Vantage Point North

Latest news is that Russia will expand both of the remaining motorized rifle brigades of the 58 th Combined Arms Army into full strength divisions. This would mean that the army would have three full divisions of mechanized forces with heavy artillery and missile support. At the same time when the brigades are being upgraded, “Other units of the 58 th Army” will be moved from their traditional posts in the Northern Caucasus further into west. T-90S tanks (Photo: Some Russian propaganda outlet) There is no schedule for the transition, but as Chechnya is relatively calm under the iron grip of Kremlins pet attack dog Kadyrov, the already full strength 42 nd Motorized Rifle Division, that was expanded in 2016, could begin its relocation at a moments notice. Not that long ago the Russian armed forces transited largely to a brigade structure, very similar to that of the western armies. Next iteration of this concept were the Battalion Tactical Groups that are agile inde...

Latest BMBT Terminator 2 version  After the disastrous experiences of the first Chechen war that led to the destruction of the Russian mechanized forces in the concrete canyons of the Grozny, Russia has been slowly developing a heavy infantry fighting vehicle for urban combat. The vehicle is based on the tried and tested T-72 main battle tank. The vehicle it’s designated BMPT, with a catchy nickname the “Terminator”. The designs of the armored vehicles have traditionally been compromises between mobility, armor protection and fire power. In an urban setting the mobility aspect is morphed from pure maneuverability into the ability to cross and penetrate barriers and navigate the constantly changing landscape. The armor protection is more important as the fighting distances are shorter and the enemy is often able to engage from extremely short distances and even from above. In regards to the fire power, it’s often more important to be able to suppress the hostile forces ...

The main military exercise of the Russian Western Military District, called Zapad2017, has kicked off today. The first lesson that can be extracted from this exercise is that the Russian numbers are not to be trusted. Officially the exercise should be contained to Belarus, the Russian regions bordering Belarus and the Leningrad oblast surrounding the St. Petersburg. The Russian ministry of defense has announced that 12700 troops will participate in the exercise, with 5000 of them being Russian. The reports of the troops being alerted for the exercise have been trickling from the official Russian sources. The first reports from the 13 th of September stated that the two motorized rifle brigades in the Kaliningrad enclave participate in the exercise. Immediately after this, the 6 th army in the Leningrad oblast joined in with its two motor rifle brigades, an artillery brigade and a rocket launcher regiment. Some of these units remained in their garrisons on hei...

The Russian military modernization program has two superstars that have been grabbing the headlines, the T-50 Pak-Fa 5 th generation fighter and the T-14 Armata main battle tank. The Armata has been dubbed as a wonder weapon that will make all other main battle tanks obsolete. The published plan was to phase out all other tracked platforms and gradually replace them with Armata variants. The T-14 Armata was supposed to be produced in great numbers. The delayed development of the Armata platform has been evident, not only by it’s failure in the Victory Day parade at the Red Square, but also by the fact that the advanced T-72B3 variant has been produced in large numbers and an additional upgrade package has been applied to it in 2016. In addition to the T-72B3M, two other Russian main battle tank upgrade programs are currently underway and the overall number of the modernized tanks will rise to thousands. It is remarkable that the Russian armed forces are committing to four ...

#Zapad2017: Russia threatens Finland and the Baltic states The eyes of the European military experts and leaders have been focused on the upcoming Russian Zapad2017 exercise for a while now. When compared to the hype the official Russian description of the exercise is rather underwhelming. Russia claims that the exercise will include slightly over 10000 Russian soldiers altogether with only 3000 entering Belarus to help the Belarussian army to quench an imaginary separatist uprising supported by the evil neighboring superpowers. It is most likely completely coincidental that these neighbors look awfully lot like Poland and Lithuania. So why is the west so worried? Most important reason is, that the scope of the preparations for the Zapad2017 seem to be quite conflicting to the official story. Russian army has activated a large contingent of reservists and specialists to create an infrastructure for the drill. These rear area troops include nearly 5000 men from t...