John Kettler Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 Remember the Cold War silhouette drawings the US Army did for various Soviet tank and mechanized formations? Now, imagine something like that, but beautifully rendered, to a standard scale, in color, for the component units which comprise Russian tank and mechanized brigades! Am talking both AFVs and softskins, as well as a detailed breakdown of every vehicle's occupants, clear down to how many officers, NCOs and privates. The level of detail is simply fantastic, such as the NBC troops in their "slime" suits and the (many) snipers in their ghillies and wearing a specific camo pattern. Even in my threat analyst days, I never saw anything even remotely in this league, and the enormous research this project involved, never mind drawing it, left me practically stupefied. There's a remarkable site called ShipBucket (usual end) which started out as a ship drawing library based on a standardized format and scale, and it expanded from there. And how! A guy named Caddaric79 started putting together an assemblage of the component units for the New Model (2006) Russian Tank and Mechanized Brigades, as well as some of the divisional assets. Minor stuff like the BM-27. Am not any sort of expert on current Russian TO&E, so what he drew may or may not be presently right, but it will certainly educate and inform even if it isn't. This is what was planned, after all, and there are some major shocks, such as the shift away from the BMP to modernized MTLB. To see this visual feast, Google FD scale - Russian Organisations Some of you may be interested to know that the wonderful Russian weapon export catalog and TO&E cornucopia Warfare.ru has been shut down by the FSB. Russian military analysis has been moved to Warfare.be, which isn't working for me! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Am not any sort of expert on current Russian TO&E, so what he drew may or may not be presently right, but it will certainly educate and inform even if it isn't. This is what was planned, after all, and there are some major shocks, such as the shift away from the BMP to modernized MTLB. That is an incorrect interpretation. Mech battalions are still based on either BMP, BTR or MTLB with largely the same structure. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted March 23, 2014 Author Share Posted March 23, 2014 akd, Can't say I'm shocked, given the rather large inventory of BTRs and BMPs, but what intrigues me is that such a shift was even contemplated. Working from rather dated recollections, I believe the Russians did have a couple of MRDs up in the Kola Peninsula equipped with MTLBs for arctic warfare, but they were the exception, not the rule. My guess is that the planned shift to MTLBs lay in much less overall expense, force standardization and the removal of the temptation to use an IFV as a tank. Other than having the main vehicle type wrong, what did you think of the rest of the material? Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurrp Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Good find, JK. I know very little about modern Russian TO&Es, but it looks pretty impressive to me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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