Russian Ground Forces: News #1

I guess- but when compared to American units, our guys suffer pretty badly in conditions and living quality, which in turn shows in combat preparedness.
Soldiers should not be doing civilian tasks while in the army.
A unit that spends its time digging ditches for the commander is not a unit that is effectively training for combat!
Situation varies from unit to unit ofc, but I have hear some "horror" stories from friends and family...

Some of the things can be fixed simply with money, and not even that much of it.
Others are more systemic issues with officer core/dedy/NCOs (or lack of)....

As I understand it, the "new brigades" that are deployed in newly built bases and are mostly contract troops are significantly better off in most of these respects

http://www.militaryparitet.com/ttp/data/ic_ttp/4785/-Pozdrawiam!

lol, Cenatauro and Freccia fail testing at Kubinka.
I am surprised (not).
Apparently Russia is still safe from NATO though, since their vehicles wont work in Russia.

The characteristics did not meet their claimed levels- both in climatic adaptation AND mine protection :O
Positives were smooth ride, fast acceleration, accurate main gun fire....
on the negative the vehicles flat our refused to start in the negative degree weather!
The vehicles had to be towed into cover, warmed up, then exited the garage for trials.
When the vehicles stopped, hydraulic fluids froze over.
An amusing situation happened when the Centauro fired- the snow storm that formed when the gun fired, immedietly blocked all of the optics and vision ports. Wipers were not able to clean the glass themselves.
The vehicles were not fired upon, since the Italians own them obviously. However, during testing, one of the vehicles had a rough encounter with an obstacle that hit the underside of the hull. The motor-transmission area immediately started leaking, after one hit.

By the way, as a result of the "reforms", the testing center had a hard time finding qualified miitary personnel (they were supposed to test the vehicles, not industry people) to even start the tests. Thanks Serdykov!


Please god let the Lynx order be cancelled.
These vehicles are fine for the Italian army- they are simply not adequate for Russian conditions.

Interesting find.

Apparently Russia is still safe from NATO though, since their vehicles wont work in Russia.

What's surprising is that the centauro has been in service for some time now. I wonder if the Striker has the same problems discovered in the italian vehicles during the Kubinka trials.

Not really a huge surprise that this vehicle failed in an environment it was not really designed for.

Bit if a cliche to talk about the harsh Russian winter, but many vehicles and weapons have failed in those sorts of conditions before and many will fail in the future too.

Does that mean Winter conditions in Russia are different compared to winter conditions in Western Europe ?

I am sure even Europe designs vehicals around Winter Conditions , whats unqiue about Russia ?

flamming_python wrote:The more I hear of Serdyukov, the more I just want to spit in disgust. That lil' worm.

Why was he removed from his post just because of his suspect being involved in corruption or something much deeper but not know ?

I heard the defence service didnt like him much but he had to do the difficult and dirty task of reforming him

flamming_python wrote:Colder, longer, far deeper snow cover, worse infrastructure (Spring thaws can be even more impassable than the actual winter itself), much more sparsely populated and thus far longer distances to travel/less opportunities for service.

Was not aware of this difference , Thanks

I'm not much surprised in Centauro and Freccia fail in tests if they are the same quality as FIAT cars.

I hope with modernized BTR-82M they will get similar capable vehicle as Freccia with better all weather capabilities. About Centauro, I think Russian MoD will do better with buying more Sprut-SD as light tanks.

Apparently the "Ïtalians" had trouble operating at -10C which is not particularly cold for Russia but would be considered fairly harsh by Western European winter standards.

Also, the Israeli built UAV's had trouble coping with cold temperatures so the Russian version has been modified with winter temperatures in mind. Rogozin recently mentioned requesting a redesign/modification of the Iveco/Lynx taking Russian complaints and suggestions in account from the trials of the vehicle in Russia....so it doesn't seem likely they will cancel the order

The problem with Lynx, is in terms of off road ability + internal space, it is simply not adequate for the roles envisaged.
No amount of cold-weather modifications can fix that.

This is the Rogozin interview which has a decent amount of info on the Lynx....among other things, he says the Lynx and the Tiger have different roles and are not direct competitors

http://dokwar.ru/publ/voenny_vestnik/novosti_vpk/d_rogozin_rys_i_tigr_ne_konkurirujut_mezhdu_soboj/2-1-0-574

Twower interviewed a spetznaz/reco unit, that had its Tigers directly switched for Lynx.

They were not happy.

I think Tiger+Scorpion is a much better combination than Lynx.

Serdyukov was one of the biggest mistakes ever.

They needed an outsider to implement unpopular reforms and put the OPK (Mil-Ind complex) in it's place. To his credit, he managed to ram through most of the unpopular stuff. Now you can argue whether everything was necessary or not, personally I think a shake up was needed. The negative side is that he was crude, arrogant and very amateurish as far as military technical knowledge goes and made enemies everywhere. His critics say he has a type of Napoleon complex (doesn't take advice and believes he is always right).

