Russia Prepares for a Big War: The Significance of a Tank Army

 
By Patrick Armstrong 

People who already understand how armies are put together should skip Part 1.

Part 1. How armies are put together

One of the things that I find irritating about battles in movie is that the director seems to think that battles are about getting an inchoate mass of soldiers together, giving a rousing speech and yelling "Charge!" That is absolutely not how it works nor ever has worked. Real armies are assembled out of groupings made from smaller groupings, themselves made from still-smaller groupings and so on down to the smallest group.

The smallest group is about ten soldiers. This is the fundamental bonding size – these are your buddies, the people you will really remember, the ones you depend on and who depend on you and for whom you will fight and sacrifice. Yes, you're fighting for Freedom or some other Large Cause, but it's really your buddy you're doing it for. So we start with about ten soldiers.

In the Roman Army this was the contubernium – a corporal, seven legionaries plus two servants who shared a tent and ate together. The fundamental tiny piece out of which everything else was constructed.

The next thing to know is the span of command or control. The commander of each level, is trying, in very difficult circumstances, to get his subordinates to do something they would never do in their right minds. They know perfectly well that the first guy in the house, the lead guy attacking the machinegun post, the first guy out of the trench, the first guy out of the landing craft is almost certain to be killed or injured. It is very difficult to get people to do this and long experience shows that a commander can only control three to five elements.

The next principle to remember is square or triangular. Armies are usually constructed by making the next level of organisation out of three or four of the lower level. Why? With three, you can have two engaged and one in reserve. (A great deal of the problem of a commander, once battle is joined, is knowing where and when to commit his reserves). The "square" structure allows two in contact, one in reserve and one resting, or two up, one in reserve and one manoeuvring. Five or six are too many but two are too few. This introduces the fundamental principles of "fire" (applying the destruction to the enemy) and "movement" (moving so as to apply that destruction most efficaciously). (Movie battles have lots of the first, but little of the last.)

Finally, we have the combat arms – infantry, armour (cavalry in its time) and artillery – and supporting arms. "Combat arms" because they directly apply the violence. Other specialities assist them: engineers help them move, transport moves them, medical patches them up, signals communicate, logistics supplies them and so on. No army can function without them.

In what follows I will discuss infantry organisations because they are the purest soldier – the other two combat arms are machines, whether tanks or guns, and the support arms are functions. But, the principles of infantry organisations are followed in the other components. It should be noted that different military traditions have different names for some of these things but it's all the same principle.

Three or four "tents" (sections) make a platoon; three or four platoons a company; three or four companies a battalion. At battalion level some specialisation will appear: it may have a mortar platoon, or a machinegun platoon, there will be a simple first aid element, some light engineers, communicators, headquarters and so on. But they are all capable of being ordinary riflemen if needed. The battalion is the first construction that is capable of some sort of independent action – it has enough companies to provide fire and manoeuvre and reserves, its machinegun or mortar elements give it some support. But it is still infantry and still pretty "light".

The next level is a brigade of three or four battalions. But there is a decision point here: do you envisage this brigade being an "independent brigade" or a sub-division of a larger formation? If the former we introduce the other arms, if the latter it remains all infantry.

An independent brigade, or brigade group, will have, in proportions depending on what you want to do, infantry, tank and artillery battalions from the "combat arms" as well as "support" elements: like combat engineers, medical and dental, post offices, laundry facilities, possibly a helicopter battalion and on and on. It is an independent military town of 4000 to 6000 people which needs almost everything a civilian town needs while also being capable of moving anywhere at a moment's notice. This formation is intended to carry out military tasks by itself with help from the air forces.

The brigade that is intended to be a piece in the next largest structure would have three or four infantry battalions and would still be mainly riflemen with very little added from the other arms. Next level is the division made of infantry, tank and artillery brigades in the proportion thought useful. In the Second World War divisions were usually the smallest thing one would see on the battlefield that could be given an independent task.

A tank division would be constructed the same way except that the basic "tent" is tank itself, three or four make a platoon, and then companies, battalions and brigades. Artillery would only rarely be organised into independent structures because while it has fire, it does not have much movement. The supporting arms – engineers, signals, logistics, medical and so on, because they exist for support, rarely appear as independent structures. In short "divisions" are infantry-heavy or tank-heavy (bitter experience has taught and re-taught that none of the combat arms can function alone).

Moving up, three or four divisions make a corps; two to four corps an army and a couple of armies make an army group.

So, a whole gigantic army group is assembled, step by step, out of our little "tents".

Part 2. What's All This Mean?

