Unit effectiveness depends on their PR, it's like some guerrilla army. ZSU may start to pay salaries according to proved destroyed enemy machines and "kills" and the guerrilla command would be complete.
It is already happening in a way. And would happen more. Already for proven kills there are "bonuses" that can be used to "buy supplies", like drones. Next step is a "supermarket" where brigade decides which drone to buy, from a selection. This is being redied for launch.
It's good if soldiers have a word which type of equipment to buy. Good performance on the battlefield should be rewarded by medals. Small bonuses are OK but only so small, so they do not influence soldiers decision. E.g. whether to continue to hunt retreating enemy or help neighboring unit under attack, etc. High kill bonuses are successful in guerilla armies, because they increase tactical success, but may degrade operational or strategical capabilities.
And in the world of PR, it should continue. For it is the only way to formulate idea of your unit, and attract people to it. Since PR is inexpensive these days, it should remain competitive. It stimulates both ways, or maybe more then two. Because it stimulates unit to be effective and take care of its men, it stimulates recruits to join, and it stimulates General Staff to move or well evoliving unit will "eat" them informationally/politically.
PR of a unit should not overshadow PR of the army. I.e. if someone wants to join the army, then he may be interesting in type of arms to join not so like which unit to join. Otherwise it's a sign of wrong leadership.
Well, that is what the Cossacks were. Exactly that way the Urkainians fight very efficiently (Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv) and Russia found out to counter that by making a cohesive frontline and bombing or shelling everything that is on the other side stopping this line from going forward.
In my opinion Russia was right, that they could and destroy Ukraine based on their high commands ability. What they didn't count on was the willingness to fight from the boots on the ground.
No, it still works, considering around 3 times more resources of ru army plus overwhelming air-support. However the survival lies in further evolving this system. Not in retarding.
Thanks. In my ignorance, I had assumed Ukraine operated some kind of divisional structure that was never talked about. Assumption is the mother of all f**k ups.
Thank you this special feature! I would add a few more thoughts.
Generally I do not believe in ready made solutions for this war. Including organisational structure. And I agree with those proposed by Osman.
But taking a step back and overall principles, I would mention two more: "crowd-sourcing" principle and "no taxation without representation".
First one means each successful unit has a different approach to its success. And it should continue like that, diversity instead of standartisation. But of course all transfers and recruiting, and organisational growth should be allowed. Means succesful units should take as much new and existing recruits into their ranks as they are organisationally capable, whether it would become a division or even army, does not matter. Those units that are not functional, means lossing men and not able to recruit (means even mobilised person should have a choice of unit) should be disbanded. Such is a natural selection.
And "no taxation without representation" means "no command without control and responsibility". Means all headquaters/staffs should consist of representatives of units that are going to execute the command, besides some general staff, and support personnel.
"diversity instead of standartisation" is often argument of those, who does not understand difference of command vs leadership. Good leadership supports different approaches to tackle problems, but also has to ensure good approaches and solutions are shared and spread across whole organization not to let some units behind and down.
"Leadership" is often an argument of those, who miss how systems and "cultural codes" work. A good system would benefit from a good leadership, but is not dependendent on it. A bad system would eat "good leader" for a breakfast. A few corporations have figured out some time ago that fostering initiative, risk, trial and error, leveraging end user input, would speed up their development geometrically. Now you have Google for example, from outside it looks cohesive and solid, yet inside you have a multitude of "start-ups" that are born and some die. And it is a function of system, not a leader.
Sustainability, self-sufficiency, responsiblity, risk taking, agility, empowerment of individual or unit, are all the key metrics to assess culture or system.
Many people thing wrongly, that such company systems you describe are self sufficient, i.e. they do not need to be build or managed. The opposite is true - they may flourish only under good leaders, otherwise the company would sooner or later fall apart. (And do not confuse management with control.)
Sure, but then "good leader" would be the one who regularly invests in a system capacity, not finding A solution to particular problem. And I bet good system may survive long after founding leader/s gone.
Your predictions as good as always. The system for accounting of confirmed hits works already since early days of war. And had its "infacy diseases" gone. Now its just adding some balanced and well working bonus system on top. Which also works already for some time :)) So the word "will" does not apply to something of the past.
Dear Mihai, we all have the mix of our beliefs and experiences in our expression. And to larger or lesser degree we adjust beliefs, when encountering experiences. You seem to insist to keep your beliefs whatever facts you encounter.
