TypicalRussianIvan

Original text and material by Timur Al'bot (https://vk.com/timur_albot)

I found this text on the internet and as both military fan and Russiaboo have an urge to share it with you.

Tom Clancy is an author (Now a dead one, may he burn in hell) of several novels featuring lots of military action. There are many games made by his books and there are lots of people who like it. However, every novel of his contains amazing numbers of technically incorrect bullshit. And this text is an example of some of it.

Russia as seen by one of the most famous writers of America.

Certain weapons, both Soviet and western, are always described in his every book. However, this still doesn't prevent him from repeating same mistakes in their portrayal.

1)T-80: The tank that has the most "detailed" description written by the author. The tank is equipped with 115-mm cannon (125-mm in "Red Storm"), diesel engine and a loader-crew-member. Later the tank gets an autoloader but it only makes it weaker as "there is no fourth crew member who would help fix the damage". The tank is equpped with some "reflexing armor panels", making it look like a toy.("The Sum of All Fears"). Obviously the writer talks about dynamic protection. In Tom Clancy's reality it's latest modification T-80UM1 (2001 year) is able to compete with M60A3 (1973 year). T-80 was not sent to China, and judging by the description in "Bear and Dragon" novel it looks like Clancy confused it with Type 80. In the "President's Order" it says that the dense arrangement and active defence made the tank more effective, and in "Bear and Dragon" it says that only a man who knows nothing about tank battles and the tank's weaknesses could create such thing as active defence. Only god knows how Afghani mujaheedeh managed to find out T-80's weaknesses in Clancy's novels, because it was never used in Afghanistan in the first place.

2)Clancy mentions some kind of shooting knife, which Russian spetsnaz is armed with, and that it shoots the blade on 5-6 meters. The only prototype is NRS-2 knife, but this knife shoots an SP-4 bullet with the mini-pistol built into the knife's grip. Also, he says that those guns were deverloped because political training dominated the military one in spetsnaz.

3)In Clancy's world Russian army doesn't have effective silenced weapons("Bear and Dragon"). There is a silencer for AK-47, which is a "tin can filled with metal pieces" and collapsing anfter 10 shots. Of course the book never mentions VSS, As Val, VSK-94 and others.

4)"Bear and Dragon" says that Soviet army created ATGMs by stealing western weapons and reverse-engineering them. For example 9K114 Sturm ATGM(AT-6) is a copy of "Milan" ATGM. The fact that those rockets have totally different control systems and technical characteristics doesn't bother Clancy at all. Also: "Sturm" was never installed on BMP and was never called "Hammer". God knows what other ATGMs were copied from.

5)The only artillery system of Russian army is an ML-20 howitzer (1938 year). Also there is no mobile artillery and every artillery squad is immediately located and destroyed. The main anti tank weapons are MT-12 "Rapier" system.

My addition: Looks like the facts of MSTA-S existence and M109 Paladin still using the 1930s similar reloading mechanism also don't bother Clancy at all.

6)Project 971 "Schuka-B" submarines since the day they have been created (1984 year) and till this day still outmatch all American gen 3 submarines by the stealth capabilities. However, in Clancy's universe they managed to shorten the lagging behind Amrerican submarines to 10-15 years in 1991 year by installing a new reactor's pumps' cool down system stolen from Americans. ("The Sum of All Fears"). By some marks they are even able to put a concurency to American submarines made in 2000s.

7)Su-27 fuel capacity is only enough for a less than hour of flight, despite it's flying range being 4000km. This plane suddenly pops up in "Bear and Dragon" novel replacing MiG-29, the only Soviet fighter in the previous books. Judging by the book it's a "good plane for Russians (1984 year), just a bit lagging behind early F-15 models (1972 year)".

8)BMP's fuel tanks are located on the back doors, so a single bullet can blow it up right with a crew. In real life those fuel tanks are optional and are forbidden to fill up in combat situations).

9)The engines for Soviet tanks were so bad, that they were dropping 1kg of metal shavings off the pumps after a hour of work.

10)In the very beginning of "The Hunt for The Red October" Soviet captain kills his morale officer. The officer's name is Putin (Ivan Yurevich). In "The Sum of All Fears" there is an FBI agent Bill Clinton.

