Organizational Structure

by Donald Hill & Tom Cooper

Lithuania

After observing the fighting in Ukraine, Lithuania decided that a division of 17,500 troops should be the principle maneuver unit of its army - instead of multiple brigades. They currently have two brigades totaling 11,000 active duty soldiers. They were hoping to create the division by 2030 but the cost of the equipment and manpower was difficult for such a small country and it may not happen until 2036-2040.

They need mobile air defense systems, long-range air defense systems, more conventional and rocket artillery, drones that can collect data beyond 100 km, and a battalion of tanks. Right now, 50 tanks are on order but they envision having 100 for the division. A retired colonel said, “Without tanks, you cannot have any illusions of counterattacking, and any defense without counterattacking has no meaning.”

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The United States

The US focused on brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan when their opponent was conducting an insurgency over large areas. The Russian and Chinese threats have refocused the attention of the US on combat operations led by divisions, corps and theater armies. The doctrine is for brigade commanders to focus on the close fight while divisional and corps commanders visualize the bigger picture.

Some assets currently assigned to the brigades will be moved to the division level and the divisional commander will assign the resources needed to accomplish an operation. The smaller brigades will have a greater chance to survive and move. The larger formations of divisions and corps will be able to sustain the brigades for weeks and months.

This doctrine is based on what they’ve observed in Ukraine and put into practice in exercises, simulations and training. While NATO is focusing on operations with large unit formations, Ukraine continues to operate with small unit formations.

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Basics of Military Organisation

Since the late 19th Century, and for most of the 20th Century, the principal armed formation in any larger army was the division (not to be confused with ‘divizion’ in Ukrainian!). By its definition a division is the ‘smallest’ formation including all types of arms available to the military service in question (see: command staff, communications, infantry, artillery, armour, engineers, aviation, etc.).

Originally, especially when first divisions came into being, divisions were organised in form of ‘triads’. Essentially,

• 3 platoons of 10-12 troops each = company (of 30-36 troops + command platoon);

• 3 companies of 40-50 troops each = battalion (of 120-150 troops each + command and support elements)

• 3 battalions of 150-200 troops each = regiment (of 450-600 troops each + command and support elements)

• 3 regiments of 500-700 troops each (+ communication, artillery, engineers, air defence, medical department etc.) = division.

Of course, over the time, very different types of divisions were developed by different armed forces. For example, there were armed forces in which there was the command level of brigade in between of the divisional command and regiments and battalions. (Similarly, and often enough, the triade was continued above the divisional level, and three divisons made a corps.)

That said, something like ‘most frequent’ schemas were such like:

• 3 tank/armoured regiments or brigades + 1 mechanised infantry regiment or brigade (+ artillery) = tank/armoured division;

• 3 mechanised infantry regiments/brigades + 1 tank/armoured regiment or brigade (+ artillery) = mechanised/motor-rifle division;

• 3 infantry regiments/brigades + 1 tank/armoured regiment or brigade (+ artillery) = infantry division.

That remains the ‘bare essence’ of the organisation of most of the divisions in the Russian Armed Forces until this very day.

On the contrary, and especially in ‘the West’, since the late 20th Century, the mass of bigger armed forces were re-organised into brigades.

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ZSU’s Battalions and Brigades

Indeed, in the ZSU, brigade completely replaced division as the ‘principal combined arms fighting unit’: the ‘smallest’ formation including all types of arms available to the military service in question. Thus - at least nominally - a brigade of the ZSU can be described as ‘something like downsized division’: it is centred on between 3 and 8 battalions, supported by a battalion of tanks, a mechanised (i.e. ‘motor-rifle) battalion, an artillery group, and an air defence group. In addition, a brigade of the ZSU is including at least a company-sized support element each of headquarters, communications, logistics, reconnaissance, engineers, radar, medical, chemical, military police, and maintenance.

Note: in the ZSU, the ‘Artillery Brigade’ that is a part of a brigade, is usually designated the ‘Artillery Group’.

In reality there is a wide range of ‘de-jure’ and ‘de-facto’ types of units, and there are huge differences between them. For example, in spring 2022, when the ZSU was experiencing a massive shortage of heavy equipment (tanks, armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery etc.) it created a huge number of rifle battalions. Two or three rifle battalions were assigned to every of existing brigades, to ‘beef up’ their infantry component and thus the capability to hold selected positions. Then the Russian withdrawal in the north, followed by the Kharkiv- and (less so) the Kherson offensives resulted in the capture of huge amounts of heavy equipment. Followed by Western pledges for deliveries of heavy equipment (only about 10-20% of which were ever realised), this then resulted in the ill-fated idea with creation of a large number of new mechanised and motor-rifle battalions and brigades.