Fact number one: field commanders in both armies have great degree of control over their soldiers. Subordination, this how army works. In ru army mil bloggers have reported many times that commander would take cards from subordinates and will take part of it. Another way of this happening is having common pool of money for the unit, that can be distributed to various purposes, including individual bonuses and equipment. Whether you allow this or not, it will happen.
Fact number two: the bonuses were existing at the very beginning of the war. Then it was evolving, appearing and disappearing, and now becomes system of "points" for the unit.
Fact number 3: corruption exists on many levels in both armies, selling fuel, equipment, whatever. However, besides systemic efforts to stem that, UA has a big bonus, it is a war for survival. It is not possible to simply stop fighting, and do nothing. For then you will die, your friend will die, and eventually your family. So all the decisions have a little bit different meaning and purpose in UA army. Check this interview, from 28, if your are interested in facts: https://youtu.be/22mjWbZ0rkA?t=1686&feature=shared
So, the ZSU indeed have a mix of quasi-divisions and brigades, but all mixed up.
They have any experienced group of officers that can establish a new system? That can asume corps and divisional commands?
Why Sirsky and their fellas, that studied under the soviet system, don't try to replicate it? VSRF goes for a Brigade system and eliminación of the divisional structure in prewar years but since 2018 they stop that and started recreating divisions again, and corps, armies and maybe entire fronts.
Regarding the part of the historical triade setup: Where there no brigades back then and the divisions simpy smaller or was there more on triade style command going upwards, like a corps?
[Disclaimer: I'm just a civilian with a deep fascination about orders of battle and TO&Es, so I may well be wrong]
Not really, depending on which country you look at divisions were actually larger a century ago. First of all, the article is mistaken when it comes to common western English naming schemes*. The base 8-12 soldier unit is called a squad**, with a platoon being 2-4 squads and then as described in the article, so the units are one level below (and roughly one third of the manpower) of what they are. As for brigades, it depends as not all nations used the term in the same way. For example, a US WW1 infantry division had four infantry regiments*** split among two brigades (a structure called a square division), but before entering WW2 switched to the more common 3-regiment (triangular) division used by most other powers, with the brigade disappearing from the US army as a unit for a couple of decades. In contrast, the British used (and still use) regiments as purely ceremonial and administrative units, so instead of having 9 battalions distributed among 3 regiments in a division like the US or German WW2 armies, they had 9 battalions distributed among 3 brigades in a division (so WW2 US/German regiment = WW2 British brigade).
The modern western system seems to mostly have moved away from regiments as combat units and replaced them with brigades. Even with all the national variations, there seems to be a broad consensus in western-style armies that a regiment is the largest "pure" unit (i.e., pure infantry or pure tanks), and since the Cold War there's being a move to have combined arms units at that level, which then became brigades. For example, the current US armoured divisions are made up of 3 frontline brigades, with each brigade containing 3 combined arms battalions (mix of tank and infantry companies).
*: That's really only true for infantry formations. Different arms have different naming schemes, like battery being the artillery equivalent of an infantry company, or the use of squadron instead of company/battalion for units with a cavalry heritage.
**: That was formally true until some point during the cold war, when it seems that it became commonplace at least among western-styled armies to subdivide the squad into 2-3 smaller units (of 3-4 men each), usually called a fireteam.
***: That's only the frontline units of the division, it would also have an artillery regiment and a collection of other supporting battalions (like engineers and supply train).
I just can’t help getting flashbacks between the old strategy games one played as a youngster with units having different combat strengths values/ratings and later (slightly more academic) German WWII 1944 front unit strength and equipment reports (explaining these), all now being analyzed in real-time before the war is even over and a game is released.
Well, here they are and why some Ukr units are 0-1-1.
Ratings to own divisions was introduced by Germans back in 1916 as far as I recall, once they recognized units numbers and arrows on the maps increasingly mismatch reality. Probably used till today (fully capable of offensive, capable of defence, limited defensive ops and incapable - just a unit number and a flock of scared men ). Worthy exercise to estimate how many units of each type both sides may have.
I'm not equipped to comment on the validity of this critique but it's extremely well presented. As ever! I hope that there is an equivalent analysis happening somewhere out there in Ukraine/NATO.
The next few days are going to be extremely critical for the future of Ukraine, Europe and the USA, if not the entire world. I wish I had confidence that even if there's a Democratic administration, there will be a ramping up of support for Ukraine. However, it seems to me that Americans are focused on little but their personal levels of taxation - and thereby consumption habits.
