Panzergrenadiere in the 2010's

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Panzergrenadiere (mechanised infantry, somewhat more rooted in German WW2 experiences than other mech infantry) are a 'kind of' infantry branch of the German army and meant to provide the infantry element to our heavy brigades (armour and mech infantry brigades; 2 Panzerbrigaden, 2 Panzergrenadierbrigaden and one Panzerlehrbrigade; -en is plural, -e is singular).

Both Panzergrenadierbrigaden and one Panzerbrigade (being a Panzerbrigade only in name) have the same structure:

HQ Company

Armour Battalion

2 Mech Inf Battalion

Recce Battalion

Armoured Engineer Battalion

Signals Battalion

Logistics Battalion

The other Panzerbrigade has an Armoured Artillery Battalion instead of the 2nd Mech Inf Bn. The fifth heavy Bde is the Panzerlehrbrigade with a unique structure (it has additional training, show and experimentation missions).

Well, that's the planned army structure, a structure of almost historical interest because there's near-permanent change.

Historically there were many more heavy brigades and the heavy brigades were larger as well. Up till if I remember correctly the 70's there was a third Mech Inf Bn in the Panzergrenadierbrigaden, for example.

The typical design for the mech infantry battalions is 2 AFV in the HQ and three companies with 14 AFV each. These units would be mixed down to company level in wartime. The 'pure' battalions of the official structure are - as elsewhere - meant for an easier, more efficient training.

Panzergrenadiere / mechanised infantry are meant to be the infantry component of combined arms warfare (Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen). That's the theory.

Now let's freak out a bit about the actually irresponsible structure that laughs at the nice theory.

(a) Neither the mech infantry battalions nor any other unit in the Bde has any organic mortars. That's outrageous and cannot be explained with our official doctrine.

(b) The Panzergrenadierbrigaden and the one identically structured Panzerbrigade have no artillery battalion, not even a company/battery. The two brigades of the 1. Panzerdivision have an artillery component, but not the other 75% of our combat brigades (2 mech inf bdes, 1 identical armour bde, 2paratrooper bdes the mountain infantry bde). The airmobile (helicopter) brigade with its light infantry regiment has no artillery either.

The combination of (a) and (b) means that the most powerful indiret fire support weapon of an entire German Panzergrenadierbrigade is a 40mm GMW (automatic grenade launcher) of less than 3 km range and it's not meant for non-line of sight use.

(a) and (b) in conjunction laugh in the face of Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen.

Actually, I think it's a good enough justification to fire everyone who bears partial or full responsbility for this.

Combined arms warfare is more than just armour and artillery or mortars; it requires today infantry, armour, artillery/mortars (I claim it requires also electronic warfare if we look at brigades like this, but that's not even close to consensus). It's necessary to have these assets organic in the formation because combined arms warfare requires much training of leaders and staffs, not just supporting attachments in the event of crisis.

Now let's have a look at the infantry component.

(c) Two battalions of each 2+14+14+14=44 IFV/SPz (infantry fighting vehicle /Schützenpanzer) Puma will have a total dismount seat strength of 2 bns x 44 IFVs x 6 infantrymen = 528. That's about as much as a single infantry battalion has.

Maybe I'm very old-fashioned, but I do somehow have the idea that a Panzergrenadierbrigade should have more infantry. In other words; the combined arms qualities of these brigades are in my opinion compromised by their weak infantry arm as well.

This opinion is based on facts:

528 infantrymen (or Panzergrenadiere) is mere theory. Units are rarely at full manning (if ever). It would come close to a miracle if they could be sent off to a crisis with more than 450 men (without cannibalizing external infantry units). The situation could improve within a few months by the addition of reservists, but keep in mind that the predecessors of the Panzergrenadiere had some of the most outrageous casualty rates of WW2. Being sent to one such unit basically meant that the soldiers had on average only a few weeks or months left before they became disabled, prisoners of war, wounded in action or killed in action.

