Crazy that two years ago we thought this was the second best military in the world. They’ve currently got the second best military in Ukraine.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
311 points (97.3% liked)
World News
32280 readers
682 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Nah, not second best. That's probably just Americans that still haven't registered that the Soviet Union is gone. Generally there was an awareness that the glory days of the USSR was gone and that Russia's small economy could only maintain a crude army.
However, people didn't think that it was THIS bad. This is bad even for Russia's military budget, where one can only assume that there was a lot of corruption on all levels to produce the state of the army at the start of the war. And of course, with things like this, it just got worse by the day.
i mean the budget is not the determining factor here. The russian economy is able to support a strong military, since they have a lot of resources and can produce a lot of shit by themselves. So even if the budget is low nominally it should suffice. Also Russia had a fairly good GDP per capita, far exceeding that of Ukraine and on par with many EU countries.
The issues are corruption, nepotism, lack of career chances for dedicated people and so on.
And the brain drain since the start of this war has been massive
Russia ditched communism for capitalism, and yachts, and stuff.
One might even say corporatism, given their direct rulers are the billionaires who came out on top in the rush to scavenge the corpse of the USSR.
given their direct rulers are the billionaires
corporatism
That's just capitalism.
load more comments
(1 replies)
meanwhile, the massive warheads that supposedly still function still sit in their silos, waiting for Putin to have an off day.
If I were as morally bankrupt as Putin I would be selling them left and right to the highest bidder
I would have said Putin knows better than to sell a weapon that might be used against you, but Wagner...
They used to be the second best military in their own country until Wagner decided to basically call it quits...
Did we? I think most people have known for quite some time now that China is significantly more capable than Russia.
Russia spent a lot of advertising and propaganda money to seem that way. T14 and SU57 were essentially just ads trying to say 'we're still relevant and modern!' It benefited their arms sales, as well as some diplomatic advantages. But that all falls away when it's actually put to the test.
I mean, most countries do that in various ways. There are two differences for Russia in that matter.
-
They actually had a lot of Soviet weapons still around. Like, in quantity Russia was playing in the big leagues. The issue was just, of course, that a lot of it was unusable and got worse over the years with lacking maintenance and with technology getting more and more obsolete. Nevertheless, Russia had certainly a lot of arms and vehicles.
-
The Soviet Union was quite powerful and the image has still stuck with people and Russia did its best with parades and all to pretend that the glory is still with Russia. I put a bit of that blame also on American media repeating the image of the powerful Soviet Union as a dangerous adversary.
The war in Ukraine made it clearer than ever that Russia is only a shadow of what the Soviet Union once was in power projection.
load more comments
(7 replies)
That video is absolutely wild, the headline is actually overselling this POS. It looks like the turret is about to fall off.
How will it perform in the Turrent Flying Olympics?
Favorably, as always.
The gun is so shaky, the gunner could be counted as casualty after firing that gun for some time due to vibration injury.
Yeah I'm sure shit would break within seconds if you actually tried to use it.
Perhaps they forgot the cellotape
This worked great before. In Command & Conquer: Generals.
Turning naval guns into field artillery is actually pretty common, historically.
In the Napoleonic era.
What make gun 'naval'? Apart from the obvious mounted on a boat part. Any design or ballistic issues warranting the naval designation?
Where's the video? I can't see one in the article
https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1698638459450032594
This link worked for me
OMG. That's incredible.
Thanks for sharing the link!
Yeah it's extreme. That thing looks ready to fall apart at any time, not to mention how lousy the accuracy has to be!
It’s in the embedded tweet.
I guess that's not working for me. I tried in a couple of browsers but no luck. Do you have the video URL?
The tweet is at https://twitter.com/CalibreObscura/status/1698702830830227759
And the Ukrainian opposition https://twitter.com/WarVehicle/status/1698636639805821019
Thanks!
So wait. If it's so inaccurate that the only thing it can even hit is the ground, and that's only because of gravity, then how is it only "nearly" useless?
Sometimes the ground has been naughty.
You are not putting luck in the equation. There's still a chance that it can hit something before the truck rolls over or is blown by any projectile.
It could be useful as distraction.
I assume the tractor still moves so it’s useful in getting itself out of the way.
That video is hilarious. The turret and barrel look like this after firing:
Is that a paralax sight? its not even got any kind of targeting assistance its just one guy on a shaking innacurate gun trying to shoot down aircraft by eyeballing it.
I've read that Putin designed them himself. Such genius.
view more: next ›