Unsurprisingly, until this very day there is a huge difference in size and equipment of battalions and brigades, frequently based on the geographic area where they are established and from which they are recruiting. For example: a ‘territorial defence’ battalion or a brigade from Kyiv, or somewhere in western Ukraine, is frequently better equipped than a ‘regular’ battalion or brigade from somewhere else - whether because the unit has more presence in the social media, or because troops and their families have more money and can buy better equipment; other times because of the lack of equipment or the lack of troops (especially specialised troops), or because both of this and the lack of suitable command staff.

The net result is that nowadays there are lots of brigades that have their 3-5 battalions, plus their command-, communications- and medical companies, but the majority of battalions in question are (actually) rifle battalions (even if not by their official designation), and they are lacking all the other support elements. Moreover, although there are so many ‘mechanised’ battalions and brigades, their actual equipment is that of ‘motorised’ units - because the battalions (and thus brigades in question) simply do not have even armoured personnel carriers, not to talk about tanks, infantry fighting vehicles or self-propelled artillery. Good example are battalions and brigades where armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles are ‘replaced’ by MRAPs (if the unit is lucky) or (worst of all) armoured HUMVEEs.

For simplicity’s sake (and because that’s also the way the General Staff of Ukraine/GenStab-U is thinking), we’ll focus on combat battalions as the basic unit in a brigade.

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Désorganisation and Unaccountability in the ZSU

As mentioned above, theoretically, depending on its type and purpose (and thus its designation) a Ukrainian brigade will have three to eight battalions. In practice, there is a wide difference between various battalions and brigades - and this not only because, at least officially, there are assault brigades, airborne brigades, infantry brigades, jäger brigades, mechanised and/or motorised brigades, and tank brigades. Actually, this is one of major problems with the ZSU: a huge difference between theory and practice - both in regards of organisation and training.

The number of battalions assigned to different brigades as usually mentioned in official releases and the social media is purely theoretical: it might be the number of battalions officially authorised by the GenStab-U at the time the brigade was established; it might be the number of battalions actually established, and it might be nothing of that, because it often happens the ZSU simply lacks the troops and equipment necessary for the creation of another battalion.

What’s worse: the actual number of battalions in one or another brigade does not depend on the official purpose. As a result, the official designation of a brigade is frequently nothing ‘commanded from above’ - but: solely depends on how well is the brigade training its troops and taking care about them.

This is so because the number of casualties is resulting in the reputation of the brigade.

Combined with the brigade’s command staff’s skill in public relations (and especially its presence and reputation in the social media), this in turn is influencing the recruitment success of every single brigade: the better the reputation a brigade has, the more recruits is it attracting.

As a result, the ZSU nowadays consists of a wild hodgepodge of ‘battalions’ and ‘brigades’. Some consist of merely 3-4 weak battalions (sometimes as few as 100 troops per battalion), and cannot be described as ‘effective’ units: not even as ‘brigades’ by anything else than their official designations. Our first-hand experience is that, even if one tries to contact such units in attempt to offer help (for example: with financing a new set of tyres, or whatever other ‘secondary’ equipment), there is no response to e-mails and other kind of messages at all. Apparently, either nobody there is paying attention, or does not know how to answer a message in English. In not only a handful of cases, it’s de-facto impossible to get in touch with all too many units. With the units in question also having little other presence in the social media but ‘official releases’, we never hear about the mass of these ‘other’ of ZSU’s battalions and brigades.

The ‘second tier’ units are ‘relatively intact’ and ‘relatively known’ units. The mass of these (there is about a dozen of such formations coming to our minds) is something like 40-60% complete in regards of personnel and equipment. Sadly, most are commanded by staff who either does not care about their troops, or is poor at public relations, or (worst of all) both, and thus such units are attracting no or little recruits.

Finally, the ‘best tier’ of ZSU battalions and brigades are ‘famous’ formations: several of such brigades are meanwhile huge brigades consisting of battalions that, for all practical purposes, are actual regiments (i.e. including two, three or more ‘sub-battalions’). Of course, in the public, we most often hear solely about the latter ‘type’ of brigades. For example: the mass of videos circulated in the social media are from them.

How comes there are such differences?

To quote certain generals of the GenStab-U (and that word-by-word, and after shrugging with shoulders): ‘meh, who cares?’ & ‘meh, do as you like’.

The GenStab-U can’t care less - although it is the command level that’s actually meant to care about such things like doctrine, strategy, tactics, recruitment, and therefore to think about how to organise and equip ‘it’s’ units, how to instill and maintain discipline, standardise equipment and organisation, maintain professionalism etc.. For them, all that matters is that - at least on the paper - they’ve organised 10, 20, 30… battalions, and then grouped these into so-and-so-many brigades. Once this is done, the GenStab-U does not consider it for its problem how are brigade- and battalion commanders handling their units, nor how are they - for example - adapting and reorganising them. For reasons mentioned above, and combined with the fact that the GenStab-U is also failing in regards of writing a new doctrine of national defence (based on combat experiences from the last 10,5 years), nor about defining and maintaining quality standards in regards of such issues like training or construction of field fortifications - this means that the GenStab-U is ‘outsourcing’ its job to the shoulders of brigade commanders.

