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The idea of making the enemy "deploy early"


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Yes there are:

1) artillery is quite range limited in modern defensive positions, so making the enemy deploy 2km in front of the main line, means that his artillery is 3km further away than it needs to be from the main position. With a typical medium howitzer having a range of 12km and the distance between the first and second lines of defence being 6km, being 3km further back means that you can not really hit the second line of defences effectively.

2) It protects your fixed defences such as minefields and obstacles as enemy light troops cannot penetrate you outpost line to destroy them.

3) It conceals the position of your main defences.

4) It slows the enemies rate of advance as they have to move off roads and go cross country.

5) It allows your artillery to pin point the enemy position and to attack it while your own main body remains concealed.

6) It distrupts the enemy deployment as they have to deploy heavy troops to clear away the outpost line which gives warning of their line of attack and allows reserves to start to move towards the threatened are. For example at Kursk some German units cleared the Soviet outpost line the day before the main attack so that their main forces could jump off from start positions just in front of the Soviet main lines.

cheers

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Adam,

The two main answers are Time and Momentum, both necessary to a successful attack. The longer it takes the foe to close, the more time I have to identify the axis of attack, pound him with defensive fires, and rush reserves to the threatened area. Read some of the accounts of the Germans on the defensive in the West after the Normandy breakout to see this at work. Time and again, a single well handled StuG in well-chosen terrain could, by shooting one or two lead vehicles, stop entire divisions from advancing up a vital road, imposing delays of many hours in the attendant confusion and chaos.

A force which has constantly to deploy from column (best for high speed movement) to line (optimal firepower) is one that's burning up priceless daylight/darkness, depending on the attack plan, consuming additional fuel, using ammo which might otherwise go for breakthrough and exploitation, wearing out tracks and tires by going offroad, and really wearing down the soldiers' energy and morale.

Being stung repeatedly is hard to endure, especially since you can't effectively return the favor, there being almost nothing to shoot at, while you present a huge, juicy target.

Am sure you've been in a traffic jam, with its endless spasms of stopping and starting. Now, imagine doing that, under fire, all day!

All that wonderful planning, those lovely objective goose eggs on the map, the fuel and ammo estimates can be rendered useless if I, as the defender, can simply keep you from getting to my main body, forcing you to chase your tail (both figuratively and logistically) while getting pretty much nowhere. In turn, this allows me to set up proper defenses to the rear, manned by my still intact force.

Even at a small scale, I want you to deploy early, because when you do so, it multiplies the value of my defensive firepower by increasing the time available to service the targets you present, precisely when you have relatively little to hit me with and less to shoot at. That's why you should always keyhole defensive weapons, since this automatically limits the potential volume of return fire. Alternate firing positions are good to have, too. What I'm trying to do is take the edge off your spearhead through attrition, while simultaneously removing the energy you plan to use to thrust it home by slowing you down in every way possible. The more times I force you to react and deploy, the less power your offensive thrust has. If resources permit, and I can wear you down enough, I may even be able to go on the offensive myself. See post Kursk for how that works!

Regards,

John Kettler

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I don't buy any fire effects. A column of march is much more vulnerable and that isn't the point at all. It is delay and misdirection.

Besides hitting the main line of defense later with more warning, the procedure can also be duplicated repeatedly, purely to delay the enemy. Meaning, as soon as he deploys, withdraw and do it again 2-3 miles up the road. That is classic delaying action.

The only other benefit is misdirection on the part of the attack. I mean, he tries to flank the wrong position. Or directs a barrage at the wrong spot. After laboriously conducting some clever maneuver to put the defense out of position, the attacker finds he has put at most a few guys out of position, if they haven't pulled back already themselves, and the main line of defense is still in front of him, and nothing he did for the last 4 hours had any connection to the actual tactical problem he really needs to solve.

This gives the defense time, wastes attacker effort, reveals intentions and forces, gets in the attackers heads and POs him, etc. All good things. No obvious downside.

Another point about deploy early stuff is how it fits Russian pursuit doctrine. The Russians understood breakthrough fighting as driven by a logic of parallel pursuit, or in other words a race to the enemy rear. The point was not to attack the enemy, once through him anywhere, but to out-hustle him to a position well behind his forward elements.

