How close to the target did Soviet motor rifle squads dismount?

[Bobjack1240]

I've seen 1970s US training videos that stated they dismounted around 100 meters away from the target. How true was this in practice?

[Combatintman]

10 hours ago, Bobjack1240 said:

I've seen 1970s US training videos that stated they dismounted around 100 meters away from the target. How true was this in practice?

The preferred option was not to dismount at all - it is one of the reasons the BMP series was developed.  So the answer would be in the event of having to dismount "as close as they could get away with."  Faced with the cold hard fact of bumping up against an organised defence the dismount point would likely be on or close to the defensive obstacle plan - which is (to use a sweeping statement about obstacles because there are nuances) generally the point of an obstacle plan.

[domfluff]

Yup, stay mounted whenever you can.

Dismount distance is "when forced to by circumstance", and depends mostly on the enemy AT assets.

Effective range of unguided AT is about 300m, so that's your dismount distance from contested terrain. In the Cold War period, heavy AT would force dismounting up to 1km away from the target. Since maintaining tempo is critical, the further away you dismount, the less likely the attack would be to succeed. This doesn't mean it's not a good idea - it may be a poor choice, but still the best one available.

As always, it's worth re-iterating at this stage that the US equipment, in any time period represented in CM isn't "normal" or "default", it's often represented some of the very best kit that can be purchased. Dragon has a number of flaws, but a squad-level ATGM is a highly unusual asset for the time period.

Interestingly, "dismounting on the objective" wasn't something the Soviets tended to do. It was, however, something that was emphasised in US doctrine - dismounting directly on or behind the objective from an M113 were both encouraged (in addition to dismounting in cover in front of the objective). Whether or not you think that's a good idea is something that can be played with in CM in general.

[Simcoe]

4 hours ago, domfluff said:

Yup, stay mounted whenever you can.

Dismount distance is "when forced to by circumstance", and depends mostly on the enemy AT assets.

Effective range of unguided AT is about 300m, so that's your dismount distance from contested terrain. In the Cold War period, heavy AT would force dismounting up to 1km away from the target. Since maintaining tempo is critical, the further away you dismount, the less likely the attack would be to succeed. This doesn't mean it's not a good idea - it may be a poor choice, but still the best one available.

As always, it's worth re-iterating at this stage that the US equipment, in any time period represented in CM isn't "normal" or "default", it's often represented some of the very best kit that can be purchased. Dragon has a number of flaws, but a squad-level ATGM is a highly unusual asset for the time period.

Interestingly, "dismounting on the objective" wasn't something the Soviets tended to do. It was, however, something that was emphasised in US doctrine - dismounting directly on or behind the objective from an M113 were both encouraged (in addition to dismounting in cover in front of the objective). Whether or not you think that's a good idea is something that can be played with in CM in general.

Would you mind on elaborating on the last point? Is the objective a trench line etc? Where would they dismount otherwise?

[domfluff]

[domfluff]

The above would be the options for "Close mounted, dismount on or near position".

When there was "an obstacle to mounted movement" or "strong defensive positions that cannot be suppressed", then you're dismounting, before closing with and destroying:

Edited March 14, 2023 by domfluff

[domfluff]

In both cases, this is using the M113 in a very aggressive manner, potentially exposing it to a significant amount of return fire. This is in stark contrast to BAOR practice with the ostensibly similar FV432, which would de-bus troops and withdraw to a predetermined muster point.

Again, whether the manuals were being optimistic is a good question here, and one you really have to work out for yourself. The .50 cal is a powerful and versatile tool... whether it's enough to make up for everything else is the question. 

[Simcoe]

47 minutes ago, domfluff said:

In both cases, this is using the M113 in a very aggressive manner, potentially exposing it to a significant amount of return fire. This is in stark contrast to BAOR practice with the ostensibly similar FV432, which would de-bus troops and withdraw to a predetermined muster point.

Again, whether the manuals were being optimistic is a good question here, and one you really have to work out for yourself. The .50 cal is a powerful and versatile tool... whether it's enough to make up for everything else is the question. 

