Deep operation
Deep operation (Russian: Глубокая операция, glubokaya operatsiya), also known as Soviet Deep Battle, was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a tenet that emphasized destroying, suppressing or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact but also throughout the depth of the battlefield.
The term comes from Vladimir Triandafillov, an influential military writer, who worked with others to create a military strategy with its own specialized operational art and tactics. The concept of deep operations was a state strategy, tailored to the economic, cultural and geopolitical position of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of major military failures in the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, and the Polish–Soviet War the Soviet High Command (Stavka) focused on developing new methods for the conduct of war. This new approach not only considered military strategy and tactics, but also introduced a new intermediate level of military art: operations. The Soviet Union's military was the first to officially distinguish the third level of military thinking which occupied the position between strategy and tactics.[1]
Using these templates, the Soviets developed the concept of deep battle, and by 1936, it had become part of the Red Army Field Regulations. Deep operations had two phases: the tactical deep battle, followed by the exploitation of tactical success, known as the conduct of deep battle operations. Deep battle envisaged the breaking of the enemy's forward defenses, or tactical zones, through combined arms assaults, which would be followed up by fresh uncommitted mobile operational reserves sent to exploit the strategic depth of an enemy front. The goal of a deep operation was to inflict a decisive strategic defeat on the enemy's logistical abilities and render the defence of their front more difficult, impossible or irrelevant. Unlike most other doctrines, deep battle stressed combined arms cooperation at all levels: strategic, operational, and tactical.
History[edit]
Before deep battle[edit]
The Russian Empire had kept pace with its enemies and allies and performed well in its major conflicts up to the 19th century. However, despite some notable victories in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and in various Russo-Turkish Wars, defeats in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), the First World War (1914–1918), and the Polish-Soviet War (1918-1921) highlighted the weaknesses in Russian and Soviet military training, organization, and methodology .[2]
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the new Bolshevik regime sought to establish an entirely new military system that reflected the Bolshevik revolutionary spirit. The new Red Army (founded in 1918) combined the old and new methods. It still relied on the country's enormous manpower reserves; however, the Soviet program to develop heavy industry, which began in 1929, also raised the technical standards of Soviet arms industries to the level of other European nations. Once that had been achieved, the Soviets turned their attention to solving the problem of military operational mobility.[3]
Primary advocates of the development included Alexander Svechin (1878–1938), Mikhail Frunze (1885–1925), and Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937). They promoted the development of military scientific societies and identified groups of talented officers. Many of these officers entered the Soviet Military Academy during Tukhachevsky's tenure as its commandant in 1921–1922. Others came later, particularly Nikolai Varfolomeev (1890–1939) and Vladimir Triandafillov (1894–1931), who made significant contributions to the use of technology in deep offensive operations.[4]
Roots of deep battle[edit]
In the aftermath of the wars with Japan as well as experiences gained during the Russian Civil War several senior Soviet Commanders called for a unified military doctrine. The most prominent was Mikhail Frunze.[5] The call prompted opposition by Leon Trotsky.[6] Frunze's position eventually found favour with the officer elements that had experienced the poor command and control of Soviet forces in the conflict with Poland during the Polish–Soviet War. That turn of events prompted Trotsky's replacement by Frunze in January 1925.
The nature of this new doctrine was to be political. The Soviets were to fuse the military with the Bolshevik ideal, which would define the nature of war for the Soviet Union. The Soviets believed their most likely enemy would be the capitalist states of the west they had to defend themselves against before and that such a conflict was unavoidable. The nature of the war raised four major questions:[7]
The discussion evolved into debate between those, like Alexander Svechin, who advocated a strategy of attrition, and others, like Tukhachevsky, who thought that a strategy of decisive destruction of the enemy forces was needed. The latter opinion was motivated in part by the condition of the Soviet Union's economy: the country was still not industrialized and thus was economically too weak to fight a long war of attrition.[8] By 1928 Tukhachevsky's ideas had changed: he considered that given the nature and lessons of World War I, the next major war would almost certainly be one of attrition. He determined, however, that the vast size of the Soviet Union ensured that some mobility was still possible. Svechin accepted that and allowed for the first offensives to be fast and fluid; but ultimately he decided that it would come down to a war of position and attrition. That would require a strong economy and a loyal and politically-motivated population to outlast the enemy.[7]
The doctrine pursued by the Soviets was offensively oriented. Tukhachevsky's neglect of defense pushed the Red Army toward the decisive battle and cult of the offensive mentality, which along with other events, caused enormous problems in 1941.[9]
Unlike Tukhachevsky, Svechin determined the next war could be won only by attrition, not by a single or several decisive battles. Svechin also argued that a theory of alternating defensive and offensive action was needed. Within that framework, Svechin also recognised the theoretical distinction of operational art that lay between tactics and strategy. In his opinion the role of the operation was to group and direct tactical battles toward a series of simultaneous operational objectives along a wide frontage, either directly or indirectly, in order to achieve the stavka's ultimate strategic target(s).[9] This became the blueprint for Soviet deep battle.
In 1929, Vladimir Triandafillov and Tukhachevsky formed a partnership to create a coherent system of principles from the concept formed by Svechin. Tukhachevsky was to elaborate the principles of the tactical and operational phases of deep battle.[10] In response to his efforts and in acceptance of the methodology, the Red Army produced the Provisional Instructions for Organizing the Deep Battle manual in 1933. This was the first time that "deep battle" was mentioned in official Red Army literature.[11]
Principles[edit]
Doctrine[edit]
Deep battle encompassed manoeuvre by multiple Soviet Army front-size formations simultaneously. It was not meant to deliver a victory in a single operation; instead, multiple operations, which might be conducted in parallel or successively, would induce a catastrophic failure in the enemy's defensive system.
Each operation served to divert enemy attention and keep the defender guessing about where the main effort and the main objective lay. In doing so, it prevented the enemy from dispatching powerful mobile reserves to the area. The army could then overrun vast regions before the defender could recover. The diversion operations also frustrated an opponent trying to conduct an elastic defence. The supporting operations had significant strategic objectives themselves and supporting units were to continue their offensive actions until they were unable to progress any further. However, they were still subordinated to the main/decisive strategic objective determined by the Stavka.[12]
Each of the operations along the front would have secondary strategic goals, and one of those operations would usually be aimed towards the primary objective.
The strategic objective, or mission, was to secure the primary strategic target. The primary target usually consisted of a geographical objective and the destruction of a proportion of the enemy armed forces. Usually the strategic missions of each operation were carried out by a Soviet front. The front itself usually had several shock armies attached to it, which were to converge on the target and encircle or assault it. The means of securing it was the job of the division and its tactical components, which Soviet deep battle termed the tactical mission.
21st century[edit]
In the spring of 1999 came the crisis in Kosovo and NATO’s Operation Allied Force as a result of R2P doctrine. The Combat operations featured no land warfare, and therefore no frontline can be said to have existed. The air war over Serbia was a "deep battle" as Air Force bombed strategic targets and fielded forces. Army Major General Robert H. Scales came to the conclusion that the US needed "strategic pre-emption", defined as the "use of airpower to delay the enemy long enough for early arriving ground forces to position themselves between the enemy and his initial operational objectives."[46]