How big a war do you anticipate? A smallish one, a bigger one or a really big one? Your answer will determine the formations that you construct.

An important decision point, which reveals your answer, is whether you add in the other combat arms and specialised support elements at brigade (ie 5000 or so troops) or at division (10,000 or so)? If at brigade, you have made a decision that you expect your future wars to be rather small and that all-arms formations of 5000-or-so soldiers is as big as you need. If on the other hand, you decide to create divisions – formations about three times as large – you are showing that you are expecting a larger war. If you then start combining these divisions into corps, armies or even army groups, you are expecting a really big, all-out war against a first-class enemy. Something the size of World War II in fact. In 1945, for example, the Western Allies entered Germany with three army groups, totalling eight armies, totalling 91 divisions: about four and a half million soldiers.

It is possible to have a bit of both, but it's only a bit. You may decide on independent brigades but also have a divisional headquarters. But, unless the brigades routinely exercise under the command of a standing divisional headquarters, and that headquarters controls assets, only the idea of divisional operations is kept alive.

In short, if you stop at independent brigades, you are telling the world that you expect, and are planning for, relatively small wars. If you go to divisions you are expecting something larger and if you construct a corps (or army in Russian terminology) you are telling the world that you are preparing for a big war.

And so, an observer who knows how armies are put together, can tell a lot about what kind of war a country expects by understanding how it has put its "tent groups" together.

Part 3. The Russian Army

The Soviet Army was organised for a huge war: it had divisions, organised into armies (corps in Western terminology) which were organised into fronts (armies in Western terminology) and further grouped into TVDs or Theatres of Military Activity (army groups in Western terminology) all backed up by a conscription and reserve system, immense stocks of weapons and gigantic pre-positioned ammunition dumps. This time, the Soviets did not intend to fight the decisive battle an hour's drive from Moscow. When the USSR collapsed, so did that structure. The most ready elements were based in the Warsaw Treaty countries; Russia took responsibility for them and they were hurriedly moved back, shedding conscripts as they went. The formations which would have been filled up and then supported the ready elements were in Ukraine and Belarus and lost to Russia.

For some years the management of the Russian army did not appear to have understood that everything had changed – that the huge Soviet forces were gone and would not magically fill up with hundreds of thousands of conscripts to fill up the "empty formations". But, they didn't know how to make them smaller either: we were always told in talks with the Russian General Staff that the state could not afford to pay the officers the pensions and housing allowances they were entitled to. And so this once mighty army decayed.

Perhaps it was failure in the First Chechen War that finally convinced headquarters that the Russian army was not a temporarily shrunken big war army. We started being told that they were re-designing their army around independent brigades. It was clear from reading the periodic military and strategic doctrine documents that the wars that Moscow foresaw were smaller wars, on the scale of border infractions or a Chechen-sized war in which the enemy would be small agile lightly-armed groups. For such conflicts, anything larger than independent all-arms brigade-sized formations would be too large and complicated.

And, gradually, between the two Chechen wars, "divisions" (which our inspections had shown to be empty of soldiers but full of poorly-maintained equipment and under-paid dispirited officers) disappeared and were replaced by "storage bases". We assumed these to be a way of avoiding the huge retirement bill while giving officers something useful to do. At the same time independent brigade groups began to appear, with the first ones in the south where trouble was expected. This is one of the reasons why the second Chechen war was a victory for Moscow.

At this stage, (I'm looking at the 2002 CFE data now) there were entities called "divisions" and "armies" (corps) but they were very understrength – apart from the North Caucasus, there were perhaps two divisions in the western area worthy of the name; neither of them deployed to the west. The real force was in the North Caucasus: three divisions, fully staffed and an army (corps) headquarters. But the future was there too with the first two independent brigade groups setting the pattern for the rest.

In short, by the turn of the century, in their published doctrine, in everything they told us in meetings, in deployments and in their formation structures the Russians were showing us they had no offensive designs against NATO and they expected no attacks from NATO. The south was where they saw danger.

The CFE Treaty showed us all this: the Russians were obliged to give us a list of elements showing their precise location and relationship to other structures with the number of soldiers and major weapons; we could go there and check this out at any moment. Thanks to the Treaty we always knew what they had, where they had it and how it was organised. Our inspectors found no discrepancies. But the NATO member countries never ratified the Treaty, continually adding conditions to it and, after years, Russia, which had ratified it, gave up and denounced it. And so we all lost (because it was reciprocal) a transparent confidence building mechanism based on full disclosure with the right to verify.