528 seats is also pure theory. A readiness rate may approach 90% for the first operation in a conflict if the brigade had time for repairs after the deployment march. It's not likely that more than 70-80% of the theoretical 88 IFVs would be available for a second operation considering the expectable losses and technical failures during the first operation.

I think it's safe to assume at most 70% availability (70% of 88 ~ 62) with a dismount strength of 372 for a third operation.

That's about the point at which even a total concentration of both mech inf battalions of the brigade would likely be unable to remove a qualitatively comparable fresh infantry company from a blocking position in infantry terrain (such as a bottleneck road through a wood) in a useful time frame.

The lack of organic mortars and organic artillery would likely be compensated for by non-organic units, but their ammunition supply is still in question during mobile operations. The artillery can thus not be counted on to decide every fight in closed terrain favourably. A mech infantry bde should be able to solve the problem of a single blocking infantry company without a huge expenditure of artillery ammunitions any way. This is meant to be a major part of the difference between mech infantry and armour brigades, after all.

The assumption of a total infantry concentration is in itself already overly optimistic, of course. Some IFVs would be kept away for security, reconnaisance or other duties. It's therefore reasonable to expect even less infantry at the brigade's Schwerpunkt.

My conclusion is that there's simply not enough infantry, which in turn is in great part a consequence of the high procurement and operating costs of AFVs. The record priced Puma IFV (405 IFV for € 3.1 billion = € 7.65 million /unit) fortifies this problem. Another reason is the high cost of personnel, but as long as you cannot win in ground wars without many human close combat fighters you'll need to pay their price in your deterrence and defence preparation effort.

I think we've moved to a point far leow the limit for substitution of infantry with something else (btw, replaced by what exactly? We don't have that much of anything in our force structure!?)

What's the consequence of a weak infantry component?

Panzergrenadierbrigaden are meant to be heavy formations for independent combined arms combat in pursuit of operational level missions. Their best-suited terrain is meant to be the mixed tank-friendly and infantry-friendly terrain such as in Northern Germany and in the NE NATO members. An armour brigade (Panzerbrigade) is meant to be more optimised for exclusively open (tank-friendly) terrains and infantry brigades are meant for closed (infantry-friendly) terrains.

A mechanised infantry bde / Panzergrenadierbrigade should be the ideal compromise for actions that require a quick switch between infantry- and tank-centric combat. Tanks would lead the way in open terrain and infantry would lead the way through terrains like settlements and woods before the AFVs take the lead again.

Such infantry actions would typically look like dismounted infantry clearing a road/route through a wood or settlement for safe passage of the vehicles. An alternative would be that the infantry clears hilltops to the left and right, a classic light forces task as described by Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago.

The support by AFVs would typically be limited to one or two vehicles at bottlenecks because of the restrictions imposed by the terrain.

The infantry coponent of such a brigade would therefore be expected to repeatedly and quickly defeat an infantry force of company to battalion size over the course of one operation.

The only alternative to such a demanding requirement for infantry power in the brigade structure is to avoid defended bottlenecks.

Well, amoured recce would hardly be able to sense the difference between one platoon blocking a road through a wood and one battalion, so an infantry-weak brigade could be barred from using such bottlenecks by a flimsy platoon defence. It's actually quite optimistic to expect the armoured recce to perform such risky forms of route recce at all, especially as the old scouting concept is apparently becoming extinct in favour of a stealthy ground surveillance approach once we've lost our last Luchs recce AFVs in a few years.

What does this mean? A heavy, infantry-weak brigade (which has on top of that no organic indirect fire support to speak of) would both be mostly incapable of combined arms warfare without reinforcements AND it would be restricted to open terrain (and thus be very limited and dangerously predictable in its options) without strong infantry reinforcements.

In other words: It's a crappy formation design based on several very mislead trends.

The capability of the two heavy brigades under 1. Panzerdivision command (Panzerlehrbrigade 9 and Panzerbrigade 21, both of which have only about half the infantry strength) to function in mixed terrain regions is even more in doubt.

