Red Army Entrenching

By Max Schmidt

Most of this article is a translation of the 1939 Trench System document. Covering the core concepts the Red Army wanted entrenched positions to be setup. This wasn’t always “executed to a T” for various reasons as you will discover in this article. Apologies for any readability issues, my skills at translating original documents is novice at best.

“The main purpose of trenches is to create facilities for combat and protect soldiers from bullets, shrapnel, and tanks. But, besides this, the trenches should give the soldiers protection from the bad weather of rain and cold and from the sun, otherwise, a long stay in them lowers their combat effectiveness. Drainage is arranged in the trenches, earthen walls are dressed with boards or poles, niches, dugouts, etc. are equipped.”

“The separation of cells and their development into trenches, the equipment of these trenches in combat, and technical terms are carried out in battle by the fighters themselves with the help of entrenching tools and improvised means. This work is directly supervised by the junior command staff, the commanders of the squads. There is no need to count on help from military sappers: they will be busy building command posts, strong heavy shelters, complex anti-tank obstacles, etc. Therefore, each fighter must know well in what order and how the work is carried out on extracting and equipping trenches and be able to do all this independently and quickly.” – Major S. Gerbanovsky

Development of Trenches in Battle

The trenches are being torn off and developed gradually in such a way that every minute they can be used in the best possible way for combat. The development of a trench into a rifle squad occurs in the following order. Having taken a firing position, the fighters of the squad, using a small shovel, tear off separate cells for themselves for prone firing (Fig. 1). It is possible to open and mask the cells in the simplest way in 8-12 minutes, depending on the hardness of the soil and the ability to work. Cells for prone firing are convenient for firing and protect soldiers well from rifle and machine-gun fire and from fragments during artillery shelling. If it is necessary to gain a foothold at this line, then, by order of the squad leader, the cells are deepened first for firing from the knee and then standing.

The deepening of the cell for shooting from the knee takes 25-30 minutes, and for shooting while standing 50-60 minutes. The cell for shooting while standing better protects the fighter from enemy fire. In addition, from a deep cell, a fighter can fight enemy tanks well, throwing grenades at them and remaining invulnerable. Immediately along a fragment of the cell, the fighters break through, usually to the rear, a 2-3-m narrow gap (cell gap) 1-1.5 m deep (Fig. 2). Sometimes a cell gap is torn off between adjacent cells, and then a paired cell is formed. When two fighters dug in next to each other, they can open a double cell for themselves (common for two fighters). Soldiers can dig a cell with a gap in the middle ground in 4 hours.

During the attack of tanks and attack aircraft of the enemy, the fighters take cover in cell gaps. A fighter lying at the bottom of such a gap is invulnerable to a tank and bullets from an aircraft. In defense, for 8-10 hours of work with a portable tool (sapper shovel), cell slots are extended to 3-4 m and connected to each other by a common connecting passage; a trench is formed on the rifle squad (Fig. 3) Such a trench makes it possible to communicate inside the squad, which is necessary to provide the squad leader with communication of the squad in battle, to transfer cartridges to the soldiers, to help the wounded, etc. In the trench, open loopholes are made from sods and earthen bags and they arrange an exit to the rear. The trench is masked, as a rule, with improvised material (turf, grass., And branches). To camouflage from observation from aircraft, a camouflage net is used, on which improvised material is thrown.

If the squad is on the defensive for a day, then the trench is developed further (Fig. 4), using mainly nighttime for work. 2-3 additional machine-gun sites are arranged in the trench and spare cells are torn off so that it is possible to fire from the trench in all directions. The loopholes are covered with poles or replaced with ready-made plank loopholes brought from the rear (covered loopholes). Niches are arranged in the walls of the trench for storing cartridges, grenades, water, etc. A section of the communication course is taken from the trench to the rear and a common gap 2–2.5 m deep is torn off at 30–50 m.

During the two days of the soldiers’ stay in the trenches, light overlapping from the knurling is arranged over the cracks adjacent to the cells, sprinkled with earth on top, and dugouts and niches for the fighters are built. The common gap is lengthened and dressed for strength with poles or boards and covered with a knurled top; at the same time they continue the passage of the message to the rear (Fig. 5). The steepness of the cells, slots, and the general connecting course of the trench, so that they do not crumble, is dressed with poles, boards, and other materials. Set up a drainage system. The bottom of the trench is covered with boards. The common gap is provided with a second exit and a light shelter (anti-fragmentation) is arranged from it.

The course of communication is deepened, torn off further to the rear, and widened, and dead ends are made in it so that the people meeting can disperse and tools and materials (shovels, pick-hoes, wire) can be folded. A latrine is arranged in the rear. The trenches for grenade launchers and machine guns are developed in the same order. The longer the infantry soldiers are in one place, the more strength and effort they must apply to improve their position; the more soldiers spend on this labor, the less they will suffer losses from enemy fire. Therefore, work on excavation and equipment of trenches is carried out continuously day and night, when this is possible.

Trench Equipment

The equipment of rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers, in trenches, consists in arranging loopholes for firing, equipping niches for storing military and household supplies, arranging niches, ceilings, and under-bracket dugouts for rest and shelter of fighters, in draining water from trenches, dressing earth steepness (walls ) and arrangement of latrines.

The loopholes serve to hide the shooters while firing from the cell. The simplest open loopholes ( fig. 7) made of turf and earthen bags look like a shallow hollow in the parapet, into which a rifle is placed. An open loophole protects the fighter’s shoulders and partly his head during enemy oblique (side) fire. These loopholes are arranged, as a rule, simultaneously with the passage of cells.

In defense, at the first opportunity, the fighters arrange covered loopholes (Fig. 8), which better protect the fighter from defeat. An ordinary, open loophole made of sods is covered from above with a row of 6–8 cm poles or boards, on top of which a layer of earth of 10–15 cm is poured or sods are laid. Loopholes made of earth-bearing bags are covered with two or three earth-bearing bags laid across the loophole (Fig. 8, B). Loopholes made from earthen bags were especially common on the fronts in Spain, where rocky soil made it difficult to extract the earth, and bullets hit the stones causing the fighters to be hit by stone fragments.

If a covered loophole is arranged simultaneously with a fragment of a cell, then it is better to first lay on the parapet two 10-15 cm trimming poles 100-120 cm long, which form the sides (cheeks) of the loophole. On these scraps, 6-8 cm poles or boards are placed across and covered with earth from above (Fig. 8, B).

Takeaways and Application

For a reenactment, trenches this extensive and elaborate will mostly likely not be the standard of an event but can be in some cases based on how much work has been put into the site. However, the core concepts should still be applied of spacing out your position, having designated sight lines, establishing fields of fire, setting up communication, establishing small ammunition “depots”, implementing basic positional camouflage, and so on…

You can see this in original photographs (reference photos below), often depending on the situation entrenched positions would not have much time to be set up, or the terrain may favor a different type of entrenchment, or maybe concealment should be more of a focus than cover. Many factors will play into the decision made by junior and middle commanders to decide on how they want to set up their position and entrench. What is the local terrain, do you have any natural barriers or advantages? Should you focus on cover or concealment? What resources does the unit have available? How much time does the unit have to prepare its position? What is the size of the enemy force? Will the enemy have any vehicle, armor, artillery, or air support? Above figure 3 Major Gerbanovsky describes how to take cover from enemy aircraft and how to protect against reconnaissance aircraft for example.

Photos of Trenches

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