The Conventional Arms Race Between the U.S. and Russia There are conventional weapons which are so powerful some pack the punch of a small nuclear weapon. We don’t talk about them very much, but they certainly exist. We have been figuring out how to make more powerful conventional weapons over the years and this is still going on. There may come a time when we figure out how to make them as powerful as the bigger nukes. As weapons improve this leads to even more improvements, because we discover more pathways to enhanced energy. Ah, if the world would only put this effort into curing diseases to save people, instead of trying to figure out ways to kill more of us. I guess unfortunately this is just not the nature of man. We know there is a race to produce the deadliest nuclear weapons, but how many of us know there is also a race to produce the deadliest conventional ones? I can’t help but think if nuclear weapons and conventional weapons reach the same power level who cares which one destroys people. Each weapon would be as bad as the other. Did you know there was an arms race going on between the U.S. and Russia on Air Burst Bombs? The United States had developed the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast weapon which is unofficially called the Mother of All Bombs or MOAB. An air blast weapon is a powerful explosion which produces a supersonic shock wave and intensive heat. The American bomb was first dropped on April 2017 in Afghanistan. The bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. You would think the bomb would be dropped by a bomber, but it wasn’t. The bomb was dropped by C-130 cargo planes. The Russian air burst bomb is said to be equivalent to 44 tons of TNT. This has been questioned, but it is far bigger than our bomb. It is also said to be 3 tons lighter than our bomb, which means there was a breakthrough in the type of explosive used. Even with all this much more power the blast radius of the Russian bomb is only twice that of our bomb. Kinetic weapons are also being developed. A kinetic weapon is one which doesn’t have an explosive component. The damage is caused by the mass and speed of the object. This is best illustrated by watching a meteor hit the earth and seeing how much damage it causes. We often hear things like, “the meteor that hit …. was more powerful than X number of nuclear bombs” The United States has developed metal rods which can be shot from space and boy they pack a wallop. Some call this Project Thor and others call it Rods from God. We experimented with this idea way back in the Korean War, but of course the rods were a lot smaller and shot from the ground. The U.S. Navy is developing a rail gun which will shoot kinetic energy rods. Russia has just tested its first rail gun. It is said the Russian rail gun can fire projectiles at 6,710 miles per hour and they can penetrate any armor. The United States and Russia are also in a bullet war. If you think bullets can’t be improved you are mistaken. Both the United States and Russia want bullets that can’t miss their target and to this end both countries are working on smart bullets. The Russian bullet flies, is able to correct its path either automatically or by the shooter controlling it. The Russians are also creating armor piercing bullets of this type which are said to be far more powerful than armor piercing bullets of the past, since new metals were used in their construction. The United States confirmed an experienced marksman "repeatedly hit moving and evading targets." They went on to say "a novice shooter using the system for the first time hit a moving target." The bullets the U.S. was using were the large .50-caliber smart bullet. The bullets were fired from a standard rifle. Look for guided bullets of all calibers and possibly this will spread to shells and rockets. Nothing can outrun the bullets even as they change course in midair. The battlefield just keeps becoming more dangerous and perhaps one day it will be just too dangerous for us humans and robots will have to duke it out. There is a competition in tanks going on and Russia is hosting tank competitions with many other countries. The U.S. is not competing. It is said the U.S. tanks are superior up to now, but a number of countries have new tanks which can match our M1 Abrams tank. Our tank entered service in 1980 and many in the U.S. military think we are not keeping up with tank technology. While the M1 Abrams tank has shown its superiority on prior battlefield engagements, the tank is almost 40 years old and if we are to stay ahead of the competition we need a new tank. We have been updating our tanks though and it is still a killer with a 120 mm cannon 7.62 coaxial machine gun and .50 caliber M2 machine gun. The decision on who has the best fighter plane is more complicated to figure out. We know the F-35 seems by far the more inferior plane to the Su-57. The Su-57 is far more maneuverable and faster than the F-35. The top speed of the Sukhoi Su-57 is listed as 1,516 miles per hour. The top speed of the F-35 is listed at 1,200 miles per hour, but here is the problem. We have some F-22s and their speed is listed at 1,498 miles per hour and they are said to be the best fighters in the world, but even more of a problem when trying to compare planes is the fact we don’t know what is really in our arsenal. There could be far more stealthy, speedy and space ready planes. The same might be true for the Russians, but it doesn’t seem so. It seems the competition between Russia and the United States in submarines is ever ongoing. It stopped for a while when the Soviet Union collapsed, but now it is in full swing again. Last year the United States launched what was called the most technologically advanced fast attack submarine in the world. It is the USS South Dakota. Russia and China both are making advances in submarines. We currently have about 70 submarines, but there are three distinct types. They are ballistic-missile subs, cruise-missile subs and attack submarines. Russia has the same three types of submarines. It seems the total amount of Russian subs is about 37, but they are capable of building far more subs than we can. As far as surface ships go, the United States carrier fleet is still supreme, but is becoming far more vulnerable as technology advances. It looks like the arms race will continue and even heat up wasting more money that both nations could use and in the case of the United States we are spending about 7 times more, but getting a lot less for our buck as the cost of weapons rises dramatically. |
