ikalugin

And interesting video on Russian Armed forces. May be of use for those considering the more up to date campaign scenarios.

It is much easier to produce optics for IRSTs (or even tank sights) than to mass issue them to infantry.

There is BMPT the tank support vehicle and BMPT the heavy IFV. Late Soviet terminology was a bit weird.

Yea, strictly speaking there is a case for limiting many vehicles ie Oplots. On the topic of UCAVs the idea is not new and predates the 2011 incident in Iran, for example there was Skat desighn, etc. Pic related. Skat began development in 2005 but finished in 2012 as it's competitor was lifting off so to speak. Okhotnik-B contract was signed in 2011 after the MoD voiced desire to develop such an aircraft in 2009.

Looks like positional warfare.

I seem to recall that the artillery spotting software was compromised at some point and fed targets to the separatist counter battery fire?

Remember, within a regiment’s artillery battalion you have 4 command elements (battalion commander and 3 battery commanders), one of them would be deployed with the main body or some other key element (the battalion commander) while the battery commanders would be deployed with other less significant maneuver elements, the tubes themselves could be redistributed within the battalion to form a RAG commanded by the battalion commander, to support various maneuver elements with various degrees of firepower. If no battery commander is available then I guess you are limited to using artillery recon (which feeds targets to the artillery commanders) or just your organic company/battalion mortars (some of which could be pooled into RAG)

I would classify a battery supporting a BTG as an example of that smaller scale artillery support. Maybe you have an example to better illustrate your question?

Say you are a battalion commander with an artillery battery in support acting as a part of the greater regimental effort. You would have that battery commander with you, he would be organising the fires as a part of your broader intent and mission and would be in direct contact with the commander of the artillery battalion that he is subordinated to that is supporting the regiment, in case he needs more fires than his own assets could provide.

http://roe.ru/pdfs/pdf_171.pdf Note that from the technical stand point mature in service automation complexes require less than 40s to prepare the firecontrol data from the target being lased.

There is an option to use smart submunitions, yes, for example: http://rbase.new-factoria.ru/missile/wobb/smerch/9m55k1.htm It is in service and was exported abroad.

To be honest I think that MRLs would be used mostly to cover the flanks of advancing friendly forces and slow down the enemy reinforcements with remotely deployed minefields, to cover the spaces between units by manuevering fire, to attack key points (artillery, air defence, command posts, reserves, logistics nodes) in the depth of the enemy.

Depends on the engagement geometry and the add-on armour package of that specific IFV type. Note that in addition to 30mm ACs those Soviet/Russian patern IFVs carry ATGMs.

To be honest I think it is possible for the game makers to take the right kinds of engagements for their game. For example while Soviet/Russian set up would concentrate masses of fires against prepared enemy defense, or his supporting assets or in the other way, there would be plenty of fluid engagements outside of the main bodies of forces, on the flanks of said forces (flanking detachments, economy of force groupings etc), in the deep forward/rear (forward detachments operating in the enemy rear) as part of a non linear battle. For many of those smaller forces operating outside of the main bodies there would be very little artillery support (relatively speaking) and it would be offered either by organic or attached artillery in a very sensible quantity, which would have their commanders (in case of Russian forces) co-located with the combined arms manuever force that they are supporting in their dedicated vehicles, with the direct data and voice link to the artillery forces that they run. While there is practice of pooling artillery units (after all the subordinate manuever formations got the organic/attached support they deem to need) into regimental (RAG), divisional (DAG), army (AAG) groups did/does exist, it would be used in support of the efforts of the parent formation, on the points of decision and in support of key elements of said parent formation and thus could not be expected to back every battalion tactical group or any other tactical force for that matter. Doing so (backing up every BTG with multiple battalions of artillery) would only disperse the assets and make achieving concentration and mass harder and in general seems bizzare (especially considering how there are not enough artillery units to do this anyway). If there is an interest to simulate the larger artillery concentrations on the points of decision, in support of key forces (ie certain forward detachments) done by RAG/BAG/DAG/AAG (and for the smaller organic types of artillery support for that matter) this could be done by introducing the artillery subunit/unit/formation commander's vehicle (or set of vehicles) or in case of linked but separate efforts - the recon assets that would be used in this role. In the case of the commander of a joint artillery forces (RAG/BAG/DAG/AAG) present this would mean very fast calls for fires in direct support of the combined arms unit he is co-located with, as this commander has the broad knowledge and experience in applying the fires, has direct links to his assets and has good grasp on how his assets work.

