zraver

by 89 when they pulled out the Red Army was shattered to its very core. The officer core was still soild but politcally impotent after the purges of the 70's. The enlisted ranks suffered from the lack of NCO's, 2 year enlistments, battle fatigue, multi-lingualism, nationalist pining for freedom of thier homelands, and lack of future prospects ect all combined to make an Army that was incaqpable of real combat. It was like th Hapsburgs or Czarist Army in 1918. It just didn't have the will to go on anymore. By the time Yeltsin's stand let alone Grozny 1 it was at its weakest point since the defeat by Poland in 1920 and the results showed. The Tula Division the pride of the Kremlin mutinied, in Berlin you saw the wordls largest un-offical arms fair, and in the baltic and and other Republics units simply melted away.

Wih the benifit of Hind sight we can make that comparison. Startin with the purges in the 70's and the passing of the Old Guard from active duty the Red Army went straight to hell. The situation was got so bad that at one point the Army was making 4 different tanks and 5 different sizes of main gun ammo at the same time as the Red Army was divided up into politcal feifdoms for Politburo members.

For all of its size and despite its doctrine and emphaiss on the sconce of war. Actual capabilites were nearly non-existent. Iraq on the other hand had several advantages including unified command, better communications (fiber optics and a single language) better artillery. While the Regular army starved for supplies did indeed surrender (troops under seige always eventually surrender if unable to be releived) the Republican Guard didn't back down they fought with elan.

strap a couple of 152mm shells togeher, or blow up a gasoline tanker and you can put a hole in just about anything.

But in answer to your question with Russia's recent militancy and issues with Poland yes Russian weapons are a concern.

Officer of Engineers

So that I can understand your point, you're comparing the 1991, not the 1979, Soviet Army to the 1991 Iraqi Army?

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Chimo

Blademaster

Still the 1991 Red Army can do shades better than the 1991 Iraqi Army.

Stan187

Of course they had no practice in MOUT! The Soviet post-WWII doctrine was to bypass cities, fighting in them was assumed to just not happen.

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In Iran people belive pepsi stands for pay each penny save israel. -urmomma158
The Russian Navy is still a threat, but only to those unlucky enough to be Russian sailors.-highsea

zraver

more like 89+ but basically yes, it was ti illustrate hpow far they had fallen since the politcal shake up in the 70's combine dwith America's rapid technological development oin the late 70's into the 80's.

Iam not convinced of that. The late Soviet era Red Army was a joke. We didn't know that at the time, but after the fall thats the picture that emerged.

Well you know what they say about assumptions...