Category Archives: Ground Troops

Commander for New Army in Chita

Posted on August 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

General-Major Romanchuk

By the Defense Minister’s order dated 12 August, General-Major Aleksandr Vladimirovich Romanchuk became acting commander of the new combined arms army being formed in Chita.  ITAR-TASS quoted a SibVO spokesman:

“The command and staff of the army, and also a number of army-subordinate formations and military units, will be formed under his leadership.  Formations and military units based in Transbaykal Kray will comprise the army.”

The Chita Combined Arms Army (CAA) will be the easternmost large formation in the new Central Military District (MD), or Combined Strategic Command (OSK) Center.  Who knows what number the new army will receive . . . maybe the former 29th CAA will be resurrected.

Romanchuk was born 15 April 1959 in Lugansk, Ukraine.  He grew up in a military family in Azerbaijan.  Commissioned out of the Baku Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1980, he served as a tank platoon and company commander, then chief of staff and deputy commander of a tank battalion in the Transcaucasus MD.  He graduated from the Military Academy of Armored Troops in 1989 and, for a very short period, commanded an independent tank battalion in the Central Group of Forces (Czechoslovakia). 

Returning home with the rest of Soviet forces, he became deputy commander and commander of a machine gun-artillery regiment in the Transbaykal MD during the 1990s.  He was a colonel in his late 30s by the end of this phase of his career.

When the Transbaykal MD folded into the Siberian MD, Romanchuk became chief of an armaments and equipment storage base, and chief of staff and deputy commander of a Siberian MD tank division.  He served a tour of duty in Chechnya during the late 1990s or early 2000s.

Between 2001 and 2003, he was deputy commander of the Guards Taman Motorized Rifle Division in the Moscow MD.  He became commander of the 4th Guards Kantemir Tank Division in Naro-Fominsk at the end of 2003.  He was promoted to general-major (one star) in mid-2005.

He likely attended the Military Academy of the General Staff between mid-2006 and mid-2008, and then became a deputy commander of the Novosibirsk-based 41st CAA.  In July 2009, he became chief of staff and first deputy commander of that army.

Romanchuk is married with two sons.

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Melee in the 4th Tank Brigade

Posted on August 14, 2010 | 2 comments

An embarrassing melee for the Russian military . . . Viktor Baranets from Komsomolskaya pravda has received confirmation – including video posted on his paper’s website — of a major brawl in the Naro-Fominsk-based 4th Independent Tank Brigade (once part of the elite Kantemir Tank Division).  The video from 4 or 5 July shows a large hand-to-hand battle on the parade ground.  It wasn’t posted until 10 August.  The entire incident was apparently a flare-up from an earlier confrontation between Russian soldiers and, yes once again, conscripts from Dagestan.

An ‘unofficial’ version Baranets got from a Defense Ministry spokesman indicates that, the day before the big fight, some Russian recon unit conscripts got in a scrape with Dagestanis in a local club (conscripts able to leave the garrison – part of Defense Minister Serdyukov’s effort to ‘humanize’ military service). 

Newsru.com also has the video.  It got a Moscow Military District spokesman to confirm that the mass fight grew out of a smaller conflict between soldiers from an air defense battalion and from a reconnaissance company. 

According to Baranets’ version, the next day a large group of soldiers from Dagestan attacked six Russian troops.  One of the latter managed to get help.  The brigade commander ran out and emptied his Kalashnikov over his troops’ heads.

Ten soldiers went to the hospital, several Dagestanis went to the guardhouse.  And, according to Baranets,  they are organizing a separate company for these ‘hot-tempered southerners.’  He says these things are common where there are high concentrations of soldiers from Dagestan.  He concludes they happen because Dagestanis refuse to subordinate themselves to anyone but their compatriots.

The entire incident was kept quiet because officers were threatened with the loss of their monthly and yearly premium pay if they talked about it.

RIA Novosti reported some extra official information from the military prosecutor.  The brigade’s chief of staff, deputy commander for socialization work, and six other officers received disciplinary reprimands, and two others [sub-unit commanders] were dismissed.  Three conscripts face criminal charges from the fight involving 20 men.  But as Newsru.com points out, the video looks like more than 20 men were fighting. 

Most of the press coverage also noted the recent Baltic Fleet case in which Dagestanis forced other conscripts to spell out the word KAVKAZ with their bodies.  Forum.msk wrote that most of the seven Dagestanis implicated in this incident received sentences over one year in prison.

