Russian army under equipped?

[LukeFF]

Good grief, that's a lot of smoke those tanks are putting out! 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

The Russian conventional threat is negligible.

You know it and I know it, but do the Russians know it? 

While I find the scripted battle drills and exercises impressive in relative terms (i.e. compared to the impoverished, poorly disciplined, rabble that was the Russian Armed forces of the 1990s and early 2000s), in absolute terms I don't think much of it.  How fast one can set up a pontoon bridge, how many 1960s era bits of hardware can swim to shore, how many ships can sail between A to B, etc. is just that.  It's kinda like watching this:

It's impressive, but how applicable is this to assessing military capabilities?  It's not.  Like our Canadian friends in the video, what we see the Russians do is execute carefully rehearsed and staged events which are explicitly designed, from the ground up, to produce an impressive looking result.  They are deliberately designed to avoid exposing structural weaknesses, they aren't even designed to be applicable to likely Russian military needs.  For sure a lot of what the Russian exercises do will help Russia when it does eventually attack its weaker neighbors, but not tot he extent of being able to learn what Russia's real military capabilities are vs. a NATO type engagement.

Quote

The current Russian emphasis on electronic, cyber, and "hybrid" warfare is much more relevant, and a much bigger focus in terms of intelligence gathering because those are the means Russia would actually leverage in a war.  This isn't 1989 after all.

With all this talk, and fear, around Russian cyber capabilities there seems to be a total absence of consideration that we're seeing one side of the equation.  For most of the Cold War through mid 2000s the Soviets/Russians and the West played their intel cards pretty close to their chests.  Everybody knew a lot more about what the other was doing than they ever let on.  Not so with recent events.  Russia has changed how they play the game by being both more aggressive and also more obvious.  The result is journalists, talking heads, and even professional intel people in the West sounding alarm bells about how dangerous the Russian cyber capabilities are.  And that is appropriate, therefore a good thing.

However, we have to keep in mind that we're seeing only one side of the equation because the West isn't being as aggressive and the Russian media for sure is not talking about its vulnerabilities.  What we do know is that the US government destroyed 1000 Iranian centrifuges, which is an indication that the US government (with help from abroad, in this case Israel) are capable of reaching out and touching someone if they should choose to.  It's rather silly to think that there hasn't been extensive recon work and plans put in place to not only counter Russian attacks but to hit back and hit hard.

This doesn't mean that Russia can't hurt the US and the West.  It certainly can and it already has.  It's similar to being wrong to say Russia's conventional military forces can't cause the West real pain in an outright confrontation, because they can.  However, like conventional threat that faces the West today, in an all out conflict Russia would be outgunned and out resourced.  It can win battles, but I don't think it can win a war.  Not in real space, not in cyberspace.

Steve

[John Kettler]

ikalugin,

Am delighted to report the mil.ru/news site has an English option! This helps most of us greatly.

Regards,

John Kettler

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Snapsnipsnap

I think the "fear" about Russian cyber, and electronic attacks must be separated from the threat they actually represent, and their importance within the Russian war planning.  

They're not overpowering advantages, or something that cannot be surmounted or stopped, but much more than revisiting the Great 1st Shock Guards Cross Rhine to Crush Capitalist exercises, how Russia intends to employ it's electronic/cyber attack assets is a relevant question in regards to countering it.

In terms of US cyber attack, it really is something not well understood.  It isn't at least, overtly as deployed as Russian assets are, but interestingly is just how pervasive US or NATO country sourced software is.  It's worth noting for instance, the amount of damage a singular Xerox machine did to the Soviet Union.   There's pictures of Russian planes over Syria with commercial US GPS units strapped to their cockpits.  And it remains an open question just how compromised these systems really are, or what sort of tricks may be in store.

In either event though, the cyber-electronic-hybrid warfare spectrum are where Russia hopes to leverage perceived advantages to overcome weakness elsewhere.  If those are defanged, or at least made too uncertain to consider viable, it goes a long way in keeping Russian soldiers on the right side of the border, and out of other people's countries.

I'd contend at least for now, hybrid warfare has taken a knee, in that it counted on a lot more denial of Russia as a hostile actor.  I think it counted on more apathy, and perhaps a more positive impression of Russia as a "honest" broker.  I think what Russia tried to do well exceeded traditional European sloth on security matters, and was simply too much naked aggression for whatever positive voices they've planted/bought to have any impact.

So as the case is, what was supposed to be the backdoor way past conventional military response instead is now simply another trigger for a NATO response.  

Re: Exercises

Any military exercise is a balance between:

1. Accomplishing training goals: ensuring activities you want trained are accomplished in a way that builds confidence and competence in the task.

2. Inducing chaos and friction, and building resiliency in the unit's ability to function.  Sweating in peace to avoid bleeding in war.  

Russian exercises favor the first one to the extreme.  The point isn't to stress a real river crossing, it's to ensure taskgroup 1A-44B are met in assembling the bridge and the required weights are held.  Friction is not induced outside of very limited, and measured injects that exist to drive an established timeline.

