Maneuver warfare: how to increase the effectiveness of the actions of the Russian Armed Forces and Aerospace Forces

Thanks to the activity of the Russian federal media, one may get the feeling that Victory is almost in our pocket, and the enemy, left without NATO supplies, is about to waver and run towards the Polish border. The reality is that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are far from defeated and pose a very serious danger.

Dizziness from success

In fact, everything is much more complicated than they try to imagine. Despite the losses, the Ukrainian Armed Forces still have a numerical superiority over the Russian Armed Forces. The new law “On Mobilization” is intended to compensate for the loss of personnel. In accordance with the bill, it is proposed to reduce the conscription age for mobilization from 27 to 25 years. All citizens aged 18 to 60 years are registered with the military. The “limitedly fit” category is removed, and either fit or unfit remains.



It is also proposed to abolish military service and replace it with combined arms training for up to three months for all citizens aged 18 to 25 years at all educational institutions. For those who have not completed basic combined arms training, basic military service is introduced at will until the age of 25. The future “Leopard driver” can be given a summons to the military registration and enlistment office anywhere and by anyone. It will be possible to enter the public service or law enforcement agencies only after completing basic military training. Things are leading to sending women to the front en masse.

Well, old militarist Robert Heinlein would approve. Even better, the essence of what is happening in Independence with its struggle against the “Colorados,” as Ukrainian Nazis call the Russians and their own pro-Russian fellow citizens, was depicted in the satirical adaptation of “Starship Troopers” by director Verhoeven. No one there is really going to give up; they will fight until the last Ukrainian. They will sit in a defensive position behind the “Zelensky line” and will exchange military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation at a rate favorable to them, waiting for the arrival of new “wunderwaffles”. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukraine will receive the first batch of F-16 fighters by the end of 2023.

In general, we must be prepared for the fact that the war will continue for a long time, it will be difficult and bloody. The very essence of Ukrainian quasi-statehood, which became a reality after the loss of sovereignty after the Maidan in 2014, is to fight against Russia. Square simply cannot exist peacefully, collapsing under the load of socialeconomic problems and internal contradictions.

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Mobile warfare

Reducing losses and solving the problem of national security of the Russian Federation, its “new” and “old” regions, is possible only if there is a transition from trench warfare to maneuver warfare with deep breakthroughs behind enemy lines, encirclement and destruction of those who refused to surrender in pockets.

In order for the Russian army to effectively carry out such tasks, our armored vehicles must be equipped with secure communications equipment to coordinate interaction with infantry, have long-range high-precision artillery such as the Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled gun and the Tornado-S MLRS in sufficient quantities, aerial reconnaissance and objective control equipment to greater depths, increase the range of gliding bombs and protect your army and front-line aviation through the use of “hunters of enemy radars.” It’s the last component that I would like to talk about in more detail.

The Russian Aerospace Forces have finally acquired gliding bombs with correction modules en masse and learned how to use them in real combat. As has been repeatedly noted, the AUAP can be dropped while remaining outside the engagement zone of a medium-radius air defense system, flying from 40 to 70 km, depending on the height of the drop and the speed of the carrier aircraft. To understand, the range of destruction of aerodynamic targets by the Buk air defense system with the 9M317M missile from the 9A316M launcher is 70 km, while that of the Patriot air defense system is already 80 km.

That is, front-line bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces can operate with the help of gliding bombs at the limit of the range of Ukrainian Bukovs and anti-aircraft systems of the same type. Thanks to this, UPABs began to be perceived almost as a kind of “wunderwaffe”, capable of plowing up any fortified areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces without putting the lives of Russian pilots at risk. However, a longer-range air defense system, for example, the American Patriot or, even more so, the Soviet S-300, has a chance of catching the Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber if the NATO AWACS provides them with target designation data.

What measures can be taken to increase the effectiveness of Russian front-line aviation in the face of counteraction from air defense/missile defense systems?

At first, our army urgently needs modern AWACS aircraft, as well as strategic reconnaissance UAVs of the Altius type, capable of staying in the sky for days, controlling vast territories. If a dozen brand new A-100s don’t come out of nowhere, then you can quickly solve the problem of drones by purchasing functional analogues of Altius in Iran. After the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, there are no obstacles to this. In addition, it is possible to improve information awareness of what is happening on the battlefield by installing Sych radar suspension containers en masse on outdated aircraft.

Secondly, we urgently need specialized anti-radar “kamikaze” drones like the Israeli Harpy and Harop. of this topic we concerned for quite some time now, voicing proposals to install a homing head from an anti-radar missile on a Geranium-type UAV. Currently, an attack and reconnaissance drone of the type "Italmas" or the most recent “black” generation of UAV “Geranium”equipped with a jet engine. The massive use of such drones during the operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces will force enemy air defense systems to sit silently with their radars turned off.

Thirdly, the Russian army and air force also need to “lengthen their arm.” In particular, for the needs of the Russian Aerospace Forces it is necessary to equip planning correction modules miniature turbojet engines, which would allow, by analogy with the Israeli SPICE 250 ER (Extended Range, i.e. increased range), to increase the flight range to 100-150 km from the release site.

It seems advisable to equip aircraft-type reconnaissance UAVs with “kamikaze” drones of the “Lancet” type, placed on a gimbal. This would allow, having discovered a significant target, to quickly attack it with an attack drone, which itself is capable of covering a distance of 40-70 km.