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France alone probably has sufficient military power to balance Russia. It depends on the theatre. At sea, probably, in a nuclear exchange France has sufficient

France alone probably has sufficient military power to balance Russia. It depends on the theatre. At sea, probably, in a nuclear exchange France has sufficient deterrent capability. But in a land war, tank on tank the way God meant it to be, France’s 200 tanks are no match for Russia’s thousands. Remember purchasing power parity. Russia may be poorer than France, but it’s stuff costs a lot less too.

blackflame7000 6y ago
The A-10 (or equivalent) is highly effective against tanks so it would probably come down to air superiority which the Russians would probably win easily against anyone not (china or US)
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  The A-10 (or equivalent) is highly effective against tanks France has no A10s and S500 allows Russia to deny airspace to it anyway.
  - jabl 6y ago
    I don't think you'd be using an S500 against an A-10 in any case..
nix23 6y ago
>tank on tank the way God meant it to be Tanks are not used for that anymore, they are used as little fortresses in cities, but fighting on a open field..well you have seen what happened in the first and second iraq war.
- nl 6y ago
  You have this completely backwards. Tanks are deathtraps in cities. Attackers trap them with obstacles and then attack with RPGs. See the footage on YouTube in Chechnya or Syria. In the open battlefield as in Iraq 1 (especially) and 2 they were very effective although of course airpower is the key factor.
  - nix23 6y ago
    Modern Tanks have a high resistance against RPG's, you can read for yourself. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Operation/Documents/Breaking-the-Mold.pdf https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Op... >In the open battlefield as in Iraq 1 (especially) and 2 they were very effective That was artillery and aircraft's, mostly NOT Tank VS Tank.
    - nl 6y ago
      > Modern Tanks have a high resistance against RPG's, you can read for yourself. > https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Operation/Documents/Breaking-the-Mold.pdf https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Op... To quote from this book, about regarding how badly they faired in Chechnya (as mentioned above): > High casualties, massive collateral damage, and heavy losses in vehicles and equipment all point to the apparent folly of using tanks in the urban fight. This chapter will discuss the 1995 battle for Grozny and examine why the Russian armor did not achieve the desired results. So... the argument is that "Russians don't know how to use tanks". I don't find this argument particularly persuasive. It's true that up-armourmed Abrams in Fallujah proved effective against RPG-7s (as mentioned in your link). But the RPG-29 was used in Syria successfully against them, and (more often) by Hezbollah against the Merkava tanks. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia-rpg-threat-to-modern-nato-tanks-2017-6 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia-rpg-threat-to-mode...
ohgodplsno 6y ago
France has 222 active Leclercs, with 260 more in storage. Around 400 AMX variants too. Russia has around 300 known T90s, which are the real threat that matches a Leclerc. The rest are T80s, T72s and older, which, while absolutely dwarfing the french numbers, forgets about a tiny thing: they are absolutely _awful_ tanks compared to modern stuff. A Leclerc will happily shrug off T72s. Additionally, Rafales are more than a strong contender to Russia's Su35. A dozen Reapers too, for good measure. France isn't the world's fifth military power and one of the biggest seller of weapons for no reason.
- ric2b 6y ago
  > forgets about a tiny thing: they are absolutely _awful_ tanks compared to modern stuff. The USSR beat the much better Nazi tanks through sheer numbers, at some point the numbers advantage overcomes the quality advantage.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jabl 6y ago
    Numbers, yes, but also quality. The T-34 when it appeared shocked the Germans. While it had significant flaws the basic tank characteristics like armor, firepower and mobility were very good for the time. The Germans thought so highly of the T-34 that they thought of cloning it, but came to the conclusion that designing a new tank to counter it was in the end a more feasible idea. This process eventually resulted in the Panther, often thought to be the best tank of the entire war. Although in practice it was beset by reliability issues, and of course it was too little too late in general by then. Getting back to the original topic, the lesson seems that for tank vs tank combat, large numbers of good enough tanks win the day. Now, the T-72 did disastrously poorly in the Gulf war, but OTOH apparently 'domestic' USSR T-72's have better armor to begin with than the export versions used in Iraq, and further upgraded ones with more armor and modern sensors might be a much harder nut to crack.
    - jacobush 6y ago
lagadu 6y ago
It's 2020, you don't need tank to tank when you can simply deploy tactical nuclear warheads against large numbers (strategic too but there's no need for that in this scenario).
- cnasc 6y ago
  There’s no such thing as a tactical nuclear exchange which does not escalate into a strategic nuclear exchange

blackflame7000 6y ago

The A-10 (or equivalent) is highly effective against tanks so it would probably come down to air superiority which the Russians would probably win easily against anyone not (china or US)

goatinaboat 6y ago
The A-10 (or equivalent) is highly effective against tanks France has no A10s and S500 allows Russia to deny airspace to it anyway.
- jabl 6y ago
  I don't think you'd be using an S500 against an A-10 in any case..

