![]() They also have many factories to produce munitions, with the companies involved directly under government control, and access to most necessary raw materials. The Russians have an efficient rail network optimised for the movement of combat equipment. The Russian military also benefits from its facilities. This problem has been massively exacerbated in Ukraine as the Russians pull more and more generations of equipment out of storage to replace losses. The weakness of Russian materiel tends to be that it is inflexible – designed to perform one specified task well – and that multiple generations of systems being employed simultaneously makes maintenance difficult. It is not sophisticated, but because it flies too high to be targeted by short-range air defences and is too inexpensive to justify the use of long-range air defences, it is designed to be thoroughly awkward to destroy, while giving its operators a sufficient view of the battlefield to identify targets. To take a specific example, the Orlan-10, which is the primary drone flown by Russian forces, is cheap and simple to operate. Russian materiel is generally exceptionally well designed and adequately built. The practice, however, rarely matches the theory. ![]() This creates a methodological challenge for intelligence assessments of Russian operations, because if they are executed as described in higher military orders, then the conclusion is often that they would succeed. Russian doctrine is often far ahead of western military theory. To begin with, Russian strengths: Russian doctrine – the theory of how the army should fight – is clear, precise, well evidenced and conceptually elegant.
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