Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The 19th MRD was equipped with equipment that was mostly 1970's/1980's equipment.
I am observing a board that focuses on hardware and they have running commentaries on the equipment on the published photos. They identified BTR-70 and T-62 (in a later wave), BMP-1 (probably part of the original peacekeeping force), mostly T-72 / BMP-2 / BTR-80.
Thank you, I did not take a look at the published photos but relied on someone who saw the reactive armor on a T-72 and thought it was a T-90. Of course the two have completely different turrets but the same hull so if you aren't looking closely it's a reasonable mistake to make. I probably should have checked more but it wasn't really the point of my piece so (shrug).

The 19th MRD is a rapid-raction division with a lower than usual share of conscripts and higer than usual expenditures for training.
It still needed a rapid reaction force in itself (which formed the advance guard of few battalions) to have at least a part of it at a level of readiness approaching that of all Soviet ground forces in Central Europe during the 1980's.
I am not sure that the readiness of Soviet ground forces in Central Europe during the 1980's was all that high, other than their equipment being thirty years newer then. The Soviet infrastructure was crumbling, the Soviet economy was in the toilet, discontent and dissent were rife, they had the same problem of poorly-trained draftee soldiers as the heart of their army that afflicts the current Russian army. But that is a topic for another area.