Establishing a Bridgehead in Modern War

[kilo]

I'm starting this topic to discuss the methods by which a modern army establishes a bridgehead. Also I wish to discuss the tactics, doctrines and equipment used by individual nations and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.

Before stating my own opinions I was wondering if any of you had ever actually participated in/observed an exercise in capturing a bridgehead or fording a river and what were your experiences.

 

[IPA35]

I am afraid most modern armies don't have the numbers and logistics to do this.

 

[Waylander]

Ops, I have totally missed that somebody already opened such a thread.

The Sovjets were quite good at river crossing under fire and most of their frontline equipment should (theoretically) swim or forge.
The rest of the WarPac also liked to train this stuff be it in conjunction with red army units or on their own.
I doubt that the Russians lost all their acapbilities in this area.

The the Bundeswehr still has the ability for river crossing even in the face of enemy resistance.
Our Leos can also deep forge and we have our bridgelayers and river engineers to either build a pontoon bridge or ferry the troops across a river.

Most important is that you get as much air defense as well as artillery support for your river crossing as possible.
Anything else may very well result in lots of your troops getting slaughtered during the operation.

I have only done smaller river crossings during training with out bridgelaying equipment as well as trying to cross fordes.
And even then it is a pain in the ass if there is a determined force on the other side.
Let it be some platoons of mech infantry and an artillery observer and you can get into troubles really quick.

 

[eckherl]

I would have to agree that former Warsaw Pact Forces were the best equipped to handle this type of adventure be it with vehicle systems but also with engineering equipment, they were not counting on the majority of bridge networks to be up in place and actually in some areas had it established to destroy some of these bridges with covert operatives with the likes of KGB and Spetnaz, the goal of course was to choke off NATO units that were set up in forward defensive positions.

 

[OPSSG]

I come from a small country and the whole premise of Singapore's forward defence doctrine* - is to push our 4 divisions out of Singapore island and fight an aggressor in his own turf. To do that we need to establish either LZs for our air mobile forces to land or our sea borne forces need to establish a beach head.

However, even before we talk about a beach-head, we need to insert our recce elements on the LZs, far bank or beach, to see if we can find a suitable and preferably unopposed crossing / landing spot.

Very often our army plans to use multiple means to cross an obstacle (like a river or the sea). That is why for a small nation we have 4 x small LPDs (8,500 tons at full load), lots of small landing craft, a few M3 bridging vehicles, 18x Chinooks and over 30 Super Puma helicopters. BTW our locally made IFVs and APCs are all swim capable.

So, what do you want to know about beachheads? For foot soldiers (or grunts), we are trained to cross a river (RCO Ex) by rope, infantry assault bridges, small boats or even fast craft. If you want, I can provide a grunt's perspective on these exercises - but what aspect?

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*Footnote: Singapore does not like to advertise our forward defence doctrine as the tabloids of our immediate neighbour tends to get all worked up and claim that we are planning an invasion. But we really have no such desire because as a country, as we are small, happy and rich (so not into invading other countries).

 

[riksavage]

Most militaries with dedicated amphibious and / or airborne units practice establishing bridgeheads. In both cases the trick is to gain a secure foothold and then establish a logistical supply chain to bring in reinforcements and material ASAP to sustain operations. Once the supply chain is secure the bridgehead can be expanded outwards or along a linear path to the designated target, which may be an MSR, bridge, airfield or strategic objective.

Airborne units will typically deploy pathfinders or SF in advance to recce and mark a suitable DZ. This will be followed by a parachute drop of regular para’s who in turn will secure the perimeter to allow for the airmobile infantry to arrive by helo or C130 (once a temporary strip is marked out and cleared of any obstacles). Alternatively one could seize and existing airstrip and follow-up with airmobile troops, a much quicker option as was demonstrated during the Suez crisis and Panama invasion.

 

[Waylander]

IIRC when this topic came up in another thread we talked about river crossing.
As there are fundamental differences between opposed river crossings and opposed amphibious landings we should maybe concentrate onto one topic.

I think in several threads people are already talking about the second one like for example when talking about the new Australian ships.

 

[eckherl]

I thought that initially we were going to discuss capturing and securing bridges, rivercrossings, be it with Russian or NATO assets/doctrine. Also which vehicles are better suited for river fording and the amount of prep time to get Russian and NATO vehicles prepared for the big splash, I for one would be interested in knowing what it takes and how long to get a LEO 2 series ready for such a operation along with vehicle limitations.

 

[kato]

I thought that initially we were going to discuss capturing and securing bridges, rivercrossings, be it with Russian or NATO assets/doctrine.

Couple facts from Germany:

- the bridgelayer used in the brigade's armoured engineer coys has a maximum capacity of MLC60, and is hence useless in combination with Leo 2 A5/A6.
- the successor model for MLC70 has been on the backburner for a decade now, and might be procured sometime in the next 5-10 years finally.
- the amphibious pontoon bridges can only do MLC70 (or really anything above 20 tons payload) in "multi-ferry" or "bridge" mode, i.e. when connecting about four pontoons into a ferry, or when connecting multiple 12.5m long pontoon modules into continuous bridges.
- with 30 such pontoon vehicles total in the Bundeswehr (two coys of 15, in the intervention forces division's hvy eng btl), the capacity is pretty low of course.

As for fording preparation... depends on whether the kits are available and present, and what depth is expected. Preparation for mere submerged fording, i.e. without installing the full kit and with a maximum depth <7.5 ft (roughly) - should be doable in 15 minutes, just as it was for the Leo 1 series. Full kit, tests etc, full depth of 4m... 30 minutes.

 

[Waylander]

A good Leo crew can prepare for submerged fording within 5min. The kit for the TC's hatchet is ready at the back deck and one only has to switch on the fording automatic.

Countries which are prepared for war have also for sure prepared their bridges so that they can blow them up at any notice like it was the case in Western Germany and is still the case in Korea.

The fact that modern PGMs are so accurate against a target like a bridge I think that getting the best AA forward one can get is even more needed these days. Be it when one wants to capture a bridge intact or when one performs a river crossing with a pontoon bridge.
Also lots of artillery support for blinding fire (mix of HE and (IR-)smoke).
These days opposed river crossing seems to be rather neglected by many western nations and a heavily defended river with collapsed bridges in not so favorable terrain may be a bigger obstacle than an opposed landing on a beach.

IIRC only the USMC Abrams have the fording kit and this only allows merely submerged fording.

 

[kato]

Well, in most cases you'd also need engineer vehicles to dig proper access points for the tanks - most "federal waterways", the depth drops to at least 2m within half a meter from the shore.
And it would probably be preferable to have some kind of overwatch on the water as there used to be with the amphibious companies back in the 80s in the form of small monitors - not just to regulate traffic of ferries and support bridge assembling and such, but also to have some boat from which to check the riverbed you're fording over.
With the amount of scrap metal in German rivers, i also wouldn't want to ford near any builtup areas. I'm pretty sure a tank would get problems if an old bicycle, shopping cart, metal trash can or car got folded up in its tracks.

 

[Waylander]

Jup, engineer support is essential.
You bring up an interesting point I haven't thought about so far.
The amount of waste in the riverbed could really become a problem.