If Poland is attacked by Russia will N.A.T.O help defend Poland or not?

Thats about the size of one Russian tank division....they have about 70 divisions....thats just with tanks...lots of others with armoured stuff....

70:1 odds? Not really, Wildrover - Russia has about 23 thousand tanks (but only
6.5 thousand of them in active service, the technical state of the rest is questionable
to say the least).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

You basically armed a soldier with a gun based on an American 70s design, slapped him in some better protection and improved communication, its a solid improvement but not really a revolution.


When discussing Russian military a reality check is needed, they're aiming to have 3000 tanks left in line so we can guess thats about the number they have active anyway, in case of war with Poland they still have to have tanks on the border with China, in Georgia, Chechenya and some reserves, so how many tanks would be used? 1500-2000? Poland would face 2-1 odds at most.

No, thats just the beginning of new developments, new inventions...part of the process.

Future wars won't be slugfests between millions of marching armies anymore...the West is brainier than that!

The downside is they will need more than your usual half illiterate school drop out to actually use all that new high tech....

Hey, come on Poles...you don't share the high IQ with the Germans for nothing!!! ;)

USA which has a lot more brains and money to buy even more brains stopped at around the same stage as you did, i suspect what we're looking at now is mostly it.


Dont expect a revolution here either, we're basically using concepts from 50 years ago, some evolved and the equipment got expensive and armies consequently got smaller but the way we fight today is not that different from 1944-45.


Well we've got our own future warrior thing on the roll.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projekt_TYTAN

Creating new generation of battle uniforms
Creating new generation of tactical equipment
Developing new electronics and optics technologies
Developing new communication systems
Modernisation of equipment and adjusting it to current standards
Researching new generation balistic shields

Main Weapon
Personal Computer ( GPS system, Maps, Nightvision, Friend or Foe System, communications system, Weapon's crosshair system)
Lithium-ion battery
Helmet with display, headphones and microphone
Modular body armor

Nope...Germany outsmarted their enemies all the time during the last wars.
They were all hot to get their own Germans inventors as war spoil...we can do it again!
But right now I think Europe misses the real reason....we are cutting defenses and research left and right!

More than 970 though....

In that case we can roll over right away.

But proxy wars with...say...China won't look like Stalingrad!
We can't throw european soldiers at them like they could throw Chinese at us....our advantage is our brain.
We need to use and to develop tactics and sophisticated weapon systems to have a chance.
If we want to fight future wars like WWII we will end up like France who still fighted WWI in 1940!

Ugh... we could get into who invented what but we've been there a dozen times, suffice to say Germany was among the leaders but not really the leader.


Not really, the concept of future warrior got way ahead of its time, eventually late commers like Poland and Germany just dropped the concepts of power armor and other SF stuff and focused on what can be done with our science and cost effective.


Well there's no real enemies, central and western Europe aint going to war and Russia isnt exactly a military giant, at the same time we're in a financial mess.

I'm not a pacifist but there's no point in having more then we have already.


Why? It all boils down to how many troops you can arm and train, you can have 50 milion reservists but if their military training amounts to point rifle and squeeze trigger then you're going to massacre them at a rate no country can afford.


The difference between WW2 and now is that the world had completely new tools (airforce, tanks, self propelled arty, mechanized units) and you were the only ones who developed them to their full potential, the weapons we have today are largely developments of WW2 concepts so of course some things changed but the war is not revolutionary different.

You still need air dominance, you still need tanks on open plains, we use artillery a bit differently because its more precise but you still need to shell the f*ck out of anything before you attack it.

As Sokrates said, in case of war we're facing about 2:1 odds, so it's not too bad
considering that an attacker usually needs the odds of 3:1 in his favour to have
a good chance of success.

As I said...we don't really have the pressure right now!

But that doesn't mean that future wars will a bit different than what we know...we just haven't the people to do it the 'ol way as future wars won't be local conflicts but where unions are pitched against each other for whatever reasons.

