Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
The Ukraine war has proven pretty decisively that the modern Russian military kinda sucks.
It seems that every time the Russians attempt a "Thunder Run" type, "precision", go-for-the-jugular offensive, they fail miserably. Whenever they try to be like US military of 1991-2003, they just can't pull it off. Poor training, poor command structure, poor leadership, poor logistics, and piss poor operational planning and tactics. When the Russians employ Soviet era (1941-1989) brute force tactics (setting aside their COIN war in Afghanistan), they tend to do fairly well. When they stray from what they know- the old tried and true- they tend to struggle mightily. They make a much better nail-studded club than scalpel.
That said, I'd be careful about drawing conclusions about the Cold War Soviet military based on the current conflict in Ukraine. That would be like comparing the Dallas Cowboys of the 2000s with the Cowboys of the early-to-mid 1990s. Same ownership, but too many other variables in play for it to be true apples-to-apples. I still think a strong case can be made for significantly better Soviet performance in WWIII. So as not to drag this thread OT, I'll leave this here for those who wish to continue a discussion of the hypothetical.
https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=897
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There's a ton of caveats in everything ;-).
First off, my comments aren't intended as criticism for the T2K background. After all, it was written in the mid to late 80s, for the most part, and that was really just when the US started pulling away from the USSR in land warfare capabilities (naval and air power, of course, were always probably clearly in the US ledger).
Secondly, some of Russia's current problems are demographic. Russia has 144 million people to the US's 330 million people in 2022. But in 1988, the USSR actually had 2 million more people than the USA did...
Additionally, 2022 Russia has the economic profile of a developing country (exports natural resources, imports manufactured and high tech goods), whereas in the late 80s, it had the economic profile of an industrial economy (importing raw materials like food, exported manufactured goods).
And an obvious difference between today and 30-40 years ago is sheer throw weight and the numbers of men and equipment the USSR could throw at a problem.
But in the real world, their logistical and planning incompetence suggests that they never really had much in the way of non-nuclear offensive capability. I was personally shocked when the Russians did as bad as they did in Ukraine. I thought the Russians had a strong enough military to conventionally defeat the Ukrainians, but didn't think they mobilized enough forces to successfully occupy the country. I was right about the 2nd part, and very, very wrong on the first part.