Trench warfare. Theory
Destroyed armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporozhye direction, summer 2023. Stuffed in front of the front line of our troops. Ukrainians use the same pictures with our armor near Avdiivka. This is what positional warfare looks like “from the ground.” Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
In the early spring of 2022, on the territory of the former Ukraine, maneuver warfare gave way to positional warfare and the pace of troop advancement amounted to tens, sometimes hundreds of meters per day.
The exception to this was the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkov region, but the attack of the Ukrainian troops fell “into the void” - where there were almost no troops, except for small detachments of the Lugansk mobilized, the Russian Guard, repair units of the Russian Armed Forces, etc.
The counterattack of the Russian troops did not work, diversionary attacks aimed at preventing the complete destruction of those who came under attack turned out to be very bloody, but all this is a separate matter story, which someday, apparently, will be told.
What is important now is that the success of the Ukrainian Armed Forces turned out to be an exception - and precisely because they found a weak point that the Russian troops had.
Subsequently, neither the Armed Forces of Ukraine nor the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation found such weak points. Yes, Russian troops left Kherson, but not because they were driven out of there by force, but so as not to expose themselves to the risk of being left without communications in the rear.
Otherwise, the actions of both sides were reduced to bloody assaults and slow advances at a pace sometimes measured in meters per day and huge losses.
For a long time, for censorship reasons, it was simply impossible to call what was happening in the Donbass a “war of position.” There was not a single media outlet in which the comparison of the Northern Military District with the battles of the First World War would pass censorship.
Article by the author "Breakthrough Speed" with the revelation of the mechanism of positional deadlock, they were removed even from “neutral” sites that were not media outlets.
The only place where it was possible to publish it for a long time was LiveJournal, where it is still available in two parts (first и second).
The article reveals how a positional deadlock works, how its problem was resolved in the past, and what measures at the tactical level can be taken to get out of this deadlock.
Since then, however, a lot has changed.
Firstly, it became possible to “call a cat a cat” - to deny the similarities between the war in Ukraine and the First World War now, in 2024, is madness even for our home-grown censorship (and self-censorship).
A few days ago, a note by Sergei Valchenko was published on the online resource “Army Standard” "SVO and the revolution in military affairs", in fact, a review of the preface written by the former Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Yu. N. Baluevsky, to the collection of military scientific articles “Algorithms of Fire and Steel,” published under the auspices of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).
Quote from there:
“So, what “wonderful discoveries” did the Northern Military District reveal to the world in military affairs?
Firstly, modern highly mechanized armies, instead of highly maneuverable combat operations, suddenly switched to positional trench warfare, where the pace of advance on the battlefield looks snail’s pace even by the standards of the First World War.”
Firstly, modern highly mechanized armies, instead of highly maneuverable combat operations, suddenly switched to positional trench warfare, where the pace of advance on the battlefield looks snail’s pace even by the standards of the First World War.”
Firmly and clearly.
Well, better late than never. But now, when not only marginalized people like the author, but also the “near-officialdom” have recognized the existence of the problem, it is worth returning to it again.
Simply because, in addition to “firstly”, there is also secondly - today, almost two years after the beginning of the Northern Military District, we understand much more about the positional impasse than at the end of the First World War and than in the summer of 2022, when the author I wrote my own article that didn’t go anywhere.
Today we know so much about it that we can create a theory of this phenomenon.
You see, around 2026, Russian military thought will notice all this. Real, not marginal.
And by creating a theory, you can understand both how to get out of a dead end now and how to avoid getting into it in the future.
Moreover, it will be possible to understand how to effectively use this phenomenon in the future.
Thirdly, because that old article had a flaw - while explaining how a positional deadlock worked, it showed that during the First World War they got out of it using solutions at the operational level.
But due to the impossibility of using such solutions in the Northern Military District in 2022, the article proposed only tactical and technical measures for the Russian Army. They, these measures, are still correct today, but, alas, they are incomplete.
Today, with the accumulated knowledge of trench warfare, we can go much further in understanding this phenomenon.
Mechanism of the phenomenon
Let's start with repetition.
What is a positional deadlock?
