Ground forces after the Central Military District: from tank and motorized rifle units to heavy infantry and mechanized cavalry
Russian Ground Forces Will Have to Change. Photo: Izvestia
The current combat experience of the SVO is extremely specific due to the fact that the Russian armed forces have not found a way out of the positional deadlock. Despite the fact that there is a way out, and the theory of the positional deadlock is beginning to take shape.
Although the war will continue for a long time and the current top leadership is unable to undertake the necessary reforms, this situation is not permanent. Moreover, it will not last long.
In any case, in a few years Russia will have to start building new Ground Forces. They should be formed taking into account the combat experience of the SVO, but without making it absolute.
It is important to understand that the West is also studying the experience of the Central Military District and will be guided by it when forming a new image in its armies.
If the Russian army does not change in the right direction, then in the next war we will simply be swept away.
Building a new army will require the Russian Armed Forces to abandon the practices and doctrines that have defined their appearance for the last 70 years. If this does not happen, then we are finished, and it is better not to even consider this option.
But it is necessary to figure out now how the troops should be organized and equipped in the future, so that the entire theoretical basis will already be created by the end of the Second World War and will require minimal revisions.
Army and "drones"
The first boundary condition to set is role and place drones in the troops of the future.
There are two "trends" at the moment.
The first is among the “part of the forces of the Arbat Military District” — generals of the “old” school, who see in the “new-fangled” copters some kind of anomaly, which can then be discarded and everything returned to how it was. These people cannot be underestimated, their power is enormous, and after the SVO they will try to take revenge. It is in this environment that the reasons are hidden why the formation of organizational and staff structures of the unmanned aviation The President had to personally intervene in military construction, with his order to form the Unmanned Systems Troops (UST).
It is precisely in this environment that the reasons are hidden why, in the 4th year of the war, no measures are being taken to equip the troops. by light motor transport in sufficient quantity, with the introduction of drivers and technicians into the troop staff. It was these people who ensured that conscripts do not receive normal combat training even now.
After the SVO, this group will try to “roll back” all the changes that the war brought with its losses and victims.
Right up to a return to tarpaulin boots and foot wraps, which is something that is periodically talked about in this environment.
Their trend is to “restore it as it was.” On their side is the “old” military-industrial complex, which does not want to share money with anyone.
The second trend is generated in the fighting army, including among generals, among volunteer organizations, including those who train UAV operators for the army, among the “people’s defense industry” producing “drones» all kinds.
Here they understand perfectly well that “the way things were before” means death, and the view of the situation among people from this circle, in any military rank, is much more adequate.
But there is another problem here - the absolutization of current combat experience. Meanwhile, it will partially turn out to be outdated.
Even now, there are commanders who are able to neutralize enemy drones before they attack by searching for and destroying their operators, and other measures, from EW to smoke screens.
Rethinking combat experience in other countries will inevitably lead to the mass introduction of anti-UAV weapons, from laser guns to shotguns in the infantry. These processes have already begun, and, unlike the Russian Armed Forces, where they are driven by lone enthusiasts of their own free will, there these processes are centralized, planned and controlled.
Therefore, although UAVs, including FPV, are now with us forever, in the next wars their importance will change, and the tasks will also change, for example, it will be necessary to have a huge stock of FPV to destroy the means of "small Defense", which our opponents will inevitably have, and as long as this "small air defense" exists, ground units will operate relatively freely.
The author previously published an article "Unmanned-centric" strike combined arms brigade of a new look based on the experience of the Northern Military District", where the appearance of the troops of the near future looked like “infantry + UAVs + MLRS + a small number of motorized rifle and tank units." At the time, the article received a positive response from a number of senior officers at the front.
It must be said that this article is still relevant; to the states invented then, it is only necessary to add some units for combating enemy UAVs.
But after the SVO ends, after the losses end, this image will also need to be revised.
