Chapter 19 Exercises
The so-called military exercises can be divided into many categories, and not every one of them requires a large-scale scene or the participation of real troops. As August said, the military exercise arranged by the academy this time is actually an indoor performance of an assessment nature, similar to a war game simulation.
Yuri read the exercise description that August brought him, and then he realized that this exercise was actually carried out between two commander training classes. It was a confrontational exercise. The students of the two classes were divided into 10 groups, each consisting of 3 students, and they competed against each other. As for the scale of the exercise, it was set as a tactical exercise. The troops that each could mobilize were a theoretical reinforced regiment, equipped with their own artillery and armored units.
Since the tactical ideas advocated by Pavlov were promoted, the Soviet Army's organized armored and artillery units have been dispersed into various infantry teams as auxiliary troops. In this tactical exercise, the conceptual army commanded by each group is just such a small combined force of various arms.
In order to test the true ability of each group commander, the background of the exercise is uncertain and needs to be decided by drawing lots. In other words, no one knows what terrain conditions they will command the conceptual reinforced regiment to fight in, whether it is mountains or beaches, or forests, swamps, etc. In addition, the weather conditions that can have a certain impact on the battlefield are also unclear, and these will only be clear after the drawing of lots.
"I made a request to the instructor," August said while drinking coffee from Yuri's cup at Yuri's residence, "We will form a group of two. Well, the instructor will choose another person by drawing lots. It's Belik from Ulaanbaatar, Peter Alexeevich Belik. Do you remember this person? He's the little guy sitting on the far right of the first row."
Yuri shook his head blankly. He didn't know many of the students in the class, and he had never done specialized work in this area before.
"Oh, this guy is pretty good," August is good at socializing. He said, "He was born in the armored troops. He was stationed in Ulaanbaatar before coming to the academy. I heard that he participated in the Battle of Nomonhan before. He is the commander of an armored battalion. He should be the student with the highest actual position in our class. He has participated in actual combat, unlike most of our class who are student soldiers who have just graduated not long ago. It just so happens that you have also participated in actual combat, and I have also participated in... Oh, mine should also be considered as actual combat, right? In short, our group is composed of commanders who have participated in actual combat, and our strength should be the strongest. I think we can at right?"
Although August seemed to be a muddleheaded person, he was actually very motivated. As a student at the academy, everyone knew that confrontational military exercises like this were often the highlight of evaluating students' grades. If you could get a high score in the project, it might become a bargaining chip for promotion in the future.
It was precisely to get a high score that August took the initiative to team up with Yuri. On the one hand, it was because the two had a good relationship. On the other hand, it was because Yuri had participated in actual combat, and it was a large-scale actual combat like the Soviet-Finnish War. Don't underestimate this qualification. You must know that in this training class of the entire academy, there are not many commanders who have actually participated in actual combat, and there are almost no commanders who have really experienced fierce battles.
Like the previous battle to advance into western Belarus (the war to attack Poland) or the Battle of Nomonhan, in the eyes of most Soviet commanders, neither of them could be considered fierce battles. Only the war in Finland was a real fierce battle, and in the entire academy, Yuri was the only one who came from there.
August originally thought that he had some confidence by being in the same group with Yuri, but who would have thought that his luck was surprisingly good. When drawing lots for the groups, he actually drew Belik who came from Ulaanbaatar. This undoubtedly made him more confident.
Yuri could not see August's little thoughts. He just felt that Belik's name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it for a moment - this is the trouble with rebirth. Many memories are always confused and it is hard to tell whether they are from the previous life or the present life.
In fact, it is no wonder that Yuri couldn't remember it for a while. After all, no one can easily connect a captain with the identity of a general. If Yuri's memory was better, he would be able to remember Belik's other identity - a Soviet general in the 1960s, commander of the Trans-Baikal Military District. It was the armored forces commanded by this guy that forced Beijing to secretly make the decision to move the capital to Wuhan during the period of Sino-Soviet hostility.
"You didn't come back just now. I was just about to go to Bielik's place." August drank the coffee in the cup and walked to Yuri and said, "He lives at October Farm, not far from here."
