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Quick Explainer: A WW1 Russian General could explain why the 2023 Russian Winter Offensive Failed [1]
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Date: 2023-05-02
Aleksei Alekseyevich Brusilov, General of Cavalry Imperial Russian Army, later one of the founding officers of the Red Army.
When we look back at World War One, this looks like madness.
It seems self evident to us that in an era of machine guns, trenches, barbed wire and accurate artillery that it would be blindingly obvious that lining up infantry shoulder to shoulder and charging at enemy fortified positions could not possibly work.
Yet for nearly 2 years, from 1914 to 1916, almost every general in WWI repeatedly sent bigger and bigger masses of humanity to be torn to shreds by artillery and machine guns.
A common refrain is “the idiocy of the generals.” But when not a few, but virtually every general demonstrates the same stupidity, something more is amiss. It is rare that a whole generation of military leaders on both sides of a conflict would be cursed with abject idiocy.
It also undersells the brilliance of the man who figured out what had gone so very, very wrong with military theory early in the First World War. That man was the Russian General Aleksei Brusilov, and the offensive that would carry his name would change forever not only how armies fought, but how generals thought about offensives.
Brusilov’s conception of ideal ”troop density” shows why Russia mobilizing 500,000 men did not result in a successful Winter Offensive, and the mobilization of another million men this spring is unlikely to yield better results.
Concentration of Force
To understand why generals uniformly seemed to have their entire heads up their own rear ends early in World War One, it is useful to understand how ideas about military offensives had evolved since antiquity.
Although many different ideas about where to attack an enemy, or how to attack an enemy changed based on the circumstances and the relevant technology, one fundamental principle had always been true.
The attacker should seek to bring more and better troops to the critical point of attack than the enemy defenders. It is so simple that it seems to be a universal truth—if you bring more men to the fight than your opponent, you have the advantage.
So in the pitched battle, most every army sought to concentrate the maximum number of men possible in a small space, often nearly shoulder to shoulder.
There was nothing remarkable about a human wave attack when that is all but the only offensive tactic.
If an assault failed, it was generally ascribed to one of 3 reasons
The enemy was not sufficiently degraded prior to assault by artillery (insufficient preparation)
There were not sufficient men in the assault to break through the enemy line (insufficient force)
The men were not adequately trained or motivated such that they could press home the decisive attack (insufficient morale)
In a way this makes perfect sense. If you are attacking a position, and your attack failed, you either didn’t prepare well enough, you didn’t have enough men, or your men were demoralized.
Welcome to the brain of virtually every WW1 general early in the war.
After the first month of maneuver warfare on the Western Front settled into a stalemate as both the Allied and German armies became exhausted by their overwhelming losses by late September 1914, both sides began digging trenches that would soon stretch from the Alps to the North Sea.
Despite the daunting defenses that the other side had thrown up, generals fell back on their training in assessing how to resolve the problem of breaking the enemy line of defense: more artillery, more men.
Bombardments that saw 50,000 rounds or 100,000 rounds fired at enemy positions steadily increased. By the opening of the Battle of Verdun (Feb 1916) the Germans fired over 1,000,000 artillery rounds at French positions around the fortress of Verdun over the course of 10 hours.
Over the course of the first 18 days of the offensive, the Germans expended 4,000,000 heavy artillery rounds, an astounding 200,000+ round/day rate of consumption. By way of contrast, in the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russian army consumed 60,000~80,000 rounds per day during the height of the Donbas Offensive, a rate of expenditure it has long ceased to be able to match (today firing around 20,000 rounds per day).
Ever greater number of troops were concentrated in ever smaller areas, to maximize the offensive punch of an assault. At Verdun, for example, the Germans concentrated 1.2 million men in 50 division to attack a 30km (18 mi) long front. The French responded by bringing 1,1 million men in defense.
Despite enormous casualties on both sides, the front rarely shifted more than 10-15km during an offensive—perhaps another 20-30km if the other side withdrew to the next strong line of defense.
General Brusilov of the Imperial Russian Army came to believe he had a better plan. Why not… prepare less and attack with fewer men?
Brusilov Offensive
Brusilov’s realization of why offensives failed were based on 3 key observations.
Firepower in 1916 could destroy groups of men faster than they ever could before
To accumulate combat mass in a given area, it takes time. The greater the accumulation of mass, the more easily discoverable it is, giving time for the defender to prepare.
It is no longer possible for mass to overwhelm prepared defense by sheer concentration, as the opponent will accumulate sufficient mass to block the attack.
So when Stavka, the Russian High Command, met to discuss strategy for the next Russian offensive on April 14, 1916, as the generals debated where troops should be concentrated for an offensive, Brusilov stood up and suggested that offensives (plural) be launched on every front at once.
Brusilov’s suggestion was rather than trying to concentrate a maximal number of men in a confined space of 20-30km, he wanted to launch an attack that stretched across hundreds of kilometers, without first concentrating Russian forces or preparing hundreds of thousands of artillery shells in one spot.