For all practical purposes, this means that the GenStab-U is acting unprofessionally and literally abandoning ‘grunts & trigger pullers’ - the very people actually fighting the Russians on the battlefield.

Considering this level of unprofessionalism of the GenStab-U, one cannot but wonder: why is that ‘command’ node still existent and what are officers serving there paid for?

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Missing Command Layer

Except for infantry-, jäger-, motorised-, mechanised-, tank-, airborne-, and assault brigades, in the ZSU there are also independent artillery brigades and independent battalions (also independent assault battalions, independent rifle battalions etc.) - all of which are no part of any brigade.

None of all these ‘separate’ - better expression would be ‘independent’ - brigades and/or battalions is a part of any kind of a divisional command: in the ZSU, there are no such commands. Instead, all the battalions and brigades are all assigned to an operational sector: usually, this is a designation of a certain amount of territory. Nominally, the commander of that sector coordinates operations of all units within that sector: in reality, such commanders are mere ‘watchdogs’, regularly (several times a day) overruled by Syrsky, who is micromanaging most of ‘bigger’ battles through direct command of ‘independent’ brigades and battalions.

The size of territory and the number of brigades and battalions assigned to specific territorial commands varies greatly. For example: a sector might stretch from Prechystivka (west of Vuhledar) to Marinka. Currently, Militaryland reports that there are 8 brigades and six battalions in that stretch of territory (equivalent to about 2-3 divisions). Another sector might have 10 brigades and 9 battalions (equivalent to about 3-4 divisions).

In a NATO organization, 3-4 front-line brigades would make up a division and 2-5 divisions would make up a corps. So a Ukrainian operational sector command is taking on the equivalent role of a NATO corps without the benefit of the divisional layers in between. That missing divisional layer means the Operational Sector (Corps) command must focus on both the big picture (logistics and planning major operations) and the mid-level duties (conducting the operation, providing resources) while the brigades focus on the front line fighting.

This is an abstract organizational chart with three divisions in a corps, three brigades in a division and three battalions in a brigade. A US corps can have 2-5 divisions, 3-4 brigades in a division and 3-4 battalions in a brigade. Ukrainian brigades can have 5-8 battalions.

Providing resources to brigades and focusing on the larger picture is too much for a Corps (Operational Sector) to effectively do by itself. The best example for this fact is that (and rather unsurprisingly), the ZSU is systemically and constantly failing in regards of unit rotation. That should be overseen by a divisional command element. Failures at Soledar, Bakhmut, Ocheretyne, Toretsk, Vuhledar, Selydove, and Shakhtarske have resulted in the loss of significant territory, higher casualties and the destabilization of those sectors.

Another divisional-level responsibility is assigning resources to the front line brigade units. There’s been multiple cases of Russian attacks focused on single brigades or battalions (in recent months: especially those of the Territorial Defence). Unsurprisingly, the units in question turned out to have insufficient supply of ammunition and no reserves in troops - which is what is actually no business of a brigade command, but that of the next command layer higher up. Similarly, it would be the division’s responsibility to shift artillery fires from its greater ammunition stores to meet the threat, or send one or more of the units it holds in reserve to shore up the line.

Another of chronic ZSU’s deficiencies is the lack of ammunition. Even this issue can be managed better with a divisional echelon. Let’s say there was an abstract amount of ammo available - like, say, six units of supply - and it was evenly distributed among three brigades. You won’t know which brigade Russia will attack, but each brigade will have two units of supply to use in their defense.

But if there was a divisional headquarters, then of those six supply units, each brigade could have one and the division could retain three. Then, whichever brigade the Russians attack, the division could send up to three supply units, if needed, to help in their defense. So instead of a brigade fighting with two supply units, they could potentially fight with up to four supply units.

Yet another divisional-level responsibility is preserving the capability to counterattack. Many brigades counterattacked to restore breaches in their front line and were able to maintain those front lines for weeks and months. When they ran out of ammo and personnel, they could no longer do so, and like an untreated cavity in a tooth, the rot spread until an entire defensive line would collapse.

Just this year we’ve seen that in the Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Vuledar sectors. There’s currently a counterattack being conducted in Toretsk - but by one of brigades that’s, actually, a ‘mini-division’ by the number of troops and amount of equipment. This unit is not only stalling Russian forward progress: it is pushing the Russians out of the town (or what was left of the same). Of course, it remains to be seen how much it will push the Russians back and at what cost.

