"Cold War Soviet Recon Tactics?" Topic

Yes, yet again, more questions about this subject, since after all, they are the tip of the spear, and make for interesting mixed units with which to create scenarios, instead of your run of the mill, everyday, tank, or motor rifle battalions.

So, let's presume it is sometime in the 1960s – mid-1980s, and the balloon has gone up. The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies decide to flood across the border into West Germany, on their way to Paris, and the English Channel.

My question is, which type of unit would lead the charge over the border?

A tank division, and/or corps would be my guess, for the initial breakthrough, well supported of course, by other similar units, and/or motor rifle divisions as well.

Feel free to correct me on the above, if I am wrong.

At the tip of that assault, would a divisional recon battalion (and/or perhaps even a corps or army recon unit) be assigned to the breakthrough attack, or, would the Soviets and/or their Warsaw Pact allies hold these large, higher level recon units back a bit, and use them later?

Presumably, with a robust, West German/NATO forward deployed defense, the communists could expect a lot of attrition in the first waves of attackers to cross the border, so perhaps they might be more likely to hold their larger recon units back a bit, to be used in the exploitation phase of their attack, once they've cracked the shell of the defenders.

I suspect that perhaps the regimental recon units, combat patrols, and their advanced guards might be adequate to perform the initial recon tasks, especially since attack routes near the border would have been preplanned far in advance by the upper echelons of the military brass, in order to avoid, and/or minimize traffic congestion on their initial attack routes.

I think it would make more sense to have some of the more vulnerable, strategic recon vehicles in the second, and/or third waves, or later, of a major attack, where they'd be more survivable, and could then search for, and exploit any breakdowns in NATO's defenses.

Also, I'm not sure that I've ever seen the TO&E of a Soviet/WP corps, or army "long range reconnaissance patrol" recon unit, so if anyone has info to share on that, for tank, and/or motor rifle units, that would be greatly appreciated.

Higher echelon recce is there to recce further forwards as a div is interested in depth. Sf patrols even further forwards and don't forget siginf, standard recce by stealth but sovs also would carry out recce by force.
Sent from a hot air balloon in n Ethiopia

Tally Ho!

Thanks for the info Nick.

Yes, I know that, generally, but thought things might be a bit different at the kickoff of an invasion, when a lot of units are all bunched up, and there hasn't been much penetration into West Germany.

It's pretty hard to get the recce out front, when everyone is starting from a restricted baseline, by a border.

I doubt they'd send the recce units out in front, and let them get to their preferred operating distances, before moving the other units out behind them.

Kicking off from a standing start, where a lot of your units are in close proximity on Day 1, is a lot different than a few days, weeks, or months later, where you've got some more maneuvering room, and the attacking units may be a bit more spread out.

This is what I understand, based on teaching at the British Army's School of Infantry at Warminster, summer 1985:

1. Soviet operational level tactics transitioning in light of 'Operational Manoeuvre Group' operational art whereby the WP attack would come from a standing start without lengthy build up or reinforcement, developed along a dozen deep thrusts aimed at HQs and sapping political will.

2. Soviet Recce is considered only as good as the information it can fight for, so is considerably stronger than NATO equivalents at all levels, and is an all-arms team capable of rapidly overwhelming platoon/troop strength screens.

3. A Motor Rifle (Mech Inf) Regiment's 'advanced guard' would typically consist of:

Recce patrol wheeled echelon – 2-4 BRDM and M/C sections
Tank echelon – 4 x T-80
Motor rifle echelon – Coy strength (10x BMP2)
Support echelon – Btty (6 x) 122mm SPG)
AD section – 2 x ZSU234
Sapper section – 1-2 CETs

4. Depending on the CEI/emission policy in force, the main role of the m/c teams would be communication/liaison between echelons to minimise radio transmissions.
[Recce elements transmitting heavily may be considered to be laying 'maskirovka' – camouflage or disinformation about the real axis of advance].

Yes I know most MRR's didn't have BMPs IN 1985, but apparently their recce units did, possibly to avoid fingerprinting?

Prior to an invasion most of their intelligence would have come from SF/3rd column and many will remember the DDR lorries driving around West Germany with their, ahem, co drivers. Once the attack had started the recce would be launched,

Recce would not form part of any assault, their job would be to probe and identify enemy positions, weak points and by pass routes. In some cases they would be willing to fight for this information, so a combat recce patrol would have a Coy of MBTs attached. Unless a scenario dictates Recce should be used to provide intelligence on the enemy prior to a game rather than be used as an extra combat unit.

Looking at the Recce at 62MRR in Doberitz it appears to be BTR60PB and BRDM2, will put up an image when this wifi allows!

Tally Ho!

Something to remember, Army level Recce is there to recce, say 50 miles forward and flanks which is what an army commander is interested in. Likewise Div recce is there to look 25 miles distant and flanks which is what the Div commander is interested in, and the Regt recce "the other side of the hill" and once battle is joined to seek the next enemy, routes etc.

Tally Ho!

