English Russia has a pretty damning photo expose' on the Russian Army. If things are this bad then the Russians are a threat only to themselves.
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They must loose a lot of men due to accidental discharges.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the only threat the Russian's now pose is in the form of restricted gas sales to its neighbors and arms sales to bad troublesome countries.
ya know, i'm beginning to wonder about all these BRIC countries and the way that they're building there armed forces.
ReplyDeletethey're not doing it from the bottom up but from the top down.
they want high tech weaponry but don't want to give their soldiers good boots and gear...much less a proper rifle.
they want a stealth airplane but can't get a good utility vehicle to carry out basic training.
i don't get it but i'm seeing some of the same nonsense in Russia that i suspect is happening in China.
i wonder if we're entering a period of time when the real threat isn't military but simply economic.
Russia's military might look like a bunch of college bums on spring break, but they still have nukes and a load of tanks, APCs, fighters & bombers and the usual assortment of subs and surface ships. Same goes for China to a lesser degree.
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ReplyDeleteProblem is most of those tanks and APC's are leftovers from the Soviet era. They have some new builds but not enough. They have thrown gobs of money at the military over the past 10 years but very little has actually reached it. I guess corruption in Russia is beyond belief!
ReplyDeleteA blue water navy they really don't have. A few ships that they are nervous to take too far out to sea. The living conditions are worse then the army. Here's a copy of a report from the French about being on a Russia ship: http://blog.usni.org/2010/02/27/a-look-inside-the-russian-navy-after-action-report/
The Russian army has had to increase the number of people they are drafting because they are running out of warm bodies. The 1-2 years a draftee spends is a life of sheer horror from the abuse they suffer from other soldiers. Desertion and even suicide is not uncommon either.
Russia is sadly, a dying country.
wow.
ReplyDeletethey're in a serious hurt locker. i remember reading stories about the population and mortality rates in Russia but i never knew the military was suffering too.
at this rate China will only have to wait another 50 to 100 years and they can walk into the country and claim the resources.
these are interesting times.
One of the biggest problems for the Russian, and Soviet had it as well, military is the lack of an NCO class. They have them but most are just enlisted that are given some extra training. That's why most of the technical jobs, especially on the ships, are done by the junior officers or warrant officers.
ReplyDeleteWhen you put the conscripts in the barracks there's nobody to enforce discipline so you get a "Lord of the Flies" kind of thing. I was reading about defectors describing it back in the 80's.
Oh and I love this story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7338097/200-Russian-tanks-found-abandoned-in-forest.html
ReplyDelete200 t-72/80 tanks found abandoned in a forest. Loaded with fuel and ammo. You could just drive off and nobody would know. A guess was that a regional commander couldn't afford to maintain them anymore and tried to make them vanish from the rolls. A little money to the G-4 and his pencil would erase them.
Soloman said:"at this rate China will only have to wait another 50 to 100 years and they can walk into the country and claim the resources."
ReplyDeleteWhen my History Professor said sarcastically she didn't know why the US still based troops in Europe I said because of what you just suggested, keeping the PRC from marching in to Siberia and claiming their "Northern Resource Area". Lets not forget that Russia is a exporter of resources not an importer of them, and they got more oil than the Saudis.
Not to mention that Siberia can be a lovely place as well. Cruel in the winter of course. The English Russia site does posts showing the wilderness and its something.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't rule out the Bear and the Dragon just yet. If they ever attacked the USA, here or abroad, it would probably be at the most in-oppurtune time and a surprise for us. Our great equalizer is our ability to operate militarily and logistically in their sphere of influence, almost better than they can themselves.
ReplyDeleteNot to say there probably isn't one or two foreign subs parked off of one of our coasts as we speak, that we don't know about, just as we do to them. China will be the real challenge, I believe the US Navy is going to have their hands full even more with China. Russia in a real crisis, could probably muster a real army again, and at the very least do a counter move, they did it once. I like the idea of more smaller carriers, LPD's, and LHD's. Now, if we can only get these new fighters to fly straight, and get Europe to take a bigger military role at home. Sure feels good to be on this side of the equalizer.