Brusilov proposal that his front launch an attack simultaneously to the assault in other sectors was accepted, on the condition that Brusilov understood he was not receiving a large concentration of reinforcements or artillery shells—conditions Brusilov happily accepted.
Furthermore, rather than focusing his attack on one point, Brusilov planned to launch an attack across his entire 550km (340 mile) front.
It would obviously be impossible to supply a million artillery rounds for every 30km stretch of front, so Brusilov planned on focusing on high value targets only, Targets that aid enemy logistics and command and control. Ammunition stores identified by aircraft, command posts, telegraph stations, etc.
Brusilov’s proposed offensive was accepted by a bewildered Stavka, and when the offensive began on June 4, 1916, the Brusilov Offensive would change how generals thought about warfare.
The Austro-Hungarians (against whom the offensive was directed) did not realize a massive offensive was about to begin, as no massed concentration of enemy troops had been detected. The massive but dispersed artillery bombardment paralyzed Austro-Hungarian command and control over an unheard of broad front, sowing confusion and shock.
When the assault began, nobody knew where the Russians were planning to break through. It was not obvious where reserves should be directed as it usually had been, because the Russians seemed intent on breaking through everywhere at once (in reality, there were 4 main thrusts, one each by each army under Brusilov’s command, along with many diversionary attacks).
In the first two days, Brusilov overran all 3 defensive lines of the Austro-Hungarian army, captured 50,000 soldiers and 77 guns, and secured his first primary object of the city of Lutsk. More over, the Austro-Hungarian army was shattered, and would only be able to mount effective fighting with German assistance for much of the rest of the war.
Some Russian units penetrated 150km deep behind the Austro-Hungarian lines, an unheard of success. The British at the Somme achieved 15km of penetration. The Germans at Verdun, 11km.
Brusilov’s offensive would eventually be halted, mostly because of the incompetence of other Russian generals. General Evert, in charge of the German front, failed to launch any attack at all for 2 weeks beyond the agreed upon date, and only made a halfhearted attempt, permitting the Germans to rush reinforcements in front of Brusilov.
However, Brusilov’s vision of how an offensive should be conducted changed how generals thought about warfare.
Troop Density
Not all of Brusilov’s lessons about offensives are particularly applicable today. For example, the existence of armored and mechanized warfare greatly accelerates the speed and power of assembling a concentration of combat force, making the calculus of how much to concentrate forces more complex.
However, particularly with regards to dismounted infantry, Brusilov’s key understanding that “you can only pack so many infantry close together before things get counterproductive” endures to this day.
Imagine a 10km x 10km square (6 mi x 6 mi). At one time, entire armies would be squeezed into these types of spaces. Packed shoulder to shoulder, row after row, you could easily fit tens of thousands of men into that space. In a featureless flat plain, you might theoretically fit 100 million soldiers into such a space (each person having about 3 ft x 3 ft of personal space).
The problem is that a just a few HIMARS launchers firing tungsten shrapnel missiles could kill thousands of soldiers per missile if they were so densely packed. Even a WW1 artillery battery could hardly miss such an inviting target.
So Brusilov’s realization was that there are diminishing returns to force concentration Having more men for an assault is helpful, because it gives you more resources with which to punch through an enemy defensive line.
But as firepower increased through breech loading and fast firing light artillery, immensely powerful and accurate heavy artillery, trying to pack a million men on a 30km front was counterproductive. The assaults would be so densely packed that every machine gun, every artillery shot would take down scores of men, and the enemy could direct so much accurate firepower at the concentration that it becomes literally impossible to concentrate enough force to overcome the defensive firepower.
Brusilov’s understanding of this concept was quite explicit. At one point early in the offensive, he refused an offer of further reinforcements from Stavka on the grounds that additional soldiers to the front line at that point would congest the offensive, and would be counterproductive.
Every man sent to the front require food, ammunition, guns, training. Every man that dies in the human wave assaults are army resources thrown away.
At some point, it becomes a better tradeoff to give up on achieving maximum concentration, and prevent the enemy from focusing their firepower in a single point By diffusing the attack, firepower returns fewer casualties, and the attacking army must attack at more and broader points to be at maximum effectiveness and use its resources wisely.
To overcommit resources to a narrow area allows the defender to stop the attack with more limited resources.
In other words, there is a maximum “troop density,” a maximum number of soldiers you can fit into a 10km x 10km box before the troops add nothing to the attack and the defender can just as easily mow down the more concentrated infantry force. In fact, due to the increased logistical burden, not only are the increased number of attackers adding nothing to the offensive, they are actively detracting from the combat power of the unit to which they were added.
For infantry, this number continually went down since the mid 19th century. Today, many armies defend as much as 10km of front with just 800-1000 troops. Even on the offensive, armies rarely concentrate more than 4000-6000 troops into too compact an area, for fear of vulnerability to artillery attacks.
