Russia's Counter-Battery Tactics Proving Effective

Today’s Moon of Alabama featured a three part article, the middle part of which will be our focus. That middle section will be familiar to some readers but, for those readers unfamiliar with the concept of counter-battery fire, Moon’s piece is highly informative. Since the war in Ukraine has for months been largely an artillery duel—utilizing howitzers, rocket/missile artillery, and mortars—it’s important to understand the tactics involved to get a feel for what’s developing.

We can start with Wikipedia’s general description. Please note the second paragraph’s reference to “communications link”. In fact, counter-battery tactics have become extremely high tech, tracking developments in the field of artillery—digital fire control, GPS guided munitions, etc. High tech target acquisition and munition guidance has been provided to the Ukrainian forces by the US, along with advanced artillery systems that utilize such systems—HIMARS and M777. Integral to these systems was the use of drones.

Counter-battery fire

Counter-battery fire (sometimes called counter-fire) is a battlefield tactic employed to defeat the enemy's indirect fire elements (multiple rocket launchers, artillery and mortars), including their target acquisition, as well as their command and control components. Counter-battery arrangements and responsibilities vary between nations but involve target acquisition, planning and control, and counter-fire. Counter-battery fire rose to prominence in World War I.

Counter-battery radar detects incoming indirect fire and calculates its point of origin. That location data can be sent by a communications link to friendly forces, who can then fire on the enemy positions, hopefully before they can reposition (the "scoot" part of shoot-and-scoot tactics). Counter-RAM systems track incoming rocket, artillery, and mortar fire and attempt to intercept and destroy the projectiles or provide early warning to the target area.

From here on, I’ll be quoting from Moon’s excellent piece:

Ukraine SitRep - Counter Artillery War - Financial Disaster

As the US and other NATO countries became more deeply involved in providing Ukraine with high tech artillery systems of all sorts, the Russians were quick to react. The Taliban and ISIS may not have had the ability to counter the NATO tactics, but Russia has been a leader in the field of electronic counter measures for many years:

The Russian military reacted to it. It dispersed its depots and command centers thereby limiting the number of targets for HIMARS systems. It also intensified its use of electronic warfare which took down the drones the Ukrainian artillery used to find its targets:

The electronic suppression of Ukraine’s unmanned aerial vehicles blunted one of Kyiv’s biggest advantages in the early months of the war. The Ukrainians counted on superior intelligence—largely provided by UAVs—to make their smaller artillery arsenal more precise than Russia’s own, larger arsenal of big guns and rocket-launchers.

But the Russians’ electronic warfare prevented those drones from navigating and communicating—and deprived the Ukrainians of the precision they were counting on. “The defeat of precision was critical to unit survival” for the Russians, analysts Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds explained in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
...
“The average life-expectancy of a quadcopter remained around three flights,” Zabrodskyi, Watling, Danylyuk and Reynolds wrote. “The average life-expectancy of a fixed-wing UAV was around six flights” and, “in aggregate, only around a third of UAV missions can be said to have been successful.”

In short, not only were the Ukrainian forces outgunned in a purely quantitative sense—counting guns, rockets systems, and munitions—but they were put at a qualitative disadvantage, as well. Russian electronic counter-measures rendered the outnumbered Ukrainian artillery relatively ineffective, while Russian counter-battery fire continued to effectively target Ukrainian systems.

Here, Moon makes an assertion which I’m not certain of. His claim is that, being unable to duel with Russian artillery because of Russian electronic countermeasures, the Ukrainians turned to shelling civilian locations, such as Donetsk City. Whether or not that was what led it it, it is a fact that since November the Ukrainians—using NATO weapons systems such as the US HIMARS and M777—have been deliberately targeting civilian populations that were not protected by electronic countermeasures. Whatever the motivations for this criminal conduct, it is being conducted using US equipment and US knowledge.

Addressing this situation presented a challenge for the Russian forces:

The political leadership of the Donetsk Republic requested an urgent operation against the threat.

As the heavily fortified frontline makes it impossible to quickly break through and hunt the artillery behind that line, the Russian military moved to other measures. A special cell was created to wage the fight against Ukrainian artillery around Donetsk. More counter artillery radars were moved in. More satellite picture interpreters began to look for firing positions. Longer range counter battery guns also appeared.

Over the last ten days the campaign began to show significant results. Many of the recent daily reports from the Russian Ministry of Defense noted the results of this anti-artillery campaign. Here is yesterday's one:

[list of destroyed Ukrainian/NATO equipment, including US and German artillery and rocket systems]

Recall Wikipedia’s reference to “shoot and scoot” tactics, which are routinely used by all advanced militaries—they are essential to the survival of artillery in a modern combate environment:

Shoot-and-scoot (alternatively, fire-and-displace or fire-and-move) is an artillery tactic of firing at a target and then immediately moving away from the location from where the shots were fired to avoid counter-battery fire (e.g. from enemy artillery).

It sounds good, but it’s easier said than done. Modern artillery systems are quite complex, involving supporting radar and communications systems. While the artillery systems are designed to be highly mobile, it takes time to set them up and take them down again. And that assumes they’re manned by highly trained personnel—which is why these NATO systems are often manned, at least partially, by NATO personnel. However, the Russian efforts have paid off:

Another reports says that the reaction time [for the Russians] between detecting and submitting target coordinates to active counter fire is down to two minutes. The setup and displacement time for a M-777 howitzer are each at least three minutes with a fully manned and well trained crew. When radar detects a firing Ukrainian M-777 the Russian response now comes in before the gun could be moved out.

The counter battery campaign can now be called a full success. The last Ukrainian artillery impact in Donetsk city was reported on December 23.

My guess is that, Ukraine being a very large country and the war is being conducted on an industrial scale, Russian electronic warfare resources—not supplies of ammunition—have been somewhat strained. Since the electronic counter measures are integral to any offensive operations that face enemy artillery, I suspect that the need to mass electronic warfare resources where the fighting is heaviest is part of the reason why Russian offensives have been fairly narrowly targeted. Recall that when Putin ordered the partial mobilization, he specified that the people being called up would usually have specialties that were in demand. Electronic warfare is undoubtedly one of those specialties. On the other hand, the new conditions of warfare, as Russia confronts ever more advanced NATO weaponry and communications systems, probably also require an intensive retraining for the mobilized reservists.

Things to keep in mind as we follow the news.