Russian army under equipped?

[Battlefront.com]

well in summary I think we all pretty much agree that there really isn't a scenario that makes sense from even the Russian perspective to warrant invading the Baltic States.  Little to no return for the risk involved.  The threat may be more interesting from a pressure perspective for Russia and maybe an incident could occur because of brinksmanship on both parties, but an actual invasion is far fetched.

We must continually view the world through Putin's eyes since how he views this sort of situation is all that matters.  For example, the West thought Putin would never be so bold as to annex Crimea (invade, yes, but annex?!?) because Crimea is a very expensive piece of real estate to hold (net negative economy, sanctions, poor relations with the West, etc.).  Most Western experts agree that Putin didn't see it that way because he didn't think Russia would have to pay a price for it because of European disunity and weakness.  And then there's a couple dozen things that have happened since that seem to make no logical sense to a Western mind, but to Putin's it does.

That said, I think even Putin understands it would be the end of his regime if he invaded.  I don't mean the West would unseat him, I mean someone internally would.

No plans to go Larry Bond

 

I wanted to contribute with a little bit of info I have regarding the state of Latvian army.

Thanks for that!

In terms of resisting a hybrid force backed up by Russian armed forces using the Ukrainian model (i.e. SF, EW escalating to direct involvement of Russian armored and artillery forces), Latvian land forces are insufficient in both quantity and quality.

Yup.  Alone Latvia would be screwed.  At least for the short term.  Long term?  Russian occupation would not last very long.

Truly not important for the discussion but I just want to get the facts straight and I'm not going to mention it again. ... However ethnically and culturally this region remained German not Polish.

Most definitely.  And today it is Russian both ethnically and culturally.  But my point was about something else and even then was not intended to be a significant one.  Just there for comparison.

Back to the hypothetical war scenarios in the Baltics - a full blown Russian invasion is unlikely, however in m opinion the Russian would have a significant advantage during the initial stages of the operation. Later on, they could successfully prevent NATO from sending in the reinforcements there, thanks to their A2/AD capabilities and by closing the Suwalki Gap.

 

Except for the US, currently NATO armies are on lower readiness level than the Russians. The Baltic States possess minuscule military capabilities, while the Polish military is in the middle of a chaotic modernization and right now it's a complete mess. Polish armeded forces would be unable to defend the territory of Poland east of Vistula river, not to mention any intervention in the Baltics. 

I've been studying the modern Russian military for a very long time.  I have watched its actions in Ukraine very intently.  One thing that I see over and over and over again is not keeping in mind that there are three Russian Armies to talk about:

1.  Tip of the Spear (VDV, Spetsnaz, Marines, and some of the supporting arms).  These guys are very well equipped by most standards, decently trained, and recently with combat experience in Donbas (Crimea was not a combat op).  They are mostly contract soldiers and definitely are the best of the Russian military.  They are also the SMALLEST portion of the Russian military.

2.  Transitional forces.  A mix of units that are in the process if modernizing.  Very unevenly equipped, trained, and staffed with contract soldiers.  Some of these units are pretty good, others are just starting the process of modernization.  This is a pretty good chunk of the Russian Army.

3.  Waiting for attention.  Units that are currently waiting to be upgraded to modern standards.  They have the worst equipment, training, and percentage of contract soldiers.  They aren't even fully staffed in some cases.

I don't remember exactly what the numbers are, but it's something like 25% in the first category, 25% in the second category, and 50% in the third category.

On NATO's side, it's readiness is "low" mostly in terms of potential.  Meaning, on paper the NATO forces are a lot stronger than they are now, for sure.  They also lack the "heavy lift" capabilities to project power far away from home.  They might have even lost their edge in a few areas, such as electronic warfare.  But none of that matters if what they have is good enough to deal with a Russian invasion.

NATO's standing, combat ready force is at or near Russia's "Tip of the Spear" units even if you exclude the US from the mix.  In terms of size it is greater than that of Russia's best.  Add US to the mix and it's extremely lopsided.  Meaning, even if Russia sent every single last one of its best soldiers into the Baltics the West could easily outnumber them with equal or better forces without significant practical obstacles (other than political, which of course is the big unknown).

Of Russia's 2nd line of units, I'd argue that NATO and especially the US' reserve units are superior in terms of equipment, training, leadership, and absolutely combat experience.  As I said many posts ago, this would be one of the worst times in history for Russia go pick a fight with the US in terms of available combat experience.

No NATO country has anything comparable to Russia's 3rd line of units.  Even a hastily activated NATO unit would at a minimum be better equipped and most likely have better training and even some amount of combat experience.

What this means is that if Russia wants to pick a small fight with someone, it's got enough forces to do it with very good troops and support units.  But a large fight?  It is totally outclassed by the existing NATO forces which could be in the fight within weeks or months.

 

A more likely scenario would include a start of insurgency based on the ethnic minorities. As in Donbas those insurgents could receive a substantial military aid from Russian and battalion size tactical groups could occasionally cross the border. Those tactical groups could clash with a NATO rapid reaction forces and any potential modern era CM game could exploit that scenario.

As we say in English, "that ship has sailed".  NATO and the Baltics are ready for this sort of thing now, thanks to Crimea and especially Donbas.  It simply can not happen now.  There are three primary reasons:

1.  during the critical first few months nobody in the West was really sure of what was going on and what they should do about it.  They've had 2 years to adjust their perceptions of Russia and its capabilities. Russia has lost the strategic element of surprise and a lot of its shock value.

2.  control of the border was critical for early and continuing operations in both Crimea and Donbas.  This was aided by the fact that Ukraine was not in any position to resist any sort of military incursion at the time.  The political turmoil and decades of carefully cultivated "divided loyalties" within the Ukrainian government and military made absolutely sure that Russia could do whatever it wanted without meaningful Ukrainian counter actions for the critical beginning stages.  The borders of the Baltics are small and nobody in the West would allow the Russians the sort of total control of the border region as they enjoy in Ukraine.

