Material Technical Support (MTO)
In the Russian Armed Forces, logistics is referred to as “Material Technical Support” (MTO). Despite the different naming, the Material Technical Support Troops have the same function as their Western counterparts, essentially provisioning and maintaining the force to help ensure constant readiness. Organizationally, MTO structure parallels the echelons of command. Responsibility for logistic issues culminates at the Ministry of Defense, with a dedicated Deputy Defense Minister, Russia’s top logistics officer.
The overly complex logistical system Russia inherited from the Soviet Union was overhauled and ten material-technical support (Materialno-tekhnicheskogo obespechenie or MTO) brigades were created. Each MTO brigade is committed to supporting one combined arms army (CAA), with two in the Western Military District (MD), two in the Southern MD, two in the Central MD, and four in the Eastern MD.9 It appears that an eleventh MTO brigade was formed somewhat recently, possibly to serve the 1st Guards Tank Army in the Western MD.
It was planned inn late 2022 to create a separate logistics brigade as part of the Airborne Forces. The organizational and staffing structure, composition and tasks of the formation are being worked out. The brigade will report directly to the command of the Airborne Forces and work in the interests of the paratroopers. Almost all the equipment of the connection will be able to land by landing, and some of the machines - by parachute.
The appearance of a logistic support brigade (MTO) in the Airborne Forces will increase their effectiveness, an associate professor at the Russian University of Economics named after Izvestia told Izvestia. Plekhanov Colonel Alexander Perendzhiev said 12 October 2022: “In general, it is difficult to organize a system of interaction with the structures of the common rear, subordinate to the Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics. As the saying goes, "the convoys are late." And the Airborne Troops move very quickly, and it is necessary that the "waggons" keep up with them. I think that the experience of not only Syria is used here, but also the CSTO operations at the beginning of the year in Kazakhstan, where the paratroopers formed the basis of the Russian forces, ”the expert explained.
The activities of the Airborne Forces are very specific, Perendzhiev noted. “And the usual broad-profile rear services do not act clearly and quickly enough - because they are not paratroopers. They can normally supply motorized rifle and tank units. But the Airborne Forces are special forces and rapid reaction forces. And today the winner is the one who builds a more effective system of combat and logistics support. Much depends on the delivery of shells, cartridges, grenades, the ability to quickly repair equipment that has received damage, ”the expert said.
A separate logistics brigade is a military unit (separate brigade) in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which is engaged in ensuring the combat readiness of troops and forces: maintenance and transportation of materiel; repair of weapons and military equipment; commandant service on military highways and their technical cover; refueling equipment.
In addition, separate logistic brigades can be engaged in dry cleaning of uniforms, laundry, washing of military personnel, baking bread in the interests of those units that do not have the necessary funds for this. Separate logistics brigades are part of the Logistics Support System of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, being its mobile component.
Each MTO brigade fields two truck battalions, each battalion comprising 408 transport vehicles (148 general freight, 260 specialized, with 48 trailers). Each battalion “can reportedly haul 1,870 tons of cargo (1190 tons of dry cargo, 680 tons of liquid).”10 Whereas an MTO brigade serves a CAA, an MTO battalion serves a division, and MTO companies serve regiments/brigades.
This in turn suggests that Russians can most effectively operate, particularly offensively in enemy territory, where railways and highways coincide in close geographical proximity. An army cannot simply invade hostile territory by rail. It must advance by road, even though a Russian army’s advance would certainly be sustained by rail. The Soviet army preferred to advance in column on a narrow front, a preference apparently still shared by the Russian army, given how it has been advancing in Ukraine. Lateral movement, widening any formation’s front, takes place only when combat is considered imminent.
Consequently, the farther apart the highways of advance and the railways of sustainment are, the more difficult and resource intensive it would be to secure the latter, let alone also the terrain in between, so that supplies moved by rail can reach their intended final destinations by truck. The Russian army’s performance in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of the railway for its deep operations.
