Soviet SAM systems seemed pretty effective in countering Israeli ground attack sorties in 1973.
When properly employed of course, but that goes for every weapon system.
The combination of SA-6 and ZSU 23-4 was apparently very complementary.
No armored deck is going to stop a Fritz-X.
It was used to sink the Italian battleship Roma, significantly larger then Warspite, after it hit a main gun magazine. A similar hit on a carrier (munition's storage) would be just as crippling.
The Americans tried to find export countries among NATO allies for the Abrams during the late 1970s/early 1980s but at the time the Abrams in its M1 shape was clearly the inferior choice compared to the Leo2 due to its (by that time) rather anemic 105 mm tank gun.*
When offered the M1, the...
The Visigoths were indeed not the posterboys of 'political stability'. If the Arab invasion would have been delayed by one reason or the other, the most likely result would be a Frankish takeover of the entire peninsula, which would have provided a much tougher nut to crack for the Arab/Moorish...
The Persian plateau is also very mountainous (it's in the name), so I don't see the Macedonians coming away with a massive advantage here. In fact, the Persians (remnants really, after Gaugamela) proved quite capable of holding up the entire Macedonian army at the Persian Gates several years...