Let us once again turn to the old article, where the definition is given (specifically to the first part). Quote:
We draw the final conclusion: a positional deadlock is a phenomenon in which the speed of breaking through the defense of the defending enemy is less than or equal to the speed of his transferring reserves to the attacked area and introducing them into battle in any way (taking a defense or counterattack, it doesn’t matter).
The Northern Military District has expanded a number of concepts, so now “bringing reserves into battle” can also be understood as a shock company drones, transferred to the breakthrough site and began to hit the advancing troops, for example, using FPV-drones, and long-range artillery deployed closer to the attacked area.
The constant influx of reinforcements does not allow the attacking side to break the resistance of the attacked one - the power of the latter’s fire does not fall, since its out-of-action tactical units (individual soldiers, armored vehicles, units, etc.) are immediately replaced with new ones, counterattacks begin before the advancing attacker gained a foothold on a new line, in extreme cases, a weakened and bloodless attacker who broke through the first lines of defense stumbles upon a new line of defense, which was occupied by fresh reinforcements while he was breaking through.
As a result, there is no breakthrough.
Opponents suffer losses, but the gaps in their battle formations are immediately filled.
As a consequence, it is impossible to break through the defense; in the best case for the attacker, the so-called “squeezing out” can take place, when the defender slowly retreats from one line of defense to another in an organized manner, which we sometimes see in the Northern Military District.
The key to understanding a positional deadlock is precisely this - it’s all about the defender’s ability to transfer his reserves to the attacked area in time.
What does it take for the attacker to break through the defenses, enter the operational space and move on to maneuver warfare?
From the definition of a positional deadlock, the condition for a breakthrough follows:
In order to break through the front, the speed of breakthrough of the defense by the attacking side, the speed of passage of the second echelons of the broken line of defense and the speed of their deployment into formations in which it is possible to attack in total must be higher than the speed of the defending enemy's transfer of reserves to the place of breakthrough and their deployment for entering into battle or battle.
It is easy to see that there are two solutions here - you need to either break through much faster, or slow down the transfer of enemy reserves. Or both together.
Previously mentioned article "Breakthrough Speed" it was precisely focused on measures to increase the speed of defense breakthrough, simply technical and tactical, and not operational.
Today it has become obvious that the most important of these measures is to prevent the enemy from transferring reserves to the attacked area - isolating the combat area.
The author's article is devoted to the creation of formations of the Ground Forces capable of performing such a task. “On the need to form artillery groups to isolate the combat area”.
Quote from there:
3. The most important thing is to prevent the enemy from maneuvering and prevent him from transferring reserves to the breakthrough site.
Then his troops in any case fight on their own, no one can come to their aid, no one is able to plug the breakthrough with new units, no one is able to restore the situation with a counterattack after the defending troops have used up all their reserves. Enemy units are destroyed one by one, and reinforcements are destroyed at the stage of their advance.
This is the isolation of the combat area.
Then his troops in any case fight on their own, no one can come to their aid, no one is able to plug the breakthrough with new units, no one is able to restore the situation with a counterattack after the defending troops have used up all their reserves. Enemy units are destroyed one by one, and reinforcements are destroyed at the stage of their advance.
This is the isolation of the combat area.
In turn, a new-look brigade, described in the article, can help quickly break through enemy defensive formations isolated from reinforcements "Unmanned-centric" strike combined arms brigade of a new look based on the experience of the Northern Military District". It won’t all come down to it alone, a lot more is needed, the same high-performance means of clearing minefields, but the amount of high-precision weapons it just corresponds to the complexity of the task.
But, again, this is a particular solution - a decision that gives an effect at the tactical level.
We are interested in the operational level, and how we can not only fight this positional impasse, but also use it.
We need a theory.
To do this, you first need to understand how a positional deadlock develops and whether it is inevitable.
From maneuver warfare to trench warfare
The North Military District in Ukraine gave us a final understanding that the slide from maneuver warfare to positional warfare is more the norm than not.
Of course, there is no such understanding in official military thought, and even among military history enthusiasts it will not find supporters at first, but this is a fact.
And this is the most important conclusion that the SVO brings to operational art.
All wars in which trench warfare took place began as maneuver ones. The First World War, Korean, Iran-Iraq - during these wars there was a slide into positional warfare, but they all began as maneuver ones.
