MILITARY THOUGHT (USSR): RESTORING LOSSES INCURRED AS A RESULT OF NUCLEAR ATTACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP10-00105R000100330001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 16, 1973
• Content Type: MEMO

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WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
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f
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT MILITARY THOUGHT: Restoring Losses Incurred
As a Result of Nuclear Attack
1. The enclosed Intelligence Information Special Report
is part of a series now in preparation based on the SECRET
USSR Ministry of Defense publication Collection of Articles
of the Journal "Military Thought." This article addresses the
problem of restoring troops to combat effectiveness on the
battlefield after a nuclear attack. The main argument is to
replace an entire unit if it suffers heavy casualties. The
article appeared in Issue No. 1 (89) for 1970.
2. Because the source of this report is extremely sensi-
tive, this document should be handled on a strict need-to-know
basis within recipient agencies.
CSDB-312/01297-73
C o l W. E. Deputy Director for erations
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Distribution:
The Director of Central Intelligence
The Director of Intelligence and Research
Department of State
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
The Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Intelligence
Department of the Army
The Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Intelligence)
Department of the Navy
The Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence
U.S. Air Force
Office of the Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Deputy Director for Intelligence
Deputy Director for Science and Technology
Director of Strategic Research
Director of Scientific Intelligence
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-3-
Intelligence Information Special Report
DATE OF Early 1970
INFO.
CSDN- 312/01297-73
DATE 16 March 1973
MILITARY THOUGHT: Restoring Losses Incurred as
A Result of Nuclear Attack
SOURCE Documentary.
SUMMARY
The following report is a translation from Russian of an
article which appeared in Issue No. 1 (89) for 1970 ofthe
SECRET USSR Ministry of Defense publication Collection of-Arti-
cles of the Journal "Military' Y'hought.'t The au r of s
article is Colonel I. B atin Can i ate of Mi litary .Soi`ences) q
whose comments on restoration of combat effectiveness to troop
units which have been decimated by nuclear strikes was inspired
by previous articles on this subject in the same journal. The
main point of his article is that such units should be replaced
as a whole, and not brought up to strength by replacing indi-
vidual casualties. He points out that this may be complicated
because the second echelon and reserves may also be hit by nu-
clear strikes. His recommendation for protecting troops during t
the replacement phase is to move airborne troops and heliborne )
motorized rifle units into the enemy rear.
ENT~CM12 RY
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Col. I. Bukatin was identified in Krasxiaya Z'vezda of 9 Octo-
ber 1964 as a colonel and candidate of military sciences. Mili-
tary Thought has been published by the USSR Ministry of Defense
in three versions in the past--TOP SECRET, SECRET and RESTRICTED.
There is no information as to whether or not the TOP SECRET ver-
sion continues to be published. The SECRET version is published
three times annually and is distributed down to the '0X1-H7.7'Uf
5I`~
division commander.
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Shortening the Time Needed to Restore the Combat
Effectiveness of Front Troops and Conducting an
Offensive with the Forces Remaining After an
Initial Nuclear Strike*
by Lt. Col. I. Bukatin
Candidate of Military Sciences
In this article we shall attempt to examine two questions:
possible ways of shortening the time needed to restore combat
effectiveness of the first echelon of a front while advancing and
during its commitment to battle; and methods of conducting opera-
tions with the forces remaining after the initial exchange of
nuclear strikes by the two sides under various conditions under
which the front troops go over to the offensive.
Knowledge gained from the research war game "Zashchita"**
and other exercises and games shows that the time it takes to
restore the combat effectiveness of an army of the first echelon
of a front, whose army had been subjected to nuclear strikes
*A continuation of the discussion of problems mentioned in
the articles of Marshal of Armored Troops A. Babadzhanyan "Con-
tinuation of a Front Offensive Operation with a Limited Complement
of Forces Remaining after Enemy Nuclear Strikes," and of Colonel
I. Semeyko "The Essence of Limited Forces and Characteristics of
their Combat Actions" (Collection of Articles of the Journal "Mili-
tary Thought," No. 3(821, 1967.)
**Participating in the research were the Military Academy i/n
M.V. Frunze, Military Engineering Academy, the Academies of Chemi-
cal Defense, Rear Services and Transport, and the Military Medical
Academy.
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during its advance toward the national border, was from several
hours to 24 hours, and even longer on some individual axes.
During this period the enemy was able to deliver repeated strikes
and thereby break up the offensive. In order to prevent this
it is necessary to find new and improved methods of restoring
the combat effectiveness of front armies, especially those which
have been designated to conduct a offensive in the direction
of the main strike.
