SCENARIO: Modern World (In Progress! Nitpickers needed!)

[Roman]

Note that the numbers of equipment say nothing about its quality. For example, the US aircraft carriers can carry about twice as many aircraft and are far superior to even the largest and the best of those from the other nations.

Number of Frontline Combat Aircraft (does not include combat helicopters):
1. USA: 5,000 (down from 12,000 in 1990)
2. China: 4,200
3. Russia: 3,800 (down from 11,000-17,000 in 1990)
4. India: 600-1,100
5. North Korea: 750
6. UK: 700
7. Turkey: 600
8. France: 500
9. Sweden: 500
10. Italy: 450
11.Saudi Arabia: 430
12. Germany: 400



Number of Combat Helicopters:
1. USA: 7,000-8,000
2. Russia: 2,500-3,000 (down from 6,000 n 1990)
3. China: 52* (Although China has about 1,500 helicopters in total only 52 are combat helicopters. Helicopters are the one serious weakness of the Chinese armed forces.)
4. France: 500
5. Brazil: 400
6. India: 300
7. UK: 250
8. Turkey: 200
9. Canada: 150
10. Poland: 150


Aircraft Carriers:
1. USA: 11 + 1 in reserve
2. UK: 2 + 1 in reserve
3. India: 1 + 1 in reserve (another one to be bought from Russia)
4. Brazil: 1 + 1(this second aircraft carrier was built during the Second World War by the British [in 1945 to be precise], so draw your own conslusions about its effectiveness)
5. France: 1 (another one in construction)
6. Russia: 1 (down from 5 in 1990)
7. Spain: 1
8. Argentine: 0 + 1 in reserve
9. China: 0 (1 in construction and another one to be bought from Russia)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Roman
Note that the numbers of equipment say nothing about its quality. For example, the US aircraft carriers can carry about twice as many aircraft and are far superior to even the largest and the best of those from the other nations.

Time to add another unit to the modern ages, eh? At least for this mod?

Does anyone have a good link for information on military equipment currently "in play" to ready for use in the world at large? Might be useful for making this mod.

[Roman]

My listings for submarines are comprehensive - they actually include all military submarines that exist in the world and since there were not so many, I decided to include them all, not just the top 10.

Submarines:- SSBNs (Nuclear Balistic Missile Submarines), SSNs (Nuclear Attack Submarines) and SSKs (Conventional Attack Submarines)

SSBNs:
1. USA: 18
2. Russia: 13 + 21 in reserve (down from 83 in 1990)
3. France: 4 + 2 in construction
4. UK: 3 +1 in reserve
5. China: 1 (plans to acquire more)

SSNs:
1. USA: 67
2. Russia: 28 + 34 in reserve (down from 100 in 1990)
3. UK: 12
4. France: 6
5. China: 6

SSKs:
1. China: 60
2. Russia: 18 + 8 in reserve (down from 80 in 1990)
3. North Korea: 26
4. Japan: 18
5. Germany: 16
6. Turkey: 15 (7 of these are from WWII and the rest are not too new either)
7. India: 13
8. Norway: 12
9. Spain: 8
10. Greece: 8
11. Sweden: 8
12. South Korea: 6
13. Pakistan: 6
14. Egypt: 6 (very old)
15. Brazil: 5
16. Taiwan: 4
17. Serbia: 4
18. Argentine: 3
19. Canada: 3
20. Portugal: 3
21. Iran: 3
22. Poland: 3
23. Indonesia: 2
24. Bulgaria: 2 (very old)
25. Venezuela: 2
26. Colombia: 2
27. Romania: 1

(USA, France and UK only use the superior SSNs for attack roles, so they do not have any SSKs.)

[Roman]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
Does anyone have a good link for information on military equipment currently "in play" to ready for use in the world at large? Might be useful for making this mod.

The following should give you all the info on weapon systems that you will ever need, but it will not give you the numbers in service...

https://www.fas.org/man

https://www.military.cz

[Roman]

My listings for capital ships are comprehensive - they actually include all military capital ships that exist in the world and since there were not so many, I decided to include them all, not just the top 10.

Aegis Cruisers (for Russia the figures represents its indigenous Aegis equivalents):
1. USA: 30
2. Russia: 6 (down from 32 in 1990, but this means the ones left are of highest quality)

Only Russia and USA operate Cruisers of any kind and the both operate only Aegis (Aegis equivalent for Russia) Cruisers.


