From: antispam@uvic.ca (Robb McLeod) Subject: Re: T-90 verus M1A2 Date: 1997/06/30 Message-ID: #1/1 Sender: military@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com (Sci.military Login) References: Organization: University of Victoria Newsgroups: sci.military.moderated From antispam@uvic.ca (Robb McLeod) In article , Shea wrote: > If Russian doctrine and conscript troops are _SO_ superior, why have >they been defeated twice by clearly inferior forces? Defeated by whom? They did end up winning in Chechnya, despite the fact that almost the entire high command refused to be apart of the operation. They also 'won' in Afghanistan, so much as one can win a guerilla war. > OPFOR at NTC is not the Russian army or are you implying it is? While >they use fSU tactics that do get beaten regularly. They do have an >advantage even though you seem to dismiss it easily. They fight >constantly on the same terrain; no that wouldn't give them an edge. And >when did _you_ go to NTC? Are you implying that OPFOR is routinely beaten, or that people that use FSU tactics are routinely beaten? Neither is true. OPFOR does have an advantage of training constantly, but the underlying complaints are not that the US Army is incapable of reading maps or reading terrain, but that they fail in the most basic operations imaginable. About the only arm that does perform well are attack helicopters. I've never been to the NTC. > In addition, what tournaments did the U.S. come in last? All of them, >I highly doubt it. CAT mostly, and the infantry and recon tests, the names of which I cannot remember. Actually the US Army won CAT, once. They built a computer simulator system for the crew and constantly drilled them to hit all the targets, and in 1987, they won. Next contest participants were not told in advance where the targets were located. The US lost, as usual, and the Dutch and Germans dominated the top ten, again. > And you'll have to help me out on this one, I've been in the infantry. >Why do "conscripts consistantly out perform professionals"? This is going to insult a number of people, but the answer is basic education levels. The basic level of education of your personal is how you can mainly determine how well they will operate in combat. Conscripts are simply drawn from the better educated segment of the population than professionals. Grouping of Soviet Forces Germany drew from roughly the top 35% of the Russian population, and they've long had a better basic education and secondary education system than Western Europe, and far better than the American system which is not very well funded. Everyone likes to think that their training is mindlessly repeditive, but so is ours. It's how you imbue discipline; they have the same advanced training, except their exercises tend to be large scale affairs, and they actually learn from their exercises rather than explaining it away. >P.S. I've been in the military five years, so before assuming that I >don't know anything because I'm in the process of becoming an officer, >ask. So you're mavericking without having learnt anything about not underestimating the enemy and accepting all that confidence boosting talk about how superior you are. Get ahold of the Gulf War After Action reports from the Government Publishing Office. Then examine what Schwarzkopf did and contrast that with both standard western and FSU doctrine. Let's see, massive deception, a huge outflanking operation to bypass the enemy's main line of resistance, supported by deep airmobile operations, coupled with extremely high rates of advance that swiftly outpaced the logistical system. Oh, that's so American. I guess that's why Schwarzkopf had to do all that screaming to get his subordinates to understand how you actually fight a war. -- Robb McLeod rmcleod@uvic.ca (Please replace the "antispam" with "rmcleod" if replying via email)