
Inside the Soviet Army, what kind of weapons - jacquesm
http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/06.html
======
dmlorenzetti
This article makes a good argument for simplicity. Yet two of the topmost
examples-- that simplicity in the MIG-25 made it fast, and that simplicity in
the transmission of Soviet tanks makes them more easily repaired, even if
they're harder to drive-- fly in the face of a specific tactical approach
developed by the US Air Force during the Korean War.

The OODA loop concept breaks down decisions into a cycle of Observation,
Orientation, Decision, and Action [1]. The theory was developed by a John
Boyd, who flew F-86 aircraft against faster and more maneuverable Mig-15s
during the Korean war. Nevertheless, his unit supposedly achieved a 10:1 kill
ratio [2].

He attributed their success to American pilots' ability to make and act on
decisions faster. "Time is the dominant parameter. The pilot who goes through
the OODA cycle in the shortest time prevails because his opponent is caught
responding to situations that have already changed." [3]

And in part he attributed this ability to the F-86 being easier on the pilot:

 _During his research he found that Fatigue was also a factor. He and his
pilots were flying F-86’s and although they were slower and less maneuverable
than the Mig 15’s they were flying against, The F-86 was fully hydraulically
controlled and the Mig 15 was only hydraulically assisted. This meant that
Boyd’s pilots could operate their aircraft with easy and gentle manipulation
of the controls, while the Mig pilots had to work harder to maneuver their
aircraft. Boyd found that the more his pilots maneuvered and the longer a
dogfight persisted the more fatigued the Mig pilots became and the slower
their reaction time became until the F-86 pilots were able to maneuver their
aircraft into a position of dominance._ [2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

[2]
[http://www.tacticalresponse.com/d/node/226](http://www.tacticalresponse.com/d/node/226)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_\(military_strategist\)#The_OODA_Loop)

~~~
nickff
The other big issue which was not fully understood until the Americans had
captured some Soviet aircraft was that the MiGs were not built to be used
regularly for training and other flights. The Soviet aircraft simply could not
withstand the number and type of flight hours required to train a pilot to the
level of proficiency that the western allies achieved. This is best
demonstrated by India's experiences with the MiG-21 and General Dynamics F-16,
where using both aircraft similarly has proven to be very dangerous to the MiG
pilots.[1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-
Gurevich_MiG-21#India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-
Gurevich_MiG-21#India)

~~~
angersock
And yet, despite the superiority of the air stuff, the ground war didn't go so
well--that being the main focus of the article it would seem.

------
atroyn
This is an except from the book "Inside the Soviet Army" by Vladimir
Bogdanovich Rezun, writing under the Suvorov pseudonym. You can find it on
Amazon here: [http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Soviet-Army-
Suvorov/dp/00261550...](http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Soviet-Army-
Suvorov/dp/0026155001/ref=sr_1_1)

It's an interesting and fairly easy read, but should be taken with a grain of
salt. Rezun was a captain in Soviet military intelligence (GRU) who defected
to England in 1978 with his family. Rezun provided much intelligence to
western planners, some of which came into dispute under later examination.
Notably, many feel Rezun overstated the capability of the Red Army in the late
70's and early 80's, leading directly to the Reagan-era military buildup to
counter a much larger threat.

~~~
gadders
Well, on the upside the Reagan-era build up worked, at least.

~~~
atroyn
'Worked' is a matter of perspective, I'm afraid.

~~~
gadders
'Worked' as in 'won the cold war and the Warsaw Pact collapsed liberating
millions of people from Communism'. Not sure how that could be perceived as a
negative.

~~~
atroyn
Many of those people who were 'liberated' didn't feel so great about the
Yeltsin years, 'shock therapy', the rise of the oligarchs and ultimately
Putin.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Russian_male_l...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Russian_male_life_expectancy.jpg)

Not to mention the damage the Reagan years did to the economy and society of
the U.S.

~~~
gadders
I bet the people of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Czech Republic etc etc
feel pretty good about it though.

