Myths and Realities of the Russian/NATO NCO Systems

Simplicius the Thinker ^ | 9/2/23 | Simpicius

[MarMema]

That was my conclusion.

We dropped the ball on development.

[EnderWiggin1970]

I hardly ever watch video, but there is a guy (Nate) who passes along multiple videos each day on Moon of Alabama (see post 399 for example) https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/ukraine-open-thread-2023-210/comments/page/4/#comments

[MuttTheHoople]

By 1945, the Red Army was a well-oiled machine from the top down. After the war, Stalin went back to his pre-war paranoia and allowed the unit cohesiveness to deteriorate.

With the exception of World War 2, Russians never fight well outside their own borders. From World War I, to Finland all the way through to Afghanistan, and now to their war with Ukraine the Russian troops performed poorly. The only reason they won any of these engagements was because of massive manpower and firepower advantage.

[MuttTheHoople]

This happens in every war the US has faced. You have a general cadre of Regular officers and NCO’s, who then train the citizen-soldiers to become officers and NCO’s. Often these troops perform much better in combat than the cadre because they were baptized by fire, and learned teh ways to survive

[MuttTheHoople]

Didn’t read it, but I’m pretty sure that any Red Army soldier that survived three years fighting the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS was going to be a total, complete utter badass.

[MuttTheHoople]

When I was in the US Army, you had Four weeks of PLDC training that you had as an Army specialist or corporal before you became a sergeant.

You had 6-8 weeks of BNOC to make Staff, 6-8 weeks of ANOC to make SFC.

Not necessarily "years and years" of training.