Mechanised / infantry mix in NE Europe

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My recent critique of American brigade designs in the European context was mild only on the (de facto) tank brigades, and scathing on the brigades which have an emphasis on dismounted combat.

I'd like to elaborate on this to avoid a wrong impression:

NE Europe has much woodland and many swamps. It's not 'classic' tank-friendly terrain (though things maybe complicated and may change).

Indirect fires (mostly artillery) are the main killer (80-95% of ground combat KIA), tanks are the main enabler for rapid manoeuvres in harms way and infantry is and will be the force of choice when difficult terrain and short lines of sight favour it.

A sensible force mix for NE European collective defence sure needs much infantry because of NE European terrain features. The question is how to organise it. The Americans did quite the same mistake as did West Germany with Jägerbrigaden (1970-1981); they attempted to create infantry-heavy brigades, and that makes no sense. Even more nonsensical were the historical mountain infantry divisions. 

Think about the mountain infantry division example, as it exposes the wrong thinking the clearest:

Mountain infantry is best for high altitudes, at least 2,000+ m. Regular infantry can meet the tasks in the valleys even in the Alps. It makes no sense to have mountain infantry divisions, for the sectors in which dedicated mountain infantry makes sense aren't large enough for such a formation size. Patches of mountain infantry of company or battalion size are needed instead, intermingled with regular infantry forces. 

Mountain infantry was also popular (because of its infantry-centrism and easily movable equipment) for swamps and woodland, but again other than in the Pripyat marshes area there was rarely a sector large enough to justify the employment of an entire mountain infantry division.

There's no good case for a mountain division if there's hardly ever an opportunity to correctly employ it as a coherent division, but usually many opportunities for employment of individual battalions or regiments.

Yet there were mountain infantry divisions and brigades, not only independent regiments and battalions - I suppose the planners were simply stuck (used to) the divisional system and later the brigade system. They squeezed both mounted combat and dismounted combat doctrines into the same template level.

It would be much more sensible to set up infantry regiments as administrative bodies (for economies of scale) only, and to have infantry battalions for relatively autonomous line of sight missions in infantry friendly terrain.* The full range of support (AFVs, artillery) would not be necessary, for such infantry battalions could hope to receive arty support from the mechanised forces when intermingled with them. This allows them to have no support-hungry AFVs and no supplies-hungry 155 mm arty at all.

The optimal mix between mechanised and infantry strength would not need to be cast into a brigade design. This never succeeds anyway.

Instead, infantry forces could be deployed as needed, and hopefully with enough CO self-discipline to favour depth of the occupied zone over density of its occupation with infantry. The infantry would mostly raid/probe, delay, deny routes and report targets for the arty, after all. There's no need to mass infantry most of the time.

I expect two main criticisms;

(1) A reflex about cannon fodder, assuming that such infantry battalions would be spent.

Well, what exactly do you expect infantry to be then? Men who begin a European great powers' war as infantrymen survive the war either as POWs or as cripples, period**. To push them into a brigade format with organic arty doesn't change this, particularly if said arty isn't survivable itself. To add organic tank units will deceive superior HQs into believing that this formation may be suitable for additional (bloody) mission types instead of focusing them on the best missions for infantry. Such infantry battalions could still team up with a detached tank company or an armoured recce unit for combined arms at the battalion level if that's really needed.

Keep the peace if you want to keep infantrymen alive!

(2) A disbelief that mechanised forces nearby would lend the fire support required.

Well, this is about doctrine. I didn't write much about this, but I don't see mechanised battlegroups or brigades as forces that manoeuvre around much at all. They merely manoeuvre and shoot up stuff very much for short times when an opportunity appears or was created (and evade/relocate for safety somewhat more often than that). A mechanised force with a 'fleet in being' role may deter offensive actions of hostile mechanised forces by its presence (in conjunction with other forces). It would have both the relatively orderly supplies flow and the time it needs to lend arty support to infantry battalions in contact. The astonishing increase in effective artillery range (30 km for SPGs and 40 km for MRLs in 1990, now 40 km with SPGs and moderately exotic munitions (RAP; fully exotic would be VULCANO and other glide munitions), 80-100 km for MRL with guided or trajectory-corrected munitions) adds to this. An infantry battalion would typically have one or two mechanised brigades close enough for support.***

The American model creates a simplistic heavy/medium/light mix all on the same level (de facto "brigade combat teams"), instead of finding the best level of organisation for each. I suppose the infantry-centric forces should not be organised in brigades, but in independent battalions or independent battalion clusters with a "regimental" HQ for administrative efficiency.****

This way they wouldn't have the organic arty firepower or AT strength for conventional war, but they would fit well into a corps design and corps deployment that could have both as a whole.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: In addition to organic infantry / dismounted combat battalions in the mechanised brigades.

**: Or their army drops out of the war real quick.

***: Such thoughts lead to a mechanised brigade design that's heavy on support compared to its light on line of sight combat power. On the one hand this fits to the recipe of LOS forces being spotters for the arty much of the time, on the other hand it further leads to LOS-troops heavy battalion battlegroups doing the manoeuvring and a support group with mere LOS self-defence capability staying 'behind' when the manoeuvring has to be very agile. This separation on occasion untethers the LOS combat and manoeuvre forces (from the support forces), making them more nimble and less concerned about the support's security.

****: Relieving the Bn COs of administrative tasks including barracks-level management, and representative tasks (a German base CO spends several days per year with civilian-military relations tasks alone).

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