The Northern Military District also began as a maneuverable military unit, and with a fantastic rate of advance of the advancing troops.
How far the Russian troops advanced can be seen on the map, and some of the penetrations that took place are not here. Drawing life.ru
Subsequently, there was a slide towards a positional impasse, and it is precisely the mechanism of this slide that we need.
Once again we look at the situation when a deadlock has already been formed - any concentration of forces of the attacker is countered by a concentration of forces of the defender, completed on time, that is, the defender transfers troops at approximately the same time as the attacker, or a little faster.
Critical for this is the physical existence of communications along which troops are transferred, and their location on the ground - if one of the parties has a road network or something that replaces it (routes in open areas, even without roads, but with dense soil), it is essential poorer than the other, then there will be no deadlock; the side with a developed road network will easily create numerical, and therefore fire, superiority and move forward.
But if communications are developed more or less equally, and the forces that can be transferred and placed in the right place are also relatively the same, then we get the prerequisites for a positional deadlock.
From this we draw the first conclusion about the conditions for the transition from maneuver warfare to positional warfare - this occurs on terrain that has a state of communications suitable for positional warfare, that is, if the front “stands up,” it will be along a line along which opponents will be able to transfer their reserves with comparable speed. Such lines on the ground can be determined in advance - the road network changes slowly.
From this first conclusion we can draw another - If a positional deadlock has developed, then one of the solutions to get out of it, in addition to intensive actions to isolate the combat area, is the destruction of communications along which the enemy is moving troops.
We are talking primarily about the destruction of bridges and the destruction of railway tracks, and for roads, including dirt roads, about massive remote mining, with subsequent attacks on the forces and means carrying out mine clearance. On a large scale, such actions are apparently impracticable, but locally they can help, and a lot.
Having understood where the front will arise (there could potentially be a lot of such places), we must and can now understand how this will happen.
At the first stage of the war, when the attacker conducts maneuvering actions, the defender tries to parry his attacks with his reserves, but is systematically late - by the time he concentrated them, they had already been bypassed, there is a risk of the advancing enemy entering communications, his units being thrown out of important positions superior forces of the attacker, who was able to ensure numerical superiority here and now, etc.
As a result, the defender retreats, breaks contact with the attacker, restraining him in battles with forces specially allocated for this purpose, and the bulk is withdrawn to where it has enough time to gain a foothold, and if the defender has reserves, and communications allow them to maneuver along the line front, and the attacker does not have a radical qualitative superiority that allows him to simply demolish the opposing enemy, regardless of any other factors, then the transformation of the war into a positional one becomes very likely or even inevitable.
Thus, we see how a slide into a dead end occurs - this occurs when the speed with which the defender withdraws his troops to a new line of defense turns out to be sufficient to prevent the attacker from defeating them in the direction of his main attacks, or destroying them by encircling and cut off from their communications, and also sufficient to gain a foothold on a new defensive line, communications on which allow combat operations to turn into positional ones.
What else is important in trench warfare?
Impossibility of bypass.
The defense must be impossible to bypass. If there are weak spots in the enemy’s defense, then the attacker, having managed in one way or another to gain time in the concentration of troops, will carry out a flank breakthrough, occupy the defender’s communications and force him to flee or encircle him, creating a serious gap in his positions, the war will move into the maneuver stage.
Thus, in addition to the terrain, communications on which will lead to approximately equality of the parties in the maneuver of reserves, in addition to the fact that the defending side must break away from the enemy pressing on it and have time to gain a foothold in this territory, it is also necessary that the density of its troops in defense excludes the attacker from bypassing them. In the second part of “Breakthrough Speed” this is shown in relation to the battles in Donbass.
And, if you carefully recall military history, then in those cases when a positional deadlock developed, bypassing was truly impossible.
In light of all of the above, the task of the attacker comes down to preventing a positional war from developing - he must conduct his offensive in such a way that the defender simply does not have time to reach that zone rich in communications, where by connecting his troops, he could reduce the maneuver war to positional.
This is where we come to the concept of tempo of operations.
The concept of tempo is critical to understanding how to avoid slipping from maneuver warfare to positional warfare.
Pace of operations
Tempo is not described in the open literature and may be confused with time. But this is not the time.
