US army vs. Russian army

[kNikS]

I was simply pointing out Russia's diffculties in the Chechen wars and had great diffuclty in Afghnaistan. Without proper training they can't take on a major power without suffering heavly losses, not to mnetion being at a significant disadvantage. One of my articles states the current training level in the Russian military, it's still not that good. Russia has numbers and tech but needs to catch up on training and it's not doing so good with that. Im not saying Russia is easy to defeat though.

No. Let me remind you how it was.

You painted a biased picture about Russian army, its training, technology, tactics and conflicts involved. In adittion to that you stated something equally biased concerning tanks and thier role. After that you posted few links from 1999, 2000 and wikipedia to back that up (and failed). And now you are starting same story but in somewhat dilluted form. It ain't gonna work.

There is a Russian on this board. If he want's he could tell you few things about their training. There are people on the board that know much about Russian equipment. There are people that know much about tactics and military history. Why don't you try to learn something from them before rushing to blind them with your knowledge?

[Garry]

Thank you for updating me on the subject!

Unfortunatelly there is one thing I have to agree with Urmamomma. Russian army needs reform, at least the army in which I served (Soviet then) needed it badly. For example we had so many things in Ustav (A code of rules) which in the view of fellow soldiers and even officers were outdated, but were firm like stone. I think any army is built on tradition and change is something very hard to when those tradition are strong. But that is just my oppinion of former conscript.

Luckilly I did not have anything to do with Army since 1991 when I was released from service and came back .... to completelly different country!

In my view a combination of professional army and short 6 month conscript service would be good for Russia in common world. The reality is that

1) whatever we discussed - neither USA nor any other big country would ever dare to attack Russian territory with regular army..... I agree with concensus oppinion that Russia may face a smaller scale conventional conflicts on its border states or some limited wars like Chechnya on its territory.

2) If Russia does not plan to attack Western Europe nor prepare for their attack there is no point in keeping such a LARGE ARMY AND LARGE WEAPON MANUFACTURING CAPACITIES as Russia has now. However Russia needs to keep capability to SCALE UP its army within a year or two....

3) Russian GDP is now sufficient to sustain a professional army - with spendings of $24bn now and around $50bn with appreciation of Ruble,

4) IT IS PROVEN STATISTICALLY that release of conscripts gives strong rise to GDP PER CAPITA... it was so in Germany, Japan, USA, USSR (reduction of conscripts), China.... this happens with the lag of 3-5 years but its effect significant to be evident. That is because young man has his CAPABILITY TO LEARN DECLINING from 18 years to 60 years. Hence if you change the consript service from 2 years to 6 month you save him 1.5 years to train for a higher qualification => more qualified workforce => more conditions for higher value added activity. And there are also a direct effect besides that - a million of yong guys working for 1.5 years gives good rise in GDP, compared to situation when they are doing nothing.

5) As a former consript I may state that everything usefull that I learned I did learn in first 3 month of service, and forgot in 2 years after service. So there is nothing to justify additional 1.5 years.... It will not improve combat capability of rapidly mobilized army.

6) Comming back to the point #1 ..... a smaller professional army is much better to handle a small scale, low intencity conflicts on Russian border....

My personal conclusion - Russia may have a highly professional army of around 300K for all branches (Army+NAVY+Air Force+Strategic Force) and a training program for another million or two conscripts annually with their service not exceeding 6 month.

PS. I agree that Soviet Army had anything but defeat in Afghanistan.... the total number of Soviet soldiers killed there in 10 years was around 15.000 and another 90.000 wounded. In western press I read that Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan because of logistical problems when stingers killed too many helicoptes.... THAT IS A GREATEST MYTH. Statistics tells that total number of helicopters lost in Afghanistan was less than 350 from all reasons (half due to weather and malfuctions) and MOST of them were lost IN FIRST 4 YEARS... with helicopter/aircraft losses in the last two years in Afghanistan being LOWEST since occupation began. Soviet Union could not sustain occupation ECONOMICALLY as oil prices went down. But even that was not major reason..... Gorbachev was WISE and thanks to him USSR pooled back.