There are, of course, lots of other incidents of this nature worthy of attention.  People have forgotten April’s confrontation in Kamenka, or last November’s incident at the Shilovskiy range below Novosibirsk.  There was also the alleged beating of 44 Dagestani soldiers in Aleysk in mid-2009.  On 20 and 21 February 2007, Viktor Baranets wrote about 140 Dagestanis who took over their regiment on Kunashir in the southern Kurils in late 2006.

It’s always hard (maybe impossible) to say whether it’s the Dagestanis or the Russians (the Slavs, etc.) who are to blame in these instances.  But it’s certain this is a complicated relationship that’s making life difficult in the army.  And the problem is getting worse.

Vladimir Yermolin’s Grani.ru blog contained some good thoughts on it.  He says the Russian Army has long since become a battlefield without rules.  Not only was the 4th Tank Brigade incident open clan warfare, but it took place in broad daylight, apparently without officers present.  Yermolin believes inter-ethnic skirmishes are growing in force, scale, and bloodiness.  No one in the army knows how to deal with this clan problem, so why not legalize it and give it an organizational form that might control it [one supposes he means it’s time not only to end extraterritoriality in manning, but actually create national units].  Next time the commander might not be able to handle the situation like he did this time.

Finally, Yermolin concludes:

“In a country which has already been in a condition of permanent Caucasian war for almost two decades, you could say extremely harsh feelings of people locked in the barracks is a natural development.”

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Posted in Ground Troops, Law, Order, and Discipline, Manpower

Two New Armies for the Central Military District

Posted on August 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

This week General-Lieutenant Vladimir Chirkin spoke to Krasnaya zvezda about several things.  Recall that Chirkin is acting commander of the troops of the ‘Combined Strategic Command of the Red Banner Central Military District.’  He has been commander of the SibVO until now of course.

His interview brought two things immediately into focus.  First, it appears that OSKs will actually be unified or combined strategic commands rather than ‘operational-strategic commands.’  Either way the acronym is OSK.  But combined strategic command connotes a couple significant things.  They may really unify all armed services and branches on their territory for warfighting.  Second, they are beyond the ‘operational-strategic’ level of warfare; they are intended to be strategic.

In this interview, Chirkin was asked and talked at length about the scale and scope of Vostok-2010 in Siberia, as well as the performance of his troops in the exercise.

Asked about the formation of the four new OSKs, Chirkin provided a short dissertation on why the Armed Forces command and control system is being overhauled:

“Recently the Russian Federation adopted a new National Security Strategy and Military Doctrine.  The Defense Ministry and General Staff put amendments in these documents.  Possible threats of wars and conflicts, basic forms and capabilities for fulfilling strategic missions were determined.  The National Security Concept of the Russian Federation proposes that the state could encounter real and potential threats.  I won’t reveal all the subtleties, but I will say one thing — the new system of command and control is being created accounting for the realities of the current time and changing international situation, so the state can independently confront possible threats to its security and the security of its allies, and achieve strategic goals.”

“Such a decision was predicated on the realities of our times and repeatedly  thought over by both the General Staff of the Armed Forces and the country’s leadership.  Reforming the system at all levels is the basis of military reform.  In a word, this decision strengthens the preceding results and gives the process a new turn.”

Chirkin says the formation of his new OSK is not interfering with planned combat training at the brigade level and below.

He says there shouldn’t be any concern about excess officers in his command:

“Officers who meet all requirements and wish to continue serving will be appointed to positions.  Firstly, the Combined Strategic Commands in Yekaterinburg and Khabarovsk [i.e. Eastern Military District] will require supplements of several hundred officers ready to serve in their directorates, departments, and services.  You understand the territories and quantity of troops are increasing.  And this means professional-administrators will be needed, and there are not just a few of these among SibVO officers.”

“Secondly, in Chita a combined arms army will be formed.  Officers and civilian personnel will also be required there.  Besides, in Transbaykal, several more formations and units will be formed, which must make up a large formation [i.e. объединение, an army].  And this, you understand, is hundreds more officer positions.  The main thing is an officer should be a qualified specialist, a master of his trade and have the desire to continue serving.”

