Paper and Practice: Russian Recon in 1941

[jacobs_ladder2]

Hey guys,

Just hoping to get a fresh take on something plaguing my work. According to the April 5 1941 TO&E, a recon battalion should have been part of every Russian rifle division. On paper this consisted of a motorized rifle company, an armoured car company and a light tank company.

It seems generally accepted that the light tank company was fantasy. However, no one seems to agree on the role of the armoured car company, whether or not it actually existed and just how often the motorized rifle company had trucks to ride in.

Since it also seems generally accepted that recon elements in 1941 did not have radios, I wonder what these battalions were doing.

If they lacked trucks, were they at least mounted? Without radios or reliable transportation, how could they even pretend to participate in mobile warfare? What was expected of these units and how much of that could they realistically deliver?

Any ideas?

Cheers

Paul

[Andreas]

Hi - I think the light tanks were actually the tankettes that are also in CMBB (BTW, wrong forum, mefinks). I know at least one division where the light tanks were present, in the Arctic.

[Gpig]

Hello.I don't have anything to help with your query, but I have another question. (furthering my education, and all.)

Would the Recon Battalion have a Radio (or Radios) at the Battalion level? (In the Battalion HQ?)

What was the state of Radio equipment within the Red Army in '41?

Are you saying that the Recon Battalion did not have even one radio? That does seem to beg the question "what these battalions were doing."

Thanks,

Gpig

[Andreas]

Um - radios were not that reliable then (although you would still want to have them). So you use runners/riders and wire, just like people did in previous wars. That this did not work particularly well is another story.

[Gpig]

I guess you could say that the Soviets in 41 didn't need Recon. Just wait, and the Germans will come to you . . .

(bad . . .)

Gpig

[dalem]

Originally posted by Gpig:

I guess you could say that the Soviets in 41 didn't need Recon. Just wait, and the Germans will come to you . . .

(bad . . .)

Gpig

"If you build it, the Germans will eventually come to take it."

-dale

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Hi - I think the light tanks were actually the tankettes that are also in CMBB (BTW, wrong forum, mefinks). I know at least one division where the light tanks were present, in the Arctic.

My mistake, if this thread is poorly placed I apologize.

As I understand it, the "light tanks" would be older models (such as the T-26) or tankettes if any were found at all. Tankettes (such as the T-38) were used in infrequent exceptions if they were available in the armoured car company. At least, that is my understanding of what I am seeing in Zaloga and Glantz's work.

The tank battalion that appears in the 1939 TO&E ceased to exist, except in a few divisions, during the formation of the mechanized corps in 1940-41. These battalions would be equipped with T-26s or comparable light tanks.

Cheers

Paul

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Gpig:

Hello.I don't have anything to help with your query, but I have another question. (furthering my education, and all.)

Would the Recon Battalion have a Radio (or Radios) at the Battalion level? (In the Battalion HQ?)

What was the state of Radio equipment within the Red Army in '41?

Are you saying that the Recon Battalion did not have even one radio? That does seem to beg the question "what these battalions were doing."

Thanks,

Gpig

According to Zaloga, there were mounted and foot recon platoons integrated into the 1941 infantry regiments but neither had a radio to their name. At the regimental level, the recon battalion had an unclear number of radios in its armoured car company and 3 radio trucks that may or may not have arrived by the start of Barbarossa.

Take into account the shortage of groundwire, understrength signal units, poor training and even poorer leadership and you begin to see why the RKKA disintegrated so quickly.

Cheers

Paul

p.s. Even the armoured formations would lack radios except in command tanks. Result? 6 to 1 Russian to German tank losses in 1941 (most of which were lost during the first two weeks of the border battles). Ouch.

[ March 22, 2005, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: jacobs_ladder2 ]

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Gpig:

I guess you could say that the Soviets in 41 didn't need Recon. Just wait, and the Germans will come to you . . .

(bad . . .)

Gpig

Yikes, 3 posts in a row.

Actually, it's funny you should say this because waiting for the Germans was almost the only tactic that seemed to work for most of 1941.

The same lack of signals equipment meant that artillery barrages were essentially limited to preplanned fire. Imagine trying to counterattack against the Wehrmacht with no responsive artillery support.

Cheers

Paul

[Gpig]

I'd have made an Exceptional commander, Soviet forces, 1941.

For about 20 min.

