Einomies1
Respected Leader
Linkki mielenkiintoiseen Yhdysvaltain armeijan tutkielmaan (Ft.Benning), Venäläisen BTG-pataljoonan taisteluryhmän vahvuuksista ja heikkouksista. https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Spring/2Fiore17.pdf
Tutkielmassa on vertailtu US BCT:n(Brigade Combat Team) ja RBTG:n kohtaamistaistelua sekä kokemuksia Ukrainan Armeijan taisteluista näitä yksikköjä vastaan. Vaikka BCT ei ole suomalainen muodostelma, BTG:n ominaisuuksia, kykyjä ja heikkouksia voi vertailla Suomen käyttämiin taktiikkoihin, taisteluryhmityksiin ja mekanisoituihin yksiköihin.
Nostoja:
Defeating the Russian Battalion Tactical Group
by CPT Nicolas J.Fiore
The Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) is a modular tactical organization created from a garrisoned Russian Army brigade to deploy combat power to conflict zones. BTGs were typically effective in combat operations in Ukraine from 2013-2015, but on several occasions,BTGs were tactically defeated by Ukrainian regular-army units despite Russian overmatch in firepower, electronic warfare (EW) and air-defense artillery (ADA).This article researches the weaknesses that allowed Ukrainian Army units to defeat Russian BTGs and describes tactics that an American brigade combat team (BCT) can employ to create similar opportunities to tactically defeat a BTG ifrequired in a future conflict.
Russian BTGs present tactical vulnerabilities that can be exploited by BCT commanders:
-Shortages in ready maneuver forces, especially infantry, significantly limit Russian maneuver capabilities. BTGs cannot simultaneously mass for offensive operations and maintain flank and rear security, and they struggle to concentrate artillery against attacks on multiple simultaneous axes.
-Command-and-control (C2) limitations require the BTG commander to concentrate mission-command and intelligence assets to direct-fires and EW shaping efforts and strikes. These assets are employed selectively to substitute for offensive maneuvers, are not available across the entire BTG’s battlespace and can be overloaded by aggressive dispersion and displacement tactics.
-BTGs cannot quickly regenerate combat power without cannibalizing other units in theater or garrison. Once teams and units are degraded by casualties, they will rapidly lose effectiveness until completely reconstituted. In the face of a credible threat, maneuver and support assets will likely be withdrawn and conserved for future use.
BCT commanders can maneuver against BTGs’vulnerabilities by avoiding static deployments of forces that allow the BTG commander to select, prepare and execute limited strikes. BTG capabilities are extremely lethal when concentrated against individual units but diminish rapidly against high-tempo distributed maneuver or defense-in-depth because a BTG can’t resource economy-of-force missions.
Russia’s regular-army brigades usually deployed half their personnel and equipment to the Ukrainian theater as BTGs. A BTG had the entire brigade’s support and enabling resources,but it had only one mechanized-infantry battalion, often supplemented by a tank company and additional rocket artillery.4(Figure 1.)The remaining personnel and equipment stayed at the brigade’s garrison. As many as a third of the deployed soldiers were high-quality contract (volunteer enlistment) soldiers who were recruited to be the noncommissioned-officercorps of a modernized and professional Russian Army. They served primarily in the combat, EWand fires roles.
BTGs typically strike from behind a proxy guard forcebecause theirstrategic imperative is to control terrain to shape post-conflict negotiations. When possible, the BTG commander will employ his strike assets to cause casualties, pressuringhis opponent to negotiate the settlement, but he must also preserve his own strength because it cannot be regenerated operationally and casualties are strategically expensive.Although the BTG deploys with a large complement of direct-and general-support units, only a reinforced battalion of maneuver forces areavailable to the BTG commander. To compensate for the shortage of maneuver forces, and to preserve combat power, BTGs employ a force of local paramilitary units as proxy forces to secure terrain and guard the BTG from direct and indirect attack. These units are comprised of local militia, Russian veteran volunteersand mercenaries who defend the line of contact and key infrastructure.
BTGs are adept at combining high-end collection assets such as unmanned aerial systems (UASs), electronic listeningand partisan human intelligence (HUMINT),but all these platforms have a limited capacity, so the BTG conserves and concentrates them to conduct intelligence preparation of the battlefield(IPB)for attacks. To coordinate these assets, BTG C2 requires co-location of maneuver companiesand intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)personnel in tactical-assembly areas(TAA), which become high-payoff targets.