Recall in early June, General Staff Chief Makarov told the Federation Council three new armies comprising six brigades would be formed, and so it looks like Makarov’s old home, the erstwhile SibVO, and its massive territory in its new Combined Strategic Command of the Central Military District incarnation, will receive two of the new armies.  Look for generals with a strong SibVO pedigree to command them.  No indication of where Makarov’s third new army will appear.  The Eastern Military District might be a good bet.

As a postscript, Chirkin noted that the SibVO has gotten 4,500 apartments to distribute to dismissed or retired officers.

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Training Helo Pilots at Syzran

Posted on August 13, 2010 | 1 comment
 

SVVAUL Cadet in a Simulator

Krasnaya zvezda often profiles parts of the Russian military, and on 30 July, it interviewed the Chief of the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots (SVVAUL or СВВАУЛ), Colonel Nikolay Yartsev.  Yartsev is a 1984 graduate of the school, a Hero of the Russian Federation, an Honored Military Pilot of the RF, and Pilot-Sniper.

SVVAUL is Russia’s sole higher military educational institution for helicopter pilot training.  In its various incarnations, it’s existed for 70 years.  It trains helicopter pilots for the Air Forces, Navy, and other ‘power’ ministries and departments.  It’s a 5-year commissioning school, so some of the initial two years isn’t particularly specific to helicopter training. 

Asked if the current level of cadet training in the school meets the demands of the time, Yartsev points out that SVVAUL is accredited through 2012 and fulfills the ‘state order’ for military specialists in helicopter aviation.  It is fully staffed with professors and instructors; more than half have scholarly credentials.  All have great teaching experience, and many have not only years of service in operational forces, but also long combat experience.

Yartsev goes on to say SVVAUL can train 1,500 cadets simultaneously.  Its faculties have displays, mock-ups, and examples of weapons and equipment that support the practical direction of student training.

Yartsev says, thanks to the Air Forces, two years ago the school got a modern Mi-24 simulator, and this year an even more modern one.  It’s supposed to get two more simulators, a KT-24P and Mi-8.

The school has an 8-hectare field training base including 3 airfields for its 3 training-helicopter regiments.  In their third year, cadets learn to fly the Mi-2U, and SVVAUL is preparing to switch to the Ansat-U for primary training.

In their fourth and fifth years, students fly Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters.  They get 35 hours as pilot and 10 as pilot-navigator (operator) in this phase of training.  Yartsev says in 2009 the average cadet graduated with 135 flight hours, but a few got about 250 hours along with their third class pilot’s qualification.

Yartsev describes the Russian helicopter pilots’ experience in the Afghan war.  He says the USSR lost 333 helicopters and hundreds of pilots and crew members.  Twelve SVVAUL graduates became Heroes of the Soviet Union.  Thirty became Heroes of the Russian Federation while in combat in the North Caucasus.

Information available about Fort Rucker, home of the U.S. Army’s helicopter school, provides an interesting contrast.  Fort Rucker trains current officers and warrants to become rotary-wing pilots in as little as 9 months.  The program may train as many as 4,000 student pilots every year.  It looks like each student gets over 200 hours flying a TH-67 trainer and 70 hours in simulators, before even beginning many hours of advanced flight training in whichever specific combat helicopter they’ll eventually fly.  U.S. Army aviation has over 100 simulators in use and dozens in procurement.

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Frontal, Army Aviation to OSK Commanders

Posted on August 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

Air Forces CINC, General-Colonel Aleksandr Zelin had many announcements yesterday on the eve of his service’s holiday, but none more interesting than the not-completely-surprising news that frontal and army aviation will transfer from the Air Forces to be directly subordinate to Russia’s four new ‘operational-strategic commands.’

Zelin said:

“The Air Forces will remain a service of the Armed Forces, its Main Command [Glavkomat or Главкомат] will continue functioning, the transfer of four Air Forces and Air Defense commands [i.e. armies] to the commanders of the new military districts — Western, Southern, Central and Eastern is planned.”

“Frontal and army aviation is transferring to the commanders of these districts and, accordingly, to the unified strategic commands.  As regards the aviation component of the RF strategic nuclear triad — Long-Range Aviation, it, like Military-Transport Aviation and the Operational-Strategic Command of Aerospace Defense [ОСК ВКО] will remain immediately subordinate to the Air Forces CINC.”

So what’s happened?