There is still the Volk model that looks very promising

Last I read about it is that it needs more work on it. We'll see what happens I guess. I think this flirting with the Italians has a bigger political-economic angle to it. They're trying to entice the major Italian companies to open up factories in Russia by emphasising it's low tax regime, qualified work force and other enticements....apparently the Italians are showing interest

Well Italian sports cars are among the best in the world, if not the best owing to their long motor vehicle tradition....by default, their military vehicles are pretty decent as well. Considering the economic crisis in the EU, the Russians would be silly not to try and capitilise on a rare opportunity to attract foreign businesses

....

Not sure if it's been mentioned previously but some interesting news...

A new law envisages the formation of a paid semi-professional Army reserve

http://www.rg.ru/2012/12/28/armiya-site.html

What's wrong with their current vehicles? I don't know an awful lot, about military vehicles, but it seems what they want is a vehicle that can easily traverse the harsh Russian climate without breaking down as much?

TR1 wrote:

SWAT Pointman wrote:Serdyukov was one of the biggest mistakes ever.

To be fair, his failings are a symptom of the failings of the military and government all together.
Serdykov was backed by thousands of officials just as guilty - not to mention our top Duo who supported him for years.

The difference between corrupt American and Russian politicians, you know when the Russian politicians are being corrupt, while the American politicians make every effort to hide it.

Very simply their current vehicles are mostly those bought in the 1980s and early 1990s and have not been well maintained because there was little money for parts and repairs.

It is time to update the vehicles and they are deciding what suits them best.

I rather suspect that these Italian vehicles... if they ever enter service will likely end up in use by the new military police and therefore operate mostly on roads.

I suspect there is a political reason behind the purchase... no doubt they are good vehicles for what they were designed for, but I also suspect Russian needs are different enough and there are enough Russian makers wanting those contracts to make it purely a case of need.

Someone wants to attract Italian investment/production to Russia, or are chasing after a very specific technology with these contracts.

A good comparison would be with UAVs, the Russians are not just buying some very expensive previous generation Israeli UAVs, they are buying production facilities to make UAVs, which can be used to create all Russian UAV designs later on... I rather suspect the production and management structure is what they really want in the short term and over the longer term Russian makers can move in and use the new facilities to create their own products.

SWAT Pointman wrote:What's wrong with their current vehicles? I don't know an awful lot, about military vehicles, but it seems what they want is a vehicle that can easily traverse the harsh Russian climate without breaking down as much?

TR1 wrote:

SWAT Pointman wrote:Serdyukov was one of the biggest mistakes ever.

To be fair, his failings are a symptom of the failings of the military and government all together.
Serdykov was backed by thousands of officials just as guilty - not to mention our top Duo who supported him for years.

The difference between corrupt American and Russian politicians, you know when the Russian politicians are being corrupt, while the American politicians make every effort to hide it.

True, to some extent you could accuse many American politicians of "legal" corruption under the blanket of politics.

Our guys surpass them in blatant money stealing that hurts people though.

Regarding Lynx, the whole thing was this new craze with mine protection, and trying to scare the industry by buying foreign vehicles.
All great, if the foreign stuff is perfect.
How many times will light vehicles be mined, vs having to go off-road and on obstacles, with overloaded equipment (Like Spetsnaz need)...? Answer is obvious I think.
You can see Tiger as a base for many vehicles too (ECM, Anti-tank, reco) while the Lynx will struggle to fulfill any of those tasks due to simply being smaller and weaker.
There is a domestic mine protected vehicle (Skorpion) that IMO is a better replacement for most UAZiks in the Army.

I just don't see the need for expensive, foreign vehicles that are not adequate for Russian conditions, that complicate supply structure, that don't even fit the roles they are shoving them in for.....the Russian army can live for several years while the domestic vehicles are worked out, a "band=aid" of almost 2000 Lynxes is an expensive price indeed.

I agree that the old everything foreign must therefore be better than domestic idea no longer applies and they should be careful with their bluffing that they don't end up having to play their hand.

Lots of vehicles need replacing and not all of them need to be super vehicles able to shrug off IEDs and mines that will kill a tank.

More importantly from the Kamaz thread we know that quite a few technologies on the Italian vehicles are not even Italian so to actually get a licence to make them Russia will need to negotiate licence production agreements with a range of countries... a few of which may not be interested in letting Russia licence produce their technology.

At the end of the day lets hope part of the interest was corruption oriented and with the removal of Serdyakov then the interest will be removed too.

In the US corruption is given different names... 3 hour power lunches with congressmen to discuss how our company can help with unemployment within their state in return for a vote that goes against the public interest is called lobbying in the US... quite often ex military personel who know the Pentagon inside and out are given high up jobs within private companies because of their knowledge of government and the military that enables them to get contracts. It is corrupt too, but they will just call it business.

There is high corruption in Russia because you haven't come up with better names for it yet...

Ushanka`s are a thing of the past it seems now.

Russian Army Says Goodbye to Earflaps

MOSCOW, January 18 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Army will drop its traditional fur hat with ear flaps – known as the “ushanka” – in favor of modern winter headgear, as part of a new military uniform, a senior official at a Russian design company said on Friday.

The whole article - Russian Army Says Goodbye to Earflaps - Ria Novsti