Rusty's Naval/Military History thread

[vonbach]

I imagine they're simply never left unattended if operational, and keys take seconds that could get people killed in a tight spot in the field.

Bingo. Sometimes they padlock the hatches but thats about it. Theres a button to start it. Thats it.
The engine is a two man carry. About two hundred pounds. The transmission is four tons.

[Buster's Uncle]

Most military doctrine makes eminent sense, if only you understand the reasoning.

[Dio]

Most military doctrine makes eminent sense, if only you understand the reasoning.

The design of military equipment often differs from that of civilian production because they have different application enviroments and concerns.

[Rusty Edge]

The next book is" Snipers Anthology: Snipers of the Second World War"
It had pieces by various artists on those already mentioned.

Simo Hayha: The White Death by Roger Moorhouse

He was the man with the most confirmed kills in any major war. Over 500 as a sniper.
He was a Finn resisting the Russian invasion.

"The 26 divisions and 1,000,000 soldiers deployed by the Red Army should have been sufficient to sweep the paltry 10 divisions and 300,000 soldiers of the Finnish Army aside. By every measure available, the Soviets had an overwhelming advantage: three times as many soldiers as their opponents, thirty times as many aircraft and a hundred times as many tanks."

Pegler, Martin (2012-08-24). Sniper Anthology: Snipers of the Second World War (Kindle Locations 217-220). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

What could the Finns do? Start killing Russians until the Finns were feared.
The Russians tried to use their numbers to their advantage with frontal assaults. The Finns tried to slow them down by digging in, and attacking their flanks with snipers on skis.

Simo was a hunter and outdoorsman who used more or less the same rifle as the Russians. Except he didn't use a scope! Eventually he was put out of action while leading an infantry charge, not while acting as a sniper. His sniper career was less than 100 days, in winter weather the even the Russians considered harsh.
*****************************************

Lyudmila Pavlechencko: Most Dangerous Woman on Earth by Charles W.Sasser

She was walking to class at Kiev University when the Germans strafed her. She decided to enlist as a sniper. She already had certificates as a marksmen.

"Pavlichenko proved to be as relentless as she was strikingly attractive. The perfect killing machine. Day after day, she and an observer crept into no-man’s land to ply her bloody trade. Fortified by hatred and her sense of mission, she often crawled into a hide and remained for up to eighteen hours at a time, living on dry bread and water, conducting bodily functions in place, all just to get the one shot, one kill of the sniper’s trade. Her body count grew almost daily. Her preferred targets were enemy officers, followed by communications specialists, NCOs, dog handlers that were often used to track snipers, and, of course, enemy snipers.

Crafty and deceptive, with a strong sense of survival, she employed various ploys and tricks to keep going when the life-span of the average sniper was about three weeks. Captured snipers from either side were summarily executed on the spot. Thunderstorms or artillery barrages that masked the report of her rifle were her favorite times to hunt since her targets were less alert to her presence and her location more difficult to pinpoint. She rarely fired more than once from the same position and never returned twice to the same hide. She tied strips of cloth to bushes in danger areas to flutter in errant breezes and distract enemy observers. Grenades, mines and smoke booby traps provided further protection against intrusion. Sometimes a clothing store mannequin disguised as a tempting target lured enemy snipers into exposing themselves"

Pegler, Martin (2012-08-24). Sniper Anthology: Snipers of the Second World War (Kindle Locations 523-528). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition. "

She was reluctant to shoot her first potential victim. This hesitation resulted in a friend's death. She became vengeful. Even more so after she married another sniper, only to lose him to a German bullet. She liked to kill the second German in a column, to maximize the psychological impact. She became a Hero of the Soviet Union, and one of the fraction of Russian female snipers to survive the war. She had 309 confirmed kills, over 200 of them officers, and 36 enemy snipers.
Her true total may have been closer to 500.

*************************************************

Bert Kemp was an American sniper/scout serving in North Africa and Italy. As a boy during the depression on a farm, he essentially became a market hunter. He sold surplus rabbits and squirrels to the general store, and purchased 500 rounds of .22 ammunition a week. He got so good that Remington tried to recruit him as an exhibition shooter, but he didn't want to travel.

