Russian Ground Forces: News #1

http://twower.livejournal.com/816835.html

Wow, very nice. Testing of the Scorpion, vs light arms and mines.

TR1 wrote:http://twower.livejournal.com/816835.html

Wow, very nice. Testing of the Scorpion, vs light arms and mines.

Very impressive, for such a light vehicle. Here is the same thing, but with a write-up on the Iveco's capabilities for comparison http://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/18494/

Well the Iveco withstood 6.4kg of explosive, while the Skorpion LShA B has only been tested with 4kg. So, hard to tell which one is superior. Both are very good. Also, keep in mind that the Skorpion is some 1,500kg or so lighter.

Yeah, does that thing look like the ideal Uazik replacement or what?

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/259109.html

Not only IVECO Freccia, it seems Russian MoD is also interested in testing Patria AMV from Finland.

TR1 wrote:Yeah, does that thing look like the ideal Uazik replacement or what?

For the armoured UAZ - sure, although the Volk and Iveco seem to also be ideal.

For the unarmoured UAZ, there is a corresponding unarmoured Skorpion model too; but I don't know much about it.

Bastion in Black Sea.

The armoured vechile is Sprut anti-tank gun?

George1 wrote:The armoured vechile is Sprut anti-tank gun?

Yep, Sprut-SD.

Apparently these came from a VDV division far away, since none are locally deployed in the area, ever since the genius decision to stop purchasing the unit was taken >:{.

It could replace old PT-76 tanks

Yep, it could be very useful in both the Marines and the VDV, hell even light army brigades (in up armored form).

Hopefully Shamanov pushes for it like he did with BMD-4M.
An armor kit would be nice too.

The 2S25 Sprut is based on the BMD-3, so if they made more it would make sense to further develop the turret and sensors... perhaps using systems developed for the new vehicles (Armata, kurganets, boomerang) and basing the new turret on one of the new vehicle platforms and perhaps an extra one for the BMD-4M chassis.
I rather suspect that the new vehicle families will all use externally mounted guns in turrets that are separated from the crew compartment and filled with ammo and external gun positions.

As such the VDV will really need to decide what its future will be... they will remain an air deliverable force, but do they all need to be air droppable or can a section of the force be air droppable with perhaps BMD-4M like vehicles and some Boomerang-10 light wheeled vehicles that could also be made air droppable, with the remainder being air mobile using modified Boomerang-25 and Kurganets-25 vehicles that are not able to be dropped by parachute but will offer better armour and fire power options.

If they want all vehicles able to be dropped by parachute (which they don't have right now... the SA-13 vehicles that are currently replacing their ZU-23 towed AAGs are not deliverable by parachute as an example) then they can either go with an all BMD-4M family, or perhaps an all Boomerang-10 family.

Either way having Sprut based on the BMD-3 chassis is not ideal as most of the vehicles now are BMD-1s and talk of building BMD-2s upgraded till new vehicle options are ready seems a little strange... except to get the makers to reduce the price for the BMD-4Ms.

AFAIK the Naval Infantry are going with a navalised Kurganets-25 with better sea keeping and other optimisations for naval use. They don't have any requirements for dropping by parachute so they can take the better armour of the Kurganets-25 family over the lighter Boomerang-10 family.

I suspect for some roles they might find wheeled vehicles to be useful so I rather suspect they might buy Boomerang-25 and perhaps Boomerang-10 vehicles as well for certain roles where they are more suitable.

TR1, Thanks for the photo of the Bastion and Sprut. It certainly deserves my vote.

In reply to Garry's post, the Technology and Machinery 2011 exhibtion will start on Zhukovsky, Moscow soon. 27.06.2012 till 01.07.2012.
This show is sometimes called "MAKS for Tanks", maybe we will see some novelties: Международный Форум "Технологии в машиностроении - 2012", Жуковский

Cool... even if it is just models or posters...

Will be interesting to see all the new lighter vehicles like Tigr-M etc.

From what I have read (and can remember) they were talking about the first prototypes of Kurganets in 2013, but it is going to be in interesting process, because we are talking about a huge task.

They are not just going to be revealing a new T-99 and BMP-4 and BTR-95 and BRDM-3... these vehicle bases are each entire families of vehicles... it should be interesting, for instance to see what calibre weapon the IFVs will be equipped with... we know the tanks will have 125mm guns, but maybe they might reveal info about the new ammo they are developing. For the air defence vehicles I would expect Pantsir-S1 unmanned turrets on the various vehicle bases, but they might have to go with an alternative for the light brigades as they will with the 152mm tube artillery.

I suspect the gun and missile AD vehicle for the light brigade might be armed with laser beam riding missiles like SOSNA-R and the tube artillery vehicle will be a 120mm mortar vehicle.

