What's Wrong With Russia's Military

For decades, Russia has been the world's second most powerful military. Today, it is the second most powerful military inside Ukraine. How in the world did a nation with such a significant military overmatch get into a quagmire against a much weaker power? Just what is wrong with the Russian military?

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[robertoclaux]

Imagine being told your body armor can withstand a .50 caliber round, only to find out in the worst way possible that it can't even withstand a box-cutter.

[Akarrotplonker]

Dude “now it’s the second most powerful military in Ukraine” had me laughing way to much thank you

[iamafuckingfailure]

imagine being a russian general, having a conversation with your forces. only to suddenly hear someone joining the call, hearing " hey vsauce, michael here! are you really safe?" only to get hit by an artillery shell not more than a second later

[moarschtuff]

I’ve been in the US military for 7 years - first an enlisted motor vehicle operator, now a finance officer. The first taught me the importance of preventative maintenance, the second taught me the the value of stringent checks and balances, governed by law and ethics. In both areas, future training programs should cite the recent Russian failures as what not to do.

[SuperfieldCrUn]

Those "egg cartons" are supposed to be there. They are spacers meant to keep the actual reactive armor pieces in place and oriented properly. The problem is that there's no reactive armor for the spacers to keep in place.

The Russian military didn't remove expensive, precise reactive armor and replace it with egg cartons. They removed expensive, precise reactive armor and replaced it with nothing.

[Verelkia]

I've noticed a similarity with strategies Russia has used throughout the years, whether its been the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, or modern-day Russia. That being throwing your troops at the enemy until you win.

[barrybarry-bb]

The Russian military has always been viewed as "butchers instead of surgeons". They always tended to be heavy-handed, reckless and sloppy in many of their military operations. If the Russian military were once seen as powerful it's only because they had built a massive arsenal of heavy weapons, such as rocket, artillery and missile systems as well as a sizeable nuclear arsenal. But mass does not equate with quality.

[cyberus]

I’m a US infantry veteran that has served in mechanized infantry units and can confirm PMCS, or Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services as they are formally called, is a absolute religion in the US army both for your vehicle and your weapon

[AroAceGamer]

They lost their most prized ship to a country without a navy.

[BetaProductionz]

I worked in Russia as a consultant for a big IT company. The managers I met were extremely smart but they didn’t trust their junior support staff at all. Instead of giving junior staff the latitude to problem solve or make judgement calls they insisted they follow a strict procedure and don’t deviate from it. I see that this attitude extends to the military as well.

[crazytootzplays]

"For decades, Russia has been the second most powerful military in the words, but now, it's the second most powerful military in Ukraine."
*Humiliation 100*

[Texas]

This video aged well. 6 months in and in the wake of the Ukrainian counteroffensives. Ukraine has been flying up to 30 sorties per day in support of the Kherson offensive and Russia is up to 50 thousand KIA.

Russian troops fled the Kharkiv region, ironically, after Ukraine attacked using Soviet doctrine style strategy.

[dingodestroys]

When I was a 91B in the National Guard, I hated doing the weekly, monthly and yearly checks on all the vehicles in the motor pool. Then I saw how terrible the Russian equipment has performed in Ukrainian.

A little PMCS goes a long way.

[chrisbrown]

As a former Marine Corps grunt that use to hate going to the freaking motor pool every Monday and PMing vehicles I now totally see why it was necessary🤣🤣🤣

[johnonyoutube]

A year later and this still holds totally relevant

[Dantee.]

What’s so weird about Russia is they have hackers who can hack into us companies and then they’re basically using walkie-talkies to communicate lol

[HB-C_U_LR]

I worked in Russia a few years ago. I can guarantee that at least half of the happened only on paper.

[rottweilerfun]

Come to think of it, I don't ever recall seeing a vehicle with a flat tire the whole time that I was in the Army. Also, when you checked out a vehicle you always did preventive maintenance on it. The Army was very serious about maintaining all of our equipment. We were always checking that everything we deployed with would work when needed. We were very professional about things and took training seriously.

[assasinKHV]

I am russian, my dad's commander after another repair stop says: "Dear God, we can't defeat NATO"
Also: Our Minister of Defence never was in military before, he's businessman

[docbaker]

I knew russia's leadership was Self-serving and corrupt but I didn't know it harmed the country to this extent seriously a military like this should not be this poorly trained and equipped.