When the war came he was called up, but failed the physical. A doctor arranged for him to pass and get hernia repair surgery, because of his reputation as a shooter. When he got into combat, he let a German fire 8 shots at him before he could bring himself to kill him.  Bert had a hard time talking about the war.

I don't know how many he killed, but he was an incredible snap shot. He was sent behind enemy lines to kill particular officers. His reputation was such that he was loaned out to both the British and French armies, and decorated for it.

"His citation for the Silver Star medal reads: Undaunted by an intense enemy tank, artillery and machine-gun barrage, Sergeant Kemp fearlessly remained in an exposed vantage point, and with accurate and rapid fire skillfully covered his comrades’ withdrawal to more advantageous positions, mortally wounding a number of Germans, and destroying a hostile strong point, thereby contributing immeasurably to repulsing a determined enemy counter-attack. The expression ‘mortally wounding’ in the citation is interesting. Because Bert always preferred head shots, virtually all that he wounded were indeed ‘mortally’ wounded – dead before they hit the ground."

ON ANOTHER OCCAISION
"With no place to go, and the Germans closing in on him, he began to take a deadly toll on the advancing infantry. To reload he would shove a new clip in his M1 with one hand, while continuing to fire with his pistol, then resume his deadly rifle fire. Because he favored head shots, when the Germans went down they stayed down. So many Germans were dying in front of his ditch, they could not believe that they were fighting only one man. They called up a tank. As the huge machine rumbled towards him Bert knew that he couldn’t fight a tank and win, so he began to run down the ditch towards some woods. The German infantry were now up to the edge of his ditch, and every time a head appeared above the rampart Bert, still running, fired and the head disappeared. Unintentionally, it became what amounted to an amazing slaughter of a locally significant force, but by only one man. Reaching the end of the ditch, he still had a space of 50 meters ahead of him before he could reach cover. He burst forth and sprinted for the woods. The tank’s machine gunner opened up on him, with the bullet strikes spraying mud on him, and he was still only half way to the woods. He thought he was a goner, when a P-38 fighter suddenly appeared behind him at treetop level, making straight for the tank."

Pegler, Martin (2012-08-24). Sniper Anthology: Snipers of the Second World War (Kindle Locations 854-857). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

He was wounded 5 times, the last one shrapnel to the head, which invalided him out with double vision. In his later years he was famous for shooting holes in pairs of pennies or even dimes tossed into the air.

[Buster's Uncle]

Thanks; interesting stuff.

[Rusty Edge]

I find it particularly interesting because of the shooting.
It's also interesting for the personalities.

It seems that good hunters make great snipers. It's easier to train a hunter to be a proficient long range shot than it is to turn a marksman into somebody patient and observant enough to become a sniper.

I should elaborate about the Austrian Sepp Allerberger. He was not a hunter. I mentioned he killed 18 snipers in one day, but I didn't give particulars.His regiment always put up stiff resistance, and usually the Russians gave up and attacked elsewhere.

They knew there was a great sniper there. Eventually they countered with an entire platoon of Russian snipers. The Germans were getting picked off in the trenches, so they summoned Sepp. He determined that they had climbed into pine trees, which was a new situation for him. He asked the machine gunners to fire bursts into the trees. He would fire as they did. This allowed him to kill Russian snipers without being detected and killed himself. At the end of the engagement, he'd killed 18 of them.

All of these snipers in these books were able to take out other snipers in a duel. I think most would have considered discretion the better part of valor against such odds. Sepp figured out how to kill them first, before they had time to learn from the mistakes of their dead. He was always improvising, adapting, and overcoming.

Currently I'm re-reading a book about Carlos Hathcock, an American marine sniper in Viet Nam.
He'll be next.

[Rusty Edge]

"MARINE SNIPER: 93 Confirmed Kills" by Charles Henderson

Carlos Hathcock was a kid from Arkansas raised by his grandmother. He hunted for food, and was mostly self-taught.

He joined the Marine Corps, was deployed as an MP, but had a passion for competitive shooting. He won a national championship, something called "The Wimbledon Cup" competing against all services, as well as NRA, law enforcement, and Olympic hopefuls. It took place on the shores of Lake Erie, on a 1,000 yard range with a gusting wind that was causing bullets to drift 15 feet.

