Along with the myth of Russian military prowess, the undeserved reputation of the Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) has been demolished during Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The Russians wrecked the reputation of their military:
The Ukraine conflict has punctured Western perceptions of a mighty Russian Army since President Vladimir Putin seized Crimea eight years ago, and the Russian leader's refusal to let his invading army "reset and reform" is "good news for Ukraine and good news for the West," according to a former U.S. naval commander who heads a prominent strategic think tank.
Which was a risk of using it on a large scale, as I argued shortly before the war:
Putin pines for Soviet glory days. Putin's threats to use his military give Russia more stature than its status as a regional military power with continents-spanning defense needs justify. Just like Mussolini enjoyed--until he used his military and exposed it for the sham it was.
More specifically in regard to perceptions, a lot of Westerners swooned like school girls at a boy band concert at the mere mention of Russian battalion tactical groups. I've long argued that Russian BTGs are just the usable parts of their parent brigades:
I missed this initially, but I enjoyed this article in Armor magazine taking some of the hype out of the Russian battalion tactical groups. I think the BTGs are simply the usable parts of Russian brigades and so should really be thought of as their brigades in practice. ...
Stop treating these units like some revolutionary development. They are a means Russia is using to cope with lack of readiness in their army to put some combat-ready forces in the field because the brigades just aren't ready for combat.
Ahem:
Brigades were also reorganized to create Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs) where the first battalion in each brigade consists of professionals, which allows them to deploy quickly and (theoretically) fight competently. Unfortunately, if most of the professionals are concentrated in the first unit out the door and it then takes significant casualties during an operation, all that is left is conscripts, reservists, and other second-tier personnel, which does not bode well for longer-term operations.
And note that the Russians had to create more than one BTG from each of their brigades to mass what they did send into Ukraine in February. I suspected some of the BTGs deployed pre-war were crap:
Putting 100 battalion tactical groups into an invasion must surely hollow out every combat brigade across all of Russia. Those BTGs are a means of scraping something out of less-than-adequate brigades. And I suspect a large fraction of those 100 aren't very good given the state of the Russian army. How many ill-trained conscripts were needed to fill out that number of units?
And Russia sent more after that observation.
Reinforcing the depleted BTGs from what remained in their parent units might do more harm than good. Ukraine needs to win the war before Russia can recover from its initial faceplants across Ukraine.
NOTE: War updates continue at this post.
