Infantry tactics in the NWO
Features of the theater of operations
Donbass is not a flat area, it is hills and hollows, elevation changes, mine heaps on which surveillance devices can be installed, and urban development, including factory pipes and mine headframes, consisting of metal I-beams that can be riddled, but difficult to destroy .
And the saturation of the enemy with UAVs with high-resolution cameras gives him the opportunity to monitor the surrounding territory in different modes around the clock. And I don't exaggerate. Often in the air is not something that is constantly Drones enemy, but also, as a rule, not one, and of different classes. Only the work of our electronic warfare can completely clear the sky, but for a short period of time, since the enemy also hunts for it in priority order.
So, what will the involvement of a large unit turn into?
Its transfer will be identified on the march to the front sector - when the columns move along the roads. The enemy will be ready to inflict fire damage. Then the first tank battalion reaches the line of attack, and there, at a distance of 30 to 40 kilometers, it can be reached not only by high-precision "Axes" and all sorts of "Caesars" with "Paladins", but also by Soviet installations "Grad", and from a distance of ten kilometers from the hills can cover the "Rapiers".
In general, with a high probability the carbon story. Any plans for a deep detour of the territory, for strategic coverage - always, except for the arrows on the map, rest on a specific area on which a specific platoon operates. Often, in criticizing the use of units in the NMD, it sounds: our generals have forgotten how to attack in divisions, decisions are needed to break through large formations.
It should be understood and remembered that it is not enough that arrows were drawn at the headquarters and a decision was made to move tank division. On the ground, everything will come down to the consistent destruction of specific groups of advancing tanks by the enemy. That is, the situation of the Great Patriotic War with operations in the Vyazemsky direction "Mars" will be reproduced.
It would seem a logical decision - to overcome the fortified nodes bypassing, in open areas, with advice on demining fields by firing artillery and using anti-mine tank trawls, but ... The fact is that the entire Donbass is a continuous agglomeration. Multi-storey urban development develops into urban settlements, garden plots, towns, villages and industrial facilities such as factories, mines and railway stations are located around them.
And all this, taking into account the hills and lowlands, and rivers with swampy floodplains. It turns out that, bypassing one object, the advancing group approaches another and, being in an open area, inevitably comes under fire from two sides - since it comes between two defense nodes. The operation for deep coverage and dissection is, of course, beautiful, but it requires the accumulation of a huge amount of reserves and then their prompt introduction into the breakthrough zone.
There is another option as well.
The most combat-ready subunits open the enemy defenses like a can opener, break it open by frontal breakthroughs and finish off the pockets with less combat-ready units. Rather, it is an offensive in the style of an asphalt skating rink, but it does not leave the encircled enemy army entrenched in the fortification and does not give a chance either to unblock it or to withdraw through the humanitarian corridor.
Speaking conditionally, the type of one operation is “Stalingrad”, the type of the other is “Vistula-Oder”. The general public and military experts often like the former. With deep walks and coverages and explicit grouping surroundings. However, let's not forget that this is possible under appropriate conditions. The presence of steppe open areas without large urban agglomerations, for example, in the Volga steppes, convenient for the movement of mechanized groups. Difficult rotation and replenishment of enemy units due to the range of supply lines and natural conditions. Weak flanks of the group, consisting of unstable parts - Romanians, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians.
At the moment, the RF Armed Forces are fighting in the Donbass in conditions of almost continuous building. The enemy defends stubbornly and stubbornly, the infantry units are saturated with hand-held anti-tank weapons, and replenishment of manpower is carried out regularly. It was with similar conditions that the Soviet troops encountered during the battles in 1944-1945 directly in Germany and Hungary, and there the nature of offensive operations changed towards the second type. The solution is to take one of the defense nodes.
In this case, a gap breaks in the enemy's defensive line, which then allows you to operate in different operational directions, bypassing the rest of the line of fortifications. For the first time, such a phenomenon was observed after the capture of Popasna - the so-called "flower of Popasna", at the moment we are seeing the same effect after the liberation of Soledar.
