Has China based its army combined-arms battalion on the Russian battalion tactical group, which has proven to be an over-rated combat formation?
China has settled on a basic tactical unit for the People's Liberation Army Army (PLAA):
After years of substantial reform, the combined-arms battalion of the combined arms brigade is the basic combat unit of the PLAA. PLAA officers tell PRC media that the formations comprise more than 10 different combat arms, are plug-and-play and adjustable based on the terrain and mission requirements.
Ten different combat arms? Does the PLA combined-arms battalion replicate the Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) that pushes combined arms down to the battalion level with a lot of firepower within it?
I was never impressed by the BTG:
I think the BTGs are simply the usable parts of Russian brigades and so should really be thought of as their brigades in practice.
That feature of the process of generating BTGs from the parent brigades was shown to be a problem early in the Russian invasion of Ukraine (quoting an article):
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 more recently a more basic problem with the BTG was highlighted. It was one I did not appreciate:
There was an important difference between the Western battle groups and the current BTGs. The Western battle groups were kept simple (mainly infantry and tank companies) with the addition of combat engineers or artillery as needed. American infantry officers got lots of realistic training using these battle groups. Western armies had many career NCOs to make sure the troops performed well.
Russia expanded their BTGs after 2000 and added more support units so that each BTG had most of the support capabilities usually found in a division. These support units were smaller in the BTG, often a dozen or so specialists riding in a few trucks.
The complexity of pushing the coordination of all those different types of combat, combat support, and even combat service support elements into a battalion-sized formation overwhelmed the leadership found in a BTG (from the previous link):
The flaw in the BTGs was not obvious until they encountered well-armed and motivated opponents. That happened soon after they crossed the border into Ukraine. The leadership in these BTGs could not handle the complex composition of BTGs. Senior Russian leaders knew this from the performance of BTG leaders during military exercises. This was not a surprise as the quality of officers had declined in the last decade and there were still not enough experienced NCOs.
The Chinese combined-arms battalions could be replicating the critical flaw of the BTG's multiple types of combat units. Having more than ten different combat formation types in the PLAA battalion is a problem, no? That sounds like more types than the Russian BTG could contain. The Chinese command and control problems must be really bad.
And it could be even worse. By making the PLAA combined-arms battalions "plug and play" with a composition that changes with terrain and mission, the inadequate command and control staff might not even have the time to train all the different capabilities that the unit has within it. Or is put into it at the last minute for an operation.
Apparently the Russians have abandoned BTGs for the fight inside Ukraine:
Russian forces have largely stopped deploying as battalion tactical groups because the formations have proved ineffective, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
It will be interesting if the Chinese examine the Russian experience and adjust their combined-arms battalions to be less like Russian BTGs and more like Western battle groups (combined-arms battalions) more reliant on higher echelons for the support units the Chinese and Russians have pushed down to their battalions.
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
