[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).
"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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
I am surprised that Zelensky keeps talking about joining NATO, but can't seem to organize the army according to NATO standards.
It would be more lucrative for NATO, sometime after the end of the war, to recruit a hand-picked selection of the "best" Ukrainian units (AZOW, K2, 54... etc.) for missions and maneuvers and place them under the national command of another NATO force. Then you don't have to deal with the chaotic system of the entire ZSU.
[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).
Yup. Have 'jumped over' the squad level, because that one is really dramatically different - from one to another armed force.
"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.
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.)
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
The bonus system is the disease and will corrupt the Army.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
I am surprised that Zelensky keeps talking about joining NATO, but can't seem to organize the army according to NATO standards.
It would be more lucrative for NATO, sometime after the end of the war, to recruit a hand-picked selection of the "best" Ukrainian units (AZOW, K2, 54... etc.) for missions and maneuvers and place them under the national command of another NATO force. Then you don't have to deal with the chaotic system of the entire ZSU.