Russian forces in Crimea brace for possible Ukraine assault - NewsBreak

LTC (Join to see) What he says tracks pretty well with what we were taught about their forces as aircrews with Soviet targets. In the FB-111 even if they found us we could outrun them and be long gone by the time they got permissions to do anything.

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Jack are you saying they couldn't take it initiative into Political officers had to give them the okay? Is this like the extreme micromanagement? I heard something similar is that the American has the fighting spirit and can improvise and not follow Doctrine if they have to survive.

LTC (Join to see) That was how we trained, they had to get permission to do anything, we did what we needed to do. I think we're seeing that's still the case with how the Russian army is performing.

May I give the Opfor view on this ?
We were trained to use the USSR/ Russian tactics, at first it was hard getting used to calling up to higher to do anything, instead of just winging it, but after awhile it became easier to do mainly because everyone was on the same freq. If I had to I could call the regimental commander to get the ok to break off and go after a Bradley or M-1 that was running, or he could call me and order me to do something, both of us bypassing the company & battalion commanders. It hardly happend but if everyone was taken out but us it worked. Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen now the regular grunts that's true, but if you happened to come down close to some Spetsnaz, they are way different. They have more initiative to do things on their own.
LTC (Join to see) yes they are micromanagement that much, because their way of thinking is only the Officer corps has the training to make any decisions. They do have a NCO corps but compared to ours or other western countries, theirs are cut off at the knees, same for the WO's. It goes back to the Russia of the Czars where only the Officers had any kind of schooling, and everyone else was a peasant. The way we heard if you reuped after your initial time, you could be promoted into the NCO corps (starting at Jr Sgt), and you could get more rank the more you made, read beat, the people that were under you. There are other things that we were told about, but I'd have to write a book on here. Remind me later and I'll try & remember a couple other things.