Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces The mighty Soviet Army is no more. The feckless Russian Army that stumbled into Chechnya is no more. Today's Russian Army is modern, better manned, better equipped and designed for maneuver combat under nuclear-threatened conditions. This is your source for the tactics, equipment, force structure and theoretical underpinnings of a major Eurasian power. Here's what the experts are saying: "A superb baseline study for understanding how and why the modern Russian Army functions as it does. Essential for specialist and generalist alike." -Colonel (Ret) David M. Glantz, foremost Western author on the Soviet Union in World War II and Editor of The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. "Congratulations to Les Grau and Chuck Bartles on filling a gap which has yawned steadily wider since the end of the USSR. Their book addresses evolving Russian views on war, including the blurring of its nature and levels, and the consequent Russian approaches to the Ground Forces' force structuring, manning, equipping, and tactics. Confidence is conferred on the validity of their arguments and conclusions by copious footnoting, mostly from an impressive array of primary sources. It is this firm grounding in Russian military writings, coupled with the authors' understanding of war and the Russian way of thinking about it, that imparts such an authoritative tone to this impressive work." -Charles Dick, former Director of the Combat Studies Research Centre, Senior Fellow at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, author of the 1991 British Army Field Manual, Volume 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art and author of From Victory to Stalemate The Western Front, Summer 1944 and From Defeat to Victory, The Eastern Front, Summer 1944. "Dr. Lester Grau's and Chuck Bartles' professional research on the Russian Armed Forces is widely read throughout the world and especially in Russia. Russia's Armed Forces have changed much since the large-scale reforms of 2008, which brought the Russian Army to the level of the world's other leading armies. The speed of reform combined with limited information about their core mechanisms represented a difficult challenge to the authors. They have done a great job and created a book which could be called an encyclopedia of the modern armed forces of Russia. They used their wisdom and talents to explore vital elements of the Russian military machine: the system of recruitment and training, structure of units of different levels, methods and tactics in defense and offence and even such little-known fields as the Arctic forces and the latest Russian combat robotics." -Dr. Vadim Kozyulin, Professor of Military Science and Project Director, Project on Asian Security, Emerging Technologies and Global Security Project PIR Center, Moscow. "Probably the best book on the Russian Armed Forces published in North America during the past ten years. A must read for all analysts and professionals following Russian affairs. A reliable account of the strong and weak aspects of the Russian Army. Provides the first look on what the Russian Ministry of Defense learned from best Western practices and then applied them on Russian soil." -Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and member of the Public Council of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. Author of Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, Russia's New Army, and The Tanks of August.

Intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), the Army's traditional methodology for finding and analyzing relevant information for its operations, is not effective for tackling the operational and intelligence challenges of urban operations. The authors suggest new ways to categorize the complex terrain, infrastructure, and populations of urban environments and incorporate this information into Army planning and decisionmaking processes.

Spearhead of Logistics is a narrative branch history of the U.S. Army's Transportation Corps, first published in 1994 for transportation personnel and reprinted in 2001 for the larger Army community. The Quartermaster Department coordinated transportation support for the Army until World War I revealed the need for a dedicated corps of specialists. The newly established Transportation Corps, however, lasted for only a few years. Its significant utility for coordinating military transportation became again transparent during World War II, and it was resurrected in mid-1942 to meet the unparalleled logistical demands of fighting in distant theaters. Finally becoming a permanent branch in 1950, the Transportation Corps continued to demonstrate its capability of rapidly supporting U.S. Army operations in global theaters over the next fifty years. With useful lessons of high-quality support that validate the necessity of adequate transportation in a viable national defense posture, it is an important resource for those now involved in military transportation and movement for ongoing expeditionary operations. This text should be useful to both officers and noncommissioned officers who can take examples from the past and apply the successful principles to future operations, thus ensuring a continuing legacy of Transportation excellence within Army operations. Additionally, military science students and military historians may be interested in this volume.