Learn to fight in new realities. A little about what SVO participants write about
How many times since the beginning of the Northern Military District have I encountered the fact that someone, having fairly decent experience in participating in hostilities, said that everything that happened before in no way repeated the conflicts in which he participated. I understand these officers very well. Indeed, today there are so many innovations on the front line that your head is spinning.
For example, I am often asked why neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian armies conduct large-scale operations, which were characteristic of the Second World War. Make a fist and punch your opponent in the face. Why didn’t we see the Battle of Kursk with a bunch of tanks and armored vehicles head-on? Even about massive raids aviation they ask...
It is necessary to answer. But I understand perfectly well that a short answer will not work. But I'll take the risk.
So, everything you are asking about will not happen in a modern war for one very important reason. During the war there was... a revolution! A revolution took place in military science. What the armies of most countries in the world had been learning for many years turned out to be of no use to anyone.
I have great respect for junior officers today. For them, almost any fight is something new, out of the ordinary. I have no less respect for the sergeants. These are not the same sergeants who were in the Soviet Army. These are sergeants who direct the actions of their squads as separate units. That is, they do what platoon commanders did before.
What will be written below are not my thoughts and conclusions. Let me emphasize once again that I seriously follow the publications of our military officers and bloggers from the Northern Military District zone. In one form or another, these thoughts are voiced there. I simply summarized what was written and gave these conclusions a slightly more harmonious appearance.
Which revolutionary destroyed the old system?
I would really like to name this person. I won't do this. Simply because some of the revolutionaries, I hope, are now reading these lines. But we will still talk about the subjective preconditions of the revolution.
It is no secret that in any war one of the conditions for victory is good intelligence work. The more you know about the enemy, the stronger you are. The sooner you learn about the enemy's plans, the more effectively you can resist them. These are axioms.
What do we see today on and around the battlefield?
Let's look at the sky. A huge number of reconnaissance and target designation equipment. Things have already reached the point where drones began to conduct air battles among themselves! In fact, any movement by the enemy is immediately detected by reconnaissance. Let's add to this total control over radio communications. Any broadcast is an almost instant intelligence detection of not only the subscriber, but also his location.
Today, the number of reconnaissance means has reached such a level that it makes it possible to monitor almost every fighter. That’s why Internet resources report almost every day about a successful drone attack on a single fighter or a small group. Exploration is carried out at almost all levels.
Satellite and aviation reconnaissance and guidance systems control the entire enemy territory. Let me remind you of Ukraine’s reaction to our MiG-31s taking off from rear airfields. Airplane takeoff - air raid warning in Ukrainian cities. Approximately the same reaction occurs in our country if a NATO reconnaissance drone appears near our borders.
I think it’s now clear why I think there are “revolutionaries” among our readers. Any reconnaissance drone, thermal imager, sniper scope or night vision device purchased with your money is a contribution to the military revolution. Even if only a little, but each of us contributes to the victories of our fighters.
I closely follow the interviews that our military personnel give to military officers. This is probably why I noticed some changes in the words of the fighters. If at the beginning of the SVO the order to destroy the enemy came from a higher commander, which took quite a lot of time and allowed the target to escape before the salvo, now the process has accelerated to the maximum.
The operator saw the target, transmitted the coordinates directly to the position, and immediately fired a salvo. The drone does not even fly away from its position and records the result of the strike. In such conditions, can a commander quietly advance at least a platoon, not to mention larger units? Here is the answer to the question of why the battles took on the character of actions in small groups.
Approximately the same picture is observed at a higher level. We write a lot about the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ use of civilian infrastructure to disguise their positions, arsenals and bases. This, no matter how cynical it may sound, is one of the conditions of modern war.
It is almost impossible to hide the arsenal, the location of personnel or the fuel base, but to use the civilian population as a human shield... The Ukrainian Armed Forces do not think much about the moral side of such actions. The war will write off everything... This, by the way, is the answer to another question about the goals of striking deep in the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
But there is also another hidden landmine that can thwart the most cunning plan. Two armies are fighting on the line of contact, but dozens of armies are analyzing the battles and developing their decisions on specific skirmishes. Alas, this fact cannot be ignored either. Not all decisions of Ukrainian commanders are the result of their thoughts.
Now in Ukraine there are different views on modern war. A variety of tactics and strategies for combat... Thus, the commander directly on the battlefield may face completely different enemy tactics. The one who first finds out who is opposing him will win... This is the alternative.
So, the revolutionary who destroyed the concept of modern warfare is called... intelligence!
It is reconnaissance, with its enormous capabilities, that today has forced the army commands of many countries around the world to reconsider the development of weapons systems and the organization of troops. It was intelligence that forced us to think differently about issues of logistics and technical support, logistics and other components of war.
Companions without whom the revolution would have been impossible
A revolution is started alone, but it is carried out with comrades-in-arms. Knowledge without corresponding opportunities will not lead to revolution. I know where, I know what, I know how dangerous it is for me, but I don’t have the opportunity to somehow implement this knowledge. Therefore, in the second part I will try to talk about the subjective prerequisites of the revolution.