3.  The Baltics have already started the process of developing counter measures to the early portion of the invasion to either snuff it out (best case) or contain it (worst case).  They are also starting to counter the existing groundwork that Russia has been laying for the last 20 years.  If Russia decided to crank up the pressure it would be noticed and at least challenged before it got too far along.

Here is Latvia's report dated Spring of 2014 (i.e. a few months after Russia invaded Donbas but before the Russian counter offensive of late 2014):

http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZPC/Publikacijas/PP 02-2014.ashx

After detailing Russia's "hybrid warfare" (or as the Latvians call it, "New-Generation Warfare") it had this to say about lessons for Latvian national defense policy;

The implication for Latvia is that the biggest challenge to its security and defense is Russia’s operationalization of the first and second phase of New-Generation Warfare, since their success determines the implementation of the following phases. Russia’s actions include issuing Russian passports to non-citizens, supporting pseudo human-rights movements, backing the organization of a referendum for Russian to be the second official language in Latvia, surveying the population of the Eastern border to get intelligence on their inclination to support a scenario similar to Ukraine in Latvia, just to cite a few. Plus, in a more subtle way, Russia has been successfully influencing internal politics through some of the political parties. Since the possibility of Russia escalating its operations in Latvia is dependent on the success of the first phases of warfare, and since the National Armed Forces have no mandate to inter- vene in internal affairs, it is the responsibility of other institutions to guarantee that a situation similar to Ukraine does not occur in Latvia. This seems to be a difficult task, since Latvia lacks a comprehensive plan for counter-reacting and containing increasing Russian influence by the smart power instruments of New-Generation warfare that, in a worst case scenario, can result in developments similar to those seen in Crimea.

This is not to say that Latvia would be entirely successful in combating Russia's "hybrid warfare" model, but historically speaking... identifying what a potential enemy plans to do is the most important part of eventual success.  Since Russia has employed this method of warfare for 20+ years based on a model going back 100+ years, there's a lot of information out there to learn from.  Especially Crimea and even more so Donbas.

In short... the first step in the road to recovery is to admit you have a problem.  If you read the Latvian report you will see they admit to having a problem.  I'd bet more heavily on Latvia addressing its problems than Russia addressing its own.

Steve

Edited January 31, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

A good article on "Green Men" and the applicability to NATO Article 5 and Baltics;

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/01/little-green-men-baltic-states-are-article-5-event

 

The ambiguity of the little green men is calculated to increase the political difficulty of a second, or third, party response.  In every case, however, political ambiguity worked best when political interest, political will, and/or media attention were lacking.  In Crimea, both Ukraine and the West lacked sufficient political interest and will for a strong response, although media attention abounded.  ...

These same conditions would not be replicated if little green men should appear in the countries many have speculated may be next—the Baltic States.  The Balts have learned from Crimea and Donbas, and understand the appropriate response to a hypothetical appearance of little green men.  As Minister of Defense, current President Raimonds Vējonis stated bluntly several times on the record that if little green men appear in Latvia, military force will be employed: “we will shoot them.”  Nor would the Baltic States be a media backwater should serious Russian-themed trouble occur.  The topic would force itself onto the world’s—and especially NATO’s—immediate political agenda.  An invocation [of Article 5] would oblige NATO to confront the reality that the little green men directly represent Russian military and state power and that a NATO constituent country is under direct military attack. ...

On 1-2 December 2015 in Brussels NATO recognized as much by adopting a policy which allows invocation of Article 5 not just in response to overt invasion, but also in case of hybrid warfare, as one choice among others (such as Article 4, consultation) open to member countries.

The last bit is important.  It is an example of what I've been saying about the West having 2 years (and counting) to prepare for a "hybrid war" that they had neglected prior to Ukraine.  Before the December 2nd clarification it wasn't exactly clear that Green Men would fall under the category of an Article 5 invocation (though I expect it would have after some debate).  Which means that any use of Green Men by Russia would be an immediate grounds for invoking Article 5.  And for sure the Baltics would do this whether the rest of NATO wanted to hear about it or not.

http://www.lsm.lv/en/article/societ/society/foreign-minister-green-men-covered-by-nato-article-5.a157727/

This clarification to Article 5 itself takes a big bite out of Russia's current strategy because there is now a hair trigger set very early in the process that wasn't there before.  The success of Russia's operations have always depended upon a lack of meaningful response early on.  Simply having Article 5 invoked qualifies as the sort of meaningful response Russia can not afford to have if it is to succeed without switching to overt warfare.

And another article showing that someone in the Latvian government read its own report.  Either that or it is pure coincidence that it is deep in the the process of defining "wartime" and how quickly the defense forces can be put into action.  I don't believe in coincidences

http://www.lsm.lv/en/article/politics/saeima-moves-fast-on-presidents-speedy-security-laws.a154824/

Steve

Edited January 31, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[John Kettler]

 

The shift in the nature of this thread: from discussions of individual kit to in-depth, heavily discussed geo-strategic assessments makes my mind reel. I do, though, have a few salient points to make.

Russia is officially assessed by the US as having 4000 military personnel in Syria. That number may well be much higher by now.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-idUSKCN0SX0H820151108

If (note conditional) this story is to be believed, Putin has called up 150,000 reservists and is sending them to Syria.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/609757/Putin-ISIS-Islamic-State-Syria-Raqqa-troops-soldiers-air-strike-jets-military
 

Back in October 5, 2015, Putin reportedly sent in Spetsnaz and the 7th Air Assault Mountain Division. But Spetsnaz was already in-country and operating, as seen here. Obviously, in order to be running combined ops no later than October 1, 2015 (vid posting date) with Syrian Army Rangers, Spetsnaz had to have been there weeks prior. In light of these things, together with statements from Putin Russian forces will stay indefinitely, I would argue that known forces committed in defense of Assad, let alone any additional reinforcements, will tie up a lot of Putin's best troops, further constraining his military options when it comes to further military adventurism in the Baltics and elsewhere. 

