A year and a half of the Russian-Ukrainian front led to the revision of combat techniques and the rewriting of military strategy manuals. The first is that of a new era in Russia and Ukraine.
According to Russian and Ukrainian analysts, in light of previous experience, there will be new trends in fighting on the front line in 2024. For example, professional assault units and units will dominate the battlefield.
According to the flow of the social sphere, the battles of the summer – autumn of 2023 showed that units and units of regular organization and standard combined military training are capable of confidently defending themselves, but in the offensive they act in in a stereotyped and uncertain manner, they suffer losses and do not fulfill their assigned task objectives. And this both on one side and on the other.
“Their effectiveness” – we read in the social sphere flow – “in combat is estimated between 15% and 25%. And vice versa: units “tailored” for assault missions or having experience of such battles in assault operations in 2023-24 give 65% – 75% success.” For Russia read Wagner and for Ukraine read French mercenaries.
A consolidation of these units at the level of corps formations and their “first” at the front during the summer campaign is therefore expected. To some extent, this process (of forming formations more suited to offensive tasks) repeats similar mistakes during the First and Second World Wars.
And again the finger is pointed at the “quality of the staff”. “The importance of the quality of command personnel will increase significantly. The success of the mission directly depends on the level of training and combat experience of the commanders. The American system of “remote control” of belligerent units, adopted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, came into conflict with the need for flexible control of units at the tactical level, where the constant presence of a trained and proactive commander is necessary. The Ukrainian armed forces will have to solve the problem by bringing the officers back to the trenches.”
“For the Russian army, the problem of freeing the personnel system from the “corpse stains” of previous decades remains urgent: “nepotism”, protectionism and “clanism” which continues to reduce the combat capabilities of the Russian army and causes losses due to incompetent command.”
For the Ukrainian Armed Forces, after huge losses in 2023, the process of accumulating fully trained reserves and preserving the “core” of front-line soldiers hardened by combat operations is extremely important. The current ground forces ratio of 60% (soldiers who have served less than 4 months) to 40% (soldiers who have served more than 4 months) is an unfavorable factor. It can only be overcome by reducing losses by a multiple and increasing the extent of reserve preparation.
For the Russians, the issue of FPV drones and bomber drones will remain the main factor limiting the use of large groups of equipment. With their massive use, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will try to make up for the shortage of artillery shells, and will also try to “immobilize” Russian troops as much as possible and prevent them from conducting large-scale offensive operations.
Finally, again according to a balance sheet from the Russian and Ukrainian OSINT UNITs, 2024 will be the year of the growing dominance on the battlefield of automatic combat control systems, from artillery fire control, reconnaissance and target designation programs, to large automated control systems at the front management level, as well as to the formation of reconnaissance systems and strike “circuits”.
In this the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a significant advantage in their implementation: the presence of a “military Internet” built on the basis of the constellation of American orbital satellites Starlink, as well as closed high-speed NATO communication systems. The Russian Armed Forces have not yet been able to implement their own “military Internet”, and tactical communications do not yet meet modern requirements, because it operates on the basis of a variety of systems, mainly Chinese and partly Russian.
According to the social sphere, these problems of counter-battery and war against drones will remain, at least until the second half of spring, one of the main factors preventing the realization of the numerical and technical superiority of the RF Armed Forces over the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By that date, new “friendly” internet satellites should be in orbit and the new drones should have arrived for the Russian military.
Graziella Giangiulio
