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ernest nichols's avatar

I am a retired US infantry E-5. Your research is incredible. I got out in the 80's, so I am dated. BUT. Even then, there was no lower level decision making. A LT. calling in artillery! Fucking incredible. I spend a lot of time at the VA hospital in Tulsa. Most of the kids are sandbox kids. They talk about how the US chain of command is so intractable that NO decisions can be made.

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Matthew N Davies's avatar

No sleight on yourself for having pursued this - it's a topic of keen interest with a background of much widespread misunderstanding, at least in the West. However, both source and context for this discussion are highly dubious. I think it is apt here to remember that this is an Infowar, and those parties which do not send theirs into the front itself i.e., NATO+, are especially busy at this virtual "front" of perception management and efforts to tarnish competing brands - in this case the "brand" so targeted being the Russian Army. Given the material's suspect origins and context, the fact that one of the NATO+ generals publicly amplifies such claims around it is, in my view, an example of very cynical and unethical professional misconduct.

This purported "Ukrainian officer" with the smooth idiomatic written English starts with a very loaded premise i.e., "after [Russia's Army] experiencing failures". Really? That assertion is presented as uncontroversial fact, but then combines with beat-up over what appears to be a Russian military doctrinal reference that's been in their system for years (strange the "ukrainian officer" gives no publication date or publishing HQ or training command, author/s etc).

There's nothing in either the structure or its method of flexible mission-oriented kit allocation that is exclusive of the BTG concept per se. True enough, an absence of logistical and MLRS elements would be a conspicuous difference from BTG structures we've seen publicized from the start of SMO in Feb 2022, but it is precisely a feature of BTGs to provide for such modular flexibility to suit mission and environment. Therefore, such alteration would be consistent with a longer mission duration, as expected for assault operations against close, concentrated enemy defenses such as we see on the Bakhmut Axis. To relinquish logistical and longer-range artillery or MLRS assets would be a logical and doctrinally consistent modification of BTG structure where Regiment or Brigade must take closer control of those assets. In other words, such an 'Assault BTG' becomes less autonomous in that it loses an ability to move farther and cover itself at longer range. Nonetheless, it would expand its range of tactical responses at closer ranges with greater choice of direct-fire weapons systems and armored vehicles for fight-through and exploitation.

Also, note that the "ukrainian officer" makes no quote or scan-reference to the claimed "battalion-level detachment" term (in the original Russian) which he purports to have replaced the BTG term! Besides, where the original source material itself does offer direct evidence it refers only to platoon and company levels. The source never once provides even a direct semantic reference to such a "detachment" - the very definition of this claimed "reform" or "restructure". Without any publication date, we could be practically dealing with an old Soviet-era training manual, which were known to build on actual reforms from close combat in assault tactics used at places like Koenigsberg, Budapest, Breslau and Berlin

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