Simply because the described brigade is relevant now, and, for example, when attacking an enemy that does not have deep defensive positions occupied by mobilized troops, such a brigade is not entirely adequate, since it does not ensure rapid advancement where it is theoretically possible (it is simply not possible anywhere now).
In the event of the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, weapons, which will be almost inevitable in Europe, it will turn out to be inadequate to the situation in principle.
So, “drones” will remain in large quantities in the army, and their appearance will continue to evolve, but something will have to be done with the foot troops.
And here we need the theory of the positional impasse in which we found ourselves in Ukraine.
War of the Future - Operational-Tactical Level
A theoretical description of what a positional impasse is, how it develops and why it occurs, as well as how to get out of it, was made by the author in the article "Positional Warfare. Theory". Reading it is critical to understanding what follows. Key to how and why to shape the forces of the future is the article's treatment of the concept of "tempo" and how tempo changes during an offensive.
Let us briefly list the key points and the key consequence from them:
1. The tempo of an offensive operation is the reserve of time that is available at a given moment to carry out the operational plan, in comparison with the time required by the enemy to disrupt the implementation of this operational plan, starting from a given moment in time.
2. During an offensive, maintaining a positive tempo value (we need less time to complete a maneuver than the enemy needs to counter-maneuver with reserves) is key to maintaining the war as a maneuverable one and preventing it from transitioning to a positional phase.
3. Nevertheless, sooner or later, with a sufficiently large depth of offensive operations and the presence of reserves on the enemy, the tempo will inevitably be lost. This is an innovative statement, made for the first time - a slide into positional warfare is the norm for opponents of comparable strength. It is inevitable, it is only a question of time.
4. Next, the positional crisis will need to be overcome, for which the troops will have to solve the following tasks:
4.1. Misleading the enemy regarding the direction of the attack, "outplaying" him at the preparation stage. Our troops succeeded near Avdiivka, unfortunately, without developing the success.
4.2. Measures for effective isolation of the combat zone during the transition to the offensive, which will not allow the enemy to maneuver reserves and "plug" our breakthrough (the possibility of which is the root cause of a positional stalemate). This will require the solutions described by the author in the articles “On the need to form artillery groups to isolate the combat area” и "Offensive Mining". In addition, it will be necessary to radically improve the combat effectiveness of strike aviation. One of the methods, highly praised by a number of pilots with combat experience, is described in the author's article "Promising strike aviation complex, based on the experience of the SVO"There are other options, including using aircraft that are already in production.
4.3. Measures to sharply accelerate the breakthrough of the enemy's first defensive line. This is solved by means of the measures described in the article. "Unmanned-centric" strike combined arms brigade of a new look based on the experience of the Northern Military District" measures to use reconnaissance and strike UAVs, as well as through the mass use of high-precision munitions artillery. Also, means of rapid passage through minefields will be needed, which, unfortunately, are not available now. This issue requires separate study.
4.4. Measures to dramatically increase the effectiveness of counter-battery combat against enemy artillery. This requires reducing the time for coordinating the opening of fire, massing the use of UAVs and aviation against enemy artillery. In general, the task at the modern level is very complex, many times more complex than, for example, 20 years ago, but generally solvable.
If the enemy's defenses are successfully breached, it will again be necessary to maintain a high tempo of advance, acting much like the Iraqi forces did in 1988 on the Faw Peninsula, during the final Iraqi offensive of the Iran-Iraq War.
From the above, it is easy to draw a conclusion about the organizational and staff structure of ground forces capable of fighting at the operational level as described.
The conclusion is this: different troops are needed for the maneuver phase and for the positional phase.
This follows from elementary logic.
To break through the defense and to quickly advance forward, different equipment is needed, different infantry staffing levels, different proportions between tanks and other armored vehicles, even logistics are different - "fast" troops will need more fuel, "breakthrough troops" - many times more shells.
