Russian army scraps new uniforms

bbc ^ | 1 May 2009 | Steven Eke

[JoeProBono]

A plan to replace Soviet-era Russian military uniforms with ones by a leading fashion designer has been abandoned because of a lack of money. The plan to bring in the new uniforms, designed by Valentin Yudashkin, was supported by Russian PM Vladimir Putin. There is now only enough money to pay for uniforms for soldiers taking part in the forthcoming Victory Day parade. Everyone else, it seems, will remain in the rather drab olive shades Russia inherited from the former Soviet Union.

'Less frumpy' On Friday, Senator Viktor Ozerov, chairman of Russian Federation Council committee on defence and security, told the radio station Ekho Moskvy that the army knew what to spend money on - and that new uniforms were not a priority. Valentin Yudashkin shows off his uniform designs (23 April 2008) Valentin Yudashkin's designs built on the uniforms of imperial Russia "I think that the uniforms which servicemen now wear make it possible to distinguish them from civilians," he said. The new designs for the army uniforms come from Russia's leading fashion designer, Valentin Yudashkin.

[SIDENET]

YIKES!

[SIDENET]

Somehow, I just knew that Helen Thomas would show up on this thread.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

No way does the official uniform for a servicewoman include a miniskirt... I can’t believe it...

[uglybiker]

Dam are the skirts from the Star Trek TOS school of uniforms?

You complaining?

[MaxMax]

Anytime a woman calls you Sweetie, RUN.

[donmeaker]

He was an impressive man, but did have a splendid uniform on. He would have done better to have kept his oath and remained true to the US government.

It is said he was the best commander the Marines ever had.

He hope he was able to find peace afterwards. What sad times they were.

[nathanbedford]

Are you referring to the time Lee and Jeb Stuart took the train from Washington to Harpers Ferry to relieve the occupation of the armory and free the hostages taken by John Brown? I have often posted that our presidents should take note of Lee's decisive handling of that situation. He sent Jeb Stuart to the door with instructions to deliver an ultimatum to John Brown to surrender at once but Stewart was not to negotiate. If John Brown started to filibuster, Jeb Stuart was to stand aside and waive his hat whereupon the contingent of Marines, whose muskets had been unloaded to avoid injury to the captives, would storm the armory. This is what occurred and, if memory serves, one captive was lost. Robert E. Lee certainly commanded the Marines well on that occasion.

The terrorist John Brown was subsequently hanged and justice was done.

As to the observation that Lee, "would have done better to have kept his oath and remained true to the US government", that is a judgment that is made after a century and a half of perspective. It is clear that all his life Lee regarded his choice to have been the moral choice. I think that we have to judge historical characters upon the knowledge that they had or which was reasonably available to them. Judging by this standard, I will not substitute my judgment for his when he declined the union' s offer of command of their forces and to retire to his home state and not to draw his sword except in the defense of Virginia.

If I recall correctly, there were two "Lee to the rear" incidents where he exposed himself to peril in front of his troops to rally them in the dark days of 1864 when the weight of numbers was simply debriding his forces through a pitilessly imposed attrition. The quoted words were of his troops promising they would plug the hole if he would personally withdraw to the rear and get out of harm's way. These incidents lead me to believe that he was wholly committed to the cause during the war.

Although he behaved as a model citizen of the Union after the war, his reticence about the war was rarely broken, but a couple of remarks seem to indicate a deep regret that the cause was lost. Certainly he remained nostalgically fond of his officers and men to the end of his life.

Was it immoral for Lee to have decided that the larger moral commitment was to his state rather than his country? Clearly, within his culture his choice was the statistically normal one and a fully rational one.

[donmeaker]

And I disagree with his choice, but he paid dearly for his bad judgement. I think one of his sons was quoted that he intended to fortify Arlington with the guns pointed south.

Grant marveled at the bravery of the southern soldiers, and surpassed the southern partisans in his admiration of those fine men.

