The Russian way of war
 

link: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Port...au-Bartles.pdf

This is an awesome PDF file which is a thorough research on the Russian armed forces, how they differ from their USSR equivalents, the new doctrine, organization etc. Short of finding classified information, I believe this is the best guide on the modern "Reds".

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Thanks. I'm adding this link for a world map of Soviet Ground Forces deployment:

https://www.gfsis.org/maps/russian-m...BN19oJucv1rNWQ

Re: The Russian way of war
 

VERY useful.

I've always based my scenario designs on Soviet activity in Afghanistan and the Chetanya and their TO&E. Nice to have some professional analysis from subject matter experts!

Re: The Russian way of war
 

A great find. Thanks for this posting. if I am understanding this, I am finding the Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) similar to the USMC MEU, where air, artillery, and infantry units fight together organically.

Thank you.

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Re: The Russian way of war
 

This is good as well, although the Aeraaa's post of the Bartles paper has several maps depicting deployment of Russian forces too.

Thanks!

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Re: The Russian way of war
 

According to observer reports yes Russia is now very capable of fighting in this way. Its not a lumbering beast anymore their reaction times are on the money though still high volume rather than precision.
One that sticks in my head is the Ukraine guy who used his mobile, text obviously gave away it was command so Russians texted him back hope you enjoy the present and started shelling.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

And still i bet they don't know what hit them. :lol

Re: The Russian way of war
 

One thing that I found very interesting from reading this report, is that the Russians strive for (and have probably achieved) a faster OODA loop than their NATO adversaries. They have managed to do that by relying on a specific set of courses of action (I believe they are called norms) that the commander picks according to the situation at hand and a smaller staff than the NATO countries. There is obviously a trade-off for that and that is the decreased flexibility compared to the NATO armies. Still, this system is very useful for the modern fluid conventional warfare and I believe they are on the right track.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Also of note is the effort to preserve their troops, they seem to use any and everyone for recon let the Mercs etc do the dangerous work and use there guys as the hammer.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Some interesting observations of how to defeat the Russian BTG. It also seem the overall Russian doctrine still relies upon echelons, only now as opposed to the Soviet style, those echelons are very close together. Using traditional air-land battle strategy of disrupting the 2nd echelon would be difficult to achieve. As pointed out in the article below, the BTG seems to be a smaller more fluid force but one that is designed around 2 basic principes:

1. reliance upon paramilitary forces to act as screening and security elements. example: use of DPR rebels or PMC mercenaries to 'shield' the BTG.

2. the BTG is designed to fight a weaker opponent. Ukraine essentially has a 1980s Soviet army and even still there is evidence of BTG not achieving stellar success against them.

As the US army points out, it seems unlikely that Russia would utilize BTGs against a NATO opponent. For time being, it seems likely that Russia would fall back to at least brigade formations, by which point much of the maneuver advantage enjoyed by a BTG would be lost or reduced. Of course all of this is debatable and its clear that Russia is moving away from the old ponderous Soviet juggernaut and into a more capable force. As Aeraaa so cleverly points out, they're trying to get 'inside' the NATO decision making loop. I agree that a BTG could likely do so when facing a NATO brigade, but its tendency to avoid risk and its numeric inferiority might delay that. I'm interested to hear other assessments.

https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/e...g/2Fiore17.pdf

Re: The Russian way of war
 

I would not go so far as to assess the BTG as reliant upon paramilitary forces, as the article states up front that the author's conclusions are based upon the Ukrainian experience. Where supporting Russian Ukrainians against the central government plays.

There have been at least two large scale army exercises in the past several years: Vostok 2018 combining Chinese forces in September of 2018, and the Zapad 2017 exercises, on 23 August 2017. It maybe interesting to examine the literature on those exercises to glean how Russia might fight NATO.


Now, the BTG is a smaller force compared to a the US Brigade Combat Team by about a third. We should not expect a BTG to go toe-to-toe against a BCT, but rather to throw two or three BTGs at the one BCT. In that way, the Russian brigade retains a high degree of maneuver and a very good chance to shape the battle.

This article, presents us with several scenario ideas from the BTG battle summaries. Again, I would be hesitant to translate Fiore's conclusions here to a fight against a BCT.

Finally, the author is a captain preparing to earn his master's in business administration. He is a West Point grad with experience in armored brigade combat teams. He has held battalion S-3 (plans, and operations) responsibilities as well.
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Re: The Russian way of war
 

Not want to open a new thread, so check this extremely interesting video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DpW9yaSXiI&t=1499s

Re: The Russian way of war
 

From this we're told:
Russian Motorized Rifle Brigade =
3x Motorized Rifle Bn
1x Tank Bn
1x Anti-tank Bn
2x Artillery Bn
1x MLRS Bn
1x Engr Bn
Various support Bn's and Co's (Comm, Supply/Support, etc.)

LOTS of artillery (no surprise), the Russian overall tactic is to pound and area into dust with artillery then use their maneuver elements to clean up what's left and seize the terrain. Repeat as needed till you've won the war.

The Soviet Union had the worlds largest Air Force (in terms of numbers), the current Russian AF is the 5th. All "Area" SAMs are now part of the Russian Air Force.

The current Russian army is almost entirely a collection of independent Rifle Brigades, there are only (at the time this vid was released) two divisions in the Russian army, but divisions are currently being re-introduced into the military structure. It's anticipated that once divisions are re-introduced the independent brigades will become exploitation/counter-attack forces.

Russia is currently rebuilding their airborne forces, but it's primarily a tactical asset not a strategic one. I.E. they can grab a key bit of terrain not far behind the lines, but a massive airborne/helicopter of Denmark is out of the question.

Russian naval forces are pitiful, I guess that's what they'll rebuild next.

Logistically the Russians (like the Soviets) are very much tied to Mother Russia, and it's rail network (why railroad troops, i.e. rail repair units, are a major part of the Russian military). Small expeditionary forces (i.e. Syria) they can support, but anything larger is totally outside their capabilities.

The Russians still view ANY conflict with NATO as being a Norway to Turkey war, they don't anticipate anything "localized". And that future warfare WILL NOT be a lengthy conflict, your initial forces and reserves have to carry the day, there will be no time to train and equip new units. Soviet dreams of conquering Europe are not part of current Russian military thought. They still fear NATO invading them, I guess it's just part of the Russian psyche.

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Fun to put my analyst hat back on after so many years!