Az orosz zászlóalj harccsoportjellemzõinek bemutatása a harctéri teljesítményük alapján

Abstract

On the eve of the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War, the most important land forceselement of the Russian Armed Forces was the battalion tactical group (BTG). Beforethe re-escalation of the war, in 2021 the author had already written a publication, inwhich he had examined the real capabilities of the BTGs. In that article, the authorused the well-known Warfighting Functions (WFF) in order to have a clear view of theBTGs’ real capabilities. In that article, the author had got to the conclusion that themain advantages of the BTGs are their fires, fast decision-making process, andintelligence-gathering capabilities. While the disadvantages of the BTGs are therigidness of their decision-making process, the sustainment, and the force protection.Based on the above, the author stated that if the BTGs can retain the initiativeand based on this, they can employ their fires and effectively use their fastdecision-making process, they are a formidable and dangerous enemy.However, the first half year (because after the first six months, there were noBTGs left as combat-capable units) of the ongoing war presents us a totally differentpicture. The goal of this publication is to find the actual reasons behind the Russiandebacles based on the proven WFF analysis. The author had an easier task, thus byexamining the actual battles of this war, the real advantages and disadvantages of theBTGs are easier to identify.The author presented in this article that the rigid decision-making system of theBTGs had spectacularly failed. This has two main reasons: the first is the loss of thetactical initiative because of the low-level tactical independence of the tactical-levelcommanders; the other is the insufficient quality and quantity of communicationsystems and equipment. The other advantage of the BTGs (fires) could not orjust barely prevail because of the rigid decision-making process and the uselesscommunication system. The fundamental land forces’ tactical organisation of theRussian Armed Forces could not react properly to the Ukrainians’ tactic basedon small-scale limited counterattacks and retrograde operations. Later, the rigid,command-centric decision-making process deprived the attacking Russians of thenecessary logistic support and tactical flexibility to break through the deliberateUkrainian defences based on the favourable terrain.