All this time the Russians told us that that NATO’s relentless expansion, ever closer, was a danger (опасность) although they stopped short of calling it, as they did terrorism, a threat (угроза); “dangers” you watch; “threats” you must respond to. NATO of course didn’t listen, arrogantly assuming NATO expansion was doing Russia a favour and was an entitlement of the “exceptional nation” and its allies.

It is important to keep in mind with the everlasting charges that Russia is "weaponising" this and that, threatening everyone and everything, behaving in an "19th century fashion", invading, brutalising, and on and on, that its army structure and deployments do not support the accusations. A few independent brigades, mostly in the south, are not the way to threaten neighbours in the west. Where are the rings of bases, the foreign fleet deployments, the exercises at the borders? And, especially, where are the strike forces? Since the end of the USSR they have not existed: as they have told us, so have they acted.

They planned for small wars, but NATO kept expanding; they argued, but NATO kept expanding; they protested, but NATO kept expanding. They took no action for years.

Well, they have now: the 1st Guards Tank Army is being re-created.

This army, or corps in Western terminology, will likely have two or three tank divisions, plus a motorised rifle division or two, plus enormous artillery and engineering support, plus helicopters and all else.

The 1st Guards Tank Army will be stationed in the Western Military District to defend Russia against NATO. It is very likely that it will be the first to receive the new Armata family of AFVs and be staffed with professional soldiers and all the very latest and best of Russia's formidable defence industry. It will not be a paper headquarters; it will be the real thing: commanded, manned, staffed, integrated, exercised and ready to go.

It should be remembered that the Soviet Armed Forces conducted what are probably the largest operations in the history of warfare. Take, for example, Operation Bagration which started shortly after the D Day invasion. Using Western terms, it involved eleven armies, in support or attacking; recall that the Western allies entered Germany with eight armies – five American, one each British, Canadian and French. Tank corps (armies in Soviet/Russian) are the hammers – either they deliver the decisive counter-attack after the defence has absorbed the attack (Stalingrad or Kursk) or they deliver the offensive strike. The decision to create a tank army (armoured corps in Western terminology) is an indication that Russia really does fear attack from the west and is preparing to defend itself against it.

In short, Russia has finally come to the conclusion that

NATO's aggression means it has to prepare for a big war.

As a historical note, Dominic Lieven's book shows the preparations Emperor Alexander made when he realised that, sooner or later, Napoleon was going to come for Russia. And everyone knows how that ended. As Field Marshal Montgomery, who had more experience of big war than anyone in the Pentagon or White House today, said: “Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: ‘Do not march on Moscow’."

This is what the light-hearted decision to expand NATO, "colour revolutions", regime changes, cookies on the Maidan and incessant anti-Russian propaganda has brought us to.

And it won't be a war that NATO will win.

 

Comments

[bth]

Kaliningrad is packed with tactical nukes and to imply that the Baltic states offer any threat to it is comedy.

[bth]

I was looking at the geography of the tank deployments planned and it looks to me like they are designed to intimidate Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

[turcopolier]

bth

I think it is all BS that there are regular Russian Army troop units in eastern Ukraine. pl

[cynic]

What is the point of senior generals; what do they do all day if they have no formations of troops to boss?

[cynic]

I'm confused by the numbers. If 30 men make a platoon, 90 make a company, 270 or say 300 make a battalion, 900 or say 1,000 make a brigade, and 3,000 a division. I had thought that battalions were 5-600 and divisions 12-15,000. Those are huge differences, leaving a lot of scope for tanks, guns, engineers, postmen, medics etc. It almost seems as if a level of organization is missing. What am I getting wrong?

[turcopolier]

cynic

you missed the point. In garrison in the US they supervise training and do administration. When their divisional or corps headquarters is deployed to combat they command whatever troops they are given. Salisbury was evidently a great favorite of his half brother John. pl

[bth]

Might be useful to keep an eye on events in Belarus this year. https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/belarus-political-transformation-takes-shape

[Bill Herschel]

I would be interested in knowing the opinions of the commenters on the proposal that Russia could have won WWII without the "Allies"?

[bth]

There have been Russian 'volunteers' on leave and in combat in eastern Ukraine in the last 24 months with Russian equipment. But that isn't what I meant. The Russian tank units Armstrong referenced are supposed to be going into Voronezh, Chelyabinsk and Boguchar as I read the news, which are in Russia but close enough to borders let the keep the neighbors up at night when the engines rev. The tanks aren't deployed against NATO but against Russia's former USSR republics.