Where the “fast” troops will make do with a sapper company, the “breakthrough troops” will need a battalion; where the “fast” troops will make do with self-entrenching armored vehicles, the “breakthrough troops” advancing from their initial position from positions requiring engineering support will need to have large units with earthmoving equipment, and so on.
An analysis of any other features of the standard structures of the troops required for the “rapid advance” stage and for the “breakthrough of the positional front” stage indicates the same thing: two types of ground force units are needed, limited in their ability to replace each other, but generally different, optimized in their standard structures for different phases of the war on the ground.
Roughly speaking, from the understanding of positional warfare that we have, from the theory that has already been created, it follows that in the future, ground forces will need two types of formations.
Let's call them conditionally "mechanized cavalry" and "heavy infantry", which will reflect their purpose in the best possible way.
Traditional motorized rifle and tank units will have to be abandoned. Forever.
Why not tank troops?
Traditionally, in our country, tank troops are perceived as mobile troops whose task is to penetrate the enemy’s defenses as deeply as possible in order to encircle him, destroy his rear, etc.
This perception “grows” from the 30s, when tank and mechanized units stood apart from linear army units, which did not have transport for the simultaneous transfer of all personnel and property, and massively used horse traction.
Later, despite the complete motorization and mechanization of the ground forces of all countries achieved by the end of the 50s, tanks retained their role due to the need to conduct combat operations in conditions of the potential use of nuclear weapons, to which tanks are most resistant.
The transfer of the doctrines of the USSR and Western countries to the "Third World" forced other countries to repeat this doctrinal approach, in addition, in the conditions of, for example, the Middle East, the tank was really maximally effective - a desert landscape, tank-accessible terrain almost everywhere, the ability to fire direct fire at maximum range - this led to the fact that wars in this region were waged by large tank formations.
However, in modern conditions this approach is outdated.
The emergence of attack UAVs capable of directly hitting a target tens of kilometers from the front line made the concentration of tanks in the direction of the main attack deadly for them.
The emergence of mass anti-tank weapons missile systems that hit armored vehicles in the roof, put the survival of the tank under enemy fire into question in principle. Tanks, of course, will not disappear, they will simply change technically. The author wrote about what the appearance of a tank could be after the SVO in the article "The Future of Tanks in Light of the Fighting in Ukraine", despite the somewhat undeveloped nature of the ideas presented in it, it clearly shows that the tank as a means of combat has a future, but now a massive attack by tanks will most likely be impossible.
Nothing like this will ever happen again, ever.
Tanks have already turned from the main striking weapon into just one of the fire weapons, and this will remain the case.
What will be the main means of defeating the enemy? These will be strike UAVs, as now, the crews of which will move on their specialized armored vehicles, but well-armed infantry with their own heavy weapons, which will allow them to immediately, upon detection of a dangerous target, guarantee to hit it with direct fire, and capable of occupying and controlling territory, will have to move along with them.
The heavy weapons of such infantry will be guns mounted on armored vehicles, mortars and anti-tank guided missiles, as well as tanks.
It can be assumed that tank companies and tank battalions will remain in the army, which, unlike modern Russian ones, and by analogy with Western ones, will already include infantry companies on armored vehicles and some additional firepower, up to self-propelled artillery, but above the battalion level there will no longer be anything called “tank”.
The new type of mobile unit will include mechanized infantry, strike units of unmanned aircraft on special armored vehicles, tank, artillery and other units and subdivisions, the ratio of the numbers of which to each other will be optimal from the point of view of supporting the actions of strike UAVs and infantry.
Mechanized cavalry, general approaches and boundary conditions
The key requirements for mechanized cavalry will be the ability to maintain a high tempo of attack for as long as possible and quickly retreat if necessary.
It follows from this that it is necessary to provide the equipment of such a combination with a high level of mobility and a long power reserve.
Here we can recall the roadsides of Ukrainian roads littered with our armored vehicles that had stopped without fuel in the first days of the Central Military District - the army simply did not have the capacity to replenish its fuel supplies.