If the defender is retreating along road A, pursue not down road A (a small following force to take stuff abandoned, sure, but not the main body), but along road B parallel to A, or even off road parallel to A and fairly close to it (if terrain permits or using infantry e.g.). Out distance the retreaters. Get your forward elements miles behind his van and then and only then swing over to the route he is using. To block it.

Even once that route is blocked, don't make it about fighting, but instead continue the logic of parallel pursuit. Screen only across the enemy route and send others deeper along that route. Own the road behind him for mile after mile, and be able to reach those positions by a route besides the one he is on. The idea is to use race speed and delay by small elements to present the enemy with a tactically daunting series of attacks, just to get to his own rear.

Well, if an attacker is properly attempting such parallel pursuit tactics and you are a retreating defender, then forcing the attacker to instead deploy and waste time in a set piece battle, frontally, is all gain. You use the time involved to race your own main body to safer positions farther back, to tie in with units on the flanks, etc. If the attacker isn't properly attempting such parallel pursuit tactics, you have little to fear from him anyway, runs the thought. Just wear him down and wait for supports.

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JasonC,

I think you miss the point. It is precisely the coming under fire while in march column, from which minimal firepower is available against threats directly in front, that forces the deployment to deal with the threat. That's why after the war the Russians devoted so much time and energy to developing procedures for swiftly deploying from line of march into line of battle, not to mention the ever larger advance formations intended to brush aside inconsequential resistance, or, failing that, fix it in place to permit maneuver against it by the parent formation.

Regards,

John Kettler

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No, I don't miss the point, as usual you are belaboring the obvious.

No advantage to the defender in fire combat terms is deliberately sought by making the attacker deploy earlier rather than later. Earlier posts in the thread alleged that the attacker deploying later would somehow minimize his exposure to indirect fires, so that forcing a deployment sooner would increase said exposure. Which was incorrect.

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By JasonC

No advantage to the defender in fire combat terms is deliberately sought by making the attacker deploy earlier rather than later.

Except the attacker is forced to feed in resources on the fly piecemeal in a location selected by the defender. The alternative for the attacker is to set up the attack properly giving the defender the time to redeploy further back thus negating the preparations.

The Red Army in WWII was structred so that the manouver elements did not have the integrated fire support elements needed to conduct unplanned/unpreprepared fire and movement operations. This is why the Red Army planned (orchestrated) meticulously its operations and their operations rarely exceeded planned objectives. Their planning projected and anticipated the enemy reactions to their movements and they had EVERYTHING planned out.

Earlier posts in the thread alleged that the attacker deploying later would somehow minimize his exposure to indirect fires, so that forcing a deployment sooner would increase said exposure. Which was incorrect.

Depending on the defending force composition and level of preparation the deploying forces might be entering preplanned indirect fire grid upon contact. Once the attacking forces are fixed the defender has the advantage.

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This sort of aggressively arrogant, patent nonsense is exactly why it is not worth it, trying to have a doctrinal or tactical discussion with you people. The attackers edge does not consist in being in motion in road column. Ergo, it does not evaporate as soon as he isn't in motion in road column. Whatever odds and overall operational initiative made him the attacker in the first place are still operating, and it is just nuts to claim that as soon as he is out of road column the defender has the advantage. Worse, it is a false conclusion from a false premise, that an attacker is fixed when he deploys. As the word deploys means in the English language, some attackers are going one place and others to another place, according to a scheme of maneuver picked by the attacker. Some may deliberately fix the defense, others will not. This is all transparent, no one remotely serious can possibly actually believe that defenders win as soon as the attackers leave road column, as though remaining in road column forever were the secret of victory. It is just nonsense. Why is it maintained, anyway? A spirit of contradiction, wishing to take pot shots at anything already said.

Adam, if you actually care to discuss any of this, email me if you like. I am not going to bother trying to talk about such things here anymore.

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JasonC - you do us wrong, mistaking our ignorance and limited communication abilities for malicious spite and arrogant tantrumming. Have mercy on us, lead these incompetents to the light, I beg you.

At the sophist point of the argument, the idea of an "premature" deployment being somewhat equivalent to an "unprepared" deployment would give the [soviet] tactic validity - the really interesting bit is in the mechanics of "forcing" your opponent to be unprepared.

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By JasonC

This sort of aggressively arrogant, patent nonsense is exactly why it is not worth it, trying to have a doctrinal or tactical discussion with you people.

