Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
Except in rare cases, that's a myth, much like "General Winter" which is really just a convenient excuse for losing. In most cases, Russian soldiers were pretty well equipped and had excellent commanders and they were pretty adaptable, too, managing to minimize their weaknesses and maximize their strengths, as evident against Prussian under Frederick the Great, French under Napoleon, Germany in WW2 and so on...

There are exceptions, of course. WW1 is one of them, where Russian army was truly in a pathetic state and had pretty bad commanders, except Brusilov.
If Russian soldiers were so great, then why did Napoleon slaughter those armies that were sent out, and the Ruskies retreat over most of their own country; and again millions were captured by the Nazis - the country was almost bled dry due to the truly appalling tactics that were employed.

Russian soldiers were first in the army for life, then for 25 years. Service was brutal and most wouldn't live much longer than their service. They were deeply religious. The armed forces were also unable to make decisions unless commanded by senior echelons. You there have soldiers that know death is coming, and that's not such a bad thing - difficult to break the army, but inflexible on the battlefield.

Well equipped? They used muskets way beyond almost all other forces in Europe.