On the other hand, exercises that are too much of the second are terrible.  The real problem of the Millennial Challenge exercise was not the US military would be crushed by quasi-Iran OPFOR, it was a powerful to the point of cheating, all knowing enemy was too much for any training mission to be accomplished and virtually no training objectives were met.

The usual US Armying way is to have several iterations, usually called "crawl, walk, run" in armyslang.  Basically the friction is induced the entire time, but the first iteration is basically done over several times as long as it would take normally in combat, often stopping to "Reset" after everyone's dead, have a quick discussion of what went wrong, before returning to do it again. The walk run through still takes over-long, but tends to be more quick corrections, while finally the run stage is done at full combat speed and is usually straight up stepping razor. 

It doesn't make for pretty exercises, with often several moments where you've got entire valleys filled with flashing "YOU ARE DEAD" blinker lights, and many units will be wiped out several, sometimes even into the double digit times during the first "walk" iteration.  And there is a LOT of focus on smaller unit tactics so less sweeping vistas of People's Guard Brigade of Tanks, more SGT Snuggles and his tank crew doing deliberate Engagement Area development.

Still, it's worked okay so far.  And leads to in many ways why I eyeroll at least when there's the standard Russian CROSS RIVERX3 FOR PAPA PUTIN! exercise, because at the end of the day it's just a dog and pony show, not an actual training exercise.  

[VladimirTarasov]

55 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

 Still, it's worked okay so far.  And leads to in many ways why I eyeroll at least when there's the standard Russian CROSS RIVERX3 FOR PAPA PUTIN! exercise, because at the end of the day it's just a dog and pony show, not an actual training exercise.  

Yeah total dog and pony show, or you can ask me sergeant Vladimir from the papa Putin's 106th VDV division how these excercizes are. You're making bad mistakes on how these drills are, but I'm happy with NATO underestimating more so than overestimating. My unit we went through simulated ambushes, clearing buildings, ect ect. And this was before 2012 I. Of course you can argue I was in elite formations, but its not that different than what the ground forces do, other than we parachute in large scale behind enemy lines, disrupt their logistics, and cause massive havoc among the targetted units.

We do have show off shows how ever these drills are not show offs, and are very much needed. As you see our troops can move thousands kilometers with success, these shows that the Russian military is very mobile we can deploy units to regions near by very quickly(Ukraine, Baltics, Caucusus, ect) How ever there are other sides to Russian drills, that you have overlooked. But those are self explantory.

There are specific drills where troops storm simulated positions, and take part in simulated battles, combined arms operations. And those are more different than river crossing drills. 

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Yeah total dog and pony show, or you can ask me sergeant Vladimir from the papa Putin's 106th VDV division how these excercizes are.

We're talking about the big ones that get filmed and proliferate all over the Ineternet with the explicit purpose of making people in the West fear Russia and those in Russia get distracted from everything else Russian (poor economy, poor Human Rights, poor freedom of expression, etc.).

As PzKrtWrf and I have both pointed out, these types of exercises are designed to show off first, train second.  Yes, we know that Russia can move a billion men in a week from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad under ideal conditions.  But what happens to the speed and success of such movements if all satellite comms are jammed?  What happens to these grand movements if it turns out they are headed to the wrong location?  What happens if a critical transport unit is needed but isn't available?  I do not know the answers and neither do you because Russian exercises do not allow these variables to play a part.

7 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

There are specific drills where troops storm simulated positions, and take part in simulated battles, combined arms operations. And those are more different than river crossing drills. 

Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, had no shortage of drills and small unit training.  When tested in real combat the performance has always far under performed expectations.  This is due to inherent structural weaknesses in the Russian approach to warfare, which includes training.  While there have been major improvements since the disastrous wars in the Caucuses, compared to NATO standards it's still lagging behind.  These "snap drills" do not change my opinion, but rather reinforce it.

Steve

 

 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

23 hours ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Yeah total dog and pony show, or you can ask me sergeant Vladimir from the papa Putin's 106th VDV division how these excercizes are. You're making bad mistakes on how these drills are, but I'm happy with NATO underestimating more so than overestimating. My unit we went through simulated ambushes, clearing buildings, ect ect. And this was before 2012 I. Of course you can argue I was in elite formations, but its not that different than what the ground forces do, other than we parachute in large scale behind enemy lines, disrupt their logistics, and cause massive havoc among the targetted units.

We do have show off shows how ever these drills are not show offs, and are very much needed. As you see our troops can move thousands kilometers with success, these shows that the Russian military is very mobile we can deploy units to regions near by very quickly(Ukraine, Baltics, Caucusus, ect) How ever there are other sides to Russian drills, that you have overlooked. But those are self explantory.

There are specific drills where troops storm simulated positions, and take part in simulated battles, combined arms operations. And those are more different than river crossing drills. 

Here's the key word you keep using:

Drills.

A Drill is a set sequence of events which is generally applied when certain conditions are met.  React to contact is a drill because you don't have time to think through the next 20 seconds, you need to be lobbing grenades and attacking on through.  You don't think about how to position your tank platoon when an RPG flies between D11 and D13, you yell out CONTACT RIGHT and everyone knows to pivot right and face the enemy with the strongest armor.