~~~
vadman
Hungary and Czech Republic invaded USSR as part of Hitler's coalition. They
had it coming.

------
Jedd
The opening line of the post:

"I adore weapons. Of every sort."

From Excession, by Iain M. Banks:

"It could see that - by some criteria - a warship, just by the perfectly
articulated purity of its purpose, was the most beautiful single artefact the
Culture was capable of producing, and at the same time understand the paucity
of moral vision such a judgement implied. To fully appreciate the beauty of a
weapon was to admit to a kind of short-sightedness close to blindness, to
confess to a sort of stupidity. The weapon was not itself; nothing was solely
itself. The weapon, like anything else, could only finally be judged by the
effect it had on others, by the consequences it produced in some outside
context, by its place in the rest of the universe. By this measure the love,
or just the appreciation of weapons was a kind of tragedy."

~~~
jacquesm
Man that hurts. I know it is totally off-topic but the fact that there will be
no more sequels really hit the other day when I was in a bookstore looking for
something new to read. I'd gravitated to the area where Ian M. Banks books are
on display and it took me a full minute to realize there never would be
anything new in that section again. What a pity.

~~~
arethuza
I'm going even further off-topic, but I saw a blog posting by David Brin where
he describes the Culture as "a humanity-that-succeeds" \- which is a
description I loved.

[http://davidbrin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/science-fiction-
lame...](http://davidbrin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/science-fiction-lament-then-
optimism.html)

------
arethuza
The article mentions some weapons that were mounted on Jeeps - but doesn't
mention that there were Jeep mounted nuclear weapons! The Davy Crockett
"tactical nuclear recoilless rifle":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29)

~~~
rangibaby
I think that is because by the time this was written (1982) Davy Crockett and
other tactical nukes had been phased out due to both sides being capable of a
"second strike".

[0]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)

------
eshvk
This is amazing. I have no interest in weapons or whatever. However, from a
design perspective, the obsessive focus on simplicity is very cool. Also, they
are remarkably optimized around their constraints: multitude of forces,
scarcity of resources. So a tank is designed not to be comfy for the soldier
but for the other resources.

------
angersock
This is the most bloody stubborn practical sys-admin like conduct of war and
ops of which I have ever read.

Tanks are cool, but planes are more mobile: should we just use planes? Nyet!
Add rotor; is now flying tank!

Reuse calibers? Nyet! Dumb peasant Ivan can confuse 120mm howitzer with mortar
with tank round--better to just have different calibers and avoid that entire
logistics problem entirely!

Mortars can be made of steel and rifled, and have twice the accuracy: can we
use those? Nyet! Build _ten_ mortars for price of one fancy-pants mortar, get
_5 times_ the accuracy!

It's amazing.

------
dccoolgai
The design that literally saved the world:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34)

Soviet designers understood simplicity and reliability in military design...
if only that understanding had extended to the realm of government and
administration...

~~~
joshvm
For the same reason, the Soyuz is by far the most reliable way to pretty much
anything into space. The technology is old and trusted and more or less "just
works".

The Shuttle was practically a much more useful research spacecraft, crammed
with useful things like living quarters, but all the creature comforts and
usability mean reliability takes a nose dive and costs sky rocket, pun
intended.

Sadly government administration is to blame for the failure of the Buran,
Russia's Space Shuttle clone. In many ways it was superior to the American
Shuttle, but ultimately bad management and funding cuts meant the project was
shelved and they weren't even able to house the retired ship properly.

"Buran could stay in orbit for 30 days, while the American shuttle had a
15-day time limit. It could deliver into orbit 30 tonnes of cargo, compared to
the US shuttle's 24 tonnes of cargo. It could carry a crew of 10 cosmonauts,
while the American shuttle could carry seven astronauts. Preparation for the
Energia/Buran launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome only took 15 days. However, it
took one month of preparations before the US shuttle was launched from Cape
Canaveral.

The Energia rocket booster could be used to launch various payloads into
orbit, whereas the American shuttle's booster was one-task. A year and a half
before the Buran launch, Energia was launched with a full-scale mock-up of the
Skif-DM orbital combat laser platform weighing 77 tonnes, measuring 37 meters
long, and over four meters in diameter. Though the mock-up failed to reach the
desired orbit and fell into the Pacific, the Energia booster did its job fine,
delivering the huge space platform into intermediate orbit, 110 kilometers
above the earth's surface. But the most important difference from the American
model was that the Soviet spaceship could perform the flight and landing in
totally automatic mode, which it brilliantly demonstrated on November 15,
1988.

Buran's American counterpart used to land with switched-off engines, meaning
it could make only one landing attempt. The Soviet spacecraft could take
several tries if needed. When Buran approached Baikonur Cosmodrome and started
landing in 1988, its sensors registered too strong side winds and the robotic
system sent the huge machine for another rectangular traffic pattern approach,
successfully landing the spacecraft on a second try. The Buran shuttle was
designed to perform 100 flights to space, while its engines were ready to do
66 flights without replacement. During its flight, it lost just eight of its
unique thermal-insulation tiles out of 38,800."

~~~
vadman
Another interesting thing I read about Buran is that apparently (some of?) its
computers were ternary, not binary. Unfortunately, I cannot find any English
mentions of that, and a quick search in Russian did not produce anything
reputable, so take it FWIW.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun) \-
Soviet ternary computer.

------
parroquiano
The chiefs of staff of all divisions were immediately summoned to Moscow. They
were given a day's instruction in the technique of sleeping out in snow at
freezing temperatures, using only a greatcoat. Then each of them was required
to convince himself that this was possible, by sleeping in the snow for three
nights. (It should be remembered that March in Solnechnogorsk, near Moscow, is
a hard month, with snow on the ground and temperatures below zero.) Then the
chiefs of staff returned to their divisions and immediately the entire Soviet
Army was put to a very hard test-that of spending a night in the open in
numbing cold and without any extra clothing. It seemed as if those who were
stationed in deserts in the south were in luck. But no-they were sent by turns
to either Siberia or the north to be put through the same tough training.
Thereafter, spending a night in the snow became a part of all military
training programmes.

Two years before this, following the shameful defeats in Sinai, when it had
become clear how much Arab soldiers fear tanks and napalm, urgent orders had
been issued, making it compulsory for all Soviet soldiers and officers, up to
the rank of general, to jump through roaring flames, and to shelter in shallow
pits as tanks clattered by just above their heads, or, if they could not find
even this protection, to lie on the ground between the tracks of the roaring
vehicles.

The Soviet Army re-learned its lessons within a single day. I have felt napalm
on my own skin, I have crouched in a pit as a tank crashed by overhead, and I
have spent terrible nights in the snow.

~~~
Maakuth
This is in its entirety a quote from the article. I think that should be
indicated by quote marks at least.

------
icebraining
The author:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov)

------
outworlder
The section about "cost" was eye-opening. Indeed, if you are getting a state
organization to do something needed for another, why should money exchange
hands anyway, only to be refunded?

Granted, that applied to the Soviet Union, not Russia. Still, how difficult
would be to apply that among government agencies nowadays?

[EDIT: Of course, some form of accounting needs to take place, the article is
wrong in saying that it is all "free". It is not free, but not actual money
needs to be exchanged. ]

------
Marazan
And yet Russian tanks got fitted with auto-loaders, eliminating a crew member.
This increased the numbers of systems that could breakdown whilst
simultaneously reducing the number of crew members on hand to fix any problems
(not just the autoloader but now there is one less person to fix
tracks/service the engine etc)

~~~
nickff
One problem with the auto-loaders on the Soviet tanks was that they often
loaded a gunner's arm, and closed the breech.

------
stacksmasher
Everyone knows the fastest recon aircraft was the SR-71
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird)

There is so much bias in this article I have to go wash my eyes with bleach
now

~~~
vadman
DISCLAIMER: I myself never read any of his books.