Guess the larger the unit the smaller the fraction of combat personnel, in division it is about 40%. While operating the army say as a flock of independent squads or platoons one can approach 100% plus one macro-micro manager. No structure will fix lack of people willing to fight.
This is not absurd, but sarcasm and your explanation is obvious triviality. Nevertheless there's a set of reasons why VSU doesn't have divisions/corps/army levels. Simple explanation is plain stupidity and lack of foresight of VSU leadership. Seems everyone is happy with this reasoning. The list of constructive explanations includes but not limited to lack of senior officers to run these additional level of command. Everyone is complaining about quality of brigade level command, so these people would do better at divisional level? Or may be there is a way to clone good brigade commanders?
Thank you for this deeper dive into a specific topic. I believe the lessons will be learned because sooner or later the existential threat will force this. But of course the hope is that they will be learned asap.
Tom, thanks for another great write up. You mentioned US procedures for rotations which are already written and easily available. Obviously, somebody just needs to print them out and use them. And I’m sure the same is true for the organizational structure of the army as well as the entire doctrine. My question is, and if I may put you on a spot, if Zelensky can ask NATO or the White House who they would like to see as the new CnC, I’d like to ask you who do you see as the new CnC? I think Arty Green is correct, most Ukrainian generals were raised and bred on the USSR and Russian doctrine and I’m not sure if there are enough Budanovs out there.
Oh my, that's why I hate the talk about leaders, for it inevitably leads to "names" in that context. And we could not have any idea, because a) we do not know daily operational environment of the person/position, like UA CnC for example, what are the limitations and influences, relationship with MOD, pres admins, other ministries. b) we don't know about operational skills of potential candidate. c) we can not match a) and b). We can only observe consequences, and at least hope we can draw the right conclusions.
For example almost a years since UAV Forces introduced, a perfect field commander is appointed as a head. And then I see, maybe I am wrong, the first meeting of CnC and commanders of prominents UAV units. Not the commander of UAV forces, but CnC, and that one I think was not present on the first meeting. Mmm .. it's bad. He (Head of UAV firces) should have established a regular meeting already from his start.
Then I am seeing Sternenko running around and offering help to organise anti-uav of the cities? Well, for me, it means nothing will happen positive with UAV Forces.
Change the leader? Maybe, but variables are not known, what are the expectations, responsibilities, limitations. Maybe it is simply organised in a wrong way, and concept needs to change, or maybe it needs to be given time, and not putting hopes there.
Anyway, this hope of the "good leader" who comes and changes everything, kills systemic thinking. And discussion. Instead of "who is guilty" I prefer to ask "what needs to change". And when enough people clear on the latter, the change will happen. Either with same leader or with different.
That’s why I didn’t ask you, I asked Tom, who I would venture to say has someone in mind, after all he’s been analyzing this war since the beginning and he’s been pointing fingers at Sodol way before even the guys from Azov did and he’s been pointing a finger not only at Syrsky, but Zaluzhny as well. So, I would like to hear from Tom, and possibly Donald Hill, who they think the next CnC should be according to their own criteria, and what their criteria are. Thank you.
Hmm, this is basically the difference between 'verification' and 'falsification'.
We can observe and can see what is going wrong, but we don' t have enough insider information about the candidates to decide who would be the best next CnC.
Unfortunately, the chaos in the management of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is only a reflection of the chaos of the entire political system, which has done nothing to transfer the state machine to war footing for 2.5 years of a full-scale war. Elementary - from the budget of the capital of a country fighting for its survival, 1.5 billion UAH are allocated for the purchase of 5 "super-duper" trams and 4.5 billion UAH for the construction of a road to the non-functioning Zhulyany airport!
Excellent article. Again, the lack of 'Lessons learnt' 🤦🏼♂️. The Russians can still be beat but it sounds like they'll be beaten by pure grit rather than a well-organised command echelon. Well done to Lithuania for recognising the need!
Hopefully this will served as a welcomed introduction to the most glaring issue with AFU organisational structure and be heard.
The first problem is not that Syrsky and his close collaborators arent capable to micro manage every single brigade & detached/independent battalion of the +100 who form the AFU across the entire frontline.
The problem is that Syrsky and friends are trying this impossible task and thus set themselves up for failure.