It is our view that shortening the time needed to prepare
to go on the offensive by armies of the first echelon of a
front, whose armies had been subjected to an enemy nuclear strike,
is primarily possible when the main effort in restoring combat
effectiveness is not directed to reforming regiments and divisions
put out of action while advancing in the main direction (as is
often recommended), but to replace them with new ones from the
second echelon and from reserves, provided, of course, that they
have survived.
Planning for the use of forces and means for such a possi-
bility is extremely important, because during periods of decisive
nuclear actions it is impossible to keep divisional organization
intact for long periods of time, no matter how desirable this
may be. Obviously, the aforementioned measure does not exclude
the possibility of transferring combat effective subunits to
divisional units from regiments put out of action, especially
those subunits which at the time of a nuclear strike were sepa-
rated from the main force (in forward detachments as march
security or in reserve) and were not subjected to the strong
morale and psychological effects of nuclear weapons. In principle,
however, the method of reforming battalions and regiments put out
of action by nuclear strikes into combat effective military
entities, as is done in exercises, is acceptable for restoring
the combat effectiveness of reserves or large units of the
second echelon of armies, as well as divisions of the first
echelon going over to the offensive later than the main strike
grouping of the army.
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In restoring the combat effectiveness of an array of the
first echelon from the reserves of large units of the front,
more time is spent on the march to the line of commitment to
battle, which is difficult to accomplish at high rates of speed
under the conditions being examined here. A delay in moving
out can be caused by the absence of front reserves in a given
axis and by losses suffered during the n tial strike or while
moving to the zone of the army being reinforced.
The time needed to restore the combat effectiveness of
the first echelon can be shortened by planning well in advance
for the reinforcement of the army, which is to have the most
important role in destroying the enemy, with one or two divisions
moved close to the main axis of the army's offensive, and taking
the most effective measures to protect them from enemy nuclear
strikes prior to moving out and then when actually moving out.
The effect of enemy nuclear strikes on the divisions
designated to replace those put out of action may be reduced by
greater dispersal in assembly areas, by the use of shelters, and
by changing the sequence of moving them toward the line of commit-
ment to battle. According to existing views, the move of a large
unit out of the reserve is carried out along parallel routes on
which the forward units proceed at approximately the same rate
toward the line of commitment to battle. This method facilitates
control movement and ensures the simultaneous commitment of forces
to battle. However, this does not contribute to the safety of
troops proceeding in columns along parallel routes to prevent them
from being hit by a single nuclear warhead of large yield or from
being blinded by bursts of medium size warheads.
Calculations show that it is possible to avoid the simul-
taneous destruction of troops while they are moving forward, and
to reduce significantly the chances of their being blinded, by
using the new variant of march formation for large units. Here
the columns of units moving along parallel routes (when it is not
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possible to have intervals of about ten kilometers between them)
would move out in tandem, i.e., the columns of one unit would be
at the same interval from the units on the left and on the right.
Such a formation will not affect prescribed rates of march, but
it may significantly reduce the degree of destruction of troops
by enemy nuclear strikes.*
It is extremely difficult to shorten the time needed to
restore the combat effectiveness of a strike group of a front
by replacing an army of the first echelon, whose arm hast
its combat effectiveness, with the second echelon of the front.
The solution of this problem in many ways also depends on the
condition of the troops when they finally reach the line of
commitment to battle.
First of all, this will, of course, depend on the degree to
which the enemy means of nuclear attack have been neutralized and
how well the air cover has been organized. But even if this is
all achieved, there is no guarantee that an army of the second
echelon of a front, when moving forward, will not be subjected
to enemy nuclear strikes resulting in a certain number of command
posts, large units and units of various arms of.troops, and special
troops suffering considerable losses.
In this case, as with the armies of the first echelon, the
greatest amount of time for restoring combat effectiveness will
be spent in reforming units and subunits. This process may be
accelerated by the selective merging of combat effective divisions
and regiments remaining from the first echelon of the strike
grouping of the front and of the army being moved forward as
*Used in compiling them were charts which appeared in the
work "Combat Characteristics of Nuclear Weapons," Voyenizdat,
1967, pages 289 and 297.
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replacement. Typical methods of restoring combat effectiveness
can be: the organization of control at one of the surviving army
command posts and reinforcing it with officers and means of com-
munications; the restoration of the first echelon by using sur-
viving divisions and regiments of the army being replaced from
large units (units) of the second echelon of the front which man-
aged to reach the line of commitment to combat; and the creation
of a second echelon (combined arms reserve) of an army by com-
bining surviving units and subunits.