It is important to understand that the logistical capabilities of the Russian army were and remain insufficient; we simply have too little transport. But there is another side to the issue – the capacity of the roads. The more transport we have to move along them, the harder it is to advance, and this is especially important in the first days of the offensive, when a huge mass of troops of the first wave of the offensive is pushed through the “bottlenecks” of border crossings and international highways.
Therefore, the cruising range of the armored vehicles of the mechanized cavalry should be significantly greater than what we have now. Simply so that it can inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible on the first refueling.
This will be of great importance.
One example is the South African Ratel APC, whose basic version has a range of 1000 kilometers on hard roads on one tank of gas. In South Africa, this is due to the distances at which their infantry had to operate during the thirty-year Border War, but the logic is clear.
South African Ratel on exercises. The "ideology" of South African mechanized units capable of thousand-kilometer raids will become one of the components of the new doctrine for the use of ground forces in the first stage of the war, in its maneuver phase
To make it even clearer, a company of such armored vehicles, entering Ukraine along the Belgorod-Kharkov road and bypassing Kharkov along the bypass road from the west, could reach almost the bypass road of Lvov on one fill-up.
Without taking into account the maneuvers necessary in war, of course, but this is in any case a striking example. A mass of troops with such a power reserve is not the same as a mass of troops that will stop without fuel after 500 kilometers.
The Swedish CV-90 is an automatic gun with a programmer, a range of up to 900 km, more or less satisfactory protection, high speed... something like this will be needed by the "mechanized cavalry"
The main combat vehicle for the infantry in such a formation should be an infantry fighting vehicle with a cannon and anti-tank missiles, no matter whether it is wheeled or tracked.
This is due to the fact that when rapidly advancing deep into enemy territory, the threat to the troops, firstly, can take any form, and secondly, will arise suddenly. Even one infantry squad in an armored vehicle may face the need to immediately engage in a counter-attack with the enemy, may find itself surrounded for some time, and so on.
In such conditions, the infantry will need “its own gun” – a heavy weapon that travels with it.
It will also have to be acknowledged that although such an armored vehicle will need to provide the highest possible level of protection, the need to have a full-fledged weapon and a large fuel supply will make it impossible to use truly heavily armored vehicles whose protection would be comparable to tanks.
For the purposes of unification, command and reconnaissance versions, combat vehicles for UAV crews, self-propelled mortars or light howitzers, and equipment delivering ammunition for infantry units, strike UAV supplies for “drone operators,” etc. will be produced on the basis of this same armored vehicle.
Trucks must be armed, and their crews must be ready to repel attacks on columns on the move, without stopping, naturally, the cabins must be armored. The speed and range must correspond to those of armored vehicles.
The US Army's 3rd Infantry Division's move to bypass the bulk of Iraqi troops toward Baghdad in 2003 was a "model" operation for future "mechanized cavalry", only against a strong enemy they will have to be faster
Tanks stand apart, as they a priori cannot have the same range as lighter armored vehicles, and they cannot have the same engine life.
Therefore, separate, rather large units should be allocated to supply tank battalions with fuel. In addition, it is necessary to have the ability to quickly transfer tanks towards the combat contact line on trailers, if the situation allows it.
The fact that a significant proportion of the mechanized cavalry will be made up of rear guards with transport equipment, and that the march of the rear column in such units will have to be considered as a form of combat, must be accepted as a given.
It must also be accepted as a given that an infantry squad in a mechanized cavalry will differ from one in a heavy infantry unit.
The main form of combat that mechanized cavalry will have to deal with will be a counter-attack on the move. Also common will be repelling attacks from ambush and breaking through poorly prepared defenses of small depth on the move, followed by continuing the offensive. Mechanized cavalry must be prepared to conduct such actions.