nix23 6y ago

>tank on tank the way God meant it to be Tanks are not used for that anymore, they are used as little fortresses in cities, but fighting on a open field..well you have seen what happened in the first and second iraq war.

nl 6y ago
You have this completely backwards. Tanks are deathtraps in cities. Attackers trap them with obstacles and then attack with RPGs. See the footage on YouTube in Chechnya or Syria. In the open battlefield as in Iraq 1 (especially) and 2 they were very effective although of course airpower is the key factor.
- nix23 6y ago
  Modern Tanks have a high resistance against RPG's, you can read for yourself. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Operation/Documents/Breaking-the-Mold.pdf https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Op... >In the open battlefield as in Iraq 1 (especially) and 2 they were very effective That was artillery and aircraft's, mostly NOT Tank VS Tank.
  - nl 6y ago
    > Modern Tanks have a high resistance against RPG's, you can read for yourself. > https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Operation/Documents/Breaking-the-Mold.pdf https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Primer-on-Urban-Op... To quote from this book, about regarding how badly they faired in Chechnya (as mentioned above): > High casualties, massive collateral damage, and heavy losses in vehicles and equipment all point to the apparent folly of using tanks in the urban fight. This chapter will discuss the 1995 battle for Grozny and examine why the Russian armor did not achieve the desired results. So... the argument is that "Russians don't know how to use tanks". I don't find this argument particularly persuasive. It's true that up-armourmed Abrams in Fallujah proved effective against RPG-7s (as mentioned in your link). But the RPG-29 was used in Syria successfully against them, and (more often) by Hezbollah against the Merkava tanks. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia-rpg-threat-to-modern-nato-tanks-2017-6 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia-rpg-threat-to-mode...

ohgodplsno 6y ago

France has 222 active Leclercs, with 260 more in storage. Around 400 AMX variants too. Russia has around 300 known T90s, which are the real threat that matches a Leclerc. The rest are T80s, T72s and older, which, while absolutely dwarfing the french numbers, forgets about a tiny thing: they are absolutely _awful_ tanks compared to modern stuff. A Leclerc will happily shrug off T72s. Additionally, Rafales are more than a strong contender to Russia's Su35. A dozen Reapers too, for good measure. France isn't the world's fifth military power and one of the biggest seller of weapons for no reason.

ric2b 6y ago
> forgets about a tiny thing: they are absolutely _awful_ tanks compared to modern stuff. The USSR beat the much better Nazi tanks through sheer numbers, at some point the numbers advantage overcomes the quality advantage.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jabl 6y ago
  Numbers, yes, but also quality. The T-34 when it appeared shocked the Germans. While it had significant flaws the basic tank characteristics like armor, firepower and mobility were very good for the time. The Germans thought so highly of the T-34 that they thought of cloning it, but came to the conclusion that designing a new tank to counter it was in the end a more feasible idea. This process eventually resulted in the Panther, often thought to be the best tank of the entire war. Although in practice it was beset by reliability issues, and of course it was too little too late in general by then. Getting back to the original topic, the lesson seems that for tank vs tank combat, large numbers of good enough tanks win the day. Now, the T-72 did disastrously poorly in the Gulf war, but OTOH apparently 'domestic' USSR T-72's have better armor to begin with than the export versions used in Iraq, and further upgraded ones with more armor and modern sensors might be a much harder nut to crack.
  - jacobush 6y ago

lagadu 6y ago

It's 2020, you don't need tank to tank when you can simply deploy tactical nuclear warheads against large numbers (strategic too but there's no need for that in this scenario).

cnasc 6y ago
There’s no such thing as a tactical nuclear exchange which does not escalate into a strategic nuclear exchange