The Third World War: August 1985

The concept of ‘daring thrust’ — bold action in depth by a force of combined arms — though similar to that of German Blitzkrieg in the Second World War, was not, it was claimed, modelled on it but harked back to Tukachevsky and the officers purged with him by Stalin in 1937. Up to 1975 it was generally accepted that high-speed operations in depth, whether the battlefield was nuclear or not, would be mainly used to exploit openings blasted out by massed frontal attack. Since then it had been increasingly taught that the openings could themselves be created by high-speed manoeuvre, which would also furnish the means of suppressing, by pre-emptive attack, the threat from guided weapons and anti-tank guns to the following tanks. Surprise and swift manoeuvre were the twin keys to unlock the defence and, though the Russians never lost their respect for mass, the tendency in the late seventies was more and more to relegate the massed frontal attack to second place.

The premium placed on surprise implied that an attack on NATO would be so timed as not to allow the deployment of NATO anti-tank defences at their maximum density. Thus, though it would not necessarily be carried out solely by in-place theatre forces, it was unlikely to be preceded by a long period of deliberate full mobilization. There was also heavy emphasis on battlefield mobility to exploit tactical surprise to the maximum.

What had for a long time been described in Western terminology as the ‘encounter battle’ — and latterly by some as the ‘meeting engagement’ — now began to take a very important place in Soviet military teaching. A critical part would be played by anti-tank weapons offensively deployed. These would be introduced by combined arms groups based on motorized infantry regiments in BMP, which would open the way for the entry of heavier forces of armour to decide the issue. This required resolute action by relatively small combat teams of combined arms operating with a greater degree of independence, and with more organic and ‘on-call’ fire support, than had hitherto been normal in the Red Army. The self-propelled gun began, at least in part, to furnish what was required: direct fire, as called for, controlled at a lower level than that of division.

Something of a tactical revolution was now taking place, associated with changes in organization and equipment which were in part cause and in part effect of what was happening. The divisions facing NATO in the Central Region had all been furnished with BMP exploitation regiments by the late seventies, and it was at this level of command, the regimental, that the integration of different arms increasingly took place instead of, as hitherto, at divisional level or even higher.

The Red Army now faced several unfamiliar problems. Integration of different arms at lower levels for fluid operations made unusual demands on command, control and communications. Even more important in its longer-term implications was what was likely to be required of junior commanders. Now that the battle could no longer be pre-planned higher up, with all foreseeable tactical situations resolved in stereotyped battle drills, qualities were needed at quite low levels of command which it had never been the business of the Red Army to develop. The boldness of initiative and independence of judgement demanded in junior commanders by the new tactics were possibly quite common in the competitive societies of the capitalist West; they were not qualities intentionally developed among subordinates in the USSR.

The methods of any army reflect the patterns of its parent society. The Red Army was moving into a war-fighting method demanding patterns of behaviour quite sharply at variance with those prevalent in the parent system. It was to face here a growing difficulty.

Logistic support also posed problems. Soviet practice had long rested on the principle of offensive action in mass to seek a swift tactical resolution. Formations would be replaced as necessity dictated. When exhausted and depleted they would be withdrawn for fresh ones to take their places; they would not be replenished and reinforced for further sustained action, as in Western practice.