The Soviet “Concise Dictionary of Operational-Tactical and General Military Terms” (M., 1958) defines tempo as:
the average daily advance of troops in an offensive operation, one of the indicators of its scope. During the First World War 1914–1918. That. were 5–8 km per day. That. Soviet troops during the Great Patriotic War reached 30–50 km.
But this is an error at the level of logic: the distance traveled in a given time is speed, this is so in principle, and not in some sphere of human activity.
The most famous popularizer of “Temp” in Russian, M. Galaktionov, in his book “Paris, 1914 (Temp of Operations)” does not give a definition.
There is complete confusion in American regulations regarding tempo. In the Field manual FM 100-5 Operations, dedicated to planning operations, tempo and the need to maintain it are mentioned, but vaguely and without wording that would allow this tempo to be measured. Here's what it roughly says:
Tempo – the speed of military operations; controlling or varying this speed is essential to maintaining initiative.
And further in the same spirit.
That is, there is no definition. Meanwhile, tempo is the most important property of an offensive operation.
For an analogy, in chess this is called the phrase “win a move.” When two opponents play combinations, both strive to ensure that his combination requires fewer moves than the opponent’s counter-combination. For this they sacrifice pieces, sometimes the queen, sometimes more than one piece. The superiority obtained in this way in the stock of moves necessary for victory is superiority in tempo, a gain in tempo.
One player needs 3 moves to checkmate, and the only combination of moves for another that can disrupt this plan contains four moves. And this is a defeat.
That's roughly what a gain in tempo is.
The closest to reality definition of the pace of operations is given, oddly enough, by American firefighters, and specifically by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG). This is how the pace of operations (in their understanding - firefighting, to combat rapidly spreading landscape fires) is determined by this organization:
Operational tempo is the speed and intensity of our actions relative to the speed and intensity of unfolding events in the operational environment.
Tempo, then, is speed versus speed, the degree of advance of those events that oppose the operation. Winning moves, in chess terms.
Let us give a final definition of war.
The tempo in an offensive operation is the amount of time that is currently available to carry out the operational plan, in comparison with the time needed by the enemy to disrupt the implementation of this operational plan, starting from a given point in time.
With this formulation, the tempo will be measured in units of time (hours, days, etc.) and will have a sign - a positive tempo value means that we have time to spare and we are ahead of the enemy during the operation, a negative one means that we are not keeping up with enemy.
For example, the available forces and their relationship with the enemy forces, the location of the enemy troops relative to ours, the road network and terrain conditions allow us to complete the operation plan in 20 days, while the enemy needs 25 days to take the necessary countermeasures.
This means superiority in the pace of 5 days.
And the enemy has a lack of tempo in the same 5 days, it must be shown with a negative sign: “-5”.
It is clear that in war anything can happen - from errors in calculating this very tempo, to beautiful and unexpected moves by the enemy, which reduce the superiority in tempo to zero or even turn it in favor of the enemy.
But the idea itself is clear.
Let us formulate a condition to prevent the war from turning into a positional one - it is necessary to maintain a tempo of operations that would not give the enemy time sufficient to form a stable defense.
At first glance, this is a banality, because in theory all military personnel try to maintain a high speed of attack, all operations are planned with the intention of disrupting the enemy’s actions, superior commanders always require subordinates to maintain initiatives, etc. However, in reality this is not entirely true.
The roar of a senior boss on the radio demanding to “go faster” is one thing; the fact that the operations department has an algorithm that allows us to continuously monitor the pace and see who is ahead – us or the enemy – is another thing. And act on this basis. And not only at my headquarters, but everywhere - the situation is the same for everyone.
This gives rise to a different level of understanding of what is happening at all levels of the military machine: from the division and above, and this level of understanding becomes the same. Understanding becomes systemic.
A theoretical rationale emerges for taking this new level of understanding and planning to a new level.
For example, according to calculations, our superiority in pace will be lost on the 10th day of the operation, no matter what we do, with the required time to complete the plan being 20 days.
Here, firstly, it is worth noting that this pace will need to be taken into account, since it exists as a concept, and planning is built around it. Which now, as the SVO shows us, is not guaranteed.
Further, it may follow from this that the operation needs to be canceled, or perhaps that it is necessary to slow down the enemy in order to regain momentum not by intensifying one’s actions, but by preventing the enemy from acting.