It is a tragic mystery to me why the AFU is even trying to re-invent the wheel and ignores the traditional wisdom through which all modern armed forces have organized themselves. Aka the entire pyramidal structure of platoons/companies/regiments/battalions/(brigade)/divisions/corp etc in multiples of 3.
Contrary to the recent foes of Russia, Ukraine is unique in that it is a proper state with institutions including standing armed forces instead of being a patchwork of communal militias. It is a shame this advantage is waste for who knows what reasons.
Lithuania forming divisions: It is my understanding that Lithuania's population approximates 3 million people. How many divisions can be formed reasonably from a military that is drawn from this small population? Given such a low population, I therefore would hope that there are concrete plans for importing across that "small pond," Swedish troops to help to defend the Baltic states from a Russian attack. Also, assuming Swedish direct involvement in such a defense, wouldn't it be wise to structure the Lithuanian ... actually the 3 Baltic states + Finland ... army (armies) to conform mutually with the structure of the Swedish military. Given that all of these states (including Sweden) are in NATO and NATO Stanag applies to equipment, weapon systems, and people, a common organizational model, adjusted appropriately for a particular geographical area, is prudent. Caviat! I am not a land warfare expert, but commonality as much as possible seems to me to be the best way to form joint armed forces from more than one nation-state.
A country can mobilise about 5% of its men în war and 0.5% în peacetime.
So Lithuania could go for 7500 men în peace time annd 75 000 în war. It could create about 1 division plus independent units for fixed defense, supply, air defense, etc.
Coalition warfare is the mother of defeat as no one is fully responsabile and decisions require negotiations between multiple sets of civil and military hierarchies.
The worst exemples are France-UK-Belgium în WW1 and WW2.
Lithuania has about 670k males and 720k females fit for service according to Wikipedia.
Of course in practice the real limit is not the population itself, but money (both directly, as in it takes money to buy tanks and pay wages, but also indirectly, as in people who are soldiers are not workers elsewhere).
I could imagine them massively increasing their reserves over the next couple decades if the international situation remains as it is now though.
I am not a feminist but I fully support women rights.
Still, I don't see women as a military force: they have lower physical force/ endurance, they externalise stress with crying or shouting under stress and they have more medical needs compared to men.
În peacetime or some low intensity conflict you can fix these problem. În high intensity attrition warfare you don't have the resources.
Women were employed în WW2 but always away from very high inyensity fighting.
There were Night Witches on the Soviet side because Luftwaffe didn't send the NachtJagger on the Eastern Front.
During WW2 even in some democratic countries women still didn't have full rights to vote and were discriminated at work and in education. It's not an argument.
As for women "externalising stress", I've seen women handle stress way between than some men, including around road crashes where people where heavily injured. This is individual characteristic, not a matter of what you have between your legs.
And I think that 12% value for Lithuania is not an accident. They are volunteers, but the country must be heavily supporting that idea, exactly because they know they have small population.
Well, here we are two and a half years later and the organizational remedies you put forth are still not being implemented; confusion amongst the "command staff"...seemingly at all levels; there is no obvious system of reserves established; needed supplies are not being provided for front line units, assuming they are available; confusing and irrational unit structure. All in all, quite a "cock-up" it would seem. It's. amazing that Ukraine has survived as long as it has. One presumes this is the case because the Russians are even more incompetent. Perhaps it's recognition of these failures that lead the West to "trickle" in their aid packages to Ukraine ie. lack of trust in Ukrainian military leadership. For those of us concerned with Ukraine's survival this is very frustrating because it seems there is no real hope that these problems will be corrected any time soon.
When this war started I seem to remember NATO wasn’t confident about Ukraine’s army being able to run modern weapons or strategic campaigns against Russia. They must have seen the deficiencies in ZSU command and control. It’s fixable, but when?
Seems, you've opened the wrong URL:
For discussion of dreams and dreams-interpretation, please check:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/664157904438959/
Then do yourself a big favour and avoid reading things that are making you upset.
You might have missed the part where Ukrainian soldiers understand the problem and came up with the same solutions.
Unit effectiveness depends on their PR, it's like some guerrilla army. ZSU may start to pay salaries according to proved destroyed enemy machines and "kills" and the guerrilla command would be complete.
It is already happening in a way. And would happen more. Already for proven kills there are "bonuses" that can be used to "buy supplies", like drones. Next step is a "supermarket" where brigade decides which drone to buy, from a selection. This is being redied for launch.