In many ways, BTGs epitomize modern individual vehicle and soldier protection. BTG tanks and BMPs are equipped with multiple active-protection systems and explosive reactive armor, rendering U.S.individual shoulder-fired anti-tanksystems ineffective. The Ukrainian Army reported success using teams of tanks to destroy Russian T-72B3s on several occasions, but multiple hits were required to defeat the tanks’ reactive armor. BTG infantry has modern body armor and personal protective equipment (PPE)–even paramilitary units were equipped with basic helmets and torso protection.
Finally, the king of all Russian protection assets is their integrated air-defense system. Although Russian ADA was not employed against warplanes or bombers, the Ukrainian Army lost six helicopters and a transport plane early in the conflict to well-coordinated Russian ADA systems. Also, shoulder-fired missiles are ubiquitous at all levels of regular units.
BTGs rapidly deploy from garrison by rail. However, for field logistics,the BTG requires a road and bridge network because its light trucks do not have the same mobility characteristics as its combat vehicles. Paramilitary proxies distribute supplies using private vehicles of varying (limited) mobility.
A lack of tactical logistics support may have prevented Russian BTGs from pursuing defeated Ukrainian units, which were often able to reconstitute less than 50kilometers from the old LoC.
Medically, BTGs have very limited professional medical-evacuation (medevac)and field-treatment resources. Their inability to quickly get wounded soldiers advanced care increaseddeaths due to wounds, which had a large psychological effect, made their commanders more adverse to dismounted riskand reduced a BTG’s ability to regenerate combat power.
Similarly, Russian tactical leaders are concerned with the impact that casualties have on public support and recruitment; the major contrast is that Russian leaders cannot accept as much risk to equipment because there is no assurance of speedy replacement. Even inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment such as quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV)are only available in limited quantities and take time to acquire. High-end EW platforms are rare, expensive and crewed by small numbers of specialized personnel.
For example, a Russian UAS uses narrow-field-of-view (FoV) cameras to recon the battlefield. Dispersed platoons that reposition regularly require morerecon missions to maintain contact. Adding to that idea,dispersed and camouflaged units are harder to find. They require more flight hours, UASto fly at lower altitudes and closer to adversary ground-to-air defense systems. This combination accelerates the BTG assets’ burn rate unless morerecon assets can be brought to bear from elsewhere in theater.
Military experts on Russia at the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), Fort Leavenworth, KS, believe that BTGs are an intermediate construct, temporarily employed to push modernization into Russia’s current force, and that at the end of the modernization program,the Russian Army will return to a divisional structure with fully manned, equippedand deployable brigades–especiallyif faced with a peer competitor such as the United States. There are, however, several reasons to predict that the return to a divisional structure could be several years away. In the meantime, the BTG may remain Russia’s deployable organization of choice.
The most important reason to believe that the Russian Army will continue to deploy as BTGs is that the structure worked. It was effective at translating tactics and weapons into successful national strategy. Once the paramilitary guard force was established, the BTG’s utility has proven extremely cost-efficient (in terms of minimizing casualties and lost equipment).
Similar tactics and organization are currently being used in Syria. The Syrian army and pro-Assad militias serve as a guard force to allow Russian regular forces to deliver devastating artillery and armor strikes to reduce rebel strongpoints. The same military strategy is also being used: deploy regular forces if needed to control terrain as necessary to shape a favorable negotiated settlement.
Finally, in addition to monetary expense,there is a sunken psychological cost to breaking from the BTG construct. The current military and political leaders are the same leaders who introduced the BTG structure; their reputations and careers are closely tied to its success. Instead of moderating BTG rollout and keeping a portion of the Russian Army in a divisional structure to train for high-intensity CAM, Russia’s leaders are accelerating the rate that units convert into BTGs.
In a Sept. 14, 2016,press conference, Russian GEN Valery Gerasimov stated that the army will increase the number of BTGs from 96 to 125 in 2018, with a significant effort to man them with contract soldiers instead of conscripts. This comment indicates that Russia’s military leadership is committed to investing in BTGs during the next two years, perhaps longer. If faced with a peer-competitor threat such as the U.S.Army, it is likely that Russia will simply deploy more BTGs to the battlespace so that each BCT may face more than one BTG.
