Intresting Facts about 1980s Soviet Equipment

[dragoon500ly]

There is a joke from a Russian military magazine that goes along the lines of...

It is after World War III has ended and two Russian tank generals met on the streets of Paris. After exchanging greetings, one asks the other if he has heard who has won the Air War. The second general shrugs and answers that he didn't know as the Air Forces were still fighting.

The Soviets recognize that air power is important, but their current doctrine stress that, at best, the skies will be neutral, neither side holding air superiority. Because of the threat from the air, the Soviets organize their air defense by four guiding principles:

Mass: Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) and surface to air missiles (SAM) are provided at all levels of command and on a scale greater than any other military.

Mix: This is achieved by the issue of complementary weapons systems, the different types providing air defense in spite of countermeasures reducing the efectiveness of any single system.

Mobility: This is intregal to the designs themselves, even static systems such as the SA-2 and SA-3 can be moved to new positions within four hours.

Integration: Air defense forces are integrated throughout the Red Army from forward area SAM brigades to the platoon's SA-7 launcher.

While the Soviets have a strong ADA doctrine, they realize that if attacking aircraft have the determination to press on, take their losses and attack their targets, all ADA can do is to make it more costly, more difficult and more time-consuming for the attacker to accomplish his mission. They don;t have to destroy enemy aircraft, all they need to do is reduce the effectiveness of enemy aircraft for the first, crucial days of the war.

By 1972, Hanoi was defended by 6,000 AAA guns (three times the number that defended Berlin), supplemented by 156 SA-2 launchers with stockpiles large enough to enable the firing of 100 missiles simultaneously. This mass of ADA was still not enough to prevent US aircraft from breaking their barrier and bombing the targets in Hanoi. It took five days to do so and it required that 50% of the US sorties flown be for air defense suppression. Thats half of all air attacks being delivered on emplaced defences and not being used on more productive targets.

In the long run, modern aircraft with effective ECM and creative tactics can defeat the Soviet air defense system. The Soviet concept of the short, victorious war is intended to deprive NATO of that long run.

The PVO-Strany (Soviet Air Defence of the Motherland) still fields large numbers of antiaircraft guns of the 130mm, 100mm and 85mm variety. Although these are being phased out and replaced by SAMs, they are still in reserve stockpiles, ready for use.

KS-30 130mm AA gun. Weighs 24,900kg in firing position. Sustained rate of fire is 12rpm. Max Altitude is 22,000m and effective range is 16,500m. It can throw a Frag-HE round weighing in at 22.4kg. Crew requirement is 11 men.

KS-19M2 100mm AA Gun. In the firing position, it weighs 11,000kg. Rate of fire is 20rpm. Max Altitude is 14,500m and the effective range is 11,900m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 15.7kg and it requires a crew of 9 men.

KS-18 85mm AA Gun. Weighs 4,986kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 20rpm. Max altitude is 12,300m and effective range is 8,380m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 9.75kg. Crew requirement is 7 men.

S-60 57mm AA Gun. Weighs 4,600kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 70rpm. Maximum altitude is 8,800m and effective range is 4,000m (optical control) or 6,000m (radar control). Its HEI round weighs 2.8kg. It requires a crew of 7 men and it has a basic load of 200 rounds in 4-round clips.

ZSU-57-2 SP AA Gun. A modified T-54 chassis that mounts two S-60 guns provided with optical fire control. A outdated design that is being replaced with SAMs. Considered to be a failure as a design due to inadequate sights. Mostly sold to various Third World countries.

M-39 37mm AA Gun. Weighs 2,100kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 80rpm. Maximum altitude is 6,000m and effective range is 3,000m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 0.74kg. It requires a crew of 8 men. Its ammuniton comes in 5-round clips and two can be held in the weapon at any time. It has a basic load of 400 rounds. Experience in Vietnam shows that it needs up to 3 37mm hits to destroy an F-4 Phantom.

ZU-23-2 AA Gun. A towed mount with dual AZP-23 cannons. It weighs 893kg in firing position. Rate of fire is 200rpm per barrel. Maximum altitude is 5,100m and effective range is 2,500m. Its HEI round weighs 0.19kg, it also comes with a API round weighing 0.19kg. Ammunition is via a box magazine holding a 50-round belt, usually loaded with one round of API for every three HEI. Crew requirement is 5 men. Basic Load is 600 rounds.

ZU-23-4 SP AA Gun. The standard AA weapon of the Red Army, each regiment has a AA platoon of four of these weapons. The vehicle (a development of the PT-76 tank) weighs 14,000kg. Has a road speed of 45km/h, a road range of 260km. It mounts 2 dual AZP-23 cannon mounts and carries a basic load of 2,000 rounds. Crew is 4. It also mounts a "Gun Dish" radar for fire-control. The Gun Dish is stablized and the "Zoo" can fire on the move, but with degraded accuracy. The Gun Dish is also fitted with a moving target indicator which assists in picking out aircraft from non-moving backgrounds, such as chaff, jamming and ground clutter. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Zoos were responsible for the destruction of 30 Israeli aircraft, lost in making low level attacks on Arab units or when driven into the Zoos engagement zone while evading SA-6s, a perfect example of the principle of mix. The 23mm round is not very lethal, requiring an average of 16 hits to destroy a F-4 Phantom.

