Ukraine War, 1 September 2022: Manoeuvre Warfare for Beginners
Yesterday, a Russian ‘military expert’ published a map that caught lots of attention — and not few questions. Thus, here some discussion…
Yesterday, a Russian ‘military expert’ published a map that caught lots of attention — and not few questions. Thus, here some discussion of this affair.
The map in question was this:
Supposedly, it’s shown the situation south of the Davydiv Brid as of 31 August 2022, 16.00hrs local time. The story it tells is that the Ukrainians have taken Sukhy Stavok and then drove all the way to the T2207 road — which is the principal supply route for all the VSRF formations deployed i the Davydiv Brid and the area north of it.
Unsurprisingly considering the ‘shape’ of the ‘Ukrainian penetration’ depicted on this map, many have started to guess that this means that the involved ZSU formations are now all ‘in a trap’. And, no doubt, the Russians would love the situation to be that way.
Well, sorry, but the actual story is significantly different. It’s going to take a few minutes to explain it, though.
***
For the start, most of people think about warfare as a ‘linear affair’. Much of this is caused by the fact that it’s simpler to think about warfare as a linear affair. At least as much by there being dozens, if not hundreds of ‘map-drawers’ in the social media, each one swearing his maps are the best available, geo-located and cross-checked with XY of sources, videos and whatever else, and thus his/her reconstruction of the frontline is absolutely authentic.
One way or the other, people tend to think the warfare looks something like this (see diagram below), where each side has equal forces deployed along the full width of the frontline. Some that know more might then think about the ‘depth’ of the frontline, and expect there to be a second, perhaps a third ‘line of defence’ etc.
Sorry to disappoint you, everybody: warfare is much more complex.
Foremost: military commanders are neither trained, nor acting that way in reality….well, at least until they are incompetents, of which, arguably, there are always more than enough around (yes: ‘even’ in ‘most professional’ armed services). But, lets say that they are competent enough to understand they can’t act that way on a battlefield as ‘wide and deep’ as this in Ukraine. In such case, and actually, local commanders are deploying their units in form that could be described as ‘strongholds’: concentrated within an area they can oversee, preferably well-dug-in, too (and, o make sure their subordinates know how to do their their job properly, their superiors — ‘generals’ — are going to check what did they do by running ‘front inspections’….)
Furthermore, keep in mind that the essence of organisation of both the Russian and Ukrainian ground forces is a ‘triad’:
3 platoons are making a company
3 companies make a battalion
3 battalions make a brigade etc.
Arguably, at least the Russians have abandoned this structure — and that already before this war: the VSRF is understaffed already since so-called Serdyukov’s reforms, back in the late 2000s. As a result, many of its BTGs consist of, for example, two companies of infantry, plus two of artillery, plus one of tanks, and another two or three of other support weapons or -services.
One way or the other, and in general, military commanders tend to deploy their unit in ‘two up, one in reserve’ form. Thus, actually, from their point of view, the ‘frontline’ is looking like this:
***
Now it’s getting even more complex. The next crucial issue in warfare is called ‘situational awareness’: this is the level of knowledge about own- and the position and situation of the enemy. In modern warfare, situational awareness is considered as a matter of winning or losing: either one has superior situational awareness, or one has lost the battle before it even began.
Situational awareness is depending on intelligence and reconnaissance. Reconnaissance consists of visual observation, intercepts of enemy radio- and IT-communications, monitoring of enemy electronic emissions etc.
Intelligence is similar, though in many of modern armed forces going as far as that their intelligence services are collecting even the personal info on every enemy officer. That way, they can tell to their commanders not only about the strength and capabilities of the opponent, but also about the strength and capabilities of enemy commanders. They literally say, ‘this is your opponent, and if you do this, you can expect him to react that way, while if you do that, you can expect him to do something else…’
While trying to improve own situational awareness, every involved party is doing its best to deny the situational awareness to the opponent. This is why camouflage of field positions, electronic warfare, emission control, and operational security are as important (nowadays, ‘on the internet, too’). Under ideal conditions for the ‘blue force’, countermeasures are then going to result in the following situational awareness for the ‘red force’:
I.e. the ‘Red’ might know where are ‘some’, perhaps even ‘most’ of forward ‘Blue’ positions, but otherwise has no clue about the composition, deployment and capabilities of ‘Blue’s’ reserves etc.