The most difficult conditions for the front forces will
arise when heavy losses are sustained simultaneously by the
armies of the first echelon, the second echelon and reserves of
the front. In this situation the front is practically prevented
for a certain length of time from rapidly restoring the combat
effectiveness of an army of the first echelon from its own forces.
In order to make this situation advantageous to the front
in these conditions, it will be necessary to call on the means
of the senior commander, first of all, to destroy the remaining
enemy groupings which are endangering the front. This will be-
come especcially necessary on those axes where the armies of the
front will not only sustain such heavy losses that they will be
unable to go on the offensive, but they will also be unable to
put up any resistance to enemy troops should the latter undertake
active operations. On the other hand, the destruction of large
enemy groupings will allow the front to release some of the forces
and means from several sectors for the restoration of combat effec-
tiveness of those armies designated to attack in the direction of
the main strike.
Under the conditions being examined the army and front will
have to create composite army and front groups as an intermediate
step prior to restoring the combat ectiveness of armies. The
principles involved in forming them and the nature of their com-
position may vary considerably. These problems have been
thoroughly examined in articles mentioned earlier and therefore
will not be discussed here.
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Speaking of the methods of conducting operations after the
initial nuclear strikes, we should like to turn our attention
to the following fundamental matters.
When the main forces of a front go on the offensive simul-
taneously, the most effective way to conduct operations is to
carry out frontal attacks in depth through areas of mass nuclear
strikes and through breaches in the enemy's operational formation,
as is recommended in the article by Marshal of Armored Troops
A. Babadzhanyan. Under the conditions being examined it is not
advisable to conduct an offensive along convergent axes for the
purpose of surrounding and destroying enemy units which have sus-
tained heavy losses and become separated. This could lead to
loss of time and momentum in the offensive into the depth.
Otherwise it will be necessary to conduct the operation in
a situation where, because of the extremely dissimilar conditions
of the armies and the different distances they are located from
the deployment line, the front forces will go over to the offen-
sive on separate axes at al'Mrent times. Here it is necessary,
first of all, to take maximum advantage of the successes of the
armies which were the first ones to go on the offensive. Their
rapid advance will create favorable conditions for pressing home
the destruction of the enemy holding the lines in front of the
army which is going on the offensive with its main forces later
than its neighbors. Pressing home the destruction of an enemy
who has started to withdraw his forces can be accomplished by
delivering frontal strikes while simultaneously enveloping one
or both flanks through zones of neighboring formations which have
already penetrated to a considerable depth.
Thus, when the forces of the front go on the offensive at
different times, a combination of several methods of conducting
operations becomes possible. Breaking up enemy groupings by
frontal strikes and simultaneously breaking out to the flank and
rear will be combined with strikes delivered for the purpose of
surrounding and destroying the most dangerous individual groupings.
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Under the conditions being examined, the speed with which
the enemy's first operational echelon is destroyed depends to a
large extent on the scale at which airborne assaults are used for
strikes from the rear. As is known, ` now we had planned to
use mainly tactical airborne assault forces of battalion size or
this purpose, or regimen a size at best, which Ita been dropped
in most cases to overcome areas containing nuclear mine barriers,
for action behind the forward defense line. Of course, these
drops and actions are of considerable help to the advancing forces,
but still not as much as might be required by the armies of the
first echelon of the front which will be in an extremely weakened
state when they go on the offensive for the purpose of interdicting
the enemy at the beginning of the action and seizing the initiative.
According to existing views, operational airborne assaults of
divisional strength are made at depths of 300 to 500 kilometers in
order to take advantage of the results of strikes by strategic
nuclear means. Airborne assaults at the above depths will still
be used in the future. However, this should not preclude the use
of operational airborne assaults to assist the strike groupings of
the front in pressing home the destruction of the basic forces of
the enemy's operational echelon in the early stage of the develop-
ment of the operation. The attacking forces will especially need
great assistance when, while still on the move they have to force
a large water barrier which the enemy may have converted into a
powerful defense line. Should the front not have any airborne
assault forces and the situation perm-its the use of such forces,
a strike can be carried out from the rear by light units of motor-
ized rifle divisions. Their actions near the areas subjected to
mass nuclear strikes will greatly assist in the fulfilment of
tasks by the forward detachments of forces advancing from the
front.