It's good if soldiers have a word which type of equipment to buy. Good performance on the battlefield should be rewarded by medals. Small bonuses are OK but only so small, so they do not influence soldiers decision. E.g. whether to continue to hunt retreating enemy or help neighboring unit under attack, etc. High kill bonuses are successful in guerilla armies, because they increase tactical success, but may degrade operational or strategical capabilities.
And in the world of PR, it should continue. For it is the only way to formulate idea of your unit, and attract people to it. Since PR is inexpensive these days, it should remain competitive. It stimulates both ways, or maybe more then two. Because it stimulates unit to be effective and take care of its men, it stimulates recruits to join, and it stimulates General Staff to move or well evoliving unit will "eat" them informationally/politically.
PR of a unit should not overshadow PR of the army. I.e. if someone wants to join the army, then he may be interesting in type of arms to join not so like which unit to join. Otherwise it's a sign of wrong leadership.
Well, that is what the Cossacks were. Exactly that way the Urkainians fight very efficiently (Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv) and Russia found out to counter that by making a cohesive frontline and bombing or shelling everything that is on the other side stopping this line from going forward.
In my opinion Russia was right, that they could and destroy Ukraine based on their high commands ability. What they didn't count on was the willingness to fight from the boots on the ground.
No, it still works, considering around 3 times more resources of ru army plus overwhelming air-support. However the survival lies in further evolving this system. Not in retarding.
PR is for us, laypeople. The army already knows how effective the unit is. PR is used for recruitment purposes.
Thanks. In my ignorance, I had assumed Ukraine operated some kind of divisional structure that was never talked about. Assumption is the mother of all f**k ups.
Thank you this special feature! I would add a few more thoughts.
Generally I do not believe in ready made solutions for this war. Including organisational structure. And I agree with those proposed by Osman.
But taking a step back and overall principles, I would mention two more: "crowd-sourcing" principle and "no taxation without representation".
First one means each successful unit has a different approach to its success. And it should continue like that, diversity instead of standartisation. But of course all transfers and recruiting, and organisational growth should be allowed. Means succesful units should take as much new and existing recruits into their ranks as they are organisationally capable, whether it would become a division or even army, does not matter. Those units that are not functional, means lossing men and not able to recruit (means even mobilised person should have a choice of unit) should be disbanded. Such is a natural selection.
And "no taxation without representation" means "no command without control and responsibility". Means all headquaters/staffs should consist of representatives of units that are going to execute the command, besides some general staff, and support personnel.
"diversity instead of standartisation" is often argument of those, who does not understand difference of command vs leadership. Good leadership supports different approaches to tackle problems, but also has to ensure good approaches and solutions are shared and spread across whole organization not to let some units behind and down.
"Leadership" is often an argument of those, who miss how systems and "cultural codes" work. A good system would benefit from a good leadership, but is not dependendent on it. A bad system would eat "good leader" for a breakfast. A few corporations have figured out some time ago that fostering initiative, risk, trial and error, leveraging end user input, would speed up their development geometrically. Now you have Google for example, from outside it looks cohesive and solid, yet inside you have a multitude of "start-ups" that are born and some die. And it is a function of system, not a leader.
Sustainability, self-sufficiency, responsiblity, risk taking, agility, empowerment of individual or unit, are all the key metrics to assess culture or system.
Many people thing wrongly, that such company systems you describe are self sufficient, i.e. they do not need to be build or managed. The opposite is true - they may flourish only under good leaders, otherwise the company would sooner or later fall apart. (And do not confuse management with control.)
Sure, but then "good leader" would be the one who regularly invests in a system capacity, not finding A solution to particular problem. And I bet good system may survive long after founding leader/s gone.
Yep, agree.
This is a nightmare of organization. Units will generate fake video to get equipment and drag their feets to conserve the equipment.
Something like South Vietnamese Army. Lots of court intrigues and double dealings with the enemy
Your predictions as good as always. The system for accounting of confirmed hits works already since early days of war. And had its "infacy diseases" gone. Now its just adding some balanced and well working bonus system on top. Which also works already for some time :)) So the word "will" does not apply to something of the past.
The bonus system is the disease and will corrupt the Army.
Dear Mihai, we all have the mix of our beliefs and experiences in our expression. And to larger or lesser degree we adjust beliefs, when encountering experiences. You seem to insist to keep your beliefs whatever facts you encounter.