Let's compare this assessment of the formation suitability for combined arms warfare with the official brigade mission (quote from the website of the German ministry of defence, BMVg):

Kernauftrag der Brigade ist dabei die Befähigung zur Führung des Gefechts verbundener Waffen, zur Führung der eigenen Verbände sowie unterstellter nationaler und multinationaler Verbände und Einheiten im Einsatz.

(Core mission of the brigade is the ability to execute combined arms warfare, to lead the own formations as well as subordinated national and multinational formations and units in action.)

Core mission: FAILURE BY DESIGN

I used the Bundeswehr's formation designs as examples and punching bags. The remarks in this blog post are quite easily applicable to many other NATO armies as well, though!

The German Panzergrenadierbrigaden are woefully short of infantry and devoid of indirect fire support - and are thus incapable of combined arms warfare (Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen) with their organic assets alone. Whoever bears responsibility for their structure failed in the principal purpose of setting up a brigade; to create a powerful combined arms formation for independent missions on the operational level of war.

There's a huge gap between the PR spin and reality. I wonder how many of our legislators have know about this issue.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: There are still some people who pretend that Panzergrenadiere should fight mounted and are thus no infantry. That view is detached from reality and a late perversion of WW2 lessons that were meant to solve very specific problems which have long since drastically changed their shape.

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Procurement gap or inventory surplus?

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It's both amusing and fascinating to read articles and discussions about a perceived "fighter gap" or "fighter shortage" of the U.S.Navy that might leave the navy unable to fill up all its aircraft carriers with fighters in several years.

I've seen an estimated 20 texts about the topic so far - all with the same direction: The navy needs more combat aircraft.

That's a bit strange because the navy has more than just one option for matching carrier quantity and aircraft quantity:

(1) increase aircraft quantity to a match

(2) reduce carrier quantity to a match

(3) change air wing composition

(4) increase both to a match

(5) decrease both to a match

The observed discussions about the issue were all about option (1) for reasons that would likely not work anywhere else.

Have a look at this graphic of globalsecurity.org about aircraft carriers world-wide.

Option (1) isn't the most obvious one, though. I would personally rather tend towards (5) and (2) would be a sensible choice as well.

That carrier fleet isn't really about "defense", after all. It's about power projection - about "offense", especially about "offense" against poor and small countries that cannot defend themselves effectively against such attacks.

There's almost no way how one could rationally assume that the immense costs can be justified with anything else than defence or national political median preference*.

I guess the latter is what really counts.

Sven Ortmann

*: Preferences cannot be discussed in cost/effectiveness terms. Preferences are the source information for cost effectiveness considerations; they define the relative value of things.

edit for clarification: This wasn't about carriers. I was appalled by the lack of thought and writing about other options than primitive "more, more, more!". The bizarre comments of other authors about the topic even assert that there was a "gap". "Gaps" were in teh past perceived gaps between the own and potential adversary capabilities (and quite often more fiction than reality).

This time the gap discussion is both unrelated to potential adversaries and unrelated to actual defence.

The USN's inventory and orders for Super Hornets and Growlers would suffice to keep the #1 air power status for the U.S. even if there was not a single USAF or USMC combat aircraft. That doesn't even consider the fact that most of the top 20 military and air powers of the world are allied with the U.S..

The talk about a "fighter gap" is completely detached from reality, delusional!
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PAK-FA

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The guessing about the new Russian air superiority fighter PAK-FA is (at least partially) over: We know now at least how it looks. It looks like a mix of YF-23 and Su-27.

The Russians seem to follow the "heavy, high-end" fighter path (as expected). I wonder how many of these planes they could afford if their economy's manufacturing sector develops well!?

Sven Ortmann

edit: Old video was removed from Youtube, I linked another one.
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The Limes Germanicus

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The Limes Germanicus (simply known as "Limes" in Germany) was an ancient great wall of the Roman empire along its border with Germanic tribes.

