{"id":10232,"date":"2015-12-29T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=10232"},"modified":"2015-12-29T07:00:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T13:00:32","slug":"the-lessons-of-debaltseve-armored-vehicles-still-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/29\/the-lessons-of-debaltseve-armored-vehicles-still-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lessons of Debaltseve: Armored Vehicles Still Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After nearly fifteen years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, American advocates of heavy armored forces interpreted Ukrainian forces\u2019 defeat at the battle of Debaltseve as an indication that \u201ctanks still matter.\u201d But the key lesson of the Debaltseve fight is a broader one: Combat vehicles of whatever kind must provide the mobility, protection, and lethality that commanders require in order to best integrate armor, infantry, and artillery in a combined arms fight.<\/p>\n

On February 18, 2015, after several weeks of heavy fighting in and around Debaltseve, pro-Russian forces surrounded the city. Cut off from friendly forces, government troops withdrew from the city in a manner which the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0called \u201canything but orderly.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0In the aftermath of the battle, many reports highlighted one particular aspect of the fighting: The separatists\u2019 use of Russian-supplied armored vehicles to drive home their attack.<\/p>\n

In a sense, the separatists\u2019 use of armor to achieve battlefield success could be interpreted as a vindication of the continued need for \u201cheavy\u201d forces in contemporary warfare. Several accounts reported the presence of T-72s and T-80s in eastern Ukraine. In late January, pro-Russian armored columns fought entrenched Ukrainian forces outside Debaltseve. Although the Ukrainians reportedly achieved some successes, separatist forces used their tanks\u2019 mobility and firepower to break the Ukrainian defenses and force government troops to withdraw. But focusing on the use of tanks misses the greater significance of the fighting.<\/p>\n

Although armored vehicles played an important role in the fighting, the separatists\u2019 success actually was achieved through the effective use of combined arms operations \u2014 that is, the coordinated employment of tanks, infantry, artillery, and other battlefield assets to achieve military objectives. Rebel artillery disrupted Ukrainian vehicle columns withdrawing from the city, forcing many soldiers to leave their vehicles behind and evacuate on foot. The\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0quoted one Ukrainian soldier: \u201cGuys are running out on foot through the fields because [rebels] are shelling vehicles.\u201d The ability to exercise effective command and control by communicating orders and coordinating actions \u2014 an essential element in combined arms operations \u2014 also proved vital to the separatists\u2019 success. The separatists coordinated their actions better than Ukrainian forces. As Ukrainian commander Semyon Semyonchenko said: \u201cWhat hindered us in Debaltseve? We had enough men and material\u2026 the problem was with the leadership and coordination of actions.\u201d According to Semyonchenko, the Ukrainian defeat was \u201cthe result of incompetent management of our troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Foreign Policy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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  After nearly fifteen years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, American advocates of heavy armored forces interpreted Ukrainian forces\u2019 defeat at the battle of Debaltseve as an indication that \u201ctanks still matter.\u201d But the key lesson of the Debaltseve fight is a broader one: Combat vehicles of whatever kind must provide the mobility, protection,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2280,475,2378,1286,2426,1894,17,3321,1898],"tags":[3477,3478,1779,3479,3480,3481,1566],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}