Am having technical problems, so vid is below my usual sign off.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Ivanov]

Few days ago in Syria


 

 

[Ivanov]

 

 

I've been studying the modern Russian military for a very long time.  I have watched its actions in Ukraine very intently.  One thing that I see over and over and over again is not keeping in mind that there are three Russian Armies to talk about:

1.  Tip of the Spear (VDV, Spetsnaz, Marines, and some of the supporting arms).  These guys are very well equipped by most standards, decently trained, and recently with combat experience in Donbas (Crimea was not a combat op).  They are mostly contract soldiers and definitely are the best of the Russian military.  They are also the SMALLEST portion of the Russian military.

2.  Transitional forces.  A mix of units that are in the process if modernizing.  Very unevenly equipped, trained, and staffed with contract soldiers.  Some of these units are pretty good, others are just starting the process of modernization.  This is a pretty good chunk of the Russian Army.

3.  Waiting for attention.  Units that are currently waiting to be upgraded to modern standards.  They have the worst equipment, training, and percentage of contract soldiers.  They aren't even fully staffed in some cases.

I don't remember exactly what the numbers are, but it's something like 25% in the first category, 25% in the second category, and 50% in the third category.

 

I've found the photos from recent exercises of Russian 86th Brigade. The troops and equipment look like they were from the times of First Chechen War or from the late 80's. 
 

http://codename-it.livejournal.com/2273148.html

However I think that the western observers may not appreciate the speed of modernization of Russian armed forces. They can achieve much more with less funds available in comparison to the western armies, especially in terms of the ground forces. The main question is, for how long those efforts will be sustainable. I think that the old quotation: "Russia is never as strong as she looks; nor as weak as she looks"  is as much valid today as it was in the XIX century.

 

Edited January 31, 2016 by Ivanov

[VladimirTarasov]

Ivanov, The 86th brigade should be modernized by atleast 80% now I have a image on them but I have no clue how to upload it.

[BTR]

This is not the 86th Brigade, but 86th Brigade reservists assembly. 

[sburke]

However I think that the western observers may not appreciate the speed of modernization of Russian armed forces. They can achieve much more with less funds available in comparison to the western armies, especially in terms of the ground forces. The main question is, for how long those efforts will be sustainable. 

I think that the old quotation:

"Russia is never as strong as she looks; nor as weak as she looks"  

is as much valid today as it was in the XIX century.

 

I don't understand this statement.  Exactly how is upgrading hardware, outfitting units and training them in the use of those units somehow a cheaper proposition in Russia?  Lower training standards fewer field exercises, skimping on maintenance?  If anything with the corruption in manufacturing, procurement etc I expect it may actually be more costly.  Granted businesses have been known to skim in the US on military contracts for sure, but the transparency in process allows for review of project costs by the public.  Add to that a lot of the high tech components are imported and those are costing a lot more these days.  Still I think the quote is applicable. I just suspect the quote is more universal than really a special statement about Russia.

[Battlefront.com]

Still I think the quote is applicable. I just suspect the quote is more universal than really a special statement about Russia.

I agree.  The theme of many comments here is that NATO is weaker than it looks and Russia stronger.  The truth is usually somewhere in the middle, and for sure it is true in both cases.  The primary problem for Russia is that it has lost it's traditional strengths:

1.  The ability to trade land for time

2.  The ability to marshal enormous resources in a relatively short time

3.  The ability to overwhelm its enemies with its population

Land is no longer important and Western strategies/weaponry are deliberately designed to produce more results in a shorter period of time.  Russia's economy is (for the near term) hopelessly tied to foreign components, technologies, and techniques.  It's population is already is no longer very impressive and it's in decline.

Russia must have the forces it needs to win a war within the first few weeks or it will not survive long enough to make a comeback.  It is simply a numbers game, not a statement about the will of Russia to fight or the skills of its forces. 

As for Russia's modernization, anybody that thinks I am biased against Russia is going to be confused by what I say next.  Russia's modernization since 2009 reforms has been nothing short of ground breaking.  Russia has done so much in such a short period of time AND in peace time that it is definitely something to be proud of if you are a Russian and something to be concerned about if you're anybody else.  It's tip of the spear forces are very capable and thoroughly able to take on a wide range of military roles that no Russian unit could have done 10 years ago.  The pace and thoroughness of change relative to Russia's history of change is very impressive. 

With that said, it's still not equal to the best the West has and it's still a fairly small percentage of the overall force.  The expense of bringing the rest of the force up to the same standards is already stressing the Russian economy and capacity for change.  The worsening economic conditions are only going to make further changes slower and less effective than earlier changes. 

This is important because in this Baltic scenario it needs far more than the tip of the spear units, but NATO doesn't need much more than what it has now.

Steve

 

[Ivanov]

The RAND wargames were mentioned here, but I don't remember if actual link was posted. It can be found here:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html

 You can read it online or download a PDF. It's 16 pages. Enjoy 

Edited January 31, 2016 by Ivanov

[Vanir Ausf B]

Wow! Thanks! I didn't know they had that information up. I haven't read the entire document yet, but a few nuggets pop out. One is that Rand actually did include some soft-factor modeling, at least with regards to training levels.

The research documented in this report was conducted in a series of wargames conducted between the summer of 2014 and early spring 2015. Players included RAND analysts and both uniformed and civilian members of various Department of Defense organizations, including the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, Joint Staff, U.S. Army in Europe, and U.S. Air Forces, Europe, as well as NATO Naval Command, Europe.

RAND developed this map-based tabletop exercise because existing models were ill-suited to represent the many unknowns and uncertainties surrounding a conventional military campaign in the Baltics, where low force-to-space ratios and relatively open terrain meant that maneuver between dispersed forces—rather than pushing and shoving between opposing units arrayed along a linear front—would likely be the dominant mode of combat. Further, the novelty of the scenario meant that there was little to go on in terms of strategic or operational concepts for either side; the free play of experts was needed to begin developing reasonable plans, branches, and sequels.