Destroyers:
1. USA: 56
2. Russia: 26 (down from 74 in 1990)
3. China: 21 (very old ones, except for two top class ones bought from Russia)
4. UK: 12
5. Japan: 8
6. South Korea: 7 (very old ones)
7. Taiwan: 7
8. Argentine: 6
8. India: 5
9. France: 4
9. Italy: 4
10. Greece: 4
11. Canada: 4
12. Germany: 3
13. Pakistan: 3 (extemely old ones [from WWII])
14. Mexico: 3 (very old)
15. Iran: 2
16. Poland: 1
17. Romania: 1
18. Egypt: 1 (very old)

All other navies operate only Frigates, Corvettes and Missile Boats none of which can be classified as capital ships and hence should not feature in the scenario. However, Aircraft Carriers, Submarines, Aegis Cruisers and Destroyers should probably be converted on a 1:1 basis to the scenario, since there are not so many of them. Aircraft Carriers, Submarines and Destroyers, should probably be represented by 2-3 types of unit each, perhaps even more for submarines.

[Luk]

Well... You estimates Roman are incorrect... Russia spends in dollars only 12-13 bln dollars, China about 16-17 bln dollars (but it is estimated that Chine has 2-3 times more money, because they are hidding military expedientures in other budget sections). That what you wrote it is a sum of expedientures based on PPP Dollar, not a real dollar. And for example now when China is buying from Russia new equipment they pay in normal dollars, not PPP dollars which generally not exist.

China has very weak army, those numbers are totally mistification. They have only many soldiers... that is all.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Luk
Well... You estimates Roman are incorrect... Russia spends in dollars only 12-13 bln dollars, China about 16-17 bln dollars (but it is estimated that Chine has 2-3 times more money, because they are hidding military expedientures in other budget sections). That what you wrote it is a sum of expedientures based on PPP Dollar, not a real dollar. And for example now when China is buying from Russia new equipment they pay in normal dollars, not PPP dollars which generally not exist.

China has very weak army, those numbers are totally mistification. They have only many soldiers... that is all.

As I mentioned in the brackets after the figure, my figures on Russia's military spending are from 1996/1997. Funding has fallen substantially since then, as Russia's economic situation continued to worsen... My source for this is "The Stateman's Yearbook" (2000 Edition, but it did not include newer figures).

China officially spends over 20 billion dollars per year on her armed forces, but that spending does not include spending on the navy and virtually all experts agree that the real spending on defence by China is several orders of magnitude higher. The estimate of 65 billion dollars is the one most commonly cited, but some estimates run much higher, as I pointed out.

I do not know where you got the idea that Chinese army is weak, but I respectfully disagree. China has the numbers and numbers are very important indeed. Furthermore, China not only buys many Russian weapons, but reverse-engineers many too. China's technological base is imporving dramatically and the country conducts advanced research in several hi-tech areas such as anti-sattelite weapons, SAMs and many others. To say that China has a weak army is a mistake of grossly underestimating them.

[RickJay]

It's nitpicky, but arbitrarily determining navy size by the number of DESTROYERS, while ignoring "Frigates," doesn't really match the realities of naval power. The distinction between a "Destroyer" and a "Frigate" is often an arbitrary one.

To use a rather obvious example, Canada's 4 destroyers, which are old and obsolete, are substantially LESS powerful than its 12 frigates, which are high-tech and heavily armed.

I'd also question the value of having a player have to handle 50-100 ships anyway. I would suggest that a little flexibility is needed here.

[Centauri18]

Very cool.

[Luk]

Even in 1996/1997 Russia did not spend that much money for the army. For example in 99 Russia had spendings in dollars about... 6-7 bln dollars. It is not possible to downgrade expedientures in two-three years by 10 times.

China army... It is only the numbers... Most equipment is from 50s, and 60s years, or even older. Chineese engineers are very incompetent, for example, Russia and China signed a deal in 98 year that China will produce 200 Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft in their own factiories from parts sent from Russia. And what happenned. Chineese engineers start to construct from Russian parts two Sukhois... But they could not do this, despite they had instructions etc. They sent this aircraft to Russia back and russian enginners di this. Pathetic.

China is far behind almost in almost all military technologies, and only what they can do is to copy Russian technology, but this copies are far behind originals.

[Roman]

Originally posted by RickJay
It's nitpicky, but arbitrarily determining navy size by the number of DESTROYERS, while ignoring "Frigates," doesn't really match the realities of naval power. The distinction between a "Destroyer" and a "Frigate" is often an arbitrary one.

To use a rather obvious example, Canada's 4 destroyers, which are old and obsolete, are substantially LESS powerful than its 12 frigates, which are high-tech and heavily armed.

I'd also question the value of having a player have to handle 50-100 ships anyway. I would suggest that a little flexibility is needed here.