It's of special interest because it's a quite unusual defensive / border security system. This line of defence was in practice incapable (and later on likely also not meant) of defeating attacks. Even the possibility of successful counterattacks on raiders before they did harm was small.

The Romans hadn't enough troops to set up a solid enough defence capable of doing that. It wouldn't have helped if they were able because they also would have had to sustain the effort for generations and the border provinces were simply not worth the effort.

They had to settle with much lower ambitions, and they've set up a border security strategy that was much, much more complex and efficient than a simple "keep out!" defence.

The strategy included four major elements:

(1) mark the border to solidify the claim on land, control it

(2) trade and ally with nearby tribes as the "carrot" part of "carrot and stick"

(3) lower the expectation value for net raid profit with border security efforts

(4) use punitive expeditions as the "stick" in "carrot and stick"

This worked quite well until the resources spent on border security diminished (archeologists learned that the garrisons were only in partial use in the late imperial phase) and the Germanic pressure reached a new level (the barbarian migration pressure re-emerged about two decades after the establishment of the border).

The limes earthworks and "walls" weren't capable of stopping many raiding party infiltrations. Their greater value was in the difficulties such a wall and ditch posed for the exfiltration (return) of said raiding party.

The border guards were at alert by the time of exfiltration, the raiders were hunted by Roman cavalry and they were in a hurry (unable to choose the best time and place for overcoming the obstacle), laden with booty and possibly even occupied with captives (new slaves).

Only really strong raiding parties had a good chance to return with livestock. Infiltration and exfiltration on horse was also difficult.

This lowered the expectation value for net raid profits (3).

The Romans had early on an "all potential foes need to be destroyed" attitude. Such a limited ambition border defence as the Limes Germanicus turned out to be was therefore a great step back towards humility and practicality.

They had to secure their long Northern border with strictly limited resources and have apparently developed a smart and effective strategy for the challenge.

The Limes Germanicus was therefore an example of a linear defence (or security concept) with low ambitions.

That strategy deserves attention today because we're at a similar position today: The continuous, uninterrupted front lines of WWI and even WW2 (in most theatres and at most times) are out of reach in modern warfare. POur combat troops strength would not suffice; the whole NATO could not man the former Eastern Front as densely with combat troops as did the Wehrmacht even as late as 1943. Most conflicts would happen in a smaller theatre than that, but also with smaller troop contingents. Talk and writing about "empty battlefields" (on the operational level of ground war!) and huge "gaps" between formations has become acceptable if not normal years ago.

No matter whether we intend to be on the operational offensive in every future war - we still needs good ideas about how to set up an effective operational defence with minimum resources as well.

Modern military theorists need to adapt to such relatively empty war zones (as known from ground wars pre-1854), and the many historical precedents are msot likely of value for that effort.

The Limes Germanicus is an interesting historical example for a static linear defence at relatively low cost.

Sven Ortmann
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The history of arms branches in Orient and Occident - redux

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Humanoid warfare began with light infantry - quite undisciplined groups armed with melee weapons.

"Soon" thereafter (likely hundred thousands of years later, but we know almost nothing about that period) missile infantry joined the fight; slingers, javeliners, bowmen and possibly blowpipe warriors.

It seems that a form of cavalry appeared next; chariots. The earliest use of chariots was in the missile cavalry role, as an elusive platform for missileers. Later on riding was invented and light cavalry began to take over that role at lower cost, better robustness and cross-country characteristics.

At about that time heavy infantry - protected by armour and disciplined in the use of battle formations - was introduced and began to dominate warfare in Greece.

The late use of chariots was apparently focused on the heavy cavalry role; shock attacks, even armed with scythes on the axles. They did finally disappear - simple rider cavalry proved superior also in the heavy (shock) cavalry role.

At this point it's interesting to have a look at ancient Hellenic warfare.

