Soviet Tables of Organization?

[Rokossovski]

I am looking for information about Soviet TO&Es in the summer of 1944. (For a campaign I am doing.) A web search has not brought up as much as I expected. Basically, I am looking for some stuff I suspect the local grogs know quite well, such as:

(1) How many infantry battalions to a Soviet brigade? What other Brigade level assets were there?

(2) How were armored brigades organized, and what vehicles could we expect to find in them? (I.e., battalions with two companies of mediums and one of lights? Which medium/light tanks would be typical? etc) What other assets might there be?

(3) If I recall correctly, the Soviets seemed to use independent brigades frequently, but sometimes I have seen references to higher units (corps oddly enough, rather than divisions) made of component brigades. I think of brigades or regiments making up divisions, which in turn could be combined into Corps (then Armies etc). This does not seem to have been Soviet practice, as least as regards terminology. Please explain.

(4) What was Soviet practice with respect to attaching assets not normally organic to a given unit? For example would one see a tank company (or perhaps a unit of SU-76s) operating with an infantry battalion, that sort of thing?

Thank you!

[Andreas]

Probably your best bet would be to get Steven Zaloga's 'Red Army Handbook'. It is not that expensive, and from your questions it is clear that it would be very helpful to you.

[Zitadelle]

I agree with Andreas; the book is an excellent resource and I find myself referencing it frequently. Also, answering your questions would require quoting multiple sections from Zaloga's book (resulting in several pages of forum text).

Perhaps you can pick a question or two, and I and others can see what we can do.

[c3k]

Charles Sharp has produced a multi-volume set of soft-bound books which detail the various TO&E's throughout the Red Army. It is far better than the surface treatment Zaloga gives the subject. (Zaloga is a good start, but Sharp is much more detailed.) I found my set at Nafziger's web-site. (A quick search will give it to you.) If you're serious, find Sharp.

Regards,

Ken

[JasonC]

The Red Army Handbook is the way to answer these sorts of questions definitively, as others have suggested. But here is my stab at them, off the top of my head.

(1) How many infantry battalions to a Soviet brigade?

For the rifle brigades, the answer is three.

Understand that brigades were only used for independent formations, or for the mobile units (tank, mech, cavalry, ski). Most rifle units were part of divisions, which used regiments not brigades. A rifle brigade is basically a regimental combat team formation, outside of a larger division.

What other Brigade level assets were there?

Usually an artillery battalion, sometimes small units of recon or engineers.

(2) How were armored brigades organized, and what vehicles could we expect to find in them? (I.e., battalions with two companies of mediums and one of lights? Which medium/light tanks would be typical? etc)

This varied with the date. By 1944, the standard was 3 battalions each of 21 tanks (plus 2 command tanks), in 2 companies of 10 (plus a battalion command tank). The tanks would be T-34s. Naturally they were not always at TOE. This layout became standard in 1943, but not all units transitioned to it right away. The previous scheme had one medium battalion as above, and one light, with a company of 10 T-34s, plus 21 T-70s.

So, some were 32 T-34 plus 21 T-70, while most were 65 T-34. The heavy tanks were organized differently, not in the standard tank brigades.

What other assets might there be?

The tank brigade had a motor rifle battalion, which included a battery of 82mm mortars (at various times, 6, 8 or 9 mortars), an AT battery with 4 76mm guns, and an AA battery with 9 50 cals. Sometimes everything but the tanks was missing, but by TOE and most of the time in practice, it was a combined arms formation, just very tank heavy.

(3) the Soviets seemed to use independent brigades frequently, but sometimes I have seen references to higher units (corps oddly enough, rather than divisions) made of component brigades.

Corps, not divisions, are the standard parent of the mobile formation brigades. They were used much as the Germans used panzer divisions, but were somewhat larger formations. The different echelon name had the effect of putting higher ranking commanders in charge of the more important mobile formations, compared to rifle division commanders e.g.

That is, most of the rifle forces are organized into corps, divisions, and regiments. The mobile forces are not. They are corps and brigades. A "brigade" in the mobile forces is more like a battalion in western terms. (E.g. 53-65 tanks, compare a US armor battalion with 53 Shermans and 17 Stuarts).

The standard unit is a tank corps or mech corps. It contains 3 of the named brigade types and one of the other e.g. 3 tank brigades and 1 motor rifle, or 1 tank brigade and 3 mech brigades. These were each meant to function effectively as German KGs or US combat commands. They could all be used separately, or the single type could be split over the others, or combined with just one - to vary the combined arms mix to the desired tank-infantry ratio.