Thank you for the response. What about the Soviets? I thought they dismount anywhere from on the objective to 300m out. 

[Centurian52]

Soviet doctrine I think fostered an attitude of "death before dismount". As everyone else has been saying, the Soviets would rather not dismount at all if they can get away with it. Given their focus on operational mobility this makes a lot of sense, since dismounting to assault a position with infantry means slowing the pace of the advance to the speed that an infantryman can run. And it makes sense to focus on operational maneuver, since if you can maneuver faster than the enemy you can flank them, surround them, or do all sorts nasty things that make it easier to outright destroy them. But reality often intrudes on idealized doctrine. I think they likely would have been forced to dismount more often than they had hoped in their prewar thinking, at greater distances than they had hoped in their prewar thinking. Perhaps they could have conducted the kind of maneuver warfare they wanted in the early days, but as NATO and WP troops poured into Central Europe the force to space ratios would have skyrocketed (we are talking about a front that is somewhere between 600 and 700 kilometers long with somewhere from 2 to 3 million troops pouring in on each side, giving a force to space ratio of between 3,000 soldiers per kilometer and 4,000 soldiers per kilometer), and with high force to space ratios comes less room for maneuver and a greater emphasis on taking and holding ground, which requires more infantry (infantry are less important if you are just going to blow through a position rather than clear and occupy it (which is perfectly viable in an environment with low force to space ratios)), and frankly on just battering your way forward through sheer attrition (which, despite their reputation, I think the Soviets would rather avoid).

Basically there's what the Soviets planned to do (no dismount, or dismount as late as possible). And there's what they probably would have had to do in the face of reality (dismount far more often and earlier than they want to).

Edited March 15, 2023 by Centurian52

[chuckdyke]

You lose the next war by using the tactics of the last war. That is where war gaming comes in by experimenting. D-Day landing craft closing in on a fortified and dug in enemy positions. Is that much different than an M113 or BTR closing in as quick as possible on dug in enemy positions? Need to maintain fire and suppression while closing in. Not always possibly during WW2. Russians still use Cold War doctrine against modern AT weapons. We can experiment behind the PC with a glass of Scotch. In RL they don't have that luxury.

[Bobjack1240]

Does the in-game BMPs have firing ports because motorstrelki not dismounting if they could help it is pretty interesting and I didn't know that. I thought the firing ports were just to suppress entrenched infantry to keep them hosed down before the dismount because the training videos said you couldn't really hit much of anything from the firing ports.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Bobjack1240

[Chibot Mk IX]

yes, the in-game firing ports first implement in CMA.   Later CMBS, CMSF2 and CMCW all have this feature added. 

 

[Simcoe]

15 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

You lose the next war by using the tactics of the last war. That is where war gaming comes in by experimenting. D-Day landing craft closing in on a fortified and dug in enemy positions. Is that much different than an M113 or BTR closing in as quick as possible on dug in enemy positions? Need to maintain fire and suppression while closing in. Not always possibly during WW2. Russians still use Cold War doctrine against modern AT weapons. We can experiment behind the PC with a glass of Scotch. In RL they don't have that luxury.

You have a good point. I think the most interesting part of Cold War is playing out battles that never occurred and seeing how the doctrine differs.

For example, in the second mission of the Soviet campaign you need to take a town at the far end of the map. There is a valley in between with a large hill on the left and a small town/forest on the right. 

If you follow Soviet doctrine and run straight through the valley you will get blown to pieces. Instead, take the hill on the left with infantry and flank the rest of your force behind it. You barely take losses this way. 

Has anyone else found success with Soviets using modified tactics?

 

 

[domfluff]

Soviet tactics were never about running into a killzone, at least not with your main body, or when there is any other choice.

Recce elements, maybe, but then the point of those lead elements would be to set the conditions for the force behind them, which would typically flank in a position like this.

[Simcoe]

3 hours ago, domfluff said:

Soviet tactics were never about running into a killzone, at least not with your main body, or when there is any other choice.

