Why is the Russian armament strategy based on ground forces and air defense, while the US strategy is focused on developing naval and air power ?

USA and Russian military strategy

The strategy of the armed forces russian involves strategic deterrence to prevent aggression on the Russian homeland and preparedness in case of a major ground war, therefore, Russia relies mainly on the continued development of its ground forces and air defense systems. The main reason for this strategy is Russia's attachment to European lands, with which it has had many wars throughout history.

While the American strategy military for controls most of the water area with its fleet.

This is a quote from a book « Summary of the National Defense Strategy of The United States of America, Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge. »

« Challenges to the U.S. military advantage represent another shift in the global security environment. For decades the United States has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today, every domain is contested—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.

We face an ever more lethal and disruptive battlefield, combined across domains, and conducted at increasing speed and reach—from close combat, throughout overseas theaters, and reaching to our homeland. »

Before we begin some examples of weapons developing between Russia and America. I want you to have a look at some numbers, we did not mention China in this article because the topic would have gone on longer.

Combat tanks : US 6300, Russia 22.000

Armored fighting vehicles : US 40.000, Russia 50.000

Self-propelled artillery : US 1000, Russia 6000

Rocket projectors : US 1000, Russia 3900

Total aircraft strength : US 13400, Russia 4100

Aircraft carriers : US 24, Russia 1

Submarines : US 68, Russia 56

Recently developed Russian weapons :

The Armata is a new Russian main battle tank of new generation, the Armata might be one of the most protected tanks in the world. It has new Malakhit add-on explosive reactive armor, Also Armata has a newly-developed base armor, made of steel, ceramics and composite materials. This tank is also a world's first production MBT with completely unmanned turret. The T-14 has a new countermeasures system that reduces the chance of being hit by enemy ATGW with semi-automatic guidance.

Armata is armed with a new 125 mm smoothbore gun. This tank can launch anti-tank guided missiles in the same manner as ordinary projectiles. The gun is completed with an autoloader. This tank has a hunter-killer capability , now a number of countries, such as Germany and UK are looking to upgrade their tanks, or develop new designs in order to counter the threat posed by this new Russian tank.

The Bumerang is a new-generation Russian armored personnel carrier. It has a maximum level of all-round protection with add-on armor is against 14.5 mm armor-piercing rounds. Bumerang has a V-shaped hull and can survive mine blasts. The Bumerang is fitted with remotely-controlled turret, armed with a 30 mm cannon, coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun and 4 launchers with Kornet-M anti-tank guided missiles (Range 5.5 km).

The Koalitsiya-SV KSh is a new Russian self-propelled howitzer, is a very capable artillery system, utilizes the unmanned turret with 152 mm ordnance, This howitzer utilizes modular charge system. He can fire a wide range of munitions, including standard and rocket-assisted HE-FRAG projectiles, jammer carrying projectiles, cluster projectiles with anti-tank submunitions.

The range of fire with standard projectile is around 30 km and around 40 km with rocket-assisted projectile. A new long-range precision-guided round has a maximum range of 70 km.

The Uragan-1M (Hurricane-1M) is a recent Russian artillery rocket system. he is extremely effective against area targets, such as airfields, artillery batteries, concentration of armored vehicles and troops. The Uragan-1M is a multi-caliber system, it can carry 2 pods with various rockets, including pods with 300 mm rockets of the Smerch and 220 mm rockets of the Uragan. Maximum range of fire is 70 km with ordinary and 120 km with extended-range rockets.

A standard 300 mm rocket is 7.6 m long and weights 800 kg. Warhead weights 280 kg, A number of warheads are available, including HE-FRAG, incendiary, fuel-air explosive, cluster with anti-tank and anti-personnel submunitions or self-guided anti-tank munitions.

The Iskander-M is a short-range ballistic missile system, normally it carries cruise missiles. Some sources report that it might potentially have a range of 1 500 km. The R-500 carries a conventional 500 kg warhead, or nuclear warhead with a yield of around 10-50 kT. This cruise missile has a flight altitude of up to 6 km and follows terrain. In terminal phased it descends to a low altitude (50 meters) and maneuvers in order to overcome air defense systems.