Fact number one: field commanders in both armies have great degree of control over their soldiers. Subordination, this how army works. In ru army mil bloggers have reported many times that commander would take cards from subordinates and will take part of it. Another way of this happening is having common pool of money for the unit, that can be distributed to various purposes, including individual bonuses and equipment. Whether you allow this or not, it will happen.
Fact number two: the bonuses were existing at the very beginning of the war. Then it was evolving, appearing and disappearing, and now becomes system of "points" for the unit.
Fact number 3: corruption exists on many levels in both armies, selling fuel, equipment, whatever. However, besides systemic efforts to stem that, UA has a big bonus, it is a war for survival. It is not possible to simply stop fighting, and do nothing. For then you will die, your friend will die, and eventually your family. So all the decisions have a little bit different meaning and purpose in UA army. Check this interview, from 28, if your are interested in facts: https://youtu.be/22mjWbZ0rkA?t=1686&feature=shared
Excellent article.
So, the ZSU indeed have a mix of quasi-divisions and brigades, but all mixed up.
They have any experienced group of officers that can establish a new system? That can asume corps and divisional commands?
Why Sirsky and their fellas, that studied under the soviet system, don't try to replicate it? VSRF goes for a Brigade system and eliminación of the divisional structure in prewar years but since 2018 they stop that and started recreating divisions again, and corps, armies and maybe entire fronts.
You don't need super officers. The organizatoon itself does half of the job.
Its something like having a teenager with cheap elrctrical srew driver vs an experienced worker with a manual one.
Thank you for this article.
Regarding the part of the historical triade setup: Where there no brigades back then and the divisions simpy smaller or was there more on triade style command going upwards, like a corps?
[Disclaimer: I'm just a civilian with a deep fascination about orders of battle and TO&Es, so I may well be wrong]
Not really, depending on which country you look at divisions were actually larger a century ago. First of all, the article is mistaken when it comes to common western English naming schemes*. The base 8-12 soldier unit is called a squad**, with a platoon being 2-4 squads and then as described in the article, so the units are one level below (and roughly one third of the manpower) of what they are. As for brigades, it depends as not all nations used the term in the same way. For example, a US WW1 infantry division had four infantry regiments*** split among two brigades (a structure called a square division), but before entering WW2 switched to the more common 3-regiment (triangular) division used by most other powers, with the brigade disappearing from the US army as a unit for a couple of decades. In contrast, the British used (and still use) regiments as purely ceremonial and administrative units, so instead of having 9 battalions distributed among 3 regiments in a division like the US or German WW2 armies, they had 9 battalions distributed among 3 brigades in a division (so WW2 US/German regiment = WW2 British brigade).
The modern western system seems to mostly have moved away from regiments as combat units and replaced them with brigades. Even with all the national variations, there seems to be a broad consensus in western-style armies that a regiment is the largest "pure" unit (i.e., pure infantry or pure tanks), and since the Cold War there's being a move to have combined arms units at that level, which then became brigades. For example, the current US armoured divisions are made up of 3 frontline brigades, with each brigade containing 3 combined arms battalions (mix of tank and infantry companies).
*: That's really only true for infantry formations. Different arms have different naming schemes, like battery being the artillery equivalent of an infantry company, or the use of squadron instead of company/battalion for units with a cavalry heritage.
**: That was formally true until some point during the cold war, when it seems that it became commonplace at least among western-styled armies to subdivide the squad into 2-3 smaller units (of 3-4 men each), usually called a fireteam.
***: That's only the frontline units of the division, it would also have an artillery regiment and a collection of other supporting battalions (like engineers and supply train).
Thanks
Yup. Have 'jumped over' the squad level, because that one is really dramatically different - from one to another armed force.
I just can’t help getting flashbacks between the old strategy games one played as a youngster with units having different combat strengths values/ratings and later (slightly more academic) German WWII 1944 front unit strength and equipment reports (explaining these), all now being analyzed in real-time before the war is even over and a game is released.
Well, here they are and why some Ukr units are 0-1-1.
Ratings to own divisions was introduced by Germans back in 1916 as far as I recall, once they recognized units numbers and arrows on the maps increasingly mismatch reality. Probably used till today (fully capable of offensive, capable of defence, limited defensive ops and incapable - just a unit number and a flock of scared men ). Worthy exercise to estimate how many units of each type both sides may have.
I'm not equipped to comment on the validity of this critique but it's extremely well presented. As ever! I hope that there is an equivalent analysis happening somewhere out there in Ukraine/NATO.
