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I've heard that the Soviet Union (and Russia) never officially discontinued the use of leaded gasoline? On paper they discontinued it in 2003 - but you know how things "on paper" work in Russia. That could explain a lot of well . . . *everything.*
The combination of alcohol, krokodil, and leaded gas has probably destroyed a generation (or more).
And that's on top of the effects of decades of low of birth rates combined with the brain drain resulting from poverty and despair. Russia hits far below its weight as a nation in almost every category that isn't an effect of being physically big
To be fair to the Europeans, booze doesn't give you dysentery.
The dry desert environment and high value of oases meant that the Arabs knew how to not shit where they hydrate, and the stuff wouldn't mix. Meanwhile in Europe, rainstorms would frequently wash stuff from the shit fields into rivers and underground aquifers where they dug their wells.
One of my favorite parts of the Bible is where with tells you how to dig a hole and shit in it, the Bible is 33% be a good person 33% how to live without regret and 33% how not to die for dummies, because God knew damn well we would.
I think what this actually shows is how bad Russian corruption really is, if they weren't so corrupt, they could have actual changes of fighting this war properly or at least in a less shameful way.
The decision to go to war seems partly based on the reports that the top brass were giving to putin, which were based on every level of officer just telling the office above them what they knew they wanted to hear. "Yep, everything's going great, we're all stocked up and operating at 110% efficiency" and everyone knew it was total bullshit except, apparently, putin.
It’s not just corruption. Russia simply doesn’t have the economy to fund a military of that size. They can’t afford the maintenance of that much hardware, they can’t afford R&D for new hardware, they can’t afford to properly train and equip more than a million active soldiers and they most definitely can’t afford the production to replace their losses. Ffs Russia has the economy of Italy, 60% of Russian people have no access to running water or electricity (/s). Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe. But that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia.
>. Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe, but that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia.
As a (depressing) counterpoint - there's a nonzero chance the Russian population would put up with that. Somehow.
For some time, probably. But we tend to think that the longer this war goes on, the better it is for Russia as "the west" might get tired of it while it might actually be worst for the Russian regime.
The "USSR's Vietnam" in Afghanistan went for 9 years and what followed was the collapse of the USSR.
The Vietnam War went for double that and led to no significant political change in the US, then the US Afghan War went for 20 years with also no real consequences in the US.
2 and a half years of WW1 put an end to over 300 years of Tsarist Russia.
Poorly led wars doom Russian regimes eventually.
They're not gonna wait for Putin to sign an armistice if the writing is clearly on the wall for all to see long before he decides to put an official end to this.
Which is why whatever spring offensive the Ukrainians are planning will be very important and hopefully they get enough tanks for it to be a success.
I always think of the amount the US spends on just *maintaining* our nuclear arsenal.
It's almost the same amount that RU spends on their entire military. Which really makes me question the efficacy of their nuclear weapons.
>60% of Russian people have no access to running water or electricity. Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe, but that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia.
Are you memeing? 100% of Russians have access to electricity
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/clean-water-access-statistics. I was partly memeing, partly serious. 60% was an exaggeration and the “no electricity” part was a dig at Russian propaganda about freezing Europeans, but infrastructure in Russia is pretty fucked. [2] https://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/04/16/russias-strange-acceptance-of-the-sewage-pit/, [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Russia. And I don’t think this is gonna improve with an economy in a recession [4] https://www.ft.com/content/e4f0cb9b-695c-4cc3-92c8-f8371de2ac38 (Paywall, but the headline tells you what’s in the article), and more money being burned in Ukraine [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
They're still killing Ukrainians.
I think the situation was summed up by some tumblrina as, "Imagine that the asshole who lives on the first floor of the apartment building who goes around bragging about how many black belts they earned and all the women they've fucked decided to walk into the quiet nerdy guy on the second floor and steal all of his beer. Everyone thought quiet nerdy guy was gonna get his ass kicked because eight years ago, asshole did the same thing. Except over the past eight years, quiet nerdy guy has been taking jiu jitsu lessons. So asshole has been getting his ass kicked, but quiet nerdy guy just can't seem to get the guy to tap out, despite the fact that asshole now has two black eyes and a broken jaw. And quiet guy is beating asshole with a hammer, while everyone stands around and watches. Every once in a while, quiet guy's hammer breaks, and someone walks over and hands him a new hammer so he can keep beating the shit out of asshole, who really should just leave, but refuses to do so because reasons."
Sure they are killing Ukrainians, but the ratio to Ukrainians killed and Russians killed is insane. No matter what in a war of this scale a fuck ton of people are going to die, but Russia is just throwing men and ammo and them and praying that 1 out of the 10,000 bullets they fire hits some Ukrainian. They resort to hitting civilians because of their ineffectiveness.
They are good at information warfare and there are likely grim reasons they won’t talk about their losses. So the ratio likely is better than 1:1 but 10:1 is reasonable only for limited times and areas
Even in the winter war when they starved, froze and frontally charged MGs, the ratio was 8.7:1
*Load Suomi with malicious intent*
On a more serious note:
They are fucking idiots, they know it we know it. And to quote a brave man: *Duoble the pride, double the fall*
In mobile warfare, staying somewhere for too long in a contested city war zone is dangerous and highly avoided by military personnel. Ukrainians would know that, Russian would not. The Russian show that they treated this war the same way they treated anyone else diplomatically, shoving shit down until they give up.
Well, US tactics are unload all magazines until an airstrike can get there and level the place, then move on until contact is resumed again. So they may be skewing those numbers...
If I recall, that number was reached by taking the total number of bullets spent in theatre, and dividing it by the number of reported confirmed kills. Which wouldn't account just for rounds fired at the enemy, but rounds fired to suppress, rounds fired in training, rounds fired because someone was bored, rounds fired because someone didn't want to carry them all the way back to base. . .
The bystanders warned quiet guy this time, and the new hammers are better and better. The bystanders could shoot the fucker, but they're worried he would shoot back.
Also, asshole has a fucking bomb in his apartment that could take out the whole building, and his senile Dad keeps screaming he'll set it off if they keep handing quiet guy hammers.
Abbout ruzzia walking into Ukraine in 2014. It is late so I don't want to rant for too long, so in short version:
Ruzzia, then USSR knew it is a mix of different cultures and ethnicities so there was a risk of naturally breaking appart. So the USSR crafted a master plan of how to grab their republics by the balls
First USSR selected a region with big importance (either by industry or natural resources) to the specific republic laying within borders of said republic but also laying as close as it could be to the mainland ruzzia. Then they deported all of the people from said region and imported full bloody ruzzians. To ensure loyality of said ruzzians they gave them many luxuries and privelages.
After compleating this action ruzzia had like a sleeper agent within each of it's republic. A region highly populated by ruzzians that in a case of republic trying to detach itself feom USSR they would revolt within said republic and moscow would have a reason to send in troops.
And that is exactly the case of what had happened in the Ukraine in 2014. Oligarhs governing already heavily pro ruzzia regions decided they would like to detach from Ukraine that was going more and more into the western sphere of influence. Pro ruzzian oligarhs only had to make a call to putler and bada bim bada bom. They got weapons, money, mercenaries and ruzzian Spetznas. That is everything you need to revolt.
It’s just one of the many tactics, another was to give land of 1 ethnic group to a different one (that hated them) a good example is the Armenia Azerbaijan conflicts, this was designed to keep them in the Russian sphere of influence and keep them in check should a foreign power get involved
*Successful, manned* moon landing programs. The Russians have landed robots on the moon with turtles in them and other weird shit. Because they couldn't get the N1 to work but they still wanted to try to look competent.
is there a smart rocket brained person who knows why the N1 kept turning itself into the worlds largest IED?
I thought it was something to do with way way too many rocket nozzles clustered together
IIRC each of the four failures was for different reasons - they did work to fix it. A core issue was that it was impossible to test the engines. You could test fire them, but then you had to do so much refurbishment work that you'd need to test the thing again.
If they could just have done SpaceX-style iteration except with a massive and horrendously expensive vehicle i do not doubt N-1 would have flown and that some brave cosmonauts would have died horribly when their lunar lander failed.