The general game design was similar to that of traditional board wargames, with a hex grid governing movement superimposed on a map. Tactical Pilotage Charts (1:500,000 scale) were used, overlaid with 10-km hexes, as seen in Figure A.1. Land forces were represented at the battalion level and air units as squadrons; movement and combat were governed and adjudicated using rules and combat-result tables that incorporated both traditional gaming principles (e.g., Lanchester exchange rates) and the results of offline modeling. We also developed offline spreadsheet models to handle both inter- and intra-theater mobility. All these were subject to continual refinement as we repeatedly played the game, although the basic structure and content of the platform proved sound.

Orders of battle and tables of organization and equipment were developed using unclassified sources. Ground unit combat strengths were based on a systematic scoring of individual weapons, from tanks and artillery down to light machine guns, which were then aggregated according to the tables of organization and equipment for the various classes of NATO and Russian units. Overall unit scores were adjusted to account for differences in training, sustainment, and other factors not otherwise captured. Air unit combat strengths were derived from the results of offline engagement, mission, and campaign-level modeling.

 Several other assumptions we had about the games were also incorrect.

1) The scenario assumes a Russian invasion of Estonia and Latvia but not Lithuania.

2) NATO is assumed to have 1 week of warning to prepare.

3) The Russian invasion force is smaller than either Steve or myself had guessed.

The games employed Russian forces from the Western MD and the Kaliningrad oblast -- a chunk of sovereign Russian territory that sits on the northeastern border of Poland, along the Baltic Sea coast -- totaling approximately 27 maneuver battalions in a short-warning attack to occupy either Estonia and Latvia or both and present NATO with a rapid fait accompli. The strategic goal of the invasion was to demonstrate NATO’s inability to protect its most vulnerable members and divide the alliance, reducing the threat it presents from Moscow’s point of view. The scenario assumed about a week of warning, which enabled NATO to flow some reinforcements into the Baltics—mainly light infantry units that could be speedily air transported, along with airpower.

The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO. Across multiple plays of the game, Russian forces eliminated or bypassed all resistance and were at the gates of or actually entering Riga, Tallinn, or both, between 36 and 60 hours after.

Four factors appeared to contribute most substantially to this result.

First and obviously, the overall correlation of forces was dramatically in Russia’s favor. Although the two sides’ raw numbers of maneuver battalions—22 for Russia and 12 for NATO—are not badly disproportionate, seven of NATO’s are those of Estonia and Latvia, which are extremely light, lack tactical mobility, and are poorly equipped for fighting against an armored opponent. Indeed, the only armor in the NATO force is the light armor in a single Stryker battalion, which is credited with having deployed from Germany during the crisis buildup prior to the conflict. NATO has no main battle tanks in the field.

Meanwhile, all Russia’s forces are motorized, mechanized, or tank units. Even their eight airborne battalions are equipped with light armored vehicles, unlike their U.S. counterparts. Second, Russia also enjoys an overwhelming advantage in tactical and operational fires. The Russian order of battle includes ten artillery battalions (three equipped with tube artillery and seven with multiple-rocket launchers), in addition to the artillery that is organic to the maneuver units themselves. NATO has no independent fires units at all, and the light units involved in the fight are poorly endowed with organic artillery. Third, NATO’s light forces were not only outgunned by the much heavier Russian units, but their lack of maneuverability meant that they could be pinned and bypassed if the Russian players so desired. By and large, NATO’s infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place.

Finally, while NATO airpower was generally able to take a substantial toll on advancing Russian troops, without adequate NATO ground forces to slow the attack’s momentum, there is simply not enough time to inflict sufficient attrition to halt the assault. Airpower is rate limited, and against a moderately competent adversary—which is how we portrayed the Russian Air Force—NATO’s air forces had multiple jobs to do, including suppressing Russia’s arsenal of modern surface-to-air defenses and defending against possible air attacks on NATO forces and rear areas. This further limited NATO air’s ability to affect the outcome of the war on the ground. Without heavy NATO ground forces to force the attackers to slow their rate of advance and assume postures that increased their vulnerability to air strikes, Russian players could meter their losses to air by choosing how to array and move their forces.

EDIT: No wonder I didn't know about this document. It was released to the public only two days ago.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[Battlefront.com]

Awesome!!  I'm going to read it now   I looked for this thing several times and didn't find it, but as Vanir said... we looked too soon.  I was surprised not to find more information about it because usually Rand's stuff is available to the public.

Steve

[MikeyD]

It seems appropriate that we're discussing this while patiently waiting for the release of CMFB. I rather envision a speculative Russian invasion of the nature we're talking about the same as the Germans driving into Belgium in late 44. The fact that they'd achieve early local superiority means nothing. A tank-heavy invasion force is heavily dependent on its logistics tail. NATO would just have to keep control of the shoulders of the salient, allow their armor to outrun its logistics tail, then systematically cut it to pieces. Russia in Georgia and Donbas? They made a point of only advancing as far as their logistics chain would allow them. Push any further in and the loss of fuel bowsers along the route of march would be a greater loss than tanks on the front line. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

The fact that they'd achieve early local superiority means nothing.

It means everything if they achieve their objectives before NATO can establish air superiority.

[Battlefront.com]

I had a chance to skim the document one time.  I'll read it in detail tomorrow.  Here are some preliminary thoughts:

1.  Some of the force assumptions Rand made about reinforcements are outdated.  The wargames were conducted in 2104 through spring of 2015.  In June 2015 the US announced prepositioning heavy weaponry in the Baltics. "U.S. pre-positioning would include about 250 tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers."  It is possible these moves were a direct result of the Rand study, possibly not.  THAT would be an interesting question to have answered   While the prepositioned forces aren't large, this does establish a minimum and that minimum was not included in the wargame.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-europe-defense-idUSKBN0P315620150623

2.  I do not understand the pessimism of how much force could be moved into theater with a week's notice.  They must have studied this in detail so I will have to go along with what they came up with, but I don't understand why more heavy stuff couldn't be brought in within a week.  Especially with the logistics elements that are now being moved into the area.

