StasisLAX From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 3266 posts, RR: 6 Posted (4 years 7 months 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 3817 times:
The New York Times reported yesterday that the Russian military has conducted its largest war games since the fall of Soviet communism.
"A huge exercise, called Stability 2008, spread tens of thousands of troops, thousands of vehicles and scores of combat aircraft across nearly all 11 time zones of Russian territory in the largest war game since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There was no specified enemy, but the Russian forces appeared to be enacting a nationwide effort to quell unrest along Russia’s southern border — and to repulse an American-led attack by NATO forces, according to experts in Moscow and here.
In a grim finale, commanders launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles, the type that can carry multiple nuclear warheads. It was a clear signal of the drastic endgame the Kremlin might consider should its conventional forces not hold. One of the missiles flew more than 7,100 miles, allowing Russian officials to claim they had set a distance record."
Venus6971 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 1409 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (4 years 7 months 1 day 15 hours ago) and read 3740 times:
By reading different accounts of ground and air forces in Georgia they found out they are not very good, it took a good deal of effort just to get the mechnized part of the ground force mobilized. They might be bankrolled now but still have the same equipment they had lined up on the Fulda gap back during the good old days. http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081010/wl_csm/onewguns
UH60FtRucker From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (4 years 7 months 19 hours ago) and read 3370 times:
Prior post was deleted due to housekeeping.
Anyway, Who freakin' cares?
So they held a single military exercise? Big freakin' deal. The fact that this is somehow special, and newsworthy, says a lot about their status.
The US Military holds dozens of major exercises, every year. And thousands of smaller, unit led, exercises, every year. Almost all going unnoticed.
The only truly newsworthy item was the ICBM test. If they have to rattle the cage by flaunting their biggest trump card, it shows their own confidence in their military's ability.
EBJ1248650 From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1932 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (4 years 7 months 2 hours ago) and read 3235 times:
Quoting UH60FtRucker (Reply 3): The only truly newsworthy item was the ICBM test. If they have to rattle the cage by flaunting their biggest trump card, it shows their own confidence in their military's ability.
-UH60
Or lack of confidence? They'd prefer to play the "If we can't win we'll nuke the winners" game?
Venus6971 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 1409 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (4 years 7 months ago) and read 3211 times:
Or it shows after years in Chechia fighting small unit tactics that they are out of practice in large set piece mechnized warfare, saw a unit here in the US that had a 2 year span without deploying continously to regroup, but when came time to redeploy they forgot how to do it effeciently.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10443 posts, RR: 20 Reply 6, posted (4 years 6 months 4 weeks 1 day 7 hours ago) and read 3081 times:
Yes, but they too are pinched by the world economy. It's said that Roman Abramovich took a $20B hit to his net worth in the last month. Oil is getting about half what it did six months ago, and budgets are having to be reworked immediately.
It surely could be about testing their mobilization capabilities, but it also may be an attempt to make sure the population isn't fixating on the economy and can see where their rubles are being spent.
Maybe that's why they called it "Stability"? To outsiders military mobilization doesn't look like an act of stability, but maybe the population is being reminded exactly how stability would be enforced.
Quoting UH60FtRucker (Reply 3): The only truly newsworthy item was the ICBM test. If they have to rattle the cage by flaunting their biggest trump card, it shows their own confidence in their military's ability.
Maybe, but we don't know how many missles they attempted to fire before they got 3 that worked!
Venus6971 From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 1409 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (4 years 6 months 4 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 2988 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 6): Maybe, but we don't know how many missles they attempted to fire before they got 3 that worked!
I remember before I joined the USAF in 1980 I saw on TV a news special on military readiness, the reporter was going on a B-52 ride and had to do 3 tail swaps before they found one that could go, and then going to Langley and noticing that they had more F-15's than engines servicable to fly them. This is what happens when the military training,funding is neglected.
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