Review - Web Resources, Voroshilov Academy Lectures

The Voroshilov Academy lectures cover a range of material presented at the Soviet General Staff academy during the 1970s.  The Content was translated in the late 80's from the Notes of an Afghan Army Colonel who attended the academy.  They are presented in the Xenophon Archive along with notes from his attendance at the  Frunz Military Academy for the Ground forces in the 60s.  As such the material presented presents a view from the 60s on the Tactical/Operational level Division and below and the 70s on the Operational/Strategic level, Army and Front.  This needs to be born in mind when reading, as whilst the general scope and intent of the doctrine presented had a degree of consistency with the the late 80s period organisational constructs, equipment and in a number of areas core operational doctrine varied over this time frame.

Having said that they present a wealth of detail that whilst some of it is readily available elsewhere there are significant components that are not. As an example I found the archive whilst hunting for material on Soviet Air Defence Electronic Warfare units at Army and Front level. They were covered here at a level of detail along with their operational deployment and use, in other sources only the existence of the unit is acknowledged at best. So a useful source but one that needs to be consumed with an understanding of the Historical context of the evolution of the Soviet Armed forces across the 60's 70's and 80's if it is not going to lead to further confusion.

In terms of content the Archive covers:

• Front, Army and Division Operations
• Air Army Operations
• Operations of Specialist Branches including: Artillery, Engineer, Signal and Reconnaissance

As such this rounds out the extensive free material on the Soviet Armed forces provided else where and covered in previous posts.

• Review-Web Resources, The Essentials of Cold War Soviet Doctrine and Organisation for Free
• Review-Web Resources, Soviet Armed Forces 1945-1991

The detail as might be expected focuses on those things that are the business of the staff;

• Planning
• Staff procedures
• Orders, 
• Control of operations 
• Organisation structure and deployment of headquarters

Whilst these things are not of direct interest to the gamer, unless you are planning a raid on an Army, Divisional or Front Headquarters the information required to support the staff is also included such as organisation, doctrine and perhaps more interestingly planning yardsticks.

The archive presented offers a great way to consume the material but the same material has also been published as a number of books which can be found on line or can be purchased from Amazon amongst others.

The online source for the books is the DTIC repository:

• The Voroshilov Lectures, Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy, Volume I Issues of Soviet Military Strategy
• The Voroshilov Lectures, Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy, Volume II Issues of Soviet Military Strategy
• The Voroshilov Lectures, Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy, Volume III Issues of Operational Art

and the CIA broke the content up into a number of papers focused on specific areas with additional analysis and comment.  Examples include:

• Study of the Radioelectronic Warfare Plan in the Front Offensive
• Recconaisance in Front Offensive Operations

All up a number of very useful resources if your interested in setting games in the context of the wider operational and strategic picture or understanding the types of resource available at higher formation level and working out how you could get them on a table top, which is always a bit of a challenge.

Other Web Resource Reviews:

Review-Web Resources, Soviet Armed Forces 1945-1991
Review-Web Resources, The Essentials of Cold War Soviet Doctrine and Organisation for Free
Review - Web Resources, British Army Units since 1945
Review - Web Resources, Exercise Lionheart videos on You Tube

Review - Web Resources, SSVC on You Tube 
Review - Web Resources, Soviet 16th Air Army
Review - Web Resources, Fire and Furry Cold War Orbats and Modern Resources
Review - Web Resources, M136 Exercise Picture Archive
Review - Web Resources, Armoured Acorn Web Site
Review - Web Resources, War for Slow Readers
Review - Web Resources, CIA FOIA Site
Review - Web Resources Airpower Australia
Review - Web Resources, DTIC on Line