Soviet Platoon Size

[Eagle2]

I just bought CM:A and I've gotta say I'm loving the new game. The biggest problem I have with it is the ridiculously small squad sizes for the Soviets. Five men in a squad? Really? It seems like as soon as my guys take like one casualty they're combat ineffective. Does anyone have any pointers when using these guys?

[MikeyD]

I believe the 'early' squads are a whopping big six men!

Someone once described to me Soviet forces doctrine. I guess you could say squads are considered mere cogs in the great machine. You're to assume large force actions, the use of overwhelming firepower. The envisioned role of infantry is to walk forward as an entire regiment over the charred corpses of their enemy to occupy the objective after their tanks, aircraft and artillery did their stuff. At least that was the doctrine. If you locate a PDF copy of "The Bear Went Over The Mountain" you'll see how often they fell short.

[Tank Hunter]

Here is the pdf

Makes for intresting reading

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA316729&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

[jjhouston]

From Defense Intelligence Agency Report: The Soviet Motorized Rifle Company, October 1976.

Download here

[Battlefront.com]

If you like that, you'll love the modern Bundeswehr with 6 dismounts from their Marders

One of the primary problems with Soviet armored vehicle design philosophy is the central concept of keeping the vehicle as small and low to the ground as possible. While this had definite benefits in the days before "smart" weaponry, on a modern battlefield it doesn't matter too much any more. While the negatives, most specifically limited capacity for crew and/or passengers, remains a significant issue. Anybody who has been inside a BMP-1 or T-72, and is over 5' 6" tall will know exactly what I mean

Steve

[JonS]

You're to assume ... the use of overwhelming firepower. The envisioned role of infantry is to walk forward ... over the charred corpses of their enemy to occupy the objective after their tanks, aircraft and artillery did their stuff.

That pretty much sums up most militaries doctrines - especially the US

[Battlefront.com]

I forgot to add, the late war platoons have their headcounts knocked down as the units were rarely at full strength due to a number of reasons. Therefore, it was decided the realistic thing to do was reduce the headcount. Then, just before Afghanistan was ready to launch, a feature was added that allows headcounts to be adjusted dynamically downwards. But it was too late to go back and rebalance all previous scenarios. We probably should have disabled this feature from Afghanistan.

Steve

[DreDay]

As paradoxical as it might seem, the 40th Army had gone down the path of reducing the squad size in the mid 80s. One explanation that I've read for this is that the Soviets were lacking the professional NCO cadre and the smaller squad size had allowed for the higher ratio of professional COs to enlisted soldiers which made their command more effective.

Peace,

DreDay

[Battlefront.com]

From my understanding the reduction was indeed due to necessity. However, the primary reason appears to be wounds and disease. Over 75% of all soldiers who served in Afghanistan were wounded to some degree at some point, 25% had a serious disease that would have interrupted fighting abilities. Given the nature of the war as a whole it's pretty clear that the average unit on the average day would be lucky to muster even close to their established TO&E strength.

Of course the Soviet organizational principles were under enough strain as it was even without the massive manpower shortages. A successful counter insurgency requires leadership and moral that even an all volunteer force, with long serving NCOs and officers, has trouble producing.

Steve

[DreDay]

Steve, we are talking about two different things here. Yes, Soviet units in Afghanistan were chronically undermanned (although it is more accurate to say that 75% of Soviet personnel were treated some sort of illness at some point of their service in Afghanistan, rather than "wounded"). However, what I am saying is that the 40th Army command had introduced some changes to MotorRifle Platoon TO&E whereby each dismounted squad had just 4 men in it.

Peace,

DreDay

[Battlefront.com]

DreDay,

Ah, my bad. The figures I were looking at lumped all casualties, wounded and disease, into one big figure and then broke out the serious illness as a separate figure. Looks like KIA and WIA accounted for about 10% of all troops who served.

I do understand your point that 40th Army introduced changes, but my guess is that the changes were at least some part a reflection of reality rather than some sort of pure doctrinal theory shift. Much like the late WW2 German TO&E shifted around to deal with manpower and equipment shortages, or US late WW2 TO&E incorporated weaponry that soldiers had basically stolen Put another way, if Soviet units had been able to regularly maintain close to 100% strength and high morale, would they have reduced Squad sizes to 4 men?