The Marines were trying to re-establish a scout/sniper program to counter the communist snipers in Viet Nam. Carlos joined. Here's a few Wikipedia excerpts from his war record-

"

During the Vietnam War, Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet-Cong personnel.[4] In the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party, who had to be an officer, besides the sniper's spotter. Snipers often did not have an acting third party present, making confirmation difficult, especially if the target was behind enemy lines, as was usually the case.

Hathcock himself estimated that he had killed between 300 and 400 enemy personnel during his time in Vietnam.[5]

Confrontations with North Vietnamese snipers[edit]

The North Vietnamese Army placed a bounty of $30,000 on Hathcock's life for killing so many of their men. Rewards put on US snipers by the NVA typically ranged from $8 to $2,000. Hathcock held the record for highest bounty and killed every Vietnamese marksman who sought it.[6] The Viet Cong and NVA called Hathcock Du kích Lông Trắng, translated as "White Feather Sniper", because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat.[7][8][9] After a platoon of Vietnamese snipers was sent to hunt down "White Feather", many Marines in the same area donned white feathers to deceive the enemy. These Marines were aware of the impact Hathcock's death would have and took it upon themselves to make themselves targets in order to confuse the counter-snipers.[10]

One of Hathcock's most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through the enemy's own rifle scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him.[8][11][12][13] Hathcock and John Roland Burke, his spotter, were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle near Hill 55, the firebase from which Hathcock was operating. The sniper, known only as the 'Cobra,' had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Hathcock.[10] When Hathcock saw a flash of light (light reflecting off the enemy sniper's scope) in the bushes, he fired at it, shooting through the scope and killing the sniper. Surveying the situation, Hathcock concluded that the only feasible way he could have put the bullet straight down the enemy's scope and through his eye would have been if both snipers were zeroing in on each other at the same time and Hathcock fired first, which gave him only a few seconds to act.[10] Given the flight time of rounds at long ranges, the snipers could have simultaneously killed one another.[14]

A female Viet Cong sniper, platoon commander and interrogator known as "Apache" because of her methods of torturing US Marines and Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops and letting them bleed to death, was killed by Hathcock. This was a major morale victory as "Apache" was terrorizing the troops around Hill 55.[16]

Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam.[17] During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment, he crawled over 1,500 yards of field to shoot a high-ranking NVA officer.[18] He was not informed of the details of the mission until he accepted it.[14] This effort took four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling.[18] Hathcock said he was almost stepped on as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow shortly after sunset.[2] At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position.[18] As the officer exited his encampment, Hathcock fired a single shot that struck the officer in the chest, killing him."


According to the book, this assassination was a NVA general in an unknown location, which may well have been in Laos or North Viet Nam, since the general was freely traveled in a white car. He thought that the ants may well kill him and eat him on this mission. In one stretch he took 20 hours to crawl 500 yards, moving continuously, but so slowly as to be inconspicuous.

He was once inserted behind the lines to assassinate a French torturer working for the communists to prevent him from interrogating some American pilots.

On another occasion he killed two enemy at 2,500 yards with single shots from a .50 caliber machine gun to which he had attached his sniper scope.

In another legendary episode, he and his spotter kept an entire NVA company  pinned down behind a dike for 5 days and nights.

He returned to the states and left the Corps, only to re-enlist and return to Viet Nam. He field-trained over 100 snipers personally. While traveling on an amphibious armored personnel carrier, an IED blew it up and started a fire. He got 7 other marines out of the fire before himself. He had third degree burns on 43% of his body.

They accepted him for limited duty with the shooting team, and he started the Marine Corp's sniper school, which is used to train the US Navy SEALS. 

 "It was the hunt, not the killing. I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody. It's my job. If I don't get those bastards, then they're gonna kill a lot of these kids dressed up like Marines. That's the way I look at it."

He admitted one exception- he enjoyed killing "The Apache Woman", that was a revenge killing.

To my way of thinking, he was one of the best ever. The jungle doesn't allow for the kind of long range shooting you'd find in the tundra or desert, making it harder to find targets.

  According to the Navy SEAL memoirs I've read, that camo crawl is the toughest part of the school, and it's only a day, using Ghilie suits. Carlos didn't have one. He had companies of men looking for him after he pulled the trigger on that general.

 He was an outstanding stalker, distance shooter and trainer. As for personal style, he made it an effort to have no habits. He was totally unpredictable.