After years of lobbying, army aviation is leaving the Air Forces, but not exactly returning to the Ground Troops.  It is, however, returning to a Ground Troops-dominated environment in the OSKs.

The OSKs look more and more like U.S.-style unified, combatant commands, and the RF armed services like force providers.  

One supposes that the Air Forces, like the Navy, will have to continue playing a very large role in developing doctrine, tactics, acquisition, training, and operations and maintenance of frontal aviation at least, and probably army aviation as well. 

Zelin had more fragmentary comments on this subject.  The Air Forces CINC will retain:

“. . . immediate authority to direct combat training of all aviation and air defense forces, development of all directive documents, and also material-technical support.”

“This entire system is arranged just to optimize command and control and concentrate the main forces and means in the troops [i.e. OSKs].”

He added that these measures must:

“. . . prevent theft and waste of material and financial means and guarantee their strict centralization.”

One wonders how aspects of this ‘material-technical support’ (MTO) role for the Air Forces CINC will track with General-Colonel Bulgakov’s new MTO empire in the increasingly civilian Defense Ministry.

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Not Enough Officers in ‘New Type’ Brigades?

Posted on July 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

In today’s Vedomosti, Aleksey Nikolskiy writes that Vostok-2010 has revealed a problem with officer manning in Russia’s ‘new type’ brigades.

In the course of the exercise, practically all SibVO and DVO permanent readiness units have been ordered to training ranges to test out their new TO&E and train their higher-level command elements.

Nikolskiy says:

“In the words of an officer of one of the motorized rifle brigades participating in the exercise, the new structures sent to the troops at the end of 2008 after the beginning of Armed Forces reform showed that officer manning and supply services are extremely inadequate, for this reason part of the brigades’ forces — for example, air defense means — can’t physically reach the training range.  There were bigger problems also with material support of the troops.”

Vedomosti’s source also says the troops are expecting new brigade structures in August that, according to the rumor, will contain even fewer officers.  A brigade’s officers will reportedly be halved, from 200 to 100, and this will just make the situation worse.  However, an officer from the Defense Ministry’s central apparatus says the new structures are being prepared based on the shortcomings of the exercise, and, if it’s decided there aren’t enough officers, their number will increase.

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Posted in Force Structure, Ground Troops, Military Leadership, Officer Corps, Serdyukov's Reforms, Training and Exercises

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Battalion Travels Lighter in Mobilnost Redux

Posted on July 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

Krasnaya zvezda covered the opening phases of Vostok-2010 for those willing to plod through or skim the article.  Motorized rifle brigades are taking turns practicing defeating bandit groups, the VVS are providing air support to MVD Internal Troops units, and PVO battalions are conducting night firing exercises with new C2 systems.

RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS reported that nearly 600 Volga-Ural Military District (PUrVO) troops were flown to the Far East on Tuesday (29 June) to participate in summer’s marquee training event.  Four Military-Transport Aviation (VTA or ВТА) Il-76MD transports delivered a battalion tactical group (BTG) with only light weapons to join in the operational-strategic exercise (OSU or ОСУ). 

According to ITAR-TASS, General Staff Chief, Army General Nikolay Makarov said that in the course of Vostok-2010:

“. . . issues are being broadly worked out about the expedience of redeploying at a great distance trained personnel which have to take military equipment held at mobilization bases and immediately go into combat.”

This certainly sounds like a military establishment not fully embracing an idea, at least right away.

According to Krasnaya zvezda, a BTG from the 28th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade flew 6,000 kilometers from Koltsovo, outside Yekaterinburg, to Vozdvizhenka, north of Ussuriysk, on a 10-hour flight with a refueling stop at Belaya near Irkutsk.  The 28th was built on the base of a regiment of the old 34th MRD.

Krasnaya zvezda said the battalion moved via truck to an armaments and equipment storage base [БХРВТ] at Sibirtsevo for outfitting with heavy equipment.  The 247th BKhRVT was established last year with the remnants of the former 121st MRD.  After removing equipment from storage and some training, they were slated to join tactical combat firing at Sergeyevka.

Acting PUrVO Commander General-Lieutenant Sergey Surovikin saw off the battalion; he commanded the brigade’s forerunner—the 34th MRD in 2004.  The brigade’s commander, Colonel Anatoliy Sinelnikov, was Surovikin’s deputy division commander in 2004 when it first sent a BTG to the Far East.

