Talk:Russian Ground Forces

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Contents 1 Could someone put down Soviet Military Units table? 2 Just made a huge edition to the article 3 Perceptions 4 Kirill's Peer Review 4.1 Kirill Lokshin 5 NPOV? 6 Table

[edit] Could someone put down Soviet Military Units table?

Like there are x many in a brigade and this many in a division. AND what are the Soviet names for them?

-G

Look at Division (military)#Soviet Divisions

[edit] Just made a huge edition to the article

Added some notes on the forces in Kaliningrad and on the Kamchatka peninsula. Also made some notes on the best Russian-language references and an English-language article which covers some of this. Incidentially the International Institute for Strategic Studies' 'The Military Balance 2006' still lists 1200 T-55 in service and even some T-34. The Russians store equipment for decades and decades sometimes. Cheers Buckshot, 28 Jul 06.

I just added all the stuff you now see in the "Current Inventory". I have been working on it for the past week, and I strove to make it as accurate as possible. All service numbers are active service and taken from warfare.ru .

I know it looks really messy but I tried to fit as much information on one line, as I felt more than one would break the flow. I'm sure you can tell that this is my first time trying something like this. I don't think it looks too bad but I have a feeling everyone else will, so I am open to suggestions on how to improve it without removing any of the content. Hopefully it's not so bad that you guys don't even think it's worthy of being used, as I put a considerable amount of time and effort into it.

I look forward to reading what you guys think. :) --Skyler Streng 02:16, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Its not messy at all, its really nice and well done. Mathieu121 12:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much :D --Skyler Streng 18:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Who got rid of the T-55? IT IS STILL IN SERVICE!!!

Yeah some people have been making changes already it seems, the T-55 was removed and significant alterations to service numbers of the MBTs have been made. I wish the people doing this would say either in the talk page or edit summary what their source is to back up their edit, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And the T-55 removal isn't too big of a deal as it is speculated that as of now they may all be in storage.

So anyways, if you're going to be making alterations to the Current Inventory section that I made (and Mathieu121 was so kind to start :D) with service numbers that differ from those given at warfare.ru, please provide a source of some kind, otherwise nobody knows if these numbers are accurate in any way or just made up. --Skyler Streng 15:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes because I have seen (and Im sure you have) people changing things to there thinking of mind (sorry bad english). But the T-55 are in storage (mostly in the eastern army were China is) and therefore should be re-added for if the Chinese invaded or if Russia invades, then they are gona be part of that defense force first and added to the invasion in China, depending what would happen. Mathieu121 19:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: And the BMD-4 is NOT I repeat NOT part of the Russian asernal as of yet. Mathieu121 19:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the the Russian military has just recieved a first batch of BMD-4s about a week ago according to some articles I read, one of them I found for proof for you doesn't have as much information, but still backs up my claim: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060616/49637256.html . While it may not be in full active service yet, I felt it should be mentioned in the article as technically it is now in Russia's arsenal. :) --Skyler Streng 20:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perceptions

Neutralaccounting introduced this section: "The Russian Ground Forces are regarded internationally by governments as a sovereign right of Russia to possess. The leaders of NATO and Europe have historically planned their military defense around a conflict with them.

In the West one of the views is that they are tough on chaos warriors that bring order to disorder. Another similiar focus is the interest in the West in their hardware and organization from a technical perspective. Another viewpoint is that they are a partially backward organization that has no significant projection of force beyond nearby countries such as Afghanistan and Chechnya.

A more human centered perspective that is notable both within Russia by some civilians and without it's own country is about its occasional but flagrant abuse both against it's own [[1]] and civilians"

...which I think is a little unfair. No other armed forces entry gets even mentioned as whether the country has a right to possess them. Personally on the rest I'd say that the things are put rather crudely... the Soviet Union posed an undoubted threat to Western Europe, it's not particularly backward, but ill-funded, with low morale, appalling dedoskchina, beyond whatever merit it originally had, destroys cohesion, and it han't brought much order anywhere. I do not believe the inhabitants of Chechniya would agree the Ground Force have brought them order. I think everybody should discuss these sentiments a bit before putting such controversial material, likely to spark an edit war, on the main article. We can fix up a section that includes most of these pretty good points together, which will add value to previously uncovered areas of the Ground Forces, but we need to be careful with our tone or we'll be POVing. Comments and thoughts welcome. Buckshot06 05:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill's Peer Review

Reproduced from project page:

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Hmm, some general suggestions:

• The lead should be a summary of the remainder of the article, not a separate section in its own right.
• The organization structure (not "order of battle", as there's no conflict being discussed) should be presented as prose, if possible, or, failing that, as a table. Wikification of just about everything would also be in order; almost all of these units are deserving of articles.
• The equipment section should be trimmed to a few paragraphs of prose. The current list is unacceptably long; this isn't list of equipment of the Russian Ground Forces, after all. As a general rule, a list-heavy article will never pass FAC (and is hence likely to fail an A-Class review as well).
• I would clean up the footnotes to avoid the Latin; even the CMoS deprecates "op. cit." now. (As a side note, "Name, ibid." would only make sense if multiple authors had been cited in the previous note, and only one was applicable; in the case where the previous note references only a single source, the form is a plain "Ibid.").
• Some major topics that should get discussed:
  • Budgets and expenditures.
  • Command structure, names of major commanders, etc.
  • Ranks, decorations, etc.
  • Controversies, corruption, etc. (tantalizingly referred to—"These numbers should be treated with caution, however, due to the difficulty for even the General Staff to make accurate assessments."—but never fully discussed).
• Direct citations for as many points as possible would be a good idea.
• Finally, once the article has taken shape, extensive copyediting will probably be appropriate.