[canoe]

5) As a former consript I may state that everything usefull that I learned I did learn in first 3 month of service, and forgot in 2 years after service. So there is nothing to justify additional 1.5 years.... It will not improve combat capability of rapidly mobilized army.

I'll have to disagree here. Admittidly I have virtually no knowledge of infantry training standards of the former Soviet Union. That said I do have alot of knowledge regard western training standards. Specificly the training provided in Canada for light infantry.

My training was quite a bit longer then 3 months, plus there were always advanced courses available. In 3 months you could probably learn *basic* infantry tactics. However I don't beleive you'd have your people trained anywhere near western standards.

In my opinion you'd need a minimum of 8 months of basic training plus another 3-6 months of workup training for each mission. The Americans are proving right now in Iraq providing high quality training pays off in reducing casualties and improving the effectiveness of your troops.

[kNikS]

I would have to dissagree on both points.

Training of conscripts in VJ (and JNA before) was in some means similar to those of SSSR. It was 2 years, than it's reduced to one year and now it's 9 months. For regular (motorized infantry) units, basic training lasts 3 months, for other branches longer - even whole service. I haven't served yet but lot of people told me that in regular infantry few last months are complete waste of time (and money) - simply becasue they didn't practiced anything new.

My point is - longer service in this case doesn't necessery mean better one (I'm not talking about western standards), but on the other side, simply cuting time doesn't necessarily mean improvement in training.

[canoe]

I would have to dissagree on both points.

Training of conscripts in VJ (and JNA before) was in some means similar to those of SSSR. It was 2 years, than it's reduced to one year and now it's 9 months. For regular (motorized infantry) units, basic training lasts 3 months, for other branches longer - even whole service. I haven't served yet but lot of people told me that in regular infantry few last months are complete waste of time (and money) - simply becasue they didn't practiced anything new.

My point is - longer service in this case doesn't necessery mean better one (I'm not talking about western standards), but on the other side, simply cuting time doesn't necessarily mean improvement in training.

Theres always stuff you can claim is a waste of time. I.E the nuclear part of my NBC training was generally speaking a waste of time. That said I'd say most of the training I did receive overall was useful. Infact there is nothing I'd say would be worth cutting, and the new guys even get more training in areas like urban warfare then I did.

[Bill]

No. Let me remind you how it was.

You painted a biased picture about Russian army, its training, technology, tactics and conflicts involved. In adittion to that you stated something equally biased concerning tanks and thier role. After that you posted few links from 1999, 2000 and wikipedia to back that up (and failed). And now you are starting same story but in somewhat dilluted form. It ain't gonna work.

There is a Russian on this board. If he want's he could tell you few things about their training. There are people on the board that know much about Russian equipment. There are people that know much about tactics and military history. Why don't you try to learn something from them before rushing to blind them with your knowledge?

I've been around a lot of russkie equipment from the cold war era.

It was crude and poorly constructed junk. All of it.

One example was their tactical radios. I familiarized on their 'standard tactical radio'(i just cant remember the designation, sorry) one day and it was like training on a World War II era antique. Here we were in the US Army running around with our own state of the art digital frequency-hopping SINCGARs radios, and Russians had some piece of crap that wasn't even comparable to a vietnam era AN/PRC-47.

[Bill]

I would have to dissagree on both points.

Training of conscripts in VJ (and JNA before) was in some means similar to those of SSSR. It was 2 years, than it's reduced to one year and now it's 9 months. For regular (motorized infantry) units, basic training lasts 3 months, for other branches longer - even whole service. I haven't served yet but lot of people told me that in regular infantry few last months are complete waste of time (and money) - simply becasue they didn't practiced anything new.

My point is - longer service in this case doesn't necessery mean better one (I'm not talking about western standards), but on the other side, simply cuting time doesn't necessarily mean improvement in training.

A nine month in-service private is not worth the uniform he's filling.

In the US we don't even COMMIT a troop to a battlezone unless they have at least 1 year in service.

Sending a guy with 9mo's in service to a place like Chechnya, well......the results are very predictible...you're going to end up putting a lot of young men in body bags.

Your own.

[kNikS]

I've been around a lot of russkie equipment from the cold war era.

