>>>If the Russians offered this, it means they’ve been preparing for some time. This isn’t some friendly little competition. This is about selling tanks around the world and knocking us. You notice they didn’t ask for this when Bush was President. The Russians will use “Ringer” crews and they will cheat. The Americans should require that the crews and vehicles be chosen from regular units the day before the competition. And your competitor chooses for you. We played by the rules for years in the CAT competition and never won. We finally made it a priority and then we cleaned up. The Russians, after DESERT STORM, really have nothing to lose in this. Their tanks are already viewed as being subpar. The Americans better play to win.<<<
In fact Russians are into it for a long time. It is mostly a competition between regiments, tank building companies and also a good show. Friendly foreign nations involved sometimes. US tankmen played it with the Russians to, using Russian equipment under Torgau program (during Bush’s presidency).
I have no problem with using selected crews and prepared vehicles. It is a kind of sports after all.
As General Schwarzkopf pointed out, comparing combat to something else is not a good idea. He said something to the effect that comparing war to a symphony didn’t work because in the symphony, no one came charging out of the percussion section with a knife trying to kill you. Tanks are not sports. We didn’t win the CAT trophy for years because, quite frankly, it was irrelevant. The US Army was training thousands of tank crews to win wars, not a few to win a trophy. Hitting targets with the main gun and machineguns on a range is important, but it’s not the only thing. The targets don’t shoot back. I had a friend who was on the American team that won the CAT. That was serious business. I am just not sure that Obama and company would take this seriously, and that would be giving a needless black eye to our military. I’ve been out of the hatch for a while, but I’m pretty confident that as a whole, we still have the best trained tankers in the world. They need to take it seriously or stay out.
The Russians need to sell targets for the US. I say go, let them win. That way our enemies can spend billions on new targets. I would rather our enemies spend the billions on tanks than millions on newer manpads.