Why ? Because your knowledge of prevailing terrain conditions and adjoining tactics and doctrine are superior ?

The attackers edge does not consist in being in motion in road column. Ergo, it does not evaporate as soon as he isn't in motion in road column.

That depends on the terrain. We are debating Red Army tactics and doctrine and given the scope most of the time a single road is the avenue of advance. Going off road slows mechanized movement and makes it sometimes even impossible. That means that when the forward echelon makes contact deployment is parallel to the initial point.

For some curious reason the Red Army combat units were combat heavy with very little organic logistical and LR fire support elements. Why do you think they chose to form them that way ? Could it be that the Red Army idea of a road collumn was diffrent from what the Western Allies imagined it to be ?

Whatever odds and overall operational initiative made him the attacker in the first place are still operating, and it is just nuts to claim that as soon as he is out of road column the defender has the advantage.

What ? Sun Tsu and von Clausewitz had it figured wrong when they dreamed up taking initiative and foiling the opponents plans to be of prime importance ?

Worse, it is a false conclusion from a false premise, that an attacker is fixed when he deploys.

So the defender has no clue as to where his forces are deployed and where the projected/expected enemy forces will be when contact is established ?

As the word deploys means in the English language, some attackers are going one place and others to another place, according to a scheme of maneuver picked by the attacker.

Said maneuver will be highly dependant on the terrain the defender has chosen to make his stand in.

Some may deliberately fix the defense, others will not.

Very true.

This is all transparent, no one remotely serious can possibly actually believe that defenders win as soon as the attackers leave road column, as though remaining in road column forever were the secret of victory.

Making the attacker deploy is not a victory condition. But it will cost the attacker time so the defender can plan ahead. Stalin dreamed up some pretty hairbrained (suicidal) defensive moves during the summer and autumn of 1941. Just to slow the Germans down and buy time in his bid to last until the winter set in.

Later on he kinda forgot this when he overstretched his operational goals and lost some operations pretty spectacularly. The sumo wrestler tactics and doctrine the Red Army adobted later on worked because the goals were limited and all efforts were made to make the Germans play according to the Red Army play book. The objectives were as important as the need for the Red Army to bleed the German forces white in the process.

The Germans on the otherhand were handicapped because their freedom to manouver was taken away from them at OKH level. That meant that the German forces used fixed line defences when they should have been manouvering. They had the space but did not have the permission to use it.

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Jason, not everybody is like Tero or John Kettler, which clearly do not like to read your thoughts.

For the other kind of people, please ignore them and continue to share your very instructive thoughts here.

I learnt more in 1 month by reading you than during years of reading self declared experts on various sites.

So, once again, please ignore the fools and continue to share your wisdom with whom who ask for it, who need it.

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talking about warfare and Soviet doctrine as a Finn is a hard task when you are not talking to another Finn. there's a serious danger of talking past the other fellow because you can't expect him to know anything meaningful about Finno-Soviet wars, while Finno-Soviet wars had their specific twists.

fighting Finns was quite a nightmare for Red Army still in 1944. Soviets commented how Finns fight "the wrong way", against the book, totally unorthodox and in direct contradiction to rules of war. the non-Finn non-Russian doesn't know much anything about it, because Western writers don't know about it either (or worse still, like Glantz just repeat Stalinist propaganda without looking at what even front level commanders wrote about it back then).

there's a lot about force deployment in Finno-Soviet wars.

you have the classical tactical level Winter War "motti" battles, in which marching Soviet divisions are chopped apart before they ever manage to deploy their forces.

you have summer 1944 pursuit battles, in which, on one hand, Soviet strategic and operational level forces never really manage to have a clear battle with the defenders -- a strategic / operational unability to deploy the forces effectively (which pretty much lost them the campaign). this is achieved pretty much by what JasonC already described.

on the other hand, you have the summer 1944 battles in which the defender did choose to take a stand and the deploying Soviet forces are largerly neutralized by operational fires. this more what Tero is describing, i think.

then there is the Finnish tactical level "active defense" doctrine. counterattacks that are almost microscopic, seemingly uncoordinated & isolated, totally meaningless in force ratio calculations. e.g a single infantry battalion attacks a Soviet Guards Rifle Division head on. the superior Soviet force is confused by the blatant and laughable error of scale of the Finnish attack. the Soviet "winning by scale" doctrinal counter of massed fires is an ineffective response to such a small scale attack. the division is unable to deploy its forces effectively and is thrown back by the battalion.

