What is the modern Russian army like? Myths and facts

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The US Armed Forces have approached today's aggravation of the international situation fully armed - with a set of the most advanced concepts of warfare, with an experienced command staff, with fundamentally improved control methods. Is the Russian army the exact opposite?

These are the conclusions of the military expert Vladimir Denisov. His article, published in Novaya Gazeta, provides a comparative analysis of the construction and development of the two leading armies of the world - the American and Russian. Military science in our country is ruined, the expert believes, there are no new ideas and concepts. Western experience is being unreasonably ignored. Generals are preparing for the last war. In the context of a hypothetical clash between the "wise" American army and the "unreasonable Russian", the latter can be rescued either by a miracle, or by some gamer with innovative ideas and an unconventional approach to military operations. Such "analytical" calculations can cause alarmist sentiments in a part of our society. But is it really so?

Prostration

In the early 90s, the Russian army found itself in a difficult situation. There has been a radical turn in strategic attitudes. Many previous ideas about the goals, means and methods of the country's defense were overthrown, a number of key principles of ensuring its security were recognized as erroneous, and the previous provisions on the direction and nature of military organizational development were discarded. New Russia has embarked on a course of rapprochement with the West. Former adversaries suddenly turned into allies or partners, and former allies became either potential enemies or neutral countries. The leadership of the state made unprecedented concessions, including agreeing to a complete curtailment of the military presence in Eastern Europe.

The sharply narrowed economic base did not allow the state to maintain a multimillion-dollar army, to update its technical arsenal in a timely manner, to develop and produce modern types of weapons and military equipment on the same scale, and to accumulate the necessary mobilization reserves. In fact, it was necessary to create a new Armed Forces, but the political will and material resources for this were absent, the country experienced a profound socio-economic decline. As a result, after the decision was made to create the RF Armed Forces, the military reform was reduced to the reduction of troops and forces without carrying out their qualitative transformation.

The beginning of the 90s was characterized by a series of armed conflicts on the territory of the former USSR. To stop them, to end the bloodshed, Russian servicemen were faced with the need to solve peacekeeping tasks in Tajikistan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria. And despite the rather "difficult" state of the Armed Forces, these tasks were successfully completed.

In a difficult military-political situation, a counter-terrorist operation was carried out in the North Caucasus. The Armed Forces, intended to repulse external aggression, were forced, together with other power structures, to conduct hostilities with bandit formations on their territory. I had to retrain on the fly. Today, no one doubts that at that time Russia did not meet with scattered groups of ideological separatists, but with a well-organized and generously paid offensive of terrorists on our country from abroad.

Based on the results of the CTO, conclusions were drawn. Firstly, the Armed Forces must be prepared in advance to fight terrorist formations, and secondly, terrorism must be beaten preemptively, not waiting for it to come to our home. These conclusions were taken into account when deciding to conduct an operation in Syria.

One Actor Theater

The United States at this time was developing its armed forces in the most favorable conditions since the end of World War II. The military development was based on the conclusions drawn from the results of the confrontation between the international coalition and Iraq in 1991. It should be reminded that it was characterized by deep coverage of enemy positions, the delivery of the main attack bypassing the defensive lines, and most importantly, by a sharp increase in the Air Force's contribution to the success of hostilities.

NATO's war against Yugoslavia became a new generation conflict, the goals of which were achieved without the active involvement of ground forces.

The main efforts in the construction of the American Armed Forces were focused on mastering the forms and methods of conducting contactless wars. It was believed that the tasks of defeating the enemy would be solved by missile strikes and aviation, and the task of the ground forces was only to consolidate the achieved success.

The preparation of the US Armed Forces was aimed at mastering the wars of a new generation - insurgencies, wars on bail (proxy wars), hybrid, counterinsurgency. Their conduct made it possible to replace objectionable governments with forceful actions, if this task could not be solved by the "color revolution". Such wars do not require the deployment of large groupings of troops (forces). Sufficiently trained special operations forces and effective fire support.

The US Armed Forces began to accelerate the introduction of information technology into command and control, to master hybrid methods of warfare and network-centric approaches to leadership. In this regard, the competition between the branches of the armed forces has intensified for the role and place in modern operations and, most importantly, for the amount of funding.