As a “model example” of such actions, it is worth taking the throw of the 3rd Infantry Division of the US Army to Baghdad in 2003, with the adjustment that against a strong enemy you will have to be faster and have more striking force at the “tip of the spear”.
Heavy infantry
Sooner or later, the rapid breakthroughs of the mechanized cavalry will either run into the rear zones of deeply echeloned defense, which the enemy will create by sacrificing troops that did not have time to retreat, or will close the pincers of encirclement around the enemy’s huge troop groups, which at the time of cutting off will still be able to break through.
In the first case, relatively light cavalry units with highly mobile and expensive, but not the most protected equipment, and an insufficient number of artillery and sappers to break through the deeply echeloned defense will lose the ability to effectively attack. The positional front will come into its own.
There will be a need for units capable of breaking through deeply echeloned defensive lines and storming fortified areas.
In the second, someone will need to effectively close the inner rings of encirclement, someone who will not allow them to be broken through due to the mass of heavy weapons available and the ability to quickly establish a deeply echeloned defense themselves.
At any of these moments, other units will have to be brought into battle - infantry, with a lot of specialized equipment and heavy weapons, with significantly greater striking power than the mechanized cavalry, but with significantly less mobility (forced).
The organizational structure and equipment of these units will differ significantly from the mechanized cavalry.
Let's look at this using the example of a platoon's armored vehicles.
For mechanized cavalry, the risk of a head-on battle, a "cutting off" flank counterattack communications, or being encircled is very high, and begins at the "armored vehicle/squad" level. Therefore, they definitely need IFVs capable of fighting independently.
Heavy infantry in an offensive must quickly overcome the neutral zone under fire, destroy the defending enemy troops, clear out their trenches and then in the same way break through the next line of defense, then the next, and so on.
And this requires that armored vehicles deliver infantry literally to enemy positions, dropping them right on the heads of the defenders. But it will have almost no open flanks, not protected at least by fire, there will be no need for a hundred-kilometer dash either. For this, an infantry armored vehicle must have the highest possible level of protection, but the range and speed are not fundamental, even simply not important.
Today, such equipment is only in service with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The IDF's Namer IFV. Something like this, with a turret optimized to protect against attack drones and loitering munitions, should become the main "heavy infantry" fighting vehicle.
The author described the prospects for the emergence of such equipment in the Russian Armed Forces in the article "Heavy armor for the Russian infantry".
But here the question arises: can such an armored vehicle simultaneously fire to suppress the defenders and move in their direction to deliver an assault group?
The answer is no, it is tactically impossible, and the fire suppression vehicle will have to be used separately, at a distance, possibly on the flank of the advancing unit’s battle formation.
Then it turns out that the optimal vehicle for heavy infantry is not an IFV, but a heavy APC, whose weapons are optimized for shooting down UAVs and self-defense, and the entire mass reserve is used for armor. And for fire suppression, a vehicle structurally similar to a modern BMPT is needed.
That is, if in an infantry platoon of mechanized cavalry we have 3 or 4 IFVs, then in an infantry platoon of heavy infantry we have 3 heavy APCs and one or two fire support vehicles capable of suppressing a defending enemy or destroying a tank from a safe distance, but not carrying infantry.
In conditions of a positional stalemate, when it is necessary to constantly suppress the resistance of entrenched infantry, the BMPT with its specific composition of weapons unexpectedly showed itself well in battles
The infantry squad itself can be made of an optimal size; today it is not 5 people, as in fact in the Russian army, and not 7-8, as was the theory before the SVO, but 11-15 people.
A heavy and large armored vehicle can easily accommodate so much. In addition, it can roll a mine trawl in front of it.
The number of platoons and companies must be “adjusted” to the requirements of quickly breaking through enemy positions in the offensive, and in defense – to the possibility of echeloning units in depth without excessive compaction of battle formations.