Defense system
Once again, let us fix how the enemy's defense is for the most part arranged.
The "gray zone", as a rule, consisting either of a burnt forest belt, pitted with abandoned trenches and trenches, and craters from shells, with a lot of stumps sticking out of the ground and fragments of burnt trees broken by explosions, or destroyed residential buildings, piles of bricks, the remains of lined equipment and civil vehicles, concrete poles, bits of asphalt, metal transmission towers, pits and cellars.
In general, an extremely impassable terrain, as a rule, mined with all kinds of mines that mankind has only come up with: from anti-tank to manually installed PFMok, banal tripwires, and also sprinkled with petals from containers that sometimes lie for months, and sometimes spontaneously explode one at a time. Add to this also unexploded mines from mortars, including 120 caliber, which can also explode if the ground shakes under them. And all sorts of rubbish, such as German mines with an electromagnetic fuse that explode when approaching them with metal (for example, there is enough machine gun) or a walkie-talkie turned on.
The fire of snipers and machine gunners, whose firing points are carefully camouflaged and fire selectively, does not allow clearing all this. The suppression of these individual firing points is prevented by spotters of artillery and mortar fire, who immediately cover the group that is trying to swoop into this territory.
We will immediately note the “simple solutions”.
It is impossible to overcome this zone by throwing a group of tanks or tanks and armored vehicles with troops on the armor for a number of reasons. The depth of enemy reconnaissance control is quite large: from LBS in places in open areas it can reach thirty kilometers.
It should be borne in mind that enemy infantry units are located in safe shelters, basement and first floors of apartment buildings, in dugouts and dugouts dug on the reverse slopes of heights, often built using construction equipment, with elements not only of wood and earth, but also reinforced concrete structures. It is not possible to hit it with an intense but short-term artillery strike - before the enemy's counter-battery fight begins.
Multi-storey buildings have been turned into multi-stage defensive complexes. Dense urban development does not allow effective destruction of houses beyond the outer buildings from the offensive side. The outer ones can be riddled with tank shells, and the next ones are relatively intact.
Inside, everything is prepared for defense: passages between entrances on different floors are punched, holes in the walls are blocked by cabinets, groups of defenders can go to the rear of the attackers and receive reinforcements through the basements from neighboring buildings.
In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the features of assault operations in the NWO.
Assault actions
Let's talk about such a phenomenon as the assault actions of infantry units in the conditions of the NMD in Ukraine.
To begin with, it should immediately be noted that there is often a misconception about how “assaults” take place at the present time. Traditionally, some draw an analogy with the "stormtroopers" or "stormtroopers" of the Kaiser's army in the First World War. That is, groups of soldiers equipped with additional armor protection and special weapons, the purpose of which was to break into the enemy's trench and destroy the infantry located there in hand-to-hand combat or combat at extremely short distances.
In view of the fact that in the NMD the main means of defending a position are not infantry small fire and barbed wire, but coordinated fire from artillery, mortars, snipers, machine guns and minefields, it makes no sense to create a group to destroy enemy infantry in hand-to-hand combat.
Here, rather, one can recall the anecdote about using hand-to-hand combat skills, a fighter must lose his regular rifle weapon, cold, bladed, trench tool and not be able to pick up a single improvised item, and then, on the contrary, also find the same enemy fighter, ready to engage in hand-to-hand combat with him.
Also, military history knows the experience of using assault infantry groups by the Soviet army during the capture of fortress cities during the Great Patriotic War, for example, the well-known Koenigsberg, the more forgotten Poznan and Kustrin, and so on. Moreover, if the function of the so-called festungs performed the same as that of Soledar with Artemovsk during the NMD - they had to slow down the offensive impulse of the Soviet army, block the nodes of roads and railways, controlling the transport communications historically laid through them due to the terrain, station bridges, etc., and at the same time inflict damage on the attackers, and also give time for the preparation in the rear of combat-ready units, instead of those defeated at the front, from the forces of the mobilization reserve.
However, the key difference between the assault groups of the Soviet army of that period is the use of 45-mm and 76-mm guns and tanks as part of the assault group for direct fire. Which was possible only due to the weak reconnaissance capabilities of the defending garrisons, due to the almost complete absence of technical means and air reconnaissance, due to the air supremacy of the Soviet aviation during that period (1944–1945) of the war.
In addition, although Faustparons had already been created, the coefficient of probability of their destruction of Soviet tanks was insignificant. And the action of the assault groups on the ground was supported, in addition, by heavy artillery fire and strikes by bomber and attack aircraft. The difference between the SVO is that modern MANPADS and air defense systems have such a range and effectiveness that they pose a threat to aviation, even at low density. And anti-tank weapons for infantry (the notorious ATGM roof-breakers) ensure the destruction of even heavy armored vehicles with a high destruction rate.
At the same time, the counter-battery struggle of the enemy does not allow the concentration of significant forces of any kind of troops. Simply put, an attempt to concentrate even infantry, even artillery, even armored groups will be detected by aerial reconnaissance on UAVs, reconnaissance equipment (high-resolution video cameras, thermal imagers), satellite reconnaissance, or, in the end, by the enemy’s intelligence network.
For the same reason, the tactics used by units of the RF Armed Forces and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the second Chechen campaign could not be transferred to the NVO. For example, when a structure occupied by militants was discovered, the infantry carried out a sweep in active cooperation with armored vehicles operating on direct fire. Even in an apartment building, when an apartment was found occupied by the enemy, the tank could work outside to suppress resistance. But in the conditions of the NWO, the equipment itself becomes an object of hunting from the side of the enemy, who has the means to defeat it.
How do assault actions take place and what is an “assault” in the NWO?
An infantry group of five to ten people advances. They are covered by carefully camouflaged guns at the firing position. They cover not with fire, but while waiting. If a rifleman is working on a group, then the artillery strikes at the identified firing point and immediately changes position. Sometimes the movement of the reconnaissance group in especially dangerous areas is accompanied by an observer drone from above - for additional speed in identifying enemy firing points and aiming artillery. So it's all slow and careful.
Even one five-story building - that way, as a rule, several firing points. If the enemy is hiding there, then he can equip firing positions both on top and in the middle of the building, and in the basement basements. Naturally, all this does not stick out of the window, but is hidden with a recess, the windows are hung with burlap or scraps of fabric and cellophane, or littered with barricades of furniture. It is impossible to identify a firing point by simple observation even when observing through a greenhouse or a night light.
But the group still watches as much as they can. Suddenly, someone inside will kindle a fire or, violating discipline, will light a cigarette. But the enemy also wants to live. As a rule, it is not so easily detected.
Then the group slowly slowly moves forward, using any places that are not visible from the building. Burnt cars, sheds, garages, terrain folds, drainpipes, ditches, fallen trees, piles of bricks, in general, everything that is not taken into account on the map and creates protection from viewing by the enemy's NP.
Sometimes the route depends on a hawthorn bush or a concrete pillar lying on the ground.
At some point, the enemy will reveal the advance of the group and try to cover it with mortar fire. Sometimes enemy art or a tank is connected. Then you have to retreat, pull out the wounded, replenish the group and look for another route. There, after all, the most dangerous places can be mined. And not only petals but also pfmkami and stretch marks.
In addition, the enemy uses the tactics of the fire bag. He does not open fire immediately, but first launches the group deeper into the target area, and then he can also set up a mortar cut-off - throw mines on the escape route - such a short-term fire shaft is the other way around. Calmly shooting at this moment the reconnaissance group.
But at some point, the group moves so close to the five-story building that it falls into the projectile shadow - after all, we are going from our side, and the means of fire support, as a rule, from the side of the enemy with variations. Then the enemy shows firing points.