***
Having explained these few ‘basics’, now lets see how should we all interpret the map by that Russian expert mentioned above. First point is: forget about these ‘nice, tidy frontlines, clear for everybody to see’. The map of that battlefield didn’t look this way:
….and no, the situation was not like this (where every ‘dot’ should mean the presence of another unit of one or the other side), either:
Actually, the situation in that area as of late on 28 August 2022 was something like this: one ‘Blue’ (say: Ukrainian) battalion, with three companies, of which two deployed south of Inhulets. This was facing three (depleted) Russian (‘Red’) BTGs, each with ‘two-three companies’. Additional Russian units were positioned further to the rear, ‘deeper behind the frontlne’: some were tactical reserve; others were artillery and supply units.
As can be seen, there were large ‘empty’ spaces between both Ukrainian and Russian units. And there were very few reserves behind most of VSRF units: in some cases, none at all. This is what people like me tend to summarise with ‘thinly occupied frontlines’.
Based on this conclusion, it is easy to deduct that the Ukrainian plan was something like this: punch through a specific sector of the frontline by flanking one of Russian strongholds, and then drive in the rear, and hit few other strongholds.
But, and again: forget that about ‘linear warfare’. In reality, warfare is never ‘clean’, even less so linear. Not only that modern-day armed forces do not deploy their units like (ancient) Roman legions, nor along ‘tidly spread lines of ditches and fortifications’, but they also do not advance ‘precisely as the arrow goes’. Moreover, keep that with the situational awareness in mind — and mind the massive Ukrainian artillery barrage through the whole night from 28 to 29 August, and then whole 29 August. Artillery barrages not only tend to kill enemy troops: they’re knocking out headquarters, enemy artillery, enemy communication centres, enemy commuication links (like field telephones), enemy supply depots etc.: artillery barrages are destroying situational awareness.
…and then keep in mind: at the time first reports surfaced that Ukrainians have liberated Sukhy Stavok, the same were talking about an advance for 10km behind the place.
From this one can deduct that, combined with ground assaults that followed the Ukrainian hours-long artillery barrage, this resulted in the Russian situational awareness producing something like the following picture as of the afternoon of 29 August: the HQ of the 49th CAA — itself hit by several volleys of artillery — lost the contact to some of its units, while it did receive reports from few other units about these being under attack. Some of them — including the probable local reserve, the nearby artillery concentration etc. — as indicated by the GenStab-U claiming the destructio of 11 MSTA-S and few other heavy artillery pieces — came under attack although at least 10km behind the frontline.
Now, when ‘informed’ about this, the map-drawers all react with their linear thinking, and draw maps like this:
….which, mildly expressed, is nonsense — for following reasons.
) As mentioned above, no military units nowadays are moving ‘in formations of Roman legions’, even less so ‘strictly along the arrow on the map in the headquarters’.
Neither Russians nor Ukrainians have enough troops, nor would — if having enough troops — ‘promptly establish a frontline either side of that advance.
Actual movement of a motorised/mechanised unit over an open field is rather resembling something like this (if this would be moving from left to right of that diagram):
4.) As long as this unit is on the move, it’s relatively safe from enemy artillery: the enemy first must find it, and then track it all the time in order to start shelling it. Even once it’s under artillery fire, the unit can still manoeuvre — accelerate forward, turn left or right, or withdraw — to avoid that artillery fire. I.e. the artillery fire must be very precise to stop and ‘fix’ it where it is: that’s when this unit is the most vulnerable. Without situational awareness, as of 29 August, the Russians were unlikely to ‘fix’ any of involved Ukrainian units — except those whose assaults got struck in front of Russian positions.
This is why they say that in manoeuvring warfare it’s like in aerial warfare: ‘speed is life’, and ‘movement is keeping you safe’.
5.) All of initial Russian reactions to the Ukrainian ‘offensive’ in Kherson Oblast, launched on 29 August, were stressing the small size of involved Ukrainian forces. Kind of, ‘one battalion here, another plus few tanks there…. perhaps 3,000 troops and 50 tanks in total’.
If so, this is no ‘offensive’, but a ‘large scale raid’.
Right after that, all of the Russian social media ‘collectively switched to the counterattack mode’, free along the motto, ‘now we’re going to break their bones’.
However, because— regardless of all the Russian attempts to explain them as dumb and incompetent — Ukrainians are not of the kind driving around and yelling ‘kill me, kill me first’, conclusion is on hand that they moved out, overrun whatever Russian positions they could: then speeded forward to destroy whatever facilities, reserve units, depots etc. they could find in the Russian rear, before returning — either to their old positions, or to selected of Russian positions they have overrun in the process of their advance.
….with which we’re, probably, ‘back’ to a situation that’s something like this:
