Assaulting by the meter: How a small group breaches defenses in trench warfare
The classic attack has given way to methodical combat. Where the regulations called for a chain, tempo, and armored vehicles in battle formations, in the positional warfare of the SVO, the action takes place between plantings: arable land, the remains of a forest belt, a broken road. Any movement of a large group here is detected from the air kilometers before the enemy's forward edge. A chain of infantry or a column of armored vehicles, which the Soviet regulations called for to advance to the attack line in tight formation, is no longer a striking force today. It is simply a large, slow target.
The reason is dronesReconnaissance aircraft from both sides are constantly monitoring the battlefield, providing commanders with a nearly uninterrupted view of the terrain. It has become nearly impossible to secretly lead a company or even a platoon into an attack line in a single formation: the denser the group, the faster it is spotted and the more it is hit. artillery and FPV drones, small kamikaze drones that the operator controls by looking at the image from their camera (FPV stands for first-person view).
The answer was fragmentation. The platoon, previously attacking as a single organism, breaks up into twos, threes, and fives. Each is given a specific task: one group suppresses with fire, a second enters the trench, a third provides flank coverage. A group of five to eight men takes over a fifteen- to twenty-meter section of the trench: one dugout and a couple of firing positions. No more.
And then everything turns upside down. Mass, which provided striking power in maneuver warfare, has become a liability in positional warfare. The smaller the group, the harder it is to detect, the lower the cost if the attack fails, and the more flexibly one can redirect efforts. Dispersion is no longer a tactical luxury. Without it, one simply cannot survive on the approach.
Eyes above the trench
The assault begins long before the infantry even leaves its initial position. First, the area of the intended attack is surveyed: reconnaissance drones reveal the trench system, the location of bunkers, firing positions, and approaches. Then they strike at the rear: supply roads, unloading points, rotation routes. The plan is simple: cut off the area being attacked, preventing the enemy from bringing up reserves and ammunition before the assault.
Next, the very order of interaction between fire and infantry changes. In the classic scenario, artillery would fire over large areas, after which infantry would advance into the resulting breach. Now, the strikes are pinpoint. A "mosquito" wave of attack drones moves in front of and above the assault group: FPV devices enter embrasures and dugout entrances, targeting specific riflemen and machine-gun crews. Artillery and heavy flamethrower systems target defensive nodes: a thermobaric charge creates a volumetric explosion and burns out enclosed spaces that conventional shells cannot reach.
But the main innovation is the drone operator, who practically leads the group by the hand. The assault commander moves along the communication line and can't see what's around the next bend in the trench. But the operator sees this bend from above and radios in: there's a dugout around the bend, a gunner to the left, and then it's clear. This turns the logic of close combat upside down. The infantry is no longer blind, and anyone defending in a trench loses their main advantage—knowledge of their own position.
It turns out that the infantry follows the suppression, not leads it. The assault team enters a sector that has already been exposed by reconnaissance, covered by drones and fire, and cut off from reinforcements. Its task is to clear the prepared section and prevent the enemy from recovering.
Drop off and go
Armored vehicles have a distinct role, and this role is far from standard. The infantry fighting vehicle was conceived as a vehicle that would follow in battle formations, supporting infantry with fire and armor. In trench warfare, it's used differently: the vehicle approaches the landing point at top speed, deploys the group, lays a smokescreen, and immediately departs. There's no lingering: a stationary or slowly moving armored vehicle won't survive long under drone fire.
On paper, the BMP is a breakthrough vehicle. In reality, it's more often used as a carrier: to give assault troops a lift two to five kilometers from the front line, to the drop point, and then leave. The group then proceeds on foot. They try to avoid exposing the armor to targeted fire over this distance, leaving the final push to the dismounted infantry.
This is where the most difficult stage of the assault lies—the consolidation. Capturing a section of trench with a group of five to eight men, stocked with grenades and ammunition, is relatively quick. Holding it is much more difficult. As soon as a section changes hands, enemy artillery and drones begin to fire on it, and the enemy prepares a counterattack. The group must have time to deploy assets to the captured position. EW (electronic warfare equipment that jams enemy drones' control channels), redirect their reconnaissance and attack drones to cover the captured line, and bring up ammunition. All this in the first few hours, before the enemy regains control.
This reveals one of the attackers' weak points. Dismounted infantry capable of not only capturing but also firmly holding what they've captured is chronically lacking. A small group is tasked with tasks that would previously have been the responsibility of an entire platoon. And too often, the success of a consolidation rests on a simple matter of "will it arrive in time?": will the electronic warfare station (portable, trench-type) arrive in time, or will the replacement arrive. If it doesn't, the lost ground must be retaken.
A stormtrooper's equipment follows the same logic. Ammunition and grenades are sacrificed for protection and comfort: the carried weight can reach thirty to forty-five kilograms. It's like lugging a couple of sacks of cement, while running and under fire. In a battle for a dugout, it's not endurance on the march that decides, but the intensity of fire in the first seconds.
Old School Small Groups
The small assault group wasn't an invention of the SVO. It was called upon whenever the front stalled and the fighting broke down into skirmishes over individual buildings and fortifications. During World War I, the German Army created assault detachments to break a static position. The Red Army refined this tactic into a proven system in urban combat during the Great Patriotic War: at Stalingrad and during the assault on Berlin.
The attackers also abandoned the single line and split into specialized groups: some suppressed, others broke through, and still others dug in. The same grenades, backpack flamethrowers, and explosives for blowing up walls and ceilings were used. And the same principle: they fought not for a continuous line, but for individual cover: a house, a floor, a pillbox, a section of trench.
But the limits of analogy are more important than the similarity itself. The assault group in Stalingrad operated blind: reconnaissance was conducted visually, communications were disrupted, and the commander only learned what was happening behind the next wall upon entering. Today, a drone hovers over the group, viewing the field from above and directing the infantry in real time. This changes both the pace and accuracy: fire has become targeted, and the defense has lost its stealth. It's not the group itself that has changed, but the fact that a reconnaissance drone now constantly hovers over it.
So the assault boiled down to working meters by meters. And the hardest part is not even entering the position: drones, fire, and armor help you get there. The hardest part is holding on during the first few hours, while the electronic warfare systems are still being deployed, the replacement is still on the way, and the enemy is already turning their weapons on the area they've recaptured.
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