As a rule, fire from machine guns or snipers. Here they are, identified, and it is necessary to give coordinates to the means of their fire support. And then move on, hoping that they were suppressed, or the enemy fled, or shell-shocked, or simply hid and lay down, and had not yet crawled out into the sector of observation and fire. And so, until you pass into the dead zone of the five-story building. And this is also a description of a spherical horse in a vacuum - one five-story building and an attack on it.
And as a rule, in the city, firing points are set up for mutual cover with dagger flanking fire. That is, approaches to one five-story building are covered by firing points from another, and this one controls that one, and so on. Sometimes a dash to the dead zone along a carefully explored passage is made on the armor in order to parachute directly into the entrances. But this passage still needs to be found and cleared first.
And then - now you are in a dead zone: the second part of the Marlezon ballet begins. Cleanup inside. And there - you never know what is prepared. The enemy could break through the walls between the entrances, he could make holes in the walls in the apartments and cover them with cabinets, he could do them in the ceilings of irregular passages-hatchways between the floors and the basement.
Every apartment needs to be checked. Everything in the apartment. Any closet, any toilet. Because everywhere there may be a passage to the next entrance, from where the enemy can go to the rear of the attacking group and cut it off. And there are all kinds of stretch marks that explode to open the doors of apartments, interior rooms and even closets. Monk in a closed room is a guaranteed death, even in armor, even without armor.
At the same time, from neighboring buildings, where the enemy is still, they can fire at the group during the sweep. And the enemy inside also fights to the last and constantly tries to cut off. And in the end - this is one building.
Several of these houses themselves turn into a complex fortress. And you can't destroy them with a quick blow. Because a panel five-story building is worth it, even if all the walls are in a sieve. And if the building is of a quarter type, then the extreme five-story buildings protect the internal building. And the first one can be with half-crumbling entrances, and there inside the quarter - there are intact ones. In such cases, only a dash with a landing force is used, but with single sides or in small groups.
The author twice had to participate in attempts at such a landing, and one successful case is known for certain.
I will describe how it happened.
It was about a combat mission in the form of occupying the extreme "language" of the forest belt, going around the enemy positions near the settlement. Just so as not to storm the block with five-story buildings head-on. Their first line was constantly subjected to intense shelling, but the return fire did not stop. It was decided to throw infantry on the armor into the forest belt running along the settlement in order to create a threat of its encirclement and cut off, and to make it difficult for the enemy to rotate and transfer ammunition and reinforcements.
The problem was that the section to the forest belt had to be overcome through open areas in direct line of sight of the extreme five-story building and the school where the enemy sat down. It was a pleasant decision: the last (!) tank of the brigade rolls out for direct fire and shoots ammo at the school and the outermost five-story building, forcing the enemy to hide, scatter from firing positions, or at least stop shelling for a while.
At this time, six infantry fighting vehicles (three kopecks and three kopeck pieces) with troops inside and on the armor throw the maximum amount of infantry transported into the forest belt and jump back under the cover of tank fire. Infantry in the forest belt, destroying an unspecified number of an unknown enemy, consolidates and moves forward, creating a stronghold of defense, or recapturing it from the enemy. Supply and evacuation, if necessary, are carried out in the same way.
Despite some adventurism and uncertainty of tasks for the infantry unit, such a plan was accepted by his command. Since the alternative was a frontal attack on these same five-story buildings, and the unit was from the BARS structure, the general decision at the mini-military council of the unit headquarters was that it was still more realistic to try to occupy the forest and cut off the enemy, forcing him to retreat, than to land from armor directly into the entrances, which was another alternative to the plan.
By the beginning of the implementation of the plan, it was possible to coordinate and covertly place infantry fighting vehicles at the starting line and distribute infantry next to them. Further, the enemy nevertheless discovered something and began shelling the area of concentration and accumulation. We had to act quickly. The artillery of the brigade began a counter-battery fight, mortars worked on the last five-story building and a school, a tank and an infantry fighting vehicle advanced. Drones from the air they conducted reconnaissance to the headquarters of the operation and from there they gave explanations on the situation to the landing.