Tank battalions in heavy infantry formations may well be a mobile reserve with high firepower at the disposal of senior commanders, but they will not have to be used in their entirety in the direction of the main attack - breaking through a defense saturated with a large number of anti-tank weapons is not the task of tanks.
At the same time, it seems very logical to have a tank company in an infantry battalion - as a powerful means of fire for direct fire. But these tanks will work to support the actions of the infantry.
Naturally, the main striking weapon of the infantry brigade will also be UAVs of various types.
Heavy infantry may have more artillery, but the requirement to provide all artillery with a greater firing range is not as critical as for mechanized cavalry, which operates at a fairly dangerous distance from its main forces.
There will be a need for many times more sappers, and there will be a need for means of quickly passing through minefields in large quantities - mechanized cavalry will not need this due to the fact that their main technique is a rapid flank attack, and it will be used where it has room to deploy.
Non-motorized rifle troops
It would be a mistake to think that these new-look Ground Forces are simply rearmed motorized infantry, reinforced with tanks.
Firstly, in modern motorized riflemen, the integration of the riflemen themselves and the armored vehicles occurs at the squad level - the deputy squad leader is the commander of the BMP or APC.
As a result, if an infantry fighting vehicle is lost in combat, the squad is left without the combat equipment with which it was trained to fight and which serves as its transport.
In the new SV, infantry is infantry everywhere, it's just that due to the specifics of the mechanized cavalry combat vehicles, the squads in it are smaller in number. The infantry fights on foot, the armored vehicles act as an armored group under a single command. This is an American scheme, in the US it is implemented at the company level; we may have the same, or maybe everything will be closed to the platoon commander, it is not particularly important. Its strong point is the significantly lesser dependence of the infantry on whether the BMPs are still in service or not.
There is no need to draw analogies with the armored vehicles of the mechanized cavalry and the “tin cans” BMP-1 and 2, or BTR-80/82.
Although the mobility of the armored vehicles of the mechanized cavalry will be at the forefront, but after ensuring the required capacity for the placement of the turret with weapons and fuel reserves, the rest of the vehicle's mass reserve will go to armor.
The main striking weapon, both in heavy infantry and in mechanized cavalry, is the UAV.
"Lancets" versus "Leopards". Let's not forget that this is exactly what the main method of destroying the enemy will look like, in one type of formation or another. The infantry will arrive or will come after, after the drones. And not necessarily strictly after the "Lancets". Drawing: ZALA
Doctrinally, this will be a different army, not a fragment of the Soviet one that entered Ukraine in 2022.
Heavy infantry is a phenomenon that is even more irreducible to today's motorized riflemen. It is assault infantry, saturated with heavy weapons and artillery, reinforced by large numbers of sapper units, advancing in dashes from one defensive line to another and breaking through these lines in mainly infantry combat formations.
Such units must also practice a head-on combat on the move, but due to the specifics of weapons and military equipment, and special staffing, it will be built differently than in mechanized cavalry.
According to the names of the new type of formations for the mechanized cavalry, the word "mechanized" can be left and the new mobile formations can be called by this word. For example, "mechanized brigade".
But it is also possible to officially make them “mechanized cavalry” brigades (the author is an opponent of the divisional form of troop organization), resorting to this name as the one that most accurately reflects the essence of the new type of formation.
"Heavy infantry" units can be simply called "infantry".
If there ever comes a need to create some other infantry, a “lighter” one (for example, need will force the formation of motorized infantry units on vehicles – industry cannot quickly produce the required amount of armored vehicles, and the bulk of its pre-war quantity has already been lost in battles), then a separate name can be used for them, for example, “light infantry”.
The proportions between the two types of formations will need to be determined through an analysis of the most probable theaters of military operations in the near future.
The biggest mistake would be to try to leave everything as is, trying to simply saturate the existing staff with new military equipment.
The standard organizational and staffing structures at the time of the start of the SVO do not work, and this is obvious.
Whether anyone agrees with this or not, giving SV a new look is inevitable.
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