Saved Rounds 9/29
Articles, resources, and responses for your weekend coffee
Editor’s Note: Saved Rounds is a weekly post for the CxFile Staff to share articles, resources, and responses we’ve found to the wider audience.
The Royal United Services Institute article “Stormbreak: Fighting Through Russian Defences in Ukraine’s 2023 Offensive” by Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds is required reading for all infantry professionals. It is focused on lessons learned from this summer’s fighting and is presented as a series of easy to read tactical vignettes. At about 25 pages it is long enough to include useful detail while still digestible in one sitting.
This map is one of several excellent graphics from the article depicting a Ukrainian attack on Novodarivka.
Key takeaway: Small unit infantry actions are still decisive. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)’s offensive is being won a platoon attack at a time.
Highlights:
Fires. Fire dominance is the key determining factor for a successful assault. Stand off precision strike via loitering munitions, converted commercial UAS, and GPS-guided artillery shells are critical to blinding enemy counter battery systems and suppressing key enemy assets, I.e. tanks and EW. Neither side can sustain the volume of fire necessary to completely suppress all known, likely, and suspected enemy positions. How is your unit integrating the Reconnaissance Fires Complex into your training?
Mines. Russian explosive obstacle belts are 500m deep in key areas and front line fighting positions are booby trapped prior to Russian withdrawal. In stride, dismounted mine reconnaissance and breaching by assault engineers are critical to maintaining tempo. How do you integrate and train to defeat modern explosive obstacles in your tactical scenarios?
UAS. There are as many as 25 UAS platforms overhead during an assault. EW is critical to UAS Defense at the front line and has become ubiquitous. NATO training areas do not allow for modern UAS/Combined Arms TTP training due to range safety regulations, preventing AFU forces from conducting effective collective training outside of Ukraine. How are you implementing UAS into your training? Whatever you’re doing, you need to push for more.
Protected mobility. Western protected mobility assets from MRAPs to Bradley’s keep their crews and embarked infantry alive to continue the fight even after being mobility killed. Most assaults have a portion of the assault element lose their vehicles in the obstacle belt, and must then dismount under fire to continue the assault on foot. Does your unit have a mobility training plan that drills common mounted contingencies (I.e vehicle recovery, bump plans, etc)?
Command and control. Manpower and training gaps in the AFU mean they need a Brigade staff to control two companies in the attack, their largest unit of employment. The attack is controlled via UAS feed at the Brigade level as that is where the surviving experienced officers are. A battalion can only effectively train two platoons of ‘assault troops’ with the rest of the battalion acting in support. How does your unit execute command and control at the company/battalion level? Can your lowest level tactical leaders fight without you over their shoulder?
If you want to learn more, the authors of this piece have written several excellent ones over the course of the war, and appeared on numerous podcasts recently. You can listen to them on ‘The Russia Contingency’ by War on the Rocks (requires subscription - which we recommend as money well spent!) and the ‘Modern War Institute Podcast’ by West Point, among others.
Let us know what you thought of the piece and how you are incorporating lessons learned from Ukraine into your training plans.
Have an article or book you want to share with the community? Have a reaction or response to one of our posts? Send your traffic and we’ll serve as your retrans site.