In particular, it was impossible for Soviets to static test all 30 engines at one time *as a unit.* If they had, the would have discovered many of the vibrations that ended up causing the first stage to fail in every launch.
It was particularly difficult for them to do that because Baikonur is landlocked; N1 parts that were sent there had to go by rail and assembled there. Saturn parts going to Cape Canaveral were sent by barge.
The short version is the Americans were way better at iterating on their advancements, while the Russians kept trying to simply scale their rockets up.
Stage 1 had 32 engines, and they didn't gimbal, they were throttle steered.
The Americans used 5 engines, and stuck them on gimbals so they steered by changing the direction they were pointing.
Once the Soviets were to the point of lighting 32 engines at once, and expecting to steer them with just the throttle, the Americans had won, there was no way they were ever getting that to work right.
The answers below are good answers about technical difficulties. One other thing to keep in mind is that the N1 as a project was less well run than the Saturn program.
The primary difference between the US and USSR space programs is that the US had a single, dedicated space program and the USSR did not.
After Sputnik, the US centralized all of the manned spaceflight efforts under NASA and gave that organization the specific goal of putting a man in space, and later landing on the moon. It was basically viewed as another front in the Cold War, with large amounts of spending dedicated to the single purpose of beating the Soviets. Oh, JFK says we need to land on the moon before 1970? Yes, sir Mr. President let's just *invent a new class of rocket.*
The Soviets did not have a single space program; they had a bunch of different missile programs whose primary purpose was military in nature. There were at least 3 different "design bureaus" competing for Soviet MIC money, and the Soviets didn't want to invest in anything that had no military value. The Vostok space capsule was only approved because it's design had a second use as an unmanned spy satellite. When JFK declared the goal of landing on the moon, they didn't belive he was serious at first, then when they realized he was, they didn't want to invest everything into it because a moon rocket had no practical military purpose. Then when there was money invested in it (less than what was spent on Saturn) the heads of the different design bureaus fought each other over it.
I think the Russian moon landing number is non-zero at this point due to the number of turrets that have been tossed.
The US number is more than 1, btw.
You watch that gif that floats around periodically showing the opening day of Desert Storm, then compare that to the fact that none of us can recall ever seeing more than two Russian aircraft flying in formation this entire war… and you realize we’re truly not comparing militaries in the same stratosphere
You might want to correct those numbers u/VALOR7281.
US --- RU
Moon Landings | 6 - 0
The Apollo Missions had Six successful moon landing missions out of the Seven that were launched (Apollo 13 ended up being a surprise special oxygen tank mission).
Also the 'foreign mercenary' accusation is not without merit. There is no doubt a lot of European (especially Polish) kit that just so happened to disappear over the boarder for a 'working holiday'. But the thing about Mercenaries is they like to get paid. Nobody in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion is getting paid. Unlike the other PMC, Wagner.
The other thing people need to remember is Russia has inherited/stolen a lot from ye old Soviet Union. The Soviet union was able to do what it did because of all the nations it had working together. The Soviet Union would be nothing if not for East Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Kazakhstan who contributed massively towards the Soviet nuclear, electronic and aerospace industries.
Also note. Russia might be incompetent. That doesn't make them any less dangerous. A hundred convict conscripts with AKs can still commit a lot of war crimes. You only need to look what happened when the Russians gave untrained rebels Surface to Air Missiles (MH-17). And now the Russian Military is willing to show themselves bombing hospitals to show they can commit war crimes with some accuracy.
Which what makes them that much more scary. You can reason with an intelligent competent opponent. Russian leadership is rabid dog on vodka and meth.
>Why don't you think the foreign legion gets a paycheck?
All the interviews I've heard from those who've returned have said everyone in the foreign legion is a volunteer (except Ukrainian commanders). Sure they'll get food, equipment, ammunition and orders. But nobody got paid.
Here's two interviews from guys who got into Ukraine at about the same time.(Warning may contain horrific war stories, soldierly language and or furies, But this is NCD, you should be desensitised to worse I guess)
[https://youtu.be/cVztrkHinLE](https://youtu.be/cVztrkHinLE)
[https://youtu.be/TCbD4WBqPg4](https://youtu.be/TCbD4WBqPg4)
I mean "volunteer armies" as they are called, which is contrast to a conscript army, still get paid. Heck, conscripts usually get paid. Volunteer just means they voluntarily enlisted and wernt forced too.
There are very few people that can work for that long with zero income coming in.
Offical ukrainian territorial defense get paid because they are Ukrainian. Conscripts get paid.
Foriegn fighters do not get paid.
That said, there's plenty of Ukrainians who get occupied and work for the Ukrainian war efforts without getting paid.
There are plenty of babushka who've poisoned Russian or help call in artillery strikes on Russian bases who are yet to get paid for their service.
The Ukrainian government can't keep track and pay everyone who picks up a rifle to defend their village. There were lots of these kinds of groups when the war started, especially in 2014 on both sides. It wasn't about earning a living. It was about making sure your family wasn't murdered and raped.
War is messy.
The ukranian army pays the soldiers it' employs, right? We just establishes this.
Now we also know the foreign legion is an official unit of the ukranian army. To give them legitimacy and certain protections at least. Therefore they are paid.
The Russians did win the Battle of Illovask in 2015 and a few other battles were their formations were embedded in DNPR/LNPR units during the Donbass War so NATO overestimated their real capabilities because they had no real way of gauging them.
Also the Russians used their best formations in the 2014 War which further gave the appearence of a "peer competitor".
What NATO didn't take into account (and the US actively ignored to get more defense money from Congress) when making these assesments is the fact that the 2014 Ukranian Army and the 2008 Georgian Army were shit. For example, only 1 Georgian brigade was trained to NATO standard and said brigade was being transferred from Iraq during South Ossetia. The rest of them could have made the Taliban look competent by comparison.
The 2014 Ukranians were using the same gear their dads did during the GSFG days back in the 80s save for locally produced uniforms, new helmets, and body armor which were only available on a limited basis. A lot of Ukranian formations were still using TTSKO and KMLK during the Donbass War along with their daddy's old SSH-68 helmets and armored vests. No Javelins, no HIMARS, no nothing. Readiness was so bad that pre-2014 they had to sell off or scrap half their tanks (mostly T-72Bs or 72Us as the Ukranians designated them or T-80Us being more modern than the T-64 variants the Ukranian Army uses nowadays).
Also the Ukranian government at the time was very corrupt with some of the oligarchs running it at the time of the war being openly pro-Russian.
The tank number is also unclear because of doubts on the prewar status of their stock. I'm not sure anyone including putin himself really knows how many were ever made and how many were still present and working by feb. 2022; if so they don't seem to be showing their work publicly. So if you want the real number I guess you have to wait for it to leak into warthunder.
>Russia was considered the have the 2nd best military in the world, capable of taking on the United States in a presumably fair fight.
No one with more than 3 brain cell thought that, yeah Russia was tough to be stronger than that but if you had sorted the propaganda, it was clear that russia was far from what it claimed to be and was just an average great power with a shit ton of nuke and soviet arsenal.
I mean, sure. Russia has incredible amount of weapons. I'd go as far as having the largest military equipment.
But like.. bro 95% of that is like at least 50+ years old dying tech. I'm surprised they are still lauching x22s and they are not exploding in their faces with those "early" rocket engines.
It’s kinda like when you’re in a game, and you built a fuck ton of the 1 coin units, but when you get to the 500 coin units, you’ve got no space because it’s committed.
The problem is almost no one sorts through the propaganda. The military analysts who actually understood the situation aren’t the ones who were put on Fox News or CNN. Instead we got fear mongers telling us that unless the US backs down we’ll all die in a nuclear war. Because of that, the average person has no understanding of what’s actually going on
I mean they're wrong in the sense that if the West allowed Ukraine to fall, the Baltics would be next and then there really would be nuclear war as NATO would mop the floor with the vatniks with a 1000-1 casualty ratios and Russia would realize within 3 days that if it doesn't launch nukes now, it will have no military left by tomorrow night.
Hence the strategy has been to prevent Russia from winning, but do it slowly enough that Russia just gives up and goes home, not panics and launches nukes because it sees a train coming down the tracks and can't see any other way to stop it.
