Graphic: Russian Air Assault Company (VDV)
Added 2022-04-15 08:29:58 +0000 UTCGraphic depicting the pure unreinforced Russian Air Assault Company, part of Separate Air Assault Brigades and Air Assault Regiments. This is based off of the doctrine provided in a VDV textbook.
As with most Russian units, the Company HQ has key staff personnel which are carried in vehicles provided by a separate Headquarters Squad (at higher echelons a signals unit). In this case, it includes a Company Commander, Deputy Company Commander, Deputy Company Commander (Parachute Instructor), Senior Technician, Starshina (Sergeant Major type), and a Medic. Mountain Air Assault units, like those of the 7th Guards Air Assault Division, also get a Mountain Training Instructor here.
The Grenade-Machine Gun Platoon provides a limited firepower boost, with its Squad Leader manning an NSV heavy machine gun and another two teams manning RPG-7Ds.
The close combat units of the company are the Air Assault Platoons, each with 3x squads mounted on BMD-4 or BMD-2 airborne infantry fighting vehicles. One squad is led by the Deputy Platoon Commander (probably a Senior Sergeant) and furnishes the platoon's one RPG-7D, while the other squads have one PKP general-purpose machine gun instead.
At best, the Air Assault Platoon has 14 dismounts; 48 dismounts for the whole company including the 6 dismounts in the Grenade-Machine Gun Squad. This is the result of the limitations of the BMD platform being air droppable. It only has space for 3 crew members (commander can dismount) and 4 other dismounts.
This compares to a U.S. light infantry rifle company with air assault/airborne qualification which has about ~105 dismounts (rifle platoons, excluding Company HQ). A U.S. Mechanized Infantry Platoon is more like ~84 dismounts at full strength. A normal Russian Motor Rifle Company by comparison would have about ~63 dismounts at full strength.