Krasnaya zvezda asked Surovikin to compare the current redeployment with the earlier one six years ago in Mobilnost-2004:

“Then a sub-unit with all of its TO&E equipment was sent into action.  And it fulfilled its assigned mission.  The current exercise is being conducted according to the General Staff’s decision which specifies checking the expedience of means of redeploying troops on various strategic axes.  In this instance, the exercise is being conducted only with personnel – without transporting combat equipment and heavy weapons to the Far East.  But it allows us to check the possibility of redeploying troops in other strategic directions.  And to conduct such a redeployment in a very short period.  And using for these purposes Military-Transport Aviation aircraft as well as civilian airlines.”

“In this exercise, means of regrouping troops in short time periods are being tried.  By comparison:  if in OSU Mobilnost-2004 we could send a battalion of the 276th Motorized Rifle Regiment of our division by air to the Far East together with its combat equipment and vehicles in 8 days, then this time such a battalion will get there in significantly less time.  And the quantity of aircraft take-offs to transport the very same sub-unit to another theater of military operations was reduced more than ten times.  High strategic mobility is achieved with much lower expenditure of forces and budget resources.”

While not exactly a Russian Reforger, this redeployment exercise looks like working smarter, not harder.  So it represents some payoff from the effort to turn understrength, excess units into mobilization bases.  Of course, one has to believe there’s still some element of the set piece in all this.  The battalion being moved was probably one of the best, and the BKhRVT was probably well-prepared to hand out the necessary weapons and combat vehicles.

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Testing Army Reforms in Vostok-2010

Posted on July 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Readers seem eager for anything they can get on Vostok-2010.  Here’s something. 

Russia’s largest maneuvers of the year, Vostok-2010, began June 29, and continue until July 8.  This broad-scale operational-strategic exercise (OSU or ОСУ) encompasses the Siberian and Far East MDs, as well as the Pacific Fleet—in other words, what will reportedly become the new Far East MD or operational-strategic command (OSK or ОСК) before the end of 2010.  

General Staff Chief, Army General Nikolay Makarov talked to RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS at length about Vostok-2010 recently.  He said the Far East was chosen for its broad expanses, limited infrastructure, and difficult weather and climate.  Eleven combined arms, 3 air forces, and 4 naval training ranges will be used.  Makarov noted up to 20,000 soldiers, 2,500 weapons systems and pieces of equipment, 70 aircraft, and 30 ships will take part in the exercise. 

Makarov said Vostok-2010 will be a logical continuation of last year’s large training events.  Beyond Defense Ministry forces, operational groups and sub-units from the MVD, FSB, FSO, MChS, and FSIN will participate.

As is customary, Makarov said the maneuvers:

“. . . are not directed against any real country or military-political bloc.  They have an exclusively defensive orientation for ensuring the security and defense of the state’s interests on the Far East border against a notional enemy.”

And the exercise’s theme is:

“. . . preparation and employment of formations [military units] in a new TO&E structure to fulfill missions in isolated sectors to ensure the Russian Federation’s military security.”

Makarov said the maneuvers will:

  • Check the effectiveness of the newly-created three-level system of troop command and control;
  • Evaluate the readiness of new TO&E formations and military units to  conduct combat actions in isolated sectors in a constantly changing situation, as well as their mobility and combat possibilities;
  • Resolve training and command and control issues at the operational-strategic and operational level while conducting combat actions;       
  • Organize coordination of military command and control organs with the troops and military formations of other federal ministries and departments, and also local organs of executive authority in resolving joint missions; and
  • Investigate the capabilities of a unified system of material-technical support (MTO) which was created during the structural reformation of the army and fleet.

The exercise will include special operations, air defense and ship combat firings, and air and amphibious assaults.  Makarov said the RVSN will join the exercise play, but no ICBM training launches will occur.  Military transports will bring independent sub-units from the Moscow and Volga-Ural MDs to join the exercise, but they will draw their weapons and equipment from Siberian and Far East storage bases.

Makarov noted the participation of an unidentified number of Su-24M and Su-34 aircraft arriving from Central Russia during a direct flight with aerial refueling.   Black Sea Fleet flagship Slava-class CG Moskva and Northern Fleet Kirov-class CGN Petr Velikiy also completed long-range cruises to participate.