Alex Vershinin, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan who is modeling in the R&D department for NATO, published his vision of how Russia will attack Ukraine and what will come of it. Vershinin quite rightly believes that the main enemy for Russia will not be the army of Ukraine, but logistics. According to the conclusions of the lieutenant colonel, the Russian army will have enough strength to carry out the invasion and capture of several regions, but in the future, Russia will not have enough strength for a major invasion and seizure of large territories.
More precisely, the logistics structure, which will be obliged to supply the advancing troops with everything necessary, will not cope. That is, the Russian army, having crossed the border, at the first stage of its offensive, will not experience problems, however, the further the offensive develops, the more pauses will have to be made to pull up the rear and supply the troops.
The full logistical capacity of an MTO brigade is probably not yet fully understood for several reasons. First, the present war is the first war in which the MTO organization is being put through its paces, and problems are undoubtedly and inevitably arising for the Russians, which they will seek to address. Second, in an otherwise excellent article, Alex Vershinin mistook the truck count of a single MTO battalion for that of a full brigade (per Lester Grau and Charles Bartles), resulting in erroneous logistical mathematics — therefore, a single salvo of a CAA’s rocket artillery would require one quarter rather than one half of a full MTO brigade’s dry cargo truck force to replenish, that is, half of an MTO battalion would be required.
Nonetheless, Vershinin usefully observes that “[i]t is possible to calculate how far trucks can operate using simple beer math.”14 On undamaged and unobstructed road networks capable of sustaining mass wheeled traffic at forty-five miles (72.4 km) per hour, a single truck making a forty-five-mile journey might plausibly make three trips per day: an hour to arrive, an hour to unload, an hour to drive back. On a ninety-mile (144.8 km) journey, two trips are possible; on a 180-mile (289.7 km) journey, just one. U.S. Department of Defense sources provide Soviet supply depot distances for comparison: on the offensive, from the forward edge of the battle area, battalion supply depots were 4 km, regimental depots were 10 to 15 km, and divisional depots were 25 to 30 km.
Moreover, Russian logistics operates on both a push and pull dynamic: higher-level MTO formations can use their own trucks to push supplies down to lower-level formations (brigade to battalion, battalion to company), but lower-level MTO formations can use their own trucks to pull supplies from higher-level formations (company from battalion, battalion from brigade).
Russian logistics appear to be substantially nonmechanized. That is, the Russians appear not to be using pallets in any logistical capacity in Ukraine, even though they are arguably fundamental “to the mechanized movement of goods.” Yet pallets are what determine difference between a four-hour palletized and mechanized unloading task and a three-day nonpalletized and nonmechanized but otherwise identical unloading task.
Russia’s logistics are likely sabotaged to an unknown degree by their own gross inefficiency, particularly at points of transfer. The result of the low level of functionality in Russia’s logistical system in Ukraine is that it appears only to be able to sustain three battalion tactical groups in active combat on each axis of advance at a time—though it is presently unknown how many MTO brigades are actually sustaining the invasion force.
Russian army rail sustainment capability ends at the borders of the former Soviet Union. The Russian army is a railway army, the result of a long military history in a spatially massive Eurasian geographical context. Its unique organization of ten rail troop brigades reflects this logistical orientation. Available to these rail troops are up to sixty-six thousand flatbed railcars; this was enough to move the entirety of Russia’s ground forces simultaneously, even before Russia’s losses suffered in Ukraine.
Russia’s unprovoked and sustained invasion of Ukraine caused severe global hardship and heightened national security concerns. The U.S. Government is providing extensive and multifaceted support to Ukraine as it continues to fight back against the invasion. the Russians hadn't properly planned and executed their logistics and sustainment efforts. Not since World War II have Russian forces executed such a large-scale ground operation using combined arms of air, land and sea, so it’s understandable, in a way, that their planning and execution has faltered. Russian logistics had proven to be one of the major limiting factors to Russian operations in Ukraine.
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