3.  They attribute the Estonians and Latvians as having no significant way of dealing with enemy armor.  If Javelins are not deemed very important to the fight, then they are correct as Estonia has only a small armored force which is not designed to take on enemy armor.  But if one does think that Javelins are significant (and I do), then there's a major flaw in their calculations.  In theory a single C-130 flight could bring in THOUSANDS of Javelins.  Rounding up even a few hundred shouldn't be a problem and now that Estonia (at least so far) is trained on them, they should be considered.

4.  The force assumption for NATO is a fairly meager deployment of US forces and a tiny amount from Britain.  No forces from ANY other nation deployed into the area.  Not a single one.  This gets to my guess that they gamed out the "worst case" scenario for Blue.  While that very well might turn out to be the case, I'd like to have seen some more wargaming results from a wider spread of NATO force involvement.

5.  Again, more evidence of weighting the Red side optimally while doing the reverse for Blue.  Specifically it presumes that there are no negative ramifications for the Russians as a direct and indirect result of the invasion.  Which means Blue has to approach the situation more-or-less as a done deal.  Yet that's a pretty big assumption to make.  For example, the study says:

Finally, while NATO airpower was generally able to take a

substantial toll on advancing Russian troops, without adequate

NATO ground forces to slow the attack’s momentum, there

is simply not enough time to inflict sufficient attrition to halt the assault.

There's no mention how this might affect domestic Russian politics in the days, weeks, and months following the invasion.  There's no mention of what kicking Russia out of SWIFT would do (and that WOULD happen for certainty), nor putting pressure on China and other nations to back off friendly relations with Russia.  I've also outlined scenarios where Russia could find itself with significant military situations that it would have to deal with quickly.  Including an insurgency in the conquered territories.  These issues likely mean that Russia could not keep what it took for very long or at least not permanently.  As with 1992, the first sign of political turmoil in Moscow would result in action.

6.  Another example of weighting this to worst case for Blue has significant restrictions on what it can maneuver and when based on other strategic concerns, yet Russia (which is actively engaged in a war and foreign military operation) can seemingly move a huge portion of its best forces into position without a second thought.

7.  While Rand presumes 1 week alert time for the actual invasion, it seems it has not allowed the possibility of escalating tensions scenario where the ramp up period for reinforcement of the Baltics is significantly longer.  Since we have already witnessed an increase in capability in the last 6 months, it is very likely that NATO would have more than a week to take meaningful action.

8.  Soft factors are mentioned in brief, for sure, however my instincts say their modeling is fairly crude and, as with other assumptions, more pessimistic for Blue and more optimistic for Red.  Since I believe this is a critical factor to consider, to the degree they undermodeled and/or weighted this for worst case scenario the more cautious I am to put faith in the overall results.

 

Bottom line for me hasn't changed much.  NATO's posture in the Baltics needs improvement and if Russia were to attack a week from today it would be a bad thing indeed for the Baltics and NATO as a whole.  Since I don't see that happening, I don't feel a wargame scenario based on conditions from 2 years ago and with (IMHO) significant issues weighted incorrectly or ignored, should be used as the be-all-end-all assessment of a possible outcome of a Russian invasion.  A decent predictor of worst case for Blue and best case for Red?  Certainly I think it is good enough for that purpose.  And since the result is terrible for NATO, obviously more must be done to improve the "worst case" scenario for Blue and decrease the "best scenario" for Russia.

Steve

Edited February 1, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

The report does talk about the bad choices that NATO has to make.  However, they do not mention the possibility that as tensions escalate that the US puts a significant force into place and promises Russia a bunch of very unpleasant consequences should it attack.  These could be both short and long term.  For example, saying that Javelins will pop up in Ukraine and Georgia the day after hostilities start, the US will engage in activities to unsettle various areas of the Russian Federation ("color revolutions" in Kremlin speak), seize the assets of all Russian nationals and shell companies, impose harsh penalties on any country which doesn't freeze and/or hand over assets, etc.

The collective weight of these things could bring down Putin's government rather quickly.  I'm sure Putin would know it to be true as well.  Far more effective than Rand's stated option for nuclear war, yet not at all mentioned by Rand.  Odd that the most straight forward extension of existing US/EU/NATO policy wouldn't be included in Rand's prognosis for either deterring or defeating a Russian invasion.

If Putin got all his buddy's fancy apartments and illicit bank accounts taken from them, I think Putin would find himself with a few too many enemies.  To paraphrase the movie Payback, I think Putin is smart enough to know that he shouldn't "poop where he eats".  Honestly, it is this scenario that allows me to sleep at night because it is both effective and practical for the West to do.

Steve

[kuri]

Indeed, the only armor in the NATO force is the light armor in a single Stryker battalion, which is credited with having deployed from Germany during the crisis buildup prior to the conflict.

Where was Scouts battalion and the APC-borne reserves (probably battalion size as well) during all this?

Great thread by the way, a very informative as well as entertaining read.

Edited February 1, 2016 by kuri

[Vanir Ausf B]

1.  Some of the force assumptions Rand made about reinforcements are outdated.  The wargames were conducted in 2104 through spring of 2015.  In June 2015 the US announced prepositioning heavy weaponry in the Baltics.

This is true. However, they do mention plans for the propositioning in the footnotes:

"The Army has announced plans to add two more battalion-sized activity sets in Europe, bringing the total amount of prepositioned armor to a brigade equivalent. While the details of and time line for these additional deployments are not yet known as of this writing, media reports suggest that they would be distributed widely across NATO’s eastern frontier, “in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and possibly Hungary” with only a battalion’s worth combined across the three Baltic republics (Eric Schmitt and Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Is Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in Eastern Europe,” New York Times, June 13, 2015). This scattershot laydown of company-sized equipment sets, while perhaps politically and symbolically significant, would likely do little to solve the military challenge described in this report."

2.  I do not understand the pessimism of how much force could be moved into theater with a week's notice.  They must have studied this in detail so I will have to go along with what they came up with, but I don't understand why more heavy stuff couldn't be brought in within a week.  Especially with the logistics elements that are now being moved into the area.