You are obviously correct that modern frigates are often much more powerful than old destroyers, but even though I have the listings for the numbers of frigates for individual countries, so many countries have them (and in such large numbers) that I honestly do not have any desire to put in the work to type it all up. In any case, to evaluate which frigates are equivalent to what (and to do the same for all the other ships too) for the purposes of the scenario would take a fantastic amount of work. Consequently, I think we ought to stick to destroyers as the smallest ships that we counts.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Luk
Even in 1996/1997 Russia did not spend that much money for the army. For example in 99 Russia had spendings in dollars about... 6-7 bln dollars. It is not possible to downgrade expedientures in two-three years by 10 times.

Well, my "The Stateman's Yearbook" quotes the number for that year as 64 billion USD. After you brought this up I did a cross check with the CIA World Factbook and for year 1996 they estimate that Russia was spending on defence about 1/6 of the money that she used to spend at the peak during the late 1980s. That peak was in excess of 350 billion USD, so 1/6 of that is just under 60 billion USD per year. That is pretty close to 64 billion reported in "The Stateman's Yearbook" and the two sources are independent, so it appears that military expenditure really was in that range.

China army... It is only the numbers... Most equipment is from 50s, and 60s years, or even older. Chineese engineers are very incompetent, for example, Russia and China signed a deal in 98 year that China will produce 200 Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft in their own factiories from parts sent from Russia. And what happenned. Chineese engineers start to construct from Russian parts two Sukhois... But they could not do this, despite they had instructions etc. They sent this aircraft to Russia back and russian enginners di this. Pathetic.

What you say is not entirely correct. Russia indeed sold China the licence to produce up to 200 Su-27 planes, but that occured in 91/92 not in 98. In fact, China succesfully produced about 15 of these fighters in their Shenyang aircraft manufacturing plant. However, new improved versions of the Su-27 fighter have been develped in the following years and China was also developing her own advanced fighter called the J-10 and hence lost interest in producing any more of the Su-27 planes. Instead, it converted the deal into obtaining a more modern version of the Su-27 called the Su-27MKK. That is the 98 deal you were talking about... The first 50 or so of these aircraft were supposed to be produced in Russia and the rest in China. Russia has delivered the 50 Su-27MKK planes to China by now, but an even newer version of the Su-27 has now become available. It is a vast improvement on the old one and is called Su-37 (Despite the new designation, it is a still a derivation of the Su-27 fighter, albeit vastly improved). It now appears that China would like to change the contract again and produce this latest version of the fighter instead of the previous contract. The contract may also be upgraded to a higher number of the new figter jets, probably 300.

China is far behind almost in almost all military technologies, and only what they can do is to copy Russian technology, but this copies are far behind originals.

Most of Chinese hardware is old, that much is true. However, they have large numbers of this old equipment and that makes up for its age. Yes, most of it is copied from the Russians, but it is not inferior. In fact, a Chinese equivalent to the T-55 is superior to the original Russian T-55, due to upgrades (e.g. laser sights, newer coms, etc.). The same goes for most of the old Chinese weapons - they are slightly better than their Russian equivalents. Of course, China does not have the newer Russian weaponry...

In any case, Chinese army is modernising and it is happening much faster than most people realise. If you wish to better understand what is happening with the Chinese military, I reccommend these two papers from the Institute for Strategic Studies:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/1999/chinamod/chinamod.pdf

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/1999/chinese/chinese.pdf

[Beren]

I just noticed this thread a minute ago and I was afraid you were going to steal my good idea: A scenario from 1500 untill 1900. Modern world is a term used for the world since 1500. (For example early modern Europe is Europe between 1500 and 1789, and I have to say there are damn few scenarios about this period and the ones that are are all about the early imperialism)

Maybe you could rename your scenario to something like this: A history of the present/contemperary world.

[Luk]

Heh... first... The spendings of USSR army was a suppose, because there was no clear method to have a data on russian official spendings. American Intelligence tried to estabilish the soviet spendings only, and they tried to do it in $ equivalent.

But after Soviet Union collapsed and Russian currency started to normally exchange the value of Russian rubel started to detoriate. And for example today Russian spendings are 12-13 bln dollars, but the military sources very often gives a real number of about 50 bln dollars, because the equivalent of 12-13 bln dollars in Russia is 50 bln dollars in USA. Only because of it

That what you write about Su-27 license is true, but as I said they resigned from 200 producing Sukhois because of lack o knowledge by their scientist, which probably you did not hear abou it. The level of technology, and technology base in China is very poor. I read a lot of Russian Military Articles, and Russian military scientist and engineers very often say that their chineese friendsa are very incompetent, and they have many problems in cooperating with China. They, as I said couldn't produce Sukhois from all Russian parts, and with instructions etc. But it is only an example, there are many other facts that support this example

I did not hear that Russia will sell China full Su-37 aircraft. Russia doesnt want to sell to China the newest models of their Sukhois because they dont want China to copy their technology. even Su-30MK, which Russia sold China in recent years are not fully Su-30MK, and they lack many things in electronics avionics, and ESPECIALLY in weaponry. Russia does not sell China the latest models of their rockets, which is very important in todays air fights.

