Russia vs Ukraine weapons compared: Military expert analyses battlefield equipment

Russia vs Ukraine weapons compared: Military expert analyses battlefield equipment

uh any weapon that you can possibly think of every small arm in the world virtually has shown up in Ukraine newer ak’s actually got rid of that and put rails on top of the dust cover so Russians have this new rifle of new rail system that breaks if you put it into safety or take it off safe too too quickly and you can’t Mount any of the new Optics to it I wouldn’t say that the ukrainians are hurting just because they have such a random mismash of gear um they’re all very well equipped the Infantry equipment side of things has been largely satisfied for the Ukrainian Soldier Russians are capable of making good gear did they make enough no nobody anticipated a long War my name is Benjamin Schiff I go by the online handle oxide I am a subject matter expert in Russian equipment including small arms and infantry equipment and I am an attack helicopter pilot in the US Army by and large the Russian military and their allies mostly the luhansk and uh Don militias have been using uh their own Soviet Russian uh produced equipment as far as weapons are concerned you can divide the weapons into four separate categories uh standard issue Surplus imported and captured so by and large the Russian forces have been using their own standard issue equipment including new generation ak2s and the militia forces have been using whatever they can get their hands on be it Soviet Surplus or even occasionally World War II surplus however by and large the Russian forces have used their own indigenously produced weapons and they haven’t really received any imported weapons on par with Ukraine um there are some captured examples of weapons being used by Russian mercenaries and Russian soldiers to a limited extent but mostly it’s a mly propaganda collection of just about every weapon that has been donated to Ukraine I would say that captured weapons are not really a significant uh stock or really affecting the War uh in Russia’s favor as they have such a huge surplus of Soviet weapons and their own indigenously produced weapons and there has been some problems with the Russian ak-12 series as well especially at the beginning of the war with the first generation ak-2 when the ak-12 was introduced it had a big issue with the safety where um soldiers would take the weapon off of safe and they’d use too much force and actually break the safety on the first generation ak-2 rendering the weapon stuck in a safe position uh making it virtually useless um they also had some issues with the actual issuing of Optics the ak-2 was the first issued Russian AK with indigenous rail system uh included but the problem is they got rid of their dovetail piece so a lot of the Russian units had um Optics that would fit on a DB tail and I can show that real quick so this is an rpk and uh flip it around here this piece right here is a dovetail mount for Optics and the newer AKs actually got rid of that and put rails on top of the dust cover because of that they couldn’t use any of their old Optics so Russians have this new RI of new rail system that breaks if you put it into safety or take it off safe to to quickly and you can’t Mount any of the new Optics to it so they really didn’t let the weapon system mature before they issued it um that sort of sums up the weapons that they’re using by and large the Russians are using the ratnik system so the Russians have an armor Suite that is by and large on par of Western Nations um that being said that gear was not evenly distributed among their military even at the beginning of the war a lot of older steel plates are in use um and as those formations got ated uh in the first couple of years the Russian military industrial complex which did not anticipate a longer War had to rush in and sort of fill the Gap um and produce a lot of lower Quality Steel plates and uh also rapidly import gear from wherever they could usually China um the militias uh also have a lot worst gear uh like World War II surplus as we mentioned and um they are not representative of the Russian army as a whole but that being said you can find virtually any kind of armor any kind of gear in use by the Russians um they use a lot of captured gear they even use the ukrainians camo and the only thing to really differentiate is those colored armbands which is really annoying um as you can see the camouflage that they wear this is not the greatest when your environment is dead grass and wheat Fields um you stick out like a sore thumb a lot of Russian units have switched to the American designed multi-cam um it they’re in a bad way they didn’t really prepare for this war at all and their gear really reflects that as the war continues it’s become a chaotic mismash of random assortments of gear whatever they can get their hands on so this is uh the Russian milit standard body armor plate this is a a ratnik plate this is the go 6 version so it’s a little bit stronger than what is typically issued um but I’ve