 

"The quickest-responding NATO heavy armor force would likely be a U.S. combined arms battalion, the personnel for which would fly in and mate up with the prepositioned equipment of the European Activity Set stored in Grafenwoehr, Germany. Getting this unit into the fight is a complicated process that will not be instantaneous. Breaking out the equipment—24 M-1 main battle tanks, 30 M-2 infantry fighting vehicles, assorted support vehicles—preparing it for movement, transporting it by rail across Poland, offloading it, and road-marching it forward into the battle area are unlikely to take less than a week to 10 days."

 

They apparently did assume it showed up in at least one game, but it didn't make much difference.

 

4.  The force assumption for NATO is a fairly meager deployment of US forces and a tiny amount from Britain.  No forces from ANY other nation deployed into the area.  Not a single one.  This gets to my guess that they gamed out the "worst case" scenario for Blue.  While that very well might turn out to be the case, I'd like to have seen some more wargaming results from a wider spread of NATO force involvement.

This brings up an interesting question: are there any units from any other nations tasked for that type of rapid deployment?

There's no mention how this might affect domestic Russian politics in the days, weeks, and months following the invasion.  There's no mention of what kicking Russia out of SWIFT would do (and that WOULD happen for certainty), nor putting pressure on China and other nations to back off friendly relations with Russia.  I've also outlined scenarios where Russia could find itself with significant military situations that it would have to deal with quickly.  Including an insurgency in the conquered territories. 

I suspect this was intended to be a war game first and foremost so there is little mention of economics. They did however consider the idea of insurgency:

A subcase of this option that is sometimes discussed would be for NATO to help people in the occupied Baltic states mount an insurgency against their occupiers. The prospects for success of such an undertaking are at best highly uncertain; the brutality of Russia’s war in Chechnya indicates that, under some circumstances at least, Moscow is willing to take a very “gloves off ” approach to dealing with such opposition. In any event, such a strategy certainly countenances a high probability of considerable loss of life and damage to the economies of these states. Even if an insurgency ultimately succeeded in convincing Moscow to withdraw, it would likely take many months to years, during which the people of the occupied territories would endure substantial suffering, while the loss of the Baltics would constitute a clear strategic setback for the United States and its allies. Finally, planning for this as NATO’s response to Russian coercion, intimidation, and aggression offers little assurance to our allies, who would certainly find little comfort in the notion of Washington and Brussels nominating partisan warfare as their primary line of defense.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[Krater]

 

I had a chance to skim the document one time.  I'll read it in detail tomorrow.  Here are some preliminary thoughts:

1.  Some of the force assumptions Rand made about reinforcements are outdated.  The wargames were conducted in 2104 through spring of 2015.  In June 2015 the US announced prepositioning heavy weaponry in the Baltics. "U.S. pre-positioning would include about 250 tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers."  It is possible these moves were a direct result of the Rand study, possibly not.  THAT would be an interesting question to have answered   While the prepositioned forces aren't large, this does establish a minimum and that minimum was not included in the wargame.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-europe-defense-idUSKBN0P315620150623

2.  I do not understand the pessimism of how much force could be moved into theater with a week's notice.  They must have studied this in detail so I will have to go along with what they came up with, but I don't understand why more heavy stuff couldn't be brought in within a week.  Especially with the logistics elements that are now being moved into the area.

3.  They attribute the Estonians and Latvians as having no significant way of dealing with enemy armor.  If Javelins are not deemed very important to the fight, then they are correct as Estonia has only a small armored force which is not designed to take on enemy armor.  But if one does think that Javelins are significant (and I do), then there's a major flaw in their calculations.  In theory a single C-130 flight could bring in THOUSANDS of Javelins.  Rounding up even a few hundred shouldn't be a problem and now that Estonia (at least so far) is trained on them, they should be considered.

1. The presence of pre-positioned equipment apparently was modeled in at least some play-throughs.

This disparity has had substantial impacts in our wargames. In one instance, in which NATO was playing with an enhanced force posture, the Blue team sought to use a U.S. armor brigade combat team (ABCT) to fight what was in essence a covering force action to delay the advance of a major Russian thrust through Latvia. A critical element of such a tactic is the use of fires to cover the maneuver elements as they seek to disengage and move back to their next defensive position. In this case, however, the ABCT was so thoroughly outgunned by the attacking Red force, which was supported by multiple battalions of tube and rocket artillery in addition to
that of the battalion tactical groups themselves, that the battalion on one flank of the brigade was overwhelmed and destroyed as it sought to break contact, and the rest were forced to retreat to avoid the same fate.

 

There is also the issue that the pre-positioned equipment is going to be spread through the entirety of the Eastern Europe.  The Baltics get 1 heavy battalion, Poland 1 and Romania/Bulgaria/Germany share 1 and miscellaneous attachments.  It's fairly unlikely that the equipment stored in Bulgaria and Romania will make in theater on time.  So even counting those, for heavy forces we're probably looking at 2 US heavy prepositioned bns + 1(2?) Striker Bns + whatever NATO forces may be rotating through on "persistent presence" exercises.

3. The primary issue (I think) would be availability of trained Javelin users.  Javelin operator course is 10 days, and while I guess it can be compressed somewhat it would presumably impact the quality of the end product.

It sounds like Latvian reserves and Zemessardze were not considered at all, which I think is pretty fair.  I suspect their current ability to create functional units during short-term mobilization is pretty limited.  Estonian Kaitseliit looks to have not been considered either, which I have a bit more of a problem with.  The key of course is that even when mobilized, they are very light infantry forces and when acting in high-threat environment their capabilities are very limited.

