For Military Porn Fans Some (Warranted) Explanations...

... on military porn. We all know that Russian Army is totally demoralized and has collapsed (like two weeks ago, right?) and ran completely out of ammo and equipment. Who knows this better than UK's Defense Minister. 

Britain’s Defense Ministry reported Sunday that the Russian forces were trying to compensate for mounting casualties by recalling veterans discharged in the past decade.

I am sure Sandhurst should be proud of its graduates, because this is the only thing they can be proud of in the last 50 years of being reduced to a joke of a military. But while Russia continues to lose and tries "to compensate" for, obviously, a disastrous defeat from annihilating VSU as a functioning real army reduced to a large cauldron in Donbass, and some forces tied around Kiev, fanboys (and not only) who watched too much Hollywood and US military propaganda videos, especially against Iraqi Army, they ask a question after watching this video (and many similar others) from The Sun tabloid:

Actually, the question is legitimate when asked properly. What is the question? It's improper form is this: eew, Russian helicopters do not even use precision guided munitions, they use good ol' NURS S-8 and S-13 unguided rockets, while Western forces use PGMs all the time. 

Here is the answer:

1. First, the fact that NATO forces use PGMs all time is a complete BS and 92% of ammunition used in the First Gulf War was good ol' artillery shelling and free falling bombs' flattening whatever could be found by "coalition" recon. 

The Gulf War in 1991 marked the first extensive use of precision-guided munitions in warfare. Eight percent of the munitions dropped were PGMs, compared to less than one percent in Vietnam. 

In the second campaign in Iraq the number was higher, but that were primarily guided bombs, including for the reason of Iraqi Army of 2003 having very little in terms of any valuable hardware. The birth of the PGMs, actually, goes as far back as Luftwaffe sinking Italian battleship Roma in 1943 by radio-controlled bomb, while Russians already in mid-50s started to deploy first genuine anti-shipping missile (as opposed to merely radio-controlled bomb), as well as fielding one of the first radio-controlled Anti-Tank Guided Missiles such as "Lotos" not to mention legendary 9M14 Malyutka, which still works to this day against many models of tanks. 

These all were and are PGMs (precision guided munitions) and it is not that the US was first in this filed, albeit many try to portray it this way. It is simply not true, in fact the United States didn't have indigenous ATGM until 1970, then the US did obtain a decent anti-tank weapon such as TOW, by which time USSR fielded an astounding variety of ATGMs with guidance ranging from wire to IR, to laser. In 1986 the CIA issued a secret report (declassified in 2000) of Russians developing and using artillery laser guided munitions since 1970, and then they were used in Afghanistan. 

So, you see, the US doesn't have monopoly on PGMs. And that is what many people still fail to recognize. After all, Russians used TV and laser guided bombs extensively in Afghanistan. So, what gives then? Very simple, tactics, economics and common sense. 

2. For anyone who is attentive, even The Sun's video shows that apart from those very deadly even today unguided S-8 (S-13) rocket pods, KA-52s carry (clearly attached)  9K121 Vikhr laser-guided anti-tank weapons, but especially this nasty thing called Ataka, as well as air-to-air Igla missiles. Needless to say then, when you have on-board such a lovely combat informational control system (battle management) as Argument-52 and a superb multi-channel targeting complex, the question is why would you waste a relatively expensive anti-tank missile on something which blows apart easily by S-8, especially when the infantry is present (most of the time) and area coverage matters? Right. Of course, both Mi-28 and Ka-52 are capable of carrying this thing and they do: Hermes. 

All of these PGM and even shoot-and-forget weapons have been used already in combat conditions and brand new Hermes has performed superbly. Evidently it is being carried presently in Ukraine too by both lines of combat helis. So, when you hear all those stories about Russian PGMs "performing poorly" anywhere (like Syria), know then--it is an excruciating butt-hurt of fanboys (primarily from the West) who still believe that Saddam's incompetent army was destroyed by PGMs. It was not.  

Here is good ol' Hind of Mi-24/35 variety wipes out Ukrainian Buk and its support vehicles by those very S-8 NURS. 

Absolutely no necessity to waste PGM on that. Against infantry it is altogether pure stupidity unless you want to "open" some bunker.  S-8(S-13) do the job just fine. But, of course, if to believe western "experts" Russia is now down to one or two helicopters and a few tanks and has no personnel left, and VSU is about to mount massive counter-offensive and throw those Roosskies out of 404. I hear Rambo is on his way now, he just needs to arm his bow and arrows and the glorious victory for Ukraine will be at hand. But one has to ask inevitable question, it was more than 40 days of operation now, why so few (in fact very few--not counting CGI graphics from computer games presented as a combat footage by Kiev) shot down Russian helis and combat aircraft. There are some, very few. Where are those killing fields littered with burned Russian tanks. I heard Stinger and Javelin are those wunderwaffe, right? Nah, I am screwing with you.