It was early on quite formalized and restricted by rules until the civilization-fracturing Peloponnesian War (the ancient equivalent to the First World War - Greece was incapable of further civilization advances afterwards!). Heavy infantry in phalanx formation moved against each other in optimal terrain (ignoring the hills around them) and the winning side did not pursuit the enemy because a won battle usually meant a won war.

That changed over time; skirmishers were introduced. Javelineers (Peltasts from Trace), Bowmen (Cretans) and slingers (from Rhodes) became more important and harassed and exhausted the enemy lines before the clash as well as contributing to a pursuit. These lightly armed skirmishers (a mix of missile and light infantry) were elusive. They were more mobile than the heavy infantry (especially as the latter kept its formation) and not threatened much by cavalry (because horses were rare in greece - only Thessaloniki had much light cavalry).

The late Hellenic army of Alexander the Great's fame was built on a holding phalanx with extra-long lances and a heavy (shock) cavalry for the decisive breakthrough charge (typically aimed at the enemy army leader). This model withered down to a defensively strong but also offensively cumbersome phalanx with little cavalry support as the Macedonian successors of Alexander were unable to afford enough cavalry.

Rome went another path; it began with a graded infantry force with little cavalry and turned towards an army built with excellent heavy infantry supported by mercenaries. That model was fine, but was again given up late in the empire in favour of a less disciplined force with a greater share of heavy cavalry. The conditions had changed over time.

The Northern (Germanic) tribes had an emphasis on light infantry which got employed in a heavy infantry (shock infantry for battle) function, with predictably little success for centuries.

This model withered away in favour of less, but better armed and trained fighters after the Western Roman Empire's end. These new armies of the feudal societies moved towards small all-heavy (shock) cavalry forces (the knight armies).

The pendulum swung back to wards heavy infantry during the 13th to 15th century with another rise of lance-armed infantry (a Swiss reinvention). A revival of the bow happened late in that period with the zenith of bowmen in Europe; the English longbowmen. The quality of their bows was quite mediocre (the Turkish bows were much, much better), but their chosen and highly skilled users managed to exploit defects of the then-dominant heavy cavalry armies.

The combination of heavy infantry with lances and missileers with strong longbows sufficed to push cavalry back into a secondary role next to infantry.

Most European wars from the 16th to 20th century were dominated by heavy infantry of some sort, with notable exceptions on the Balkans (the wars against the Turks that required much light cavalry as well as light infantry) and the huge countries of Eastern Europe (much cavalry).

Firearms (both artillery and man-portable weapons) transformed European warfare to some degree, but their breakthrough came with the bayonet revolution of the mid-17th century. The bayonet gave the musket a dual role as a ranged weapon and as a lance. Pikes and lances had initially been necessary additions to muskets/arquebus because of their repulsion value against cavalry shock attacks. At about 1660 every infantryman was to be armed with a firearm plus melee and even anti-cavalry capability.

Heavy infantry and missile infantry had merged to a new type of heavy infantry (the line infantry) and later on light infantry and missile troops merged into a new type of light infantry (rifle infantry).

The dedicated missile infantry role was kind of taken over by artillery, which added a field artillery role to its siege role by producing sufficiently mobile gun designs.

That model lasted till after the Napoleonic Wars, although heavy infantry became able to fight with less discipline in addition to disciplined formations. Social and political changes of the French Revolution and the rise of nationalism had allowed for that change.

The next revolution came with the Minié ball (which finally made muzzle-loaded rifles practical for all infantry). The Minié ball reigned just a few years until the breech-loaded rifle was finally mature and ready for general use. Both together sealed the fate of horse cavalry as important battlefield factor - both the heavy and the light one.

Heavy infantry was still used with old tactics (despite having light infantry potential as well due tot heir rifles), and the slaughter was impressive.

The First World War finally helped to press some of the light infantry mindset into the heavy infantry, which was still the dominant branch for line-of-sight combat during WW2.

