New Russian Mechanized Infantry Tactics

Syrian Armour (Russian-Supplied) Operating In Close Coordination

A Fascinating Study of Mechanized Combat
I've embedded a propaganda video displaying the deployment of a Syrian mechanized infantry combat team. The video is from the Syrian perspective, but it has a Russian voice-over. I find it interesting because you are witnessing Western-style combined arms tactics in an Arab state, under the advisement of Russian military. It says a lot...

My Understanding of Mech Infantry
In the late-1980s I serrved with the 48th Highlanders of Canada Regiment, which was then tasked as Mechanized Infantry. We were preparing to fight the Ruuskies in World War Three -- a pretty futile-feeling mission to train for, but we trained for it nonetheless.

Later on (as a civilian) I gamemastered and participated in many wargaming sessions on that subject. A lot of it was WW2 (and close infantry combat is not too different now), but I also participated in Cold-War-goes-hot tabletop wargames.

I'm not talking about bean-counter style wargames. (There are lots of those, but while those have high technical accuracy, they do poorly as simulations of the confusion and chaos of modern combat.) I'm talking about double-blind sessions -- you knew little about the strength, deployment or intentions of the enemy. Things are chaotic and confusing and you have to make decisions based on little or no information. Many of my friends and opponents in these sessions also had military service, so these were pretty realistic.

In one very intense session, my friend Jon and I took command of a Soviet mechanized army group (roughly battalion-sized), facing off against NATO. We were stymied by the requirement to use Warsaw Pact "doctrine". The Soviets used a throw-the-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks doctrine for a long time: they would attack in waves but only reinforce those sectors where they broke through. It's simple... and it works (usually). But it costs a lot in blood...

One of the limitations of that old Soviet-era doctrine was that forces operated and moved as homogenous blobs. It's an old-fashioned technique that is motivated by top-down command. Old militaries did it when they deployed units of only one kind of element. Thus, infantry formations would consist solely of footsoldiers, cavalry solely of troops on horseback, artillery solely of guns, et cetera. Marching in close formation, too.

As war evolved and became mechanized, the Western forces (and, strangely, this was pioneered by the Germans in WW2) trained their soldiers to fan out, and to operate in mixed units: this is the doctrine of "combined arms".

I trained this way, as per NATO mechanized warfare doctrine. We would operate in "Combat Teams" during a mechanized exercise. Each Combat Team consisted of an element of Armour (a group of tanks), and a Mechanized Infantry element (armoured personnel carriers ferrying us grunt sections, plus our commanders, weapons detachments, etc).

We used a very flexible tactical doctrine, compared to the Warsaw Pact. We were trained to work as a team and deploy in different ways depending on the terrain, how we were advancing, or what we were engaging. We were trained to engage all targets, not just the ones we were "supposed to".

When travelling across open country, the Armour would move in a fanned-out spearheading wave, while the MechInf (in APCs) would follow perhaps a klick behind. The Armour would engage targets over open ground if they saw them. But if there was close terrain -- such as a forest -- they would call our APCs forward, there'd be a violent "combat stop", the order to DISMOUNT, DISMOUNT, DISMOUNT, and us grunts would then be on the ground, moving into the forest or whatever, laying down fire and looking for shit.

Attached to our group (in theory at least) would be air-defence vehicles, specialized weapon elements, field medic, engineers, recovery vehicles, et cetera.

Basically, a Combat Team can engage anything. Really, it stems from the Western (and in particular the Anglo-American) trust in individual initiative, agility and versatility.

(This sounds all rah-rah, but it was how we trained...)

By contrast, the Soviet doctrine was cumbersome, revealed two-dimensional tactical thinking, and top-down command. In that one wargame, we were forced to move homogenous clumps of tanks, or APCs, or whatever, none of them working together -- except in a very basic way, with say an armour wave going in, followed by a mechanized infantry wave if one was close enough and could be ordered to follow it.

What Fascinates Me About This Video
(Aside from truly weird sight of civilian vehicles driving through a combat zone...) The video shows mechanized combat group of some kind in Syria. It's a well detailed examination of a mechanized infantry assault into an urban zone. You are watching the Syrians, from a friendly vantage point, as they use tanks and APCs to move infantry up to a dropoff point, where the infantry then deploy into typical urban concrete jungle (the infantry fighting isn't visible). You overhear the nearest commander, a Syrian, throughout: giving frantic commands to his vehicles from his vantage point in the top of a building. Occasionally, a disembodied Russian voice-over chimes in with some quick summation of the events, sometimes discussing to the "terrorists".

First, it's obviously propaganda. But that doesn't make it not of interest.

Second: it says a lot about Russian tactics now. True, these are Syrians. But they will be under the advisement of Russian military. If this is how they train their forces to work, they are trying to operate with that NATO-style flexibility I mentioned. They're using tanks to secure a sector, and then rushing troops forward in APCs. That's a combined-arms doctrine to looks more flexible than what the Russkies have traditionally done.

But third: they aren't there yet. There's still a lot of top-down command. The "friendly" Syrian commander micro-manages them, repeatedly yelling ultra-specific instructions over the radio to the point that he's basically babbling. His underlings appear to just stop listening and go back to their basic training: each covering their own sector: some firing at targets of opportunity; some firing at even intervals simply to "suppress" any possible enemies out there. Despite the frantic commander, observing overhead, they basically get it done -- but it's chaotic.

In a Western-style military, a good leader would speak to his troops in a general manner. He wouldn't try to "micro" them like puppets. Rather, he would communicate to paint a three-dimensional picture for his subordinate. He'd descrbie the situation, give an overall objective, give notes on procedure, and leave it at that. For example: "You are leaving Point Alpha. We need you to get your infantry from Point Alpha to Point Bravo, then unload them. Armour: we need you to secure Point Bravo and cover the unloading of the infantry. MechInf, when you get there, take up all-around defence and wait your turn to move in. Starting with the first vehicle, one-at-a-time, back up, unload your troops, then get back here, very fast. Any questions?..."

And that's how to do it. Create a simple but three-dimensional picture. Then leave it at that. Watch and intervene only when absolutely necessary.

(Plus answer ANY questions.)

The fellows in this video are testing out the waters of combined arms. But their thinking isn't there yet...

Update: 2 Feb 2015
For some reason this video has been removed.