This understanding of the domestic military school has not been fully formed.
Here, among our ground commanders, there is a sharp need to recognize aviation operational or even strategic significance - without it, in a non-nuclear war, it is impossible to paralyze the maneuver of an enemy with whom you are not in combat contact.
Now Russian army generals have huge problems understanding what aviation is needed for in principle; worse than that, they only have an understanding of why the fleet is needed, but at the same time, for historical reasons, they were able to achieve control over both aviation and fleet. We see the result now in Ukraine, where the war occurs only on the front line and at the time of missile strikes, and the Ukrainian state, as a mechanism for waging war, functions quite successfully, collects reinforcements, albeit by force, but delivers them to the front, uses combat aircraft, and repairs Tanks in factories, etc. And the Russian command is trying in vain to inflict damage on this system with targeted “pin pricks” of missile strikes, not wanting to understand that this is impossible, not having the motivation to study, for example, the American experience of strategic bombing and be puzzled by the neutralization of Ukrainian air defense.
The presence of a theory of tempo, which requires effective measures to remotely counter enemy operations, will instill this motivation even in military school, forming not only the understanding that fighting without aviation is very difficult, but also how exactly this “hard” looks on the map.
But the most important thing is that the theoretically based concept of tempo, the use of operational planning algorithms built around this concept, allows, with correct assessment, to predict the moment when a maneuver war will turn into a positional war, and to prevent this in advance by any means.
Gaining Pace
In a positional war, the tempo for both sides is zero - troops are already stationed on the line of contact, reserves are transferred at approximately equal speed. We send a battalion near Avdeevka, they do the same, we have one more, and they have one more. At the same speed. And so on endlessly.
An extremely symbolic diagram from the Ukrainian media, very clearly symbolizing trench warfare
“People who are not in the know” don’t understand this, but in a situation of such equilibrium, you can put even millions of people behind a village - as long as there are millions of them. Moreover, losing millions of soldiers, nothing can be achieved.
The small scale of tasks solved by troops in battles should not deceive anyone - losses in such operations can be considerable.
To bring the situation out of this balance, you need to gain momentum.
For example, our reserves are transferred faster than theirs, and are brought into battle more quickly, and break through the defenses more quickly.
And, as already mentioned above, this can be achieved both by accelerating the actions of one’s troops and by measures to slow down the actions of enemy troops, in the right case - both.
What special cases of winning tempo have happened in history?
For example, advance in the speed of maneuver of troops. If we proceed from the fact that the speed of maneuver of reserves on both sides is approximately equal, then we can try to sharply increase it for ourselves.
Let's give a historical example.
At the end of 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran carried out a successful offensive in the north of the theater of war, in Iraqi Kurdistan. In an effort to turn the tide of the war, the Iraqi command decided to mislead the Iranian command, creating the impression that it was planning a counter-offensive in the northern part of the theater of war, and then, having forestalled the enemy in maneuvering troops and concentrating them, strike in the south, on the Faw Peninsula , previously occupied by Iranian troops.
To speed things up, let's quote Wikipedia:
“After a lengthy meeting with the army leadership, Saddam Hussein decided to strike in the direction of the Faw Peninsula, since the mountainous landscape of Iraqi Kurdistan was unsuitable for tank warfare. In order to divert the enemy's attention, Iraq transferred reinforcements to Kurdistan, Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah personally visited positions in Kurdistan.
Meanwhile, under the cover of darkness and radio silence, Iraq managed to concentrate 100 soldiers in the Faw area, consisting of 000 armored vehicles (including 2 tanks) and 500 artillery pieces. Iran was only able to field 1 soldiers, 200 tanks and 1 guns. It was decided to launch the offensive on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, simultaneously with the change of soldiers who were going on vacation.
The operation, called “Ramadan al-Mubarak” (from Arabic - “holy Ramadan”), began at 4:30 am on April 17, 1988. With the support of artillery and aviation, Iraqi troops broke through the Iranian defenses. By order of the commander of the operation, General Ayad Fayid al-Rawi, chemical munitions were dropped on Iranian positions, but due to a change in wind direction, Iraqi soldiers came under attack, about 200 of whom died. Combat swimmers landed in the Iranian rear, supported by fire from landing ships.