Makarov said new operational and operational-strategic level command and control posts will be used in the exercise, as will ‘fifth generation’ radio communications gear and future soldier systems under development at Sozvezdiye.  Iskander operational-tactical missiles and Russian-made UAVs will also be employed.

Siberian MD Commander, General-Lieutenant Vladimir Chirkin told Krasnaya zvezda the exercise will focus on defensive operations, but also special operations to localize and destroy irregular armed formations in several RF regions.  He said there will be more than a little new given that new combat regulations will be used.  He added:

“We’re moving away from linear tactics, from large-scale front operations.  As the experience of local wars and armed conflicts in recent years shows, there’s no need to utilize a massive quantity of forces and means to conduct front and army operations.”

In Nezavisimaya gazeta, Vladimir Mukhin focused on the logistics of Vostok-2010.  He noted Rear Services Chief, General-Colonel Dmitriy Bulgakov’s expectation that President Medvedev will soon issue a decree combining the jobs of Chief of Armaments and Chief of Rear Services.  And leaving First Deputy Defense Minister Popovkin’s old job vacant could be a hint of this.  After Vostok-2010, Mukhin expects a new deputy defense minister for material-technical support (MTO), presumably Bulgakov, to be appointed.

A lot of the activity before Vostok-2010 has apparently involved trying out new combat service and support arrangements.  A special logistics exercise tested the new MTO system.  And this year, according to Mukhin’s information, ten MTO brigades will be formed, one for each combined arms army.  The Railroad Troops will reportedly be downgraded to a directorate and each MD (OSK) will absorb the Railroad Troops units on their territory.

Krasnaya zvezda described these exercises.  Rear Services troops used 4,000 men, 30 units of different sizes, and 1,000 pieces of equipment in a pipeline-building exercise, training to repair damaged bridges over the Aga River, and refueling a brigade before its Onon River crossing.

General-Colonel Bulgakov talked about the new MTO regiments and the exercises.  He said they are permanent combat readiness units which have all necessary troops support structures and sub-units.  This was the first test of the new TO&E structure for logistics.  Based on the results, Bulgakov thinks this year the army can move from material support regiments (PMO) to material support brigades.  In every district (OSK), there will be a minimum of two, according to him.  Unlike regiments, material support brigades (BMOs?) will have repair and maintenance battalions.  Brigades were chosen to conform as much as possible to the prevailing three link ‘district-army-brigade’ command scheme.

Trud’s Mikhail Lukanin put Vostok-2010’s most difficult missions this way:

  • Moving troops great distances, including Siberian river crossings;
  • Supplying fuel, ammunition, and food to the area of combat actions;
  • Conducting an amphibious assault under enemy fire.

Prominent commentators view Vostok-2010 as a test of the success of Defense Minister Serdyukov’s army reforms.  Trud talked to independent defense analyst Aleksandr Khramchikhin who said:

“Military reform has gone on already for more than a year and a half, but there’s still no answer to the main question:  what have we gotten from it?  That is, after radical cuts in the officer ranks, the reorganization of military command and control organs, turning former divisions into combined arms brigades, are the Armed Forces capable of conducting modern combat actions.”

Anatoliy Tsyganok believes the army made a hash of Zapad-2009, with only 30 percent  of Russia’s maneuver brigades receiving good evaluations, most only satisfactory, and a handful unsatisfactory.  Presumably, he doesn’t expect to be more impressed by Vostok-2010.

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Posted in Command and Control, Force Structure, Ground Troops, Navy, Railroad Troops, Rear Services, Serdyukov's Reforms, Training and Exercises

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Humanizing and Outsourcing the Army

Posted on June 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Press outlets report that the Siberian MD’s Yurga-based 74th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade is the test bed for Defense Minister Serdyukov’s army ‘humanization’ initiative announced in late April.  And today Chief of Rear Services, Deputy Defense Minister General-Colonel Dmitriy Bulgakov expounded upon the extent of, and near-term plans for, outsourcing of food services in the army. 

The 74th IMRB is trying out a 5-day work week and weekend passes for soldiers.  They are permitted to wear civilian clothes while off-base for the first time.  The brigade has also introduced an after-lunch rest hour into the daily regimen. 

ITAR-TASS quotes brigade commander Colonel Andrey Khoptyar: 

“The intensity of combat training in 2010 has risen significantly, the load on soldiers has increased, therefore extra rest time has been allocated.”