I’ll start with the same topic as in the previous part of the material. From drones!
It’s no secret that the world’s leading armies have been involved in unmanned aircraft for a long time. But I don’t remember that drones were considered anywhere in the capacity in which they exist today in the area of the SVO. These were mostly large aircraft-type reconnaissance or attack vehicles.
No one thought that a drone could become perhaps the deadliest weapon. Let me remind you, literally before our eyes, over the past couple of years Drones From the “terrible” Bayraktar TB2, which was largely credited with Baku’s victory in Karabakh, they turned into an army of all kinds of “midges” that learned not only to watch, but also to kill. Our Lancet today is the pinnacle of killer drones.
Cheap, multifunctional, capable of not only delivering bomb strikes, but also equipped with small arms weapons. At the same time, they have almost no enemies from air defense. How many videos have we already seen of drones being destroyed in the most exotic ways? From being shot from a hunting shotgun or a sophisticated anti-drone gun to being hit by an ordinary snag. Most air defense systems, alas, are not designed to destroy such flies...
I don't think the drone era is at its peak in popularity today. It's only begining. FPV drones will soon begin to change again. Micro-reconnaissance drones will become widespread. Any fighter will be able to independently explore the area near his position and defeat targets on his own initiative. And the Lancets will most likely take on the appearance of mini-missiles.
The next revolutionary I would call artillery.
Until recently, the expression “god of war” was pronounced with a fair amount of skepticism. And then the drone-gun symbiosis appeared. And the weapon, even in a single copy, suddenly became this very “god” again. Remember what request is most often heard from artillerymen today? “Give us longer-range and more powerful systems”, “give us systems that exceed the enemy’s systems in range”!
Approximately the same requests come from tankers. Only there the ability to withstand massive attacks by anti-tank systems and drones is added. The tank must move to the front and destroy the targets indicated by the advancing infantry. In this case, it is desirable for the vehicle to return to closed positions even after several hits or even explosions.
Aviation remains.
This is where things get more complicated. It is precisely to combat airplanes and helicopters that the air defense systems with which the front is swarming on both sides today were created. This is exactly the target that they should and can shoot down. In such conditions, any combat mission is a feat. Personally, I never miss the opportunity to publish a video of our pilots’ work. This problem has not yet been resolved.
To be continued ...
We talked for a long time about military reform, discussed modern warfare, and often remembered Albert Einstein with his prediction of the fourth world war. But with the first large-scale armed conflict, our reasoning turned into a waste of time. A real war dictates completely different methods and methods of conducting combat operations.
Remember how much effort went into creating mobile parts and connections. Any military man knew for sure that a modern war with an equal enemy would be highly maneuverable. Self-propelled artillery systems, wheeled tanks, high-speed armored vehicles and other self-propelled vehicles in any modern army have become an indicator of its readiness for modern war.
Can we call the Northern Military District a highly maneuverable war?
Alas, even with great stretch, no. The advance of troops is measured not in tens of kilometers, but in tens of meters. And for quite a long period of time, the units generally remain in their places. Classic trench warfare!
In such conditions, naturally, the role of artillery increased sharply. Even tanks began to be used as self-propelled guns. Artillery began to determine the success of the battle. Again a classic of trench warfare. Now the presence of artillery in a sector determines the tactical methods of action of motorized rifle and other ground units.
Look at those who are popular today. These are reconnaissance and assault units! It is these units that carry out captures of enemy strongholds, raids behind enemy lines, and storm well-prepared defenses. This has already become the norm of war. At both sides. And it is precisely this tactic that contributes to the victories of our fighters. Unlike the poorly trained and poorly motivated mobilized Ukrainians, our troops are well trained and motivated.
There is one more nuance, which, for example, the brigade commander of the “Ghost” Alexander Khodakovsky often writes about. We once participated together in several radio programs discussing war topics. In his Telegram channel, he sometimes reports that he can finally see some units of his brigade that worked separately from the formation.
What is the brigade commander talking about? He talks about another feature of modern war, which we took little into account in peacetime. On the dispersion of units. Commanders are forced to deploy soldiers as thinly as possible to avoid heavy losses from shelling and drone attacks.
Thus, a low density of personnel on the LBS is a necessity dictated by modern warfare...
Studying the experience of SVO is a necessity. And it’s not journalists who should be doing this. There are specialists, analysts, scientists who are obliged to quickly develop documents that would help soldiers and officers quickly adapt to the conditions of modern warfare. Learning to fight from your own mistakes and personal experience is a very expensive undertaking. A lesson that costs some people their lives...
Modern warfare is really in many ways a war of resources! A war of nerves, motivation, even mood...
So for now, as it seems to me, we are “collecting material for work.” We strangle the fascist vermin, as our grandfathers once wrote, in positions and learn...
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