This is not bad training, it's simply designed to ensure you act accordingly on a micro level. You don't have to think about how to enter a room when asked to do so, you have your stack, where the various mens go, what to say if it's a short room, where the MG gunner hangs out, etc, etc. 

Did you ever have a training exercise in which the wrong answer was to clear the building?  How about one where it was, actually just one of literally dozens of choices in how to skin the cat?  Did you have a scenario that totally exploited the fact that you have published tactics that the enemy reads too, and you needed to adjust accordingly?  

If you did, then I'm perhaps a little surprised.  

Historically Russian training has focused on the "correct" answer being the only answer.  If the doctrine calls for a mechanized infantry platoon with one tank to take on a certain objective, there will be a mechanized infantry platoon with one tank attacking the text book position.  This is done because you have a military that:

1. Does not have a meaningful professional enlisted corps.  The difference between one of your NCOs and most western ones in terms of experience is exceptional, in that it isn't just one very skilled soldier, it's one soldier who effectively carries all the institutional knowledge of his 10+ years of soldiering with him.  

2. Does not have high retention.  Most of your conscripts are hit it and quit it, even your contract folks don't hang around often.

As a result Russia faces, and has always faced a problem of having soldiers who just don't have the time to get good enough to have learned the "art" vs "science" of war.  

The way you get around this is bypassing the lack of experience or skill, by making a few answers that work pretty well most of the time.  Then you extensively train these specific answers, and count on your professional officer class to iron out where these specific answers do not work, the idea being if you say "DEFENSIVE POSITION GO" every little crunchy knows to dig his hole about 50 meters from the next hole, and to ensure it is so deep, and there's a little pit to kick grenades into, etc, etc, etc.  Then Senior LT Borscht  comes along or whatever and makes adjustments if he's good, or if he's bad just goes back to his hole for the night.

Where this goes all wonky is of course, the book answer is frequently the wrong answer, or doesn't even sort of answer the questions being posed.

Re: Airborne

There is nothing more dog and pony than the massed assault drop.  I think the only havoc an assault paradrop is going to cause against a near peer threat is going to be caused by when a transport filled with a few hundred flaming paratroopers crashes into something.

Full stop.  If the enemy is depleted enough to risk sending paratroopers behind their line, you really ought not to have too many problems dealing with them and avoiding all them ankle injuries.  

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

There is nothing more dog and pony than the massed assault drop.  I think the only havoc an assault paradrop is going to cause against a near peer threat is going to be caused by when a transport filled with a few hundred flaming paratroopers crashes into something.

You really need to start providing a monitor cleaning service.  I need to wipe mine down again damn it!

[Battlefront.com]

What he said (and what sburke said too!).

I chose the Canadian Jeep video for a reason.  Those guys are showing how well they can execute a drill.  They look super impressive, don't they?  But what happens if someone welds a couple of the bolts they are taking apart?  What if someone switched their metric tools with idiotic US tools?  What if someone told them they needed to disassemble a BMW instead of a Jeep?  The video would look very different, would it not?  It would change the most experienced, impressive Jeep disassemble/assemble team in the world into a bunch of guys standing around confused with someone yelling at them about how they don't care what the problem is.

The big Russian exercises are basically very large scale drills. They are designed to succeed and impress, therefore every variable that could get in the way is removed.  These large scale snap drills are just as controlled as the military "Olympics" videos that are in this thread, even if they are more applicable to combat than the competitions are.

Let's look at the less sexy stats.  The things that do NOT show up in Russian snap drills.  Data comparison between US and Russian forces based on 2011 (US) and 2012-2014 (Russia) figures.  Note that I had no luck finding some of the Russian stats.  Are they even published?

Average length of service for Enlisted

US = 6.7 Years
Russia = ? (roughly 1/2 are 1 year, so the average is probably in the 1.5 - 2.5 year range)

Average length of service for Officers

US = 11 Years
Russia = ?

% of force that NCO

US = 40.2%
Russia = 12%

% of force that is Conscript

US = 0%
Russia = 45%

% of force that are college graduates

US = 18%
Russia = ?

Then there's the problems that Russia has had filling its ranks.  The large uptick in Contract soldiers has not solved Russia's dwindling available manpower problems.  Demographics and rampant corruption has resulted in a pool of military aged men that is insufficient to produce the huge numbers of conscripts needed.  To combat this, Russia this year started allowing conscripts to become contract soldiers on the first day of their service vs. after 6 months.  This adds one year of service and, therefore, means one less conscript soldier needed next year.  Russia is also increasingly using civilian personnel to perform necessarily military activities, thus freeing up conscripts for more military specific duties.  This has advantages, but it comes at higher costs and more difficulty maintaining readiness (as the US and other Western countries have figured out the hard way).

I understand that it is more fun to compare tanks and what gizmos are stuck to rifles, but when it comes to assessing basic military capabilities one has to start by looking at the soldiers very carefully.  This is something I don't think most wargamers, in general, pay enough attention to.  They would rather argue about how many MM of armor there is over the rear exhaust area than to discuss how well that vehicle will do in combat with an average crew manning it.

Some sources for the information I presented above...