The next few days are going to be extremely critical for the future of Ukraine, Europe and the USA, if not the entire world. I wish I had confidence that even if there's a Democratic administration, there will be a ramping up of support for Ukraine. However, it seems to me that Americans are focused on little but their personal levels of taxation - and thereby consumption habits.
Guess the larger the unit the smaller the fraction of combat personnel, in division it is about 40%. While operating the army say as a flock of independent squads or platoons one can approach 100% plus one macro-micro manager. No structure will fix lack of people willing to fight.
This is totally absurd. (Modern) armies needs administration, Intel, supply, medics, logístic planning, air defense. Need to eat and rest.
An "army" of only fighters is not an army, is an armed band. Even a guerrilla forcé need a lot of support forces to deploy a group of fighters.
Fighting a dangerous enemy as the russian army needs more than fighters.
This is not absurd, but sarcasm and your explanation is obvious triviality. Nevertheless there's a set of reasons why VSU doesn't have divisions/corps/army levels. Simple explanation is plain stupidity and lack of foresight of VSU leadership. Seems everyone is happy with this reasoning. The list of constructive explanations includes but not limited to lack of senior officers to run these additional level of command. Everyone is complaining about quality of brigade level command, so these people would do better at divisional level? Or may be there is a way to clone good brigade commanders?
Thank you for this deeper dive into a specific topic. I believe the lessons will be learned because sooner or later the existential threat will force this. But of course the hope is that they will be learned asap.
Tom, thanks for another great write up. You mentioned US procedures for rotations which are already written and easily available. Obviously, somebody just needs to print them out and use them. And I’m sure the same is true for the organizational structure of the army as well as the entire doctrine. My question is, and if I may put you on a spot, if Zelensky can ask NATO or the White House who they would like to see as the new CnC, I’d like to ask you who do you see as the new CnC? I think Arty Green is correct, most Ukrainian generals were raised and bred on the USSR and Russian doctrine and I’m not sure if there are enough Budanovs out there.
Oh my, that's why I hate the talk about leaders, for it inevitably leads to "names" in that context. And we could not have any idea, because a) we do not know daily operational environment of the person/position, like UA CnC for example, what are the limitations and influences, relationship with MOD, pres admins, other ministries. b) we don't know about operational skills of potential candidate. c) we can not match a) and b). We can only observe consequences, and at least hope we can draw the right conclusions.
For example almost a years since UAV Forces introduced, a perfect field commander is appointed as a head. And then I see, maybe I am wrong, the first meeting of CnC and commanders of prominents UAV units. Not the commander of UAV forces, but CnC, and that one I think was not present on the first meeting. Mmm .. it's bad. He (Head of UAV firces) should have established a regular meeting already from his start.
Then I am seeing Sternenko running around and offering help to organise anti-uav of the cities? Well, for me, it means nothing will happen positive with UAV Forces.
Change the leader? Maybe, but variables are not known, what are the expectations, responsibilities, limitations. Maybe it is simply organised in a wrong way, and concept needs to change, or maybe it needs to be given time, and not putting hopes there.
Anyway, this hope of the "good leader" who comes and changes everything, kills systemic thinking. And discussion. Instead of "who is guilty" I prefer to ask "what needs to change". And when enough people clear on the latter, the change will happen. Either with same leader or with different.
That’s why I didn’t ask you, I asked Tom, who I would venture to say has someone in mind, after all he’s been analyzing this war since the beginning and he’s been pointing fingers at Sodol way before even the guys from Azov did and he’s been pointing a finger not only at Syrsky, but Zaluzhny as well. So, I would like to hear from Tom, and possibly Donald Hill, who they think the next CnC should be according to their own criteria, and what their criteria are. Thank you.
Some people are not only not able to read, but also insist on their right to do so. "We can only observe... and... draw... conclusions".
Read-yes, answer questions not addressed to them-no.
Hmm, this is basically the difference between 'verification' and 'falsification'.
We can observe and can see what is going wrong, but we don' t have enough insider information about the candidates to decide who would be the best next CnC.
Finally we are just observers..
Unfortunately, the chaos in the management of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is only a reflection of the chaos of the entire political system, which has done nothing to transfer the state machine to war footing for 2.5 years of a full-scale war. Elementary - from the budget of the capital of a country fighting for its survival, 1.5 billion UAH are allocated for the purchase of 5 "super-duper" trams and 4.5 billion UAH for the construction of a road to the non-functioning Zhulyany airport!
