IMHO

I have friends who are créme de créme of Russian forces. So their superiors make sure they only go to fights when it is really worth fighting for. Their opponents may be fearsome when fighting but everyone is just human when dying. So there are no good wars just some are avoidable given sensible politicians and some are not. But there are no good wars whatever the cause. It is just in some very few cases there's no other way out. But it's still bad even given a noble cause.

Yes, they come partly from French CEZARs and mostly from Marine M777 that are less accurate than dumb bombs. Yet Russians using dumb bombs are bad guys and Marines indiscriminately shelling the whole of Raqqa are good guys. Bull****-fest for uneducated populace!

del

Why do you believe Syrian conflict is not a good proxy in terms of air power? I say air power just because I saw detailed reports both from Coalition and Russian MoD in the open. May be reports exist on other branches as well.

This is Raqqa. Where exactly do you see "discriminative" Coalition bombing?

@sburke, There was a live video from Syria on how CAS happens now in the Russian Army. One can time it and compare to CMxx values. Whereas US Army struggles with getting recruits Russian Army is now awash with people willing to serve as a contract soldier. Russian Army salaries are now times higher than an average salary one can get anywhere except for most populous cities. Modern Syria war can be a good proxy for measuring relative performance. At least the data on Air Force performance is open on both sides - there are coalition and Russian MoD reports. Compare number of sorties per helo/plane, number of combat sorties, number of targets hit etc. One can see that Russian MoD was way more successful in getting as much as possible from their air platforms if not in terms of how advanced they are.

I meant not the march but Battle for Ilovaisk. As per the march I believe on the RUS side there was an all too usual mistake of trading transient tactical wins for grave strategic losses. Yes, they got UKR forces of that day severely degraded but the memory of this event will stay on for generations in Ukrainians. Though UKR commanders were no less of mental jerks to underestimate the resolve of their opponents and seriousness of the situation.

Muzhenko says in an interview to Ukrainian BBC. https://inforesist.org/muzhenko-ob-ilovajske-homchak-znal-chto-rf-otmenila-zelenyj-koridor-no-vse-ravno-prikazal-vyhodit-ne-boevym-poryadkom/ It was From his interview seems like Russian side firstly agreed to Ukrainian side leaving Ilovaisk armed but then the Russian side changed her mind and put a condition that arms must be left in place. On Shaposhnikov audio track of radio chatter one may also hear that someone tells Khomchak that more time is required to finish the negotiations but Khomchak replies "I have no time, go on now!". They lost the battle and now they were trying to stage a bloody Blietzkrieg against an overwhelming force just to save their asses politically Should they have left Ilovaisk with no arms that reflected pretty badly on their military careers. PS What struck me also is how Muzhenko disowns Khomchak. Muzhenko is a Chief of Staff - whatever is done in the field by his commanders the Chief of Staff cannot say I bear no responsibility.

Am I correct to say that there are two versions (or a combination of both) that look most convincing? The requirement put up for the Ukrainian troops leaving the encirclement was to leave all the heavy weapons (or all weapons) and go but someone in the top brass (Muzhenko?) decided that it would be a disgrace and decided to break this condition. There were some last minute political negotiations and it required the withdrawal of troops to be delayed but someone (Khomchak?) decided to start the march anyway not waiting for the proper settlement in negotiations. Not claiming anything - just want to hear your opinion.

Non related question. @Haiduk what's your view on the video/story of the journalists that travelled together with Khomchak and they later claimed that he left his troops in Ilovaisk? The video looks pretty serious. I take no position on this just interesting what's being said "across the line".

Just to make it clear - there was no offense to the Ukrainian border guards. 95+32=127 Let's be realistic 127 people that make up a full compliment cannot somehow clandestinely penetrate a full encirclement of such a small territory of the base. There was an agreement they may leave and go to the Ukrainian-controlled territory. Can you substantiate SBU/ZSU theory with the proofs dated to those times? There's no ZSU on the video and I have Alexander Geraschenko - an advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense saying on camera the bombing related to the border guards base. Just as you said initially. https://rutube.ru/video/196b6fc4a2ee62f8c49e2187d3be4b75/ (01:17) PS Or may be we just close this line of discussion? You stated your position, I stated mine - it's all too pointless to further this on.

Western vs. Eastern Ukraine - they hated the guts of each other long before the open conflict. Western Ukraine is under-developed, agrarian, low income, low education level, the populace is either tending the crops or working on menial jobs in other countries. Eastern Ukraine - lots of industry, higher education necessary for industry jobs, and income was times higher than in Western Ukraine. Similar to Northern and Southern Italy - there's no love lost between those two also - just way more open. And don't take me wrong it's not just Westerners hated Easterners, an average Eastern Ukrainian Joe from the street did consider himself superior to Westerners just as well.