[StoneHouse]

PL and PA, thank you both for this terrific, high quality blog post. I am looking forward to re-reading it and to returning to the comments as they fill up (one of the great effects of truly quality posts is that they inspire rich and information packed comments i.e. Vince's). Also, Patrick, although you suggest that the well informed should skip part one, I have never read quite such a clear and concise explanation of command structure any where else thus far. Thanks again. Best.

[Bill Herschel]

His article is absolute must read. Facts. No spin. And very useful background for anyone observing the events in Syria since September 2015.

[Kunuri]

IZ, for field testing the new weapons systems, not the Kurds, not in Iraq, not in Syria, but most likely in Nogorno/Karabag in Azerbaijan/Armenia, as we see currently. I looked up the armed forces of both nations today, they are supplied mostly by Russians, but everyone else around the world. Big arms, small arms, M16s and AK74s, Land Rovers and all kinds of M series from all nations. It is an arms manufacturer's dream testing grounds.

[different clue]

Babak Makkinejad,

I have heard/read the accusation that the 3 Baltics are "our" pawns. I think we were "their" suckers. And Poland's sucker too.

[Kunuri]

"If the situation spirals out of control w/ the TSK crushing these Russian-aligned Kurds in Iraq (as TSK well can; we are a real army-very much as described above), can anyone guarantee that there will not be escalation?"

Sorry to disagree with you here IZ, or if I may call you Ismail Bey, or Komutanim, TSK never had the international alignment of the stars, or internal unity and determination to crush the PKK aligned Kurds in Northern Iraq. As for ability of the TSK, I do not doubt it, but I doubt what it would accomplish. Kurds of Northern Iraq are currently aligned with the Russians, but in the recent past it was the USA, before it was Saddam, and before it God knows who. Surely PKK resides in Northern Iraq within the Kurdish part of Iraq, in caves and enclaves, and Barzani is best buddies with RTE, but PKK exists within their area of control, fully functional and seemingly immune to all F16 attacks from the air. And PKK has vital links to the fish pond within Turkey and beyond, that's how they survive. In short, unless the Kurdish problem within Turkey is resolved politically, a successful extermination of PKK in Northern Iraq will simply diminish it into an IRA like operation within Turkey, still claiming many innocent lives through random bombings, mass murders and like.

On a personal note, I got to know quite a few radical Kurds over the years, they sound quite reasonable to me as they revealed their grievances as Turkey citizens of a different, but not entirely distinct culture and tradition. Their inclusion as they like it within Turkish Republic as fully equal participants will be a gain. Past killings and displacements on both sides can/may be forgiven, but still mourned just as intensely on both sides, if the future can guarantee no more.

[Dubhaltach]

Don't forget Poland. In fact including any former Soviet bloc countries in NATO was lunacy of the first order.

[cynic]

Colonel
I'm still missing something. Salisbury and other nobles were important and powerful figures in their own right, basically owning and administering most of the country. As his Wiki entry records, he was not only a high level military commander but also a senior administrator on behalf of the King in various offices, and exerted political influence. That's a lot more than being a uniformed bureaucrat who has no political, economic or even military strength of his own which would make his loyalty important.

If there's a cunning plan for post-apocalyptic recovery, a sort of revived Cromwellian 'Rule of the Major Generals', featuring America's general officers as the new nobility, I think a lot of people might get a severe shock when they meet the new boss - a lot tougher than the old boss!(I hope they won't ban Christmas.)

I could understand that practicing the skillful handling and use of large formations of troops would be useful training for senior generals, even sometimes with actual troops to learn what could go wrong and how to recover; and perhaps responses to natural disasters and riots,'assistance to the civil power'.Internal administration is a surprising use of the highest level of talent available, and I had thought that actually training troops was the job of NCO's and junior officers. Maybe things have changed since the days when a Peninsular veteran wrote that 'the sergeants taught us how to fight, and the officers showed us how to die.'

[ISL]

IZ,

Hmm, I was trying to posit a way to get a Nato Airforce member to engage with the new Syrian Tanks, and not have Nato in Ukraine.

1. Russian oversight would be critical
2. Not sure which Kurds, but Turkey often bombs Kurds in Northern Iraq, main problem would be the Central govt of Iraq which could see this as a threat to them
3. Overseers would be Russian SOF
4. Hmmm, aircover, perhaps Iranian? Alternatively, Russian trainers in Iraq to support Iraq airforce training.
5. Plausible deniability is obviously needed.

Perhaps if the EU wants to get more involved in Libya an opportunity may arise.

I suppose they could be given to donBass, but given the state of the Ukrainian airforce and army, probably not a good test.

[Dubhaltach]

You could have provided some links no?