Steve

[Secondbrooks]

DreDay,

Ah, my bad. The figures I were looking at lumped all casualties, wounded and disease, into one big figure and then broke out the serious illness as a separate figure. Looks like KIA and WIA accounted for about 10% of all troops who served.

I do understand your point that 40th Army introduced changes, but my guess is that the changes were at least some part a reflection of reality rather than some sort of pure doctrinal theory shift. Much like the late WW2 German TO&E shifted around to deal with manpower and equipment shortages, or US late WW2 TO&E incorporated weaponry that soldiers had basically stolen Put another way, if Soviet units had been able to regularly maintain close to 100% strength and high morale, would they have reduced Squad sizes to 4 men?

Steve

This is what i gather as well. Russian and late-soviet military has been in serious problems with finding suitable amounts of NCOs, Junior officers or enlisted men. 90s in Chechnya lack of manpower in units was severe problem and usually there were just few dismounts per vehicle from accounts i've seen with first assault to Grozny. Ofcourse at that point Russian military was in poorer shape than in 80s but still i've read about similar problems with draft evasion.

Soviets did have severe lack with instructor staff. It doesn't really matter is it Junior officers, NCOs, or some other form of low level instructor staff as long as they are experienced and handle their trade. I think it was pretty common that company could have just few experienced staff members (from which one probably was tied to paper works also) who could handle/oversee training.

[MikeyD]

Russian... has been in serious problems with finding suitable amounts of NCOs, Junior officers...

Reminds me of U.S. in WWII Europe. I recall once seeing the average life expectancy of a front line infantry lieutenant after normandy. It may have been even shorter than your average B.A.R. gunner! :eek:

[Secondbrooks]

Reminds me of U.S. in WWII Europe. I recall once seeing the average life expectancy of a front line infantry lieutenant after normandy. It may have been even shorter than your average B.A.R. gunner! :eek:

Oh these. Was it something like 20-30 seconds? I think that was the amount of time was told to Maxim-machinegun trainees after ww2 in here. Which is also partially reason for short NCO life expectancy time and very high relative casualty figures: during war dedicated gunner got killed first and then his NCO got killed after manning MG. As usually happened with riflesquads as well. NCOs tend to end up manning squad's best weapon (well by default they had one of those, SMG), taking point, showing example... Which often led to them being killed.

Overall those life expectancy times which i've heard are pretty bizzare and logic how they are calculated is mystery to me... Modern FO-officers have calculated that their life expectancy time has reached -5 second

[LongLeftFlank]

Chronic undermanning was a huge problem for the US Army later in the Vietnam War as well, I believe, leading to such expedients as ROKUSAs -- putting a South Korean draftee in for every fifth GI in units in Korea -- as well as the induction of large numbers of non English speaking Latin Americans with the promise of a green card.

Ironically, while the first wave ROKUSAs were later ruled eligible for US citizenship, which was at the root of a large jump in the Korean-American population in the 1970s, many of their Latino comrades in arms never got their promised visas and were shipped back to their countries and forgotten. A subset of these later put their 'Nam jungle fighting skills to use for the Sandinistas, Sendero Luminoso and other Communist guerrilla groups. Or so I am given to understand -- this might all be myth.

[DreDay]

Very good discussion going on here. However, if I may add my 2 cents, I believe that there is a bit of a misconception... it seems to me that many people assume that the Soviets were running out of men to send to Afghanistan - this was hardly the case in reality. The Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan had numbered less than 120,000 men at its peak; at the same time the overall size of Soviet Armed Forces was in excess of 5.3 million men. If the Soviets had really wanted to, they could have definitely sent more soldiers into the theater. The reasons for the undermanned status of the battle units in the 40th Army were mainly political, organizational, and.... hygienic; but the Soviets were nowhere close to losing the battle of attrition.

Peace,

DreDay

[Kat Johnston]

The reasons for the undermanned status of the battle units in the 40th Army were mainly political, organizational, and.... hygienic; but the Soviets were nowhere close to losing the battle of attrition.

I'd guess cost was a major consideration as well. Expensive just to keep that many troops in theatre, plus the equipment loss and the soviet economy was in bad shape at the time anyway.

[DreDay]

I'd guess cost was a major consideration as well. Expensive just to keep that many troops in theatre, plus the equipment loss and the soviet economy was in bad shape at the time anyway.

