State of the Russian Military

What is the status of it?

The Army is surely no longer anything that can sustain modern combat without falling apart entirely. It's Air Force is now an independent entertainment/tourist service MiGs Over Moscow. The Navy is rusting and new ships being sold before even having their keel laid.

What has come of this one-time terrifying monolith of over 14 years ago?

The Russian military forces have been in a state of stagnation for the past 15 years however things are slowly starting to change for the better.

thanks,
drfunk

India and China are buying at all up

What will the Russian military look like in 2010? Because they look nothing like the Soviet-era military at all anymore.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
What will the Russian military look like in 2010? Because they look nothing like the Soviet-era military at all anymore.

When did you see Soviet-era military except for in propaganda movies and pictures released by the Soviets?

Originally posted by taibunsuu
When did you see Soviet-era military except for in propaganda movies and pictures released by the Soviets?

Not sure I understand... I mean we all know how powerful the Soviet-era military was, don't we?

Get this. In 1988, they field 200 lightly-manned but heavily-armed divisions. Now they have 10. Their military seems to have completely collapsed.

That's what happens to a military machine with nothing to back it and support it. It's like having a big line of credit, but no income. You can live it up for a while, but it will eventually catch up with you.

Originally posted by cubiehole
That's what happens to a military machine with nothing to back it and support it. It's like having a big line of credit, but no income. You can live it up for a while, but it will eventually catch up with you.

Are you talking about the Soviet-era? Because that had nothing to do with the current Russian military's downfall.

When the Soviet Union fell, so did the military and had nothing to do with backing.

Soviet economy was total sham, but it did support the military. Collapse of Soviet Union has everything to do with implosion of its military, just as the collapse of the United States would have everything to do with the collapse of the US military.

Russian divisions were more comparable to US regiments anyway. Most of the soldiers in infantry of Soviet Union were peasant boys who fired two shots from an AK-47, then declared a soldier. Russia has some awesome strategists. Notice they never attacked the West in Europe. It would have been an unimaginable slaughter, especially after the AVF got rolling. Western tech and militaries had so much more training, money, morale, and technology than the Soviet military it's not even funny.

Yeah, I'm mainly talking about the USSR, but it does relate Russia today. In a very general sense, military has to do with money. Sure, a country can have the money to make a military, and just choose not have much of one, but if a country wants to have a military, they got to have the money to back it.

That's what it basically came down to for the USSR military, and government for that matter. It's also, more or less, the same problem for Russia's current military: not enough to no money. Think of it like food. You don't make a million man army, if you only have enough food to feed 10,000 of them

I'm not anti military at all, but let's face it, a military cost a lot, and doesn't really create any money. There can be arms sales, but not nearly enough to maintain and pay for an army. Even if such sales were made to pay for a countries army, it would basically negate any military force created because you're enemies would have the same things you have. That, and the countries that really have a whole lot of money to spend on such things, tend to just build their own armies.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Russian divisions were more comparable to US regiments anyway. Most of the soldiers in infantry of Soviet Union were peasant boys who fired two shots from an AK-47, then declared a soldier. Russia has some awesome strategists. Notice they never attacked the West in Europe. It would have been an unimaginable slaughter, especially after the AVF got rolling. Western tech and militaries had so much more training, money, morale, and technology than the Soviet military it's not even funny.

No, it would not have been an unimaginable slaughter. At least according to all western military commanders of the time. In fact, failure was almost expected.

The Warsaw Pact still had the advantage of total firepower and numbers. It's fighter and bomber pilots were well-trained, and the advantage in numbers would've annihilated NATO forces. All this is due to the fact NATO would've required reinforcements quickly, but it's doubted the current forces in NATO could hold off the Red Rage.

Also, the technological edge NATO had over the Warsaw Pact was not as big as many would've hoped it to be. NATO was just a little better.

In the end, the world would've ended. Eventually, NATO would have to resort to tactical nuclear weapons as a last-ditch attempt at winning the war, but this would undoubtedly lead to nuclear war and the world would have completely ended. Nobody would've survived and Earth would be very empty and desolate, peaking in a couple thousand rems on lethal radiation from the thousands of thermonuclear warheads. Scary.

But hey, it didn't happen, right?