I wonder if they will retain the GRAD vehicle... an Armata chassis with Tornado pallet based launcher system would be interesting, but separate units on the trucks used on the Iskander system also make sense... so their might be heavy, medium, medium and light model Tornadoes and also independent truck mounted versions too for independent support roles...

It is also of course possible that the rocket artillery is removed from the Brigade structure and deployed in separate artillery brigades that can be attached to other brigades when needed... with even the 122mm launchers having a range of up to 40km then the requirement to operate close to the brigade they are supporting is reduced.

Equally with 80km range artillery shells the coalition could probably be separated too, though direct fire support firepower has always been popular in Russian forces.

http://twower.livejournal.com/820207.html

Pretty wack.

Python, any people from Kavkaz in your service?

TR1 wrote:http://twower.livejournal.com/820207.html

Pretty wack.

Python, any people from Kavkaz in your service?

Yeah I heard about this, it's pretty fucked up. Army is supposed to unite society; now it looks like they've just stopped trying.

I remember I basically ended up meeting Caucasus people (mostly Dagestanis; don't ask me why - maybe it's just a Northern Fleet thing) everywhere during my service; conscripts, NCOs, civilian workers, etc... vast majority of them were pretty cool and I got along just fine with them. Never witnessed any of the troubles or stuff that you read or hear about. Actually one of the officers, a Major of the Medical service, ended up paying for my medicine out of his own pocket when I got sick and was sent to his infirmary (the reason being is that it was in a different unit and our guys were not covered or something like that, some beurocratic nonsense).

We didn't have Caucasus people in my unit (it was pretty small anyway); but the neighbouring unit in our garrison was from what I could tell; roughly half Caucasian, and half Russian gopnik (I'm talking real provincial types here, not cosmopolitans from Moscow). I always had a good laugh when this motley crew used to arrive at our base every Friday to use our banya facilities

Now you would expect, judging from the sort of nationalist propaganda and so on flying around these days; that these guys would be fighting to the death against each other with knives and chains, banding up in ethnic groups, etc... but from my brief observations they all seemed to mix around and get along well enough with each other, no BS in sight, most of them seemed friendly enough. Actually them lot and the rest of the garrison had a conception our base that it was the most fucked up with violence and stuff. Don't know who told them that one Seriously, whenever I mentioned the name of my unit to troops in the garrison, they all used to repeat the name back to me with this grave tone in their voice, and look at me as if I'd been to hell and back

Good to hear, thanks for info.

Comments on twowers blog seem to blame the units that do have problems on either incompetent or not caring officers.
And the lack of professional NCOs doesn't help.

Why's you go Navy anyways? I thought you wanted to serve on a Russian base on foreign soil or something like that ?

http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/2012/06/1569190/niinisto-venaja-havittelee-isoja-asekauppoja-suomen-kanssa

ttp://www.iltasanomat.fi/ulkomaat/art-1288478646016.html

Finland claim, that Russian government is interested in purchasing 500 Patria AMVs with AMOS.

Somehow I suspect this is in the same vein as the Italian and French APC purchases...

They want some for testing.

They are on the brink of introducing three complete families of vehicles... 5 if you include the two basic versions of Armata (engine front and engine back), plus Kurganets-25 and Boomerang-25 and Boomerang-10.

They have plenty of wheeled and tracked vehicles with 120mm mortars, I would suspect the artillery suite developed for the new vehicle families will accommodate both rocket and tube artillery vehicles. These electronics suites (the aircraft equivalent are called avionics, so a vehicle version should be land vehicle electronics or lavonics) will be for the standard Russian vehicle families all except the Armata models can swim and the Armata can snorkle... AFAIK the Finnish vehicle can do neither.

I rather suspect this will be for testing, though to improve cooperation they could joint develop a next gen version for standard armoured vehicle hulls perhaps.

Certainly the fact that the Finnish system uses GPS will limit it in northern locations where GPS isn't very good... so they might benefit by making it compatible with GLONASS and that european system too.

TR1 wrote:Good to hear, thanks for info.

Comments on twowers blog seem to blame the units that do have problems on either incompetent or not caring officers.
And the lack of professional NCOs doesn't help.

Well, I can only really tell you about stuff that I've seen with my own eyes. And judging by my own eyes - everything was fine; can't really comment on who did what where. Never saw any Caucasians seperating themselves from the rest of the collective; they always tended to mix in same as everyone else pretty much. And the only time I've ever witnessed direct insubordination was when we were just called up, in the uchebka, and this 18-year old kid refused to obey something and stopped listening to our NCO (who was a contract serviceman) in the mess hall. Now the kid was ethnic Russian and the NCO was Caucasian but I doubt this had anything to do with it; the kid was just being a little shit and I kinda felt bad for the NCO coz we hadn't taken our oath yet and all eyes were on us to make sure that we didn't get hurt, fall sick or anything before we could be assigned and shipped out to our units (that's when the real army starts) - and as such he basically couldn't do anything to discipline the conscript.