Steve

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/10/05/chapter-6-a-profile-of-the-modern-military/

https://russiandefpolicy.wordpress.com/category/manpower/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/personnel.htm

https://www.rt.com/politics/333693-russian-military-allow-conscription-service/

[Krater]

Steve,

 

To make apples to apples comparison, you really have to treat Russian lieutenants as US junior NCOs.  

Edited September 1, 2016 by Krater

[Battlefront.com]

11 hours ago, Krater said:

To make apples to apples comparison, you really have to treat Russian lieutenants as US junior NCOs.  

Then that leaves a huge gap in Russia's officers.  It's like a traditional double accounting system.  If you put a credit in one column then you have to make a debit in another column.  Because at the end of the day everything has to add up to equal a specific number.  In fact, some of the articles I read that were trying to figure out what the current state of the Russian personnel is kept running into some accounting issues.  Official statements don't seem to add up in a technical accounting sense.

But it's worse than that

It's only apples to apples if the Russians are assigning 1-2 LTs per SQUAD!  Which, of course, they are not doing.  Therefore, the reality is that in an apples to apples comparison of leadership the Russians are at a huge deficit compared to NATO forces.  Which is not surprising to me since this has always been the weakness in Soviet/Russian military doctrine as practices.  Having a sufficiently trained and experienced NCO pool to draw from requires a large number of things which Soviet/Russian society is not designed to produce (and at times actively works against).  However, the biggest factor is money.  NCOs are expensive, good NCOs are even more expensive, and a lot of good NCOs is extremely expensive.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the new Russian Federation tried to maintain (roughly) the same sized military as it had before.  Obviously this was not demographically, not to mention financially, possible.  Too many soldiers needed to man too much equipment spread out over too many bases.  The result was an armed force that pretty much sat on base collecting a meager amount of pay.  Chechnya and even Georgia demonstrated that Russia was spreading its resources too thin and the result was a big expense that could do almost nothing right.

The reforms prior to 2008 only nibbled at the problem, but finally institutional downsizing become reality.  However, financially and demographically it is still too large to even have a hope of competing with NATO standard.  My estimate is Russia's total armed forces size should be around 500,000, with about half of that being the ground forces.  This would not only require a radical reduction in the current ground forces, but pretty much getting rid of the navy except for coastal defense and submarines for strategic deterrence.

The reason Russia won't do this (among other reasons) is that all pretenses of challenging NATO go out the window.  To anybody in the West that's been the case for decades already, but to the domestic Russian population the current size is sufficient to pretend to be a world power.  A major reduction would make the current propaganda hype about Russia's strategic options seem hollow even to many Russians.  It certainly would take away ANY strategic leverage Russia currently retains in terms of bullying/intimidating the West in the eyes of Western leaders.  This is something that Putin will bankrupt his country before he allows it to happen.  His regime relies upon the made up notion that Russia has to defend itself against NATO.

The force would be large enough to take care of any of Russia's legitimate needs for self defense, but would likely not be sufficient to take on a major, elongated military campaign.  Such as an invasion of Ukraine or another war in the Caucuses.  It would preclude any sort of prolonged action in any of the former Soviet Republics which it is currently manipulating through limited military occupation.  Which is the other major reason for Putin keeping the force larger than what I've suggested.

Given this, until Russia stops pretending to be an empire it is unlikely to reform its military to be something approaching NATO equivalence.  Which is absolutely fine for Russia provided it doesn't get into a direct scrape with NATO forces.  I've said it hundreds of times before... if Russia goes to war with NATO it will not only lose the war but it will cease to be.  Western leaders should understand that Putin likely knows this, which means the West should feel that it can call Russia's bluff more than it does.

Steve

[VladimirTarasov]

It's as if there really is a bias against the Russian military here, anyways.

@panzersaurkrautwerfer our drills very much did even depend on squad level decisions, the whole point of it is to test readiness and offer training experience for troops. I think you're judging the Russian military based off western reports or "analytics" of it. Conscripts serving one year terms are in drills going clearing buildings, advancing along with their formation ect. 

Experience: well US soldiers more or less choose the armed forces as a career, so they will be in the army longer than Russian troops in average. But trust me, if I told my squad to engage contacts, we'd be just as ready as our US colleagues. Experience does help, however our training is nothing to laugh at. I mean 6 years of service on average isn't going to make US troops whipe floor with Russian troops, if you think that... Yikes.

Of course I am not dismissing the importance of having experience but war is hell, and if you've been in a shootout it wont matter how long you served you react depending on your training. Well it would matter if your a uber soldier who has seen a bunch of combat tours in heavy action, but on average, if I get shot at I'll drop on the floor return fire and look for cover, same as US troops. 

Airborne: You must love decharging on here, no one in the Russian military is going to send IL-76s over heavy air defense.... Its aggravating for you to say that. Obviously we arent dumb. If we cant paradrop, we'll deploy to a safe area and conduct operations from there. I just gave an example of what we did. 

[hattori]

Interesting points.  To throw some more numbers at the economic situation, Russia spends about 5% of it's GDP on it's military, while the U.S. spends about 3.5% of it's GDP.