Early Word War Two demonstrated the return of the heavy (shock) cavalry principle of sorts - the internal combustion engine had replaced the muscles of horses. The wealth of nations after the recovery of the late 40's and the 50's allowed for national armies that focused on this new, most powerful heavy cavalry. The result seems to have been similar to the medieval result: Small forces of very powerful heavy cavalry with a considerable train - and a weak infantry.

The remainder of the heavy infantry (infused with just a few light infantry traits) has recently been pitched against the light infantry mustered by less developed countries and was found wanting; light infantry is still pretty elusive. The ringing alarm bell was heard and it's a question of problem pressure whether the recent experiences will lead to an increased emphasis on own light infantry or not.

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Now what's the point of this redux of oriental and occidental military history?

Simple: I wanted to point out that there's more than just our present structure. Most importantly, we seem to neglect the light cavalry pattern today. The only modern equivalent are our weak and neglected armoured reconnaissance forces. The present small wars-driven interest in light infantry is unlikely to help us to regain the advantages that light cavalry has to offer.

Light cavalry showed its full potential in the ancient Parthian light cavalry that faced the infantry-centric Roman armies.

The Romans were superior in melee battles and sieges, but their problems were quite insurmountable every time they invaded Parthia. The enemy light cavalry (armed with composite bows) simply bypassed the Roman main force and attempted to cut off the supply lines. Supply convoys had to be guarded heavily. The Romans tried to use an economies of scale approach with few very large convoys, but even more than one entire legion plus mercenary troops was at times not enough to prevent the complete destruction of an essential convoy.

Now imagine that we would revolutionize our armoured reconnaissance further and turn it into light cavalry, with much greater importance and much greater capabilities than today's armoured recce. Such an approach could be a mightily powerful answer to the challenge of low force density (geography stayed the same, but forces shrunk). Opposing heavy forces would be unable to defeat the more elusive light cavalry, be cut off, threatened all the time from all directions - and would be in a terrible situation if engaged by heavy opposition with great momentum.

In fact, I've been researching into this direction for a while and the many advantages of the concept are overwhelming. The crucial question is of course whether the force density in the theater is indeed low enough to allow for infiltration and exfiltration - light cavalry needs non-linear warfare to excel in its core roles of reconnaissance, counterreconnaissance, skirmishing, raiding, escorting and coup de mains.

Sven Ortmann
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Repulsion

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Discussions about hardware often circle around specifications, tainted by aesthetic preferences and patriotism. Several psychological aspects are often missed - it doesn't need to be like that.

One psychological effect isn't about mind tricks like fear or panic, but about restricting behaviour. It's about - who could not have guessed that after reading the title? - repulsion. There's a quite robust chance that even those who've read a hundred books on military theory don't have come across that term or that idea yet. I encountered it ("abstoßend") in some post-WW2 sources which were written under the impression of the intense world war fighting.

These sources diagnosed the phenomenon and didn't analyze ir at all.

The idea isn't even outlandish; some weapons have a great value because they keep the enemy at a distance - with a chance of discouraging attacks and scouting attempts completely within their effective range. That's the (highly valuabe) influence on enemy behaviour; the range of promising enemy options (opportunities) is being reduced.

War is much more about taking many of the enemy's options off the table than it is about killing and destruction.

One example: The Allies didn't start Operation Overlord or an equivalent in 1943 because German defences were repelling enough to sweep that option off the table.

A common remark about warfare is that it's 99% boring. Yes, the repelling power of enemy capabilities is among the reasons for this.

It's a good thing to consider repulsion because it has an independent effect on the utility of hardware.

An example scenario should show this; a unit has two possible approaches for enemy attacks in its defensive sector, 2 km apart.

In the first case it's equipped with a weapon of 1.5 km range and able to cover both approaches. A specifications-based analysis shows that the unit can be happy about the range. More range = better. The enemy sees the same and concludes that he's got the choice where to execute an ordered attack, because he'll get shot at anyway.