One thing to add, Soviet doctrine in the early 80's was actually to lead with motorized rifle units to create breakthroughs and the exploit with tanks. That is why every echelon has some sort of armored reserve.

So a MR division would fight with 3 MRR in line with the TR Ready to exploit, and army would have a TD, etc. if you have not already, check out: PDF link

As Nick said, some of the recon assets will be pre-positioned. Once the balloon goes up, recon will avoid known defenses and find a way around them. Recon will look for weak points without fighting. If none are found, the advance guard will fight to find a weak point or create one. The Soviets will launch a deliberate attack only when other options have failed. The attack will be primarily with BTR MR regiments, preferably mounted. The Soviets freely admitted they expected these lead regiments to take heavy casualties to create openings for following exploitation units. The Soviets believed their exploitation tactics would result in light friendly casualties, yielding a lower total casualty count.

Thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate the info.

So, what does an "Army-level" Soviet recon unit consist of?

A recon battalion, or regiment?

A similar organization to the tank, or MRR recon battalions?

Perhaps, something more unique, and with a mixed tank, MRR, and BRDM force, or a unit that is either more tank-heavy, or BMP/BTR heavy with some tank and BRDM support?

Given they'd be operating 50 kms – 50 miles in front of their front lines, I expect it would need to be a fairly large, and well-armed force in order to get the job done.

A recon battalion, from PDF link Pages 102-106 marked on the right side of the pdf.

Or from the page numbers in the book. 4-74 -4-77

"In every division there was a so-called "long Distance reconnaissance COMPANY (my emphasis) which was supposed to operate in the rear of the enemy. It could consist of UP TO SIX MEN…"

A quote from "Russian Tanks and Armored vehicles 1946-to the Present- an Illustrated Reference" (written in 1999) by Fred Koch, published by Schiffer Military History, ISBN: 0-7643-0914-5, from page98 under the heading of "The Armored Reconnaissance Vehicles".

It also goes into depth on the T-64 and why it wasn't used as widely as the info of the day seemed to indicate. This was a topic a couple of weeks ago.

Well worth picking up a copy for those who would like more info on Soviet equipment and who they sold it to, and production figures and dates.

v/r
Tom

"In every division there was a so-called "long Distance reconnaissance COMPANY (my emphasis) which was supposed to operate in the rear of the enemy. It could consist of UP TO SIX MEN…"

I was OPFOR RECON at NTC for 5 1/2 years. That is pretty much what were our D.R.T. Deep Recon Teams.

These were 3 – two man teams that would be dropped off at locations in the rear of the enemy's defenses. We would ether insert them in by BRDM-2 or HIND-D. Or sometimes they would go in on foot and walk 10-20 miles. 99% of insertions would be conducted at night.

They would set up long term hidden observation posts to track enemy potions both combat and rear echelon units. Also observe units rehearsing the routs for proportioning of units from one battle potions to the next.
And observe placement of mine fields wire obstacles AT ditches etc.

About 75% of our DRT teams would survive to fight another day. At the end of a mission the DRT would be picked up by ground recon BRDM or BMP and sent to the rear and prep for the next mission.

I pulled a few of these missions myself. U.S. forces would go looking for you but in most cases they would not find you in your spider hole. I did one insertions by way of off road bicycles with one of my new troopers just to see if it could be done. It worked.

11 ACR, you just elaborated on what the rest of the passage said they trained to do. Pretty astute (and good intel) to train our OPFOR guys such good tactics back in the day!

What had surprised me was thet the Soviets also had engineer, chemical, radiological, signals and air recon assets at such a low level. Interesting to read about how just two BRDMs/BMPs could generate enough chatter to simulate a battalion as a deception or invoke blue force actions.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Tom

Our normal Recon Force that would go in to sector on a mission would look somthing like this

What we normally ran as an average for our Div or Regt. Recon was as follows.

Recon Co.
4 x BRDM-2
4 x BMP-1
3 x BRDM-2/RKH (Chemical Recon)
1 x BRDM-2 (GSR Ground Surveillance Radar)
2 x BRDM-2 (MI)
1 x BRDM-2 (FIST Team)
2 x BMP-2 (Eng)

+ we would have priority of fire missions and air strikes. as we had the the eyes on the enemy and we called the missions.

Div Recon would normally insert 6 DRT's (Deep Recon Teams)
These were 6 x 2 man teams that dismounted an climbed up and called spot reports and fire missions.

The easy way is to go to FM 100-2-3
Recon Co of a MRR, Tank Regt, of a MRD or TD. Page 4-19.
Recon Bn of a MRD Page 4-73 and the next 4 pages.
Not all of the pages are not numbered so you have too work with it.

With very little exception and not much room for freelancing we conducted there operations by the book. And we did it by there book and in most cases (90+ % of the time) with great success.

There were times when there may be a small change in the TO&E (Organization) or equipment but for us to make that change it was verified by many Intel sources and approved at a very high level.

At one point in 1989 we had SA-14 equipped on our BRDM-2's (very effective when you get in to the enemy's rear area. (I got me 11 AH-64's the first time the deployed them to NTC with the SA-14 in ambushes.