Khoptyar said his soldiers are also getting an additional 30 minutes of sleep at night.

The media describes the 74th IMRB as one of Russia’s best performing and best-outfitted formations.  Some of its soldiers live in ‘hotel-type’ accommodations with four-man rooms and their own bath and shower rooms.

Transferring nonmilitary functions and duties from soldiers and their units to contracted commercial firms was another facet of Serdyukov’s April announcement.  Since December, this brigade’s troops have been spared mess hall duty because a private firm ‘MedStroy’ has taken over responsibility for operating its cafeteria.

IA Regnum described this as a “practical trial of new measures in all-around systematic support of day-to-day troop life by outside civilian organizations on an outsourcing basis.”  As the SibVO spokesman says:

“The main idea of the innovations is to free servicemen, to the maximum extent, from performing noncore tasks, establishing conditions for full-fledged combat training of personnel.”

At present, outsourced food service has already been establishing in the SibVO’s Ulan-Ude, Aleysk, and Yurga brigades, and the district military hospital in Chita.  The process of changing to this system of service has already started in two more permanent readiness brigades, the district training center, rear services units of two SibVO armies, three military schools, and 12 military hospitals this year.

The SibVO spokesman says state contracts worth 1 billion rubles have been concluded which bring 1,000 civilian specialists to provide services to more than 20,000 of the district’s troops.  The contracts include food and laundry services, housing-communal services in military towns, recreation services, and other material-technical support, including POL provision to the tune of more than 71 million rubles.

Beyond experiments in the SibVO, today Armed Forces Rear Services Chief Bulgakov told the press 340,000 soldiers in all permanent readiness units, military-educational institutions, and cadet and Suvorov premilitary schools will be fed through outsourced contracts by this year’s end.  He indicated 180,000 soldiers will be fed in 200 units for an annual cost of 6.5 billion rubles by 1 September.   At present, the logistics head said civilian enterprises are feeding 141,000 soldiers in 99 units, except in inaccessible and distant areas.  According to Bulgakov, commercial firms not only provide quality service, but are more economical than having soldiers perform this work.  Bulgakov added that outsourced food service has:

“. . . eliminated the diversion of personnel from combat training activities, food quality has improved, the variety of food prepared has broadened, culinary culture has been raised; the energy value, chemical composition and full achievement of the norms of food rations are reliably meeting normative requirements.”

Bulgakov spoke to reporters during a special rear services exercise supporting an ‘inter-service force grouping’ in the SibVO.  He pointed out how studying U.S. and NATO experiences influenced the Russian Army’s decision to outsource support functions.  According to ITAR-TASS, he said:

“As a result it was evident that the entire U.S. and NATO contingent in Afghanistan and Iraq at present is outsourcing all material-technical support.”

He added that “civilian specialists from commercial structures in these countries are working both in military units in their places of permanent deployment as well as in ‘hot spots.’”

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Posted in Ground Troops, Manpower, Rear Services, Serdyukov's Reforms

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Light Armor Acquisition Still Undecided

Posted on June 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

RIA Novosti reports the Defense Ministry is still undecided about purchasing European-made light armor for its military vehicles.  Defense Minister Serdyukov has said Russia might buy it from a German company.

Monday Deputy Defense Minister, Armaments Chief Vladimir Popovkin visited Italian firm IVECO’s display at Eurosatory-2010 in Paris.  IVECO uses German technology in fabricating light armor. 

Popovkin said:

“Issue of acquiring light armor and technology for its fabrication still isn’t decided.  Domestic scientific-research institutes still haven’t answered us about whether they’re ready and capable of making such armor.  If they make it, then we’ll use it, if they don’t, we’ll search for ways of getting Western technology for its subsequent production in Russia.”

Popovkin also indicated leading military producers are actively developing a new class of wheeled armored vehicles.  He said in the Russian Army’s modernization there are plans to establish light, medium, and heavy brigades.  Light brigades will have wheeled, medium wheeled and tracked, and heavy only tracked vehicles.  

A RIA Novosti source said:

“A lot depends on the deployment locations of these brigades and the combat missions they’ll be given.  This will be the determining factor for supplying brigades with this or that equipment.”

As an example, he mentioned IVECO’s development of a 29-ton wheeled tank with composite armor and a 120-mm main gun.

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Posted in Defense Industry, Force Modernization, Force Structure, Ground Troops

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