Correct, the official version voiced by Ukrainian side was that the bombing was in connection with the border guards base that was surrounded and in lock down. The base was in the suburbs of Luhansk. Flying so low one can hardly mistake it for the very center of civilian city. Here's the video showing how the base looked like - one can judge for oneself if it looks like the center of the city from the first video. So Western Ukrainian side bombed the center of Luhansk. What Luhansk side did after they overrun the border guards base? They just let those guardsmen who didn't want to serve in local militia to pass to Ukraine unharmed.

There was an anniversary of Luhansk bombing not so long ago. It might be enlightening on how deep the conflict between East and West of Ukraine goes. Western Ukrainian Su-25 bombs the very civilian center of Eastern city of Luhansk right in the middle of the day. 02.06.2014, there's no L/DNR yet Ukrainian Army was doing Shock and Awe against civilian population just in case. Surveillance camera (bombing starts at 01:36) View from the ground Then-advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine comments on the bombing. He confirms the bombing was done by Ukrainian plane and offers no excuse, just says it: "It was one slight movement of pilot's hand that led to negative consequences..." Says there's no reason to blame the pilot. https://rutube.ru/video/196b6fc4a2ee62f8c49e2187d3be4b75/ (01:17)

China lacks it as well At lab level Russia walks in step with France though production capacity lags materially behind. Actually Russia is pretty advanced in I2/IR but they are expensive so Russia Army does not order them in numbers.

Equipment that is fielded en masse lags behind US level for about 25 years. Russian Army sees as if it were few years after the First Gulf War. Equipment that is fielded in limited numbers is more advanced - say about 7 years behind American level. Lab-produced matrices are just 3-4 years behind American standard but Russia lacks capacity to produce them in significant numbers. Nope it's just BFC firmly believes Russian Army is stuck somewhere in "glorious 80s". In reality the Army of today operates in combined arms Battalion Combat Groups. A Russian commander will have more tubes and MRLSes readily available than an American one. As per the grunts-airmen interoperability - the delay will be higher than for the US since Russian Army is more reserved about keeping aircraft on station for anyone to call an immediate ad-hoc strike. One can judge from Syria experience, having just a handful of aircraft on the theater Russia was able to exert significantly higher pressure on the opponents than the Coalition. Strike-to-sorties ratio for the Russian aircraft must be many times higher than for the Coalition aircraft.

Sure? Do you have information on this? AFAIK it's been bought for "quick response" units not specifically for European deployment.

It's been bought for select units only. And it's lacking from combat vids so most probably it wasn't actually fielded en mass even in those units.

Thank you - haven't heard about it for ages. Actually IMHO even a dumb yet reliable HEFRAG design for 2A42 and 2A72 would do immensely more good to Russian Army at a fraction of cost of all these shiny toys. Just "a fraction of cost" is exactly the opposite of how Russian military industrial complex operates today.

Tank Combat Support Vehicle. The latest fade is to call them BMOP - Combat Fire Support Vehicle. To make it short BMP-T is just an ugly brood of excessive military budgets and dire needs for more money of Russian weapons producers. There's no coherent military science behind it.

And what a BMP-T battalion TO&E looks like by your estimation? 'Cause seems like you know more than the Russian Army itself There's no tactical doctrine for BMP-T yet. Nobody knows what a separate BMP-T battalion should look like or should BMP-T be an integral capability to another unit? Armor? Mechanized? A heavy armored space troopers battalion may be? PS And by the way what's the difference between a tank/BMP-T unit and a mixed Abrams/Bradley one in terms of basic capabilities?

M919 has tungsten penetrator with DU core. M919 penetration is 31mm/60degrees at 2000m. BMP-3 frontal aspect is protected by 66-82mm of spaced armor so the general opinion is M919 has insufficient penetration against it. Mostly put in storage. First line troops use BMP-3 and BMP-2 with the latter being gradually phased out by the former. UAE is very happy with BMP-3 firepower for the use of BMP-3 combat module became a standard requirement for all potential contenders for future UAE IFV contracts - Patria, Nexter etc. The locally produced Rabdan that was finally selected is also using it. In terms of mobility BMP-3 proved to be a very reliable though UAE predictably prefers a wheeled platform - tracked base is obviously an overkill for the kind of terrain UAE is facing. As per the armor BMP-3 is deployed in armored spearheads mixed with Leclercs so we may assume UAE considers BMP-3 protection level as high enough. UAE uses BMP-3 with these armored task forces but does not allow even uparmored M-ATV near them. So far there was only one confirmed kill - BMP-3 blown up by a heavy IED.

The current plan is to use fewer MGS but enhance firepower with more Dragoons. 2CR is meant to have 50% of its ICVs replaced with Dragoon version.

BMP-3 has spaced steel-aluminum armor with a total thickness of 66-70mm. Similar protection schemes used on Western IFVs do protect against 25mm APFSDS. BMP-3 is actively phasing out BMP-2s from Russian service. LAV-25 was designed as recce vehicle with an emphasis on mobility. Plain vanilla armor is effective only against 7.62mm rounds. Whatever upgrade packages one may try to slap on it you still have a suspension and engine meant for a much lighter vehicle. Different engine, transmission, suspension, targeting etc.