It’s been said here and many other places, but the counterattack is a vital component of the defense. As the Lithuanian colonel said, “Any defense without counterattacking has no meaning.” None of these operations are consistently and effectively happening between the Ukrainian corps (Operational Sector) and brigade echelons.

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Unit Integrity

The absence of the divisional echelon isn’t the only issue with the Ukrainian command structure. Some might remember this image from last month:

As Ukraine has done so often in past tactical crises, they rushed battalions from all over the country to fill the void to try and stem the Russian advance. There are a few problems with this approach.

The first is that attacking units are always trying to find the operational border between defending units with different higher headquarters because such ‘joints’ are usually the weakest-protected parts of the frontline. Moreover, strikes at such spots are certain to cause issues over responsibility of commanders: who is in charge if the enemy overruns the left flank of the battalion XY and the right of the battalion XWZ?

The principal reason is that it is harder to communicate between two units that don’t have a common immediate headquarters. Not only does that make defending more difficult, it also makes a response to any potential breakthrough more difficult.

If the same units had a common higher headquarters, that headquarters could help coordinate the response and provide the resources needed for the situation.

Another advantage to having a divisional echelon is that the commander and his staff will have a greater knowledge of his commanders, their troops, and the capabilities of the units. These capabilities change with the fluctuation of the number of personnel, amount of equipment and ammo, and the morale and fatigue over time and events.

The relationships formed between a battalion and a brigade, and between a brigade and a (theoretical) division are important. A couple weeks ago there was a report about an independent battalion that developed a good relationship with a brigade to which it was assigned. That brigade was rotated out. The independent battalion remained and was assigned to the new brigade which did not provide the same level of support. The Ukrainian corps (operational sector) headquarters were either unaware of the problems or too preoccupied with other issues to resolve it. The result is that the independent battalion could no longer effectively defend its position and eventually lost it.

Another thing you will notice about the map is that not only were seven battalions deployed across the front, but four of them were detached from existing brigades elsewhere in Ukraine. We’ve discussed how unit integrity aids communication, cohesion and effectiveness, but in these four cases that effectiveness was deliberately degraded. This is not an isolated incident in response to an emergency. Battalions taken from brigades are scattered across the front, including in Kursk.

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A Voice From Within

These issues are known to many within the Ukrainian army. So are the answers. An officer from the 24th Mechanized Battalion posted his own solutions:

1.) Army-Level
- Disband units that are incapable, newly created and ineffective on the battlefield.

• Expand the staff or fully staff individual battalions, regiments and brigades that have high performance on the battlefield.

• Transfer equipment and men from disbanded units to the above units.

• Stop forming newly created brigades and expanding their staff.

• Transfer the Ukrainian Defense Forces to a divisional system.

• Establish a rotation system.

2.) Ministry of Defence-Level

• Appoint those responsible for EFS (engineering and fortification structures) on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines of defense.

• Establish clear deadlines and state standards for their construction based on the combat experience of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in 2014-24.

• Establish penalties at the level of criminal liability for non-compliance with the conditions of construction of EFSs.

• Establish clear control over compliance with the norms of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines of defense based on the combat experience of the Defense Forces of Ukraine in 2014-22.

As meanwhile usual, there was no reaction from the Ministry of Defence and the GenStab-U, which is why this is discussed in the social media, ‘instead’…

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Conclusions

Lithuania can’t even form a division yet, but they already have recognised the need for a divisional echelon between their brigades and higher headquarters. The US conducted studies and practical exercises and determined that against peer and near-peer opponents, the division needs to be the base unit of maneuver.

Ukraine has had problems with timely supply of ammunition and the timely support of reserve units to bolster the line and a lack of reserve units to counterattack. They have had repeated failures in the planning and execution of rotations with disastrous consequences. In addition, unit integrity and cohesion has been deliberately degraded by removing battalions from brigades and shipping them to other sectors with manpower shortages. And yet: the GenStab-U did not learn any of resulting lessons.

The remedy for these issues is establishing a divisional headquarters to build multi-unit cohesion, manage the resources of these units and to support their defensive and counter attacking operations. The divisional commander and his staff should also plan and oversee unit rotations using standard procedures documented here.

Once these Ukrainian divisions are formed, (if they are ever going to be formed, which, under Syrsky and ‘this’ GenStab-U is unlikely to ever happen), they will reduce losses because of the increased combat power gained by improved coordination and management of units and supplies. Unit losses should be filled with replacements, and divisional reserves can buy time for those replacements to arrive and be integrated. If unit losses are heavy enough to warrant a rotation out of the line, the division should be replaced by another complete division to maintain unit cohesion and integrity. The planning and execution of a relief in place (rotation) could take a couple weeks to over a month, but the emphasis should be the security of the front line positions, not the speed of the relief.

Among others, Lithuania and the US have learned from Ukraine’s experiences and have changed their armies based on this knowledge. It is past time for Ukraine to learn from its own experiences.