Night & Day - am I correct about the US's night fighting superiority

[underpants]

As we’ve watched the war (we refer to it as such in my house) I commented that the Russians are pretty much operating in the daytime. CNN was on air Thursday night and Sciutto mentioned that it was 5:30 AM ther and things would start happening soon.

American operations always seem to begin at night. From Somalia to both of the Gulf Wars to probably back to Panama.

I’d always read that the US had really superior night vision technology. When I was in the Cav, night time wasn’t a huge change for us.

Is that it? The US has that much better technology?
Russians do seem to rocket and artillery (they love artillery) at night but those are more general fire than actually moving at night.

[ProfessorGAC]

1. What Time Did You Hear That?

I see your post is shortly before 7am my time. That makes it 3pm in Ukraine. It's been daylight for several hours at this point.
As to the difference in tech: our economy is 5-6x the Russian economy, per capita, and there is a huge gulf in innovation & incremental improvement.
So, I don't doubt at all that US military technology is substantially superior to that of the Russians.

[underpants]

2. I saw it Sciutto say that as it was 5:30 AM THERE

I must not have been clear.

Russia started their operations early in the morning. It seemed odd to me because all our big furst moves are at night.

[Chainfire]

4. The early bird gets the worm.

You try to catch the enemy napping.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Got It

He must have been referencing the time attacks started.
Ukraine is 7 hours ahead of US eastern time.

[Chainfire]

3. I am guessing that you are speaking of personal night vision equipment.

The most important battle systems, on either side, don't care whether it is day or night.

The difference in nigh vision capabilities would not be a substantial contribution to victory or defeat. If you are thinking that it would be important for the individual soldier in close combat, probably not. Where superior personal night vision devices come in handy is in special night missions by small forces.

I will suggest, that in my humble opinion, the main job of the individual rifleman is to occupy ground already won by air, armor and artillery.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. No

I was making no such assumptions.
I was just opining on superior tech providing an advantage in night war.
I didn't mean to imply any specific tech.
Better radar, better satellites, better guidance, etc. Night vision would only be one piece.

[Happy Hoosier]

10. I'll disagree a bit

The ability for infantry and aircraft to operate at night is a HUGE force multiplier. Earlier in mu career i focused on aviation night vision and it turns a strength into an incredible advantage. And night vision for infantry isn’t all that different. It’s easy to win when you can see the enemy and they can’t see you. A night vision monocular and. PEQ-15 with an IR laser is a tremendous force multiplier.

[Deminpenn]

5. During my time at

DoD, always heard the difference between the US and Russian military was fewer, but high tech weapons for us; more, but less sophisticated weapons for Russia.

[Layzeebeaver]

6. It's not just the tech

The majority of Russian troops are 1 year constricts. They basically know how to work their personal weapons and to take orders.

They are not likely equipped with night ops gear.

The tanks likely have it, but the Russian tactics use infantry primarily with tanks as support. I bet they haven’t trained together for night operations very much at all.

The U.S. operates better at night because of equipment and tech, but more importantly the integrated training regimes.

[underpants]

11. *

Conscripts are 20-30% of their force.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216400601

[Layzeebeaver]

18. That's a sizeable percentage.

Combine this with their recently failed transition to brigade sized command units and it means that the USSR forces of the 70s and 80s are back on the battlefield. Ok they have new and sexy weapons, but the doctrine seems to still be in practice.

I need to do some research on this. The above is only my gut feeling.

[doc03]

7. I was thinking about that myself. I have heard the US military owns the night.

But watching coverage in Ukraine it looks like Russia does their attack at daylight. They don't have
night vision equipment like we have?

[Happy Hoosier]

12. Some do.

Russian night vision gear is generally a bit inferior to US stuff, but it’s fine. The problem is it is expensive. For the US the basic kit of a PVS-14 monocular and a PEQ-15 illuminator/laser sight costs in the neighborhood of $6k per soldier. That’s a lot of money for a country like Russia. My guess is that they can’t afford to equip all their teoops with it.

[underpants]

14. I think that's it - cost to equip individual soldiers

Armor has it. Ours is probably better than theirs.

On the individual soldier though costs. This could really come into play with Russia occupying. If they can only operate en masse during the day the resistance/guerilla force can operate at night. Home turf. The Russians can’t stay up all day so they split their forces or they are more open at night.

[Happy Hoosier]

15. I've been following this closely...

They seem to be trying to employ special operations troops at night to conduct targeted strikes and sabotage followed by large movements of columns during the day.

No doubt the spec ops guys have all the gear. But this tactic seems to be meeting with limited success at best.

No doubt the “day columns” have far less sophisticated gear.

I think when this is all over we may be shocked at how poorly the Russians did, even if they manage to “win.”

[underpants]

17. I look forward to continuing this discussion. Everyone on this thread. Good stuff.

That was one of my two questions here
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216388270

Hold on. Editing.


How good are they?
Occupation.

Yes the special ops have gear but as you said that’s not a good strategy. Again - home turf so as Russians lose their special ops they can’t replace them. Last night on CNN one retired general commentator mentioned that right now is the biggest advantage the Russians have. Conventional land acquisition war. They don’t have enough front line forces (60-70K) to occupy one city let alone 4 major ones. For scale he offered that the NYCPD is about 50k - 24/7 and for the most part they are just catching not fighting.

[underpants]

13. The US does own the night

As discussed above it looks like it’s more about having on individual soldiers ($) not on aircraft or tanks/APC’s - the ground vehicles have it. When I gunned on a Bradley a lot fellow soldiers shot all the time in heat/night vision.

[doc03]

16. That is a phrase I heard reported many times

during the Iraq and Afganistan wars.