Too Bad [Sarcasm, OK?]
Things are tough all over, even in Russia, with the drop in the price of oil.
The BBC reports: Russian army scraps new uniforms
A plan to replace Soviet-era Russian military uniforms with ones by a leading fashion designer has been abandoned because of a lack of money.
The plan to bring in the new uniforms, designed by Valentin Yudashkin, was supported by Russian PM Vladimir Putin.
There is now only enough money to pay for uniforms for soldiers taking part in the forthcoming Victory Day parade.
And that isn’t all they are cutting.
Last week: Russia military spy boss ‘sacked’
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed the head of the country’s powerful GRU military intelligence service, the Kremlin has said.
Mr Medvedev signed a decree on Friday replacing Gen Valentin Korabelnikov with Gen Alexander Shlyakhturov. Officials gave no reason for the move.
Gen Korabelnikov had led the Main Directorate of Intelligence since 1997.
The GRU never wins in battles with the KGB, Korabelnikov should have known better than oppose the reforms that Putin wanted.
Novosti has a photo gallery of some of the new uniforms, and sketches of the new Air Force [it looks like BBC on the drawings] uniforms are found here.
8 comments
apropos of not much at all…
one of the things i discovered early on for coping with the [admittedly mild] dyslexia i’ve got is speedreading. if i can just get to the end of the sentence or paragraph before the brain freaks out over whether a particular word is bread or broad or board, i can usually figure out from the context which word i should have read it as.
sometimes though, the strategy backfires. i saw sarcasm, oil, and russian army scraps new uniforms in quick succession and was disappointed to find, when i got to the end, that this item had nothing whatsoever to do with polyester.
hipparchia´s last blog post..Send faxes, faxes, and money! [update]
Russians tends to rely on natural fabrics, because they are not very good at manufacturing things like polyester.
In my high school days, there was a girl named Polly Hester. She was quickly tagged The Dacron Kid. Hey, at least no one called her PETE…
Steve Bates´s last blog post..Justice Souter To Retire
Children have a decidedly nasty streak as they jostle for social position. Golden was spot on.
I wouldn’t put any money on “nobody called”, because it was certainly attempted. 😉
Russia right now is in basically the same position that the U.S. was in at the beginning of the Vietnam War — just overflowing with surplus from prior wars or the prior regime. The U.S. needed the Vietnam War to clear out its stocks of WWII boots and uniforms and rifles and socks and such. Hell, some of the first troops into Vietnam were issued WWII-era C-rats, no wonder they called’em C-rats because after twenty years in a can they couldn’t have tasted very good, and the WWII-era flak jackets that troops were issued were good only for suffocating soldiers in that godaweful heat and humidity. The Great Penguin only knows what’ll happen to clear out all the stocks of surplus gear that the Russians have, but my suspicion is they’ll still be wearing the old Soviet uniforms after both of us are retired and in our rockers…
As for children, morons who drivel about “innocent” children obviously haven’t dealt much with children. My whole job as a teacher was to try to civilize the little bastards without unduly pissing off their parents, and let me tell ya, the job of munchkin wrangler is *not* a job for those of weak minds.
Badtux´s last blog post..Pack is loaded…
The C-rats were OK, in some ways better than the K-rats. They handed them out to military families who lived off base in Germany, when my Dad was stationed there, and I used them on camping trips in the Eifel because they didn’t let you build fires in most areas. You had to watch the condition of the containers and reject anything that was rusty or discolored.
We sat on our flak jackets in C-47s and the were useful against ground fire, but the suckers were definitely hot and heavy. You almost never saw anyone wearing one closed up, unless they thought to do it after the firing started.
Yes, the Russians have a lot of surplus stuff, especially since they still draft. When I went through basic half the guys got the new uniforms, and half the old, depending on your size, because they don’t issue new equipment until the old is used up. I’m just glad General McPeak wasn’t around to see the new designs or he would have wanted them.
Terry Pratchett has kids pegged – they are bloody minded little sods as soon as you bring two of them together.
[…] with that in mind, this blawg review repudiates my previous effort. It will be sarcastic , mean-spirited , petty , low-brow (which has always come easily to me). In short, it will be […]
[…] with that in mind, this blawg review repudiates my previous effort. It will be sarcastic , mean-spirited , petty , low-brow (which has always come easily to me). In short, it will be […]