Also for period of time we had 3 T-80 with Thermals assigned to the Div and Regt. Recon. Our T-72 did not have thermals so they were mainly day fighters. But with the 3 T-80's it made for a way to break a hole threw dedicated US counter recon.

The big draw back to this was they were not used to moving in 0% elimination no black drives an try not to be seen or heard and keep up with us. Many times they got in a fire fight with a counter recon screen, And that was a good diversion for use to move threw and deeper in to the enemy's rear area. Also the enemy may think a CRP is moving threw there lines.

Also in the early to mid 80's the Recon Co's did have Motorcycles as per the Organization states above, on page 4-19. But Blue Force would put concertina wire stretched very tight across a wash at chest level to dismount our MC scout. So they stopped using them do to safety concerns.

Hope this helps you.

Thanks for all the details, and replies everyone. It's all very informative.

Sounds like another use for some Mi-24 Hinds, and perhaps a Spetznaz team, or three, in various scenarios.

11th ACR, what do you mean by the following BRDM-2 vehicle designations?

"2 x BRDM-2 (MI)", and the "FIST Team".

BRDM-2 with ATGMs, or SAMs, perhaps, where "MI" stands for missile?

"FIST"?

I get all the other abbreviations and acronyms, other than the (MI) one.

4 x BRDM-2
4 x BMP-1
The first 4 BRDM-2 and 4 BMP-1 from the Scout Plt.

3 x BRDM-2/RKH (Chemical Recon)
The 3 BRDM-2/RKH were from our units Chemical Co.

1 x BRDM-2 (GSR Ground Surveillance Radar)
2 x BRDM-2 (MI) (Military Intelligence)
The 3 BRDM-2 were from our (Military Intelligence) Co.

1 x BRDM-2 (FIST Team) "FIRE SUPPORT TEAM"
This one BRDM-2 was from our units Mortars.

2 x BMP-1 (Eng)
And these 2 BMP-1 were from our Eng Co.
(Note: the Eng BMP's are BMP-1)

All in all a number of units putting there assets together to form a Recon Co.

The only actual scouts (recon) were from the first 4 BRDM-2 and 4 BMP-1 and the 6 x 2 man DRT teams.
All others were attachments from sister units.

A few Note's:
The 2 x BMP-1 (Eng) were loaded down with a shit load of AT Mines in the back of there BMP-1's. (Approx 50-75 mines each)

The first group 4 x BRDM-2 and 4 x BMP-1, would carry a a few AT Mines to put in a quick mine field to block roads or routs at a moment notice.

The OPFOR at the National Training Center (NTC) , Fort Irwin Ca is made up of active duty U.S. units.

Up till Oct of 94 it was the 177th Armored Brig.
Units in it were:
1/63rd Armored Bn.
1/52nd Infantry Bn.
And numerous separate Co's coming under the Brig HQ.
An MI Co, CM Co, Aviation Co and a ENG Co.

Combined they would form a MRD of about 5 MRR's
Most of the BMP's would be running minimum crews Driver and Veh Commander/Gunner.

At one time there have been other Infantry and Armored Bn. there over the years of 1980-1994.
After Oct 94 the 11th ACR moved from Germany and took over the OPFOR mission.
But they are only the strength of two ground Sqdn's and a Support Sqdn. plus other assets (MI Co, CM Co, Aviation Co and a ENG Co.)

Also during most of the two week long rotaions that Blue Force (U.S. Army units) go threw. There are augmentation units that will beef up OPFOR strength. Such as A Lt Inf unit from the 25th ID or 10th Mnt Div. Or even a unit of USMC in LAV's These augmentation units are normally a Bn. strength in size.
But in some case the OPFOR can get some good support like a hole Air Mobil BN from the 101st AB with there birds

In the last 15 years the NTC has been more in the Iraqi and Afghan type operations. The 11th ACR is still the OPFOR there but with a much different mission then when they were the Evil Empire.

as frequent guest at NTC I can tell you Dirt teams where much hated. When they found a good spot and didnt move around they where damned near invisible. We knew they where there, but you can only devote so much effort to searching for sand fleas, and if you do more than that they are winning by diversion of resources.

Owen

As per ADA.
The two Bn. mortar Plt's did the job of running the
ZSU-23-4's and SA-7 and SA-14 crews. Also when they changed to 2S6's There were a few SA-9's and SA-13's These were real BRDM with a Vismod SA-9 turret, and MTLB's with a Vismod SA-13.

And Artillery the OPFOR is done on the cheap side. They are Vismod 2S1 mounted on old vehicle trailers. Then towed to a potion and fired with dummy smoke rounds to show that there is something there. Early on they had Vismod 2S1 and 2S3 on M551 Sheridan but to much cost and man power.

The Artillery is marked by Observer Controllers (like a Referee) or by fire makers.

Most of the OPFOR vehicles and Aircraft are Vismod's.
The term Vismod is an abbreviation of the term visually modified.