Fogbow

This war will be studied by historians and military experts for some time.

The list of fundamental strategic, tactical and logistical failures of the Russian military is long and getting longer.

This thread is focused on the sorry state of the equipment.

The Chinese tires and other obvious preventative maintenance failures are one issue.

The other being that they are still fielding WWII level designs.

OK.

Here is an example.

In the 1950s, the Soviet Central Auto and Tractor Directorate began a development program to replace the AT-P series of artillery tractors (which were based on the ASU-57 airborne self-propelled gun) with a new generation of vehicles. The MT-L was developed to meet this requirement based on the PT-76 amphibious light tank chassis. The MT-LB is the armored variant of the MT-L. Entering production in the early 1970s, it was cheap to build, being based on many existing components, e.g. the engine, which was originally developed for trucks.

So the MT-LB is basically a WWII era design armoured troop transport built in the 1970s.



Most of them were mothballed in anticipation of a modernization push in the Russian Army. Unfortunately, the modernization didn't happen because mega yachts take priority.

So, in the run up the the invasion of Ukraine, these were taken out of moth alla and shipped straight to the front.

This is a picture of a "de-mothball" checklist taped to the inside hatch of an MT-LB captured by the Ukrainian 72nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade.

Slightly unsuitable for work.

Tires? Maybe. Maybe not. The source of the rumor is suspect:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler ... c6922f61e2

He's guessing (more likely pulling words out of his 4th point of contact) and hasn't any actual facts in hand.

Chilidog wrote: ↑Fri Mar 11, 2022 9:06 am This war will be studied by historians and military experts for some time.

The list of fundamental strategic, tactical and logistical failures of the Russian military is long and getting longer.

This thread is focused on the sorry state of the equipment.

The Chinese tires and other obvious preventative maintenance failures are one issue.

The other being that they are still fielding WWII level designs.

An aside (don't want to threadjack!) I listened to the Senate hearing yesterday on Intel, which was incredibly informative, btw, and was particularly enthralled by the explanation of why US Intel overestimated Russia (the subject of equipment came up, among other things), which partially explained the underestimation of Ukraine. Resulting in bad decisions made by NATO/USA in terms of immediate military aid to Ukraine, btw.

The military/industrial complex requires a credible bogeyman to operate optimally.

Those things look like they'd blow up in the launcher.

Snagged another one

Snagged another one

Interesting lists here:

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html

Another short thread on tires. The ones in question here are marked "Made in USSR," which of course hasn't been around for 30-some years. And moar.

Trent Telenko @TrentTelenko wrote: It has been a little while since I've talked about truck tires, but I've been DM-ed a couple of photos what are worth a thread.

This is a Russian Grad launch truck with really old tires.

1/

If I understand this correctly, those are really tired tires?

If you own or work with small trailers, you get "dryrot."

Downed Russian fighter jets are being found with basic GPS 'taped to the dashboards,' UK defense minister says

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... -uk-2022-5
Details at the link, but the headline is basically the story.

“In 500m turn right and drop bombs..”

Recalculating, recalculating.

Make a U-turn at the cloud that looks like a puppy...