Recce elements, maybe, but then the point of those lead elements would be to set the conditions for the force behind them, which would typically flank in a position like this.

For sure. This is in response to the common western view of Soviet doctrine and the death before dismount focus. The example shows how Soviet equipment and infantry can be used in creative ways outflank a NATO defense.

[MikeyD]

The Russian assumption was that the enemy line they were assaulting would be thoroughly suppressed, the survivors scared to poke their noses over the trench line. The Infantry were meant to disembark and move forward to mop up what their artillery and tank fired hadn't already killed. An old joke of mine from CM:Afghanistan was the role of mech infantry was to move forward over the charred bodies of their enemies. This assumption was based on on just how feeble a mech infantry squad was by the end of that war. There's weren't enough men in the squad to actually do anything.

[chuckdyke]

5 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Has anyone else found success with Soviets using modified tactics?

A classic battle is in RT Baranovichi. A Regimental HQ executing a Battalion Strength Attack. For a change they have radios at the Company Level. The Recon Platoon has light tanks with no radio but the Recon Platoon HQ has radio, you let him ride. Not racing ahead. Move to contact and let attrition be the strategy. Western tactics based on technology (which were radios in WW2) doesn't work. Your attrition is 30% use it, as long as the Germans also suffer 1:1 at that rate the Soviets will win it. IMHO that's how the Eastern Front was fought.

Edited March 15, 2023 by chuckdyke

[Halmbarte]

21 hours ago, Bobjack1240 said:

Does the in-game BMPs have firing ports because motorstrelki not dismounting if they could help it is pretty interesting and I didn't know that. I thought the firing ports were just to suppress entrenched infantry to keep them hosed down before the dismount because the training videos said you couldn't really hit much of anything from the firing ports.

I found out about the firing ports on the BMP being very functional when a BMP did a drive by on a M113 I had hiding around the corner of a building. One of the passengers managed to kill the M113 gunner before he could get a shot off...

H

[Centurian52]

Oh, and I very nearly forgot. Another factor in the Soviet preference for no dismounting, or dismounting as late as possible, is that they expected a nuclear battlefield. Vehicles are NBC protected (at least the ones designed during the Cold War). And while individual infantrymen also have NBC gear, it's still best for them to spend as little time as possible outside. In fact this might be a bigger factor in the "don't dismount unless you have to" attitude than the desire to maintain a high operational tempo.

We often forget about the nuclear aspect because nukes aren't represented in Combat Mission (they are obviously a bit outside the scope of a tactical sim, since even tactical nukes are probably more operational than tactical assets (though it's possible that the effects of a tactical nuke could fit in a CMCW scenario (especially given that CMCW scenarios tend to be larger by map size than other CM games), and still leave some scenario to play (infantry hiding in buildings, forests, and trenches would be able to survive much closer to the blast center than infantry standing in the open, and armored vehicles would be able to survive even closer) so perhaps it would make some sense to include the occasional tactical nuke in our indirect fire assets (you don't even need to account for radiation effects, because those don't manifest until well past the scope of a CM scenario))). But of course they played a big role in the assumptions that Cold War doctrine was designed around.

I don't know if this was part of the consideration for choosing the timeframe of the base game. But the game's timeframe of 1979-1982 is probably the period that had the best chance of seeing both sides just use conventional arms. Any earlier than this and the US lacked confidence in the ability of its conventional forces to stop the Soviets, and viewed them more as a tripwire for destroying the Soviets with tactical nukes. Much later than this timeframe and the Soviets lose confidence in their ability to overrun NATO defenses with conventional forces alone, and start depending far more heavily on the use of tactical nukes in their attack plans.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Centurian52

[Ultradave]

3 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

(you don't even need to account for radiation effects, because those don't manifest until well past the scope of a CM scenario)

Well, that's not true. At CMCW scope battlefield size, direct radiation effects would be as much of a factor as blast and heat. Those troops in buildings that weren't flattened would still be subject to direct radiation. That was the whole idea of "neutron bombs", right? If you were in a trench or a decent reverse slope you'd be somewhat protected from that, but everyone else - not so lucky. And non "neutron bomb" weapons might leave tank crews ok, -ish. Remember that "neutron bombs" were properly termed enhance radiation weapons. More direct radiation than "normal" fission weapons, but "normal" ones still pack a large direct radiation punch.