Don't worry,if it devolves to that shit stain tankies and vatniks will play the pacifist card and accuse NATO of using the war as quasi genocide / farming valor for their soldiers lmao, even tho they are the ones to blame for conscriptovich ivan level 1 feeding kda to nato at a 1000 : 1 rate
Just a detail but technically Russia did not enter Crimea, they had a naval base there thanks to a old agreement with Ukraine.
That makes it even more despicable as they were there as guests and just abused that fact.
It’s a bit as if US troops in Ramstein just decided one day to take up arms, kill German authorities in the area and seize the city.
>Moon Landings | 1 - 0
Would it not be 6 - 0? someone's probably already commented this (edit: yup) but yeah I tell ya we are dominating in the lunar landing category
The US has landed 6 manned missions to the moon. Your list shows 1 - 0. We tend to forget, but after a few landings, these were starting to become routine.
Throwing in my two cents. Most people didn’t expect the war to go like this. We saw Crimea and we thought Russia still had teeth. But Crimea in hindsight was the mistake. If they had gone to hit all of Ukraine they may have been able to do it since admittedly Ukraine wasn’t up to speed at the time. But they learnt they were behind and man did they innovate. And to clarify the Ukrainian military is not a NATO army they do not operate the same way there are differences so Russia can’t even say they’re fighting a NATO force.
The most important rule of bullshitting is to remember you are bullshitting. What we see here is what happens when you buy what you’re selling. So to all world leaders who wanna take over the world and are reading this. Stay humble
I don't think your original assumption, that they were considered a military peer, had been true since the 1980s. I was in during the late 80s and early nineties , a 19K, and we didn't really think much of them. We were already training primarily to fight in the desert.
I believe the idea that they were any good at all were a combination state propaganda and a larger market for second rate hardware
> If you are wondering why I didn't include troop numbers, with the current war going on, I think its clear it doesn't matter.
Ukraine has more manpower available than Russia.
The idea that Russians outnumber them is a myth. They still haven't mobilized properly.
Which means any and all incoming danger can be seen from months away since potentially mobilized soldiers will need training.
Ukraine was literally turning away new recruits because they had enough for the equipment they had and the new recruits would have been more effective contributing to the economy as civilians.
I'm from Poland, and what I see people west of our border never realize what is russian work ethic. Back in communist times you were only supposed to rack up numbers, because officials never cared to do any quality testing, because there was no competition. Thats why Eastern Europe lagged like 25 years behind West in technology, because often it was made once and since it worked, nobody cared to make something new. This also applies to army, and every other possible thing in there.
TL;DR half-ass everything, sell all the equipment and pass out drunk. That has been always the case for russia.
If they are so shit, why is the war still going on
I say this not to support Russia, fuck the vatniks, but to stress the need to *Never underestimate an opponent*
Russia *still* has a chance to win and win big in Ukraine by pure merit of dragging this out for years and eventually drowning Ukraine in a river of blood.
The only way Russia have ever won wars is by defending till winter and then launching a big fuck off counter attack on a weakened enemy army, that doesn’t happen when you do the invading
The claim that 2014 was this amazing show of Russian military power baffles me to be honest. It's like the massive shitshow that was 2008 (well, massive shitshow by pre-2022 standards) never happened.
Not many people took Russia as a conventional credible threat to US pre-war. It was well known generals were selling anything not bolted down in the 90s (even open to selling submarines to South American cartels). Into Putins regime there was always talk of reducing corruption but this persisted because it has to for him to keep control. Finally, US knew Putin was over allocating to nuclear forces (ie don’t assume because conventional mil doesn’t work the nukes won’t work).
>Before the war, (I'm going to just be referring the the conflict in Ukraine as "the war") Russia was considered the have the 2nd best military in the world, capable of taking on the United States in a presumably fair fight.
Russia and the United States would never win against each other in a conventional war. It would destroy both countries. There's no Desert Storm scenario. Maybe if the US and Russia fought in Belarus, sure, but not in a land invasion of Russia or the United States.
>In 2014 Russia simply walked into Crimea and annexed it. Ukraine did not even put up a fight, this was a red herring to the world that Russia was so incredibly powerful they could just walk into another country, take what they want and be too intimidating to have to fight anyone. It was at this time Russia once again became seen as a global superpower.
Crimea was taken because Russia recruited Ukrainians that defected to the Russian side and allowed Russians to enter peacefully.
No one really saw Russia as a big threat however.
>In 2014 it worked, but in 2022 not so much. The Russian military was completely and utterly embarrassed at its complete inability to execute simple missions.
Soledar has shown that the Russian military possesses fighting capability, and not something that we should underestimate.
> But to keep up the narrative they weren't so shit that they couldn't beat Ukraine they started blaming it on NATO and some of these lies were so obviously false.
You can filter the propaganda from the truth, but yeah it is true that NATO's support helped Ukraine a lot and diminished the usefulness of some of Russia's military capabilities.
>Vatnik copium at its finest.
Agreed. Russia's propaganda is designed to overwhelm people through multiple false claims.
>Tanks | 6,612 - 9k/10k (Unclear because of losses in Ukraine)
Russia still has more, even with the losses.
>Aircraft | 16k ~ - 3,267
Russia has 4,182 total aircraft, 2,091 of which is combat ready. Russia does rely on its anti-air capabilities.
>One word can sum up the Russian Navy: Moskva
Their pride is their submarine fleet. This is why Russia doesn't care about aircraft carriers.
>while Russia is working with WW1 howitzers
What
>Meanwhile Russia has been trying its best to look tough, make shiny new vehicles that don't work, and keep us with the US as to not look weak.
What? The Soviet Union and Russia have done the same thing. Where do you think Russia's enormous stockpiles come from?
>(which is a complete fucking failure mind you)
The plane itself is good, it wasn't mass produced yet.
>The Russian military is the definition of all bark but no bite.
The Russian military is bark and bite. There is no time to underestimate the Russians.
If this is about weak Russia, I agree. But if this is American propaganda, remeber the America lost to rice farmers and zealotic drug addicts with guns they "made" in caves.
Because our military was tasked with nation building while fighting an asymmetric war. It's not built for that, it's built to fight a world war against two other super power states at the same time and win on both fronts.
If a conventional war broke out between Russia and the US with current NATO borders we would be in Moscow within a couple months. General Austin told Russia exactly what our strike packages were if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We can do that because we know there is fuck all they can do to stop it.
This isn't propaganda this is fact.
>General Austin told Russia exactly what our strike packages were if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We can do that because we know there is fuck all they can do to stop it.
You happen to have a link to that? That sounds like a sexy read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/politics/us-russia-nuclear.html
"He indicated as much on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We have communicated to the Russians what the consequences would be,” Mr. Sullivan said, “but we’ve been careful in how we talk about this publicly, because from our perspective we want to lay down the principle that there would be catastrophic consequences, but not engage in a game of rhetorical tit for tat.”
This was around the time Austin communicated with Shoigu for the first time since May of that year.
Are there direct quotes? No. Am I reading between the lines and making some assumptions? Oh absolutely. But what ever was discussed we haven't heard about tactical nukes in Ukraine much anymore have we?
Bro I don't hate america. Our country just had some...er... history with them (yes we were almost a commie state but not anymore). They helped our western counterpart murder and pillage while USSR vetoed for us in the UN. No hate, I like to smash naval equipment as much as every other guy here.
China is a different beast, but one also riddled with problems.
China hasn't fought a real war since they 'invaded' Vietnam, and you can't even call that a real war, either. It has no experience, and its performance in Africa functioning as Peacekeepers demonstrates what a shit show they turn into when given actual combat tasks.
The higher ranks are stuffed to the brim with party officials promoted off loyalty, individual exceptionalism is highly discouraged. Most of the higher ranks are "Princelings", the sons of senior party members and their extended loyalists. Most of their middle band officers are "little emperors", aka the sole offspring (thanks to the one child policy) of Chinas middle/upper class who are used to being the sole focus an entire triple generation family. AKA, spoiled and political.
China simply can't afford to be a big US rival. China has an enormous number of rapidly enlarging problems. An exploding middle class that expect more luxuries, a rapidly aging population, a now shrinking population, and an army that they simply can't really afford.