(One minor point: is "Russian Ground Forces" the official translation? I would have thought that "Russian Land Forces" would be closer to the original.) Kirill Lokshin 04:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

Whats with the idea that "there is little chance of it's effectiveness"? When in fact the budget has been increasingh by 25% every year, and more and more money is being put in. I think that this article needs to remove it's opinions and rather put in simply facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:207.6.75.84

As you will have seen with the 30odd citations down the bottom, I'm trying to bring this article toward a A-class review standard incorporating lots of quotations from people who know. User:Buckshot06

For example, on your specific point:

'Since 1999 the defense budget has grown more than three times – rising from 109 billion rubles to 346 billion (in 2003). However, no positive changes have come about: the level of combat readiness and discipline is just as low as it was few years ago. All of this means that the Russian armed forces are not ready to defend the country and that, at the same time, they are also dangerous for Russia. Top military personnel demonstrate neither the will nor the ability to effect fundamental changes.' Golts, MILITARY REFORM AND GLOBAL WAR AGAINST TERRORISM, 2004

"The Russian president now faces two challenges in defense and security. The first is that the Russian armed forces do not meet any modern requirements. Top military officials try to reduce the problem down to the need to rearm the armed forces with new precision weapons and other equipment. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov insisted in 2001 that the first priority in military reform is rearmament, which had to begin with modernization of the Space Forces. Many independent experts doubt seriously that the Russian military-industrial complex is capable of producing modern weapons. But even if a miracle was to happen and the Russian army received this equipment, it would not be able to use it effectively. The war in Chechnya has shown how inefficient is this military concept in a period of local conflicts.

The second challenge is that the unreformed armed forces have become Russia’s most urgent social problem. Decay is the best word to describe the situation. Young men look on army service as state slavery and try to avoid it. Military officials repeatedly complain that they are able to draft less then 11 per cent of those who are supposed to be conscripts. As a result, most recruits meet neither health nor intelligence standards. At the same time, the military fails to man units with the planned number of soldiers. Desertion is now epidemic. Soldiers are deserting in platoons and companies. According to official statements, there are now more then 2,265 deserters (unofficially, the military believes that the number is several times higher). These young people who have left their units with weapons have quickly became criminals. In 2001, deserters killed a general who tried to stop them. Some observers have written about the possibility of a new ‘“Ironclad” Potemkin’ revolt. Soldier morale is extremely low. Military commanders are powerless to stop dedovschina (daily severe hazing of first-year soldiers by those in the second year)." --Alexander Golts, 'Military Reform in Russia and the Global War Against Terrorism, Vo 17 p.29-41, 2004

So when I make these assessments like revival of effectiveness is unlikely, it is Russian sources like this defence journalist Golts that I draw my info from. Buckshot06 04:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table

How about formatting the formation dispositions as a definition list? —Michael Z. 2006-10-25 16:06 Z

Ground and Coastal Defence Forces of the Baltic Fleet, HQ Kaliningrad

 ? Motor Rifle Brigade, Kaliningrad (designation uncertain - former 1st MRD)

18th Motor Rifle Division, Gusev (cadre)

Leningrad Military District, HQ Saint Petersburg

138th Motor Rifle Brigade, Kamenka

200th Motor Rifle Brigade, Pechenga

Moscow Military District, HQ Moscow (also serves as HQ Western Front)

2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, Alabino

20th Army, HQ Voronezh

4th Guards Tank Division, Naro-Fominsk

10th Guards Tank Division, Boguchar

22nd Army, HQ Nizhny Novogorod

3rd Motor Rifle Division, Novyy

Operational Group of Russian Forces in Moldova, HQ Tiraspol

8th Motor Rifle Brigade, Tiraspol (former 59th MRD)

North Caucasus Military District, HQ Rostov-na-Donu

131st Motor Rifle Brigade, Maykop

58th Army, HQ Vladikavkaz

One motor rifle division, two motor rifle brigades, one motor rifle regiment

Trans-Caucasus Group of Forces, HQ Tbilisi

Russian bases in Georgia and Armenia

Volga-Ural Military District, HQ Yekaterinburg

34th Motor Rifle Division, Yekaterinburg

15th Motor Rifle Brigade

2nd Army, HQ Samara (former Volga MD HQ)

27th Motor Rifle Division, Totskoye

201st Motor Rifle Division, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Siberian Military District, HQ Novosibirsk

Three army HQs, one tank division, two motor rifle divisions, one machine-gun/artillery division

Far Eastern Military District, HQ Khabarovsk

Two army HQs, one corps HQ, four motor rifle divisions, four machine-gun/artillery divisions