Why the Russian Winter Offensive Failed
in WW2, at times the Soviets were still able to mass huge human wave attacks backed by some armor and massed artillery that found some successes (at horrific costs)
Given similar tactics being conduced by Wagner, some people express puzzlement that huge drives to round up hundreds of thousands of troops cannot translate to battlefield victories for Russia.
The simplest answer is that the battlefield of 2023 is very, very different from the battlefield of 1943.
In 1943, tanks could rarely hit targets further than 500m away, or 1km at the maximum. Today the best tanks can strike targets to the visual horizon.(5000-6000m), Digital fire controls and laser range finding have radically altered the accuracy of guns,
Furthermore, the development and deployment of numerous infantry fighting vehicles renders dismounted infantry more vulnerable, as an armored vehicle firing 40mm exploding shells at 200 rounds per minute can decimate a hundred charging infantry in 30 seconds or less. Such vehicle classes didn’t even exist in WW2.
GPS and laser guided munitions allow precision strikes to take out groups of infantry from 50-60km away.
That is to say, today survivable troop density is far, far lower than it was 80 years ago.
The point at which “throwing a few hundred additional soldiers into a 10km x 10km box becomes counterproductive” is reached far sooner than it was during WW2.
So that brings us back to the Russian Winter Offensive. it’s hard to call the Winter offensive anything but a profound and epic failure.
in preparation for the offensive, the Russians mobilized or drafted upwards of 500,000+ new soldiers. Enormous quantities of shells and seemingly the last good armored formation the Russian had left were thrown into the mix.
If you consider the all out attack on Soledal in late December as the start of the offensive, the Russians launched repeated assaults on Ukrainian positions for 4 months. Svatove, Kreminna, Vuhledar, Donetsk and Bakhmut all saw numerous and repeated attacks.
Yet, the Russians gained only 2-3km in any direction in virtually all areas except Bakhmut—where they have gained as much as 15 km of ground.
By comparison, the notorious Somme Offensive by the Allies during WW1 gained 45 km in 4.5 months.
Had Russia mobilized 1.5 million men instead of 500,000, it is unlikely that it would have changed anything.
Given Russia’s offensive resources (artillery, Armored fighting vehicles, logistics) human bodies does not appear in the least to be the limiting factor in the scale of Russian operations. Not lacking in bodies, Russia is clearly packing the maximum feasible force density in the offensive sectors.
Conversely, the lessons Brusilov taught us indicate a simple fact: had Russia doubled the men involved in these offensives, it is highly unlikely that better results could have been forthcoming. Given the logistical stresses additional bodies on the front bring, the result may well have been worse.
Russia can no more concentrate its way to a breakthrough of the Ukrainian lines by accumulating enough infantry than the generals of WW1.
Conclusion
In today’s dispersed battlefield, this is why AFVs (Armored fighting vehicles) are critical in an offensive.
AFVs allow troops to quickly concentrate for an assault, then disperse much more quickly than they can on foot. Even a virtually unarmed metal box with tracks (like the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier) is valuable because it can carry a dozen soldiers while protecting them from much of the highly accurate firepower of the enemy, until they get close enough to engage.
Armored mechanized forces permit an army to “break” the Brusilov problem of achieving adequate force concentration.
By travelling in an armored vehicle, one can limit the types of firepower to which the troops are vulnerable. Machine guns, shrapnel, anything but a direct hit from an artillery will not harm the troops inside. If you mostly only need to worry about antitank munitions and enemy tanks, you sharply limit the amount of firepower the enemy can bring to bear against you, especially from long distances.
Mechanization gives forces the ability to concentrate in a short span of time, to force levels sufficient to break through the enemy line of contact. After fighting for short intense bursts, the troops ideally disperse to protect itself from enemy firepower. Speed reduces the amount of time the enemy can bring their firepower to bear on a decisive point.
The final piece of the puzzle is that more tightly concentrated armored unit must make use of high levels of training and coordination to maximize their effectiveness.
A platoon of 3 or 4 tanks can operate alone with a few weeks of training. But it is far more of a challenge coordinating 4 tanks as part of a 14 tank company, operating in support of a combat engineering team (sappers) and a company of mechanized infantry riding 14 or more armored vehicles carrying infantry.
Minimally armed armored personnel carriers (APC) and mine resistance armored vehicles (MRAP) are not the most exciting of military aid items. Ukraine received over 1500 APCs and 1100 MRAPs according to Oryx, but we tend to focus our attention on Leopards 2s and Challenger 2 tanks. And certainly even a small number of those western tanks can and will make a big difference.
However, without the mobility and protection that a fully mechanized and armored force would provide, Ukraine would run into the same force density problems faced by Russia in 2023, and Brusilov in 1916.
The coming weeks will show whether Ukraine has enough equipment, and has enough training, and has the capacity to form a mechanized fist of troop concentration sufficient to blow past Russian defenses. Speed and coordination are the weapons Ukraine must use to overcome Russian firepower.
Special thanks to BarbeCul for his editing work on my diaries
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