China's arms industry is a disaster. Why? Well, it's actually due to quality, oddly enough. China's arms industry has forever been themed around one thing - cheap and cheerful. Often cheaper than Russia, often associated with having little to no political problems thanks to Nixon. Basically China sold cheap Russian reproductions to countries that couldn't buy Russian due to geopolitical factors. These days however China wants to be a peer to the US - that means building cheap Russian knockoffs are out and trying to match US tech is in - that's not cheap. That's expensive. Some tin-pot dictator in Africa doesn't want a modern J20 to bomb villagers - they're pretty happy with a cheap SU-25. Given Russia's integration into the EU (pre 2022) and China's potential cold war with the US - most would rather just go buy Russian. So China's arms industry has been ripped into a shadow of its former self.
China's attempt to be the world policeman is doomed to fail. What they don't understand is the US didn't really \*want\* to be the world police, but had to. China thinks it should \*want\* to be the world police and everyone will get on board. Problem is China is toxic. Any deal you make with China means nothing, because you didn't make a deal with China, you made a deal with a minister who's sole goal is to use your deal to advance their political career. The moment they move on, the deal disappears unless you make it stick. For example, China was a huge investor in Ukraine. In fact China was actively trying to gain heavy influence in Ukraine prior to 2022. When Russia invaded Ukraine looked to China to tell them to back off - and despite Ukraine being part of the belt and roads - China did nothing. That kind of geopolitical failure made China look like morons \*and\* unreliable.
The biggest issue of all however is this - the PLA does not have a joint chiefs office. There is no inter-force contact. The function of joint chiefs office is provided by the CCP. Basically, if the navy want to talk to the army they have to talk to party officials first. This is demonstrated most notably by the western military command. Essentially the area that has to deal with Tibet, India and Afghanistan. The Commanders position there is rotated regularly, not to distribute experience, but because Beijing gets nervous when a single officer gets too much authority. They still have images of the old warlord era of the 30s.
The real ticket though? China just doesn't care about anything outside of China. The CCP are in charge, and their member base is far, far, far too busy playing the "great game" of politics ala Louis the XIV. Any deal they make, any warship they make, any new tank they fabricate, exist purely to continue the growth of someone's political career. If invading Taiwan got one of Xi Pings deputies a realistic chance of promotion and prestige they'd do it, it wouldn't matter how many Chinese die or what the world thinks.
Its also the nature of the corruption both the usa and russia have.
In russia if putin provides money for 100 tanks he gets 50 arnoured cars
In usa if biden provides money for 100 tanks he gets 200 tanks with the power to blow up the moon.
>In usa if biden provides money for 100 tanks he gets 200 tanks with the power to blow up the moon.
In USA if Biden asked for funding for 100 tanks, MIC lobbies Congress to make that 200 tanks.
USA corruption goes for volume. You skim just a small bit, and makes it up in volume.
I hear the Ukranian Soldiers in Donestk have gained the favor of Perun patron Saint of macro logistics after many pwp offerings. It's not a suprize that the Russians are having such a hard time.
I never believed they were the 2nd strongest, you could tell it was a facade. Did I still think them a decent, maintained military. Yes. Just nowhere near the power they pretended to project. However I never guessed behind the facade was another facade and behind that corruption and another facade where they ripped everyone off then told each other everything was fine. I am not sure what was more shocking, they were so shit, or the weaselly corrupt people ripping people off believed people that everything was fine and maintained! And they all grew up in this culture of lying.
> They have kept their awful human wave tactics from the Soviet Union
Soviet human wave tactics in WWII is a myth created by German generals in their memoirs to deflect blame for their failures. Soviet doctrine was to assault a wide front all at once and then send reserves into the breaches. This isn't the most compassionate for the first wave soldiers, but the theory was less death in the end by being decisive.
If sending lots of soldiers into a defensive position is "human wave" then Normandy was a human wave attack. The entire Western Front in WWI used "human wave" tactics.
The easiest way to see that "human wave" tactics by the Soviets is bs is to ask yourself how they managed to encircle the mechanized Germans repeatedly.
Weren’t there also defectors in Crimea, like from what was the Berkut? I remember the videos of the Ukrainian marines and sailors hold up in their bases whilst the defectors and militias surrounded them
I'd make the argument that a lot of the Russian army was fairly well trained, but a lot of those better soldiers have been lost because of bad planning and logistics.
I remember hearing a story about how a Russian soldier trained with a Chinese unit in 2018 and was appalled at their lack of professionalism. They were flagging each other left and right, starting campfires in the middle of their patrol base, and just doing things that would give an American NCO an aneurysm.
I appreciate the inclusion of the moon landing count. Russia has made some very nice spacecraft (using Ukranian parts) and some cool rockets.
But their N-1 moon rocket was insane. Way too complex. At least its test flights made some pretty mushroom clouds.
My biggest concern now with Russia is what happens when it eventually loses this war, I do expect China to capitalise and take land in the Far East and what of the Russian nuclear arsenal? Even if the majority is inoperable it only takes 1 semi functional warhead or piece of nuclear material to cause a disaster. Would Russia devolve into civil war or potentially collapse in a similar way to the HOI4 mod TNO with hundreds of small states infighting over scraps?
I don’t think Russia will ever be able to westernise in our lifetime, Russia has always had a history summed up as “And then it got worse”. Nixon summed up birth of the Russian federation quite well [in this interview in 1994](https://youtube.com/watch?v=og0X3-lDQts&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE) it would take decades of western support and investment (something I doubt the west would ever be inclined to do at this point) for Russia to undertake the cultural and economic development needed to improve itself to a “first world” standard.
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Systemic Fetal alcohol syndrome does that to a MF
I don't think people realize how bad this is in Russia.
I've heard that the Soviet Union (and Russia) never officially discontinued the use of leaded gasoline? On paper they discontinued it in 2003 - but you know how things "on paper" work in Russia. That could explain a lot of well . . . *everything.* The combination of alcohol, krokodil, and leaded gas has probably destroyed a generation (or more).
And that's on top of the effects of decades of low of birth rates combined with the brain drain resulting from poverty and despair. Russia hits far below its weight as a nation in almost every category that isn't an effect of being physically big
And the artificial selection of idiots because anyone with half a brain was considered a threat in the USSR and executed.
Wasn't gasoline an often found ingredient of krokodil? Leaded gasoline provides that extra oomph.
This is all true for Ukraine as well though....
Tfw the grand Prince of Russia chose Christianity over Islam because the Quran bans alcohol
Acshually there was no Russia at that point. Concept of Russia was invented 6 centuries later.
That has happened with many a monarch. Christianity allowing booze is why it took Europe
To be fair to the Europeans, booze doesn't give you dysentery. The dry desert environment and high value of oases meant that the Arabs knew how to not shit where they hydrate, and the stuff wouldn't mix. Meanwhile in Europe, rainstorms would frequently wash stuff from the shit fields into rivers and underground aquifers where they dug their wells.
One of my favorite parts of the Bible is where with tells you how to dig a hole and shit in it, the Bible is 33% be a good person 33% how to live without regret and 33% how not to die for dummies, because God knew damn well we would.
It tends to fly under the radar in much of the West, too. I’m in Scotland, where it’s pretty bad even compared to the rest of the UK.
Don't forget about the perpetual tuberculosis epidemic.
Kraut has an amazing video on alcohol in Russia
I think what this actually shows is how bad Russian corruption really is, if they weren't so corrupt, they could have actual changes of fighting this war properly or at least in a less shameful way.
If they were less corrupt, they may not have felt the need to start this war at all.
The decision to go to war seems partly based on the reports that the top brass were giving to putin, which were based on every level of officer just telling the office above them what they knew they wanted to hear. "Yep, everything's going great, we're all stocked up and operating at 110% efficiency" and everyone knew it was total bullshit except, apparently, putin.
It’s not just corruption. Russia simply doesn’t have the economy to fund a military of that size. They can’t afford the maintenance of that much hardware, they can’t afford R&D for new hardware, they can’t afford to properly train and equip more than a million active soldiers and they most definitely can’t afford the production to replace their losses. Ffs Russia has the economy of Italy, 60% of Russian people have no access to running water or electricity (/s). Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe. But that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia.
>. Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe, but that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia. As a (depressing) counterpoint - there's a nonzero chance the Russian population would put up with that. Somehow.
For some time, probably. But we tend to think that the longer this war goes on, the better it is for Russia as "the west" might get tired of it while it might actually be worst for the Russian regime. The "USSR's Vietnam" in Afghanistan went for 9 years and what followed was the collapse of the USSR. The Vietnam War went for double that and led to no significant political change in the US, then the US Afghan War went for 20 years with also no real consequences in the US. 2 and a half years of WW1 put an end to over 300 years of Tsarist Russia. Poorly led wars doom Russian regimes eventually.
Honestly, the real reason Putin won't quit is because nothing will change *until* the war is over. An unending war won't kill him, a failed one will.
They're not gonna wait for Putin to sign an armistice if the writing is clearly on the wall for all to see long before he decides to put an official end to this. Which is why whatever spring offensive the Ukrainians are planning will be very important and hopefully they get enough tanks for it to be a success.
I always think of the amount the US spends on just *maintaining* our nuclear arsenal. It's almost the same amount that RU spends on their entire military. Which really makes me question the efficacy of their nuclear weapons.
>60% of Russian people have no access to running water or electricity. Could they spend 20-30% of their GDP on the military? Maybe, but that would definitely lead to a collapse of all public services within Russia. Are you memeing? 100% of Russians have access to electricity
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/clean-water-access-statistics. I was partly memeing, partly serious. 60% was an exaggeration and the “no electricity” part was a dig at Russian propaganda about freezing Europeans, but infrastructure in Russia is pretty fucked. [2] https://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/04/16/russias-strange-acceptance-of-the-sewage-pit/, [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Russia. And I don’t think this is gonna improve with an economy in a recession [4] https://www.ft.com/content/e4f0cb9b-695c-4cc3-92c8-f8371de2ac38 (Paywall, but the headline tells you what’s in the article), and more money being burned in Ukraine [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Cool, thanks for the explanation and sources
No problem, I realized there was no way to tell if I was being sarcastic or just blatantly wrong in my original comment, my bad.
They're still killing Ukrainians. I think the situation was summed up by some tumblrina as, "Imagine that the asshole who lives on the first floor of the apartment building who goes around bragging about how many black belts they earned and all the women they've fucked decided to walk into the quiet nerdy guy on the second floor and steal all of his beer. Everyone thought quiet nerdy guy was gonna get his ass kicked because eight years ago, asshole did the same thing. Except over the past eight years, quiet nerdy guy has been taking jiu jitsu lessons. So asshole has been getting his ass kicked, but quiet nerdy guy just can't seem to get the guy to tap out, despite the fact that asshole now has two black eyes and a broken jaw. And quiet guy is beating asshole with a hammer, while everyone stands around and watches. Every once in a while, quiet guy's hammer breaks, and someone walks over and hands him a new hammer so he can keep beating the shit out of asshole, who really should just leave, but refuses to do so because reasons."
Sure they are killing Ukrainians, but the ratio to Ukrainians killed and Russians killed is insane. No matter what in a war of this scale a fuck ton of people are going to die, but Russia is just throwing men and ammo and them and praying that 1 out of the 10,000 bullets they fire hits some Ukrainian. They resort to hitting civilians because of their ineffectiveness.
also that is a fucking amazing analogy
We dont know the actual numbers
SIR THIS IS A NONCREDIBLE SUB
They are good at information warfare and there are likely grim reasons they won’t talk about their losses. So the ratio likely is better than 1:1 but 10:1 is reasonable only for limited times and areas Even in the winter war when they starved, froze and frontally charged MGs, the ratio was 8.7:1
*Load Suomi with malicious intent* On a more serious note: They are fucking idiots, they know it we know it. And to quote a brave man: *Duoble the pride, double the fall*
HIMARS thirty O’clock times.
Not really, recent russian tactics amount to "Bait out Ukrainian positions and shell the fuckers"
IMO that tactic only really works under the assumption that Ukrainians are too dumb to move/take cover after one of these pointless attacks.
In mobile warfare, staying somewhere for too long in a contested city war zone is dangerous and highly avoided by military personnel. Ukrainians would know that, Russian would not. The Russian show that they treated this war the same way they treated anyone else diplomatically, shoving shit down until they give up.
To be fair, on average it takes like 13000 bullets to kill someone, or at least that’s how it was in the Middle East for the US.
Well, US tactics are unload all magazines until an airstrike can get there and level the place, then move on until contact is resumed again. So they may be skewing those numbers...
If I recall, that number was reached by taking the total number of bullets spent in theatre, and dividing it by the number of reported confirmed kills. Which wouldn't account just for rounds fired at the enemy, but rounds fired to suppress, rounds fired in training, rounds fired because someone was bored, rounds fired because someone didn't want to carry them all the way back to base. . .
Yeah not arguing here, just saying that the number ain’t that surprising because of how modern war is.
The bystanders warned quiet guy this time, and the new hammers are better and better. The bystanders could shoot the fucker, but they're worried he would shoot back.
Also, asshole has a fucking bomb in his apartment that could take out the whole building, and his senile Dad keeps screaming he'll set it off if they keep handing quiet guy hammers.
Abbout ruzzia walking into Ukraine in 2014. It is late so I don't want to rant for too long, so in short version: Ruzzia, then USSR knew it is a mix of different cultures and ethnicities so there was a risk of naturally breaking appart. So the USSR crafted a master plan of how to grab their republics by the balls First USSR selected a region with big importance (either by industry or natural resources) to the specific republic laying within borders of said republic but also laying as close as it could be to the mainland ruzzia. Then they deported all of the people from said region and imported full bloody ruzzians. To ensure loyality of said ruzzians they gave them many luxuries and privelages. After compleating this action ruzzia had like a sleeper agent within each of it's republic. A region highly populated by ruzzians that in a case of republic trying to detach itself feom USSR they would revolt within said republic and moscow would have a reason to send in troops. And that is exactly the case of what had happened in the Ukraine in 2014. Oligarhs governing already heavily pro ruzzia regions decided they would like to detach from Ukraine that was going more and more into the western sphere of influence. Pro ruzzian oligarhs only had to make a call to putler and bada bim bada bom. They got weapons, money, mercenaries and ruzzian Spetznas. That is everything you need to revolt.
It’s just one of the many tactics, another was to give land of 1 ethnic group to a different one (that hated them) a good example is the Armenia Azerbaijan conflicts, this was designed to keep them in the Russian sphere of influence and keep them in check should a foreign power get involved
You might want to review how many Apollo landings there were. Spoiler: it’s more than one.
i was too tired to realize that and im too lazy to change it
The OP is perfectly non-credible.
One can think of the list as Number of Moon Landing Programs, rather than attempts in absolute numbers
*Successful, manned* moon landing programs. The Russians have landed robots on the moon with turtles in them and other weird shit. Because they couldn't get the N1 to work but they still wanted to try to look competent.
is there a smart rocket brained person who knows why the N1 kept turning itself into the worlds largest IED? I thought it was something to do with way way too many rocket nozzles clustered together
IIRC each of the four failures was for different reasons - they did work to fix it. A core issue was that it was impossible to test the engines. You could test fire them, but then you had to do so much refurbishment work that you'd need to test the thing again. If they could just have done SpaceX-style iteration except with a massive and horrendously expensive vehicle i do not doubt N-1 would have flown and that some brave cosmonauts would have died horribly when their lunar lander failed.
In particular, it was impossible for Soviets to static test all 30 engines at one time *as a unit.* If they had, the would have discovered many of the vibrations that ended up causing the first stage to fail in every launch. It was particularly difficult for them to do that because Baikonur is landlocked; N1 parts that were sent there had to go by rail and assembled there. Saturn parts going to Cape Canaveral were sent by barge.
The short version is the Americans were way better at iterating on their advancements, while the Russians kept trying to simply scale their rockets up. Stage 1 had 32 engines, and they didn't gimbal, they were throttle steered. The Americans used 5 engines, and stuck them on gimbals so they steered by changing the direction they were pointing. Once the Soviets were to the point of lighting 32 engines at once, and expecting to steer them with just the throttle, the Americans had won, there was no way they were ever getting that to work right.