[Buster's Uncle]

These sniper stories are really interesting.

[Rusty Edge]

I'll re-read some more stories and describe them. I have some SEAL books.

It seems that Japanese snipers tended not to survive and write about it. It was more their style to make a last stand concealed in a tree top, and continue to kill until killed.

[Buster's Uncle]

I wonder how that worked out for the kill ratio for they probably did pretty well during those last stands v. fighting another day with the experience gained.

I guess these appeal because they're about one guy with a talent - that's more relatable than most of the larger-scale action.

[Rusty Edge]

That Japanese approach was effective at delaying an advance. They might shoot 5 or so before a B.A.R. was turned on them.

You raise an interesting question. Military histories can easily become confusing with all of the faceless names and simultaneous actions. Even if it's squadron of planes or something. One personal story is more relatable, even if it's less eventful, or maybe because it's less eventful.

[Buster's Uncle]

You can imagine being one guy with a gun and inhuman patience and skill - you can imagine being a General, but tough to do in any depth without knowing a lot about everything a General has to deal with.  Histories never cover everything.

U.S., China agree on rules for air-to-air military encounters
Reuters
By Phil Stewart  ‎September‎ ‎25‎, ‎2015



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday announced agreements with China on a military hotline and rules of behavior to govern air-to-air encounters, just days after the Pentagon criticized China over an unsafe intercept of a U.S. spy plane.

The agreements were unveiled following talks in Washington between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama and seek to lessen the chance of an accidental flare-up between the two militaries, despite tensions in the South China Sea.

"We agreed to new channels of communication to reduce the risks of miscalculations between our militaries," Obama told a White House news conference with Xi standing beside him.

The new agreement on rules of behavior for air-to-air encounters was broad in scope, addressing everything from the correct radio frequencies to use during distress calls to the wrong physical behaviors to use during crises.

"Military aircrew should refrain from the use of uncivil language or unfriendly physical gestures," read one provision of the agreement. (http://1.usa.gov/1G7zxTW)

Another agreement created formal rules to govern use of a military crisis hotline, a move that aims to speed top-level communication. (http://1.usa.gov/1iAw9vu)

The Pentagon says two Chinese JH-7 fighter jets intercepted an American RC-135 reconnaissance plane, with one passing within just 500 feet of the U.S. aircraft. The intercept took place on Sept. 15, about 80 miles (130 km) east of the Shandong peninsula in the Yellow Sea.

The Pentagon reported a far more dangerous intercept last year, when, in August 2014, a Chinese warplane flew as close as 20 to 30 feet (7 to 10 meters) to a U.S. Navy patrol jet and conducted a barrel roll over the plane.

One U.S. defense official said, the United States will expect "full compliance" with the agreement.

The intercepts are examples of moves seen as an assertion of the expanding reach of China's military. This month, five Chinese Navy ships sailed in the Bering Sea off Alaska.

Closer to home, China's territorial claims have stoked tensions. Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.

The agreement sidesteps such territorial disputes by being "geographically neutral," the U.S. defense official said.

But Obama said he had a "candid" discussion with Xi.

"I indicated that the United States will continue to sail, fly and operate anywhere that international law allows," Obama said as Xi stood beside him.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Bernard Orr)

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/u-china-agree-rules-air-air-military-encounters-162828215.html

[Rusty Edge]

I'll approach two SEAL books together-

SEAL TEAM SIX
Memoirs of an Elite Navy Sniper by Howard Wasdin

AMERICAN SNIPER
The autobiography of the most lethal sniper in American History by Chris Kyle

Howard was born to a teenage mom, who split with his dad and left  Florida for Georgia. She immediately took up with an abusive truck driver/melon grower. Howard was abused, and when his mom married he consented to adoption for fear of worse abuse. He ran way at 5 years old, but adults found him and returned him to his school. We'll skip ahead.

His sister wrecked his car, he blew his money on Christian College, his Mormon girlfriend got pregnant, he decided to marry and join the military. He was interested in the Marines, but the Navy recruiter was there, and he signed up to become an air-sea rescue guy instead. Paramedics were some of the few whom  he admired as decent people, so it appealed to him.