So e.g. a tank corps could have each tank brigade with its own organic motor rifle battalion plus 1 from the motor rifle brigade, thus 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 tank-infantry ratio in western terms. Or 1-1, 1-1, and 1-4.

A mech brigade had a brigade of motor infantry plus a regiment of 30-40 tanks (the first if all T-34, the second if mixed T-34 and T-70). In addition to the corps level tank brigade.

(4) What was Soviet practice with respect to attaching assets not normally organic to a given unit?

This is what the brigades were for, in the mobile forces. They performed the same function as KGs or combat commands in the western armies. One brigade could be split and attached by part to others, or two combined into a single combat team, or cross attached by each giving 1 sub-element to the other.

Other than that, the standard practice was just to attach a higher level unit to a superior echelon force of a different type. Thus any brigade might have an AT regiment or artillery regiment attached. Or a motorcycle or pioneer battalion.

SUs were organized as independent regiments, of 16 to 20 AFVs (plus a command vehicle sometimes). This followed the artillery organization scheme - 4 gun batteries, with 4-5 batteries to a regiment. An SU regiment could be attached to a mobile brigade or to a rifle division. What is characteristic of all of these attachments of extras is that there is a clear superior formation that "owns" the unit tactically, one or at most two echelons higher in size. The unit is "independent" only in the sense that the army level commander decides which formation to subordinate it to, to help with its particular mission.

That is, the army commander has so and so many independent tank regiments, SU regiments, AT regiments, mortar regiments, extra artillery regiments. He gives one to this rifle division, that tank corps, etc. Once assigned to those, they use them to support component regiments or brigades, or split them up in smaller cross attachments, as they see fit. Tactical use is directed by the subordinate "owner". Changes of "ownership" are directed by the army commander.

As for the scale this usually happened at, the mobile brigade and the rifle regiment were the standard low level combat teams. They did not typically cross attach below that level, except to augment a force already that size. E.g. a tank brigade might have an additional motor rifle battalion from its corps' motor rifle brigade. But the "dominant" brigade types in a mobile formation would not be subdivided. The same goes for infantry regiments in the rifle divisions.

That is, a tank corps goes into the line where there are already rifle divisions. They will not assign a tank brigade to each rifle division, and then further subdivide these into battalions supporting each regiment and companies supporting each battalion. That wouldn't use the mobile formation's command structure, organic attachments, or basic means of fighting. (An independent tank regiment *could* be used that way - assigned to support some rifle division I mean - but not a tank corps' tank brigades).

Instead, each tank brigade would get its own assigned frontage. The motor rifle brigade might, too, or it might be split to support the tank brigades, or work with just one of them.

Tank brigade and rifle regiment commanders are tacticians, fighting their assigned battles with the tools they've been given. Tank corps and rifle division commanders are operational combined arms managers, assigning their assets to sub-elements to accomplish particular tasks, managing things like designating local reserves and reliefs, assigning fire support, etc. They also decide where the whole thing goes, which regiment or brigade is the main effort, which just holds, etc. Army commanders dole out the independent formations to strengthen this or that mission in this or that sector. And set the overall map plan, to thrust along this axis or that, etc.

[ February 23, 2004, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Rokossovski]

Thank you all so much for the excellent information. Thank you especially to JasonC for the detailed post! That was just exactly the information that I was looking for, and it has allowed me to craft out of CMBB some semi-historical formations for the campaign.

It is interesting to learn that Charles Sharp has written a series of books on Soviet OOBs. There is a gentleman by that name who used to attend meetings of a gaming group I belonged some years ago. (Early 1990s.) We generally played "Fire in the East/Scorced Earth," a massive hex-based operational/strategic eastern front game. Mr. Sharp never joined in the actual games, but he was working with the developers on refining their Soviet OOB, a subject over which he had an obvious mastery. A very interesting man to chat with. Presumably this is the same Charles Sharp.

Thank you again,

-- Rokossovski

[Andreas]

I don't quite agree with a few things that Jason has written. You should really get yourself Zaloga's book, and also have a look here:

www.redarmystudies.net

Somewhere on the net you can find a copy of TM30-430 'The Handbook of Red Army Forces', which is very informative for what you are looking at.

[YankeeDog]

I agree that the RAH would be very useful to you. For space reasons, my own reference library is very limited, but the RAH is one of the few books I've made room for. I find it especially useful because US, Commonwealth and German TOEs are generally fairly available on the web, but Soviet TOEs are still difficult to find on the internet.