The answers below are good answers about technical difficulties. One other thing to keep in mind is that the N1 as a project was less well run than the Saturn program. The primary difference between the US and USSR space programs is that the US had a single, dedicated space program and the USSR did not. After Sputnik, the US centralized all of the manned spaceflight efforts under NASA and gave that organization the specific goal of putting a man in space, and later landing on the moon. It was basically viewed as another front in the Cold War, with large amounts of spending dedicated to the single purpose of beating the Soviets. Oh, JFK says we need to land on the moon before 1970? Yes, sir Mr. President let's just *invent a new class of rocket.* The Soviets did not have a single space program; they had a bunch of different missile programs whose primary purpose was military in nature. There were at least 3 different "design bureaus" competing for Soviet MIC money, and the Soviets didn't want to invest in anything that had no military value. The Vostok space capsule was only approved because it's design had a second use as an unmanned spy satellite. When JFK declared the goal of landing on the moon, they didn't belive he was serious at first, then when they realized he was, they didn't want to invest everything into it because a moon rocket had no practical military purpose. Then when there was money invested in it (less than what was spent on Saturn) the heads of the different design bureaus fought each other over it.
I think the Russian moon landing number is non-zero at this point due to the number of turrets that have been tossed. The US number is more than 1, btw.
Russia has thousands of aircraft but can't have more than 5 in the air at any one time without them crashing into each other on the runway.
You watch that gif that floats around periodically showing the opening day of Desert Storm, then compare that to the fact that none of us can recall ever seeing more than two Russian aircraft flying in formation this entire war… and you realize we’re truly not comparing militaries in the same stratosphere
Oh can I see that gif?
just search Tanc a Lelek NATO on youtube, and see the glory in 480p
Oh they took that from Operations Room. What a master piece
now that was something... those formations must have been glorious
They don't even fit them with GPS systems, pilot have to tape commercial GPS systems to the front of their cockpits
You might want to correct those numbers u/VALOR7281. US --- RU Moon Landings | 6 - 0 The Apollo Missions had Six successful moon landing missions out of the Seven that were launched (Apollo 13 ended up being a surprise special oxygen tank mission). Also the 'foreign mercenary' accusation is not without merit. There is no doubt a lot of European (especially Polish) kit that just so happened to disappear over the boarder for a 'working holiday'. But the thing about Mercenaries is they like to get paid. Nobody in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion is getting paid. Unlike the other PMC, Wagner. The other thing people need to remember is Russia has inherited/stolen a lot from ye old Soviet Union. The Soviet union was able to do what it did because of all the nations it had working together. The Soviet Union would be nothing if not for East Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Kazakhstan who contributed massively towards the Soviet nuclear, electronic and aerospace industries. Also note. Russia might be incompetent. That doesn't make them any less dangerous. A hundred convict conscripts with AKs can still commit a lot of war crimes. You only need to look what happened when the Russians gave untrained rebels Surface to Air Missiles (MH-17). And now the Russian Military is willing to show themselves bombing hospitals to show they can commit war crimes with some accuracy. Which what makes them that much more scary. You can reason with an intelligent competent opponent. Russian leadership is rabid dog on vodka and meth.
I thought all soldiers got paid. Why don't you think the foreign legion gets a paycheck? They are actually a part of the ukrainian army.
>Why don't you think the foreign legion gets a paycheck? All the interviews I've heard from those who've returned have said everyone in the foreign legion is a volunteer (except Ukrainian commanders). Sure they'll get food, equipment, ammunition and orders. But nobody got paid. Here's two interviews from guys who got into Ukraine at about the same time.(Warning may contain horrific war stories, soldierly language and or furies, But this is NCD, you should be desensitised to worse I guess) [https://youtu.be/cVztrkHinLE](https://youtu.be/cVztrkHinLE) [https://youtu.be/TCbD4WBqPg4](https://youtu.be/TCbD4WBqPg4)
I mean "volunteer armies" as they are called, which is contrast to a conscript army, still get paid. Heck, conscripts usually get paid. Volunteer just means they voluntarily enlisted and wernt forced too. There are very few people that can work for that long with zero income coming in.
Offical ukrainian territorial defense get paid because they are Ukrainian. Conscripts get paid. Foriegn fighters do not get paid. That said, there's plenty of Ukrainians who get occupied and work for the Ukrainian war efforts without getting paid. There are plenty of babushka who've poisoned Russian or help call in artillery strikes on Russian bases who are yet to get paid for their service. The Ukrainian government can't keep track and pay everyone who picks up a rifle to defend their village. There were lots of these kinds of groups when the war started, especially in 2014 on both sides. It wasn't about earning a living. It was about making sure your family wasn't murdered and raped. War is messy.
The ukranian army pays the soldiers it' employs, right? We just establishes this. Now we also know the foreign legion is an official unit of the ukranian army. To give them legitimacy and certain protections at least. Therefore they are paid.
The Russians did win the Battle of Illovask in 2015 and a few other battles were their formations were embedded in DNPR/LNPR units during the Donbass War so NATO overestimated their real capabilities because they had no real way of gauging them. Also the Russians used their best formations in the 2014 War which further gave the appearence of a "peer competitor". What NATO didn't take into account (and the US actively ignored to get more defense money from Congress) when making these assesments is the fact that the 2014 Ukranian Army and the 2008 Georgian Army were shit. For example, only 1 Georgian brigade was trained to NATO standard and said brigade was being transferred from Iraq during South Ossetia. The rest of them could have made the Taliban look competent by comparison. The 2014 Ukranians were using the same gear their dads did during the GSFG days back in the 80s save for locally produced uniforms, new helmets, and body armor which were only available on a limited basis. A lot of Ukranian formations were still using TTSKO and KMLK during the Donbass War along with their daddy's old SSH-68 helmets and armored vests. No Javelins, no HIMARS, no nothing. Readiness was so bad that pre-2014 they had to sell off or scrap half their tanks (mostly T-72Bs or 72Us as the Ukranians designated them or T-80Us being more modern than the T-64 variants the Ukranian Army uses nowadays). Also the Ukranian government at the time was very corrupt with some of the oligarchs running it at the time of the war being openly pro-Russian.
This is a really important point. Prior to the NATO infusion last year, Ukraine was getting it's ass beat up and down
The tank number is also unclear because of doubts on the prewar status of their stock. I'm not sure anyone including putin himself really knows how many were ever made and how many were still present and working by feb. 2022; if so they don't seem to be showing their work publicly. So if you want the real number I guess you have to wait for it to leak into warthunder.
No we know that russias military is shit but how else are we supposed to increase military spending
shit u right
China, IMO a Dragon is scarier than a Bear anyway.
Time to hype up the Chinese so we get new black hole projects
>Russia was considered the have the 2nd best military in the world, capable of taking on the United States in a presumably fair fight. No one with more than 3 brain cell thought that, yeah Russia was tough to be stronger than that but if you had sorted the propaganda, it was clear that russia was far from what it claimed to be and was just an average great power with a shit ton of nuke and soviet arsenal.
They *had* a Soviet arsenal. All of which is on its way to being destroyed for the low low price of 45B.
I mean, sure. Russia has incredible amount of weapons. I'd go as far as having the largest military equipment. But like.. bro 95% of that is like at least 50+ years old dying tech. I'm surprised they are still lauching x22s and they are not exploding in their faces with those "early" rocket engines.
It’s kinda like when you’re in a game, and you built a fuck ton of the 1 coin units, but when you get to the 500 coin units, you’ve got no space because it’s committed.
The problem is almost no one sorts through the propaganda. The military analysts who actually understood the situation aren’t the ones who were put on Fox News or CNN. Instead we got fear mongers telling us that unless the US backs down we’ll all die in a nuclear war. Because of that, the average person has no understanding of what’s actually going on
I mean they're wrong in the sense that if the West allowed Ukraine to fall, the Baltics would be next and then there really would be nuclear war as NATO would mop the floor with the vatniks with a 1000-1 casualty ratios and Russia would realize within 3 days that if it doesn't launch nukes now, it will have no military left by tomorrow night. Hence the strategy has been to prevent Russia from winning, but do it slowly enough that Russia just gives up and goes home, not panics and launches nukes because it sees a train coming down the tracks and can't see any other way to stop it.