Incidentally your whole view on the organisation of fire support in Russian service appears to be wrong an bizzarre to me, I think this was discussed in the other thread. This is concerning as if you are using modern documents discussing the modern employment of Russian artillery then the whole establishment that produces them seems to be incompetent. To that end I would suggest reading one of the better writers on topic - Grau, for example this article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329933979_The_Russian_Reconnaissance_Fire_Complex_Comes_of_Age or this book for the bigger picture (it is sadly a bit outdated now): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329934215_The_Russian_Way_of_War_Force_Structure_Tactics_and_Modernization_of_the_Russian_Ground_Forces For example if an artillery battalion was to be allocated to direct support of a tactical unit (or if an artillery group was formed for that same purpose) then the artillery commander of that battalion would move and be co-located with the tactical unit he supports and would be the one drawing up artillery employment plans and would have direct voice and data link to his subordinate HQ in the rear, with the artillery battalion itself. This method, while not being the only one, is the one imbeded into the organisational structure of the artillery units and their automation complexes, such as the one you could see above. For the older (than present day) automation complexes (such as the one depicted above) the time within which is processes the calls is 50s I seem to recall.

Soviets had deployed a system of systems of automation complexes. For the combined arms ground forces there was the Manever (later Manevr-M) system built for the Front-Army/Corps and Division-battalion level, down to the battalion level CPs. Interfacing with it were specialised systems for air defense, etc from peer formations (ie air defense corps). Subordinate to it were specialised complexes (ie those for artillery and air defense units subordinate to that combined arms command). The process of command and control was automated (from now on I am not going to separate automated and automatic means but you can inquire further), comunications were both automated and datalinked. All of this was powered by computerisation. The overall layout of Division and below can be seen here: The overall layout of the Front-Army level could be seen here: Sadly I do not have a diagram for the in (Soviet) period 1V12 or other such complex for automation of an artillery battalion on hand as an example of those subordinate automation complexes, so I would substitute it with a more modern one, which keeps the same organisation:

How familiar are you with Soviet (and Russian) artillery (and general purpose) C4? Recon-fire and to lesser extend recon-strike complexes were not just ideas in 1980s, they were a reality with the new C4ISR being deployed in the time period, the organisational measures implemented.

(Emphasis mine) Are you familiar with the Soviet concepts of recon-fire complex and recon-strike complex?

Sure thing. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1629.html I am rather uncertain as to how this would change the balance of forces in Ukraine.

Did you read the RAND's estimate regarding the French ability to generate deployable mechanised forces?

ATGs are more convenient for direct fire I guess.

152mm/122mm are the standard Soviet era weapons with 152mm being at BDE and above and 122mm being at BDE/regiment level as a rule of thumb. 122mm in Russian service are being replaced by 120mm gun-mortars, as those have higher power (comparable to 152mm). There was also recorded use of 100mm ATGs in fire support role.

I was beeing generous to the European NATO majors, I am well aware of their issues.

That is too exotic for me and is not going to pull relevant forces and means away from reinforcing Ukraine.

There are several problems. First is that US, much like during Cold War is overseas from Europe and say a large scale war in Ukraine would require a significant (above a division) scale intervetion to change the balance of forces on the ground. Out of the European majors and please correct me if I am wrong, UK has 1 MRD equivalent, France and Germany have 2 each (strangely enough Poland is the more capable partner there) which creates a concern for their ability to rapidly deploy a force above a division into such an area as Ukraine in a quickly paced crisis. The second is that while it was possible and sensible to forward deploy significant forces in Europe during the Cold War doing so now may provoke security dilema (imagine 2 full US corps in Poland or worse still Baltics). The third is that in certain contingencies, say a large scale war in Ukraine, it would be possible for Russia through posturing and deception measures (such as creating a false threat to the Baltics) to draw away possible reinforcements.