Unfortnately, I'm at work, so I'll have comment by memory for the moment. If you can't affford (or can't wait for!) the book, I'm happy to look up any further details when I get home tonight - just post what you need.

To expand a bit on Jason's comments, if 1944 is the year you are interested in, it is important to keep in mind that standard rifle infantry brigades (as opposed to specialized structures like Ski or Mountain troops) as an organizational structure were being phased out by this point. By the time of Bagration, most of the remaining bog-standard rifle brigades raised in 1941 and 1942 had been folded back into rifle divisions (if they hadn't simply been attrited away, that is).

A WWII-era soviet rifle brigade is *roughly* equivalent to a rifle regiment from the same era, so three rifle brigades is approximately equal to a rifle division in terms of line infantry strength, but the brigades lack some of the division-level support assets, and of course the division level C&C assets.

This is a gross generalization, but basically the Rifle Brigade was an expedient TO&E in the Red Army used from 1941-1943 because it was quicker and easier to raise and train three separate rifle brigades than it was to raise and train an entire division. Among other things, due to Stalin's purges and heavy losses suffered in 1941, the Soviets lacked trained personnel and mid-level commanders needed to fill out divisional level C&C and support formations.

The reason why the Soviets moved away from the brigade structure for straight-leg infantry by mid-war is that brigades aren't trained and organized to work together the way the three regiments in a division are. Simply put, they lack the divisional C&C overhead. This means that even without the additional divisional support assets factored in, three rifle regiments in a division are a more effective, flexible force than are three independent rifle brigades that happen to be fighting together in the same area at the same time.

It's also worth noting that in 1944 *very* few Soviet infantry formations were operating at anywhere near full TO&E manpower. In fact, by late war, there were actually official "understrength" TO&Es for Soviet rifle divisions. Some of these "understrength" Division TO&Es were only somewhat larger than a full strength Brigade.

As for Armored formations, as Jason points out, roughly speaking Soviet Armored/Mechanized Corps = US or German Armored/Mechanized Division., and the component tank brigades are roughly equivalent to US tank battalions. I'd have to look it up to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that by Bagration the mixed T-34/T-70 formations were nearly gone; T-70 chassis production was completely converted to SU-76s in 1943 and in terms of tanks, you'd be seeing homogenous T-34 brigades. As Jason notes, Heavy tanks were a different animal, but IIRC these formations were also homogenous in terms of AFV type.

Working again from memory, I believe the most common assult gun formation in 1944 was the independent regiment, and Jason's post regarding the structure of these regiments matches my recollection. IIRC, the Soviets did experiment a bit with mixed light/heavy SU regiments in 1943 and early 1944, but these were found to be impractical for logistics reasons and by summer 1944 homgenous regiments of SUs were the norm.

My understanding of contemporary Soviet doctrine and practice was that SU Regiments were attached to Rifle Divisions on an as-needed basis to support initial breakthrough efforts. Tank forces would then exploit the gaps created into the enemy rear. So for a rifle division, the most likely type of armored support in 1944 would be SUs of one type or another (but likely only one type in a typical CM scale engagement), *not* tanks.

It is also worth noting late in the war (early 1945?), a battalion of SU-76s was added to the Soviet sifle division TO&E as an organic DF support asset. IIRC, very few divisions actually moved to this structure before the end of hostilities in Europe, though.

Artillery is also organized differently in the Soviet Army. Especially compared to an American division, a Soviet Rifle division is actually very light on artillery (though it has plenty of mortars). In general, the weight of Soviet artillery was in independent artillery divisions and corps (yes, corps!) commanded at the front level. I'm less sure about this, but my educated guess is that some of these front-level assets (and especially the heavier, longer-ranged ones), would remain under direct front control for deep CB, interdictive, and harrasment fire, while others, and especially the independent 76mm field artillery formations, would be assigned to individual divisions as dictated by the attack plan. In CM terms, this means that far and away the most common soviet off-board arty calibers supporting a soviet rifle infantry attack on the CM battlefield would be 81mm mortar, 120mm mortar, and 76mm gun. Most of the larger stuff would have either fired already as part of very large prep barrages, or be firing deeper behind enemy lines to silence enemy artillery and restrict enemy movement in response to the breakthrough effort.

I'm probably getting some of the details wrong. Again, I highly reccommend the book.

Cheers,

YD