11)The end of the "Debt of Honour" novel tells about a Japanese pilot Sato, who stole a Boeing-747 and rammed Capitolium with it. The same way World Trade Center was rammed in New York.

12)In "Red Storm" novel kolkhozs(Soviet collective farms) have numbers instead of correct Soviet themed names. The Azerbaijani terrorist has a Georgian last-name Tolkadze.Azerbaijani didn't have any prohibitions from working on oil-extracting facilities and no one knows during what kind of uprising one of the terrorists' grandfather was killed.

13)In Clancy's world Russians(even close friends and relatives) call each other by official form. They also like to transform English names into Russian (Glolvko calls Ryan "Ivan Emmetovich")

14)KGB head's office is located on the top floor, as it is in the west. In real life KGB head's office was always located on the second floor.

15)Russian military power on the east was weakened by the fact that all the planes were thrown in Chechnya, and the new ones were only sent to European part of Russia. Though it was easy to understand that Russia's main enemy in the novel is China.

16)In Clancy's world Spetsnaz soldiers must have a red star and lightning tattoo. Also the squad's commander must kill injured soldiers and the ones who failed the mission. And commander's right hand must kill him if he doesn't do so.("Mirror Image")

17)In Clancy's world Earth rotates in another direction because sun rises in Budapest first and later in Moscow. The train from Moscow to Budapest goes through Sofia nad Belgrad.

18)Planes from Alaska fly to Jakutia(Russia's eastern-northern region) through the North Pole/

19)In real life T-80s were never produced in Chelyabinsk.

20)Soviet army was called the Red Army only up to 1946 and not through the entire USSR existence period.

21)Somehow for Russia, having about 194 nations in it, having a multinational army is unusual.

22)In real life Russian general-leutenant has two stars on his shoulder straps, not three.

23)Russia's insignia, apparently, is a large red star and not the Russian flag. Clancy mentions many times that Russian tanks were an easy target because of the big red star drawn on the side. Russian tanks never had any red stars.

24)You don't have to be "Marsal of Russian Federation" to become the head of AFRF general headquarters. And you should be a president of Russia, not marsal to become the head of Russian army ("Bear and Dragon")

25)Russia was exporting oil up to 2001 year.

26)In "President's Order" novel Clancy states that even after nuclear attack which killed 500 000 000 of population, China is still stronger than Russia with it's 150 000 000. Obviously Clancy's world doesn't have such nonsense as "Infrastructure", "strategical facilities" and so on. The military power is only counted by the population number. Except USA of course, because USA always win.

27)In "Bear and Dragon" novel a world largest gold and oil field was found in Jakutia.(2001 year) And there are some really strange things about it: After it's discovery Russia gets another valuable export product. Because Russia only exports vodka in the novel. Russian oil-workers don't have expirience of working in cold regions, so they have to ask Americans for mining.

Addition: Pretty cool for a country extracting it's oil on the far northern territories in real life.

28)Also Russia doesn't export gold, because it has to cooperate with SAR on that field mining as a "newbie"

29)Clancy claims that Jakutia was protected from Chinese invasion by thick forests, but now Russians made a road here themselves for mining oil. In the road's construction process it's described as a 100 meters wide country road. It's hard to immagine an invasion of four armored divisions on a 100 meters wide front.

30)Genghis Khan wasn't taking part in mongolian conquest of Russian lands. It's also unknown why should Russia be afraid of China because of Genghis Khan ("Bear and Dragon"). The inability of Clancy to find a difference between Chinese and Tatar-Mongols is laso seen in "Red Storm", in "President's Order" one of the characters mentions that in XIII century Chinese have already reached Baltic Sea once, while thalking about Chinese invasion of Russia, obviously confusing Chinese and Mongols.

31)In "Jack Ryan" series there are general Bundeswehra Model, the ex-operative of "Stasi" Keitel, and nuclear physicist Fromm.

32)"Mirror Image" novel mentions a map of Moscow during Ivan III rule, drawn with the blood of Teuctonic knights taken captive after the battle on Ladoga Lake. It's hard to imagine how this blood stayed in liquid condition from 1242 to 1462. The same book mentions that Vladivostok is located on the coast of the Okhotsk Sea (In real life it's located on the coast of the Japanese Sea)