He excelled in training. It was supposed to be an elite specialty, but the Navy was easier than his life. He surprised as others quit. The only real rescue he performed was when his own helicopter went down while tracking a Russian sub. The gearbox on the main rotor overheated. He saved everybody aboard. Some SEALS birthed with him on the aircraft carrier. They were supposed to be the best divers in the Navy, so he transferred.

The book tells a lot about SEALS, and their spare no expense rigorous training. When they aren't on missions and exercises, they go to schools- driving, parachuting, pistol shooting, survival, etc.
Wasdin went to the US Marine Corp sniper school founded by Carlos Hathcock. His step-dad never took him hunting because that would keep him out of work all day. So while he wasn't a hunter like so many other snipers, he didn't bring any bad habits into the SEALS. He led the sniper school on points, except for once when another sniper moving quickly almost crawled over him. When the officials went to where the grass moved, they found Wasdin and disqualified him on that day.
Later he and the other top sniper from his team went to an all service sniping competiton.  Again, they led on points. On the final day, with moving targets and a moving "hostage" he completed the operation. The problem was that the hostage target moved in close enough to the "terrorist" that he notched the hostage. So the penalty points took them from first to 4th place.

After some successful missions in Iraq I for the CIA, he got promoted to the then secret Team 6, which specialized in counter-terrorism. Then he got sent to Somalia. First they were going to capture a warlord, but they were frustrated by the UN, Clinton, inter-service rivalries, duplicitous Italians controlling a checkpoint, etc.  His best shot was about 845 yards against a guy aiming an RPG. That gave him credibility with Delta Force and the Rangers, so the requested him as sniper on their missions.

Giving up on the warlord, they changed objective to his lieutenants. Unfortunately the Somalis weren't fools. They saw how the SEALS and Delta operated and devised an ambush. It was the "Blackhawk Down" misadventure.  He was in a column driving a cut-down Humvee. No doors or roof. The only real protection was a Kevlar blanket underneath to shield it from mines/IEDs.

He managed to drive with one hand and shoot with the other, mostly single shots, until he had used up the 300 rounds he carried and more from other guys he picked up who were wounded. After he got shot through both shins/ankles he couldn't drive, but he continued to fight from the other seat. He got shot again.

He underwent a long rehab, and essentially the damage he incurred from gunshots that day ended his career. Delta Force wanted him to transfer to the Army. He decided not to. His marriage failed as the result of his career.

When he got out, he tried becoming a police officer, but gave that up. A chiropractor recognized that his back and neck pain were a result of how he walked as a result of his wounds, and was able to heal his pain. In time, he was able to reunite with his real dad, have a good relationship with his children, re-marry, find spiritual peace, and become a chiropractor himself, with a prosperous practice.

Wasdin didn't get to do as much sniping as he planned, but he was a shooter. He paid attention to detail.

I'll talk about Chris Kyle tomorrow.

We ask an awful lot of those who serve our country. It ruins marriages and bodies. It forces guys to watch their best friends die. It causes tremendous psychological stress. When it's finally over they don't always have jobs or places to live, or proper continuing medical care.  I really wish we didn't ask it of them as often as we do.

[Rusty Edge]

I think I first read Chris Kyle's book when it came out as an e-book. It had an episode about a bar encounter with Jesse Ventura. Jesse sued to recover his reputation, Chris was murdered by a veteran he was trying to help, and Jesse continued with the lawsuit against the estate.  It was decided strongly in Jesse's favor, and with the magic of e-books, my copy was transformed, deleting the parts about Jesse, adding parts about the funeral and the movie.

Kyle was a guy gifted with moral clarity. Right or Wrong, Good or Evil, White or Black, Us or Them.
It cuts down on the guilt and hesitation.

Kyle was a patriot and a Texan. He was a cowboy at heart. He worked on a ranch as a cowboy, but he tried rodeo for a while until he got injured. and ran out of money. He was going to college to get a degree in ranch management, and continued to work. Ranch work gave him time to think, and he decided that if he couldn't be a rodeo pro, he would really like to join the service and become a special operations guy. He actually signed up for the navy, and was promised basic SEAL training, but failed the physical on account of the pins in his arm.

He lost interest in school, and took a full time ranch job in Colorado, but found it too cold for his liking. The Navy called and he was accepted, went through various training, and became a SEAL.

