Captured Manual Reveals Russia’s New “Assault Detachment” Doctrine

A Russian Army manual captured by Ukraine’s military suggests it’s adopting a new tactical-level organizational structure to wage its grinding war of attrition in Eastern Ukraine—reflecting heavy losses in vehicles, and reliance on assaults by heavily armed infantry to chisel away at entrenched Ukrainian defenses.

The documents were shared on the well-known social media account of an officer in the Ukrainian Army reserves who goes by the online handle Tatarigami. He is known to be stationed near the frontlines in Vuhledar, around which Russia has mounted repeated failed assaults that have suffered massive losses without making much progress.

The new Assault Detachments described in the Russian manual often revolve around infantry advancing on foot, while armored vehicles on their flanks provide support. In theory, it appears to give lower-level leaders more tools to handle battlefield tasks on their own initiative rather than relying on assets controlled by higher-echelon leaders—an approach more typical of how Ukrainian units have fought so far.

The assault units nonetheless seem very lean if heavily armed, with limited or no logistics and few personnel. For example, a typical infantry platoon has 35-50 personnel—but the prescribed Russian assault platoons have just 12-15.

Russia’s military traditionally has used a triangular organization with each unit primarily composed of three of the next lowest echelon unit (three platoons in a company; three companies in a battalion etc.) But the assault companies have only two platoons; and battalion may optionally have two instead of three companies.

Support weapons, meanwhile, appear ‘down streamed’ to lower level officers to ensure the units always have at least a few heavy weapons at hand. Traditionally, support assets are differentiated by each echelon (mortars support at the battalion level, medium howitzers at the regimental etc.)

However, in the Assault Detachment organizational chart, several of the same kinds of heavy weapons are divided between the top and lower levels of control. The implication is that weapons pooled at higher levels were failing to be adequately assigned to assist low-level units, necessitating partial down-streaming.

Out with the Battalion Tactical Group, in with the Assault Detachment

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine year ago using an ad hoc unit called the battalion tactical group (BTG) as its main operational ‘chess piece’ moved around the map. Each regiment or brigade was expected to pool its equipment to form two or three reinforced BTGs built mostly around a core of mechanized infantry reinforced with a tank company and two or three artillery batteries.

During Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, eight BTGs dispatched in support of pro-Russian separatists succeeded in routing Ukrainian forces at the Battle of Ilovaisk.

But BTGs performed much less well in Putin’s larger-scale invasion in 2022 for many reasons, including inadequate logistics that weren’t able to keep up with BTGs advancing deep into Ukraine. As a result, in the war’s first month, thousands of Russian vehicles ran out of gas and were abandoned or destroyed by ambushes while awaiting resupply.

But the flaws went deeper. BTGs were heavy on vehicles and long-range firepower, but lacked infantry to screen them. It reflected a force that preferred to compensate for limited proficiency in close combat by bombarding adversaries at long distance, even if that meant expending unsustainable quantities of shells.

Russia’s military has since decided BTGs were a flawed concept. And in 2023, its army looks different than the one that rolled into Ukraine a year earlier. Huge equipment losses have destroyed a large part of Russia’s most modern equipment, forcing Moscow to dig deep into its deep inventory of Soviet weapons in storage to find outdated substitutes like T-62 tanks, D-20 towed howitzers, and BTR-50 APCs.

On the other hand, Russian shortages of manpower have been substantially redressed through forced mobilization begun last fall, which has created a pool of manpower that can flesh out the frontline, or be expended on costly repeated assaults.

While offensives aiming to breakthrough Ukrainian lines and advance long distances now appear deeply unrealistic, Russia has settled on a strategy of sustained assaults on fortified areas of Eastern Ukraine in hopes of gradually clawing its way to minor local victories, most notably through relentless attacks on Bakhmut, which have gradually etched away its supply lines, and with less success targeting Vuhledar and nearby Pavlivka.

Assault Detachment organization

The Assault Detachment is equivalent in strength to a reinforced battalion. It’s primary maneuver force are two or three assault companies (described further below).

It also disposes of one or two shorter-range artillery batteries (a company-sized unit) for firepower; one equipped with six towed D-30 122-millimeter howitzers, the other with 2S9 self-propelled 120-millimeter mortars.

