The doctrine of the Soviet Bloc compared to that of NATO

[Farnan]

From what I read of the Soviet military doctrine is they seem to excel at the operational level (operations involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers) but were weak in the tactical level (division and smaller) while NATO was good operationally but seemed to be more focused tactically.

And example of how the Soviets focused so highly on the operational level is that their basic tactic was to keep their motorized infantry mounted unless absolutely necessary and if necessary the gear was focused on suppressing the enemy so the vehicles can overrun the enemy. Their troops were so vehicle dependent they designed their Airborne Divisions to jump with vehicles. Further, the infantryman's weapons all fired the same round. While this weakened their squads combat power, it made logistics extremely easy. Finally, their NCO corps were NCOs in name only, being that they simply completed a 6 month training course after basic training and were as or even less experienced than the privates they led.

However, this force could move faster than most others, and its officers received extensive training in Operations.


While NATO forces focused more on tactical. The Infantry equipment used different rounds, which increased the unit's effectiveness at the cost of logistics, and in contact Infantry would typically dismount even if not necessary. The dismounted infantry would attack the enemy while the vehicle suppressed (the opposite of the Soviet doctrine). And NATO NCOs were experienced soldiers who started as privates and advanced up.

The differences in doctrine seem to have resulted from WWII experiences. In WWII the Soviets fought HUGE battles covering large terrain and succeeded not by beating the Germans division to division (where, except at the end of the war, the Germans had the advantage) but on the Army Group level. While the Western Allies, due to the terrain and size of Western Europe fought more of corps vs corps where even battalion and company level engagements can have a significant effect on the outcome (Pegasus Bridge or Breicourt Manor for instance).

[The Alchemist]

Doesn't the old saying go: "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics"?

[Farnan]

Doesn't the old saying go: "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics"?

It is strategy not tactics that is in the quote, and its by GOA George Marshall.

[Tiberius Tosi]

Just by looking at each sides weapons you can see their strategical differences.

The Soviets massed produced AK-47's which are easy to mass produce, cheap to make, easy to use (and idiot can fire it), requires little maintanence (does require some contrary to popular belief), is fairly innacurate and more effective a close range, and uses the same round as all weapons in the Soviet arsenal.

The NATO standard weapons (let's just pretend they all used the M16 here, while it is not true, all of their weapons follow the same trends) are fairly expensive, easy to mass produce but much more precision and parts are required, must be fired by a well trained soldier to be effectie, requires cleaning and care, is quite accurate and more effective at a medium to long range, and uses a different round as the other weapons in NATO arsenal's due to specialized tasks.

Obviously just by comparing the guns one can see that the Soviet army was geared towards mass conscription of untrained or undertrained soldiers with less emphasis on infantry and greatly values low cost and maintanence and banks on superior numbers to win. NATO on the other hand is more geared towards well trained soldiers with great importance placed on infantry and is willing to spend more per soldier and believes that better training and equipment makes up for less numbers and will achieve victory.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

The Soviet military doctrine, as said here, was far more focused into mass firepower for the infantryman, who was also expected to be a drafted soldier with relatively smaller training than a professional soldier. Therefore, the AK and all-round standardized ammo was the perfect design: easy logistics, easy production, little training. All that for a very high firepower for the period, accurate or not.

Accuracy was not a particular concern with the AK. The experience with the World Wars already made it clear that for the new close combat firefights higher rate of fire was immensely better than accuracy. Whereas prior to the war rifles were extremely bulky and had sights up to enormous distances there was a switch, first towards smaller and more portable rifles (like the Kar 98K), then to submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles, then finally to the prototype of the assault rifle, the StG '44.

The Soviets were so impressed with the design that their design team took much from it. The end result was a rifle especially tailored for the needs of quick and cheap replenishment with a very strong close combat capability. That was only emulated by the US during the Vietnam War, with the M16 rifle; prior to that they still relied on squad heavy machine guns like the BAR, semi-autos and SMG's.

[hellheaven1987]

Na, bunch of nonsenses.

1. If Russians were focused on massive small arm firepower why they even adopted 5.45 in 1974 and improve the mechanical of AK?? Not to mention Soviet small arm was just like NATO, had/has different calibre for different type of weapon; it is arguable that afer 1974 Soviet was in same line as NATO in small arm.

2. Recently I have read some books about Korean War and notice an interesting thing - American soldiers love to squeeze on armour when there are dangers. The author explains it is "human nature" but it is far from what Farnan said. On the other hand, I also read a few books about Indochina Wars (both, French and American) and notice one of most basic tactic when a motor convoy got ambushed was jump out the vehicles immediately - as Vietmihn usually targeted vehicles first, for the purpose to paralyse all convoy. It seems that what Farnan's statement of NATO tactic was largely came out during gureilla wars NATO involved in 50s and 60s, which Soviet had no such experience at all.

[Farnan]

Na, bunch of nonsenses.

1. If Russians were focused on massive small arm firepower why they even adopted 5.45 in 1974 and improve the mechanical of AK?? Not to mention Soviet small arm was just like NATO, had/has different calibre for different type of weapon; it is arguable that afer 1974 Soviet was in same line as NATO in small arm.

More ammo and better accuracy on automatic. No one is saying that the Soviets fired from the hip Taliban style, but rather the goal of fire was to suppress the enemy to allow the vehicles to move in. The focus on automatic fire is sourced by the Soviet Colonel V. A. Rusnov, and the focus on suppressing the enemy to allow the vehicles to roll on is by either Les Grau (whose written extensively on the Soviet Military) or Micheal Gress (Former Soviet Solder)..

2. Recently I have read some books about Korean War and notice an interesting thing - American soldiers love to squeeze on armour when there are dangers. The author explains it is "human nature" but it is far from what Farnan said. On the other hand, I also read a few books about Indochina Wars (both, French and American) and notice one of most basic tactic when a motor convoy got ambushed was jump out the vehicles immediately - as Vietmihn usually targeted vehicles first, for the purpose to paralyse all convoy. It seems that what Farnan's statement of NATO tactic was largely came out during gureilla wars NATO involved in 50s and 60s, which Soviet had no such experience at all.

There is a difference between hugging the vehicle and remaining in the APC as long as possible. Of course troops hugged vehicles, but when combat was engaged it was SOP to dismount troops as soon as possible. You see this as far back as WWII, but may have been a result of the closer fighting in Normandy as opposed to the Russian experience more in East Europe.

My point however was more the Soviet focus on operational over the tactical, at least compared to the Western militaries.

[Lozza12]

Nice thread Farnan - good to see some "good ole days" stuff when we knew who the enemy was and "men were men"

Your summary of the different approaches of each force fits with my historical understanding, and can be expanded to include the air forces and navies.

I remember reading an article in TIME about 1992 or something that explored the ability of the MiG-29 (ex-East German Luftwaffe). It said that it was as good as the F-15 but could have been better if it had more advanced avionics. It's landing gear was tough - designed to land on improvised airfields, whereas the F-15 would fall to pieces if used on anything except specialised tarmacs. Similarly, the machine-finishing of the MiG's fuselage was so bad that it was "knobbly", but bizarrely it was shown that this enhanced the aircraft's speed!

At sea, the Soviet philosopy was to use overwhelming firepower on Day 1 of the battle. Because the Soviets acknowledged NATO's traditional superiority afloat it decided that to successfully capture the sea lanes it needed to adopt "shock & awe" tactics (thanks Mr Cheney). All Soviet vessels carried dozens of missile launchers with zero reloads. Compare this to Western thinking where vessels are designed to be used again and again, and thus have a better balance of weaponry, but with fewer launchers and more reloads. In an encounter what you would have is highly advanced NATO warships/subs duking it out with larger numbers of inferior Soviet vessels (acknowledging the Akula sub class as being very good), who are smothering the NATO vessels with surface-to-surface missiles. If the Soviets succeed on Day 1 then they win and NATO loses control of the Atlantic - if NATO can hold them off on Day 1 then their superior technology and reserves of weapons will see them win the war.