So it seems that RECON (if any was done) accomplished by the RECON elements was passed along the old fashioned way. Runners/riders/fast transport back to RECON HQ, and from there by wireless onto the higher HQ?

Thanks for the info.

Gpig

[JasonC]

Recon does not consist in phoning the general on your cell phone. It consisted in finding the enemy, when not currently in contact in that sector. That happens a lot in 2D maneuvering after breakthroughs by either side.

The way you found the enemy was to head in the general direction of the enemy until either (1) you saw some enemy or (2) somebody shot at you.

Once either happened, you got down and fired back to keep their heads down, and deployed a bit to see where the enemy stopped on either side. A contact develops.

You then screen the enemy you've located, by covering the sector with MG and rifle fire. And send back the info about what you've learned. "I've got companies as far as the villages whatsoe and herekov. Germans to the west". Staff officer puts pins in a map. That's recon.

Nothing is expected to take 2 minutes or 5 minutes. The enemy is going to be in basically the same place. As long as he doesn't get through you. If he sends enough that he isn't deterred by a little small arms and MG fire and can deal with even the lightest armor on your part, it is time to pull back to your side's real positions.

That is the basic mission, and it does not require much in the way of special equipment. The units involved have to travel light, so they can cross any no man's land gaps that open up between larger units rapidly, and especially so they can break contact readily and get away again, when pressed.

Infantry recon has another function, on a static front. It does night infiltrations, particularly through sections of the front with poor terrain (swamps, large woods, broken high ground), with the idea of getting inside the enemy position before daybreak. Without fighting if at all possible, just sneaking. Then they collect intel by simply watching things during the day. And send back messengers the following night.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Interesting comments. Russian commanders complained bitterly throughout 1941 and 42 of the lack of recon. Not the lack of recon personnel, but the lack of useful intelligence and, above all, some foreknowledge of the position of enemy troops.

Essentially, in 41, Russian counterattacks stumbled blindly into prepared defenses and were decimated. The Germans always knew when and where and the Russians did not. Dedicated air recon played a huge role in this, but reliable and highly mobile ground recon was an equal or more important factor.

The Russians recognized this. They made provisions for better signals equipment in their TO&E. They just didn't have the radios to fill them out or the personnel capable of operating them under combat conditions.

So, traditional recon, as it had been, was suddenly an anachronism on the battlefield? Or were there other factors?

Cheers

Paul

[Michael Emrys]

Jason is describing two different forms of recon above: 1) Advance until somebody shoots at you; and 2) Sneak and peek.

As he says, type 1 can be done by almost any kind of good troops. Type 2 usually involves a few specialized skills over and above what the average infantryman is expected to know. These may include, but are not limited to, stealthy movement, camouflage, and the ability to observe and make shrewd judgements based on observation.

My point in raising this is that skillful recon of the second type may have been one of the things that the Red Army was shy of at the beginning of the war, but acquired as time went on. Certainly by 1944 they seem to have been very good at it, and probably sooner than that.

Michael

[V]

Originally posted by Gpig:

I guess you could say that the Soviets in 41 didn't need Recon. Just wait, and the Germans will come to you . . .

(bad . . .)

Gpig

heh, more like, just wait and the Germans will drive around you....

[Gpig]

And when you send your supply echelon back to Regimental HQ to pick up more Vodka, they return to the front lines with German bullets. (Or worse still, bullet HOLES.)

Nyuk nyuk

Gpig

[jacobs_ladder2]

OK, so a few questions then.

If the proposed TO&E from 1941 were somewhat close to reality the Russian recon battalion would have been fairly mobile. If this were the case (under the assumption that radio equipment was scarce):

1. How would the armoured cars and tankettes have cooperated with the mobile infantry?

2. How much ground could one of these battalions cover?

3. Were these battalions expected to put up a fight or simply shoot & scoot?

4. How far out ahead of the battalion would they operate?

And the same questions all over again except now assuming that the battalion was lacking radios, armoured cars and trucks (i.e. was essentially an infantry recon team moving around on foot).

Cheers

Paul

[JasonC]

That recon is finding the enemy by going and getting shot at does not mean anybody can do it, or do it well, anyway. You want particular force mixes, avoiding things as much as bringing others. Lots of towed guns - no. Lots of higher echelons with supply services and important personages - no. Anything particularly heavy - no. 30-50 ton gas guzzlers - no. Some armor, any armor - helps. Vehicles, any kind, fast on roads - help. Infantry that can be expected to reappear the next day after retreating - um yeah. The top echelon size really used for this was the battalion - call it mobile recon.