A big part of the book is comments from his wife, giving her side of events, laying out the challenges of marriages in general, and military ones in particular. When they met she was impressed by his perception, which she described as sensitivity, and he bridled at, and put off by his ego. He was offended by that, because as he saw it, he was willing to do anything, including die, for his country, his friends and his family- he saw himself as selfless rather than self-centered, and she came to see him that way too, and they fell in love.

His deployed career was basically Iraq II. He was boarding ships to intercept dates and oil being smuggled out of Iraq and weapons coming in. Then he had about 4 deployments  during the war, and afterwards as a counter-insurgent. Urban warfare in Falujah, Sadr City, etc. against the insurgents was where he got the bulk of his 160-some confirmed kills. Taking out guys with RPGs at around 800 yards was a repeated feat for him. His longest shot was 2,100 hundred yards. Most of them were 2-400 yards. Some were closer.

At this point I should explain that the book was an  autobiography. A life story. As I've said before I was a hunter and a shooter until forced to give it up to preserve my hearing, and that's what interests me about snipers. Stalking, waiting, estimating distances, calculating windage and elevation.

Kyle was more of a Special Ops guy than a shooter. He described the enemy as "savages". He repeatedly said that he liked killing and war. When he came home between deployments, he was frustrated that America didn't share his enthusiasm for the war. This book has more to do with what I talked about in the end of my last post- the stresses of war on those who serve and their families, than it is about shooting. He didn't pay too much attention to windage, or bullet placement for that matter, because he was using a 300 Win. Mag on his long shots, a gun more commonly used for elk and grizzlies, and most hits were automatic kills.

He was trained in the SEAL sniper school, rather than the Marine's one. He wrote the SEAL sniper manual himself. He said the insurgents were stupid, and often high. He didn't respect them, and while he had a bounty on his head, he never had a duel against another sniper. He didn't follow Hathcock's  rule about being unpredictable.  I'm convinced that if he'd been fighting against the Somalis he would have been killed in an ambush.

That said, he stated emphatically that while he had the highest official body count, it was because he was in the thick of things, and that he believed Hathcock was the greatest sniper who ever lived.

Every sniper is different, and so are his circumstances. Kyle was better equipped than the earlier sniper's I've written about. He was hampered by rules of engagement. While it was an urban warfare setting, it was a different situation than Stalingrad without the heavy weapons in play by both sides. Kyle wasn't trying to be a sniper so much as maximize his personal impact on the war and make a difference.  The SEALS have a saying that they sweat in peace so that they don't bleed in war. Both Kyle and Wasdin got to thinking they were invincible.

He agreed not to re-enlist. The navy tried to entice him with promotion and training assignments at home, but he seemed to be in a catch-22, he had to re-enlist before they would put any of that in the form of written orders.

As his teams deployment neared it's conclusion, he suffered from anxiety. He was calm under fire, but the waiting around was giving him high blood pressure and insomnia.

He went home, got discharged, moved his family back to Texas, had fun with his kids, had the best year of his marriage, too. He started a sniper school, and some veteran's charities. He could get investors. It was easier for him than Wasdin, because he was part of successful mission. He was happy again.

I think I'm going to read about other stuff for a while.

[JarlWolf]

You asked about pension? Pension rate in this country, depending rank you get payment plan that varies largely. Someone like Petrov, a colonel, someone who outrank me gets considerably more. Especially given the situation the man was in, but here is thing to remember,


Cutbacks in the military, especially after the fall of the Soviet union was drastic. Army and military as whole was in poor shape, using outdated equipment with funding severely culled, and the sad truth of situation was that my country's nuclear stockpile was one of the few things truly averting NATO invasion and other potential crisis from the outside at the time during the 1990's.

Reforms did happen in 2004 and 2012 though, with salary increases and with that, pension increase. As for myself I retired at major, but I also was stationed in backwater desk job at end of it. Overall pensions for anyone who is a junior officer or an NCO is... not really anything to live large with. Most of my living expense is paid from my old built up savings and business venture I took after the fall of the old government, government pays only a fraction of my expenses at this point, enough to help ease tension on bill payment, but its laughable compared to Soviet benefits.

Pay and benefits has gone down considerably compared to Soviet levels; and Soviet level pay was not to boast either. You had benefits is what made it worthwhile for a career soldier. I also was specialist, engineering department in army so I had considerably more benefit then average enlisted soldiers, and especially more then conscripts.