Don's Weekly, 18 November 2024: Part 3

by Donald Hill

Organization: A Ukrainian Point of View

The calls for reorganization of the Ukrainian army continue to grow from within the Ukrainian army. It is the single biggest factor in Ukraine’s control that can dramatically increase their combat power. So here is another discussion of the issue using different words. Because the issue is that important.

For the past few months, Ukrainian officers have been saying, “A small Soviet army cannot defeat a large Soviet army.”

The Russian army and most of the Ukrainian army suffers from top-down micromanagement. If they both fight in the same way then the larger army will have the advantage of mass. In order to equal or surpass the Russian combat power, Ukraine has to multiply its own combat power. The best way to do that is to increase the speed and agility of the decision-making process. The best way to improve the decision-making process is to assign fewer units to commanders and to encourage the initiative of subordinates, all the way down to the squad leaders and individual soldiers.

Syrsky is literally focusing on the actions of a few brigades in one sector and telling them what to do. In the meantime, brigades in other sectors wait for his orders and the orders are always late. It takes time for information from those doing the fighting to reach the top levels of the army, and it takes time for orders from the top levels of the army to reach those doing the fighting. By the time some orders reach the fighters they have become obsolete, overcome by events.

The Russian and most of the Ukrainian army have a large Ooda loop, meaning their decision making process is slow. Western armies and the successful Ukrainian brigades have a much smaller Ooda loop. They can observe, decide and act much quicker than their Russian opponents and most Ukrainian brigades. They can make 2, 3, or 4 decisions while the Russians and most Ukrainian brigades are reacting to the first decision point hours ago.

One of the organizational issues is that typically a leader is in control of too many units. In the Kurakhove sector there are 23 brigades that have anywhere from three to eleven battalions each. (These are included in the image below). In the adjacent Pokrovsk sector, there are eight more brigades and eight more battalions. (These units are not included in the image below). All of them are nominally commanded by Operational Tactical Group Donetsk (In Ukrainian: OTU Donetsk). That means that the OTU commands 31 brigades. A division will normally only command 3-5 brigades.

An organizational chart of the Ukrainian army. There are three Operational Strategic Groups in the army. Focusing on Operational Strategic Group Khortytsia, there six Operational Tactical Groups. Focusing on Operational Tactical Group Donetsk, there are 23 brigades around Kurakove (included above) and 8 more brigades and 8 more battalions in the Pokrovsk area not included in the image above (in the interest of saving space).

The next higher command echelon for that area is Operational Strategic Group Khortytsia (OSUV Khortytsia). It controls six OTU’s, including OTU Donetsk. And then the army level controls three OSUV’s: OSUV Tavria (Green in the image below), OSUV Khortytsia (Grey), and OSUV North (Red).

That’s how the Ukrainian army is officially organized. As it is, there are too many brigades for an OTU to control. Even at the brigade level, 8-11 battalions are too much for a brigade commander to control. There are too many reports coming up the chain of command to give each report the attention and timely response it needs.

In reality, though, it’s worse than that. The OTU and OSUV echelons of command don’t actually provide command and control over their subordinate units. In reality, all of the brigades are commanded by Syrsky himself. Even with the aid of his staff, he cannot absorb and synthesize all the data in an efficient and timely manner. No one can.

The solution has two components:

1. Reduce the number of units that a leader commands.

2. Encourage subordinate units to use their own initiative.

By reducing the number of subordinate units, a commander can provide the proper level of attention to the details that surround each unit and provide them with the support and coordination with adjacent units that is needed to achieve the objectives that he established. By encouraging the initiative of subordinate units, they will be able to react to the enemy actions much quicker than if they had to wait for orders. Officers and enlisted men are much more willing to fight if they believe they have the power to change things. Soldiers that passively wait for orders without the coordination and support of adjacent units feel isolated and are much more likely to withdraw in order to preserve their own lives.

The theoretical organization chart below is much more in line with most armies. Each brigade has three battalions, each division has three brigades, and each corps has three divisions.

There’s plenty of room for variation. Instead of three subordinate units there could be 2-5 subordinate units. But the key is that the commanding unit is not overwhelmed. The lower levels of command respond to the small details, and then provide a general report to their higher headquarters. The higher headquarters responds to those general reports and then combines all the general reports it receives and provides that to their higher headquarters. That’s how information flows.

Using all that information, the highest level of headquarters provides an objective for their subordinate headquarters to achieve and a plan on how to achieve it. The next level lower assigns tasks to their subordinate units on how they are to achieve the parts of the objectives assigned to them. These assignments should flow all the way down to the individual soldier, so he understands his mission.

But the enemy has his own objectives and when enemy actions disrupt friendly plans, the individual soldier knows what the objective is, so he has the power to find another way to achieve that objective. And when his commander receives his report that things have changed, he can also adapt the plan to either support the initiative of the individual soldier or to redirect the soldier to secure the objective in a different way. And these reports of changes are constantly flowing up the chain of command, while coordination and new commands are flowing down the chain of command.

The quicker your side can react and adapt to the changing battlefield, the more combat power you will have relative to your enemy.

These are not just idle words of an outside observer. This is what Ukrainian soldiers have been saying for a long time now in many different ways. The author and editor of this article interviewed four Ukrainian officers: One serves at the brigade level. One has experience at the operational tactical group level. One has experience at both the operational tactical and operational strategic level. And one has staff experience at the highest level of command.

These are their words and their views. Please read them.