Then there is infantry recon. Here the standards are quiet and super light. Side arms are about it - maybe the lightest LMGs, occasionally maybe a mortar or infantry AT weapon. Stealth and training are more important. So is tiny size - nothing big is really stealthy. These are those recon platoons in every infantry battalion. They are in the headquarters company because they work for the battalion intelligence officer. They are his listening post detail, his night patrols, etc.

Don't confuse the two. You can have a full infantry battalion doing recon, but at that size they are going to be doing the first sort, not particularly well - though perhaps in worse terrain areas (woods, marsh, etc) - not all doing the second.

Back to the mobile kind. The standard Russian force for this was a motorcycle battalion in each mobile corps. The pre-war TOE had a motorized infantry unit for infantry formations with the same doctrinal idea, but they are a poor cousin of the mobile corps motorcycle battalions.

What does a motorcycle battalion do, to do mobile go find the enemy by getting shot at recon? And when does it do it, in what kind of situation? What is the typical tasking and such?

They aren't in a set piece, about to start the battle of Kursk, nudging toward manned enemy trenchlines and TRP arty zones on a Harley. Recon by death is not the idea.

They are instead in a fluid post breakthrough situation, or a deploying reserve situation. Somebody somewhere cracked what passes for a line, others are surrounded, the lines on the map if anybody knew about them would be moving 25 miles a day, and formations are shifting within those lines faster than that.

Take a hypothetical to make it concrete and 1941 - esque. The Germans broke through on the left of nth army the day before yesterday. Two mech corps are moving to contact from reserve positions to try to restore the front. Where are the Germans, what points have they reached, which direction is their main effort, and should nth army get the heck out of there? If so, in what direction? Where should the main body of each of the mech corps concentrate its efforts? The muckety mucks want to know, the MC guys go find things out. That is the right sort of typical operational context, rather than a set piece attack.

How do they recon with an MC battalion? First they travel to the area, in a road column, as one unit. A company of armored cars on the road. Trucks trailing with some minimalist supplies and heavier weapons etc. One platoon ahead of the main body, far enough that they don't all get caught by the same fire. A single armored car behind a few scouts, at the absolute point, backed by the leading platoon if anybody shoots at them.

But now they near the zone they are supposed to recon. First a small road forks to the right. A platoon goes down it. A village. A squad stops and questions the civies. Two roads out - a squad goes down each. At every bridge, hilltop, or other terrain feature, 2-3 men stop and look around and listen, as sentries in effect. The balance continue, leaving the same as each fork. Soon they are spent - a fractured little knot of men down a tiny capillary piece of the road net. Nothing is found. They reel back in, gathering at the first village. Back on the road and catching up with the main body.

Which has continued on, unslowed by this distraction. But meets a major branch in the road. A company goes left, the rest right. They fracture in turn, down their own bits of the road net. Somewhere a leading group runs into a few enemy. A few potshots, they decamp and reel back to their platoon. Runners bounce back through the chain informing the knots are all the intervening features. The parent force gathers, travels the same route the successful scout did, and finds a few cyclists rather scared saying "they are just around that bend".

So they set up a roadblock. Not a CM counter, a single armor car parked in the road or just off it, a squad on either side of the road, a few scouts set to higher points to look around. If an enemy scout comes down the road they will stop him. If an enemy platoon comes down the road they will give a volley or two and make them deploy, then pull out. One squad fires 1-2 times and are back on their bikes. The other empties a mag each and are back on theirs. The AC stays and sprays for another minute, reverses for the first 200 yards, then turns around. And they are out of there, up to the next terrain feature, with riders pushing ahead to spread the word.

Elsewhere, a full platoon or more has gathered and there is a known enemy roadblock ahead. Nothing has happened for 30 minutes. They scout through the woods left of the road for a route around the roadblock, while the ACs cover the road and maybe spray toward the enemy a bit. They want to know if it is 6 guys over there with one truck to their name, or the outpost of a company. If it is the latter, they find out by getting shot at as their flank through the woods, or if they are lucky by hearing someone first. If it is just a few guys, they sneak up behind them and shoot at them; the ACs rush up the road when they hear the firing.