August Storm 1 & 2:

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/LP7_AugustStormTheSoviet1945StrategicOffensiveInManchuria.pdf

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/LP8_AugustStormSovietTacticalAndOperationalCombatInManchuria_1945.pdf

The Soviet airborne experience:

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/glantz.pdf

Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk:

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/glantz2.pdf

[jsn]

Another very educational post, thanks to the author and his host!

Is it posable that this is Putin's "star wars" moment?

The Bear has more or less matched now what we've done with IT following Reagan's "star wars" programs. Maybe Putin sees the Borg committed to special forces and outsourced mercenary warfare, recognizes what John Robb sees here http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2016/03/the-american-imperium-in-zombie-mode.html and understands the one thing NATO can't do is man a real Army Group.

The West has spent the last fifteen years doing to itself in slow motion what it did to post Soviet Russia with "shock therapy" with similar enough results to have resulted in the Trump/Sanders middle fingers to the establishment. And foreign news only makes sense on Samizdat web sites...here in the Muffled Zone.

[Dubhaltach]

All:

The Combat Studies Institute is a stunningly useful resource but there's so much material that it's easy to get befuddled. They produced this list of "Books for the Military Professional" as a PDF back in 1995

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/books.pdf

It provides a useful jumping off point for those who want to inform themselves a bit better on various topics.

[doug]

I recall skimming the new field manual circa 2006 when COIN was all the rage.

I look at it much like I look at common core math which was also all the rage. Mostly it's (math common core) now just rage.

The problem with common core math, which seeks to teach a strong understanding of math rather than rote memorization, is that it is an absolute failure when taught by teachers that don't have but a cursory understanding of math and that's, unfortunately, a rather high percentage.

[Chris Chuba]

IMO our misunderstanding of the Eastern front during WW2 was a perfect storm.

1. Soviets became our enemies and we had no access to their archives.
2. German generals writing memoirs and again IMO, while saying some useful things also covering their rear ends and playing on our ego. They basically said, oh, the Russians just overwhelmed us with numbers, you Americans, like Gen. Patton were just so much more skillful. This was music to our ears.

Glantz accessed the Russian archives and being fluent in Russian was able to read them directly. I highly recommend his book 'When Titan's Clashed' because being only 290 pages and covering the entire war on the Eastern Front, it is a great overview. He also describes the Manchurian campaign against the Japanese.

I had the misfortune of seeing an Oliver North 'War Stories Episode' about the Russian Front that had an interview of Glantz and with the magic of editing, showed Glantz saying something that I know is not representative of this views. I expected it to be a terrible episode, for some reason I just had to watch the train wreck.

[cynic]

Nice one, Colonel! A link via the wrong side of several blankets, back to England's most deplored king, and back to William the Bastard. Impressive. Your claim will be far down the line of succession, but if something were to happen to a lot of people, and you were to work on that Catholic thing... we could get used to calling you, 'Your Majesty'!

[Mark]

What I remember about Rumsfeld - or, more precisely, his organization - was its contempt for the professional military. Regardless the occasional hand-over-the-breast-pocket stirring speech in tribute to the veterans on Remembrance Day or such martial holidays, Rumsfeld & Co. thought the Army's upper echelon was a bunch of old nannies who did not understand modern warfare. Famously, when General Eric Shinseki - who served two combat tours in Vietnam and ended the war with only half a foot on one leg after stepping on a mine - told the assembled exceptional world-shapers that knocking over Iraq would require "several hundreds of thousands of soldiers", Paul Wolfowitz (self-styled egghead whose worldview "was forged by family history and in the halls of academia rather than in the jungles of Vietnam or the corridors of Congress" said that estimate was "wildly off the mark".

http://rare.us/story/the-time-eric-shinseki-told-the-truth-about-iraq/

Ten years later, Wolfowitz admitted the USA bungled Iraq, although nobody in that administration ever apologized to Shinseki. The descriptive phrase which sticks with me of that administration is "impenetrably ignorant".

[VietnamVet]

PA

This is a very interesting and informative post. I have two additional points. An invasion of Western Europe by the Russian Tank Army would inevitably result in the use of nuclear weapons and destruction of the Northern Hemisphere. Someone somewhere being overrun would ignite their tactical nuclear weapons. Also, it is also a huge cost in a time of declining oil revenue. That Russia would take this step shows their desperation. They are trying to pound sense into the Western Elite. Up to now this has been futile.

Mankind’s only chance to survive is for the people to regain control of the western democracies and once again make corporations subservient to the will of the people. The Russian government might do well to to reassert the sovereignty of nations and work to ratify treaties to assure a secure and peaceful world. Counter Western Agitprop with the truth.