Russia shows off their tactical advantage

[waveslayer]

I ran across this article. I thought it was interesting since we have had discussions about replacing the 5.56 for our military and what round they would use.

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/a.../?page=all

[montana]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=547BKysByqM

Not very scientific but interesting penetration tests between the 7.62X51, 7.62X39, 5.56 and 5.45X39

[BluntForceTrauma]

Debated whether to move this to Room 2A or here in the military section, but decided here.

Two things, and maybe I've gotten cynical after being an avid student of military history and affairs my whole life.

One, Gen. Scales seems to be following a typical script of hyping up the enemy's capabilities. This typically leads to more spending on the Military-Industrial Complex and for cushy jobs for generals who retire after championing more spending on the MIC. Now granted this usually takes place with missiles, planes, and tanks, and not usually small arms and body armor, but there you have it.

Two, retired general Wesley Clark is still around? I remember him as a very political, finger-to-the-wind type of general. I would have called him a left-leaning liberal, if such a thing exists in the military high command. And now he's talking all hawkish? Wanting to send U.S. military types to Ukraine? Another sop to the MIC. And wanting to crank up the MIC, yet again, and send military materiel to the Ukraine?

I can guarantee you that every single man here is all about giving the U.S. military every possible "tactical advantage" over any conceivable enemies, and yet when I see the lips moving on these co-opted so-called leaders wrapping themselves in the flag, why I don't believe them?

I'm sure Russia is a cesspool of corruption with military contracts funneled to cronies of Putin and back again. And, yet, somehow, I think of them as the kind of steely-eyed, serious adults that I would like to see in the U.S. civilian and military high command.

The Russians make bullets with an intent to kill, not with an intent to please the Sierra Club.

John

[montana]

Debated whether to move this to Room 2A or here in the military section, but decided here.

Two things, and maybe I've gotten cynical after being an avid student of military history and affairs my whole life.

One, Gen. Scales seems to be following a typical script of hyping up the enemy's capabilities. This typically leads to more spending on the Military-Industrial Complex and for cushy jobs for generals who retire after championing more spending on the MIC. Now granted this usually takes place with missiles, planes, and tanks, and not usually small arms and body armor, but there you have it.

Two, retired general Wesley Clark is still around? I remember him as a very political, finger-to-the-wind type of general. I would have called him a left-leaning liberal, if such a thing exists in the military high command. And now he's talking all hawkish? Wanting to send U.S. military types to Ukraine? Another sop to the MIC. And wanting to crank up the MIC, yet again, and send military materiel to the Ukraine?

I can guarantee you that every single man here is all about giving the U.S. military every possible "tactical advantage" over any conceivable enemies, and yet when I see the lips moving on these co-opted so-called leaders wrapping themselves in the flag, why I don't believe them?

I'm sure Russia is a cesspool of corruption with military contracts funneled to cronies of Putin and back again. And, yet, somehow, I think of them as the kind of steely-eyed, serious adults that I would like to see in the U.S. civilian and military high command.

The Russians make bullets with an intent to kill, not with an intent to please the Sierra Club.

John

+1 well put.

[stanc]

[video=youtube;TwCOITiD6Is]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwCOITiD6Is[/video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwCOITiD6Is

[BluntForceTrauma]

Good video, Stan. Exhibits the Russian approach to development ever since they copied Christie's suspension system for the T-34. They have no shame in ripping off the very best ideas and do not allow military capability to suffer simply because of Not Invented Here syndrome.

I would hope the U.S. also has such a singular focus on truly understanding combat problems and coming up with the best solutions the world's militaries have to offer.

John

[LRRPF52]

General Scales and Wesley Clark just hung their hind quarters. You rarely have "General" and "weapons expert" in the same universe. Politically-tracked officers are some of the most ignorant fools on the planet when it comes to technical capabilities of even the most basic pieces of equipment in their organizations.

