The Russian way of war
 

link: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Port...au-Bartles.pdf

This is an awesome PDF file which is a thorough research on the Russian armed forces, how they differ from their USSR equivalents, the new doctrine, organization etc. Short of finding classified information, I believe this is the best guide on the modern "Reds".

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Thanks. I'm adding this link for a world map of Soviet Ground Forces deployment:

https://www.gfsis.org/maps/russian-m...BN19oJucv1rNWQ

Re: The Russian way of war
 

VERY useful.

I've always based my scenario designs on Soviet activity in Afghanistan and the Chetanya and their TO&E. Nice to have some professional analysis from subject matter experts!

Re: The Russian way of war
 

A great find. Thanks for this posting. if I am understanding this, I am finding the Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) similar to the USMC MEU, where air, artillery, and infantry units fight together organically.

Thank you.

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Re: The Russian way of war
 

This is good as well, although the Aeraaa's post of the Bartles paper has several maps depicting deployment of Russian forces too.

Thanks!

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Re: The Russian way of war
 

According to observer reports yes Russia is now very capable of fighting in this way. Its not a lumbering beast anymore their reaction times are on the money though still high volume rather than precision.
One that sticks in my head is the Ukraine guy who used his mobile, text obviously gave away it was command so Russians texted him back hope you enjoy the present and started shelling.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

And still i bet they don't know what hit them. :lol

Re: The Russian way of war
 

One thing that I found very interesting from reading this report, is that the Russians strive for (and have probably achieved) a faster OODA loop than their NATO adversaries. They have managed to do that by relying on a specific set of courses of action (I believe they are called norms) that the commander picks according to the situation at hand and a smaller staff than the NATO countries. There is obviously a trade-off for that and that is the decreased flexibility compared to the NATO armies. Still, this system is very useful for the modern fluid conventional warfare and I believe they are on the right track.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Also of note is the effort to preserve their troops, they seem to use any and everyone for recon let the Mercs etc do the dangerous work and use there guys as the hammer.

Re: The Russian way of war
 

Some interesting observations of how to defeat the Russian BTG. It also seem the overall Russian doctrine still relies upon echelons, only now as opposed to the Soviet style, those echelons are very close together. Using traditional air-land battle strategy of disrupting the 2nd echelon would be difficult to achieve. As pointed out in the article below, the BTG seems to be a smaller more fluid force but one that is designed around 2 basic principes:

1. reliance upon paramilitary forces to act as screening and security elements. example: use of DPR rebels or PMC mercenaries to 'shield' the BTG.

2. the BTG is designed to fight a weaker opponent. Ukraine essentially has a 1980s Soviet army and even still there is evidence of BTG not achieving stellar success against them.

As the US army points out, it seems unlikely that Russia would utilize BTGs against a NATO opponent. For time being, it seems likely that Russia would fall back to at least brigade formations, by which point much of the maneuver advantage enjoyed by a BTG would be lost or reduced. Of course all of this is debatable and its clear that Russia is moving away from the old ponderous Soviet juggernaut and into a more capable force. As Aeraaa so cleverly points out, they're trying to get 'inside' the NATO decision making loop. I agree that a BTG could likely do so when facing a NATO brigade, but its tendency to avoid risk and its numeric inferiority might delay that. I'm interested to hear other assessments.

https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/e...g/2Fiore17.pdf