Translated material
Lagged behind Moscow
The Pentagon conducts a secret study to modernize the American army: Politico
While the US Army solved the problems of confrontation with militants in conditions of street fighting, Russia improved its armed forces and tactics of warfare. According to the American command, the country's ground forces are not ready to clash with the Russian army. As Politico found out, since 2014 the Pentagon has been conducting a large -scale study with the aim of modernizing the US armed forces in case of conflict with Russia.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine demonstrated new opportunities for the Russian army. Russia is capable of expanding significant forces in a short time, and, and light armored equipment used by the United States in the latest conflicts is vulnerable to Russian weapons. The role of T-90 tanks, which in the United States considered obsolete, is still high, and Russian cars became almost invulnerable to anti-tank missiles. Artillery systems of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation bypass American in terms of range and destructive strength.
Moreover, Russia can support ordinary weapons with modern unmanned vehicles - during the active phase of military operations in Ukraine, American experts counted 14 different types of UAVs at the disposal of the Russian Federation, and the number of sorties could reach eight per day. Disruptions were used to suppress radio communications and decommissioning enemy navigation systems (including GPS).
Since 2014, the US military has committed several dozen business trips to the warfare area. Their tasks included studying the tactics of pro -Russian separatists and their weapons. According to Politico, these trips took place as part of the program “Study of the New Generation War in Russia”. Program coordinator-US Army lieutenant General Herbert McMaster .
The McMaster heads the US integration center, its tasks include developing an army development strategy until 2025. It is assumed that according to the results of the study of the Ukrainian conflict, recommendations will be prepared on a deep revision of the principles of conducting hostilities so that in the event of a conflict with Russia, the US Army could successfully act against the RF Armed Forces.
Experts surveyed by Politico call McMaster's program “the largest revision since the collapse of the USSR”. It will cover the purchase of weapons, development of equipment, troops training programs. It is assumed that the first conclusions will be tested during the exercises in Poland in June 2016.
As Politico notes, a past of a similar study was conducted after the war of the Support Day (1973). Then Egypt and Syria, supported by the USSR, attacked Israel. The American military realized that while they fought in Vietnam, the principles of a regular war have changed radically. Specialists were sent to the Middle East to understand what US lessons should be extracted from the conflict (English).