Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
Eh wouldn't really say a paper tiger, in fact before the invasion it should also have been clear that NATO > Russia in terms of conventional military power.
Another point though, I honestly don't think NATO (WITHOUT the US) would 'fare much better than Russia' in a hypothetical scenario of NATO (with no US) invading Ukraine (they would be in the 'same league' as Russia).
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
The Russian army has a number of issues that in some cases would be familiar to Peter the Great.
The Army despite claiming to the contrary never professionalized, leaving an NCO corp that is unable to take over in the event of the officers death. They seem to have not been very well versed in Critical thinking. A Speznats unit was captured, in an Elevator.
Russian radio units have been broadcasting openly, without encryption allowing any HAM operator to eavesdrop and even spoof and jam.
There logistics corps is centralized to the rail system, which is fine in a defensive war. But in the case of Ukraine it it forced the final mile logistics on to Trucks. The Russians have to few to meet demand and to few tires to support them still farther.
NATO army’s use an on demand logistics system. When commanders need they get. Russia operates a as available system. This combined with lack of trucks lead to lack of fuel, lack of ammo, lack of Food.
So Russian troops having been told they would be welcomed with flowers started asking locals for food. Surprise they weren’t welcome!
The Russians used training operations in Belarus to try and cover the invasion. It seems only the Russian Army believed it. These were real exercises with the cost being that the Russian military vehicles used in them went right to the front lines. Military exercises especially prolonged ones like those the Russians used put wear and tear on vehicles and equipment and troops. Vehicles need a maintenance reset. That didn’t happened. The Vehicles broke down. Troops worn out.
Yet that’s only part of the Red Army problems. They also ran into an old problem from Chechnya. They have to many tanks. I don’t mean that in just raw numbers but types. This unit has T90M, that one T90A. T80Us over there, T72A!. Each of them are okay types on its own but three at once means that modernization programs are always robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is before any T14s mind you. The Results are a few modern T80s here but not enough for a full unit. a few modern T72s but not enough to retire the antiques. Some very modern T90s but again not enough to retire the oldest. Many Russian tanks still have IR search lights. The result is that because of the huge verity of types the Russians are always short on the types they need. One they seemed to have plenty of was the Cope cages. A slat armor parasol that would probably do fairly well in Syria. It’s prefect for a top attack by an RPG7 but modern ATGM with top attack cut through it like a wet paper bag.
Russian infantry also seem hung out to dry as they seem to be lacking plates for the plate carriers. They have brand new AK12 and AK15 but lack the optics that justify them.
This seems to summarize a lot of countermeasures for Russia, the latest stuff is only on Arm show floors the fielded stuff works okay but they burned through the stocks in the first few days. We saw Russian choppers popping off flares like a fireworks show but they ran out before they got halfway to the destination. DIRCM sets just not available.
Logistics trucks lacking protection forced onto roads easily ambushed have tried to compensate with “armor” made of wood. Painting enough Zs on the vehicle to make you wonder about numbers of Red on Red events.
A Russian Air Force that doesn’t seem to be active in securing Air Supremacy despite having the capability in theory. Farther much like in Syria seems intent on hammering and and everything with dumb bombs indiscriminately. They also seem short on PGM and UAS.
The VDV probably the most closest to a professional force in the Russian ground forces had the wind knocked out of it when it failed to secure airports around Kyiv at the cost of personal, choppers and armor.
The Army despite claiming to the contrary never professionalized, leaving an NCO corp that is unable to take over in the event of the officers death. They seem to have not been very well versed in Critical thinking. A Speznats unit was captured, in an Elevator.
Russian radio units have been broadcasting openly, without encryption allowing any HAM operator to eavesdrop and even spoof and jam.
There logistics corps is centralized to the rail system, which is fine in a defensive war. But in the case of Ukraine it it forced the final mile logistics on to Trucks. The Russians have to few to meet demand and to few tires to support them still farther.
NATO army’s use an on demand logistics system. When commanders need they get. Russia operates a as available system. This combined with lack of trucks lead to lack of fuel, lack of ammo, lack of Food.
So Russian troops having been told they would be welcomed with flowers started asking locals for food. Surprise they weren’t welcome!