The development of new concepts of warfare was put on stream. In the development of each basic interspecific doctrine, concepts of the second level (specific), then the third (comprehensive support) were developed. Programs for their implementation were prepared for each, resources were allocated. The process was like an avalanche. America could afford such a wasteful approach.

This period is characterized by complete freedom of action for the United States, however, and their allies were also allowed something. The global leadership of the United States resulted in a kind of status quo in which the West essentially held a monopoly on the use of military force on the world stage. America now, without looking back at the Soviet Union, replaced objectionable governments and unleashed wars. This was the case in Yugoslavia, Iraq, it should have happened in Syria.

Our country did not adequately respond to the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. But Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's pivot over the Atlantic was a clear signal to the West that we have our own national interests.

Realizing this and feeling the growing power of Russia, seeing in it a geopolitical rival to the West, the United States finally abandoned its peace-loving rhetoric, openly declared itself the winner in the Cold War and embarked on the path of direct confrontation.

Reforms to the delight of the enemy

The August 2008 operation to force Georgia to peace contributed to the acceleration of reform in the Armed Forces. It became obvious that we will continue to be tested for strength. Therefore, it was required as soon as possible to reorient the RF Armed Forces (which to a certain extent represented a reduced copy of the USSR army and navy) to prepare for local wars and armed conflicts of a limited scale.

By December 1, 2009, under the leadership of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov, the Russian Armed Forces were rapidly brought to a new look. There was not a single area of military development, the life of the army and navy, which would not have undergone the most radical reform. The number of the Armed Forces (up to a million people) and officers (from 335 to 150 thousand) has been reduced, instead of the previous six military districts, four "large" military districts have been created, representing interspecific formations, the structure of formations and formations, military command bodies has been changed, the personnel training system has been rebuilt and maintenance of reserve formations, the infrastructure of the Armed Forces.

The peculiarity of the reform was the speed of the measures taken and the absence of reasonable, substantiated, calculated plans, which was passed off as a virtue. Military science was accused of "lack of ideology", the absence of the necessary theoretical groundwork for military development. Therefore, all the transformations were carried out according to Western patterns, instead of thoughtful and well-grounded concepts and plans, the experience of building the American Armed Forces was taken as the basis for the reform without any understanding and adaptation to domestic conditions. The historical experience, traditions of the Russian, Red and Soviet armies were fundamentally ignored. The imitation of the US Army reached the point of curiosities. Thus, the Americans formed brigades as units with a rigid organizational structure. Previously, their brigades, which were part of the divisions, did not have a permanent combat strength. At the same time, the divisional control link was retained. We, having not fully studied the American experience, eliminated our divisions, formed brigades on their basis and switched to the battalion-brigade-army system.

The rotational principle of serving in the headquarters of the operational and strategic level was being intensively introduced. Its essence was that every officer, after three years of service at the headquarters, must be transferred to another position (command or teaching) without fail. The Americans, on the contrary, increased the term of service in the highest headquarters and, moreover, gave the heads of military command and control agencies the right to extend it to individual, most trained officers.

As a result of this approach to reform, even reasonable ideas without appropriate preliminary study and provision in practice were brought to the point of absurdity and instead of benefit brought harm. The transformation of all formations into forces of constant readiness led to the destruction of the system of training reserve formations, without which it is possible to conduct combat operations at most in a local war, but in a regional one is already impossible.

The central bodies of military command and staffs were reduced, but at the same time the level of their competence and, as a consequence, the quality of command and control of troops at all levels dropped sharply.

The shortage of personnel did not allow the formations and military units to solve tasks as intended. The size of the officer corps did not correspond to the tasks facing the Armed Forces.

Groupings in strategic and operational directions could not act independently. They demanded reinforcement by units of combat and material and technical support. Significant sections of the state border turned out to be uncovered by troops (forces).

The military education system was brought to a critical state. A powerful blow was dealt to military science. The creation of the Aerospace Defense Forces did not lead to an increase in the effectiveness of solving air defense problems. The level of combat effectiveness of air bases, which were formed instead of air regiments and divisions, has significantly decreased.