Now the second case; the unit gets a fixed weapon with only 500 m range. It cannot cover both approaches at once and needs to settle with the defence of one approach, leaving the other one undefended. The specs-based analysis explains why the unit's leaders are unhappy, the enemy sees the gap and exploits it.

There was no repulsing effect against a determined enemy in the first case, but in the second (superficially terrible) case there was a repulsing effect; the attacker was likely kept from attacking the defended approach.

A simple tactical analysis would certainly judge the first case to be much better one for the defender, and the second case a free win for the attacker.

Well, I beg to differ.

There was no way how the "case one" unit could serve its superior HQ in any other way than with some mere attrition (and delay) of the attacker.

The "case two" unit shaped the battlefield by making the attack's route predictable. In fact, the attacker's route could almost be dictated in the second case.

That's a very valuable service for the superior HQ and it could by far outweigh the company's full firepower.

Maybe it doesn't outweigh the loss of attrition by the line units; even in that case an analysis that doesn't take repulsion into account would fall short of depicting the situation accurately.

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WW2 veterans made remarks about the repulsing power of modern infantry arms in general and also in regard to the then-new short-range anti-tank weapons. I have never ever seen similar remarks in regard to air power or artillery.

The point here is that although more range is often considered to be an advantage, it doesn't need to be one. A greater effective range can easily cause a loss of the tactically and operationally often more valuable repelling effect.

This should be taken into consideration because the effect may be very great on the levels of brigade to division command. A bunch of 2 km-ranged weapons may be able to discourage an attack (short of a major breakthrough offensive) at a particular place while a 80 km ranged weapon at 40 km distance may be unable to do the same. It would cover all relevant locations with almost the same firepower and would thus fail to repel offensive intents anywhere.

Its effect would appear on both sides of the attacker's options inequation and would thus cancel itself out.

Granted, repulsion is the tactical relative of deterrence. Yet, it's very different at the same time; deterrence is meant to prevent offensive action completely, while repulsion is a local effect that merely keeps the inevitable away from certain locations.

Repulsion is one of the most influential factors in ground, air and sea warfare, yet it doesn't seem to have gotten its proper place in military theory yet.

Sven Ortmann

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"Komplizen: Die Medien und der Terror"

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Here is a column of Stephan Ruß-Möhl about the informal alliance between terrorists and their essential effect multipliers, the journalists.

The content is quite obvious, but I like his style in pointing out the obvious that the media itself usually doesn't dare to tell (for even more obvious reasons).

The text is in German, thus recommended only for those who can comprehend German.

Sven Ortmann .

The relative value of life in war & peace

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Life has seemingly a different value in war and peace. It's highly valued in peacetime, yet in wartime lives are spent for seemingly little gain and instead of material expenses.

Here's a scenario: It's a commander's choice (the expected outcome being the same) whether to accept the loss of few infantry at a high ammunition expense or to accept the loss of much infantry at a small ammunition expense.

The normal peace-time answer would be to minimise casualties because life is being valued highly in comparison to lifeless (aqnd already paid for) ammunition.

So why is this peacetime (and cabinet war) answer not representative for great wars as well?

The economic science has an answer: Market prices depend on choices, not on some constant value. The market price is in this scenario the relative price (severity of loss) of life and material.

Ammunition is in short supply in great wars. The preferable choice is therefore to economize its use; to prevent the worst and achive the most with given material resources (high payoff uses).

The purposes with smaller payoff have an insufficient priority and don't get enough material for a material-heavy answer to their problem. Life is still more valuable than lifeless matter, but blood is the only available currency in those cases.

The scarcity of material explains why even in situations where life and material are (ner-)perfect substitutes, life needs to be expended. The material scarcity drives up the price of material (which is a lesser way of expressing the problem because at that point there's no real analogy to a market any more).

In other words: Opportunity costs are manipulating the price of material. The expense of material in one place for saving few lives would be paid for by not being able to expend the material to save many lives elsewhere. This opportunity cost is understood and drives the relative price of material up in comparison to life.