  The key difference though, is the U.S. GDP is more than ten times bigger than Russia's, 18 trillion a year to around 1.2 trillion a year.  This ends up meaning the U.S. spends about 600 billion a year on it's military (sorry, that is insane) to Russia's near 60 billion.  The U.S. can definitely afford to pay and keep more experienced soldiers, and for all sorts of new toys and tech (and to research all the new stuff too).

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

It's as if there really is a bias against the Russian military here, anyways.

As I see it, there's a bias FOR the Russian military

When doing analysis it is important to talk about specifics and to focus on them.  It is also important to bring historical perspectives into the discussion because history is usually very helpful.  Especially in military matters because militaries are generally slow to change on their own accord.

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

@panzersaurkrautwerfer our drills very much did even depend on squad level decisions, the whole point of it is to test readiness and offer training experience for troops. I think you're judging the Russian military based off western reports or "analytics" of it. Conscripts serving one year terms are in drills going clearing buildings, advancing along with their formation ect. 

PzKrtWrfr has outlined the differences in the different types of training.  For sure, without any doubt, the Soviet Union did "drills" as he described.  For sure the Russian Army did the same right up through the Georgian War.  Since then there has been an emphasis on more adaptable training, however it is unclear how thorough the change has been or how widespread it is throughout the Russian armed forces.  Maybe you can help us understand how far the 2008 reforms have changed from traditional Russian/Soviet training?

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Experience: well US soldiers more or less choose the armed forces as a career, so they will be in the army longer than Russian troops in average. But trust me, if I told my squad to engage contacts, we'd be just as ready as our US colleagues. Experience does help, however our training is nothing to laugh at. I mean 6 years of service on average isn't going to make US troops whipe floor with Russian troops, if you think that... Yikes.

You're missing the point.  It isn't just how long soldiers are soldiers, it is what they accumulate for knowledge while they are soldiers.  What you don't seem to appreciate is how fundamentally different Western training is from traditional Russian/Soviet training.  Doctrine is also important, and again traditional Russian/Soviet doctrine has not been viewed as either flexible or nuanced by Western standards.

And before you start saying that the West is clueless, remember that the West has had long, first hand exposure to Russian/Soviet training.  It has access to training doctrine, it had experience "deprogramming" the former Western Pact countries' military forces, it's fought against Russian/Soviet trained militaries, etc.  In fact, the US has far more practical understanding of Russian military history and practices than Russia has of Western ones.  Not to mention that the West's far greater transparency and open debate allows for internal criticism and introspection that is not squashed or hindered by government restrictions and interference.  Having an honest debate about ones' own capabilities is critical to improving them.

My point is that if one of us is relying upon poorly formed informational basis, you need to consider the possibility that better describes you than it does PzKrtWrfr or me.

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Of course I am not dismissing the importance of having experience but war is hell, and if you've been in a shootout it wont matter how long you served you react depending on your training. Well it would matter if your a uber soldier who has seen a bunch of combat tours in heavy action, but on average, if I get shot at I'll drop on the floor return fire and look for cover, same as US troops. 

You see, this to me indicates that you don't really understand the importance of training and small unit leadership.  Because what you said is only true for the few seconds the bullets are splashing around the soldiers.  What came before and after is where training and leadership come into play.  Specifically, avoiding getting into the bad situation to start with and knowing how best to get out of it once it's encountered.

8 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Airborne: You must love decharging on here, no one in the Russian military is going to send IL-76s over heavy air defense.... Its aggravating for you to say that. Obviously we arent dumb. If we cant paradrop, we'll deploy to a safe area and conduct operations from there. I just gave an example of what we did. 

His point is that expending energy and costs on large scale airborne operations is good for propaganda, but little else.  The chances that Russia (or any other nation) will conduct a large scale combined arms airborne operation are extremely small.  The use of airborne forces, in relatively small numbers (company or smaller) is something that has some practical applications, but only against a force that poses very small risk of air interdiction.  The example of French parachuting in Mali is an example.

Here's a very recent discussion about the future of US airborne forces:

http://warontherocks.com/2016/04/reimagining-and-modernizing-u-s-airborne-forces-for-the-21st-century/

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

His point is that expending energy and costs on large scale airborne operations is good for propaganda, but little else. 

The distance from Russia's border with China to its border with Estonia is a little over 3300 miles (5300 km). The ability to deploy to anywhere along Russia's vast periphery from anywhere in the country within a day or two is a capability I would find valuable were I a Russian strategic planner.

[Battlefront.com]

That's the difference between "air mobile" (or "air landing" in some vernacular) and "airborne".  I agree, Russia and the US both require significant air mobile forces that can be moved vast distances through non-hostile airspace in short order and then, once landed, sustain themselves far easier than conventional infantry.  But landing thousands of troops by air drops?  Not the same thing.

Steve

[AttorneyAtWar]

I'd like to hear at least one positive thing about the Russian military from Panzer and Steve.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Raptorx7 said:

I'd like to hear at least one positive thing about the Russian military from Panzer and Steve.

Oh, I've said plenty of positive things about Russia's military.  However, everything is relative.  Which means that if we're comparing 2016 Russian military to 2008 or 1992 you'll see me almost gushing with compliments vs. comparing 2016 Russian military to NATO (in particular US).

