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MAJ Ken Landgren
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What should happen is Russian forces provide overwatch on the far side as the forces traverse the bridge. If they did do this, it was ineffective. The concept is quite simple.
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CSM William Everroad
CSM William Everroad
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MAJ Ken Landgren, Their breaching doctrine is from the 80s and designed for a far inferior force. Even had they secured the landing site, they probably would not have found the LPOP. I could not tell if the LPOP saw the smoke from the obscuration action, but he was close enough to hear the push boats, which isn't saying much, they are loud as all get out.

Judging by the equipment, they did not seem able to launch a far side force prior to the float bridge coming in. By the time they were in position, they were already bracketed.

Countermobility 101: TRP the breach points... just in case.
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CPT Special Forces Officer
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How about we not help them to fight better by providing critiques?
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MAJ Ken Landgren
MAJ Ken Landgren
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CSM William Everroad - I read an article which mentioned a 21-year-old Russian tank commander. That in itself is sufficient for me to state they are tactically insufficient. A 21-year-old in my tank crew would be the driver. Our tank commanders will have perhaps 10 years of experience and typically have the experience to run a platoon of tanks.

Yep, I did not watch the video but, I will assume they just got in a column formation and decided let's cross the river.
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MAJ Ken Landgren
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CSM William Everroad
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LTC (Join to see), This is defintly a win for Engineering counter-mobility planning. This will be a case study for breaching in combat operations between peer and near peer forces. Couple of flaws in the crossing operation:
1. only one breach point at a time, second launch site way too close to the first (especially after taking targeted indirect fire);
2. they could not have penetrated a recon force very far and/or failed to detect the LPOP;
3. no air cover;
4. concurrent assault rafting not used while bridge building.

It would be interesting to see how Commanders incorporate this into their breach preparation. I see Operation River Assault modifying OPFOR's OPLAN to include similar tactics.
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CSM William Everroad
CSM William Everroad
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LTC (Join to see) They should, but better value can come from operational experience at evaluated exercises like ORA. Current crossing doctrine does cover the issues this case brings up, but the crossing Commander, or someone on the ground there, has to have some historic context or they would not forsee the complications from a breach they have to defend to this extent and perhaps switch gears to continue the breach. The issue I see is most of our modern river crossings are uncontested or experience little resistance because of the amount of force we put behind a breach.

However, I see great value in pushing the recon element harder and KMs beyond the landing site to scour for that LPOP and maybe hidden artillery. We also do not do a whole lot of concurrent crossing (assault raft + float bridge). While TTPs do include a second launch site some distance from the first, I am not sure how many units practice pivoting to it once a crossing operation begins. Additionally, coupling a full breach with armored amphibious assets should become commonplace, but to my knowledge, it's not standard TTP.
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LTC Self Employed
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CSM William Everroad it really bothers me that the Canadian lavs ( those made after the lav 25) and the American Strikers are not amphibious. I was looking up the Canadian General Dynamics LAV 6 is not an amphibious.

I hope they get redesigned to be able to do river Crossings.
https://www.gdlscanada.com/products/LAV/LAV-6.0.html
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CSM William Everroad
CSM William Everroad
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LTC (Join to see) - We have very few equipment organic to the Army that is fully Amphib capable. Most of it can ford without issue. I think the prevailing thought is that: should there be a water gap in the operational area that exceeds safe fording depth, there would be mobility assets committed to the task org to create a bypass or crossing. A decent BDE Engineer would be way ahead of the game on that one during operational planning. Something the Russian force apparently lacks. I am not versed in Canadian engineering doctrine, but I don't they they would be far off considering they do a lot of officer exchange assignments.
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LTC Self Employed
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CSM William Everroad The USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand are tight as the 5 eyes. I agree.
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SPC Nancy Greene
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Definitely a ‘game changer’ LTC (Join to see)! The Russians thought they were going to ‘barrel’ through Ukraine and take over. Seems they definitely underestimated the Ukrainian people and their Army! This invasion is extremely volatile and could easily turn into WWIII if anything ‘strikes’ outside the Ukrainian borders.
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