the thing about deployment is that it requires a great deal of work. it's a huge hassle. on operational level the deployment of an army can take days. then, when that deployed army attacks a dummy target (e.g. the non-existant largely non-defended Mannerheim line in 1944), the operational loss in time and tempo is quite remarkable. the deployment will also generate friendly losses, no matter if the target is just a "dummy" or not, especially if the defender has well organized arty.

in CM you can deploy your forces as many times as you like (battle turn limit permitting). in real world (on higher level) you could deploy your force only a number of times, perhaps as few as 3-5 times, no matter how big (read: small and insignificant) each of the battles turn out to be. thus you don't want to waste a deployment in a marginal, non-decisive battle.

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The debate about 'fire effect' on early deployment is maybe not as simple or a polarised as one may think.

It was standard German doctrine to have OPs forward in their alarm post line VSS (4,000m out from the main position) and their outpost line GVP (2,000m out), the former spotting for 150mm and the latter for 105mm. So there was some attempt to engage the enemy with artillery fire in-front of the HKL main position. But how effective would that be.

The Soviets approach, usually with scouts, they get engaged and go to ground. Some sort of company sized support unit, immediately behind, engages the position and tries to push it back. This is engaged with artillery fire. Behind the next hill, the Soviet main body deploys (?) but is still invisible. With a good idea of what they are facing the Soviets mount a second attack with the correct sized force. This is again engaged with artillery fire and while so covered, our German advance position slips away to another rear position.

So the net result is that the Germans are able to fix and attack an enemy advanced force with artillery but it is unlikely to be able to inflict any damage on the main body (probably still sitting on the road in column of march). Soviet casualties from this will be low but it does give the forwards positions (small light units anyway) a good level of support fire power.

Only at the main position, when the Soviet main body is finally thrown into the attack does it expose itself to artillery fire that is going to do it appreciable damage.

But in certain circumstances, more common in the outpost line, a company sized position might be held for some time and a battalion sized formation be needed to shift it. Which would offer a good artillery target. At Kursk, the Soviets held some advanced villages with battalion sized formations that had to be cleared the day before by very large forces.

So I can see what JasonC is saying and John too. But the correct answer is 'maybe'.

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JanMasterson,

I have a lot of respect for JasonC's depth and breadth of knowledge regarding the Red Army, among other things, but this doesn't mean I can't or won't challenge him on various military matters. This is one of them, and I happen to think he got it wrong. Evidently, my reply and/or others hit a nerve on his end, resulting in the notable board fulmination which occurred. No big deal.

Simple logic reveals that, provided the road's not blocked or badly jammed, a unit moving by road can move far faster than one forced to deploy from line of march into line, then go cross country. It logically follows, therefore, that if I don't want such a high speed advance occurring into my area, it behooves me to force the attacker to slow down, better yet stop altogether. Ideally, this is done with full engineer support in obstacle creation (craters, mines, barbed wire, abatis, blown bridges, etc.), but if not, ordinary fire works wonders, being fully capable, all by itself, of taking the steam out of an attack. Where, when, and how that fire is delivered can also have a lot of impact, not just in casualties but in what it does to the enemy's mind.

Elsewhere, I cited the case of the hordes of advancing North Vietnamese T-54/T-59s during the 1972 Easter Offensive offensive. Tank after tank blew up mysteriously, leading the survivors to think, for a few critical minutes, that they'd entered an antitank minefield. Actually, it was much worse. They were being picked off by South Vietnamese crewed old M48A3 Patton medium tanks--fired from ranges simply beyond the initial comprehension of the North Vietnamese or their ability to reply--3000 meters. Summary here under Dong Ha.

http://stason.org/TULARC/history/vietnam/02-The-Use-of-Armoured-Vehicles-in-the-Vietnam-War-The-role.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Quang_Tr

This detailed article says the M-48s were "brand-new." Frankly, I doubt it. Doesn't really matter, though. Just notice the complete mess a few tank kills and two brave men cause. ARVN Sergeant Luom was credited by Marine advisor, Captain Ripley, with singlehandledly "stopping the momentum of the attack," while Captain Ripley, while the NVA point was in confusion because of Luom's heroic stand, blew the bridge. This was a full blown NVA attack, down a national highway, of an infantry division supported by a tank regiment. Defending armor? A single company of M-48s!