In a nut shell, Russia's military has come a huge way in a very short period of time.  Massive, fundamental improvements pretty much across the board.  The thing is I don't think it matters too much.  Even the 2008 Russian military was strong enough to crush anybody that wasn't NATO or China, yet it is totally incapable of going up against either.  Therefore, all that investment has simply managed to produce the same outcome with (probably) less death on the Russian side of things.  A waste of money IMHO compared to what Russia could have invested the money into (like it's people, for example).

If Russia went to a 500,000 man force, took corruption out of the equation, and truly adopted NATO type standards I think it could be as militarily dangerous as it thinks it is.  However, in order to do that there would have to be both regime change (to something far better) and giving up on the delusions of empire.  Since neither of these things are likely to happen any time soon, I don't expect to see Russia "catching up" to the West.

Here's a recent article on why the West (and Ukraine) shouldn't fear the big smoke and mirrors show that Putin is putting on these days.  There is also a nice summary of the war so far:

http://www.vox.com/2016/9/1/12729426/russia-troops-ukraine-border

Quote

This would be a "proper" war, not a quick fait accompli. Moscow would find itself bogged down in hostile terrain — seizing territory is easier than holding and pacifying it — and facing renewed Western sanctions. If anything would finally convince Washington to send Ukraine lethal weapons, especially aircraft- and tank-killing missiles, it would be such an attack.

The Russians know this. There is little evidence they are planning any major offensive. If anything, they are responding to Ukraine’s growing capabilities. As Michael Kofman of the Wilson Center puts it, Moscow "likely fears a ‘Croatia scenario’ whereby Ukraine cordons off the separatist republics and then builds up an army large enough to wipe them out in a few years."

I've been saying this since Spring of 2014 and all the information that's become available since then has reinforced it.  The recently released intercepted calls by Russians plotting and executing the overthrow of Ukraine's Eastern and Southern provinces in Winter/Spring 2014 just confirms what is already very clear.  Russia knew from the start that it couldn't afford a straight out invasion of Ukraine, not even when Ukraine was significantly weaker.

Steve

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Hokay now, I suppose I've got a little writing to do:

RE:Drills

Do feel free to tell me about the choices you guys had to make.  You're really making it sound like simple battle drills which are generally limited to picking rally points, or which door to stack on.  

Where I feel you're missing the point is your fixation on "soldier" skills.  Strictly in terms of shooting straight, running around, low crawling whatever it is pathetic dismounts do to earn their pay, the Russian soldier isn't like, deficent.  He might not be as good of a shot simply because the US equivlent spends more time on the range, but as far as a dude who moves in formations and shoots at a man, he's perfectly fine.

Move away from that however.  I'm sure you're aware of OODA loops, but he's a refresher if you are not:

The OODA loop was developed during the cold war as a model for decision making for fighter pilots.  Not so much "how" to think, as much as an observation of how the decision making cycle goes.  It stands for:

Observe: Figure out what's going on.
Orient: Posture yourself towards the thing that's going on
Decide: Figure out what you're doing to do to the thing that's going on.
Act: Do the thing to deal with the thing that's going on.

It's called a loop because it's a repeating process as the situation continues.  The person/organization that completes the most OODA loops is almost always the winner in any fight as the faster looper is more rapidly adapting to the situation, and usually assuming some control/dominance over it.

What drills are intended to do is enable someone/an organization to skip the "decide" step.  The event the drill was planned for is observed.  Organization orients assets on that event, and acts in accordance with the drill.  This is often vital, especially in "react to attack/disaster" events, because you're already likely a few OODA loops behind the event, so faster loops are a means to catch up.

The problem with drills is they do very poorly with things that are not quite one drills or the other (see Grozny), and rely on variables that are often in someone else's hand.  Thus especially if the enemy is aware of how the drill works, he can make actions that will defeat that drill (again, Grozny, but see the fates of several Soviet trained forces when facing "agile" enemies).  Also the more drills drive lower formations, the more demands that puts on the higher command structure, which in turn slows down higher's OODA loops outside of drill scenarios.  

The other way to complete OODA loops quickly is very "agile" formations, capable of completing OODA loops independently without higher formation input.  A drill-centric force will rely a lot on it's leader to position properly or move on a battlefield.  An "agile" one will have sufficent leadership at lower echelons that the leader only needs to give intent vs specific guidance to accomplish a task.  This allows for significantly faster OODA loops because lesser questions ("where should I put my tank?") are answered by junior leaders, and in many degrees it is self-orienting.

Russia simply lacks the professional core of NCO level personnel to have agile formations.  It needs to use drills to substitute for that missing knowledge and experience.  As a result it does not deal with variables well, and as seen in the Ukraine often tends to flail about when expected conditions are not met.

So in that regard, it's irrelevant if you guys shoot back well, if you're still working through the "okay we're engaged, what next?" while the unit you're shooting at has already moved onto "call for mortar support and bring around 2nd squad to flank."  Example is way too simple (especially because it's the sort of thing drills do okay), but you get the drift.

