comes to mind," says Boland. "A potpourri of different substances. Some the US government was saying we should take, and some were just the ambient conditions in which we existed."

www.gulfweb.org...

The real number is rather higher ( i think just less than 400 000 are now longer listed in reserve forces due to medical conditions) but you can work with that for now.

Stellar

hey and we here keep saying that the Americans cruised through Iraq and Kuwait like they were taking a walk in the park, turns out we were wrong!

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by rogue1
You used the word justified not me.

And i used it in a context which you have chosen to ignore.

NO, obviously your english isn't that good - so now you are saying it wasn't justified ?

Sold ? I don't think so.

What you think may be good enough for you but i have learned not to trust your thinking on most topics.... If you want to dispute it feel free.

Well they weren't sold, simple as that. Come on provide evidence. You always say what you say is well supported by evidence yet time and again you refuse or cannot find teh eveidence to back yourself up

They in fact had to pay for whatever they got from the USSR even if the terms were very lenient the majority were only written off a few years ago when Putin visited Vietnam.

Oh right right, yet you cannot find anything to support you How typical.

The US gives away weapons for free ( export credits) and these are employed by countries such as Indonesia to killed hundreds of thousands in East Timor.

LOL rigth, so hundreds of thousands of East Timorse were killed by US made weapons given for free. I thought you said you lived in reality.

At the very least we can say with amazing clarity that the USSR backed the right side in Vietnam and were the side that chose to support human decency and the right to self determination.

I suggest you do some reading about teh Viertnamese War and the hundred os thousands of civialins who were brutalised and murdered by the VC and NVA. Himan decency yeah right.
Next you'll be saying that apaertheid in South Africa was teh decent thing to do by humanity

Originally posted by INc2006
hey and we here keep saying that the Americans cruised through Iraq and Kuwait like they were taking a walk in the park, turns out we were wrong!

America did cruise through the CONVENTIONAL WAR...the keyword is Conventional!!!!!

Conventional war as opposed to nuclear war, not assymetric warfare..
depends on how you define conventional.