Sunday, 8 January 2012

ORBAT - Soviet Divisional Units, Part 1 MRD Anti Tank Battalion

The Soviet Divisional Anti Tank Gun Battalion was the principal reserve component of the Division.    They would be deployed to deal with emergent tank threats in the advance or secure exposed flanks  and would be task organised with the Mobile Obstacle Detachment from the Divisional Engineer Battalion, and other combined arms assets such as Armour, Aviation and Artillery .  In defence the Battalion could be grouped with a forward detachment of a reinforced Motor Rifle Battalion and other Anti Tank Battalions from Army or Front to act as a covering force.  



MT-12 100mm AT Gun

The Armoured Acorn Site  and FM 100-2-3 both have organisations for this unit for the 1980's as follows:


Earlier organisations, prior to 1980 had 3 gun batteries and they were probably truck towed. FM 100-2-3 suggests AT-P as an alternate tow to the MTLB.

The Guns could fire conventional rounds or the 9M117 Kastet missiles. The missile capability started being deployed from 1981 and extended the engagement range to 4000m.   The guns could be operated in conjunction with radar target detection equipment and laser range finders. FM 100-2-3 has the radar identified as a man pack PSNR-1, these were provided to all batteries including the GW battery.




So not your average AT Gun, having said that I am still trying to confirm the missile data.

By the mid 80s there were indications that a replacement 125mm gun was starting to go into service with higher readiness units.  This was the 2A45 Sprut which came in a number of configurations.  The Sprut could also fire guided missiles in the form of the  9M119 Svir or 9K120 Refleks. 



 As can be seen the 2A45 gun is based on the D30 carriage and gun shield and is very similar to the one shown below.  This is less than surprising as they were conceived by the same design bureau.

D30 122mm Artillery

Wargames Unit Representation

For gaming I tend to use  an amended set of Rapid Fire rules and a 1:3 vehicle scale.  The Anti Tank Battalion therefore looks like this.


  • BHQ 1 x BTR 60PU deploying 1 x ground surveillance radar
  • 2 x Gun Battery each of 2 x MTLB towing 2 x 2A45 Sprut
  • 1 x GW Battery of 1 BRDM 2 deploying 1 x ground surveillance radar and 4 BRDM 2 Spandrel.

For the vehicles I was going to use S&S MTLBs, BRDM2 and BRDM2s with Spandrels.  I would prefer ACE  BRDM2s but these are becoming quite difficult to find and whilst a pain to build produce a good end result. I have Yet to decide on a BTR 60PU solution, but it will involve some level of conversion.

For the 2A45 Spruts I will be buying the recently released (March 2012) Military Wheels kit and the ground surveillance radars will be scratch built.




Numerous manufacturers make T-12s in their WW2 ranges including Ace and SHQ so I may do some alternatives for earlier units.  I have yet to decide on figures, Liberation Miniatures soviet gun crews would work.

The representation of Regimental Anti Tank Reserves is covered here

References


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2 comments:

  1. Sultanbev11 August 2012 at 00:08

    I seriously doubt the 125mm ATG ever entered service. Like a lot of nice Russian kit developed in or just after the Cold War, they were invented at a time when they ran out of money. Hence the T-90 still being the best MBT.
    None listed in use here:
    http://warfare.ru/?catid=240&linkid=1571&title=sprut-b-antitank-gun
    (WATCH OUT FOR RUDE POP-UPS)

    It is remarkable that over 460x 100mm MT12 are still in service in the Russian army,
    http://warfare.ru/?catid=240&linkid=1572&title=rapira-100-mm-anti-tank-gun

    That site lists all the main weapons in each brigade, a valuable source if taken the time to read through.

    Anyway, we were pondering about the 100mm ATG with ATGW. The problem I have is that the MT-LBs only carry 20 rounds for each gun, and the battalion appears to have little in the way of resupply lorries. From the various FM-100s out there, each battery has 1x laser rangefinder. And for 152mm battalions FM-100-60 states that one battery per battalion is a designated missile battery (CLGP), with the other batteries having small amounts of Krasnopols.

    So extrapolating that downwards, would it make sense to say that we replace the laser ranger with a designator, and have one gun per battery as a dedicated missile gun, with 9 missiles, 2x FSAPDS rounds (assuming each missile takes the space of 2 shells). The other guns might have 1 missile each and 18 shells (probably 10x FSAPDS, 2x HEAT, 6x HE). That's assuming any 100mm AT-12 were issued anyway.

    Mark Bevis

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  2. Andy23 August 2012 at 12:43

    Thanks for the Information and having reviewed that site I can see what you mean and I can find no reference in the Military Balance for 1993 - 1994. Having said that it was built and the great thing with Cold War Hot is it is an alternative history line, and I have bought and built them so am still using them in the late period units. Have not come across Soviet use of CLGP munitions so will go on a bit of a hunt for that.

    I have read some interesting stuff in one of the DTIC Artillery articles on ground dumping of shell stocks for fire missions, essentially allowing Tanks in the non contact echelons to support fires which is also interesting here and illustrative of the logistical back flips the Soviets would attempt to achieve effect.

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