Russian Armed Forces Doctrine - Sources?

[Haiduk]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:43 AM, fireship4 said:

and that brigade fires are (at least in the main) planned on an objective and as part of an offensive, not used to respond to recently spotted targets.

Planned fire as well as counter-battery is usually for attached to BTG hihger arty units, brigade artillery strikes both planned and spotted, this is their task - to support battalions of brigade with fire. For supressing of spotted targets, brigade artillery can communicate with infantry via infantry HQs - all commanders from platoon level have basic skills to target artillery at least rough, or via spotting teams from battery HQ, operating among infantry. This scheme is working both RUS and UKR forces.   

Edited January 24, 2021 by Haiduk

[fireship4]

Ok, thank you.

[fireship4]

Do battalions have organic spotters at all? 

As I understand it, Russian army (and related) artillery are their own arm with their own brigades and divisions, parts of which are then attached to manoeuvre battalions or brigades.

In a motorised rifle brigade with attached tank company, each battalion has an attached battery of 120mm mortars (8 tubes), the support of the brigade artillery group (comprised of 2 battalions of 152mm artillery (36 guns) and 1 battalion of 122mm MLRS (18 launchers)) plus any other attached artillery (that I've read is normally attached for a specific purpose) and perhaps support from the brigade antitank battalion's artillery (6 100m guns).

In the case of a BTG or similar formation (perhaps a brigade forward detachment or advance guard, but I am not sure), one mortar battery (8 tubes) and an artillery battalion (18 tubes) seem to be the standard, and I would guess (perhaps depending on doctrine/precision indirect fire ability) no artillery from the antitank battalion, but one of their three antitank platoons.

It seems to me that each artillery battalion provides a spotter (with vehicle if they have it) to the battalion or brigade it is attached to.   If this is the case, a BTG or similar would have a spotter from the mortar battery and one from the artillery battalion (what we see in game).  Battalions forming part of a manoeuvre brigade (I mean here a brigade fighting as some kind of formation on the front line) would have a spotter each for their attached mortar battery, and the brigade artillery group would have 3 spotters to split between the battalions of the brigade's first echelon (often 2 battalions) plus a spotter from the artillery battery in the antitank battalion.

Therefore it seems to me that two spotters (one for the battalion mortars, one for the brigade artillery, what we see in game with BTGs) would be what I would expect to see in a first echelon battalion.  Are these the attached spotters you mentioned?  If that is the case it seems my point still stands.  It seems a bit fragile not to have more spotters in a force that apparently focuses on artillery (manoeuvre to enable fires, as opposed to fires to enable manoeuvre), and has caused me a bit of trouble in a scenario where I had to split a battalion's two forward companies each side of a terrain feature.  Or do I have you wrong and there are other common attachments (like reconnaissance-fire groups perhaps) we should be seeing as part of the front line?

 

PS further to the BTG point, from "The Russian Way of War", linked on the previous page, a short quote I happened to read while researching this post:

Quote

"The fragmented battlefield has become common following the Gulf War....  How do peer forces fight conventional maneuver war on a fragmented battlefield?  Permanent combined arms battalions appear to be an important component.  For decades, the Soviets and Russians have struggled with fielding, training supporting and fighting a combined arms battalion [sic] with its own tanks, motorized rifle, artillery, antitank, and support subunits capable of fighting and sustaining independently over a large area.  The Russian maneuvre brigades now have one or two battalion tactical groups and are working to achieve four".

In addition, a subsequent (2018) short paper on Russia's View of Mission Command of Battalion Tactical Groups .

[ikalugin]

The idea is that artillery commanders (ie battery commander) would go forward with the troops and command his guns from there, acting in part as a spotter.

Operating in a vacuum regiment's or brigade's artillery divizion (battalion) thus has what, 3 battery commanders and one divizion commander (?), so could support 4 manuever units (the divizion commander would be on the direction of main effort). Same applies elsewhere.

http://bastion-karpenko.ru/VVT/1V126_03.jpg
You could see an example here, 1В152 is the battery or divizion commander's vehicle.

 

Incidentally becuase of this division the actual guns could be organised in various ways, ie centralised into a RAG, where the divizion's chief of staff would be handling the fires or dispersed.

BTG IMO handles well as a simplification/standartisation for the tactically focussed observers.

Edited January 26, 2021 by ikalugin