For the first time, Russia will massively use new weapons in the event of an attack on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions

Hand this time it’s not about technology, but about the real baptism of battalion tactical groups. The main brainchild of Shoigu in reforming the Russian army is about to be tested in a serious military conflict. What is it and what are its advantages?Discuss

Contents

• Why you can't fight the old way
• Battalion Tactical Teams
• How effective is this?
• Compared to the USA

So, the dreams of some and the fears of others came true – the Russian army is already in the DPR and LNR. On the other hand, the situation, as it was incomprehensible, remains.

According to various experts, the number of Russian troops varies from 160 to 190 thousand people, but you need to understand that a significant part of these forces is the infrastructure for a huge (by today's standards) newly formed Western group. That is, not directly attacking fighters, but fuel and repair bases, food and clothing warehouses, railway and engineering brigades, units that are engaged in loading and unloading operations and, in general, everything that we call logistics – a lot of people are required for maintenance.

But the world community fears the number of battalion tactical groups. What is it, why do we need it, and how many of them do we have – the topic of our today's article.

Nozim Kalandarov/TASS

According to Shoigu, in August last year, the army consisted of 168 battalion tactical groups, of which, according to Western news agencies, 120 are now concentrated in the region of confrontation with Ukraine.

Why can't_fight_the_old_style

All military formations start from a combination of military personnel of different profiles (according to military specialties) already at the squad-platoon level. That is, they are: shooters, a machine gunner with a light machine gun (for example, M249 for the Americans), a machine gunner with a single machine gun (PKM or Pecheneg in the Russian Federation), a grenade launcher, a sniper (Marksman).

The larger the formation (company-battalion-regiment-division), the more it includes different specialties, and the more it has the ability to solve various combat missions. The main formation in most armies of the world is a division.

On the level divisions interact almost all components of the ground forces. The motorized rifle division of the late USSR and the Russian Federation is:

• “infantry” itself, reduced to three regiments and one tank regiment – the main strike force

• Artillery and anti-aircraft regiments — fire support and protection from enemy aircraft • Individual units– intelligence, communications, material support, medical care, separate missile and artillery battalions (anti-tank, jet, etc.) ), commandant's company, finances, etc.

The number of all this beauty in the state is usually about 13,000 military personnel. On the one hand, these forces can participate in large-scale military operations. On the other hand, this is too much, all this whopper requires complex logistics and supplies, long columns of trucks run almost daily.

Regiment is the main tactical and administrative formation, such a division in miniature. It has its own artillery, reconnaissance, communications, anti-aircraft weapons, but with less power and range (sufficient for operations in the interests of your regiment).

For example:

1/2

Regimental SAU 2S1 Carnation

But recently, in the armies of the whole world, a fashion has come to “shrink” the number of formations, while not at the expense of a variety of means. For example, a separate motorized rifle brigade is like a gap between a regiment and a division. Motorized rifle and tank battalions, separate regiments of artillerymen and anti-aircraft gunners replace divisions, and individual battalions themselves turn into companies.

In the Serdyukov era, there was almost a mania for brigades in the Russian army, and even the famous Taman division was temporarily turned into the 5th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade in 2009. This caused a lot of protests among the military, there were heated discussions. The end was put by the arrival of Shoigu in 2013, and Serdyukov's changes were canceled. – partly due to the fact that the scale of the war has decreased to local conflicts, and not “get up, the country is huge”, as in the old days. Partly due to significant technological progress in recent decades.

Battalion_tactical_groups

We won't load history (much), but move on to the point.

The first tactical groups (Kampfgruppe) appeared in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Guderian himself was behind the development of this tactic; it was a formation of non-permanent composition.

The commander of an army or corps transfers to one of his officers the entire hodgepodge of weapons – tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and, of course, infantry, at the base from company to regiment. Although it was at that time that the battalion became the most optimal choice. That is, the commander of an infantry battalion received tanks, divisional artillery and other means that the state did not rely on him – temporarily, to complete the assigned tasks.

It was beneficial both offensively and defensively. For example, a Soviet rifle regiment could be opposed by an enemy close in numbers, but our regimental commander did not have its own tanks and self-propelled guns, while the enemy had them. defeat, when the defeated remnants of corps and divisions in extreme conditions were united under the command of the most strong-willed and enterprising commanders.

The motorized rifle battalion of the modern army of the Russian Federation consists of three companies, a mortar platoon (120 mm), a grenade launcher platoon (AGS-17), an anti-tank platoon (SPG-9, ATGM) plus support platoons. Not much, but a battalion is the smallest tactical unit with its own headquarters. That is, an organizational base appears for the development of tactical capabilities of a consolidated/mixed group.

ASG-17 Flame

A battalion tactical group is a mechanized infantry battalion that has a lot of room to reinforce:

• Tank company< /p>

• Artillery battery (SPG Akatsiya or Msta-S)

• Aircraft means at the platoon-battery level (installations ZU-23-2, MANPADS Igla, Strela-10, ZRPK Tunguska, ZRK Tor)

• Engineering platoon

• EW units (electronic warfare) and UAVs

• Special forces units

• Recovery and Logistics Units

Thus, a kind of micro-army is in the hands of one battalion commander. With a slight increase in the number of personnel – from 462 (for infantry fighting vehicles) to 536 (for armored personnel carriers) in the state, the tactical group grows to about 800 people and up to about 100 units of various equipment.

A tactical group is a more subtle and at the same time an effective tool of war, which allows you to remove the command and intermediary links between the headquarters of the grouping and the actual warring units.

How effective is this?

Despite the fact that no military doctrine The USSR, nor the army of the Russian Federation (until recently) did not imply the terms “tactical group”, nevertheless, there was a practice of “temporarily attached units”. This is almost the same thing, but there was no significant theoretical and methodological basis under it.

At the same time, the combat missions themselves and the difficulties of their implementation forced Soviet commanders to create similar mixed combined arms formations. This was practiced both during World War II and in Afghanistan.

During the Chechen wars, tactical groups often appeared not because of conscious planning, but situationally – the collapsed army did not allow to assemble full-fledged brigades and divisions, because there were not enough trained soldiers and modern serviceable equipment.

For example, the motorized rifle and artillery regiments of a division became a tactical group when they went together to a hot spot, while the rest of the units remained in their permanent deployment. The advantage of this was the ability to operate with such “cut-down” formations in mountainous areas and not stretch communications vulnerable to sabotage and attacks by militants (and they are quite extensible in large armies).

The First Chechen War

The real usefulness of tactical groups of constant readiness in Russia was realized only under Shoigu. An example was taken, predictably, from the American army, where the basis of deployable maneuver forces is represented by brigade combat teams.

But it was not possible to directly copy the American system due to a large number of problems:

• A permanent readiness tactical group should be staffed only by contract servicemen

• We need a serious “shake-up” of the officer corps with priority to commanders of the new formation – erudite, enterprising, strong-willed

• We need the most modern means of communication, surveillance and intelligence.

• We have to create UAV units almost from scratch, especially reconnaissance ones, without which artillery today will become blind and will act stupidly.

Stryker Brigade Combat Team

Many experts, by the way, believe that Russia is carried away by battalion tactical groups only because the Russian army simply does not have the resources to form larger brigade tactical groups.

Compared to US

On the one hand , everything is pretty good – Russian battalion tactical groups surpass the American system in terms of the number of heavy weapons and firepower. conducting offensive combat with the use of raid detachments, reconnaissance and search operations, and, which is especially critical, in the actions of reconnaissance and strike groups (ambush and fire groups). As long as Russia lags behind in equipping with modern UAVs and communications/surveillance equipment, this will continue.