hit it with multiple different through eight rounds uh this is a test that I conducted I want to say in 20120 so a couple years before the war started so forgive me if my memory is a little bit busted but it did stop uh it performed admirably it took multiple 5.56 hits it took multiple 308 and uh uh 30 out 6 six hits you can see there’s some deformation but it’s not too bad it’s roughly in an IJ level four plate um that would be a good equivalent I don’t remember what the vpam European equivalent is but so there’s a Tungsten round that went through but it largely stopped everything else Russians are capable of making good gear did they make enough no nobody anticipated a long war I’ve tested some of the mulnick gear their steel plates that they were issuing for I want to say in late 2022 and late or in early 23 I think they’re still issuing steel plates um but those sucked like they couldn’t even take one 5.56 round um with that being said at least it was frag protection so um they they struggled they certainly struggled um but now they’ve caught up I would say suspect they have a pretty decent stock of Steel core and that plate would have stopped virtually everything up to tungsten um just wouldn’t stop a 50 cal wouldn’t stop a a a drone explosion uh wouldn’t stop an artillery piece obviously but you know um very good plate the Russians are capable of making good stuff the ceramic in those plates is commonly is very similar to what’s used in nuclear reactors and uh tanks as well for the composite armor so anyone that’s capable of making body armor or anyone that’s capable of how would I put this anybody that has a nuclear program or a strong armored Core is capable making inventry body armor so China the ukrainians have received firearms and infantry equipment from virtually every European nation it’s easier to list the Nations that have not donated gear than the ones that have um but the before the war started though the ukrainians did have a decent standard with their inventry equipment with eight years of NATO training and really have had an indigenous rearmament program since 2014 uh there Army has a culture that can only be described as festering anger against Russia um and once the Russians did attack they got to use that anger um but as far as the gear is concerned in weapons even Luxembourg donated nlaws and anti-tank weapons within the first month of the war every assault rifle that was produced in Europe like since the 50s has been seen in the conflict every rifle every NATO country has given weapons and infantry equipment so you see everything you see Bren twos you see scars a lot of uh ArmaLite variants notably some Dao ARS from the Netherlands and the Dutch keeps showing up uh any weapon that you can possibly think of every small arm in the world virtually has shown up in Ukraine especially anti-tank weapons as well making the most difference um there are some countries that are on the fence supplying lethal Aid um South Korea and Israel uh don’t want to supply lethal aid but still have supplied bulletproof vests helmets so you really can see gear from virtually anywhere in the world um everyone has come to stand behind Ukraine and not so much can be said for Russia with the exception of Iran um Iranian bulletproof body armor and helmets have been seen in use by Russia um but they’re virtually alone besides commercial gear that is bought off of China and I would say there are tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides using Chinese imported like body armor and ceramic by and large the ak74 is the most popular option in Ukraine but uh they have everything uh millions of rounds from 762 to 545 to 556 anything you can think of machine guns uh the mg5 has been a high-profile weapon that’s been shown up in uh showing up a lot excuse me you can see entire units equipped with check weapons you can see entire units equipped with French Famas you can see virtually any rifle you can see it’s it’s usually pretty organized like you’ll see one group with one particular kind of rifle um but in other cases you’ll see a huge mismash of whatever is available because a lot of the rifles use 5.56 anyway so you can just pile on those same types Ukraine captured a a lot of Russian infantry equipment and a lot of ak2s are seeing use in more specialty weapons like uh the AS Val or the vssm uh suppressed assault rifles uh but generally Ukraine uses a lot of Soviet weapons so these blend into Ukraine’s arms a little bit better and I wouldn’t say Ukraine captured enough Small Arms to really make a difference even within the initial weeks of the war the ukrainians have they’re probably swimming in body armor at this point there’s a ridiculous amount um they don’t have a problem equipping their inventory with body armor at this stage in the War uh the ukrainians are using a ton of donated gear uh they have their own uh standard issue equipment and plate carriers that have been made by companies like temp 3,000 and Fort RPC but largely they have been using whatever they can get their hands on uh in the opening stages of the