Russian invasion of Ukraine, April 13 update
In this update, instead of covering each battle zone in Ukraine, I’ll focus just on a few topics:
- Batallion Tactical Group
- BTG Key Weaknesses
- Advanced Weapons of Ukraine: NLAW
- Advanced Weapons of Ukraine: Peony
As everyone is preparing for a major offensive in Eastern Ukraine, I think there’s a chance that this offensive will go the same way as the Kyiv offensive. Russian forces are already depleted (60–80 battalion tactical groups, down from 120), plus so far they’re employing the same tactics and encountering the same problems as in Kyiv.
In this article, I used the work by Tom Cooper and Nicholas J Fiore, as well as my own findings and analysis.
Battalion Tactical Group
Battalion Tactical Group or BTG is a term many have heard. I’ll try to explain here what it is, and why it might be a key to the Ukrainian victory.
While most armies in the world have regiments, brigades, divisions and so on, the Russian army’s key unit is a Battalion Tactical Group. Think of it, as the smallest organizational unit. BTGs were at the core of the Russian Armed Forces reform for the last 15 years.
CPT Nicolas J. Fiore wrote a brilliant article titled “Defeating the Russian Battalion Tactical Group” in 2017 that I’ll refer to here. As well as ideas from the recent post by Tom Cooper.
“The BTG strategic imperative is to control terrain to shape post-conflict negotiations.”
First of all, BTG consists of about 1,000 men riding in 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles (BTR + BMP), 16 artillery pieces, and a lot of support trucks for a total of 142 vehicles.
Now, remember those images of a 40-mile long Russian convoy around Kyiv? How many vehicles are in a single BTG again? 142. So, let’s do some math. At the beginning of the war, Russia had 120 BTG on the Ukrainian border. So 120 BTG equals 17,000(!!!!) vehicles. And if we have 50m between vehicles in a convoy, that’s a convoy 50m*17,000 = 850km long. Ok, not all 120 BTGs were used around Kyiv, but even 10 BTGs require 10km long convoy.
BTG Key Weaknesses
Summarizing Fiore’s publication (written in 2017), it becomes quite clear
- why Russia lost in the battle of Kyiv,
- why it’s fighting better in Mariupol and Donbas,
- why it’s highly unlikely to win in the Donbas offensive
Let’s review key weaknesses of BTGs and thus the entire Russian army structure:
- a BTG has only 200 infantrymen, not enough to protect it. BTGs were created because the Russian army lacked infantry, so out of ~1,000 people in BTG, only 200 are infantrymen. The rest are various support units like artillery, anti-aircraft batteries, tanks, etc.
Only 200 are supposed to do a) reconnaissance, b) protect the rear of a convoy, c) protect the flanks, d) engage the enemy. Can they do all of that? No, they can’t. That’s why we often see the Ukrainians approach these columns and attack them at will. Russian BTGs almost never stop and repel attackers because they don’t have enough troops.
It’s like a big herd of sheep (142 vehicles) that is guarded by only a few guard dogs (2 companies of infantry) along a stretch of a road several miles long from wolves (small Ukrainian teams with Javelins/ATGMs) who can attack from anywhere. No wonder we see so many Russian armored vehicles getting lost.
2. BTGs are dysfunctional without paramilitary proxies and the local militia. BTGs are light on regular combat troops (only 200) because they’re designed to be **always** supported by local militia.
- Think of Russian separatists in Ukraine fighting along with BTGs in the 2014 war.
- Think of the pro-Assad militia, Hezbollah, or Iranian troops in Syria fighting along with the Russians
- Think of South Ossetians in the Georgian War in 2008
Russia’s plan assumed that in addition to 200 regular troops in each unit, they would be protected from the rear and flanks by hundreds of pro-Russian locals. That didn’t happen in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and thus BTGs were badly beaten. But in southern Donbas and Mariupol, Russian separatists in Donbas (“separatists”) paramilitaries did support the Russian advance, and the advance was more successful.
“Different from the previous campaigns, the BTGs sent to Ukraine had few maneuver forces and had to rely on paramilitary proxies to secure the necessary terrain.”
Thus, a prediction can be made that Russian BTGs in Eastern Ukraine will have the same fate as in the Kyiv offensive as long as they’re not protected by the “separatists”. And despite Russia’s best efforts, they’re not likely to gather enough “separatists” militia for a massive offensive.
Russians did try to send “separatists” to other parts of Ukraine like Kherson and Mykolaiv, but they weren’t really motivated and many deserted. Along the same lines, this explains why Russians wanted the help of pro-Assad militia and Chechen militia in Ukraine. But neither would be motivated to die for Ukraine.