The Russians used training operations in Belarus to try and cover the invasion. It seems only the Russian Army believed it. These were real exercises with the cost being that the Russian military vehicles used in them went right to the front lines. Military exercises especially prolonged ones like those the Russians used put wear and tear on vehicles and equipment and troops. Vehicles need a maintenance reset. That didn’t happened. The Vehicles broke down. Troops worn out.
Yet that’s only part of the Red Army problems. They also ran into an old problem from Chechnya. They have to many tanks. I don’t mean that in just raw numbers but types. This unit has T90M, that one T90A. T80Us over there, T72A!. Each of them are okay types on its own but three at once means that modernization programs are always robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is before any T14s mind you. The Results are a few modern T80s here but not enough for a full unit. a few modern T72s but not enough to retire the antiques. Some very modern T90s but again not enough to retire the oldest. Many Russian tanks still have IR search lights. The result is that because of the huge verity of types the Russians are always short on the types they need. One they seemed to have plenty of was the Cope cages. A slat armor parasol that would probably do fairly well in Syria. It’s prefect for a top attack by an RPG7 but modern ATGM with top attack cut through it like a wet paper bag.
Russian infantry also seem hung out to dry as they seem to be lacking plates for the plate carriers. They have brand new AK12 and AK15 but lack the optics that justify them.
This seems to summarize a lot of countermeasures for Russia, the latest stuff is only on Arm show floors the fielded stuff works okay but they burned through the stocks in the first few days. We saw Russian choppers popping off flares like a fireworks show but they ran out before they got halfway to the destination. DIRCM sets just not available.
Logistics trucks lacking protection forced onto roads easily ambushed have tried to compensate with “armor” made of wood. Painting enough Zs on the vehicle to make you wonder about numbers of Red on Red events.
A Russian Air Force that doesn’t seem to be active in securing Air Supremacy despite having the capability in theory. Farther much like in Syria seems intent on hammering and and everything with dumb bombs indiscriminately. They also seem short on PGM and UAS.
The VDV probably the most closest to a professional force in the Russian ground forces had the wind knocked out of it when it failed to secure airports around Kyiv at the cost of personal, choppers and armor.
I already talked about this here before. Because of lack of production by Russian industry of modern hand held short wave radios, namely the R-187P1 Azart, some of the Russian infantry are using civilian short wave hand held radios. Also some older equipment like vehicles might still have older open channel short wave radios. This is more common than you might think. A lot of NATO countries in Western Europe have the same issues. You get around it by talking in code.
But the claim the Russians have no modern radios or are using cellphones is ridiculous.
Even the R-187P1 Azart is in common enough use in the field that a lot of regular infantry seem to be using it. And the concept Russian higher command is stuck on unencrypted communications is plain bullshit.
Just try looking at the road infrastructure in Ukraine. The idea you will be moving a lot of equipment long term over roads there is bullshit. This is not Iraq where daddy Saddam built nice multiple lane asphalted highways for you. Do you even remember how that road from Belarus to Kiev, their capital, looked like?
We have no evidence of such shortages having a major impact other than the regular operational pauses other armies would also do.
No they have enough military rations. It is just that a lot of troops prefer to eat fresh food instead of sticking to canned shit. And guess what. Russia is feeding more civilians in Ukraine than the troops they sent in the first place. So how come if their logistics are so crappy isn't the Ukrainian population in cities like Kherson, a city with 283 thousand people, starving to death right now?
They have two basic tank types. The T-80 and the T-72. The T-90 is similar enough to the T-72 that it even uses the same road wheels. A lot of the expensive equipment like modern communications or sensors is used across tank families. And all the tanks use the same ammo caliber. Same fuel type. Compare it with, say, Turkey's tank park. The country with the 2nd largest tank park in NATO after the US. The Turks have the Leopard 2 A4 and the M60. They also will have the Altay, and still have the Leopard 1 and M48 Patton. Their tanks do not even all have the same ammo caliber.
The Soviets were only slightly behind the West in terms of sensors when the Union collapsed. But back then thermal sights were too expensive to put in the whole tank force. And afterwards there was a vast improvement in thermal sight technology while Russia was in a state of decay. The Russians did eventually import some thermal sights from France but those were too expensive to put in the whole tank fleet. Only maybe 6 years ago did the Russians start mass production of their own modern thermal sights. And most of those tanks with IR search lights, like T-72B, we have seen thus far seem to be Donbass Militia. Not Russian Army units.
I do not know about the situation with plates. If they have enough or not. I do know a lot of grunts don't like using plates.
As for the optics, they do have them in production, but they are still not being done in sufficient volume. Even the AK12 is not full service yet. I think the first unit was equipped with the AK12 like four years ago. You cannot expect it to have reached the whole army by this point. The situation with night sights is even worse. Again the military was in the middle of the process of modernization. So while the Russians were preparing for a war the idea they fully chose the time to do it, is not true.
Some helicopters have them. Some do not. Do you think every helicopter in NATO service has DIRCM? The Apache does not have it as standard.
You do not remember US troops in Iraq with sand bags on their vehicles and hillbilly armor. I see.
Just like the US destroyed the Serb Air Force. Right?
They have shit loads of them from Soviet times. Better use them.
Again, the Russian Air Force does not like to order massive quantities of imported equipment. And in Soviet times the weapon sensors for missiles and smart weapons used to be made in Ukraine. They haven't been since 2015-2016. You can't expect the situation to change on a dime. The order the Russians made for R-77-1 serial production is one sign they have solved that issue since.
I think they did pretty ok. How did you want them to avoid long range artillery fire being shot at them from inside Kiev city borders?
The fact such a lightly armored unit managed to stand their ground against regular Ukrainian military formations with vehicles says more about the Ukrainian forces than the VDV I think.
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I am not really sure NATO exists without the US, so I am can not see the point in removing them from the equation.
My basic thought process boils down to that so far Russia has failed to achieve any real military victory, despite being on paper vastly superior to Ukraine.
I mean yes, NATO really isn't something without the US and can realistically not be removed without the collapse of NATO.
But my point was that while NATO > Russia, if we only look at a country vs country basis it is still very much safe to say that Russia would be 3rd in the world (behind US and China) and countries like UK/France would be in the same league as Russia (albeit smaller in scale).
As for Russia having 'failed to achieve any real military victory' I would be careful with making such a judgement already.
Actually Russia will have much easier time against US than Ukraine as US operates form much larger fixed bases with bigger size ships.
this make easy for saturations as the range of missiles/ platforms that Russia possesses give much more flexibility interms of range and basing. from Arctic to Middleast.
Russia sent some third rate militia amalgamation. to Afrika and French has to pack bags.
Maybe we should end this discussion here while it's not spiraling out of control.
Please, if you want to continue to talk about conclusions coming from the war in Ukraine we should keep it in a separate thread (probably here).
And let's keep this thread nice and clean for what it was created for.
EDIT: sorry, typo.
Please, if you want to continue to talk about conclusions coming from the war in Ukraine we should keep it in a separate thread (probably here).
And let's keep this thread nice and clean for what it was created for.
EDIT: sorry, typo.
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
if the lower level units deployed don’t get said command because they lack the radio systems then the upper level command is just talking to itself. Even modern commercial radios have levels of encryption.
roads are kill zones. You don’t want to touch that Russia had a convoy parked on said road for weeks. Tanks and armored vehicles try to avoid them Russian command launched to late the soil in the north was bog that even tanks were not suited to. They were funneled onto roads where they slowed to LA style traffic and got picked off.
Those other armies command are slowing to refuel in an extreme abundance of caution.
Sorry that’s not reflective of what is seen on the ground. It’s not just the the main types T72, T80 and T90. It’s the variants to variants that are often woefully obsolete.
Thes video does a great job showin what I mean.
You can’t just bolt T90M parts on a T72A. It’s not just the road wheels. It’s the ERA the fire control, the vision systems. Turkish forces have paid the price for not modernizing their vehicles and improperly supporting them to. My main point here is the Russians love Tanks. They are capable of building very impressive vehicles. Yet despite the propaganda They deployed vehicles that were reviewed in the same configuration by Brezhnev. The Russian army should have retired the T80 it used them for export. Held off on the Armata MBT and used the funds to bring the T72 and T90 to a modern standard. They should have reduced the red army’s size and
20 year old canned rations
And a city that is tied via a rail and sea route through Crimea. The bulk of my statements was in the north where the Russians failed. Failure give lessons to learn successes only affirm.