The measures taken by the reformers during 2010-2011 to debug new systems and military command and control bodies did not yield any results.

The situation was especially bad with equipping the army and navy with weapons and military equipment. Suffice it to say that by 2012 the level of serviceable equipment in the troops was no more than 47 percent.

In general, large-scale and radical transformations carried out in a short time have led to a significant decrease in the combat capabilities of the Armed Forces.

New vector

In 2012, a new team came to the military department under the leadership of Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff, then Colonel General Valery Gerasimov. They saw their main task in stopping the destructive processes in the Armed Forces, preserving the individual positive results of their transformation to a new look, restoring combat effectiveness and increasing combat capabilities. At the same time, there was a strict time limit due to the growing aggravation of the international situation.

The reform was based on clear planning of measures, strict control, rational use of available resources in the interests of the country's defense. The development and delivery of each unit of weapons and military equipment to the troops were strictly linked to the training of appropriate personnel, the construction of storage facilities and living quarters for the personnel who would operate it.

First of all, self-sufficient inter-service groupings of troops (forces) were formed in the military districts. Their improvement was carried out through the balanced development of the branches and arms of the Armed Forces, increasing the level of equipment with modern weapons and military equipment.

Today, the basis of the groupings of forces in strategic directions is constituted by formations of constant readiness. Taking into account operational feasibility, part of the combined-arms brigades was reorganized into divisions. Note that in terms of its combat capabilities, a division is 1, 6–1, 8 times superior to a brigade.

A transition has been made to a new system of recruiting military personnel under contract for formations and military units of the Ground Forces, the Marine Corps and the Airborne Forces. In 2012, the battalions that make up them were formed in a mixed way - conscript and contract servicemen, and the proportion of contract soldiers was no more than 30-40 percent. To prepare such battalions for hostilities, it took a significant amount of time to coordinate. In addition, conscripts were subject to legal restrictions on their participation in hostilities.

At present, the opposite picture is observed: in each regiment and brigade of three battalions, two are staffed with contract soldiers and only one - with conscripts. On the basis of battalions manned only by contract soldiers, reinforced tactical units have been created in combined-arms brigades and regiments - battalion tactical groups (BTG), which can be used in the shortest possible time and without additional coordination. In a number of cases, they were transferred to the operational subordination of commands in tactical directions. This made it possible, if necessary, to move away from rigid organizational structures, create groupings depending on the situation and the tasks to be solved, increase the efficiency of control and ensure the flexibility of use.

Particular attention was paid to the development of precision weapons. On a planned basis, full-fledged groups of carriers of long-range cruise missiles of various types of basing were formed, capable of using weapons on targets at distances of up to four thousand kilometers.

In order to ensure the efficiency and continuity of fire action on the enemy, reconnaissance and strike systems and reconnaissance and fire complexes were created. In essence, this is the introduction of network-centric control methods, which are based on the integration of reconnaissance information and information control systems with weapons systems. The result was a reduction in the time parameters of the firing task solution cycle - from target detection to destruction. The growth in the effectiveness of fire impact was largely facilitated by the increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Particular attention was paid to the development of electronic warfare, improving the means of countering precision weapons, as well as the control system of the Armed Forces. A unified automated command and control system for troops and weapons at the tactical level was developed.

Taking into account the improvement of the SVKN, including the progressive proliferation of missile technologies, a vector was set for the development of the country's aerospace defense. The creation of the Aerospace Forces was of great importance in this regard.

The system of mobilization deployment and mobilization training was improved. Decisions were made to create a mob reserve, territorial troops, and organize the preparation of government bodies at all levels to function in wartime.

Requirements for the training of headquarters and troops (forces) were increased. In training military command and control bodies, much attention was paid to developing the ability of commanders and commanders to take quick and comprehensively justified actions. The skills of making non-standard decisions, forecasting the development of the situation were strengthened, the willingness to take justified risks was encouraged. Suvorov's principles of command and control, conduct of hostilities, and approaches to troop training were purposefully introduced.