Rezun's books are not a reliable historical source. Back when they first
appeared, there were huge discussions and dissections on Russian
military/history forums about his inaccuracies and weird theories (e.g.
"offensive" strategic bomber vs a "defensive" one). He can provide interesting
leads to base your own research on, though.

Also, this particular book seems to be poorly translated, because some
passages don't make sense at all (I don't believe Rezun himself is that
incompetent). Example:

"The design of this Soviet tank was taken as a basis for the `Panzer' and
shortly afterwards for the `Tiger-König'. "

"Panzer" simply means "Armor" in German. What he wants to say here is
"Panther", a German tank which many feel was heavily inspired by T-34.

------
paganel
> Soviet generals have never been faced with problems of this sort. They have
> always known that victory in a war can only be achieved by advancing. To
> them defensive operations spell defeat and death. In the best case, such
> operations can only produce a deadlock, and not for long, at that. Victory
> can only be achieved by means of an offensive-by seizing the initiative and
> raining blows on the enemy's most vulnerable areas.

Very interesting. This reminds me of Clausewitz, who 200 years earlier had
tried his best to convince those around him that just defending "stuff" by
holding positions on mountain passes was a sure way to get defeated.

~~~
nickff
Clausewitz specifically states that defense is a stronger form of war than
attack, and makes a very good case for why. "On War" did make the case that
having two rows of soldiers simply standing on the side of a mountain,
shooting at the enemy was a poor use of forces, but still goes on to use
numerous examples from the Napoleonic wars and seven years war to demonstrate
the advantages of defense.

~~~
paganel
Strange, that means I remembered incorrectly :)

------
DominikR
"No, it will be one of the thousands captured by the American marines in
Vietnam and used in their desperate attempt to halt Communism and to avert the
calamity which threatened the Vietnamese people."

I'm sure that the Vietnamese people have fond memories of American marines to
this day. After all they didn't just help them against Communism, they also
helped them manage their problems with overpopulation by exterminating 4
million Vietnamese!

------
flipped_bit
Haven't read this book but read this author's "Icebreaker" which has some
interesting viewpoints, mainly that Stalin was the true 'evil genius' whose
plans to conquer Western Europe were preempted by Hitler.

This video goes into some details here with the author presenting it himself:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbBnRZoTHFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbBnRZoTHFs)

------
galaktor
I'm a bit stumped as to why I'm getting down-votes for this. Judging by the
discussion that followed I am not wrong in pointing out the creepiness here.
Also I never said I won't read it, only that I feel as if I'm crossing a
strange line by doing so (difficult does not mean I won't do it. in fact it
usually will mean the opposite for me)

------
forkandwait
This kind of relentless simplicity should be the aesthetic of all engineers.
Personally, i think if we had gone to war with the USSR, they would have won
just by surviving the dust and breaks in logistic chains. (Assuming, for the
sake of rhetoric, that the human race wasn't exterminated by radiation.)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>they would have won just by surviving the dust and breaks in logistic chains.

Where did this myth come from where US/NATO weaponry were these delicate
things but for some reason Soviet weapons were wonderfully engineered. We saw
the US go into various conflicts against various enemies during the cold war
and get a real life test of its methods and equipment in Korea and Vietnam and
later in the Balkans and Iraq.

The Red Army saw action in Afghanistan where an largely unfunded resistance
fought them off. Later, in Georgia, we saw how delicate the Soviet-era
equipment is and how poor Russia's ability to maintain a supply chain is.