It was crude and poorly constructed junk. All of it.

One example was their tactical radios. I familiarized on their 'standard tactical radio'(i just cant remember the designation, sorry) one day and it was like training on a World War II era antique. Here we were in the US Army running around with our own state of the art digital frequency-hopping SINCGARs radios, and Russians had some piece of crap that wasn't even comparable to a vietnam era AN/PRC-47.

Hm.. we would have to agree that we disagree on this one.

I agree that their equipment isn’t always capable as US but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t adequate for purposes intended for. And don’t think that I’m one of those who would reach for any Russian weapon before the western one.

I wouldn’t oppose you about the radios, I’m not especially versed about that topic.

[kNikS]

A nine month in-service private is not worth the uniform he's filling.

In the US we don't even COMMIT a troop to a battlezone unless they have at least 1 year in service.

Sending a guy with 9mo's in service to a place like Chechnya, well......the results are very predictible...you're going to end up putting a lot of young men in body bags.

Your own.

Keep in mind that VSCG is army in transition with ambitions to be purely professional in some time. Besides, contractors get significantly better training. And we do have some pretty good brigades even by NATO standards, which easily might do the job well in places like Chechnya.

On the other side, politicians (read: Milosevic) always relied on MUP (ministry of interior) to keep his regime on power. As a result of that you have Gendarmerie, which hardly has an equivalent in light infantry units in the Army.

Not all armed forces perceive and do things like US Army, but it doesn’t mean that they are incapable.

[Shadowsided]

You consider, what about 11 thousand victims in Afghanistan for 10 years it is greater losses? Then on yours and armies of a coalition in Iraq have bad training as for 3 years they has lost 2,629 person. Losses of the USSR 1100 person in a year, coalitions 880 person in a year. If to consider, that in Afghanistan it is more convenient to apply tactics of guerrilla war (mountain in difference from desert), it is possible to consider losses equal.

In the Chechen Republic you should consider, that it more likely civil war, therefore on federal armies the set of restrictions, on application of aircraft, artillery and so on has been imposed. Especially strongly it was appreciable in 1995-1996.

The warfare in both countries is completely different you see. Urban guerilla warfare is very different from those in non urban areas. Russia is still under trained. Don't get mad because the facts are against you. You still failed to conquer Afghanistan while we did the same with a much smaller force in a smaller time frame.

[Shadowsided]

No. Let me remind you how it was.

You painted a biased picture about Russian army, its training, technology, tactics and conflicts involved. In adittion to that you stated something equally biased concerning tanks and thier role. After that you posted few links from 1999, 2000 and wikipedia to back that up (and failed). And now you are starting same story but in somewhat dilluted form. It ain't gonna work.

There is a Russian on this board. If he want's he could tell you few things about their training. There are people on the board that know much about Russian equipment. There are people that know much about tactics and military history. Why don't you try to learn something from them before rushing to blind them with your knowledge?

Do you have any proof that they are well trained. You are from an eastern bloc nation I know how you will defend yourself even when the facts are against you. You have no proof they're properly trained and if you bothered to read one of my links is from 2003.

[PubFather]

The warfare in both countries is completely different you see. Urban guerilla warfare is very different from those in non urban areas. Russia is still under trained. Don't get mad because the facts are against you. You still failed to conquer Afghanistan while we did the same with a much smaller force in a smaller time frame.

Sort of in the same way the USA failed to defeat North Vietnam?

[FOG3]

Sort of in the same way the USA failed to defeat North Vietnam?

Can't most of the problems in Vietnam be tracked back to politicians micromanaging? A problem that's so old even Sun Tzu makes a big point of it in The Art of War.

[Shadowsided]

Sort of in the same way the USA failed to defeat North Vietnam?

Yes but you fail to realize several realities.

1) Us troops had little determination or will to fight
2) We weren't necessarily ready for jungle guerilla warfare
3) bad intelligence
4) Jungle guerilla warfare is very different from that in an area like Afghanistan. its funny how we defeated the afghani's with little troops while the Russians couldn't manage this feat with even more troops.

[Shadowsided]

It's all about the training which the Russians don't have.