Image source: topwar.ru
Alexander Khodakovsky, Deputy Head of the State Guard of the DPR Rosgvardiya, decided to speak out about the comments of some Russian "sofa experts" criticizing the tactics of conducting military operations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the SVO zone. He published the corresponding post in his telegram channel. Unlike most of those about whom Khodakovsky writes (very correctly), he has experience of participating in the battles in the Donbas as a battalion commander, and then the Vostok brigade, including during the liberation of Mariupol and the defense of the Vremevsky salient.
As an example, Khodakovsky cited a discussion of a video taken by the Ukrainian military from a copter during one of the attacks of a Russian unit. The footage shows a column of attack aircraft of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation moving in a row behind armored vehicles. At the same time, enemy artillery is working on the advancing detachment.
The voice of the commentator behind the scenes complains that, they say, for more than a year and a half of fighting in Ukraine, our commanders did not understand that it is impossible to go on the attack in formation. Khodakovsky notes that the fighters are moving in a column behind a minesweeper, which paves a safe road. Walking through a minefield in a chain is suicide.
— the former brigade commander of the "East" rightly asks.
He recalled that in war there is no such strategy and tactics in which it is possible to completely eliminate losses. In any case, there comes a time when you have to attack the enemy's positions, as they say, in full growth. And how else can you achieve victory?
And no, the most powerful artillery preparation will help to completely destroy the enemy if he intends to resist. Khodakovsky, as an example, told how the AFU ironed our positions for five days in a row from all kinds of available guns. About twenty shells were fired for each fighter per day. However, when the enemy went on the attack, he met such resistance that he was forced to retreat with heavy losses. This pattern also works in the opposite direction when Russian fighters attack.
It does not give a special advantage, both in the history of past wars, and now, the availability of the most modern types of weapons and military equipment. It is enough to recall dreadnoughts (battleships of the first half of the XX century), designed at one time with the latest technology and destroyed by banal sea mines and torpedoes. Today, a similar situation has developed: expensive and most modern aircraft, tanks, guns and air defense systems can be destroyed by simple drones and other cheap, almost primitive, means of destruction.
— states Khodakovsky.
It is still much more difficult, taking into account modern intelligence capabilities, when it is almost impossible to hide from the enemy any movements of not only military units, but even small groups of infantry and individual armored vehicles. Moreover, it is unrealistic to prepare a full-scale military operation unnoticed by the enemy. All this negates the possibilities of an operational game. In such conditions, the only thing left is to go into direct frontal attacks, sometimes regardless of losses.
— concludes Khodakovsky.