The tank fired two shots and was hit by an unidentified enemy anti-tank weapon. The crew, although shell-shocked, survived and returned to their location on foot. The landing party partially left the sides, and partially returned to them when the deployed infantry fighting vehicles jumped out from under fire and returned to safe locations. Most of the landing successfully returned back. The number of three hundredths was minimal, no one died at all.
The fighting took all day, and the next day it was decided to adjust the plan to take into account the absence of a tank in the brigade now.
The new plan looked like this.
Three infantry fighting vehicles jump out at the line of opening fire without landing and open fire on the five-story building and the school from automatic guns. While the enemy scatters in horror or ceases fire, three other BMP-kopecks are dropping troops according to the original plan.
The next day, everything repeated in the same sequence. Up to the fact that one of the three infantry fighting vehicles was hit by an unidentified enemy anti-tank weapon 15 meters from our wrecked tank standing there, which so far could not be pulled out, and the enemy methodically shot it from all types of artillery.
After that, it was decided to abandon plans to “slip through” to such a tempting forest belt, which I consider a high degree of sanity of the command and respect for the lives of the soldiers.
At the end of the story, the third case of landing “at the entrance” known to the author occurred on the same sector of the front by the forces of the reconnaissance battalion of one tank brigade. As a result, with the help of assault actions, the five-story buildings remaining at that time in the amount of two pieces were taken, but the reconnaissance battalion opened an additional set for the transfer of those wishing from other units and structures - BARS, Akhmat, Reduta by internal transfer.
Thus, assault operations in the NWO are a slow process. The process is not a zerg-rush to the cries of "cheers" by company groups, but a smart, cautious and consistent advancement with simultaneous demining, opening enemy firing points and their destruction, and endless retreat in case of enemy strikes with artillery or mortars.
Specifics of LBS in NWO
For the first time in 70 years, the Russian Army is conducting high-intensity combat operations with an enemy equipped with such modern technical means of destruction, reconnaissance, and surveillance. Hence, several non-standard tactical decisions have to be applied.
This is especially evident when fresh units of the personnel army of the RF Armed Forces arrive at the LBS. The units of the LDNR, volunteers, the Akhmat regiment and the Cheka officers stationed there pass on their combat traditions and experience to them, which often breaks the statutory stereotypes.
Let's analyze some of them:
Night is a suitable way for covert movement. To schedule an attack at four or five in the morning is to take the enemy by surprise.
Fundamentally wrong. The enemy is sufficiently equipped with thermal imagers and night vision devices, including high-quality Israeli and American ones. Thermal imaging cameras on UAVs are also widely used. In addition to getting up early and getting tired of your own soldiers, this is also a chance to get under friendly fire. You won’t achieve the effect of surprise at night, but you will light up the thermal signature just right.
In addition, this is a great chance to create chaos and confusion in your own unit, not to mention the traumatic nature of moving along the forest belt, for example, and most importantly, at night you yourself do not see mines: the same “Petals” turn from simply unpleasant circumstances into a deadly surprise .
Thus, the best time to act is at noon on a hot summer day, especially if the sun is facing the enemy.
This also includes attempts to move at a fast pace, which leads to an increase in the thermal signature of the unit and tremor of the hands, which adversely affects the accuracy of shooting.
There is a front line, behind which you can send scouts to sabotage, monitor the rear and highlight targets for aviation and artillery.
As such, there is no front line. There is a fortification in depth, designed for defense and equipped, among other things, with group weapons. Simply put, and three kilometers from the LBS, they have trenches not only with infantry, but also with ATGMs and machine guns. In addition, it should be recognized that the fighting is taking place in relatively populated areas with non-evacuated populations. These are not the mountains of the Caucasus and not the deserts of Syria.
The reconnaissance group, even if it somehow slips directly through the LBS, will be discovered by the local population, the grandmother going to the store, the boys on bicycles, and what? Leave behind the corpses of witnesses? Still, from our side, such scumbags do not fight. This means that the local population voluntarily and involuntarily blabs about what they saw "Russian soldiers" - the peculiarities of the accent, pronunciation, mentality, ignorance of the local specifics of life do not allow mimicking local forces, even with the similarity of equipment and weapons.