http://kbc3337design.tripod.com/ripley.htm

It was the long range tank gunnery, coupled with Luom's heroics, which bought the time for all the other elements to be brought into position, resulting in an NVA dead end at the hands of naval gunfire and tacair, as you can see for yourself in the pic. Here, first the delaying action, then the bridge demolition, stopped the road advance cold, to which the NVA responded by sending its PT-76s forth in order to cross the river amphibiously.

They, too, came to grief.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Stalin's Organist,

Very detailed account. From what I've seen, the NVA tankers a) thought they'd hit a minefield, B) thought they'd been waylaid by tank killer teams, c) could clearly see that tanks were shooting at them, but couldn't do anything about it. Also, the M48A3s were a) badly worn, B) worn with some needing major repair, c) brand new. What's clear is that a force about the size of a U.S. company dealt some serious punishment at long range, stunning, stinging and enraging the NVA, with the rest of the amazing story already given.

Regards,

John Kettler

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  • 4 weeks later...

Is an hour of firing a day sustainable for an artillery gun? The hour of fire would be spread out across many fire missions. Is it sustainable for a week? What about a few hours or more of firing per day? What kind of lifespan do tubes have, I wonder.

US 105mm howitzer

Death Traps by Belton Y. Cooper ISBN 0-89141-814-8

The author explains the 105mm round could be seperated to adjust the amount of propellant charges. Each new round came with 7 bags of smokeless powder. Every 7 propellants used equalled a service round. Army ordinance estimated the service lfe of the barrel to be 7500 service rounds fired at a rate of 4 per minute. However, the gun barrels did not fire near that many service rounds (no specific number given) and the entire divisions 105mm barrels (54 in all) needed immediate replacement. Army ordinance were told, and had to see to believe the 105's were being fired at over 10 rounds per minute.

'Weapons of War' Series: The 25-Pounder in Canadian Service

by Doug Knight ISBN 1-894581-26-1

The 25-lb gun was not the most powerful or longest ranged weapon on the battlefield, but Doug points out where its strengths were and why it was popular. One point he makes is the gun fired a projectile only slightly smaller than the US 105mm (25 pounds versus 33 pounds) to the same range and with a smaller and more easily handled gun. The 25-lb barrel was also more long-lived. Artillery weapons' life expectancies are based on how many "full charge" (e.g. tabular charges for reaching maximum range as designed without any modifications to the charge or projectile) rounds could be fired: for the 25-lb gun, it was 10,000 effective full charge (EFC) rounds. To put this in perspective, Soviet sources note that their powerful long range 2S5 152mm gun only had a life expectancy of 300 EFC rounds, and that the early T-72 125mm 2A46 gun had a life expectancy of only 200 EFC (e.g. sabot) rounds. Of course, firing reduced charges increases life expectancy and "super-charges" reduce it (e.g. each "super-charge" is rated at 4 EFC for life expectancy computations for the 25-lb gun). He notes that some guns were still fitted with their original barrels when placed out of service in the 1950s.

From my own memory, I thought I had read the 75mm L/70 & 88mm L/71 had service lives in the 400-500 round range. While the 75mm L/48 & 88mm L/56 lasted 3-4 times longer.

This is also part (yes just part) of the reasoning behind the US Army Ordnance Dept.'s decision to stick with the lower velocity 75mm main armament on the M4 series. They didn't want to be replacing tank barrels so often. Easier to replace the whole tank I guess.:confused:

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1st/7th Air Cavalry battle in the Ia Drang Valley November 7th 1965:

A and C batteries 1/21st Artillery operating from Firebase Falcon fired 18,000 rounds over 53 hours straight with their 105mm, two broke down during this period and were repaired - recoil mechanism failures. - "We were soldiers once" Moore and Galloway.

That makes 2250 rounds per gun firing at a range of 6 miles ie pretty near max range of 7 miles so almost maximum charges. Firing rate of 0.7 rounds per minute for the whole period, max rate for short periods over 10 rounds per minute. So probably used a third of the barrel life in just two days.

This is about as intense as it gets in real life.

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