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Tank attack success rate table by Soviets


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Row: Tanks attacking per kilometer of front (values 15-40)

Column: Anti-tank weapons per kilometer of front (values 5-30)

	5	10	15	20	25	30
15 50% 2% nil nil nil nil
20 75% 10% 1% nil nil nil
25 92% 30% 5% 1% nil nil
30 98% 50% 10% 2% nil nil
40 100% 75% 65% 10% 3% 1%

From "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" by David C. Isby. I have 81 and 88 edition of the book and the table is mentioned in both.

As for the original source, Isby just states "soviet source"

While the table does not delve into specifics such as year it was published, types of AT weapon, etc., the bottom line is that Soviets acknowledge that mass alone cannot achieve any meaningful level of success.

This is in line with Soviet obsession of suppressive fire and flanking maneuver.

The popular "Zerg" / "Tank wave Steamroller" image I think stems from Soviets' breakthrough attacks, which could begin with local mass superiority as large as 15:1. - A necessary evil so to say, you have to pry open a hole somewhere before going deep and wide.

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Russia is alot more compact than it was before it it collapsed and splintered.While it is still large and has a formidible military force,to put it simple they in alot of ways preferred mass quantity over substance.I think that may be changing a bit as the Russian hardware gets a bit more ''modern'',but i dont belive their frontline AFVs,IFVs and APCs can match the Wests and EUs best even if they hold a 3-1 advantage or more.Plus Westrn and EU troops are better trained allowed to make decisions on the BF w/o jumping thru hoops like the Russians do.They dont exactly promote free thinking and intiative in the Russian army.Plus eating more than once a day and getting paid and flipping on the happy swich to ur favorite weapon system helps morale.if you train to break stuff and blow it up,its nice to do it once in awhile.:)

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Russia is alot more compact than it was before it it collapsed and splintered.While it is still large and has a formidible military force,to put it simple they in alot of ways preferred mass quantity over substance.I think that may be changing a bit as the Russian hardware gets a bit more ''modern'',but i dont belive their frontline AFVs,IFVs and APCs can match the Wests and EUs best even if they hold a 3-1 advantage or more.Plus Westrn and EU troops are better trained allowed to make decisions on the BF w/o jumping thru hoops like the Russians do.They dont exactly promote free thinking and intiative in the Russian army.Plus eating more than once a day and getting paid and flipping on the happy swich to ur favorite weapon system helps morale.if you train to break stuff and blow it up,its nice to do it once in awhile.:)

I'll just say things were not so simple as Clancy novels or Team Yankee.

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What was more "shocking" was the use of artillery on CCCP side before and during the attack.

Indeed it is causing some head scratching here over at Soviet VU.

We reckon we'll need 1 player to call for fires and 1-2 to run the logistics of keeping everything moving and fed, and where the F**k do we put the damn things??!!

For regimental support your talking 6 companies of arty assets alone.

Divisional, twice that plus another company.

You need a map just for a decent bit of space to spread out. :eek2:

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Indeed it is causing some head scratching here over at Soviet VU.

We reckon we'll need 1 player to call for fires and 1-2 to run the logistics of keeping everything moving and fed, and where the F**k do we put the damn things??!!

For regimental support your talking 6 companies of arty assets alone.

Divisional, twice that plus another company.

You need a map just for a decent bit of space to spread out. :eek2:

Yeah, I'm planning on a COOP sce where the players(NATO) get whacked 30-60 minutes with artillery, before they even see the first red AFV.

Don't know if it will be fun to play though :-P

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Don´t forget, a lot of them where towed, with a limited Range of 15 ~ 17 Kilometers and even the motorized need a lot more Time to get Fire ready and change Positions then the western Systems.

First Barrage will be outstanding but Counterbarrage and CAS will sort a lot of them out before changing Positions.

I think the Arty have to deliver a 6 ~ 10 Minutes constantly Arty Fire to make the "Fire Walz" in Front of the advancing Troops. After 3 Minutes the Counterbatterie will fire, even in the Late 80`s.

Next Questions is how fast will they follow the advancing Troops ?

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Don´t forget, a lot of them where towed, with a limited Range of 15 ~ 17 Kilometers and even the motorized need a lot more Time to get Fire ready and change Positions then the western Systems.