The number of armored vehicles in general and especially is the key to success. If you send more tanks to attack, then there is a higher chance of breaking through the enemy defenses.
An unprepared attack will only lead to a directly proportional increase in losses, according to the number of units involved. You send a battalion into a stupid attack - they will put a battalion. Though tanks, even infantry. Art of the enemy is the main damaging combat factor, and the number of attackers does not play a role.
Having captured a position, you can keep it with the same unit without rotating.
As a rule, one type of weaponry and equipment of the unit is required for capture, and completely different ones for retention. They go on the offensive with RPKs, machine guns, exotic shotguns against drones and clearing trenches, and it’s better to hold back with heavy machine guns and ATGMs. Demanding universality “according to the charter” or standard weapons “according to the state of a motorized rifle unit” is stupid and pointless.
Moreover, when making a decision to capture a position, one must immediately foresee the possibility of transferring reinforcements, taking out the wounded, bringing ammunition, etc.
Despite the war, the regular activities of units and the separation of functions should be carried out whenever possible.
It should immediately be put into the brain that no "constructions" are possible in war. Deployment of personnel "by units" is the most dangerous nonsense, and should be arranged according to the range of weapons.
No cooking "at zero" is possible, and it will have to be delivered from deep in the rear, either by TVNami, if the unit managed to organize a field kitchen, or by dry food. The same, and even more, applies to water. At the same time, it should be remembered that these "camels", dragging water to the front, can be noticed by the enemy - and reveal the deployment of the front edge by their movements.
Some suggestions for improving the effectiveness of command and control of infantry units
War is war. They sometimes die on it. But no commander has the right to send his subordinates to certain death.
This goes against the well-known narrative that justifies the notorious Order No. 227 “Not one step back.” However, without delving now into the historical analysis of the circumstances that led to such a situation at the front, when it was necessary to issue such an order, I consider the creation of such prerequisites a mistake and a crime. For some reason, in 1945 there was no need for such an order. So it's still in the situation at the front.
So, I think that the life of every soldier in the NMD has the same value as the general, and the Supreme Commander himself, if you like.
There can be tough decisions in combat. So, if the group was ambushed, and the commander decides to leave the barrier, and the main part to retreat, let him remain in the barrier himself. If it is necessary to go on the offensive against unsuppressed defenses through unexplored minefields, let the general who gives such an order take out a pistol, change his shoes for trench boots and himself go ahead in the firing line, setting an example. And so on.
But, since it is foolish to hope for such actions, I propose to introduce a criterion for the effectiveness of the unit commander.
At the moment, such a criterion is the fulfillment of the combat mission of capturing the territory. Captured - well done. Could not advance - report why and what losses you suffered. I didn’t suffer losses, which means I stormed badly, let’s do it again.
And so, the criterion should be, except for the performance of a combat mission - loss of personnel.
Offhand, I propose the following gradation:
• Fulfilled a combat mission, but lost 50% of the personnel and more - on trial, a military tribunal and demoted to a penal battalion.
• Fulfilled a combat mission with losses from 40 to 50% - removal from office, resignation and demotion.
• Fulfilled a combat mission with losses from 20 to 40% - dismissal with transfer to rear services or advanced training.
• Fulfilled a combat mission with losses from 10 to 20% - an internal investigation into the validity of losses.
• I consider losses of less than 10% percent acceptable, depending on the complexity and scope of the task.
• Completed a combat mission with less than 10% casualties - a candidate for promotion - let him command a large unit and pass on his experience.
• Other losses of personnel: not in the course of a combat mission, but at a point of temporary or permanent deployment or on the march - automatic dismissal and trial.
I think that with the introduction of such criteria in the army structure, they will treat personnel as effectively and carefully as in the BARS and PMC systems.
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