 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Krater

[sburke]

well the premise and conclusion seem to be a bit awry.  To be honest the gist of the article to me seems more "if we position heavy forces in the Baltics, we prevent the vacillation of our political leadership to mount a counter offensive and not compromise trying to keep the situation from escalating".  In essence we create a situation where we do not have to depend on our political will as a deterrent and for Russia to have any doubts as to resolve.  Assuming for the moment that their argument is entirely true, it only assumes Russia could seize Latvia and Estonia leaving the west with very few military options that don't risk escalation to nuclear worrying about what Russia considers a red line.  The assumption seems to be the western political leaders would vacillate and NATO would possibly collapse and a new cold war begun.  Unfortunately I think too much of their concept is still built around the cold war West versus East standoff.  We aren't talking about the USSR here.  We are talking one nation, Russia, risking complete economic isolation.  The west doesn't have to wage a bloody counter offensive.  It is pretty simple.  Russia is cut off from Swift until it withdraws, all trade, all banking.  If Russia wants to become the new Iran so be it.  If anyone doubts the effect of just sanctions, take a look at Iran's civilian airline infrastructure.  It has pretty much collapsed. Some of the first of the new contracts are for new airliners from Boeing and Airbus.   China isn't going to back Russia, China is very much part of the global trade environment.  The old cold war is gone.  Russia's biggest military threat is they could maybe take Latvia and Estonia.  and that gets them what?  Granted I am sure Latvia and Estonia would prefer NATO stationing forces to prevent the whole from ever occurring, but it isn't like not doing so means there is a fait accompli that Russia will occupy them and somehow just negotiate their way to marking a new border.  Hell sanctions over Ukraine should be enough to make clear to Russia the west is more than willing to use it's economic heft as it's big stick.

[Ivanov]

 Some of the force assumptions Rand made about reinforcements are outdated.  The wargames were conducted in 2104 through spring of 2015.  In June 2015 the US announced prepositioning heavy weaponry in the Baltics. "U.S. pre-positioning would include about 250 tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers."  It is possible these moves were a direct result of the Rand study, possibly not.  THAT would be an interesting question to have answered

 There will be equipment of one US battalion permanently stationed through the Baltics. It means that there will be equipment for ONE company stationed in each country. Hardly a game changer... What really changed is that since 2014 NATO formed the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, so called "spearhead". It's a brigade size force ( three mechanized and tank battalions ), that could be deployed anywhere within 72 hours. The RAND didn't include it in it's wargames but those three battalions also wouldn't tip the balance of a possible confrontation. The report concludes that "mere" 7 NATO brigades would pose a sufficient deterrent in the Baltics. Really? Currently Poland is struggling for one US brigade stationed in the country on the permanent basis and it's likely to fail, due to the German resistance to the idea. Also, think what would be Russian reaction if those forces would be deployed 200 km from Leningr... sorry - Petersburg. IMO the balance in the region still didn't shift in NATO's favor. The Baltics are better prepared to repel an aggression based on the hybrid warfare principles but NATO still wouldn't be able to defend it's most exposed members against a swift conventional attack as envisaged in the study. It's also interesting what RAND has to say about the shortcomings of the US heavy units - namely lackluster SHORAD and weaker artillery in comparison to the Cold War times. There's NATO summit in Warsaw coming this year - let's see if they decide to seriously expand the Response Force, but I doubt that. I think that while NATO military brass already perceives Russian threat as serious, the politicians - especially the European ones  - don't.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Ivanov

[Battlefront.com]

Where was Scouts battalion and the APC-borne reserves (probably battalion size as well) during all this?

Great thread by the way, a very informative as well as entertaining read.

Yes, it is an interesting discussion

As for Scouts, the former Scouts member I just emailed with was quick to mention their CV-90s as well.  My assumption is that Rand dismissed the presence of CV-90s as too small in number to matter.  This is part of the larger problem with the Rand study that I keep pointing to and I'll cover again below.

This is true. However, they do mention plans for the propositioning in the footnotes:

"The Army has announced plans to add two more battalion-sized activity sets in Europe, bringing the total amount of prepositioned armor to a brigade equivalent. While the details of and time line for these additional deployments are not yet known as of this writing, media reports suggest that they would be distributed widely across NATO’s eastern frontier, “in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and possibly Hungary” with only a battalion’s worth combined across the three Baltic republics (Eric Schmitt and Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Is Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in Eastern Europe,” New York Times, June 13, 2015). This scattershot laydown of company-sized equipment sets, while perhaps politically and symbolically significant, would likely do little to solve the military challenge described in this report."

Here's where I start to get suspicious of the study's objectivity.  They did not take these forces into consideration (directly) along with others, then when they are presented as fact they are dismissed as irrelevant militarily and politically.  The latter I'll address in my next post.

"The quickest-responding NATO heavy armor force would likely be a U.S. combined arms battalion, the personnel for which would fly in and mate up with the prepositioned equipment of the European Activity Set stored in Grafenwoehr, Germany. Getting this unit into the fight is a complicated process that will not be instantaneous. Breaking out the equipment—24 M-1 main battle tanks, 30 M-2 infantry fighting vehicles, assorted support vehicles—preparing it for movement, transporting it by rail across Poland, offloading it, and road-marching it forward into the battle area are unlikely to take less than a week to 10 days."

They apparently did assume it showed up in at least one game, but it didn't make much difference.

It did make a difference, just not the sort of "stopped the Russian advance cold" sort of difference.  Again, I'll cover this in my next poost.

 

 

This brings up an interesting question: are there any units from any other nations tasked for that type of rapid deployment?

Each nation maintains a rapid force capable of deployment within a short period of time.  It is referred to as the NATO Response Force (NRF) and includes dedicated air, naval, and special forces capabilities.  The total strength is (as of 2015) was tripled in response to Russia's aggression and now is set at 40,000:

http://www.shape.nato.int/page349011837

Initial deployments could start as soon as 5 days, however traditional timetables are 1 month.  In 2014 it was recognized that the 30 day window for full deployment was too slow.  Since then they have designated a portion as Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) of brigade strength (~5000).  Rand did not include the land component in their Blue force in any way, shape, or form.  I do not know if they factored in the air components or not.

It is also interesting to point out that Sweden and Finland are part of this equation.