The unit as a whole fights for information, and denies it to the enemy. In the sense that they brush through very weak opponents while giving ground to stronger ones, but without letting anyone actually through them. (If a major thrust comes right through them, they outrun it, rearward, and spread the news). These are all very small fights, affairs of a few minutes between a few CM units.

Back at battalion, the commander gets runners coming in with reports from all over the road net. He puts them together. He decides whether to keep what he has or push along road A or B. He decides where to keep a reserve company to turn a little roadblock into something that can buy him an hour or two, or give him the option to force open a route held by a full platoon. And he sends of streams of reports to mech HQ, which sticks pins into maps, and the muckety-mucks debate where to send the gas hog tanks for the real battle.

See the idea?

[jacobs_ladder2]

I do indeed and thank you for the time.

So, for example, a Russian rifle division is racing to take up a defensive position because it is believed (by a muckety-muck ) that the Germans are going to be there soon.

The rifle division commander is not an idiot and knows that chaos is all around him. He has been ordered to charge headlong into a battlefield that is changing hourly. The defensive position he is rushing to establish may already fall behind enemy lines and in fact a panzer division could be waiting for him around the next corner. How does he deploy his recon so that has some warning? Do you see what I mean? He still needs to move his troops but also must contend with the highly mobile German forces that he knows are out there somewhere.

He has no air recon at his disposal, his recon lacks radios except at battalion level, but his recon does have some trucks and a few armoured cars or tankettes.

What is his poor recon battalion doesn't have any trucks or AFVs and are mounted or, even worse, on foot?

Sounds ridiculous, but according to Glantz, that was the situation.

Cheers

Paul

[JasonC]

His regiments are deployed in some actual fighting position. Maybe all up, with only a back battalion from the center one as his overall reserve. Maybe 2 up and a whole regiment as his reserve. His arty is back where his reserve is, roughly. The 76s may be spread to cover the front line, and some penny-packeted out to battery positions within a few km of the front line as AT positions.

But nobody has hit this position yet. Ok, then his recon battalion puts a company out in front of each line regiment. They probably have a populated place or a hilltop as their own forward position (each such company). They keep only a platoon there, and send the others out on patrols. Occasionally a platoon, sometimes a squad only, walking from hill to hill or stream crossing site to village to crossroads etc.

Oo look, Germans. Get a platoon together and put it across their path. Shoot them up a bit. If they come back with friends or drop mortars, scram. Hoof it back through the woods to the next position, where another squad is waiting or whatever. If a whole sea of them come swarming up out of the woods, hightail it back to the hilltop or village "base" and rally there, fight 360 against the first Germans to show up. If it still looks bad, get out, back to the line regiment positions. If you get cut off, wait for night and sneak back to friendly lines.

What can a few tanks or armored cars do for this sort? You can put them as the roadblocks. You can keep a few at the company base camps and show up with a platoon and a tank when somebody up front reports contact. They can stay and spray while the infantry makes good its retreats. They can scare an enemy patrol into giving up a roadblock of their own.

Whenever guys up front see something, a runner reports it, up their chain of command, roughly equals back to their company position in a couple of bounds. If they have any trucks, they can reposition the reserve at each of those, run messages back to the line regiments, evac wounded, haul up water and ammo.

The units probably had a few trucks - the thing is, these other roles as so urgent under duress, that transporting the forward scouts goes out the window. Too risky for a valuable vehicle, and too much idle time when the truck could be working.

Glantz reports a number of mech units leaving their motorized rifle units (not single battalions in each division, but whole divisions of them in the 1941 model mech corps) behind on several important occasions. Don't assume this means absolutely no trucks. It can just as easily mean more important jobs for them, limited gas, not all running, etc.

Once the enemy presses the division for real, the recon battalion is going to fade back behind the real position. It may be used as a reserve, if all is well and the front is holding. But like as not, the Germans broke through someplace, if not on the division's own frontage someplace else. So some part of the previously "rear" area is now an unknown move to contact situation.

The recon guys would be naturals to screen a threatened flank, give advanced warning of any enemy approach from the right rear after units to the right are reported penetrated, etc. Not doing anything terribly offensive, but deployed on a wider front than a real position, and valued by the commander because they can at least temporarily make due with thin forces over a wide area.

If he has way too much front to worry about, through 120 to 180 degrees of arc, that will be useful. But where he uses it depends on his plan (keep the front strong, pull out now with a rear guard regiment left in the old positions, try to break contact cleanly with the entire force, etc).

