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To: SpeedyInTexas
It is funny listening to all the pro-Russian experts. They all have similar talking points on how awesome the modern Russian military is and how weak US and NATO are, as if the last ten months never happened. During the Gulf and Iraq Wars in the 1990s and 2000s, it was clear that Russian hardware had huge problems. The M-2 Bradley was one of the favorite targets of the military reform movement and the news during the Reagan years, and it still gets picked on today despite its success. It was supposed to put the Army at risk of losing the Gulf War. Then the 25mm cannons wrecked T-72's and Bradley's survived taking hits. After the first Gulf War getting taken seriously as military reformer was not easy when everything they said for the previous decade was largely proven wrong.

Most of the Russian military equipment is derived from the late Soviet era and early 1990s. Anything newer is designed and procured in the same system with the same problems, leading to long delays in deployment, high costs, and low numbers. Realistically, the internal problems the Russian military has now are likely worse than they were 30 years ago. Fighting smaller and more limited conflicts with weaker opponents hid much of their problems until now. There is now a accumulated 30 years since the collapse of Soviet Russia of how well Russian military equipment really works that those proclaiming Russia's inevitable victory choose to ignore.

56 posted on 01/01/2023 12:49:35 PM PST by Widget Jr (🇺🇦 Sláva Ukrayíni 🇺🇦 - No CCCP 2.0)
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To: Widget Jr
Your analysis is spot on...well done.

I would add that military equipment is not the only "issue" where Russia is struggling.

Their military doctrine is the same as the USSR doctrine. Decisions are made at the highest possible level. Independent thinking is simply not allowed.

RU strategies and tactics are also USSR hand-me-downs.

Massive artillery barrage, armored breakouts, infantry mop-up.

Almost no thought has been given to the impact of high technology on the battlefield.

To date, RU has lost 1600 tanks and a lot of those losses were quad copter drones dropping shape charge sub munitions on a tank parked in an open area.

It is funny listening to all the pro-Russian experts.

Pro-Russian expert is an oxymoron.

57 posted on 01/01/2023 1:37:04 PM PST by FtrPilot
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To: Widget Jr

The Russian army is a mirror of Russian society. It is too corrupt and incompetent to do anything but make a big mess in Ukraine. Putin is a classic schoolyard bully who has always counted on the west cutting off aid to Ukraine. He’s arrogantly motivated his Ukrainian opponents with maximalist and irrendist rhetoric. Nothing motivates a man to fight more than telling a him that his country has no right to exist and then bombing his home. Russia and Putin have no plan now. All he can do now is keep killing Ukrainians women and children with the hope that river of blood will give the friends of Ukraine cold feet.


58 posted on 01/01/2023 1:50:23 PM PST by lodi90
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To: Widget Jr

Very true!

I come to this thread and others, not to cheerlead one side over the other, but to simply find out what has happened.

I am retired military and absolutely interested in, for me, what is/was my profession.

The biggest problem that I see for Russia is logistics and got the Ukraine is higher-level staff.

I served from the 70s-90s and I very well remember all those news reports saying how awful our gear was.

I did believe, until this past year, that the Russians were ten feet tall, because that’s what we all thought. Every single rater of military forces had/has Russia as the World’s # 2 power, no?

Finally, I know how much we all hate the Woke, Obama, Biden, the democrats, the news media... The WEF and UN, Soros and Schuabb—all can take a hike. But it shouldn’t make us hate our own country. I will not belittle American troops. I want the woke yoke taken off of them (and I’ll bet you most troops do to), not more ridicule and rancor.


71 posted on 01/01/2023 5:14:10 PM PST by Alas Babylon! (Gov't declaring misinformation is tyranny: “Who determines what false information is?” )
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