Excellent article. Again, the lack of 'Lessons learnt' 🤦🏼♂️. The Russians can still be beat but it sounds like they'll be beaten by pure grit rather than a well-organised command echelon. Well done to Lithuania for recognising the need!
Hopefully this will served as a welcomed introduction to the most glaring issue with AFU organisational structure and be heard.
The first problem is not that Syrsky and his close collaborators arent capable to micro manage every single brigade & detached/independent battalion of the +100 who form the AFU across the entire frontline.
The problem is that Syrsky and friends are trying this impossible task and thus set themselves up for failure.
It is a tragic mystery to me why the AFU is even trying to re-invent the wheel and ignores the traditional wisdom through which all modern armed forces have organized themselves. Aka the entire pyramidal structure of platoons/companies/regiments/battalions/(brigade)/divisions/corp etc in multiples of 3.
Contrary to the recent foes of Russia, Ukraine is unique in that it is a proper state with institutions including standing armed forces instead of being a patchwork of communal militias. It is a shame this advantage is waste for who knows what reasons.
Lithuania forming divisions: It is my understanding that Lithuania's population approximates 3 million people. How many divisions can be formed reasonably from a military that is drawn from this small population? Given such a low population, I therefore would hope that there are concrete plans for importing across that "small pond," Swedish troops to help to defend the Baltic states from a Russian attack. Also, assuming Swedish direct involvement in such a defense, wouldn't it be wise to structure the Lithuanian ... actually the 3 Baltic states + Finland ... army (armies) to conform mutually with the structure of the Swedish military. Given that all of these states (including Sweden) are in NATO and NATO Stanag applies to equipment, weapon systems, and people, a common organizational model, adjusted appropriately for a particular geographical area, is prudent. Caviat! I am not a land warfare expert, but commonality as much as possible seems to me to be the best way to form joint armed forces from more than one nation-state.
A country can mobilise about 5% of its men în war and 0.5% în peacetime.
So Lithuania could go for 7500 men în peace time annd 75 000 în war. It could create about 1 division plus independent units for fixed defense, supply, air defense, etc.
Coalition warfare is the mother of defeat as no one is fully responsabile and decisions require negotiations between multiple sets of civil and military hierarchies.
The worst exemples are France-UK-Belgium în WW1 and WW2.
12% of soldiers in the Lithuanian army are women.
Lithuania has about 670k males and 720k females fit for service according to Wikipedia.
Of course in practice the real limit is not the population itself, but money (both directly, as in it takes money to buy tanks and pay wages, but also indirectly, as in people who are soldiers are not workers elsewhere).
I could imagine them massively increasing their reserves over the next couple decades if the international situation remains as it is now though.
I am not a feminist but I fully support women rights.
Still, I don't see women as a military force: they have lower physical force/ endurance, they externalise stress with crying or shouting under stress and they have more medical needs compared to men.
În peacetime or some low intensity conflict you can fix these problem. În high intensity attrition warfare you don't have the resources.
Women were employed în WW2 but always away from very high inyensity fighting.
There were Night Witches on the Soviet side because Luftwaffe didn't send the NachtJagger on the Eastern Front.
During WW2 even in some democratic countries women still didn't have full rights to vote and were discriminated at work and in education. It's not an argument.
As for women "externalising stress", I've seen women handle stress way between than some men, including around road crashes where people where heavily injured. This is individual characteristic, not a matter of what you have between your legs.
And I think that 12% value for Lithuania is not an accident. They are volunteers, but the country must be heavily supporting that idea, exactly because they know they have small population.
Well, here we are two and a half years later and the organizational remedies you put forth are still not being implemented; confusion amongst the "command staff"...seemingly at all levels; there is no obvious system of reserves established; needed supplies are not being provided for front line units, assuming they are available; confusing and irrational unit structure. All in all, quite a "cock-up" it would seem. It's. amazing that Ukraine has survived as long as it has. One presumes this is the case because the Russians are even more incompetent. Perhaps it's recognition of these failures that lead the West to "trickle" in their aid packages to Ukraine ie. lack of trust in Ukrainian military leadership. For those of us concerned with Ukraine's survival this is very frustrating because it seems there is no real hope that these problems will be corrected any time soon.
When this war started I seem to remember NATO wasn’t confident about Ukraine’s army being able to run modern weapons or strategic campaigns against Russia. They must have seen the deficiencies in ZSU command and control. It’s fixable, but when?