BTW, these units would be the recon C infantry type. The recon A guys are each battalion's "sneaky" detail. I hope this helps.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Excellent. A big help.

So, would the armoured cars or tankettes operate independantly of the motorized rifle division or only as support?

After reading a few of the posts above I can see armoured car platoons being detached to scout in different directions, but being virtually unable to do anything about any enemy they find except drive back and report (or send for help if they are lucky enough to have a radio).

The tankettes might be a little better able to engage enemy units but without infantry I can't see them lasting long.

Not sure. Am I missing something?

Cheers

Paul

[Joachim]

For an interesting reading, somebody placed this link http://www.adamfive.com/guerrero/zvezda/

in an old thread ( http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=006053#000000 )

Gruß

Joachim

[JasonC]

"virtually unable to do anything about any enemy they find"

They block the road with MG fire behind armor against unaided infantry. If the other guy has more than that, they give ground. To get past a small infantry roadblock themselves, they rely on the rest of the (infantry) formation. That is not nothing. It is basically what is wanted. Better than a jeep with 50 cal, akin to a Greyhound. Scouts aren't meant to fight enemy armor or attack major defenses, they are meant to scout. It helps if they can trump unsupported infantry, because that makes their own positions less porous and the enemy's blockages have to be more substantial. That is all.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"virtually unable to do anything about any enemy they find"

They block the road with MG fire behind armor against unaided infantry. If the other guy has more than that, they give ground. To get past a small infantry roadblock themselves, they rely on the rest of the (infantry) formation. That is not nothing. It is basically what is wanted. Better than a jeep with 50 cal, akin to a Greyhound. Scouts aren't meant to fight enemy armor or attack major defenses, they are meant to scout. It helps if they can trump unsupported infantry, because that makes their own positions less porous and the enemy's blockages have to be more substantial. That is all.

I see your point. Looks like I did miss something. lol

The reason I thought this is more due to what I have read of the German idea of recon. That being, as it has been explained to me, to have an advanced force capable of sustained fighting if the need arises. A recon force that is highly mobile, that can take ground and even hold it and can have a reasonable chance of defeating lightly armoured vehicles (such as the Russian armoured cars which were literally cars with some armour welded to them).

I mean, if these armoured cars or tankettes found themselves operating independantly, that is without infantry support, would they not be quickly outclassed by German recon or, even worse, come into contact with a more substantial force and simply be forced to run?

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I can't figure out what part of a German division a few armoured cars or tankettes could reasonably expect to block.

Once again, I am no expert. Please feel free to simply ignore me or discount me as a hopeless student.

Cheers

Paul

[JasonC]

German recon doctrine was not matched by heavy equipment for it until much later one, themselves. They eventually had recon battalions in half tracks with armored cars, a heavy weapons section with gun armed HTs etc. But not in 1941.

Recon in 1941 for the Germans was an armored car company and motorcycle infantry, with a trucked heavy weapons company with a couple of mortars etc. The armored cars were 5mm to 8mm thick, MG or 20mm armed. A 45mm caliber 10mm thick Russian armored car was quite as capable as they were. The Germans were not in halftracks yet - the flood of HTs came quite late in the war.

Even as late as Kursk, only some full PDs had mech recon. Many units had a single company of infantry in halftracks and a halftrack heavy weapons company, with the rest of the battalion in trucks. (All had an armored car company, occasionally two). Some had all motorized recon, in trucks or on motorcycles.

German infantry divisions had recon battalions that rode bicycles - not motorcycles. Occasionally a special "fast" unit formed from the available trucks, typically from the panzer jaeger battalion - used as a reaction reserve to an advanced guard to have somebody keep up with the motorized forces.

The Germans did have a light armor force in the early war, but it was thin armored cars with 20mm main armament, and light tanks (Pz IIs e.g.) that were off in the panzer regiments, not in the recon formations. Those scouted for the tanks, tactically. But finding where the enemy was on the road net, exploring all routes etc, was done by ACs and motorcycle infantry, the same as the Russians were using.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I can't figure out what part of a German division a few armoured cars or tankettes could reasonably expect to block.

a) their recon elements

a Vorausabteilung (forward detachment), but not for long

c) any part, if the German commander has a case of the nerves and decides to hold and wait until the big stuff was brought up

All of it unlikely, but not impossible. At the least it may also slow them down, and their reaction will give you a clue as to what you are dealing with.