I can not agree with you, that Russian newest models of T-55 are worse then Chinas equivalents. Of course China imporves their T-54/55 lines still, but first I do not belive that they improved all of their tanks to the newest modells (I doubt it is 1/2) and even their improved versions of T-54/55 tanks are technically old tanks, and they can not match with newer models.

All Chinese copies are far beyond Russian models and that is the fact. It is a myth about Chinese army, and chinese economy which is supported by American goverment because USA wants to have the enemy, the enemy which is seriosly not danger, but in paper is very danger.

And there is lot pages in internet where we can fins data on chinese weaponry, but this data is very often writed by Chinese arms fans, and their naturally overestimate Chinese weaponry. The same as Russian sites, where we can read that almost in everything Russia is equal to USA, and even better, which is of course a mistake.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Luk
Heh... first... The spendings of USSR army was a suppose, because there was no clear method to have a data on russian official spendings. American Intelligence tried to estabilish the soviet spendings only, and they tried to do it in $ equivalent.

Thas is correct.

But after Soviet Union collapsed and Russian currency started to normally exchange the value of Russian rubel started to detoriate. And for example today Russian spendings are 12-13 bln dollars, but the military sources very often gives a real number of about 50 bln dollars, because the equivalent of 12-13 bln dollars in Russia is 50 bln dollars in USA. Only because of it

Thas is also correct. I guess you probably just got confused, because I did not specify that the numbers are PPP figures. I am sorry, I should have mentioned that. There is no point using nominal figures for this scenario - PPP figures give a much better picture.

That what you write about Su-27 license is true, but as I said they resigned from 200 producing Sukhois because of lack o knowledge by their scientist, which probably you did not hear abou it. The level of technology, and technology base in China is very poor. I read a lot of Russian Military Articles, and Russian military scientist and engineers very often say that their chineese friendsa are very incompetent, and they have many problems in cooperating with China. They, as I said couldn't produce Sukhois from all Russian parts, and with instructions etc. But it is only an example, there are many other facts that support this example

Well, they DID manage to produce about 15 of the aircraft in Shenyang, so they obviously could assemble them. You are, however, correct in pointing out that they had some problems. The main problem was the engine - China was supposed to use its own indigenous engine for the Su-27 fighters, but in the end it had to buy Russian Saturn engines, because it was unable to finish designing its own on time.

I did not hear that Russia will sell China full Su-37 aircraft. Russia doesnt want to sell to China the newest models of their Sukhois because they dont want China to copy their technology. even Su-30MK, which Russia sold China in recent years are not fully Su-30MK, and they lack many things in electronics avionics, and ESPECIALLY in weaponry. Russia does not sell China the latest models of their rockets, which is very important in todays air fights.

As I said, China is INTERESTED in changing the deal from Su-27MKK aircraft to Su-37 and there have been negotiations with Russia on the matter, but so far it is unclear whether they have been successful.

I can not agree with you, that Russian newest models of T-55 are worse then Chinas equivalents. Of course China imporves their T-54/55 lines still, but first I do not belive that they improved all of their tanks to the newest modells (I doubt it is 1/2) and even their improved versions of T-54/55 tanks are technically old tanks, and they can not match with newer models.

Chinese T-55s are better than Russian ones due to upgrades. However, China does not have the T-90 (well, it does, but that is a completely different indigeneously designed tank), which is better than anything China has.

All Chinese copies are far beyond Russian models and that is the fact. It is a myth about Chinese army, and chinese economy which is supported by American goverment because USA wants to have the enemy, the enemy which is seriosly not danger, but in paper is very danger.

I think what you are proposing is an implausible conspiracy theory. That the Chinese economy is booming is undeniable - just look at the figures of what percentage of what products they produce if you do not believe the GDP figures. I have lived in China for six years and the economic change was unbelievable during that period - I have personally witnessed it - the growth of Chinese economy is real.

And there is lot pages in internet where we can fins data on chinese weaponry, but this data is very often writed by Chinese arms fans, and their naturally overestimate Chinese weaponry. The same as Russian sites, where we can read that almost in everything Russia is equal to USA, and even better, which is of course a mistake.

Yes, US weaponry is better than Russian weaponry, which in turn is better than Chinese weaponry. That, however, does not mean that we should try to underestimate the level of Chinese weaponry on purpose, because although it is behind it is catching up.