When I have time, I like to watch videos of foreign militaries. Some dedicated folks create motivational videos that have catchy music and often some very interesting clips set to the music. One of these gifted groups is Military Forces XXI Century that has a channel on Youtube.
They have a new one featuring some very interesting clips of Russian Spetsnaz teams training entitled “Russian Spetsnaz – Into Battle”. What especially caught my eye was the extensive use of optics – both red dots by themselves and with magnifiers – on their PKP Pecheng machine guns. The PKP is the modernized PKM.
PKP with both a red dot and a magnifier.That’s either a large red dot or some form of prismatic scope — it’s big enough.
Here’s The Video
Be sure not to miss when they are throwing their famous shovels 🙂
I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did.
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Back in 1987, a damaged Libyan Mi-25 Hind D attack helicopter was captured by French and Chadian troops. The US wanted to inspect the helicopter and negotiated with the government of Chad to retrieve it.
Libyan MI-24 Hind D captured by Chadian forces at Wadi Doum, Chad . Source: Wikipedia
On June 10, 1988, Operation Mount Hope III commenced to retrieve the Hind. The famous NightStakers (the 160th Special Operations Regiment) flew almost 500 miles at night with two MH-47 Chinooks to successfully retrieve the Hind and load it on a C-5.
On 21 June 1988, the captured Mi-25 arrived in N’Djamena where it was loaded into a USAF C-5 Source: Wikipedia
Videos
There are a couple of cool videos on Youtube that can give you some good background. The first one is very informative but please note the Hind D is not the fastest helicopter currently.
The next video has the same cover photo but is different:
Please note that the still photos are from the Wikipedia page listed above.
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Russia began evolving the weapons and gear their infantry were using in 2013 as part of an ongoing program known as “Ratnik” that translates as “warrior”. Gone are the days of throwing poorly trained and equipped soldiers into battle. What they are developing rivals any modern first world military force.
In researching about Ratnik for a blog post I just did, I was surprised at how much gear has already found its way onto eBay. It goes to show how efficient the surplus market is I suppose plus that the program has been in effect for nearly six years at this point.
What can you find on eBay? In digging, I have found:
6B38 MPL-50 Shovel
6B38 60L RAID Backpack
6B50 Ballistic Goggles
6B51 Knee and Elbow Pads
6E1 Water Filter and Pouch
6E4-1 Watches
6E4-2 Watches
6E6 Multi tool
6SH117 Tactical Vest
6M2 Active Hearing Headphones
FSS-014 Flashlight
GSSH-01 Active Headphones
There are also a lot of hats, coats, uniforms, gloves and more. So, if you are wondering where you can find the modern Russian Ratnik gear, you definitely need to check out eBay and I created a live link to eBay where you can see posts that you can order:
Live eBay Feed You Can Order From
The following are live posts on eBay. If you click on a listing, it will appear with more details and there will be links to others as well:
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While R&D started ear;lier, prototype Ratnik kits for the first generation components were delivered in 2013. Firearms, optics, communication, navigation, uniform, load bearing and body armor elements were accepted into service on October 23, 2014. Approximate 200,000 sets were delivered by September 2017, and 100% adoption is estimated in 2020 of the Ratnik-2 system. Ratnik-3 hasn’t been released yet but the suit will include a powered exoskeleton to improve strength, speed and stamina.
Overall, what you are seeing is a concerted move away from the Soviet doctrine of volumes of relative untrained and marginally equipped armed forces personnel (all branches exclude Spetsnaz) to that of a professional modern force of trained and well equipped soldiers.
Soldier with an AK-12 rifle with a blank firing adapter. He is wearing a 6B45 ballistic vest, 6sh117 lightweight individual carrying equipment, and, 6B47 helmet. Soldier with an AK-12 rifle with a blank firing adapter. He is wearing a 6B45 ballistic vest, 6sh117 lightweight individual carrying equipment, and, 6B47 helmet. 6B50 Protective goggles, 6B51 knee and elbow pads were part of Ratnik also.Better view of the 76B47 helpes with covers and the 6B50 eye goggles.This is the 6B46 tactical vestImproved communications capabilities.
The Videos
The following video is in Russian but affords the viewer a really good opportunity to see the Ratnik-1 and -2 equipment first hand.
The following is a brief video showing Russian Paratroopers doing drills in Pskov.
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Please note that any images shown were extracted from the videos and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
This is an interesting video that is a collection of both training and combat footage. Absolute Production assembled it with some catcy music in 2018 and I noticed the date stamp on some of the drone footage was 2015.
The video provides a good opportunity to see weapons and tactics.
Here’s the Video
Please note all images are extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
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Here you have a number of videos assembled to show a ton of shooting of the venerable 7.62x54R PKM machine gun by Spetsnaz operators.
You get to see the drills and they wrap up with some SVD and RPG action. Pretty cool.
Hand operated belt loader.
Here’s the Video
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This Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is focused on security within Russia. This includes counter-intelligence, border security, surveillance, organized crime, counter-terrorism and federal law violations.
In support of the FSB’s activities, it retains an estimated 4,000 special operations forces. Of course, one of the hallmarks of any special forces group is extensive training. The Grey Shop assembled the following video of publicly released footage from a variety of training exercises both land and sea based. I find the tactics and weapons of interest and most of this I have not seen before.
I’m always watching for small arms in these videos and you’ll notice there are AK rifles as well as AKS-74U, AS VAL, a Brügger &Thomet MP9, and PP-19-01 Vityaz.
Here’s The Video
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Please note that all images were extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
In the West, folks tend to think that Russian special operations groups, collectively termed “Spetsnaz” are one entity. In fact, there are many special operations groups in Russia both in the military as well as the police.
FTD Facts assembled a brief video focusing on a number of groups wherein he provides a historical narrative with photos as well as modern footage as well. It’s very informative if you ware wanting to understand a bit more about some of the Spetsnaz groups and how they were formed.
Here’s the Video
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All photos come from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