Furthermore, the battalion HQ controls the following specialized platoon-sized support groups:

• Tank group with three T-72 main battle tanks
• ‘Flamethrower’ group armed with 12x RPO-A thermobaric rocket launchers
• Fire Support group armed with two AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers and two Kord 12.7-millimeter heavy machine guns
• Drone group
• Assault engineer group for demolitions, mine-clearing, fortifications etc.
• Air defense group with two ZU-23 automatic cannons and three man-portable air defense systems (likely Igla-M)
• Reconnaissance group
• Mobile electronic warfare group
• Medical evacuation group
• Armored Recovery Group equipped with a BREM-L towing vehicle)

Assault Company Organization

Each assault company is formed around two assault platoons with 12-15 personnel (detailed below) reinforced by three fire support platoons.

The first is an armored fighting vehicle group (platoon) composed of one T-72 tank and four BMP fighting vehicles (or more lightly armored BMD vehicles if a paratrooper unit). It’s notable these troop-carrying vehicles are not melded into the infantry squad as Russian mechanized units traditionally are. Their primary role appears to be maneuverable fire support with their automatic cannons, with troop transport as a secondary role. Operationally, they can remain grouped together, or dispersed between assault platoons.

Additionally, there’s one main battle tank for heavier fire support. It’s unconventional to have a lone tank semi-permanently attached to an infantry unit.

Then there is a fire support platoon with a diverse mix of direct-fire support weapons including two AGS-17 grenade launchers, two Kord heavy machine guns, two long-range anti-tank guided missile launchers, and possibly two long-range sniper teams.

Finally, each company has an artillery support platoon composed of one D-30 howitzer or 2S9 vehicle; and two medium 82-millimeter mortars or heavier 120-millimeter systems. Against, it’s unusual to have a lone howitzer permanently attached to an infantry company. The manual recommends assigning the mortars to individual platoons, while the howitzer stays under control of the company HQ.

The company commander also disposes of a UAV team (likely using a shorter-range commercial DJI octocopter-style drone).

Assault platoon organization

The Assault platoon itself is unique for eschewing a standardized squad-based organization in favor of four or five three-man teams, each with mixes of weapons tailored to the mission.

These include two tactical teams, an advance team, a command team, and a reserve fire support team—preferably advancing in a diamond-style formation.

Assault Detachment doctrine

Tartarigami also highlights specific tactical directives in the Russian manual including:

• Ensure assaults begin within one minute of the end of a supporting artillery bombardment
• UAVs should be used for reconnaissance but not battlefield overwatch due to high risk of loss
• Avoid occupying trenches abandoned by Ukrainian forces due to risks of booby traps and pre-sighted artillery bombardments
• Medical evacuation must be handled by rear echelons, not the assault platoons and companies
• Use automatic grenade launchers to deliver arcing indirect fire out to ranges of 600-1,700 meters. Ukrainian forces use their own AGLs this way too.
• Assault platoons should never traverse open ground and always stick to the cover afforded by tree lines

Understandably, Tartarigami doesn’t ordinarily find much to praise in Russia’s military, but he writes that the underlying concept makes sense for the kind of creeping ground warfare going on in Eastern Ukraine—at least if you overlook the prevailing organizational culture:

“Ability of a platoon and company leaders to decide armament, have freedom in maneuvers as well as ability to utilize artillery and small groups as needed – sounds good. But knowing Russian army and its hierarchy, it’s not going to work.”

He also observes Russia may actually lack adequate numbers of infantry support weapons like automatic grenade launchers, 2S9 Nona self-propelled mortars, and the ammunition they rely upon, to fully implement this organizational concept.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general who has commented extensively on the war writes on social media that the new infiltration-oriented tactics revealed in the manual evoked Germany’s shift to stormtrooper assault tactics late in World War I, which met with initial tactical success, but did not translate into operational victories.

He notes that refashioning a force to adopt new tactics and equipment is difficult under the best of circumstances. But even then, Ryan argues, while stormtrooper methods can achieve local penetrations in a defensive line, they lead to little meaningful progress overall if there’s not an effective mobile reserve able to rapidly exploit the gap and penetrate deep enough to unravel the defensive line’s underpinnings (supply lines and supporting artillery units).

He concludes: “It is not clear that the Russian Army in Ukraine now possesses the ability to create tactical ‘break ins’ and then conduct (and logistically support) operational exploitation. Their losses in personnel, leaders and equipment have been massive. And even if the Russian were able to concentrate these mechanized reserves, it is highly probable that it would be detected and interdicted by Ukrainian long-range fires [artillery]. …To quote Ludendorff [German World War I commander], the Russians have just created a new way to ‘chop a hole’. Without the full range of operational systems to exploit them it is just a more creative way of killing an entire generation of their young people.”