This view shows how life actually stays highly valuable, just as in peacetime; the problem is that you need to expend it because you lack the means to save it.

In the end, much more wartime bills are paid for with blood than peacetime reasoning would suggest.

Why is material typically in short supply during wars?

Material is expensive and great wars are rarely likely enough to prepare for them in excess of the societies' ability to sustain the effort in the long run.

The potential consumption of material is much greater than the potential production, especially for ammunitions. It's a bottomless hole.

Another reason is that the expectation value of lives saved in a possible wartime does simply not cut it against the "expectation value of lives saved" by other measures than piling up military hardware (such as health care, environmental protection, safety regulations...).

On top of that the individuals of the society want to enjoy the fruits of their work through consumption.

There's at least one economic science approach that could explain why the value of life relative to the value of lifeless objects seems to shift between war and peace.

Sven Ortmann
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Schwerpunkt and "center of gravity"

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Years ago I've read von Clausewitz' "On War" in the German version (cut by the publisher; apparently some chapters about 19th century regulations and such matters of little interest were omitted).

Ever since I've been irritated by the use of the term "center of gravity" (Schwerpunkt) in (American) English military theory writings. It's being used with the meaning of "critical vulnerability" instead of as "great accumulation of power for the best chance to win an important battle".

It's OK to invent a new concept, but please name it accordingly - and don't misuse an old, famous and established term for it. Most importantly, don't link your concept to a respected theorist because that's an illegitimate move that eploits that author's crediility.

Again and again I discussed these points with little effect. The new meaning of the term was long since established in English-language literature and people stubbornly kept linking it to von Clausewitz.

Well, it turned out to be a double surprise because my position was long since official doctrine - in the U.S.! The USMC acknowledged this in its FMFM-1 "Warfighting" field manual (1989):

(...) Sometimes known as the center of gravity. However, there is a danger in using this term. Introducing the term into the theory of war Clausewitz wrote (p.485): "A center of gravity is always found where the mass is concentrated the most densely. It presents the most effective target for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest blow is that struck by the center of gravity." Clearly, Clausewitz was advocating a climatic test of strength against strength "by daring all to will all" (p. 596). This approach is consistent with Clausewitz' historical perspective. But we have since come to prefer pitting strength against weakness. Applying the term to modern warfare, we must make it clear that by the enemy's center of gravity we do not mean a source of strentgh, but rather a critical vulnerability.

in a footnote that was in reference to

Therefore, we should focus our efforts against a critical enemy vulnerability. Obviously, the more critical and vulnerable, the better.

Invent a new name for it, damnit! The mis-use of that term and the wrong attribution to CvC are bad for military theory.

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The latter quote deserves a comment itself as well: It is misleading.

Military history has few eamples to offer for enemies who were defeated by a hit on their critical vulnerability. Strengths can be reduced, but they rarely whither away just because some weak spot elsewhere was hit.

One example: You can deal with near-defenceless support troops first, but at some point you'll need to deal with enemy crack combat troops.

The manoeuverist approach of dealing preferably with enemy weaknesses is therefore incomplete even if we use a tunnel vision on the offensive.

It's on the other hand of course a great idea to aim at targets with a favourable value/defensibility ratio in order to turn the almost unavoidable later conflict with enemy strengths as (favourably) unfair as possible.

Sven Ortmann

edit 2010-01-17:

There's a reason why the U.S. and the British army were able to warp the meaning of the term. Both use "unity of effort" as a stand-alone hallmark in military theory. The German military doesn't stress unity fo effort - it uses the concept of Schwerpunkt which serves an almost identical purpose. The British and Americans don't really lack a concept by skipping Schwerpunkt; they have "mass" and "unity fo effort" as substitutions for the original purpose of the Schwerpunkt concept.

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Terrorism-scared people are ridiculous ...

Yes, I'm too busy for real blog posts these days and some 90% complete texts still need polishing.