After going on the offensive following an exchange of nuclear
strikes by both sides, it is most important to prevent the forces
of the front from sustaining further heavy losses. The success of
this effort depends on many factors, and first of all on the
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effectiveness of combatting the enemy nuclear weapons. In carry-
ing out this task, besides locating and destroying them with
strikes by missile forces and aviation, it is very important that
the tank and combined arms troops that started the attack advance
rapidly into the depth of the enemy's position. Breaking up the
forces of the enemy's first echelon into smaller units prevents
him from setting up nuclear barriers and delivering mass nuclear
strikes with surface bursts against formations of the front, for
fear of hitting his own forces located in the intervals between
the advancing strike groupings of the front.
The timely seizure and neutralization of areas of enemy
nuclear mine barriers laid in the direction of the offensive of
the front's strike groupings can be accomplished by sending ahead
strong Tor-ward detachments of formations, by having tank divisions
move swiftly into the depth, by making tactical airborne assaults,
and by airlifting light motorized rifle forces to the enemy's rear.
To accomplish this task the attacking forces can be greatly
assisted by air assault units and large units with the capability
of successfully delivering strikes against the enemy from the air
by combat helicopters. They can carry out landings and destroy
enemy troops in areas prepared for the laying of nuclear mines,
and they can clear nuclear mines.
It is advisable to carry out airborne assaults by air assault
subunits and units following nuclear strikes and bombing-assault
strikes by air against enemy forces located beyond the areas of
nuclear mine barriers in order to seize by surprise attack the
remaining control points and to destroy their nuclear explosive
devices. Following this, the troops landed by helicopters will
destroy the covering units with strikes from the rear and from
the flanks while supported by combat helicopters. Part of the
landing force will be seize-and-destroy troops which will locate
and put out of action nuclear mines. In many cases, after the
enemy has been destroyed by combat helicopter fire, the seize-and-
destroy groups can be landed directly in areas of nuclear mine
barriers.
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The landing of air assault detachments can be very effec-
tive at the time when the retreating enemy forces have entered
the area of nuclear mine barriers. After occupying an advan-
tageous position in the rear of the barriers and after cutting
off retreat routes, the landing forces can prevent the enemy
troops from breaking out of the dangerous zone and, consequently,
make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to use his nuclear
mines to destroy our forces operating from the front. 5OX1-HUM
In conclusion, I would like to bring up yet another ques-
tion which, in my opinion, is important--the restoration of
second echelons and reserves of a front and of armies while con-
ducting an operation.
There are serious difficulties involved in the resolution
of this task because it is almost impossible to expect large
units and formations to arrive from the Headguartrs(Stavka)
reserve, especially in the first two or three days of the opera
ion The movement of forces from internal military districts
will be complicated because of the creation of nuclear obstacles
and vast zones of radioactive contamination and destruction.
Therefore it is very important to find ways of restoring
a front's reserves primarily from its own resources. Certain
parts the second echelon or of the reserves can be reinforced
by merging individual subunits and units remaining from divisions
which have lost their combat effectiveness and have remained in
the rear of the front to work at removing the aftereffects of an
enemy nuclear strike However, it is doubtful that this will
solve the problem. In our opinion, the most effective way is
to remove part of the forces from unprofitable axes (in opera-
tions in which mass use is made of nuclear weapons such changes
in the situation are possible) or to go on the defensive tempor-
arily in different sectors of the front for the purpose of re-
lieving combat effective units and large units and using them
in the direction of the main strike of the front (army).
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It is a very complicated matter to perform the work of
restoring the combat effectiveness of troops and reinforcing
second echelons and reserves under rapidly changing conditions
and the constant threat of new units and large units being put
out of action by nuclear strikes. Therefore, in order to resolve
these tasks in the staffs of the front and the army, it will
often be necessary to create groups for the restoration of re-
serves. These groups would continually collect and consolidate
data on losses; make proposals to commanders of formations for
the replacement of losses; direct the restoration of reserves by
using units and subunits remaining from large units which had
been subjected to nuclear strikes; and continually apprise the
troops that have been restored to combat effectiveness about the
radiation conditions in their areas of deployment and give them
whatever assistance is needed from the available forces and means.
The further development of the problem being examined and
the verification of the individual recommendations through prac-
tical application will allow more effective solution of the
problems of restoring the combat effectiveness of front strike
groupings and their going on the offensive following nuclear
strikes, and will avoid the use of stereotyped methods for des-
troying opposing enemy groupings.
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