"When does the exercise start?" Yuri nodded, drove away all irrelevant thoughts in his mind, and asked.
"This is a surprise test," August spread his hands and said helplessly, "so it will start from tomorrow. The order of the competition will be determined by drawing lots. According to the plan, there will be two games in the morning and two games in the afternoon, a total of ten groups, and it will take five days, which means that we will do this in the next week. If we are lucky, we can more time to prepare. If we are unlucky and draw the first few numbers, we will not even have time to prepare. We have to rely entirely on on-the-spot performance."
Yuri frowned. Such a hasty arrangement was a bit ridiculous. Even in a real battlefield, there would always be some preparation time. If it was an encounter, what tactics would there be? Everyone was just competing in firepower. That was not worth acting.
Yes, since it is the arrangement of the college, there is no logic to it. Now we can only hope that our luck will be better and the number we choose will be later, as August said.
"You don't have any plans for the evening, right?" August continued to ask, "If you don't have any plans, let's go to Bielick's place together. We can always make some preparations in one night."
Yuri nodded and stood up from the sofa. It is said that sharpening a spear before a battle is better than not sharpening it. Even if tomorrow's luck is bad and the number is drawn at the front, it will be helpful to prepare several sets of tactical plans tonight according to the different battlefield environments. In the end, even if no plan is prepared, as members of the same group, everyone can chat casually and do some running-in. When the military exercise comes, the cooperation between each other will be more tacit.
Since they had decided to go to Bielikna, it was better to go there sooner rather than later. Yuri simply changed his clothes and went out with August, heading straight for October Farm.
Today, commanders in the Soviet army, especially grassroots commanders, are still divided into two categories. The first is the practical school, that is, those who are promoted for their merits in battle, and the second is the so-called academic school, that is, those who graduate from military academies and directly take up commander positions. Like Yuri, although he also graduated from a military academy, because the level of the military academy is relatively low, he is not considered an academic school, but should be considered as someone who rose in actual combat and belongs to the practical school. And Belik is similar. Although he graduated from the Kiev Infantry School and studied in the Moscow Armored Tank Commander Training Class, he is not an academic commander. His commander status was also obtained on the battlefield.
Although the division between the academic and practical schools in the Soviet military was not as obvious as the division between the original red-blooded worker-peasant commanders and the old Tsarist Russian commanders, there was always more identification between commanders of the same origin. It was also based on this that, despite not knowing each other before, Belik was still very enthusiastic about Yuri's arrival.
The three of them gathered at Belik's residence on the October Farm. After a brief greeting and introducing themselves to each other, they began to work on the military exercise plan.
In general, military exercises, especially indoor military exercises, are a very complex exercise process, and the victory or defeat of both sides needs to be determined through a series of complex calculations. For example, in a battle for a high ground, both sides have invested a company, so the final victory or defeat depends on the comprehensive combat effectiveness index of both sides. This comprehensive combat effectiveness index includes many aspects, such as: firepower, the amount of ammunition invested by both sides, tactical level, offensive preparation time or defensive preparation time, whether both sides are in tactical offense or tactical defense, etc. The final evaluation is to combine these factors together, and then after a coefficient addition, it can be determined who wins and who loses, how much damage the winning side has suffered, and how much damage the losing side has suffered.
Because the battlefield environment involved in the military exercise is still unclear, Yuri and the other two are unable to plan the details of the exercise. They can only discuss a general direction and make a vague plan for the various battlefield environments they might encounter.
Bielik was a member of the armored corps and commanded a tank company before coming to the academy. To some extent, he was a standard armored corps commander, while Yuri and August were both infantry commanders. Because of their ranks, neither of them had experience in commanding armored corps operations. Therefore, the three of them were able to form a certain complement in terms of coordinated operations between armored corps and infantry. The biggest flaw of the trio was that none of them had experience in commanding artillery operations, and they did not have a specific concept of the use of artillery.
All three of them have a clear understanding of this shortcoming, so the controversy in this area is the greatest.