Re: Dirt Darts

The original statement was:

"  other than we parachute in large scale behind enemy lines, disrupt their logistics, and cause massive havoc among the targetted units. "

Which is profoundly stupidly impossible against what I described as a "near peer" threat.  If you've gone as far as to destroy an enemy's air force, and ADA network as to allow for a full scale paradrop, then I'd contend you've likely destroyed him to the degree where paratroopers are irrelevant.  Large scale paradrops are profoundly, stupidly dangerous, and against an enemy that is even remotely coherent, practically impossible.

Airborne operations as a means to rapidly enter a region unopposed, deploy worldwide rapidly, etc are not terrible ideas.  But the very idea of VDV troops conducting a large scale parachute assault against a NATO, or even Ukraine type enemy invites a lot of messy cleanup of crispy critters in stripey shirts if you get my drift.  

And I don't think the Russians are stupid enough to try it.  It's just this silly paratrooper pageant is part of the Russian attempt to project an an imagine of strength domestically/internationally.

Re: "Say something positive about the Russian military"

It's not a bad military.  It is highly capable, and would do all sorts of terrible stuff to many NATO countries if it somehow started a one on one fight with them.  There's just two topics worth discussing as caveats:

1. The Russian military is burdened with unrealistic mission sets.  Russia wastes a lot of time getting ready to fight enemies that nuclear deterrence has handled, or enemies that it has more or less invented (or created).  It wastes a lot of time on "prestige" items like manned long range bombers, naval forces, the mass drops of the VDV, while failing to address a whole host of organizational problems.  

Basically it's like if the UK had reclaim historically British ruled parts of France as part of its military priorities.  It's not a realistic mission, but it would eat up a whole lot of resources to chase that mission at the expense of much more reasonable, and pressing matters.

2. The Russia is not the Soviet Union.  There's a lot of huffing and puffing imagining the Russians as standing equal to the US, again back to the old East vs West two competing nearly equal superpowers.  However, the Russian military is not the Soviet one.  It's a weaker, less capable force in more than a few ways, and would be hard pressed to deal with a real shooting war against the west (which isn't to say it'd be a cakewalk for NATO, but simply the question is how bloody of a conflict it would be vs who would win). 

It's not a matter of it being "bad" nearly as much as if I rolled up in my car to a street racing competition and started bragging about how I'm going to school everyone.  My VW is a really nice car and does a lot of things very well.  But it very clearly is not up to speed with someone's tricked out Corvette or something.

[VladimirTarasov]

@Battlefront.com (Steve)

I'm on the phone so I'll have to reply to you summarized, instead of quoting you.

Reforms on training: Well, personally by 2011 it was understood that we are in the process of major reforms in the army, training was getting better since 2008/2009, wages increasing, everything was being improved. Basically professionalism was being brought into the armed forces by large scale. I just wish I could have been in the VDV 2014-16. Everything has been improved even compared to 2011. In regards to helping you understanding how the reforms have impacted training I can send links if I can find any in English.

Small leadership: Well I've had the honor of commanding a squad, and I was very efficient in my role. What I said in terms of the reaction is just a small example, maybe I'm not being clear. 

Airborne deployment: well the VDV doesn't necessarily have to be paradropped, we can be deployed to airfields and work as regular ground units, especially if we have tank units attached.   

[Codename Duchess]

The Russians almost certainly have a lot less of the bloated GMT training (heh, ATM Machine) than we do.  I truly envy them of that.

Side note but sorta related.  Got to speaking with an Indian Navy MiG-29 pilot the other day at a bar.  He said they get something like 20 hours a year.  I can't even comprehend safe flying that low.  I'm genuinely curious what Russia gets out side of Syria.

[VladimirTarasov]

@panzersaurkrautwerfer

Training stuff: 

I understand that the US army has advanced training I follow up on armed forces and look at their training procedures, you guys for example have something I liked very much, those full scale battle simulation things, kind of like laser tag but with real guns. We usually simulate certain situations like if we get ambushed we respond back and one of our guys gets killed or wounded and we have to deal with that ect, sometimes suprise situations, sometimes planned out. However we usually dont have a clue what we are to do during a drill(as in planned before the camera rolls), and it isn't ever planned, "snap" drill. 

Decision making: well I dont remember particulary down to the detail, but I stormed a building with buddies. MOUT type procedures you guys have, secured visual contact, over lapping fire control, and then we stormed. But then again you got go pro footage specifically edited to show moments of the "storm" process. Where the dude looks like a total retard not looking left or right when he enters the room while his squad follows the procedure. And there are mixed results in the Russian military even today, but it's not that widespread of a problem today.

airborne ops: well to be fair in Afghanistan and Chechnya VDV were also used as mech infanty. Of course I being the pathetic cruchny I was, made the mistake of mentioning paradrops. Anyways, get to viewing the terrain ahead through your CITV, dont ask too much questions. 

Edited September 2, 2016 by VladimirTarasov

[Sublime]

All in gonna say is the russian army prolly reached its all time high in prowess  circa 1945. And US troops were given pamphlets on how to equate rank. Eg a US 2nd Lt made decisions a RA major would or whatever.

That says a lot about individual iniative etc.

And vlad id very much say your experiences are colored by being in an elite formation. We all know that doesnt mean the vast majority of the Russian military never received the funding equipment and training such a unit would believe. And whilst i personally do not see u or russians as an enemy nor do i doubt your word on personal experiences there is a bit of lingering doubt bc of you denying the ukraine stuff etc.