First Barrage will be outstanding but Counterbarrage and CAS will sort a lot of them out before changing Positions.

I think the Arty have to deliver a 6 ~ 10 Minutes constantly Arty Fire to make the "Fire Walz" in Front of the advancing Troops. After 3 Minutes the Counterbatterie will fire, even in the Late 80`s.

Next Questions is how fast will they follow the advancing Troops ?

That,s the first thing on are training agenda in SVU

When we get are hands on 3.0

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That,s the first thing on are training agenda in SVU

When we get are hands on 3.0

I can see me having to handle the recce, the tank batallion, and the Mech Inf batallion on my own while everyone else is on arty and resupply. This should result in an immediate improvement in quality. :)

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Don´t forget, a lot of them where towed, with a limited Range of 15 ~ 17 Kilometers and even the motorized need a lot more Time to get Fire ready and change Positions then the western Systems.

First Barrage will be outstanding but Counterbarrage and CAS will sort a lot of them out before changing Positions.

I think the Arty have to deliver a 6 ~ 10 Minutes constantly Arty Fire to make the "Fire Walz" in Front of the advancing Troops. After 3 Minutes the Counterbatterie will fire, even in the Late 80`s.

Next Questions is how fast will they follow the advancing Troops ?

Question for NATO will be if they are making right kind of attrition for dealing with the situation.

NATO's numerically inferior fire support assets have difficult task of supporting line units to keep them alive while conducting CB and deep fire strikes to make enemy crumble and avoiding dedicated soviet CB batteries in the midst of all these. (similar for CAS too)

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Question for NATO will be if they are making right kind of attrition for dealing with the situation.

NATO's numerically inferior fire support assets have difficult task of supporting line units to keep them alive while conducting CB and deep fire strikes to make enemy crumble and avoiding dedicated soviet CB batteries in the midst of all these. (similar for CAS too)

I guess that why NATO developed Tactical Nuclear Weapons.

Just need to get it within the general vicinity of advancing Soviet Troops.

"Bang. All Problem Gone!" :eek2: - Metro 2033 referring to fuse lit pipe bomb/hand grenades.

I can see me having to handle the recce, the tank batallion, and the Mech Inf batallion on my own while everyone else is on arty and resupply. This should result in an immediate improvement in quality. :smile:

Comrade Tchkayalev,

Indeed Comrade Hedgehog looks forward to the day when simple order:

"Comrade Tchkayalev, Advance!" results in glorious Soviet Victory!

While Artillery cannot find arse with both hands, map and Compass! :)

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I guess that why NATO developed Tactical Nuclear Weapons.

Just need to get it within the general vicinity of advancing Soviet Troops.

"Bang. All Problem Gone!" :eek2: - Metro 2033 referring to fuse lit pipe bomb/hand grenades.

Well, I do think throughout late 80s up to 90s NATO achieved enough quality and (relative) quantitative edge to move the conventional balance to its favor against the deteriorating Union. (And then angry T-80Us fired at parliament)

Soviet literatures were not unaware of leaps in technology and its possible impact on battlefield. According to IIRC Glantz, one literature posited that "smart" weaponry has achieved lethality of tac nuke and argued for changes in paradigm.

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Comrade Tchkayalev,

Indeed Comrade Hedgehog looks forward to the day when simple order:

"Comrade Tchkayalev, Advance!" results in glorious Soviet Victory!

While Artillery cannot find arse with both hands, map and Compass! :)

Don't think it will be this Monday. Or the one after, for that matter. :biggrin: But give it a month or so....

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Thanks!

If possible, could you explain how he came up with those numbers?

I'm not an expert, but if you have access to the "Journal of Slavic Military Studies" (formerly the "Journal of Soviet Military Studies"), there is an article by Fritz Stoeckli (one of the West's best specialists in Soviet correlation of forces and means calculations in the late 1980s) titled "The Correlation of Forces and Success in Overcoming Anti-Tank Defenses" which analyses Kardashevskii's data and calculations.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The senior game designer of Company of Heroes 2 said on the forums that if the game was supposed to be a 1:1 representation of war on the Ostfront, then on one of their med-sized maps the Soviets would have 15 mortar tubes rolling around the map (given the resources you have in a match, you're lucky to have three at any given time).

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