3. BTGs require paved roads and are likely to hit choke points in Donbas as happened in Kyiv. From Fiore's publication:
“BTGs rapidly deploy from garrison by rail. However, for field logistics, the BTG requires a road and bridge network because its light trucks do not have the same mobility characteristics as its combat vehicles.”
Remember the traffic jam around Kyiv? Yup, BTG light trucks can’t drive where the tanks can, so the entire BTG is stuck to the paved roads. Plus, BTGs can’t use railroads in Ukraine. So expect more traffic jams.
4. BTGs have limited professional medical evacuation (medevac). This was actually confirmed by multiple Russian POW interviews and intercepted calls where they complain about lack of medical support, how long it takes to transport wounded back to the base, high killed-to-wounded ratios, and even how many KIA Russian soldiers were left in the field after the Russians retreated.
“Medically, BTGs have very limited professional medical-evacuation (medevac) and field-treatment resources. Their inability to quickly get wounded soldiers advanced care increased deaths due to wounds, which had a large psychological effect, made their commanders more adverse to dismounted risk and reduced a BTG’s ability to regenerate combat power.”
Just imagine a super long caravan, away from their logistical base and hospitals.
In summary: the Russian Armed Forces have been restructuring for almost 15 years to adopt the new BTG concept. All parts of the army and weapons (e.g. heavy artillery, anti-aircraft systems, MLRS) were tuned to the BTG concept. Yet, without the local pro-Russian militia (promised by FSB in Ukraine) BTGs cannot be effective in Ukraine. They’re beaten by small tank-killer Ukrainian teams, picked one vehicle after another. BTGs have too many vehicles that become a burden and easy prey.
Advanced Weapons of Ukraine
Let’s now switch gears and talk about Ukrainian weapons. A lot has been said about Western weapons promised to be supplied to Ukraine. But, the reality is most of these weapons won’t have an immediate impact on the field of battle, and some aren’t that useful.
For example:
- The Slovakian S-300 system? Well, there’s only 1(!!!). All that talk for 1 S-300 that Russians can take out in a single missile strike
- British anti-ship missile? It’ll need a launch platform too, as it’s designed to be launched from a ship. So not sure when it’ll actually be used
- German tanks? In a long article by Tom Cooper he explains why these tanks won’t be available for another 6 months.
- Turkish Bayraktars? pretty much disappeared from the news, what happened?
- American Switchblade drones? 100???!! that’s nothing. compare that 100 number to the number of British NLAWs (see below) the Ukrainian forces have.
Instead, let’s talk about a couple of systems that proved effective so far.
NLAW
The UK at this point supplied 10,000 NLAW (Next-Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon) missiles to Ukraine. That’s a significant number. Considering that Russians have 1,000–1,200 tanks in the theater, that’s 10 NLAWs for 1 Russian tank. Not bad (good luck, Russians). Each NLAW costs $40,000 (compared to $180,000 for Javelin), so that’s $400 million worth of NLAW. Below is a video of how effective these are:
Russians have no defense against NLAW. It seems they got caught with their pants down with both NLAW and Javelin. For all “famous” Russian weaponry, NLAW and Javelin are 3rd-generation anti-tank weapons, and Russians are still using 2nd generation, they have nothing similar.
NLAW is actually one of the most modern weapons provided to Ukraine. It was adopted for service only in 2014. Originally designed by Saab and the UK defense companies. Go Saab!
NLAW is so innovative that Russians came up with this “high-tech” counter-measure for it.
Peony artillery system
I noticed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are effectively using one interesting weapon, “Peony” seld-propelled 203mm heavy artillery.
First, it’s a BIG gun, at 203mm, this is a bigger round than the Russian “Msta” 145mm system. In a few videos, we can see that the Ukrainians use these large-caliber guns to attack entrenched Russian tank positions, and tanks catching fire. The effect is devastating.
Secondly, it has a range of 35km, outside of the Russian “Msta” range of 25km. That means “Peony” can avoid counter-battery fire more easily and survive longer on the battlefield.
Finally, according to Wikipedia, Ukraine has ~100 of these units. This artillery system from the 1970s was brought back by the Ukrainians after the war in Donbas and serves them well now.
Although Peony doesn’t use precision munition, the blast itself is so powerful that Russian armored vehicles are getting knocked out (like in the video below).
And finally, Ukrainian's most advanced weapon is its spirit. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to impress. Here’s a new song from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade: