Thread 63897678

>soviets had a 3:1 tank/mech infantry ratio in tank divisions and a 1:3 ratio in mech divisions
>US had a 6:5 ratio for armored divisions and a 2:3 ratio in mech divisions
would you rather use the min-maxed soviet approach or the more balanced US one?

>would you rather use the soviet approach
what a difficult and thought provoking question, OP

Why the fuck would I want to use anything Russian ever?
>Min-maxed soviet approach
Ah yes, the minmaxing approach that got their retarded serf cattle killed in millions even while they were winning.

>>63897678 (OP)
>3:1 tank/mech infantry ratio in USSR tank divisions
Ah yes, because tanks famously do not need infantry support during assaults.
>2:3 ratio in mech divisions for the US
This actually strikes me as an excessive number of tanks for a mech infantry division, at least if you have proper IFVs and not just M113s or similar for your infantry to ride in. It just seems like both a logistical and a literal drag to have that many tanks riding alongside what SHOULD be a highly mobile, fast-moving unit.

>>63897805
an important distinction is that the US does not see mech infantry as an independent unit, so mech infantry will always operate in similar number to tanks
the general idea is that the tanks arent slowing down the mech infantry, they are speeding them up by giving them more mass and firepower to punch through heavy opposition

the US army has tweaked it down to 5:4 after the adoption of the BCT
a reinforced armored division has 2 tank and 1 mech infantry battalion
the former being 2:1 and the latter being 1:2

>>63897860
Didn't mech units regularly overtake their armored attaches in the gulf, though? Bradleys were popping more tanks than Abrams.

>>63897875
>Bradleys were popping more tanks than Abrams.
they knocked out more armored vehicles, but not tanks
no one has ever verified if they ever knocked out more tanks than the M1, and its unlikely that they did when the largest armored engagement of the war definitely had the M1 score most of the tank kills

>>63897805
>Ah yes, because tanks famously do not need infantry support during assaults.
outdated doctrine that no longer works. OPs question is largely historic, the age of tanks is over, the era of the drone has begun.

>>63897678 (OP)
Their tank divisions were reinforced by mech divisions, so this doesn't really compare i think. Different doctrine

Iirc the US ran square divisions at a 1:1 tank mech ratio for a good while

>>63897678 (OP)
what blew up this time?

>>63899399
Soviets wouldn't cross reinforce from other divisions as a rule
Reinforcements would have come from independent regiments within the corp, not divisions, but this would have been specialist equipment like oversized artillery
The mech regiment within the division would be broken up and used to reinforce their tank regiments to form brigade-equivelant units
So this would work out to a company of mechs supporting a battalion of tanks

>Iirc the US ran square divisions at a 1:1 tank mech ratio for a good while
Past WW2, they were triangularized
They were 2:1 in 1939, before being standardized as 1:1 when the wore broke out

But after multiple rounds of reforms, they settled on roughly equal, but slightly weighted towards one or the other

>>63899433
>Soviets wouldn't cross reinforce
no, but they'd specifically task a mechanised division to assist the tank division in exploitation
>they settled on roughly equal, but slightly weighted towards one or the other
that's what I mean

>>63897678 (OP)
Every time Soviet doctrine, training, or equipment has been tested against Western or Western-adjacent forces its lost and lost BAD. To find exceptions, you have to point to extremely specific cases (like North Vietnamese SAMs in an era before SEAD/DEAD doctrine was developed, guided weapons were still in their infancy, and misplaced political concerns took precedence over clear military necessity and even then, B-52s were still able to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong, the two most heavily defended places in North Vietnam).
Also, 'balanced' armor divisions have proven to be more effective separately from this. The Wehrmacht reorganized their panzer divisions after the Invasion of Poland so the ratio of tank regiments to infantry regiments was reversed (2:1 to 1:2). In 1939, British armored divisions had 6 tank battalions and 2 infantry battalions. In 1940 the ratio was 6 to 3. And by 1944 it was 3 to 4. The US added more infantry to their armored divisions after we had used them in combat for the first time, and by the end of the war we had two armored division templates (the 'heavy' with 2 armored regiments to 1 infantry and 'light' with 1 armored and 1 infantry regiment).

>>63899286
Nah

>>63897678 (OP)
To use the Soviet metric of firepower per unit frontage, a lot more matters than video game number balances. For the Soviets and post Soviets a lot maters if your unit is even trained or capable of the doctrine and if the commanders and logistics can communicate and control to apply mass where needed.

>>63899898
>Every time Soviet doctrine, training, or equipment has been tested against Western or Western-adjacent forces its lost and lost BAD.
There's an important clarification to be made: we've run soviet doctrine as well in training exercises and kicked our own ass, their ideas work and was an effective use of their less advanced cultural+industrial inputs. The reason NATO spends so much time, effort, and money running exercises is that our way of war is superior only when everyone fighting it is highly proficient. Lieutenants fresh from academy/ROTC really struggle to coordinate with each other well enough to prevail over the operational tempo the formulaic soviet approach achieves. For a layperson analogy: CSGO "P90 rush B cyka" isn't good yet it can consistently win casual games since CT is typically 3 clueless dudes + 2 midwits bitching at everyone else. If left to happenstance human natures drive that same scenario to play out between your NATO-spec company/battalion commanders with tragic consequences.

In the Red Army during WWII, tank/mechanized units were the size of a corps equivalent to a division, and there is a discrepancy between the name and the size, which is a bit annoying.

>>63899286
That driver must've felt his soul leave his body seeing the drone appear in front of him

>>63901157
>we've run soviet doctrine as well in training exercises and kicked our own ass, their ideas work
something which I think is lost on 99% of people, including OSINTards who really ought to know better

>>63897678 (OP)
Depends when this takes place. Around 1970 when the US M60s have to face the Russian T-64s supporting waves of T-55s? Shit yeah I'll go with the Russian approach. Late 80s when the Leo 2 and M1A1 are starting to show up? I'm going with the US approach.

>>63901515
that says more about the vehicles involved rather than the organization of them

>>63901157
>We're run flawed exercises on wrong premises invented by taking Soviet self-wankery and theatrics at face value therefore the infinite body of evidence doesn't actually matter.
>You see soviet doctrine works better than absolutely no doctrine therefore it's good.
Jesus Christ just listen to yourself for a moment.

>>63902666
The jokes write themselves.

>>63899942
Retard

>>63897678 (OP)
>would you rather use the min-maxed soviet approach or the more balanced US one?

Here is a good primer:
>https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2016/07/fixing-german-army-brigades.html

Ideally, and what the Germans learned in WW2, is you want a 1 to 1 ratio of tank companies to mechanized infantry companies so ideally your mechanized battalion has two tank companies + two mechanized infantry companies.

>>63903722
a purely 1:1 ratio was used by the US in WW2
but it skewed slightly towards armor when attacking and slightly towards infantrt when defending
due to the triangular nature of divisions, slight asymmetry was going to happen, which is why US organizations are slightly over 1:1

they briefly tried a CAB consisting of 2 companies of each in the 2000s, but it was abandoned in favor of mixed 2:1 and 1:2 CABs within the brigade
since 2 of each results in a square battalion, you end up with slightly more tanks than mech troops

>>63902666
>flawed exercises on wrong premises
you were there, were you?

Get thee behind me, Satan

>>63903722
>https://defense-and-freedom
he is an autistic idiot relying too much on paper figures, as one would expect of a German, and often ignores field conditions and fails to take into account error factors and human nature
like many brute force traditionalists, he completely rubbished manoeuvrist ideas and has no clue of battlefield networks and logistics, which deeply flawed his arguments

>>63903783
>they briefly tried a CAB consisting of 2 companies of each...
>...you end up with slightly more tanks than mech troops
it was said that in practice they would form roughly equal Combined Arms battalions with companies being chopped here and there as casualties and requirements dictated

IMHO, I think this is all just trying to balance peacetime admin structures and, importantly for the GWOT era, manning issues with the historic 1:1 ideal

>>63897678 (OP)
I would call the Soviet approach the "can't into logistics" approach and the US approach the "logistics is my bitch" approach though.