The Soviets were simply unwilling to escalate their involvement in Afghanistan, which in my view was very smart of them. That partially explains why they did not overstrengthen their units there, but like I said, their small squad size in Afghanistan had a lot more to do with their organizational thinking and the lack of proper hygiene.

Peace,

DreDay

[Secondbrooks]

Very good discussion going on here. However, if I may add my 2 cents, I believe that there is a bit of a misconception... it seems to me that many people assume that the Soviets were running out of men to send to Afghanistan - this was hardly the case in reality. The Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan had numbered less than 120,000 men at its peak; at the same time the overall size of Soviet Armed Forces was in excess of 5.3 million men. If the Soviets had really wanted to, they could have definitely sent more soldiers into the theater. The reasons for the undermanned status of the battle units in the 40th Army were mainly political, organizational, and.... hygienic; but the Soviets were nowhere close to losing the battle of attrition.

Peace,

DreDay

I think it's not misconception. But same as with LongLeftFlank's Vietnam example: There simply were less people getting into Afganistan because local conscription offices (or what ever they were called) got less man material from which they could distribute less man material forexample to 40th Army. This in potentially one of the factors, others being which you name hygiene, political reasons, organization and so on. Potential because i don't have solid evidence of conscription evading in massive scale back in 80s.

What i'm pretty certain is that it caused problems with lowered quality of conscripts available to Soviet army. As a extreme example only clue sniffers, criminals and poor kids from street ended up being conscripted, while smarter part of youth simply evaded their call for service.

The Soviets were simply unwilling to escalate their involvement in Afghanistan

Publically Soviets weren't even in war, atleast not at start. They were helping in building infrastructure and other typical working class stuff. For Soviets offensive wars were always pretty touchy subject, atleast when casualty figures started to rise up and it was getting clear that troops weren't freeing working class, but instead working class was fighting against them. If numbers would have boosted up, this would have been clear evidence for Soviet people what there really was going on.

[DreDay]

I think it's not misconception. But same as with LongLeftFlank's Vietnam example: There simply were less people getting into Afganistan because local conscription offices (or what ever they were called) got less man material from which they could distribute less man material forexample to 40th Army. This in potentially one of the factors, others being which you name hygiene, political reasons, organization and so on. Potential because i don't have solid evidence of conscription evading in massive scale back in 80s.

You are taking a wild guess here and you are generally incorrect. Like I've said, the Soviet Army was numbering 5.3 million men at the time - they were not running out of men! While the popularity of the army service was not particularly high in the 1980s, there was no mass evasion of the service either. That phenomenon was born in the 1990s.

Peace,

DreDay

[MikeyD]

Let remember when an in-theatre soldier is wounded or invalided a replacement can't magically appear from the general pool of soldiers back home. Even if the replacement systems is working optimally there'd be a chronic lag between losing a soldier and replacing a soldier. Especially as the attrition occurs day after day after day. I understand U.S. units in Iraq sometimes resorted to placing dummies in guard towers due to chronic manpower shortages - also an army with a total 3 million(?) in uniform back home.

[Clavicula_Nox]

The Army, to include Active, Guard, and Reserve components, has somewhere between 1-1.5 million.

*edit*

I hate to use Wikipedia, but it cites a total number of 1,156,616 in 2009.

[vincere]

I understand U.S. units in Iraq sometimes resorted to placing dummies in guard towers due to chronic manpower shortages.

Woah, that's so ripe for a silly joke.

Serioulsy, MD, where did you hear that?

There was a news item this week about Russia deploying advanced inflatable AFVs that can fool radar. Deception is probably currently under-used by the west imo.

[DreDay]

Let remember when an in-theatre soldier is wounded or invalided a replacement can't magically appear from the general pool of soldiers back home. Even if the replacement systems is working optimally there'd be a chronic lag between losing a soldier and replacing a soldier. Especially as the attrition occurs day after day after day.

That's exactly right! One of the most obvious ways of combating such attrition involves overstrengthening the units so that they would maintain their expected size throughout the attrition. The Soviets were not willing to do that for both the organizational and political reasons - hence the chronically undermanned status of the 40th Army combat formations.

Peace,

DreDay

[MikeyD]

Serioulsy, MD, where did you hear that?

Oh, my original source for that has faded into the distant past, but I recall it was a 'real' quote from a real soldier in a real report about soldier experiences in Iraq during the worst years.