Tutkielmassa on vertailtu US BCT:n(Brigade Combat Team) ja RBTG:n kohtaamistaistelua sekä kokemuksia Ukrainan Armeijan taisteluista näitä yksikköjä vastaan. Vaikka BCT ei ole suomalainen muodostelma, BTG:n ominaisuuksia, kykyjä ja heikkouksia voi vertailla Suomen käyttämiin taktiikkoihin, taisteluryhmityksiin ja mekanisoituihin yksiköihin.
Nostoja:
Defeating the Russian Battalion Tactical Group
by CPT Nicolas J.Fiore
The Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) is a modular tactical organization created from a garrisoned Russian Army brigade to deploy combat power to conflict zones. BTGs were typically effective in combat operations in Ukraine from 2013-2015, but on several occasions,BTGs were tactically defeated by Ukrainian regular-army units despite Russian overmatch in firepower, electronic warfare (EW) and air-defense artillery (ADA).This article researches the weaknesses that allowed Ukrainian Army units to defeat Russian BTGs and describes tactics that an American brigade combat team (BCT) can employ to create similar opportunities to tactically defeat a BTG ifrequired in a future conflict.
Russian BTGs present tactical vulnerabilities that can be exploited by BCT commanders:
-Shortages in ready maneuver forces, especially infantry, significantly limit Russian maneuver capabilities. BTGs cannot simultaneously mass for offensive operations and maintain flank and rear security, and they struggle to concentrate artillery against attacks on multiple simultaneous axes.
-Command-and-control (C2) limitations require the BTG commander to concentrate mission-command and intelligence assets to direct-fires and EW shaping efforts and strikes. These assets are employed selectively to substitute for offensive maneuvers, are not available across the entire BTG’s battlespace and can be overloaded by aggressive dispersion and displacement tactics.
-BTGs cannot quickly regenerate combat power without cannibalizing other units in theater or garrison. Once teams and units are degraded by casualties, they will rapidly lose effectiveness until completely reconstituted. In the face of a credible threat, maneuver and support assets will likely be withdrawn and conserved for future use.
BCT commanders can maneuver against BTGs’vulnerabilities by avoiding static deployments of forces that allow the BTG commander to select, prepare and execute limited strikes. BTG capabilities are extremely lethal when concentrated against individual units but diminish rapidly against high-tempo distributed maneuver or defense-in-depth because a BTG can’t resource economy-of-force missions.
Russia’s regular-army brigades usually deployed half their personnel and equipment to the Ukrainian theater as BTGs. A BTG had the entire brigade’s support and enabling resources,but it had only one mechanized-infantry battalion, often supplemented by a tank company and additional rocket artillery.4(Figure 1.)The remaining personnel and equipment stayed at the brigade’s garrison. As many as a third of the deployed soldiers were high-quality contract (volunteer enlistment) soldiers who were recruited to be the noncommissioned-officercorps of a modernized and professional Russian Army. They served primarily in the combat, EWand fires roles.
BTGs typically strike from behind a proxy guard forcebecause theirstrategic imperative is to control terrain to shape post-conflict negotiations. When possible, the BTG commander will employ his strike assets to cause casualties, pressuringhis opponent to negotiate the settlement, but he must also preserve his own strength because it cannot be regenerated operationally and casualties are strategically expensive.Although the BTG deploys with a large complement of direct-and general-support units, only a reinforced battalion of maneuver forces areavailable to the BTG commander. To compensate for the shortage of maneuver forces, and to preserve combat power, BTGs employ a force of local paramilitary units as proxy forces to secure terrain and guard the BTG from direct and indirect attack. These units are comprised of local militia, Russian veteran volunteersand mercenaries who defend the line of contact and key infrastructure.
BTGs are adept at combining high-end collection assets such as unmanned aerial systems (UASs), electronic listeningand partisan human intelligence (HUMINT),but all these platforms have a limited capacity, so the BTG conserves and concentrates them to conduct intelligence preparation of the battlefield(IPB)for attacks. To coordinate these assets, BTG C2 requires co-location of maneuver companiesand intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)personnel in tactical-assembly areas(TAA), which become high-payoff targets.
