Toinen varsin tuore kirjoitus Venäläisten uudesta BTG- organisaatiosta ja taistelutaktiikan kokeilusta Ukrainassa.
Venäjä on kierrättänyt 27 prikaatia tai rykmenttiä Donbassin alueen taisteluissa vuodesta 2014 lähtien. Arviolta 36000 Venäläissotilasta on saanut taistelukokemusta ja BTG-organisaatioita on testattu taisteluissa menestyksellä, nimenomaan juuri 2014-2015 Donetskin lentokentän taisteluissa.
Varsinainen The Institute of Land Warfaren julkaisema raportin linkki on lopussa. Suosittelen lukemaan jos aihe kiinnostaa.
Russian military gains in Ukraine could spell trouble for the US Army, even in a conventional fight
By:
Todd South May 14
An Army major proposes in a recent paper that the
Russian offensive, a mostly conventional warfare campaign that also used social media to recruit proxy troops, showcases how Russian units could defeat the U.S. Army in
key eastern European states.
Despite a drumbeat of worry about the
Russian New Generation, or hybrid, warfare, the paper notes that conventional land combat, with rockets, missiles, artillery, mechanized infantry and tanks, has dominated the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Experts interviewed by Military Times said that in a long, drawn-out conflict the United States and NATO allies would likely win over Russia if there was a major land grab on the eastern European border.
But the fear is that Russian forces could move quickly and grab pieces of territory, similar to what happened in Crimea and now in Ukraine. In that scenario they could entrench themselves deeply enough so that the slower response from U.S. and NATO forces would arrive too late.
Both Russian and separatist forces were organized into BTGs of 600–800 soldiers each.
The Russians filled between eight and 14 BTGs, and the separatists filled 18 BTGs throughout Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Causality is difficult to discern, but the BTGs appear to have been organized in such a way as to negate Ukrainian strengths, while still providing a degree of deniability. For example, the BTGs included their own air defense capabilities and MLRSs, both of which significantly contributed to the success of Russia’s summer offensive.
Russian forces, drawn from across the reaches of the Federation, used the Battles of the Donetsk Airport and the other major battles and offensives in the Donets River basin to hone their martial acumen and skill. Estimates indicate that
27 of Russia’s 57 tank and infantry bri-gades and regiments participated in the two offensives, which equates to significant combat experience for roughly 47 percent of Russia’s warfighting units. This does not account for the command and control, sustainment and force projection knowledge and experience gained during the same period.
Positional Warfare and Sieges Contrary to conventional narratives on the primacy and high-mindedness of maneuver warfare and the crippling effects of electronic and cyber warfare, positional warfare and sieges are the zeitgeist of contemporary war.
At the tactical and operational levels, the Battles of the Donetsk Airport are an example of positional warfare. Russians and their interlopers used tactics, movement and firepower to lure the Ukrainians into a fraught position. Next, they encir-cled them, largely isolating them from external support. They also leveraged combined arms to kill Ukrainian forces and destroy existing infrastructure, further applying pressure on them.
These battles are one data point that support the pivotal relevancy of positional warfare and sieges in modern war. Positional battles and sieges have also commanded the counter-Islamic State campaigns in Iraq, Syria and the Philippines. It remains to be seen if this trend in posti-tional warfare and the employment of sieges will continue, but current conditions suggest that it will.
Tactical and Operational Mobility—
Maintaining Tactical and Operational ReachThe Russo-Ukrainian War’s summer and winter offensives highlight the primacy of Russia’s ability to quickly and effectively move large numbers of combat formations and sustain-ment across a support area to the fight on the front. Operational mobility is linked with basing and with the idea of the Predictive Russian Deployment Model, as seen in figure 5. This model, its effectiveness demonstrated multiple times during the fight for the Donetsk airport, illustrates that the Russians have a well-developed and fluid paradigm for quickly reinforcing their forces at the tactical and operational levels in regional conflicts.
A recent report by Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, USA, Ret., and the Center for Euro-pean Policy Analysis echoes this point, but does so through the lens of Russia’s Zapad 2017exercise.
Specifically, Hodges argues, “Zapad demonstrated Russia’s ability to move equipment and forces quickly and smoothly from east to west and farther into Belarus. More concerning than actual firepower was Russia’s logistical prowess in terms of speed compared to NATO. Russia’s speed comes from its ability to reduce friction through infrastructure and capabilities. This includes . . . natural ‘interior lines’ of movement within Russian borders. . . . Russia faces no international boundaries or customs procedures that could inhibit movement in a crisis.”As the U.S. military focuses its attention on a refractory Russia, operational and tactical mobility must be taken into consideration. As the Battles of the Donetsk Airport illustrate, this know-how and capability allowed Russia and its DPA proxy to overcome impending defeat more than once
Proxies and Clients
The DPA and LPA are Russian military proxies in the region. They enable Putin’s pursuit of his policy aims in Ukraine. In the Donbas, Russia tapped into existing social networks to build its proxy army. Specifically, Russia took advantage of the Russian identity—ethnic Russians, speakers of the Russian language, practitioners of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Slavic people and land historically tied to Russia.
The Russian identity goes beyond the border of Russia, Crimea or the Donbas. The Russo-Ukrainian War illustrates that the Russian identity is powerful enough to pull in fighters from Moldova, Belarus, the Baltic States and the Balkans to fill the ranks of separatist battalions. Russia also leveraged political clients for military force.
Chechen fighters at the Battles of the Donetsk Airport, and throughout the greater Donbas region, highlight that Russia leverages Chechen fighters wherever it looks to sow the seeds of chaos. Chechnya, of the 21 republics within the Russian Federation, is ruled by Ramzam Kadyrov. Vladimir Putin put Kadyrov in power after the bloody Chechen War in order to suppress the historically irascible Chechen nation.
These battles are important because they remind students of war that rugged, land-centric combined arms warfare has not been thrown into the dustbin of history but is instead alive and well. The Russo-Ukrainian War, fought on the ground with tanks, infantry and artillery, has pul-verized towns like Pisky, Opytne and Debal’tseve. Its battles have contributed to over 13,000 people killed, 1.5 million people displaced and 9 percent of Ukrainian territory under de facto Russian control.
https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/...tory-of-the-Battle-of-the-Donetsk-Airport.pdf
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