Torq
If the Russians would ever be close to losing a war, they would use their nukes. No doubt about that.

True.

That's why (and I'm repeating it for the 10th time today) we have to get our own nukes.

Differs what you mean with "losing"....Russians lost several times since '45 without resorting to nukes.

Future wars will be battles for resources mainly....small (or even bigger) international task forces, highly developed and trained fighting whereever the interests of our union is threatened by a rival union.

No huge armies slugging it out, no nukes...that would be suicide!

What would that change? Russia would wipe out Poland completely, and in return Poland would destroy a handful of Russian cities and military installations.


I mean that they are running the risk to lose a large war and get occupied afterwards.

Ah but what future? We're now 64 years after WW2 and our weapons are basically refinements of WW2 concepts, there's no jetpack infantry and Germany untill very recently used what was a copy of their WW2 light machinegun (we still got it on our Leo 2s).


But even today wars aint fought with masses, the price of equipment dictates that armies be smaller and that negates any advantage a country like China would have militarily.


Which is what Russia boils down to, there's a difference between geographic Russia and demographic Russia.


By Poland?

Occupations are thankless and mean things...I doubt it will ever come to that again!

Dispel the rival from our resource and making sure he stays away is more like it...

It would change a lot. Russia simply wouldn't attack Poland as the risk of potential
loses would outweigh the potential gains - that's what having nuclear weapons is
all about (also, Poland should develop a nuclear arsenal able to destroy more than
just a handful of Russian cities).

The first principle of the military analysis is to figure out how the enemy can hurt you worst with his known capabilities and then to plan to stop him, not hope he won't try it.

You cannot avoid running risks, sometimes, where military operations are concerned, but prudence is a powerful military virtue. And prudence suggests that you err on the side of pessimism, especially BEFORE the shooting starts.

By NATO, including Poland.


Russia would face the potential risk of getting nuked by other NATO forces already. Another 50 imaginary Polish war heads on top won't make a difference IMHO.

And why in heavens name would NATO want to occupy Russia?


Amen, Russia might or might not attack Poland someday in the future but nukes? Unless Harry becomes next Russian president Poland doesnt get nuked by anyone.

The risk of other NATO members going into nuclear war with Russia over
Poland is not as high as Poland using her own nuclear weapons in defence
of her independence. In fact, that risk is so high that Russians wouldn't
try to gamble that way (no matter if it would be 50 or 100 Polish war heads).

The future soldier!

We were talking about the theoretical chance of Russia attacking Poland. In that case NATO would join the fight, and after possibly defeating the Russians they would have to occupy the country for a while. Something along the lines of the Iraq war, I suppose.

Woah there champ, 100 warhead and lets say 40 missilies to carry them, thats a LOT of money and we aint exactly USA when it comes to $.


This article basically tells you that maybe probably some unspecified time in the future some of the options could possible be made, maybe.


And if NATO which is to say Germany joins with its full weight Russia gets a boot up their face by combined Polish and German armies and the war ends in Belarus with some sort of armistice.


Iraq has a population of 31 milion and is France sized, Russia has 140 milion and is continent sized.

Russia is...how do I say it..inoccupyable?


Well...in case of a real danger scientists would work double time believe me. We would have something like that sooner than you might think!

But also then this soldier will be probably part of a rather smallish, highly specialized unit, send all over the world to protect our resources from some un-named empire or rival union!

That will be our future wars...

All right, all right, Mr Penny-Pincher - let's get ourselves even 20 or 30 of them
and the risk (more like certainty ;-)) of getting hit by them should keep Russia
from using their nuclear weapons against Poland.

That would depend on how fast the combined Polsih/German forces make progress, I'd guess.


Not to forget the costs involved for developing nuclear war heads and the technology to enrich uranium to weapons grade.


Yeah, I know, a few nations tried that before... ;)

Genau! *nods*

But only two of them managed to capture and occupy Moscow :-)