Further, Grant noted that some 40 regiments from the south fought for the United States. What a pity that Lee was not in charge of some of them, fighting against the rebels who sought to make war so they could further the cause of slavery. Certainly not all southerners fought for slavery, but rather a lot of the southern politicians had invested in slavery, and were concered that if slavery was banned from the territories (the anti slavery position of the Republicans was moderate, and did not anticipate banning slavery in states where it existed) that the price in their speculative investment would decrease.

Lee also commanded Marines as a Major in Mexico, with Sam Grant of the 4th Infantry as one of the follow on forces.

[nathanbedford]

As I read contemporary accounts of German soldiers in World War II, as I am now involved in reading three volume history of our local county seat here in Germany from 1918 to 1945, I cannot say that the German soldiers were fighting to keep the allies from closing the death camps. Most of them had no clear idea of what was going on there.

Similarly, I do not believe that my forebears were sacrificing so much merely to keep the North from abolishing slavery, although that would certainly have been the by product for a generation. I would rather put it that they were fighting for the right to be wrong.

The Obama administration and the mainstream media today tells us that the Americans who took to the streets to redress their grievances against their government were not patriots but "wrong." The problem with this is that it takes a least a generation to find out if the tea parties are wrong. I believe there are patriots who are trying to save the Republic from a potentially iniquitous tyranny. But I might be wrong. There goes that damn word again.

It is easy to say that the South was wrong after a century and a half historical perspective. But it is not so easy for me to say that they were immoral.

[thefrankbaum]

I'm curious as to your opinion on whether, following succession, the resulting partitioning of Virgina ever entered into Gen. Lee's calculus concerning his loyalties, as his own state had been torn asunder, much like the Union. Do you think he may have been more receptive of President Lincoln's offer had West Virginia become its own state prior to succession?

[nathanbedford]

You raise an interesting speculation. It is equally interesting that Lee spent much of the first year of the war in a western part of Virginia, I believe in the Kanewa (SP?) Valley where he did not enhance his reputation and was much maligned as a result. I do not recall much of the particulars of the campaign but I believe that he was engaged against obstacles of geography and local union sympathies. Both the Valley of Virginia (the Shenandoah Valley) and the wilder valleys beyond in West Virginia were populated by a yeomanry of smaller farmers as compared to the Piedmont or Tidewater.

There is a big difference between the Valley of Virginia and Tidewater on the one hand and that which is west of the Valley. The Valley remained supremely loyal to the Confederacy and it was that to the west of it which broke away. The Valley was peopled by German, English and Scotch Irish stock and, to the west, the Scots and Irish predominated. The geography to the west compelled a different lifestyle than the great rolling hills of the Valley. Slaves were useful to some degree in the Valley, although not nearly as much as in the Tidewater, and not so very profitable in the harder scrabble Farms of the western mountains.

It is a further peculiarity of the area that the geography tends to run northeast to southwest, a geographical feature which Stonewall Jackson and Jubal A. Early were able to capitalize on in 1862 and 1864. Lee used the Valley to cover his invasions of the North in' 62 and 63. Militarily, the Valley would tend to run a northern invader out into the western mountains where he was relatively out of the game. But A Confederate invasion of the North would erupt into Maryland and Pennsylvania threatening Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Harrisburg. So it was easier to reach Pennsylvania that it was West Virginia because of the mountains. Finally, the passes across the Blue Ridge into the Tidewater were key to strategically exploiting the military geography of The Valley.

Robert E. Lee was very much a product of Tidewater Virginia. His wife was a descendent of Custis Washington and Lee himself was descended from King Carter, the richest man in Virginia of earlier colonial days. His father was White Horse Harry Lee whose eulogy for George Washington, "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen" betokens his intimate association with the first families of Virginia until he fell on hard times. Lee's boyhood hero was George Washington. These were the Virginians of the plantations and they had not so much in common with the people of the Valley with whom Stonewall Jackson had closer associations. The Tidewater Virginians like Robert E. Lee had even fewer associations with the part that broke away to form West Virginia. There were ethnic, cultural, religious, and lifestyle differences, all dictated by the geography I described above.