And this whole thing was way too overzeolous in other ways too (too many people afraid of loosing their jobs, especially in view of the cutbacks in the military); we didn't recieve any sort of training or do anything in the uchebka other than read the ustav/military regulations, only went outside of the barracks for meals and I even got sent to the hospital for 10 days over what was essentially a blocked nose Counting the hospital time, i was basically at that stupid uchebka doing nothing for 3 weeks.

Why's you go Navy anyways? I thought you wanted to serve on a Russian base on foreign soil or something like that ?

Yeah I wanted to serve in that Russian base in Tajikistan (201st was it?). I told my voenkom of my wish, he gave me this apprehensive look and then told me he would send me on some marine or spetsnaz course or something like that. I told him - fuck that, but he explained to me that it's all VDV types that serve there; and I had no particular desire to join any sort of elite infantry so I declined. Ended up regretting that and other missed oppurtunities later though, when I spent the next 12 months shovelling snow

There was also this Colonel in the Genshtab, which a relative of mine knew by some contacts. He promised to help me and I named him a couple of units where I wouldn't mind serving. Well, that offer ended abruptly 3 days before my call-up date - when he suddenly got scared that I was an English spy :L
So all in all I ended up going in blind, and I ended up where I ended up.

BTW do you remember that guy Russian_Soldier on mp.net? Wonder whatever happened to him - last I heard he returned to Moscow and joined the Vodka club instead of the army

Thanks for info man, always intersting.

And yeah, I kept in contact with Russian_soldier for a while, though haven't heard much of him for the past year or so. Well meaning guy, just has a curious outlook on some things hehe.
Was getting married last I talked to him, and planning to move back to the US, Russian army just doesn't pay enough- though that was before money boost.

And honestly, thats what it comes down to- I wouldn't mind a year in actual interesting service, but at the end of the day I can make way more money with teh fancy college degree I have pretty much anywhere else, without being surrounded by bricks for the most part- and that refers to both US and Russian militaries. I considered going air force for a long time (following in grandfathers rather serious tradition in this sense), but alas, eyesight ain't good enough.

But anyways, I wonder if the new Kavkaz exemption means they will stop sending call up notices to my propiska lol .

TR1 wrote:Thanks for info man, always intersting.

And yeah, I kept in contact with Russian_soldier for a while, though haven't heard much of him for the past year or so. Well meaning guy, just has a curious outlook on some things hehe.
Was getting married last I talked to him, and planning to move back to the US, Russian army just doesn't pay enough- though that was before money boost.

Getting married? Man that guy sure got far; he was living in his car back in the States, then came to Russia, got a good job, was always boasting of getting all the chicks in clubs and now got hooked up ... Funny how he ended up not going to the army in the end. He did give me the idea though, I never knew of anyone who would actually attempt to do something like that until then.

But if he never joined the army in the first place - it doesn't make sense that he would complain about the pay. In order to sign a contract you have to do the conscript service first (although some manage to sign a contract after 6 months, some people have to do the full year first); and as a conscript you'll get paid like 300-400 roubles a month or something anyway. Although now this payment has been increased more than several fold from what I heard.

And honestly, thats what it comes down to- I wouldn't mind a year in actual interesting service, but at the end of the day I can make way more money with teh fancy college degree I have pretty much anywhere else, without being surrounded by bricks for the most part- and that refers to both US and Russian militaries. I considered going air force for a long time (following in grandfathers rather serious tradition in this sense), but alas, eyesight ain't good enough.

I hear you bro. Of course one of the good things about a year's service; is that even if it does end up being a waste of time - it's still only a year, so no harm done. The bad part is - is that only serving a year will mean that it's even more likely that you will do crap all; most officers and warrant officers would not want to invest much training or effort into someone who will serve their time and leave, relatively speaking, in the blink of an eye (unless you go into something like motor-rifles, marines, VDV, armour, etc... where they will train you well regardless).

But anyways, I wonder if the new Kavkaz exemption means they will stop sending call up notices to my propiska lol .

http://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/455

Huge photos by Vitaly Kuzmin from Engineering Technologies 2012.

Great shots of T-90MS, and others.

Looks like the T-90MS needs a shave.

I heard that was some kind of RAM. Along with Nakidka, I bet that tank is invisible while idling.

http://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/455

Vitaly made some excellent photos from engineering technologies 2012. Interesting is recce version of Tiger with new RWS on the roof and tracked Pantsir S-1.