We have a love hate relationship going here lol

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Like, here's what I'm getting with the variables thing;

Again, you're describing what is pretty standard battle drill stuff for us.  It's not BAD training, it's just training designed to illicit certain responses, even if it is simply chaining drills together (react to contact>clear building>evaluate and evacuate  a casualty).  If we were making the training event hard/variable-tastic, we might throw in civilians on the battlefield, enemy counter-attack with a superior force, booby traps, or set up a room specifically to defeat whatever room clearing technique was being taught (walls in the wrong places, or worse, OPFOR with paintball guns in all the wrong places).

Philosophically Russian and Western views on doctrine tend to fall into a divide:

Russian/Soviet doctrine has generally followed "war as science."  Not that doctrine cannot be wrong, but it's the assumption that you can find a right answer down to the amount of bullets required to suppress someone.  

Western/US Doctrine has generally followed "war as art."  Not literally art, but less specific, and more using the knowledge and skill available, to create a solution on the fly.  It is not devoid of the "Science" (especially in some fields) but generally the doctrine is presented as a template to be modified as suited vs being the optimal solution (which drives a lot of former Soviet observers nuts, as it appears we either don't know doctrine, or opt not to follow it at all).  

Again, Russians can certainly practice the "art" of war, and Americans can certainly be scientific.  But it lends to certain viewpoints on what warfighting looks like.  So what you're describing as variables, or choices to be made to me, sounds profoundly restrictive and well matches the sort of choices I had to make as a brand new cadet.  

Which is not to say you're dumber than I was as a cadet haha (as nothing is dumber than a cadet), simply that the way Russia and the US run wars is different.  You were expected to be the ultimate paratrooper, shoot, move, communicate ah-hah etc etc.  In that regard think of yourself as a hammer.  You hammer things.  You hammer things really well.  As long as the problem can be hammered, you are the man for the job.

The American perspective is we expect our soldiers and junior leader especially to be multi-tools.  We can get away with this because we have the time (as in years and years of someone in uniform), and the budget to train them accordingly.

So the point I'm getting to is that Russian and US troops are likely both entirely adequate at being hammers.  The difference emerges once you take Russian forces out of roles where the hammer is correct, or where something is better than being a hammer, they tend to suffer.  

 

Re: Paratroopers

There's nothing implicitly wrong with paratroopers, simply that it's a really hard case to make that there's still a role for the large scale massed drops against conventional forces.  If you're into paratrooper history, look up Operation Market-Garden and Operation Varsity for some good history on some of the problems that face massed drops that came into play circa 1944-45....that still really haven't been sorted out that well. 

[Battlefront.com]

The Soviet and Russian military tradition is what we often refer to as "one up", meaning many things were one organizational level higher than the West.  The Soviets used Regiments like the West used Battalions, Corps like Divisions, etc.  Same thing for rank.  This is what I was talking about earlier.

The Soviet/Russian traditional advantage over its enemies used to be manpower.  However large forces mean large military budgets and the Soviet/Russian finances have never been sufficient for country so large.  Therefore it has always had to economize on things such as equipment, pay, uniforms, food, housing, etc. in order to field a very large armed force.  One of the most important things it skimped on was training.  This not only made it cheaper per year per soldier, but since soldiers were conscripted and released after 1-2 years there wasn't much incentive to invest a lot of money in them anyway. 

This goes along with the traditional Soviet/Russian viewpoint that soldiers, like peasants, are disposable.  in peacetime they are conscripted and therefore the majority are only there for a year or two.  Why bother investing a lot of money in something so temporary?  In wartime the Soviet/Russian experience was mass casualties, so why bother investing a lot of money into cannon fodder?  In either case, when the state needed another million soldiers it was as simple as rounding them up and sticking them into a uniform.  No point wasting all kinds of money with things like training when you don't expect them to live through the year.

The disposable soldier concept extended up to the junior officer ranks.  By Western standards even the higher level officers weren't as well educated or trained, but they were viewed as adequate for the job.  In wartime officers that failed were removed (and frequently executed) and replaced by someone else.  Compliance was favored over intelligent decision making anyway, so need for expanded skills was not there.

This is the Russian armed force's legacy which it is still trying to work its way out of.  It's a massive shift in thinking and obviously it's been extremely difficult even when the need was obvious.  Russia has made significant progress since 2008, but until it downsizes its military to fit an affordable budget many of the reasons for the traditionally poor standards will remain in place.  It's simple math... in order to match/beat the West it has to invest in its soldiers to a similar degree. 

Russia simply can not afford to invest in its military the way the West does.  Even with Russia's completely unsustainable military spending levels, it is not even close to matching Western standards across the board.  Since economics and demographics are much harder to scale up, the military needs to be scaled down if it is going to even catch up to where NATO was 10 years ago.  However, the Russian state is built on a tradition of aggression towards its neighbors, and it's own people in fact, so a smaller military simply isn't going to happen.  Certainly not under Putin, probably not under his successor.  Which means another 20-30 years of Russia's perception of military strength being significantly lower than it's real strength.

Steve