I suspect this was intended to be a war game first and foremost so there is little mention of economics. They did however consider the idea of insurgency:

A subcase of this option that is sometimes discussed would be for NATO to help people in the occupied Baltic states mount an insurgency against their occupiers. The prospects for success of such an undertaking are at best highly uncertain; the brutality of Russia’s war in Chechnya indicates that, under some circumstances at least, Moscow is willing to take a very “gloves off ” approach to dealing with such opposition. In any event, such a strategy certainly countenances a high probability of considerable loss of life and damage to the economies of these states. Even if an insurgency ultimately succeeded in convincing Moscow to withdraw, it would likely take many months to years, during which the people of the occupied territories would endure substantial suffering, while the loss of the Baltics would constitute a clear strategic setback for the United States and its allies. Finally, planning for this as NATO’s response to Russian coercion, intimidation, and aggression offers little assurance to our allies, who would certainly find little comfort in the notion of Washington and Brussels nominating partisan warfare as their primary line of defense.

Again, the problem is they strayed into the political when they made recommendations and projected forward about consequences.  von Causewitz would certainly approve of its inclusion as warfare is not just pushing chits around on a hex board.  However, I suspect von Causewitz would not approve of the half baked approach which, as I've stressed from the beginning of this discussion, seems to be designed to push a specific agenda for more forces in the Baltics because that's the only solution to defending them.  It therefore logically follows that they would not include contrary elements, even though they are of the highest probability of being used.

And now...

Steve

 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

I've already pointed out my criticism of specific points of the Rand study and it's assumptions, so I will not go over them again.  While I do think their study is a very good "worst case", I do not believe it is sufficient for basing policy decisions because it is too myopic and military centric. 

The study boils down to making an argument for NATO having a meaningful deterrence in the Baltics to dissuade Russia from coming to the conclusion that it can grab it easily.  The study presumes that military deterrence is the #1 method for causing Russia to decide against action.  It explores a very limited "what if" that presumes everything goes right for Russia and everything goes pretty much wrong for NATO.

1.  Traditional Russian hybrid warfare allows Russia to get a foothold in the Baltics as they did in Crimea and Donbas (and many other places).  This foothold would be used as "casus belli" to invade.  However, Rand did not factor in that this takes weeks or months to develop (on top of the years already invested) and that would give NATO and the Baltics additional time to implement counter actions.  Which means they gave the NATO forces an overly unrealistically small window for getting their act together.

2.  There does not appear to be any allowance for the Baltics squashing or even stunting Russian groundwork for Green Men.  I have demonstrated that the nations in question are not stupid and have already started the process to have more flexibility to deal with Russia's rather straight forward (i.e. predictable) gameplan.  If this is a necessary part of Russia's calculations to start a war, then Rand has discounted the Baltic's ability to alter the equation unfavorably for Russia.

3.  Green Men are now officially material for an Article 5 declaration.  Which means that not only is it possible that Russia's weeks and months of efforts to create a Green Man scenario are uncertain to produce a desired level of utility, the mere insertion of Green Men could trigger Article 5 and a theoretical war with NATO before the first Russian soldier openly crossed the border.  Again, Rand does not take this into consideration at all.

4.  Another presumption is that the West (which is larger than NATO) does absolutely nothing to counter act Russia's obvious signs of marching towards war.  I mean, absolutely nothing at all.  Economic, political, or military.  I see this as totally and utterly improbable and the last 2 years supports that conclusion as significant economic, political, and military actions have been undertaken.  The thought that nothing else would happen is simply wrong headed.

5.  Assuming that Russia can not be dissuaded from attacking and its ability to gain an easy victory (see my previous challenges to the latter), Rand lays out a false choice of options to deal with the aftermath.  False choice because it has omitted one of the most obvious and realistic responses which the West is ALREADY pursuing.  Specifically, destroying the Russian economy and isolating the country in every meaningful way with having to fire a shot.  Can the West do this?  Absolutely.  Which is why some of the actions people called for back in 2014 have not been implemented.  Specifically removal from SWIFT, sanctions imposed to block other financial transactions, mass scale asset seizure, etc.  Russia is almost completely broke right now except for it's $350B in foreign currency reserves.  What happens when at the stroke of a pen they have no access to those reserves?  Rand either deliberately excluded this from their report or are horribly ignorant of how the world works and the history of the end of the Soviet Union. 

I highly doubt the authors are ignorant so they must have deliberately excluded these elements, especially the last one, from their report.  And that begs the question... why?  Because their report seems to view the only way to deter a Russian invasion is having 7 brigades stationed in the Baltics.  A move, which was pointed out above, is perhaps sufficient enough to precipitate a war because Russia would be forced to deal with this massive buildup of forces in some way and the only meaningful way it has at its disposal is military.

Again, my conclusion about the Rand study is it is an interesting "worst case" scenario and as such it is a valuable piece to the overall framework for making strategic decisions for NATO and the West.  But it is far too narrow and questionable to use as more than a small piece of that decision making process.  Which, in my view, makes the study less valuable than it otherwise could have been.

Steve

Edited February 1, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, and one more thing that Rand did not take into their calculations... the deterrence factor of US "trigger forces" being deployed.  Attacking Baltics without US forces on the ground is an entirely different prospect of attacking with them on the ground.  Which is why Russia went ballistic when the deployments were announced and that, I think, shows what a problem this is for Russia's calculations in the Baltics.  Rand didn't even mention the possible impact of trigger forces in this regard.

Steve

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

It is sort of the business of wargames in the military sense to make it so the following on planning is as bulletproof as possible.  In terms of making a realistic outcome, they're doubtful.  Frankly anyone who's survived a major Brigade+ level exercise, or an NTC rotation will tell you horror stories about how badly they're defeated.  But in that regard the intention is to build a capability so far beyond what the enemy can overcome, that it either prevents a conflict entirely (as we've now reactivated 2 AD and it's comprised of 3 ABCTs and an SBCT stationed outside Warsaw, and the Polish military has reoriented nearly entirely to the East or something)  or ensures that when the war goes off and we hit some major friction, that we are prepared to survive and overcome it (the attack comes during the 4th of July so most of 2 AD is still sobering up and moving slow from being stuffed with BBQ) without even getting close to a margin of error.

It makes for bad wargames though, and I for one, used CMSF with my subordinates on a few occasions as it is a better rendition of what small (platoon through battalion) units can accomplish on the battlefield.