ZPU-4, ZPU-2, ZPU-1 AA Guns. These are respectively, the quad, twin and single mounts of the basic KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun. The ZPU-4 weighs 1,810kg in firing position. Rate of fire is 150rpm per barrel. Maximum altitude is 5,000m and effective range is 1,400m. Ammunition is API and HEI (0.065kg). Crew is 5 men. The machine gun is fed from a 150 round belt in a drum magazine. Unit of fire is 4,800 rounds. The ZPU is considered to be a very effective weapon. The larger weapons are cumbersome, and easier to spot and destroy, so much so that many experts consider the ZPU to be far more deadly than the Zoo. The ZPU can be dismantled and man-packed, permitting effective antiaircraft ambushes to be set up.

[dragoon500ly]

Here is a question for you,

What is the size of a standard Red Army Tank Platoon?

Is it 3 tanks?

Or is it 4 tanks?

Or is it 5 tanks?






The answer is....

All of the above.

The three tank platoon is the standard size for tank regiments in the tank division and for most Category I and all Category II and III tank regiments of the motor rifle division.

The four tank platoon is the standard size for the tank regiment of a Category I motor rifle division, especially the ones stationed in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

The five tank platoon is only found in the independent tank battalion/regiment of a motor rifle division or front.

[HorseSoldier]

I'd heard of the four tank platoons, but not the five tank platoons. Did those platoons still comprise three platoon companies?

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

I'd heard of the four tank platoons, but not the five tank platoons. Did those platoons still comprise three platoon companies?

Yup. And to confuse things even more, the independent tank battalion has between 4-5 companies. The independent tank regiments have between 4-6 companies.

[dragoon500ly]

Here is an example of Soviet tactics...

You are the Division Commander of a Motor Rifle Division, its Day 2 of the great offensive to crush NATO and this is the situation you are facing.

One of your BTR regiments is on the left flank. It is attacking an American Mech Infantry Task Frorce and has suffered crippling losses. The regiment has suffered 40% losses, including the regimental commander and two of the battalion commanders. Your Intelligence Officer reports that the Americans are showing signs of counterattacking in this sector. The regiment can no longer maintain the offensive.

Your second BTR regiment is attacking in the center. The American Mech Infantry Task Force has suffered heavy losses and is failing back to its next defensive line. Your regiment has suffered 20% losses, but is advancing.

Your BMP regiment is on the right and is currently fighting elements of a West German Panzer Brigade. It is a confused situation, but the regiment is holding its ground.

In reserve, you have your tank regiment, your recon battalion, and your division artillery group.

All three regimental commanders are requesting reinforcements.

So what do you do?



There are four basic answers, reinforce the left, reinforce the center, reinforce the right or break up the reserve and reinforce two or more regiments.

From a Soviet prespective there is only one correct answer. The entire reserve goes to reinforce the center. Indeed, the left and right flank regiments can expect to have any attachments as well as any unengaged units stripped from their command and moved to reinforce the center.

Soviet doctrine stresses that the advance must be maintained at all costs. The intent is to force NATO to react to Soviet movement, they realize that by maintaining the offense, that NATO would be forced to curtail its own offensive in order to reinforce the threatened sector.

[Webstral]

The Soviet military philosophy is perfectly serviceable, provided one can meet the operating conditions. The concept of seizing and holding the initiative is hardly a new one; one might say that the Germans reinforced the value of the practice in 1941 and 1942, while the Soviets turned the lesson around thereafter. Still, the uncompromising emphasis the Soviets placed on maintaining the impetus of offensive operations is noteworthy. If time is the enemy’s ally, then the only winning solution is to bring the operation to a conclusion as quickly as possible.

One reason the Soviets laid such a heavy emphasis on ground-based air defense is that they were at a disadvantage in the air. The Soviets understood that sheer numbers of aircraft were a poor match for the Western technical superiority, superior ground support, and pilot initiative. After the initial surge of high-tempo operations, the West would have a sortie advantage—effectively giving the West a quantitative as well as a qualitative advantage. Since the operation might outlast the surge, it was important to prevent the West from winning the war by default.

Another reason for the Soviet emphasis on ground-based air defense is their orientation towards battlefield support as the principal role of air power. While the Soviets moved beyond a straightforward battlefield role for their air power by the mid-1970’s, the emphasis never really went away. They were keenly aware of how roughly their own Il-2 fleet had handled the Germans. Ground-based air defenses would give Army commanders some means of offsetting a major opposing force effort to establish air superiority over a given sector of the front (like wherever offensive was going well) if the SAF dropped the ball.


Webstral

[Legbreaker]

I think the GDW writers were aware of the effects of unequal air power which may be why they've stated in the history that the German air power was completely trounced by an unexpectedly better performing PACT.
May not mirror what would have happened in reality, but it's just one more small part that's needed to bring about the stalemate we see in 2000.