On April 18, the Fao Peninsula was liberated. The Iranians lost 5 killed and 000 captured compared to Iraq's 10 killed. Iraq also captured a large number of guns and armored vehicles."
Meanwhile, under the cover of darkness and radio silence, Iraq managed to concentrate 100 soldiers in the Faw area, consisting of 000 armored vehicles (including 2 tanks) and 500 artillery pieces. Iran was only able to field 1 soldiers, 200 tanks and 1 guns. It was decided to launch the offensive on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, simultaneously with the change of soldiers who were going on vacation.
The operation, called “Ramadan al-Mubarak” (from Arabic - “holy Ramadan”), began at 4:30 am on April 17, 1988. With the support of artillery and aviation, Iraqi troops broke through the Iranian defenses. By order of the commander of the operation, General Ayad Fayid al-Rawi, chemical munitions were dropped on Iranian positions, but due to a change in wind direction, Iraqi soldiers came under attack, about 200 of whom died. Combat swimmers landed in the Iranian rear, supported by fire from landing ships.
On April 18, the Fao Peninsula was liberated. The Iranians lost 5 killed and 000 captured compared to Iraq's 10 killed. Iraq also captured a large number of guns and armored vehicles."
What can we understand from this?
Nothing if you don't know that:
1. The Iraqis secretly and in advance mobilized a huge amount of rolling stock in order to transfer troops to the original areas faster than the Iranians could transfer their reserves there. Tractor units with heavy-duty semi-trailers suitable for transporting tanks alone were mobilized for this operation, 1 units were mobilized.
That is, having created powerful transport capabilities and effectively convinced the enemy that the offensive would be in the north, Iraq gained momentum - by the time the Iraqi columns went to Faw, it was impossible to get ahead of them - Iran simply would not have been able to transfer troops in the right direction quantity, since I had not prepared for this in advance.
2. The Iraqis effectively paralyzed the control of Iranian troops with the help of their special forces. They didn't use them as assault infantry, no. They used them for their intended purpose.
Disruption of enemy command and control is critical to gaining momentum, since the entire time that the defender is without control and without information about the situation, he does not do what is necessary to disrupt the plans of the attacker. The tempo gain at this stage is very high, which is why command and control of the enemy in any military operation should always be one of the main goals.
3. The Iraqis used chemical weapons for a reason, but exactly for what they were invented in the First World War - to quickly break through defensive lines without destroying them and wasting time. And this also gave a gain in pace.
Without all these measures, the Iranians would most likely have managed to transfer reserves to the site of the Iraqi offensive and, albeit with the loss of territory, somehow stabilize the situation. But they didn't have time.
Subsequently, Iraq, having won a victory without serious losses and being able to immediately build on the success, began a series of offensive operations under the general code name “Tawalkana ala Allah” (“We trust in God”), which brought Iran out of the war.
The characteristic features of this offensive were, firstly, the continued advance of Iraq in the concentration of troops over Iran, due to pre-prepared transport resources, and secondly, the extensive use of chemical weapons in reserves at the stage of their advance, about which there is little at all in Russian sources read, and yet such interest in isolating the combat area is as instructive as it is revealing. Iranian troops deployed for counterattacks fell under chemical “curtains” and, lacking sufficient means of protection against weapons of mass destruction, did not carry out the tasks assigned to them.
Iraq won.
To close the question, now the same can be done through the skillful use of aviation, other means to suppress enemy air defenses and high-precision weapons.
Such actions require superior command - the attacker's command must be of higher quality than that of the defender, intelligence must work better, the absolute imperative is to prevent information about the real plan of the operation from reaching the enemy.
Without achieving the said superiority, achieving quantitative superiority is required. Then the superiority in tempo becomes local - it exists in some sectors of the front, and not in others. The enemy simply does not have the number of troops he needs.
An example of such an operation is the “Brusilovsky breakthrough” - the number of places in which the attacker attacked exceeded the enemy’s ability to fend off these attacks with reserves - he simply did not have so many of them in this direction. The result is advancement along the entire front.