In many ways, BTGs epitomize modern individual vehicle and soldier protection. BTG tanks and BMPs are equipped with multiple active-protection systems and explosive reactive armor, rendering U.S.individual shoulder-fired anti-tanksystems ineffective. The Ukrainian Army reported success using teams of tanks to destroy Russian T-72B3s on several occasions, but multiple hits were required to defeat the tanks’ reactive armor. BTG infantry has modern body armor and personal protective equipment (PPE)–even paramilitary units were equipped with basic helmets and torso protection.
Finally, the king of all Russian protection assets is their integrated air-defense system. Although Russian ADA was not employed against warplanes or bombers, the Ukrainian Army lost six helicopters and a transport plane early in the conflict to well-coordinated Russian ADA systems. Also, shoulder-fired missiles are ubiquitous at all levels of regular units.
BTGs rapidly deploy from garrison by rail. However, for field logistics,the BTG requires a road and bridge network because its light trucks do not have the same mobility characteristics as its combat vehicles. Paramilitary proxies distribute supplies using private vehicles of varying (limited) mobility.
A lack of tactical logistics support may have prevented Russian BTGs from pursuing defeated Ukrainian units, which were often able to reconstitute less than 50kilometers from the old LoC.
Medically, BTGs have very limited professional medical-evacuation (medevac)and field-treatment resources. Their inability to quickly get wounded soldiers advanced care increaseddeaths due to wounds, which had a large psychological effect, made their commanders more adverse to dismounted riskand reduced a BTG’s ability to regenerate combat power.
Similarly, Russian tactical leaders are concerned with the impact that casualties have on public support and recruitment; the major contrast is that Russian leaders cannot accept as much risk to equipment because there is no assurance of speedy replacement. Even inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment such as quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV)are only available in limited quantities and take time to acquire. High-end EW platforms are rare, expensive and crewed by small numbers of specialized personnel.
For example, a Russian UAS uses narrow-field-of-view (FoV) cameras to recon the battlefield. Dispersed platoons that reposition regularly require morerecon missions to maintain contact. Adding to that idea,dispersed and camouflaged units are harder to find. They require more flight hours, UASto fly at lower altitudes and closer to adversary ground-to-air defense systems. This combination accelerates the BTG assets’ burn rate unless morerecon assets can be brought to bear from elsewhere in theater.
Military experts on Russia at the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), Fort Leavenworth, KS, believe that BTGs are an intermediate construct, temporarily employed to push modernization into Russia’s current force, and that at the end of the modernization program,the Russian Army will return to a divisional structure with fully manned, equippedand deployable brigades–especiallyif faced with a peer competitor such as the United States. There are, however, several reasons to predict that the return to a divisional structure could be several years away. In the meantime, the BTG may remain Russia’s deployable organization of choice.
The most important reason to believe that the Russian Army will continue to deploy as BTGs is that the structure worked. It was effective at translating tactics and weapons into successful national strategy. Once the paramilitary guard force was established, the BTG’s utility has proven extremely cost-efficient (in terms of minimizing casualties and lost equipment).
Similar tactics and organization are currently being used in Syria. The Syrian army and pro-Assad militias serve as a guard force to allow Russian regular forces to deliver devastating artillery and armor strikes to reduce rebel strongpoints. The same military strategy is also being used: deploy regular forces if needed to control terrain as necessary to shape a favorable negotiated settlement.
Finally, in addition to monetary expense,there is a sunken psychological cost to breaking from the BTG construct. The current military and political leaders are the same leaders who introduced the BTG structure; their reputations and careers are closely tied to its success. Instead of moderating BTG rollout and keeping a portion of the Russian Army in a divisional structure to train for high-intensity CAM, Russia’s leaders are accelerating the rate that units convert into BTGs.
In a Sept. 14, 2016,press conference, Russian GEN Valery Gerasimov stated that the army will increase the number of BTGs from 96 to 125 in 2018, with a significant effort to man them with contract soldiers instead of conscripts. This comment indicates that Russia’s military leadership is committed to investing in BTGs during the next two years, perhaps longer. If faced with a peer-competitor threat such as the U.S.Army, it is likely that Russia will simply deploy more BTGs to the battlespace so that each BCT may face more than one BTG.