Soviet Light Division c. 1987

[Raellus]

I'd never heard of this experiment before. Video bro does a good job of breaking its TOE, task, and purpose down, but doesn't cite his sources.

https://www.battleorder.org/post/ussr-light

I did a bit of poking around on the interwebs and have been unable to find corroborating sources, so far.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting concept. From a T2k POV, I wonder if the Soviets, as the Twilight War grinded on, might have adopted a similar divisional TOE, at least in part, to account for a growing deficit of AFVs.

As always, I'm interested as to your thoughts on this topic.

-

[Vespers War]

The video on YouTube lists a Russian-language source. I tried running it through Google Translate, but it didn't come out very legible.

Looking through my copy of Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army for comparisons, it almost felt like a heavy airborne formation. Take an airborne unit, add about 33% more artillery and air defense and more trucks to replace the BMDs, and you've pretty much got the equivalent light motor rifle unit.

I can't help but feel that they'd sorely miss the organic fire support from having IFVs replaced by unarmed trucks. The added artillery might offset that somewhat, especially with Russia's love of using artillery against any target they can, but this is going to be a force whose mobility drops way off once it's in contact with an enemy, because soft trucks can't be used the same way as even lightly armored IFVs.

Overall, I agree with the conclusion that there's not much point to this unit in a European war, at least not the one the Soviet Union expected to fight. As a defensive unit in mountains or urban environments it could serve about as well as a standard rifle division. On the offensive or defending flanks during a thrust towards Western Europe, I'm more skeptical of its utility.