But, firstly, one must understand that for such actions numerical superiority is necessary, and secondly, one must realize that such victories are extremely bloody. What is logical is that by relying on the “mass of people” instead of intellectual superiority, no other result can be achieved. Well, here’s how someone’s brain works, after all, the principle “the people and the army are one” has not been canceled. How the people think is how they fight.
It is worth highlighting, however, in these examples the main idea that can be implemented at the operational level in other ways - we are talking about creating the so-called “uncompensated weakness” in the defender - a condition when, for one reason or another, he cannot fend off an attack with anything.
The Iraqis did this due to their superiority in maneuver; Brusilov won the pace due to the mass of troops.
This concept doesn't always apply to winning tempo, but it's also worth keeping in mind.
Another case of achieving an advantage in tempo is its implementation through achieving an overwhelming qualitative superiority of one’s troops over the enemy (not to be confused with how the Iraqis temporarily achieved a qualitative superiority in control, this is different).
Here we need examples from wars in which there was no positional deadlock. The most striking example is the American invasion of Iraq.
One of many examples:
During the Second Iraq War, there was an incident when one company (10 Abrams tanks and 4 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles) repelled a counterattack by the 10th Iraqi Brigade, which was trying to regain control of the bridge over the Euphrates (Peach section - objective "Peach" ).
The battle lasted from 3 am to 6 am. American tanks fired at what were visible through thermal imaging sights as small luminous dots. These were Iraqi counterattack tanks and infantry fighting vehicles that could not fire effectively at American tanks. The battle was won due to the greater range of target detection at night and the greater effective firing range of the Americans.
The battle lasted from 3 am to 6 am. American tanks fired at what were visible through thermal imaging sights as small luminous dots. These were Iraqi counterattack tanks and infantry fighting vehicles that could not fire effectively at American tanks. The battle was won due to the greater range of target detection at night and the greater effective firing range of the Americans.
Link to the selection.
One company simply takes and shoots a tank brigade without losses, that’s all. To understand the issue - in the battle described in the link, it was decided who would enter Baghdad first - units of the 3rd Infantry Division of the US Army or a group of Republican Guard troops trying... to pick up the pace after the breakthrough of American columns into the Iraqi rear. In fact, it was decided who would win the war.
Alexey Isaev wrote about these events in detail, but there are no details of this battle, only that the attack was suicidal.
Links are especially recommended for adherents of the theory that the Iraqi generals were bought and they handed over the country to the Americans.
These days ten years ago. Part one.
These days ten years ago. Part two.
Achieving overwhelming qualitative superiority, in principle, beats everything - you can simply go forward and destroy everything in your path, and not suffer losses. But to do this, you need to work systematically and consistently to achieve such superiority, and if you instead invest all your energy in PR, propaganda, grand parades and tank biathlons, then you may be unpleasantly surprised.
The Americans, by the way, expected something similar to their reprisal against Iraq in 2003 from the Russian Army in Ukraine, which is why they were initially pessimistic about the prospects of the Kyiv regime. After all, we had enough time for military construction, and enough money was spent, industry and technology were there, the initiative was on our side, we had combat experience in Syria. But it turned out differently.
With the achieved qualitative superiority, the pace is won “in an orderly manner” - due to the fact that any attempt by the enemy to resist ends with his complete destruction - and so the Iraqis took the defile at Karbala first, and transferred their reserves to the “Peach” target on time. But with achieved qualitative superiority, the time that a qualitatively inferior enemy needs to disrupt the operation of a superior enemy is equal to infinity...
Of certain interest are measures to slow down the enemy’s actions and prevent his maneuver at the operational level. As mentioned above, if there is no way to speed up yourself, then you need to slow down the enemy, this also helps to gain momentum.
The most striking example of aviation actions to prevent the maneuver of ground troops at the operational level is the bombing of Dresden. For propaganda purposes in our country, since the Cold War, this action has been presented as a war crime. But let's look at the map - Dresden was the most important communications hub on the left flank of the Red Army in its attack on Berlin.
The map of damage to the city shows that the allies, who did not have high-precision weapons to reliably destroy the bridges, simply turned the entire part of the city adjacent to them into rubble. And they turned it well, according to eyewitnesses, the city was impassable even for foot troops, and on the Soviet map of the Berlin operation it is clear that the German troops, delivering a counterattack to the 2nd Polish and 52nd Soviet armies on the flank, had to turn around to the east of the designated area . And in general, for the 4th German Tank Army, the loss of the most important transport hub, unoccupied by the enemy, turned out to be useless.