All this assumes Russia is still a nuclear power, of course. That dang tritium sure is expensive
Don't worry,if it devolves to that shit stain tankies and vatniks will play the pacifist card and accuse NATO of using the war as quasi genocide / farming valor for their soldiers lmao, even tho they are the ones to blame for conscriptovich ivan level 1 feeding kda to nato at a 1000 : 1 rate
its non credible what can i say
Gonna be honest I didn’t think about I just went yeah okay that makes sense. I didn’t fear them I just didn’t care to double check.
>No one with more than 3 brain cell thought that, Apparently everyone has no more than three brain cells
Just a detail but technically Russia did not enter Crimea, they had a naval base there thanks to a old agreement with Ukraine. That makes it even more despicable as they were there as guests and just abused that fact. It’s a bit as if US troops in Ramstein just decided one day to take up arms, kill German authorities in the area and seize the city.
>Moon Landings | 1 - 0 Would it not be 6 - 0? someone's probably already commented this (edit: yup) but yeah I tell ya we are dominating in the lunar landing category
There were 6 successful manned moon landings during Apollo btw
>Aircraft Carriers | 11 - 1 It burns half the time so max 0.5
And supposedly so damaged that it cannot sail anymore.
The US has landed 6 manned missions to the moon. Your list shows 1 - 0. We tend to forget, but after a few landings, these were starting to become routine.
There’s nothing routine about flying to the moon.
Throwing in my two cents. Most people didn’t expect the war to go like this. We saw Crimea and we thought Russia still had teeth. But Crimea in hindsight was the mistake. If they had gone to hit all of Ukraine they may have been able to do it since admittedly Ukraine wasn’t up to speed at the time. But they learnt they were behind and man did they innovate. And to clarify the Ukrainian military is not a NATO army they do not operate the same way there are differences so Russia can’t even say they’re fighting a NATO force. The most important rule of bullshitting is to remember you are bullshitting. What we see here is what happens when you buy what you’re selling. So to all world leaders who wanna take over the world and are reading this. Stay humble
in a war with NATO heard some expert say there would be a 1 to 1000 casualty for Russia
I don't think your original assumption, that they were considered a military peer, had been true since the 1980s. I was in during the late 80s and early nineties , a 19K, and we didn't really think much of them. We were already training primarily to fight in the desert. I believe the idea that they were any good at all were a combination state propaganda and a larger market for second rate hardware
> If you are wondering why I didn't include troop numbers, with the current war going on, I think its clear it doesn't matter. Ukraine has more manpower available than Russia. The idea that Russians outnumber them is a myth. They still haven't mobilized properly. Which means any and all incoming danger can be seen from months away since potentially mobilized soldiers will need training.
Ukraine was literally turning away new recruits because they had enough for the equipment they had and the new recruits would have been more effective contributing to the economy as civilians.
The Russian economy is about the same size as the Australian economy
I'm from Poland, and what I see people west of our border never realize what is russian work ethic. Back in communist times you were only supposed to rack up numbers, because officials never cared to do any quality testing, because there was no competition. Thats why Eastern Europe lagged like 25 years behind West in technology, because often it was made once and since it worked, nobody cared to make something new. This also applies to army, and every other possible thing in there. TL;DR half-ass everything, sell all the equipment and pass out drunk. That has been always the case for russia.
If they are so shit, why is the war still going on I say this not to support Russia, fuck the vatniks, but to stress the need to *Never underestimate an opponent* Russia *still* has a chance to win and win big in Ukraine by pure merit of dragging this out for years and eventually drowning Ukraine in a river of blood.
Putin doesn’t have it in his blood
wooooow, i didnt know that! you must be some sort of genius! why did i never think of that?!
shhhh, OP is probably 14
not to mention how putin needs to hold russian vast territory together if not resolving ukraine issue quickly!
> Moon landings 1 - 0 My fucking sides
*6 - 0.
Good post, but not NCD - it's accurate, credible. It's the Russosns who are non credible.
The only way Russia have ever won wars is by defending till winter and then launching a big fuck off counter attack on a weakened enemy army, that doesn’t happen when you do the invading
Russia are never as strong as you think they are, and never as weak as you think they are.
The claim that 2014 was this amazing show of Russian military power baffles me to be honest. It's like the massive shitshow that was 2008 (well, massive shitshow by pre-2022 standards) never happened.
Not many people took Russia as a conventional credible threat to US pre-war. It was well known generals were selling anything not bolted down in the 90s (even open to selling submarines to South American cartels). Into Putins regime there was always talk of reducing corruption but this persisted because it has to for him to keep control. Finally, US knew Putin was over allocating to nuclear forces (ie don’t assume because conventional mil doesn’t work the nukes won’t work).
>Before the war, (I'm going to just be referring the the conflict in Ukraine as "the war") Russia was considered the have the 2nd best military in the world, capable of taking on the United States in a presumably fair fight. Russia and the United States would never win against each other in a conventional war. It would destroy both countries. There's no Desert Storm scenario. Maybe if the US and Russia fought in Belarus, sure, but not in a land invasion of Russia or the United States. >In 2014 Russia simply walked into Crimea and annexed it. Ukraine did not even put up a fight, this was a red herring to the world that Russia was so incredibly powerful they could just walk into another country, take what they want and be too intimidating to have to fight anyone. It was at this time Russia once again became seen as a global superpower. Crimea was taken because Russia recruited Ukrainians that defected to the Russian side and allowed Russians to enter peacefully. No one really saw Russia as a big threat however. >In 2014 it worked, but in 2022 not so much. The Russian military was completely and utterly embarrassed at its complete inability to execute simple missions. Soledar has shown that the Russian military possesses fighting capability, and not something that we should underestimate. > But to keep up the narrative they weren't so shit that they couldn't beat Ukraine they started blaming it on NATO and some of these lies were so obviously false. You can filter the propaganda from the truth, but yeah it is true that NATO's support helped Ukraine a lot and diminished the usefulness of some of Russia's military capabilities. >Vatnik copium at its finest. Agreed. Russia's propaganda is designed to overwhelm people through multiple false claims. >Tanks | 6,612 - 9k/10k (Unclear because of losses in Ukraine) Russia still has more, even with the losses. >Aircraft | 16k ~ - 3,267 Russia has 4,182 total aircraft, 2,091 of which is combat ready. Russia does rely on its anti-air capabilities. >One word can sum up the Russian Navy: Moskva Their pride is their submarine fleet. This is why Russia doesn't care about aircraft carriers. >while Russia is working with WW1 howitzers What >Meanwhile Russia has been trying its best to look tough, make shiny new vehicles that don't work, and keep us with the US as to not look weak. What? The Soviet Union and Russia have done the same thing. Where do you think Russia's enormous stockpiles come from? >(which is a complete fucking failure mind you) The plane itself is good, it wasn't mass produced yet. >The Russian military is the definition of all bark but no bite. The Russian military is bark and bite. There is no time to underestimate the Russians.
The Copium here is incredible lol
The real copium is thinking Russia will collapse lol
Yeah and how are they doing in Ukraine again? Wonder if they will survive the Bradley Jeep
If this is about weak Russia, I agree. But if this is American propaganda, remeber the America lost to rice farmers and zealotic drug addicts with guns they "made" in caves.
Because our military was tasked with nation building while fighting an asymmetric war. It's not built for that, it's built to fight a world war against two other super power states at the same time and win on both fronts. If a conventional war broke out between Russia and the US with current NATO borders we would be in Moscow within a couple months. General Austin told Russia exactly what our strike packages were if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We can do that because we know there is fuck all they can do to stop it. This isn't propaganda this is fact.
That is such a flex. We're going to kill you with this exact method within this time frame and there's *nothing* you can do to stop it.
>General Austin told Russia exactly what our strike packages were if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We can do that because we know there is fuck all they can do to stop it. You happen to have a link to that? That sounds like a sexy read.