On land it's more tricky though. Again if I recall correctly, it was revealed in the mid-1990's that the Warsaw Pact had no intention of slugging it out with NATO in Germany. It was going to use tactical nukes to flatten key NATO supply areas and then advance on through in their NBC-suits to the Channel coast. Perhaps this was an admission that NATO tactics were superior? Who knows - we'd all be dead anyway

A better scenario would be a modern-day seizure of Taiwan by China. Ignoring whether China could seize Taiwan through political/economic takeover means - let's see what people think? I say they could easily do it, especially now with the US caught up in Afghanistan & Iraq, and with most Western government broke and politically unwilling to fight more wars. Basically by the time the US mobilised (if at all), the Chinese would be flying the flag over Taipei. Let's also not forget that basic Chinese artillery would make the Taiwan Strait a killing zone for any US ship.

Sorry for the hijack, but it's all related to your question

Cheers,

Lozza12

[Norge]

A better scenario would be a modern-day seizure of Taiwan by China. Ignoring whether China could seize Taiwan through political/economic takeover means - let's see what people think? I say they could easily do it, especially now with the US caught up in Afghanistan & Iraq, and with most Western government broke and politically unwilling to fight more wars. Basically by the time the US mobilised (if at all), the Chinese would be flying the flag over Taipei.
Lozza12

You're acting as if the U.S is the only thing standing between China and Taiwan, completely ignoring the capable ROC military. And while China may have a huge army, it has no capacity to transport said army over any large expanse of water.

Even an invasion launched from roll on-roll off cargo ships could work if the US was caught out of position.

Again ignoring the ROC military.

Remember Japan has the world's 4th largest armed forces - who knew that? Still, they're all for "self defence" so I guess they're no threat....

Japan has the 24th largest military by active troops. 47th largest by total troops (just above Sweden)

[Farnan]

And the idea of that massed firepower was to suppress the enemy infantry so the vehicles could roll over them and destroy them.

[Tiberius Tosi]

I say as of now, no Lozza. The Chinese navy sucks. Sure their air force is big but outdated. We may be bogged down with ground forces in Afghan and Iraq but we would certainly have enough air power and naval power (we have what 11 carriers and China has 0 as of now and are only planning on building 3) to blow up anything they send at Taiwan.

If they were invading like, Mongolia or something (This is not a Mongol joke) then yes they would be successful because we wouldn't have the ground forces to step in, but the defense of Taiwan does not even require any US ground forces as China has almost no way of getting there.

[Lozza12]

Tiberius,

I suspect that having no navy would be something of a handicap, but let's not forget - China's navy is likely to be better than we think/know of, AND it's not that far to Taiwan. Even an invasion launched from roll on-roll off cargo ships could work if the US was caught out of position.

Remember Japan has the world's 4th largest armed forces - who knew that? Still, they're all for "self defence" so I guess they're no threat....

Cheers,

Lozza12

[Mangalore]

I say as of now, no Lozza. The Chinese navy sucks. Sure their air force is big but outdated. We may be bogged down with ground forces in Afghan and Iraq but we would certainly have enough air power and naval power (we have what 11 carriers and China has 0 as of now and are only planning on building 3) to blow up anything they send at Taiwan.
....

China doesn't need carriers for operations against Taiwan as their missiles and aircraft can operate there from the mainland. They certainly would need some beachhead for a successful conquest, but the whole idea of carriers is meaningless when the other side can operate from land which doesn't sink as easily in an area with high concentration of mid range missiles.

Don't think it's likely.

Imo the Soviet operation in Afghanistan would be an important aspect to this discussion. The Soviet takeover of Afghanistan was extremely wellprepared and the antiguerillia operations were also pretty nasty. They seem to have operated rather similar to the US in this scenario, maybe even a bit better because at least it wasn't jungle so one could catch Mujahedin easier out in the open.

[Dr. Croccer]

The Soviet doctrine was also more hierarchic, and allowed little room for own initiative of lower officers.

[Azog 150]

So how would this have changed if the USSR had made it past Germany? And how would it have changed if NATO made it into Poland?

Would they have stuck with similar (Obviously slightly modified) tactics/strategies seeing as that is what their equipment was suited for, or tried to improvise?