If I had to go to war tomorrow, I'd want NATO's weaponry, not Putin's. I'll
carry the AR15 instead of the AK47, thanks. It has longer effective range,
better accuracy, and less weight.

~~~
myth_drannon
AR15 cannot survive harsh environments. I saw many photos of American soldiers
using AK47 in Iraq. Israeli Navy Commando probably still using it(try to dive
and then shoot with an AR15). And from my personal experience with M-16 you
need to spend a lot of time cleaning this plastic toy, and when you jump from
tanks, apcs and hit it on some metal by mistake.... good luck. I could take my
Galil(Israeli "clone" of AK47) and just throw it on down on sand from a story
high, pick it up and continue shooting. Can you put AR15 on the ground and
drive a tank on it and then pick it up and continue shooting ?

And the sentence about Afghanistan is completely bonkers. US /Saudis spent
many billions on arming islamists against SA. On the other hand NATO just lost
to a bunch of drug traffickers over there ...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Anedcotes aren't data. I've seen pictures of broken imacs, but that doesn't
mean its a poor product. The biggest problem with the AR15 in in
Iraq/Afghanistan was soliders not getting ammo fast enough or prefering its
higher fire rate for suppressing fire and eating through ammo quickly. Nor is
it plastic, the body is 7075 aluminum plate. These modern materials save 3 lbs
of weight compared to the wood casing of the AK product.

>US /Saudis spent many billions on arming islamists against SA.

Still unfunded compared to a nation state on par with the USSR and all its
resources. A largely unfunded rebel movement chased off the Red Army. That's a
fact.

------
comrh
Interesting article. For info on the infantry units primary weapon I recommend
The Gun by C. J. Chivers. It bills itself as a history of the AK-47 pattern
rifle but it also covers early Soviet weapons such as the Mosin family of
rifles.

------
pathikrit
My list of crazy Russian weapons:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-
class_ekranoplan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval)

~~~
atroyn
Neither the Avrocar nor Project Pluto are Soviet designs.

------
galaktor
I must say that I find it difficult to read beyond the first sentence which
says "I adore weapons. Of every sort." This honestly creeps me out a bit.

~~~
brudgers
It's a great opening line: personal, informative, and establishing a
credential - who would want to read an article about weapons written by
someone with no interest in the subject? It lets the reader know that the
author has an opinion and narrows the topic so that the question of whether a
person should be interested in weapons does not interfere with what the author
wants to say.

I found it creepy, too. But I also have a habitual interest in the cold war
and weapons are where I first encountered the fascinating world of technical
specifications. It was something I shared as a child with my father - who was
a small boy during the Second World War and a research scientist for the USDOD
his entire professional career. That doesn't make me a fan of killing or war.
It just means that I have contradictory interests. So obviously I read the
article and enjoyed it.

I also puzzled over my enjoyment. The human toll at Stalingrad [celebrated by
the author] was immense, and as I have aged I have lost the convenience of
demonizing other people through stereo-types. There but for the grace of god,
go I - without any belief in the concept of god which it might suggest.

So I appreciate the writing and struggle to find a place for the enjoyment I
gained from reading and still mull over what it ignores and celebrates. That's
what makes it good - it has a take and doesn't suck.

~~~
jacquesm
Stuff that stuck out for me from a technical perspective:

    
    
      - make interfaces that connect different things so different
        that you're not tempted to fit the one into the other
        and so that communications about these are unambiguous
    
      - KISS with a vengenance, better two simple things than one
        complicated
    
      - the supply lines are more important than the accuracy of
        your weaponry
    
      - better to make your high performance jets from a  material
        that you can procure during war
    

And a whole pile of minor elements. Weapons are not to be enjoyed unless for
target practice, but the lessons in there are (judiciously) applicable to any
kind of engineering.

~~~
brudgers
The concept that really struck me was setting aside technical/engineering
autism and calling 130mm mortar rounds '132mm mortar rounds'. It's the
required amount of complexity and no more - it exchanges about one bit of
additional information on the design side for many many bits of information on
the implementation side. It is as close to free as communication gets.

It's the quintessential business decision - it manages laziness and hubris of
staff for a vast improvement in user experience. The downside of such
decisions is dealing with grumbling snowflakes. Like a Hero of the Valley,
Stalin was known for ruthlessly expedient methods for handling dissent.