The Pantsyr (SA-22 Greyhound) is a short-range air defense system. It was designed to protect strategic military and civil point targets. This system is capable of engaging a wide variety of aerial targets, such as helicopters, aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, guided bombs and UAVs. Developers claim that it is also capable of engaging stealthy aircraft, such as the F-35 and F-22.

The 57E6 missile of the Pantsyr has a maximum speed of 1 000 m/s (Mach 3) and a maximum range of 20 km, maximum altitude is 8 km, minimal range is 1 km. Probability of defeating a single target is around 70-90%, depending on the target type and firing conditions.

The S-400 Triumph (SA-21 Growler) air defense missile system is intended to engage ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft. It is capable of detecting and engaging targets to a range of 400 km, this air defense missile system is capable of engaging stealth aircraft the F-22 and F-35. Its kill probability is 95% against aircraft and 80% against Harpoon class missiles. A single TEL can deploy up to 16 of these missiles.

The missile 40N6 it has a range of 400 km. This missile has active radar homing and is used against AWACS, J-STARS, EA-6B support jammers and other high value targets.

The missiles 9M96E2 and 9M96E interceptor missiles, designed for direct impact. These are similar to the US Patriot PAC-3 design and are intended to provide point defense against precision attacks and defense suppression weapons.

Recently developed US weapons :

The F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter is almost invisible to radars. Currently it is the best fighter aircraft ever built. Engines of the raptor allow the aircraft to supercruise over long ranges, while thrust-vectoring nozzles, combined with a triplex fly-by-wire flight control system, make it exceptionally maneuverable. The core of the offensive avionics is provided by the APG-77 multi-mode radar and a side-mounted phased-array radar. The highly integrated avionics systems also include a data-link, inertial navigation system with embedded GPS for high-accuracy navigation, and advanced electronic warfare, warning and countermeasures systems. That many of sensors and avionics of this plane remain classified.

The F-35, also known as the Lightning II, is a new multi-role fighter, the F-35 will replace the AV-8B, A-10, F-16 and F/A-18 warplanes in service with the US military. This multi-role fighter can perform on air defense missions, close air support and tactical bombing. It is compatible with the latest air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, the F-35 fighter is compatible with AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-132 ASRAAM, JDAM, JSOW, Brimstone, WCMD, MBDA Meteor.

The USA controls most of the water area with its fleet

The Ford class is a successor to the Nimitz class. These are the largest and most powerful warships ever built. These vessels carry an airwing that will include 85 fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, VSTOL aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles. These will include F-35B/C, EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multi-role fighters, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft and MH-60S naval helicopters. It is larger and more powerful force than complete air force of many nations.

Defensive weapons of the Ford class include two launchers with 16 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) each. These missiles are used against incoming high-speed, maneuveing anti-ship missiles.

The America class amphibious assault ships, are the largest vessels in this class ever built. These ships are larger than most aircraft carriers, Warships of this class can even serve as small aircraft carrier, can operate a total of 38 helicopters and STOVL aircraft, including F-35B JSF, MV-22 Osprey, UH-1Y Huey, SH-60 Sea Hawk, CH-53E Sea Stallion, MH-60 Nighthawk, AH-1W Super Cobra, AH-1Z Viper. The America class can carry 1 700 marines and associated equipment to support them.

Ohio class boat carries 24 ballistic missiles, these were Trident II missiles, The Trident II alone are one of most capable ballistic missiles in the world. These missiles have a range of 8000 km with full load and 12 000 km with reduced load. Each US Trident II missiles can carry up to 14 warheads with a 475 kT yield each.

The reason of this article is that Russia, in accordance with its military doctrine, will never consider attacking the United States, unless America attacks first, Russia is developing its military capabilities to protect itself and to obtain economic gains by using the method of deterrence.