The Berlin operation, Dresden is in the very south, south of the Soviet offensive line, and its significance is obvious, even if you don’t see anything other than this map.
The literature describes how many difficulties the German counterattack caused the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, and one can only guess what would have happened if Dresden had remained intact as a communications hub.
In Western history, by the way, this bombing is presented as help to the advancing Red Army. And she really helped, no matter what anyone thought.
Moreover, the fact that the entire city was destroyed is simply not true.
Bombing of Dresden: red sectors - zone of continuous capital development, black - industry, green - residential areas. The damage caused by the bombing is shown in purple. The propaganda legend about a completely destroyed city, where civilians were deliberately exterminated, does not stand up to criticism. Arthur "Bomber" Harris did nothing wrong. Photo: Imperial war museum, UK
This example should not be seen as a call to destroy cities, but as a cry to destroy communications, not necessarily in cities.
Positional deadlock as a tool
However, we cannot ignore the positive side of the theoretical awareness of a positional deadlock and how and why it is formed.
For Russia, with its quantitative balance of forces with NATO, as well as with other potential adversaries, the issue of conducting large-scale combat operations on the ground against an enemy many times superior in strength may turn out to be relevant.
Naturally, this does not mean that successful offensive operations cannot be carried out against such an enemy - it is possible and necessary, at a minimum, to avoid fighting on one’s own territory.
But, as the example of the same Wehrmacht, which maintained a tactical advantage on the battlefield over most of its opponents almost until the very end, shows, sooner or later the resources of the stronger side take their toll.
In such conditions, reducing the war to a positional war, on lines where a breakthrough for an enemy who does not know the theory of positional warfare will be impossible after the initial depletion of his forces in the phase of maneuver warfare, may turn out to be a completely logical scenario, allowing one to reduce the enemy’s numerical and resource advantage to zero.
A series of quick breakthroughs to gain tempo, identifying the lines at which the state of communications allows the war to be reduced to a positional one, occupying these lines and defending them until the enemy bleeds to death, recapturing one crater in the ground after another, can turn out to be a saving scenario. .
And you can and should be prepared for such actions. The Russian Army showed something similar in the summer of 2023 in Ukraine. Having compacted its defensive lines and having rock roads in the rear, the army managed to hold back the onslaught of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which in general had approximately a two-fold superiority in personnel, first-class communications, NATO intelligence and disproportionately better controlled artillery, which also had approximately a 30% superiority in effective firing range, with a simultaneous advantage in accuracy, as well as organizational superiority in the field of drones (this continues to this day).
In the actions of the Russian Army as a whole, an understanding of the mechanism of trench warfare is not yet visible, but the defense of the summer of 2023 was quite consciously conceived exactly as it turned out.
The litmus test for how much the Russian generals understand what is happening will be 2024.
If the army continues to stand on the defensive, carrying out individual offensives limited in scale, as now in Avdiivka or near Krynki, then the generals understand everything.
If in 2024 there is an attempt to attack with large forces without first completely reorganizing the RF Armed Forces and correcting such chronic problems as the inability to isolate the combat area or conduct air offensive operations with the suppression of the air defense of the theater of operations, then they do not understand, and the defense of 2023 was just a separate successful idea, and nothing more.
We will see everything this year, and many of us will take part.
The nature of the article and the supervision of domestic media do not make it possible to analyze the progress of the Northern Military District from the point of view of operational planning - and this despite the fact that a huge mass of documents, secret ones at that, in which tasks were set for our troops, later fell into the hands of the Ukrainian side and were made public .
Nevertheless, one of the principles of Soviet and later Russian censorship is that the awareness of Russian citizens should not be related to what the enemy knows, and even if combat orders for Russian units and formations can be downloaded from the Internet, write about them in the Russian media it is forbidden.
But that doesn't matter now.
Precisely because readers armed with theoretical knowledge can analyze everything themselves. The value of theory, among other things, lies in this.
In the future, the theory of positional warfare will apparently become one of the important contributions of the SVO to the domestic operational art.
There are still many wars ahead, and we will need operational art.
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