Due attention was paid to the study of new generation wars, including the hybrid type, which were already waged by Western countries against unwanted states and governments. In this respect, the example of Libya is especially evident.

The readiness of command and control bodies and troops (forces) to act as part of interspecific groupings created in strategic directions was tested at annual exercises. Their scale testified to the development of issues of repelling large-scale aggression, fighting a high-tech enemy.

In the course of operational and combat training, the issues of conducting military operations in the form of strategic operations, army operations in the war against the regular armed forces, as well as military operations against terrorist formations were worked out.

And also in the headquarters and scientific institutions there was intense work on the analysis of the essence of modern wars. The formula “war is a complex of military, as well as political, diplomatic, economic, informational measures” has acquired a new meaning. Military measures faded into the background, giving way to non-military means. Commanders and staffs had to urgently learn and practice practical skills in the use of non-military methods. And soon it was needed.

Syrian experience

First there was Crimea. Perfectly equipped and highly trained Special Operations Forces ensured security and order on the peninsula, ruled out the destabilization of the situation by fascist nationalists and its development according to the Odessa version.

The Russian army appeared before the world from a completely different side and caused sincere surprise among Western experts. It turned out that she can act firmly and politely, swiftly and decisively, covertly and effectively, with small forces to solve strategic problems. Earlier in the West it was believed that only "exceptional races" are capable of this.

Syria was the next exam. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are faced with a completely new type of conflict. Its main feature was that the states - opponents of Syria conducted covert, faceless actions against it, without getting involved in a direct armed conflict. Well-trained and equipped military units of terrorists and the Syrian opposition, whose actions were coordinated from abroad, were used as manpower.

Russia entered Syria when Syria as a state was at the edge of the abyss. I went in completely legitimately, at the invitation of the legitimate government of the country. In the shortest possible time, at a remote theater of operations, it deployed a group with a minimum composition and turned the war back. It acted with the utmost efficiency, both in terms of the ratio of the achieved result to the expended resources, and in comparison with the effectiveness of the International Antiterrorist Coalition, led by the United States. Under the leadership of Russian military advisers, with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the Syrian army liberated most of its territory.

The world saw a completely different - a renewed Russian army, which is capable of effectively conducting combat operations in a remote theater of operations with small forces, delicately delivering strikes with precision weapons, optimally combining the actions of the Aerospace Forces, the Navy and the Special Operations Forces.

High efficiency of fire destruction of terrorist targets was achieved due to network-centric control methods, competent use of reconnaissance and strike systems and reconnaissance and fire complexes. The main volume of fire missions to defeat the enemy was carried out by artillery and aviation. Precision weapons were used to destroy the most important targets of terrorists. It is clear that hitting each group of militants with rockets is a very costly business.

In the course of a special operation, virtually all commanders of large formations and commanders of formations of the Armed Forces received combat experience. Staff collectives of large formations and formations also passed through Syria, having acquired the invaluable skill of planning and directing combat operations of troops and fire destruction of the enemy. Now commanders and commanders personally know what is needed in a war, what and how to teach personnel.

Most of the tasks, especially combat ones, were solved in special conditions, outside the box, and creatively. In addition, the tasks themselves differed significantly in content: combat, humanitarian, peacekeeping, and military-diplomatic. The command of the grouping of the RF Armed Forces, military advisers to the Syrian troops used a lot of original methods and techniques of warfare, the joint use of various types of weapons and military equipment.

The Syrian operation gave vivid examples of the manifestation of military cunning, audacity, unpredictability in actions, swiftness in the offensive and steadfastness in defense, flexibility in planning and at the same time strict adherence to the strategic line.

American view of the RF Armed Forces

The Americans closely followed the actions of the RF Armed Forces in the Syrian direction. Through the success of the Russian army, they saw their problems. The main drawback of the American Armed Forces, according to their experts, is that they were not prepared to fight a strong enemy. Since the end of the Cold War, combat training has focused primarily on counterinsurgency. The US Armed Forces have forgotten how to fight with a strong army and conduct large-scale hostilities. According to American experts, their armed forces need to adapt to modern threats. For this, the training of command and control bodies, troops and forces must be urgently reoriented and carried out taking into account the strengths of the Russian army.