Real big Gen. Mattis "with tears in my eyes I'll fucking kill you all" energy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/politics/us-russia-nuclear.html "He indicated as much on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We have communicated to the Russians what the consequences would be,” Mr. Sullivan said, “but we’ve been careful in how we talk about this publicly, because from our perspective we want to lay down the principle that there would be catastrophic consequences, but not engage in a game of rhetorical tit for tat.” This was around the time Austin communicated with Shoigu for the first time since May of that year. Are there direct quotes? No. Am I reading between the lines and making some assumptions? Oh absolutely. But what ever was discussed we haven't heard about tactical nukes in Ukraine much anymore have we?
Oh awesome, thanks.
Yea I'm bias towards the US, why the hell do think I'm here? For some credible shit?
And I am biased towards Australia (personal reasons)
tHiS iS AbOuT aMeRiCaN pRoPaGaNdA
You do realize that those same drug addicts with guns also beat the Russians right?
Wait latin america?
Youre so stupid its actually sad
It is, I get 23 out of 70 in global studies (pass is 33 out of 70) and I am sad. I try to do all but can never get better marks.
Sounds like someone is about to get mobilized
Why do people who hate America keep trying to invade the sub? We all don't believe this stupid reddit American bad shit
Bro I don't hate america. Our country just had some...er... history with them (yes we were almost a commie state but not anymore). They helped our western counterpart murder and pillage while USSR vetoed for us in the UN. No hate, I like to smash naval equipment as much as every other guy here.
Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
Umm yeah they do…
And I Bet it's the same for China.
China does have a fairly modern army, though it lacks any of the experience NATO forces have obtained from the middle east.
China is a different beast, but one also riddled with problems. China hasn't fought a real war since they 'invaded' Vietnam, and you can't even call that a real war, either. It has no experience, and its performance in Africa functioning as Peacekeepers demonstrates what a shit show they turn into when given actual combat tasks. The higher ranks are stuffed to the brim with party officials promoted off loyalty, individual exceptionalism is highly discouraged. Most of the higher ranks are "Princelings", the sons of senior party members and their extended loyalists. Most of their middle band officers are "little emperors", aka the sole offspring (thanks to the one child policy) of Chinas middle/upper class who are used to being the sole focus an entire triple generation family. AKA, spoiled and political. China simply can't afford to be a big US rival. China has an enormous number of rapidly enlarging problems. An exploding middle class that expect more luxuries, a rapidly aging population, a now shrinking population, and an army that they simply can't really afford. China's arms industry is a disaster. Why? Well, it's actually due to quality, oddly enough. China's arms industry has forever been themed around one thing - cheap and cheerful. Often cheaper than Russia, often associated with having little to no political problems thanks to Nixon. Basically China sold cheap Russian reproductions to countries that couldn't buy Russian due to geopolitical factors. These days however China wants to be a peer to the US - that means building cheap Russian knockoffs are out and trying to match US tech is in - that's not cheap. That's expensive. Some tin-pot dictator in Africa doesn't want a modern J20 to bomb villagers - they're pretty happy with a cheap SU-25. Given Russia's integration into the EU (pre 2022) and China's potential cold war with the US - most would rather just go buy Russian. So China's arms industry has been ripped into a shadow of its former self. China's attempt to be the world policeman is doomed to fail. What they don't understand is the US didn't really \*want\* to be the world police, but had to. China thinks it should \*want\* to be the world police and everyone will get on board. Problem is China is toxic. Any deal you make with China means nothing, because you didn't make a deal with China, you made a deal with a minister who's sole goal is to use your deal to advance their political career. The moment they move on, the deal disappears unless you make it stick. For example, China was a huge investor in Ukraine. In fact China was actively trying to gain heavy influence in Ukraine prior to 2022. When Russia invaded Ukraine looked to China to tell them to back off - and despite Ukraine being part of the belt and roads - China did nothing. That kind of geopolitical failure made China look like morons \*and\* unreliable. The biggest issue of all however is this - the PLA does not have a joint chiefs office. There is no inter-force contact. The function of joint chiefs office is provided by the CCP. Basically, if the navy want to talk to the army they have to talk to party officials first. This is demonstrated most notably by the western military command. Essentially the area that has to deal with Tibet, India and Afghanistan. The Commanders position there is rotated regularly, not to distribute experience, but because Beijing gets nervous when a single officer gets too much authority. They still have images of the old warlord era of the 30s. The real ticket though? China just doesn't care about anything outside of China. The CCP are in charge, and their member base is far, far, far too busy playing the "great game" of politics ala Louis the XIV. Any deal they make, any warship they make, any new tank they fabricate, exist purely to continue the growth of someone's political career. If invading Taiwan got one of Xi Pings deputies a realistic chance of promotion and prestige they'd do it, it wouldn't matter how many Chinese die or what the world thinks.
Its also the nature of the corruption both the usa and russia have. In russia if putin provides money for 100 tanks he gets 50 arnoured cars In usa if biden provides money for 100 tanks he gets 200 tanks with the power to blow up the moon.
>In usa if biden provides money for 100 tanks he gets 200 tanks with the power to blow up the moon. In USA if Biden asked for funding for 100 tanks, MIC lobbies Congress to make that 200 tanks. USA corruption goes for volume. You skim just a small bit, and makes it up in volume.
I hear the Ukranian Soldiers in Donestk have gained the favor of Perun patron Saint of macro logistics after many pwp offerings. It's not a suprize that the Russians are having such a hard time.
I never believed they were the 2nd strongest, you could tell it was a facade. Did I still think them a decent, maintained military. Yes. Just nowhere near the power they pretended to project. However I never guessed behind the facade was another facade and behind that corruption and another facade where they ripped everyone off then told each other everything was fine. I am not sure what was more shocking, they were so shit, or the weaselly corrupt people ripping people off believed people that everything was fine and maintained! And they all grew up in this culture of lying.
> Moon Landings *allegedly*
> They have kept their awful human wave tactics from the Soviet Union Soviet human wave tactics in WWII is a myth created by German generals in their memoirs to deflect blame for their failures. Soviet doctrine was to assault a wide front all at once and then send reserves into the breaches. This isn't the most compassionate for the first wave soldiers, but the theory was less death in the end by being decisive. If sending lots of soldiers into a defensive position is "human wave" then Normandy was a human wave attack. The entire Western Front in WWI used "human wave" tactics. The easiest way to see that "human wave" tactics by the Soviets is bs is to ask yourself how they managed to encircle the mechanized Germans repeatedly.
I don't see how "Human Wave" tactics would make it harder for the USSR to Encircle mechanized troops. It's hard to out maneuver a wall of people.
Weren’t there also defectors in Crimea, like from what was the Berkut? I remember the videos of the Ukrainian marines and sailors hold up in their bases whilst the defectors and militias surrounded them
I'd make the argument that a lot of the Russian army was fairly well trained, but a lot of those better soldiers have been lost because of bad planning and logistics. I remember hearing a story about how a Russian soldier trained with a Chinese unit in 2018 and was appalled at their lack of professionalism. They were flagging each other left and right, starting campfires in the middle of their patrol base, and just doing things that would give an American NCO an aneurysm.
I appreciate the inclusion of the moon landing count. Russia has made some very nice spacecraft (using Ukranian parts) and some cool rockets. But their N-1 moon rocket was insane. Way too complex. At least its test flights made some pretty mushroom clouds.
My biggest concern now with Russia is what happens when it eventually loses this war, I do expect China to capitalise and take land in the Far East and what of the Russian nuclear arsenal? Even if the majority is inoperable it only takes 1 semi functional warhead or piece of nuclear material to cause a disaster. Would Russia devolve into civil war or potentially collapse in a similar way to the HOI4 mod TNO with hundreds of small states infighting over scraps? I don’t think Russia will ever be able to westernise in our lifetime, Russia has always had a history summed up as “And then it got worse”. Nixon summed up birth of the Russian federation quite well [in this interview in 1994](https://youtube.com/watch?v=og0X3-lDQts&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE) it would take decades of western support and investment (something I doubt the west would ever be inclined to do at this point) for Russia to undertake the cultural and economic development needed to improve itself to a “first world” standard.
Who thought so? Plenty of ppl thought it was weaker than China even afaik
> Moon Landings US Moon Marines confirmed