I think you are thinking of fallout and contamination.

Dave

[Centurian52]

51 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Well, that's not true. At CMCW scope battlefield size, direct radiation effects would be as much of a factor as blast and heat. Those troops in buildings that weren't flattened would still be subject to direct radiation.

They would receive the dose of radiation within the scope of a CM scenario. But the radiation sickness would not set in within the scope of a CM scenario.

[Ultradave]

Only if it's somewhere off the CM battlefield. Otherwise, if you detonated a nuclear weapon in the middle of a typical CM battlefield the immediate incapacitating and lethal effects would cover the map. Of course, so would the blast effects, both heat and pressure. Not to mention the fact that the CMCW battlefields in the game aren't big enough for those effects to be confined only to the enemy.

It's really pointless to even think about including it. During the CW period, the consensus was that use of tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons would almost immediately lead to a general exchange of strategic nuclear weapons, so the CMCW battle becomes moot, regardless of what happened in that little battlefield.

This subject has been pretty much covered to death in various threads.

Dave

[Centurian52]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

Only if it's somewhere off the CM battlefield. Otherwise, if you detonated a nuclear weapon in the middle of a typical CM battlefield the immediate incapacitating and lethal effects would cover the map. Of course, so would the blast effects, both heat and pressure. Not to mention the fact that the CMCW battlefields in the game aren't big enough for those effects to be confined only to the enemy.

It's really pointless to even think about including it. During the CW period, the consensus was that use of tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons would almost immediately lead to a general exchange of strategic nuclear weapons, so the CMCW battle becomes moot, regardless of what happened in that little battlefield.

This subject has been pretty much covered to death in various threads.

Dave

You are mostly right, but it depends a lot on the yield. From what I can find a typical yield for a tactical nuke ranges from less than 1 kiloton to about 50 kilotons. So I went over to nukemap and repeatedly bombed Rumpenheim (because it's a real world location that I know the CM map size of) with 1 kiloton and 50 kiloton airbursts. One kiloton seems to pretty neatly fit onto a town sized objective on a CM map. The fireball is about the size of the castle on the right hand side of Rumpenheim (60 meter radius). The 3rd degree burn radius stretches from one end of the town to the other (about a 500 meter radius), and moderate blast damage extending out a little ways past the town (700 meter radius). Just the right size to make for an easy, if not quite unopposed river crossing (some troops protected by buildings and some tanks would survive). Light blast damage extends throughout the entire map (2 kilometers), meaning you want to keep your attacking Soviet troops in their BMPs, but they should take no casualties as long as they are mounted up (my guess is that "light blast damage" would suppress and cause light injuries to any troops in the open).

At 50 kilotons the entire map is destroyed. Moderate blast damage extends out to a 2.6 kilometer radius (3rd degree burns at 3.2 kilometers, light blast damage at 7.3 kilometers). Meaning that a hit to the center of the map would reign destruction across even the largest CM map. The fireball alone covers about half of the town of Rumpenheim (290 meters).

So the smallest tactical nukes might fit pretty neatly onto a CM map. But it would be completely impossible to fit the effects of the largest tactical nukes onto a CM map. Of course even the largest tactical nukes would fit pretty neatly onto an Armored Brigade map.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Centurian52

[Ultradave]

mostly.  [sigh]  Ok, whatever you say.

I'm done with this.

Dave

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Ultradave

[Centurian52]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

mostly.  [sigh]  Ok, whatever you say.

I'm done with this.

Dave

 

What? My overall conclusion was in complete agreement with your main point. It is not practical to model tactical nuclear weapons in CM. I just wanted to add a bit of nuance.