The article is embarrassing proof of that. "Their helmets and armor are better than ours." mmmm hmmmmmmm

[LRRPF52]

That video comparing equipment and weapons is an important propaganda piece, mainly for their own forces, as well as armies in the region. It has no bearing with reality, but Russia has always been about parroting and posturing, while capabilities are marginal at best. Shear intimidation and speed have been more important, combined with a few simple weapons and equipment platforms and an aggressive foreign intelligence service with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians to rely on living in the border nations.

A lot of that will be changing as Russia catches up with the 21st Century in terms of armaments and electronics, but the technology is all taken from things developed in the West in the last Century. I was involved with the Land Warrior program, and things have come a long way.

The video where they compare the same XM16E1 (made in 1967 at the latest) to their 1990's-era AK74 is a perfect example of a joke at work, especially since a beater XM16E1 from 1967 is a better weapon than the latest hunk of garbage off the mill in Izhevsk. The fat bad circus actor guy slamming on the forward assist after each shot shows the level of understanding of how to use the weapon actually reaches a lower level than what is taught in the US Army and Marines in basic training, and those are some pretty freaking low bars or performance to reach under.

The really sad reality is that I saw scored of Russian conscripts carrying the old 1930's-era napsack as a standard issue piece of equipment in 2008-2009. Even with Putin's push to modernize, they will have to jump through a lot of hoops that we've already dealt with literally decades ago. Adding night vision monoculars to the helmet mount are we? Welcome to the late 1990's. They've received a lot of technical military help from Germany, who have this strange obsession with warming up to the Russians for some reason lately. If you read Der Spiegel, you will find articles talking about "Germany's Special Relationship with Russia".

[montana]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...s-say.html

I bet the older Germans are scratching their heads in confusion as I have been when looking at the course our country's have been taking. This is like our love affair with Communist nations under the pretext of trade. Lessons learned in blood seem to be quickly forgotten.

[LRRPF52]

The world was shocked when Russian special operations forces invaded Crimea with advanced technology, drastically improved operations, and with so much operational security that even agencies in the U.S. intelligence community didn’t see it coming. In Washington, government and congressional leaders are wondering how the Russian special operations forces got so good, so fast, without anyone noticing. Some are wondering how much help Russia had from the West.

In 2011, for example, the German defense contractor Rheinmetall signed a $140 million contract to build a combat simulation training center in Mulino, in southwest Russia, that would train 30,000 Russian combat troops per year.

You mean the same US Intelligence communities that didn't see...

* Pearl Harbor
* The creation of the Iron Curtain (Imagine all those train cars of concrete, timber, concertina wire, soldiers, dogs, cable, and materiel just...slipping by.)
* Were almost totally blind in Vietnam
* Were blind-sided by the Soviet-surrogate Middle Eastern terrorist organizations
* Didn't see 9/11 coming
* Started fabricating intelligence leading up to OIF because they didn't have anybody in most of the hostile Middle Eastern nations.
* Didn't know about the Germans providing order of battle and US forces' disposition before, during, and in the initial stages of OIF1 in 2002-2003.

Those guys? I'm truly shocked, I tell you.

If you had subscribed to private sector intelligence, you would have been reading about the Rheinmetall contract years and years ago. Puts the Greek bailouts in a totally different perspective, especially since Finland poured millions of cash into that sinking ship, under pressure from Germany, their EU "allies". There is a renewed push from the EU to ban personal ownership of handguns and semi autos in the EU nations. Maybe they should just make Putin the EU Supreme Chancellor and skip the BS?

If you peruse Der Spiegel's International Page, there is an entire section devoted to the US NSA Surveillance on Germany, to include 11 articles in that area alone. http://www.spiegel.de/international/

The German leadership is actually pretty pissed at the US for a number of reasons, namely the US taking out Saddam in 2003, who was backing his oil trade in Euro's, which is the Deutschmark camouflaged as a continent-wide currency that places Germany on better international footing due to currency ratings beneficial to Germany. They can't be honest with their populace about it, because the whole blood for oil/George Bush rants fall off the tracks at that point, and you realize the US had a very legitimate interest in stomping a mudhole in Saddam, regardless of the consequences for the Euro, which is a really bad idea altogether from the start-trying to unify dozens of nations who have entirely different cultures, languages, and interests with the same currency.