So where is the RUSSIAN FEDERATION military going?

cubiehole,

But the Soviet miltiary fell apart AFTER the Soviet Union was dissolved. So money had nothing to do with it, it was the fall of the entire nation.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo


So where is the RUSSIAN FEDERATION military going?

probably towards better trained but smaller army, like most countries now aday's

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Russian divisions were more comparable to US regiments anyway. Most of the soldiers in infantry of Soviet Union were peasant boys who fired two shots from an AK-47, then declared a soldier. Russia has some awesome strategists. Notice they never attacked the West in Europe. It would have been an unimaginable slaughter, especially after the AVF got rolling. Western tech and militaries had so much more training, money, morale, and technology than the Soviet military it's not even funny.

No, it would not have been an unimaginable slaughter. At least according to all western military commanders of the time. In fact, failure was almost expected.

Western military commanders don't have the habit of overestimating the enemy, and wisely so. In retrospect, when you can look at all the data available, talk to Russians who served in the Army and hear how miserable their training and morale was, and talk to Americans in the Army at the time, and view the results of Western and Eastern technology fighting in proxy US - Soviet wars, you get a better picture of what would have happened than you could at the time of the Cold War.

You know what the biggest reason that Russian pilots didn't defect more during the Cold War was? They weren't given enough fuel to make it to Western countries or countries friendly to the West. Ever heard of Lieutenant Belenko? He's the guy who flew his Mig-25 to Hokkaido International Airport, landing on fumes. He only defected because the alternative to living in the Soviet Union was suicide and he figured that if the West is truly worse, that's always an alternative.

I've spoken to soldiers and combat aviators who served in Germany in the 1980s and they all say the same, that we really didn't have a chance besides nuclear war.

Again, we should all be happy we never went to war with the Soviet Union and their allies. None of us would be alive today. Talk about good fortune.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
I've spoken to soldiers and combat aviators who served in Germany in the 1980s and they all say the same, that we really didn't have a chance besides nuclear war.

Make your own analysis of situations but be prepared to change your mind as you encounter new data.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Make your own analysis of situations but be prepared to change your mind as you encounter new data.

It almost doesn't matter. It would've come to nuclear war one way or the other. So whether the Soviets got slaughtered or not is a moot point, because everyone would die in the end.

I don't even know we're talking about this. We should be celebrating it never happened, not fretting about what would've happened.

It's truly a blessing, that we never fought the Soviet Union.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
cubiehole,

But the Soviet miltiary fell apart AFTER the Soviet Union was dissolved. So money had nothing to do with it, it was the fall of the entire nation.

Yes, but what was one of the big reasons the entire thing fell apart?

After the fall, funding to the military went way down, and that's why there was the delay in the loss of the military power. They still had everything they had built, but they no longer had the resources to keep up the military machine. Once they stopped funding the military at necessary levels needed to maintain machines and keep people properly trained and ready, the decay began.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
You know what the biggest reason that Russian pilots didn't defect more during the Cold War was? They weren't given enough fuel to make it to Western countries or countries friendly to the West. Ever heard of Lieutenant Belenko? He's the guy who flew his Mig-25 to Hokkaido International Airport, landing on fumes. He only defected because the alternative to living in the Soviet Union was suicide and he figured that if the West is truly worse, that's always an alternative.

Erm, Not true, there were many bases in teh Warsaw Pact countries where pilots could have easily reached Western Europe, with bugger all gas in the tank. Let's face it if you have an hours worth of gas, you can fly a long way.

Originally posted by mad scientist

Originally posted by taibunsuu
You know what the biggest reason that Russian pilots didn't defect more during the Cold War was? They weren't given enough fuel to make it to Western countries or countries friendly to the West. Ever heard of Lieutenant Belenko? He's the guy who flew his Mig-25 to Hokkaido International Airport, landing on fumes. He only defected because the alternative to living in the Soviet Union was suicide and he figured that if the West is truly worse, that's always an alternative.

Erm, Not true, there were many bases in teh Warsaw Pact countries where pilots could have easily reached Western Europe, with bugger all gas in the tank. Let's face it if you have an hours worth of gas, you can fly a long way.

Yeah you can fly a long way at interceptable speeds like subsonic while your comrades are flying up behind you at supersonic on afterburner with heat seekers ready to go live. Or you can fly a long way going nice and slow at fuel efficient altitude while SA-5 locks onto your ass and blows you away.