war a lot of American police departments donated their uh vests but by and large everything can be seen everything goes uh I’ve seen a lot of cry Precision I’ve seen a lot of 511 tactical I’ve seen a lot of commercial uh sort of uh brands in the United States showing up uh foreign vests of all kinds from virtually every different Army can be found which is ridiculous and sounds like a catchall but it really is the truth if you look at one soldier the soldier right next to him might be Ming something completely different um with the only unifying Factor being hey he’s got yellow tape around his arms by and large each Ukrainian Soldier is equipped with a helmet hard plates and a rifle I mean everyone’s equipped well um I wouldn’t say that the ukrainians are hurting just because they have such a random mismash of gear um they’re all very well equipped um and uh the Infantry equipment side of things has been largely satisfied for the Ukrainian Soldier they are not really facing any kind of shortages or lack of gear um probably as much as the Russians have um but even the Russians by and large are well supplied at this point that stage where the Russians went into the war and were struggling to meet equipment needs is largely over unfortunately for the Russians that means a lot of it has been satisfied with lower Quality Steel plates um but even so there’s millions of dollars worth of Chinese ceramic entering Russia to fill that Gap so they’re they’ve largely caught up they’re indigenous plates certainly stack up uh but what I would say is they are supplemented by virtually not virtually every NATO country in the world uh many civilian firms countries like Taiwan countries like South Korea Japan even gave body armor uh they have body armor and infantry equipment from all over the world and it’s it’s world class it’s [ __ ] level four plates there are a lot of misconceptions um where there’s pictures of uh mulnick and drafty soldiers complaining about the gear they’ve got but that age has largely passed both sides roughly have comparable infantry equipment as far as weapons and armor go where I would say there’s definitely a big difference is the uh Optics and KN fighting ability of both sides I would say that Ukraine has been training that for the last eight years and has been better equipped for that by the West compared to Russia I would say that there are more like infantry level thermal and night vision devices on the Ukrainian side uh than the Russian side and there’s a lot of gaps in Russian training like a lot of them have not gotten familiar with how IR camouflage Works um hiding from night vision they’ve gotten better at hiding from thermals because of the Drone War largely um it’s it’s hard to say roughly the two sides are equal on Infantry to infantry as far as equipment is concerned at least at this point so there’s a bit of a um chicanery going around with South Korea um South Korea and Israel might be not supporting Ukraine with lethal Aid in order to make money off of other countries that are rearming but South Korea in particular might have a Ro on Ukraine because uh rocket technology from the Soviet Union was given to North Korea through Ukraine if not by Ukraine uh so South Korea might have a slight Grudge there and not wanting to give uh lethal Aid to someone that help their enemies uh probably not directly but still there might be something to that um the militia um luhansk and DNR militias have been seen with a lot of World War II weapons and that is pretty eye-catching but the headlines of Russian conscripts and soldiers getting issued Mosin is not the norm at all militia getting World War II surplus and not the Russian military by and large there are uh videos of molic getting rusty AKs from time to time um that is a very uh small case small limited corruption issue there’s an apocalyptic amount of Soviet weapons and surplus still available B to issue to soldiers um it’s ridiculous um there’s a World War II cache of hundreds of thousands of World War II weapons that was captured by the Russians in solidar I was not able to like independently verify that cash was there but it would not surprise me both factions definitely have huge amounts of World War II weapons that are not really being utilized at this point because there really isn’t a need a significant amount of smuggled weapons sent by Iran to Yemen have been intercepted by the Navy and have also been donated to Ukraine that was a good political win disclaimer um this discussion focused on small arms and infantry equipment the import situation for both countries is obviously different when you talk about heavy weapons and other War material like microchips and super conductors

“Russia is capable of making good stuff, did they make enough? No…They certainly struggled.”

Expert Benjamin Schiff analyses the small arms and infantry equipment of Russia and Ukraine and compares how it has changed during Putin’s invasion on #timesradio

Additional footage courtesy of Benjamin Schiff: @Oxide_does_his_best

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