Military/War Books-Publications

My next scheduled reading is Vassili Grossman's Life and Fate. Got some nice recommendations about it, referring to being a Great Patriotic War 20th century equivalent of Count Tolstoy's War and Peace. Really appropriate for current times indeed.

I ''found'' this book on book.ru together with a lot of other books about military subjects. This book is about the Battalion Tactical Groups and its composition.



I have some question marks about the BTG composition which is in this book. If I'am correct the one of the reasons (among others of course) that the Russian army is transferring back from Brigades to Divisions/Regiments because the span of control was to not ideal for a Brigade commander (to many units) and that is was better manageable for a commander to have a regiment/division structure with for example in the meeting engagement the combined arms structure.

When I see the composition of a BTG in this book there are a huge amount of sub-units which are put in the schematic BTG making the span of control for the BTG commander more difficult and creating the same ''problem'' as with a Brigade.

So, is this an official Russian army publication or ''just'' a civilian publication and is this book the way of thinking when the Brigade was still seen as the ideal solution or is it the brand new army vision of today (because the publication date is 2022) and it suggests that the book is intended for military students.

Thanks in advance

Sincerely,
Lesley

11E wrote:So, is this an official Russian army publication or ''just'' a civilian publication and is this book the way of thinking when the Brigade was still seen as the ideal solution or is it the brand new army vision of today (because the publication date is 2022) and it suggests that the book is intended for military students.

This is indeed an approved textbook for students of military academies who are to be platoon commanders, just like any other textbook.
But not a publication by MOD itself, so you won`t find any secret or restricted information in there. Those materials printed in academic own typographies and do not generally leave their walls. Unless someone wants to **** up his career and make one for a nice man from FSB, if caught.

Thanks for the explanation, I already thought it was not an official MoD publication.

Even so, I'am surprised to see books like this available for the general public. I never seen a publication in a Dutch bookstore telling about the organisation of Dutch army of battle groups / teams and how to adjust artillery fire. Here it are all Dutch Army publications with a classification. Most times the lowest, but nevertheless.

Sincerely,
Lesley