As a strength of the RF Armed Forces, US military experts noted a new system of views on the conduct of modern wars, which provides flexibility in defining the goals of using the RF Armed Forces, rational forms and methods of action depending on the tasks and conditions of the situation.

Another strength of the Russian army is the ability to create and train formations and formations of the regular army from the local population, as well as to use irregular formations and the formation of local residents (people's militia) to achieve goals.

The Americans highly appreciated the ability of Russian advisers to organize and conduct military operations with flexible formations of the Syrian troops - combined battalion tactical groups. Their composition is determined on the basis of the assigned task, which makes it possible to more fully realize the combat capabilities of troops (forces).

The effectiveness of the fire engagement system, including reconnaissance, target designation and destruction (primarily operational-tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces), as well as the widespread use of UAVs, which makes it possible to effectively control the battlefield, timely detect enemy targets and quickly destroy them, are emphasized.

The Russian air defense system deployed in Syria was thoroughly analyzed. Western experts called the strength of the Russian Armed Forces their ability to discourage the use of American aviation at the expense of the ability to deploy effective air defense at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. In addition, according to their estimates, an effective electronic warfare system is capable of completely disorganizing the control system of the US Armed Forces at the operational and tactical levels. The presence of an experienced and capable command staff of the Russian army was especially noted.

The presence of the strengths of the RF Armed Forces somewhat discouraged US specialists. And there were reasons for this.

Firstly, the development of the US Armed Forces has always been carried out in accordance with the principle of superiority over any potential enemy in all elements: in equipping with weapons, in training personnel, in control systems, communications and reconnaissance, fire engagement, logistics, etc. Second, the American armed forces have always fought under the dominance of their aircraft. And the fact that a strong air defense system of the RF Armed Forces is able to "land" the US operational-tactical aviation puts Pentagon specialists at a standstill regarding the methods of conducting combat operations by ground forces without air support. The recognition by the Americans of the superiority of the RF Armed Forces in certain elements destroys their faith in their own capabilities.

The obtained assessments and conclusions prompted the headquarters of the US Armed Forces to search for new forms and methods of troop actions on the battlefield, which would make it possible to nullify the superiority of the RF Armed Forces even in certain elements, and to accelerate their introduction into the training of command and control bodies and troops of the American army. New concepts were developed for the use of groups of forces.

Incidentally, the Americans' penchant for developing concepts has become their real scourge. Each new concept of the strategic level required the development of three to five subordinate concepts, in the development of which concepts of a lower level were issued. Financial resources are allocated for each, fortunately, the astronomical military budget (more than $ 700 billion) allows it. Therefore, the pipeline for developing new concepts never stops. Each concept with a truly American scale is presented as another "breakthrough in military affairs." For example, the specialists of the US Armed Forces declared the inclusion of such a component part as operational art a great success in the development of military science. But I must say that in the USSR such a division was introduced even in the pre-war period (before the Great Patriotic War): the strategy covered the preparation of the country and the Armed Forces for war and the conduct of war in general, the operational art - the preparation and conduct of operations, and tactics - the conduct of combat actions by tactical formations.

At the same time, we must pay tribute to the flexibility and efficiency of the Americans in responding to the growing combat capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces. Indeed, even in peacetime, the command and control bodies of the strategic echelon of rival countries (general staffs / KNSh, headquarters of the armed forces) are waging an intellectual confrontation invisible to the layman.

For example, according to the concept of inter-service operations, the United States fought according to the following scheme. At first, strikes of high-precision sea and air-based weapons, without entering the zone of destruction of enemy fire weapons, destroyed his air defense system in the theater of operations. Further, the aviation struck targets with impunity. And only then (in Yugoslavia it did not come to this) ground forces entered the battle.

Taking into account the views of the Americans, Russia has created special security zones in the Crimea and the Baltic, concentrating in them the means of the WTO, air defense, electronic warfare and others. Appropriate organizational measures for the formation of such zones were promptly carried out, and exercises were held. In addition, the naval strikes with high-precision weapons from the Caspian Sea on targets in Syria convincingly showed that the ships and aircraft carrying the WTO of a potential aggressor will not be able to approach our shores with impunity, everyone will be in the affected area.