So to speculate as you request, I do not think that foreknowledge of West Virginia's breakaway would have influenced Lee's decision to tender his sword to Virginia.

[BenLurkin]

Those are by a “a leading fashion designer”?

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Bedford, I'd just like to clarify some of what you said about Confederate uniforms. As a former "campaigner" CW reenactor with a pretty hard core outfit, with a Master's degree specializing in U.S. military history at Virginia Tech, I have some expertise in Confederate military culture, tactics, dress, and accoutrements.

It is true that Confederate soldiers were usually poor and often had a ragged appearance, especially in 1861 and 1862. After the Confederate government dropped the commutation system in late 1862 though in favor of the depot system, Confederate soldiers actually started receiving fairly decent quality uniforms made out of homespun cotton/wool mix jean cloth. In fact, they were occasionally better outfitted than their Union counterparts, especially when blockade runners arrived bringing British Isaac Campbell buttons, fabric, belts, cap pouches, cartridge boxes, knapsacks, as well as Enfield rifle-muskets and bayonets.

The butternut effect you describe was not due to "home weaving," but because of the nature of the vegetable dyes used in manufacturing jackets and trowsers. The original colors WERE grey, per Confederate Quartermaster regulations, BUT, after a couple of weeks out in the sun and marching on dusty roads, the grey uniforms oxidized and faded to a khaki-butternut color. It was the poor chemistry of the time that cause the butternut coloring, and not a deliberate choice.

I have a museum-quality reproduction Richmond Depot Type II jacket made using period jean cloth fabric and vegetable dyes, and it faded to butternut after only five or six events.

Of course, in 1864, Isaac Campbell started importing more and more high-quality British blue-grey "kersey" wool through the blockade, which went mostly to Lee's troops, and up until the surrender, the Army of Northern Virginia was relative well supplied with clothing. The Army of Tennessee, not so much so.

Here's some informational links on the subject:

THE GENERIC CONFEDERATE

A SURVEY OF CONFEDERATE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT QUARTERMASTER ISSUE JACKETS, Part 1

A SURVEY OF CONFEDERATE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT QUARTERMASTER ISSUE JACKETS, Part 2

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

If I recall correctly, there were two "Lee to the rear" incidents where he exposed himself to peril in front of his troops to rally them in the dark days of 1864 when the weight of numbers was simply debriding his forces through a pitilessly imposed attrition.

The first incident was during the Battle of the Wilderness, when Union troops were threatening to break his line. The second incident was only a few days later at the Bloody Angle of Spotsylvania Court House, after Emory Upton's Union force actually did break through, in the middle of a driving wind and rain storm.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Don, you’re making a “presentist” judgment against Lee. In the context of his time, Lee was remaining loyal to his country-—Virginia. The ‘United States’ did not become a singular terms until 1865.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Also throughout the war, Lee very rarely wore his dress frock coat, sword, and side arm. Usually, he was seen riding around in a simple gray sack coat (with three colonel's stars), indigo blue trowsers, and a faded, unadorned black Hardee hat, like in this Troiani painting:

[csvset]

Why do I hear ZZ Top’s, “Legs” when I see that pic?

[ansel12]

I’m still trying to figure out this thread and I notice that you aren’t answering questions but which of your photos are the uniforms in question?

[JoeProBono]

A Little Levity

[ansel12]

I wish you wouldn’t do this, many of us here spent time in the military and were involved in the Cold War and pay attention to military matters and the Russian military. Posting those pictures to support this article is pushing a lie and is clearly confusing people.

Are any of these photos of the new Russian uniform, if not we need to know so that we don’t keep them and use them in future discussions and on other sites like military.com, or strategypage.com, or other military and history forums that we belong to and post at. You can’t document a story with false photos.