That is, the previous approaches to the conduct of hostilities turned out to be unsuitable. The Americans immediately tensed and released a new concept - multi-sphere ground operations. According to it, now the main role should be assigned not to the Air Force and the Navy, but to the ground forces. It is they who burst into the territory where the air defense and WTO systems are located, crush them and thereby provide the Air Force and Navy with the opportunity to operate in this theater of operations, and also create conditions for the transfer and deployment of the main forces to the theater of operations.

This is the scenario that is envisaged for the Kaliningrad Special Region. This is why the question arises about the additional deployment of US ground forces in Poland and the Baltic states. Perhaps, in the future, the question will also arise about the use of the territory of Ukraine.

The contours of the future war

The experience gained during the special operation in Syria is analyzed. Military science played a special role in this. Its representatives were often at the forefront of hostilities with terrorists, worked in the headquarters of groupings of troops, in areas where new weapons and military equipment were used. Based on the results of the analysis, scientific and practical conferences were held in the military command and control bodies and troops (forces), and methodological manuals were developed. New forms and methods of combat operations and the use of new weapons and military equipment have been introduced into combat training. The personnel work has been reorganized. Priority in career development is given to officers with combat experience. Changes have been made to the programs of military educational institutions of the Ministry of Defense. This was facilitated by the fact that most of the teachers had combat training.

And finally, taking into account the experience gained and the tendencies in the development of armed struggle, all combat manuals and manuals have been revised. They reflect modern views on the conduct of highly maneuverable combat operations. Due to its specificity, the Syrian experience has not been elevated to an absolute, but everything valuable from it has been taken into service. Thus, today we have a modern, confident army and navy with experienced command personnel and updated guidelines.

The combat experience gained in Syria works to increase the combat power of the Armed Forces. In the current conditions, this task remains a priority due to the uncertainty of the international situation.

What kind of conflict can be imposed on us, what shape will a military threat take? There is no clear, unambiguous answer to this question. In any case, it is necessary to proceed from the assumption that a potential adversary will strive to put our troops in a difficult position, apply unexpected methods of action, impose their will, and seize the initiative.

The General Staff looks ahead, is trying to determine the contours of a future war and work out promising forms and methods of action in it. And no innovators and gamers will do this job for him. There are things that cannot be mastered without practical experience.

Although there were examples in military history when advice from non-military specialists regarding the conduct of hostilities was taken to the leadership. So, during the Second World War, the Americans and the British brought in a group of experts. Those gave recommendations of the following content. To reduce the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to inflict massive strikes not on the troops, but on the civilian population. This greatly demoralizes the Hitlerite army. And these recommendations were accepted by the bomber aviation of the United States and Great Britain for leadership and implemented in the form of carpet bombing of German cities in the rear zone.

The issues of military development, training the army and navy, equipping them with modern weapons are under the constant control of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces. They are regularly discussed at meetings of the Security Council. Twice a year, under the leadership of the President of Russia, meetings are held with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the Defense Industry Complex. The heads of key enterprises, leading designers are invited to the meetings. This format of meetings helps to increase the responsibility of the leaders of the defense industry complex for equipping the army with modern weapons and military equipment, and makes it possible to prevent the diktat of industry in imposing unpromising weapons on the army and navy. This platform has proven its effectiveness so much that the heads of some states are considering introducing a similar format of meetings.

Concluding a brief analysis of the development of the RF Armed Forces, it can be noted that today Russia has every reason to be proud of its Armed Forces. Returning to the conclusions of Vladimir Denisov, we note that their reliability largely depends on the objectivity of the expert. In this case, a biased approach is definitely traced, which does not take into account all the information, but only that part of it that corresponds to the convictions of the author of the article. That is, a private, subjective opinion is presented as the statement: "This is how serious people in uniform think."

It is well known that the interpretation of the same events can be different depending on the point of view from which they are observed. Therefore, we considered it necessary, without imposing our opinion, to acquaint the reader with facts important for understanding that were not taken into account by the author of the article.

The final conclusions should be made by the reader.