Navies and trade

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Long-time readers may remember I'm a bit of a sceptic regarding naval power. In part because ship-killing can be done by land-based aircraft, in part because small navies historically simply didn't accomplish their missions. Warfare at sea was kind of a winner-takes-it-all thing, so a small navy was all-too often a waste of resources. Think of the utterly useless Polish, Danish and Dutch navies in WW2, for example.

 

Big (dominant) navies justify their existence (and budget) in large part with the claim that they protect maritime trade (and wartime transportation). I blogged about that in ancient times myself.

I see three distinct ways how a navy would do that:

1) Break a close blockade. No modern cruisers would enact a close blockade on ports. That fell out of fashion with the late 19th century torpedo. Close blockade by luring submarines or by offensive minelaying is a thing, but to counter this doesn't require warships. Boats, drones, helicopters, seabed sensor stations and defensive mines would suffice.

2) Break a 'blue water' distant blockade. This is mostly about escorts for convoys and I blogged a lot about it. 

3) Force open straits.

 

#1 is possible without a proper navy, but hardly any country is well-prepared to do it. None is efficiently prepared to do it. 

#2 is something that absolutely no navy is prepared to do at large scale. No navy - not even USN or PLAN - has enough escorts for this, especially not in addition to securing the own coastal waters. The Western allies built hundreds of oceangoing escorts in WW2 to counter the German submarine threat.* NATO lost the necessary numbers of escorts sometime around 1970 when the late WW2 destroyers that were retained and modernised to counter hundreds of Soviet fast diesel-electric submarines were decommissioned or rendered inoperable. Ever since, the counter to Soviet submarines was a cordoning them, especially in the 'GIUK gap', Baltic sea, English Channel and Bosphorus. The USN admitted it wouldn't even be able to provide escorts for its own strategic sealift ships (which as so fast that a proper ASW escort would be near-impossible anyway due to fuel consumption fo destroyers at that speed and the speed limit of towed variable depth sonars).

#3 is something that really only the USN had a credible claim to be able to do against a well-armed opposition. We learned that for all practical purposes, even they can neither do it against Iranians nor against the Houthis.

 

So it's about time we understand three things:

• Most navies are too small to accomplish wartime missions and are not credible in peacetime. They're a waste of resources.
• 'Blue water' maritime trade cannot be secured against well-armed opposition prepared to disrupt it unless we create giant escort navies. 
• The USN is a horribly overbudgeted land attack force and not much else.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

*: examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyer_escorts_of_the_United_States_Navy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower-class_corvette

 
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Suddenly so much love for cruise missiles

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Suddenly lots of people talk about Europe needing cruise missiles to deter Russians.

Let's look at what this implies.

• It certainly implies that deep strike is important (and has deterrence value).
• It also implies that Europeans without the U.S. don't have enough deep strike capability.
• It also implies to add those cruise missiles remedies that deep strike capability deficit.

This is not wholly nonsense, but there's a really, really big 4th implication:

• It implies that these people understand there's another way of doing strategic air war (or specifically deep strikes) than the American way of (strategic air) war.

That's something I've been trying to convey, for I saw very little awareness for this. 

 

To build a very expensive, very big air force with lots of specialised aircraft for a doctrine that requires very intricately-synchronised strike packages is not the only way how you can blow up an oil refinery 1,000 km deep in the enemy's rear area.

You can also simply send a missile that he doesn't intercept (maybe because he only intercepts the other missiles in the air at the same time or maybe because it's too difficult to intercept or maybe you launched when he's not ready to defend).

I'm waiting for more such insight breakthroughs by establishment types. Maybe they'll at some point recognise that our focus on the standing army is ill-advised compared to a focus on wartime strength (reserves!)? Maybe they'll understand that ships are targets and submarines can hardly sink anything that you cannot sink by land-based aircraft? Maybe they'll understand that generals, admirals and experts are very often in disagreement, which proves that they're not always correct? Maybe they might recognise that Russia is not about to invade NATO simply because mobilised Russia is badly outnumbered by a demobilised NATO minus Americans and the Russian armed forces are crap level forces comparable to Iraq 1990 at most?

 

related:

/2009/11/tacair-of-future.html 

/2010/07/first-week-of-peer-vs-peer-air-war.html 

/2016/01/air-force-strike-packages-and-peer-wars.html

/2018/03/luftwaffe-f-35-or-typhoon-for-airground.html 

/2024/05/reviewing-my-theses-on-air-power-in.html 

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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A general purpose frigate for small powers

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I wrote a blog post series about navy escorts in 2018 that IMO stood up to the test of time. Its conclusion/recommendation in the end is a tad radical and importantly, something that naval bureaucracies won't like and some of them cannot afford. So I thought maybe I should revisit the topic and have a look at a frigate concept. Bear in mind I'm no specialised navy buff, but also bear in mind that so far all specialised navy buffs I discussed against failed to counter my arguments with arguments and resorted to logical fallacies instead.

 

Let's start with assumptions: A class of 4 ships for a small navy, serving primarily as oceanic escorts and secondarily as maritime blockade enforcers.

So overall size and mobility would be close to an improved Mogami class frigate. 

Japanese Mogami frigate, full load 5,500 tons

 

ASW (also see /2018/01/modern-warships-ii-asw.html) 

A  towed active/passive low frequency active sonar system (let's say CAPTAS-4) serves as main search sensor against submarines.

The sonar will detect many contacts, many of them false. All contacts close to the route of the ship/convoy will require investigation, while more distant ones require investigation only if they appear to move. Maps of known wrecks and seabed rocks don't help much, for submarines could still lie in ambush right next to them. (Some routes may be protected against this by deploying anti-submarine mines close to wrecks.)

The investigation of a contact can be done by a cheap (not gold plated*) helicopter or by a drone (with better range than possible with today's batteries alone). The minimum is two helicopters if you don't prefer drones, else one helicopter. 

Both helo or drone could tow a magnetic anomaly detector in an attempt to pin down the exact location of the contact, but they could drop a miniature torpedo at the location ordered by the frigate even without a MAD confirmation. This torpedo would barely be dangerous enough to a submarine to provoke a detectable reaction. A miniature torpedo that fails to explode on the contact returns to the surface, floats and may be recovered, returned and its batteries recharged. The same could be done with small miniature torpedo/drone with side-looking sonar in the same format, but without warhead.

The helicopter and drone may also drop (and recover) active sonobuoys and serve as a radio relay for the communication between sonobuoys and frigate. No ASW computing or ASW decision-making onboard the helo.

A confirmed threat submarine contact on the other hand leads to a salvo of three anti-submarine missiles with each one lightweight torpedo as payload (minimum 10 in VLS) and evasive movement by the convoy. An accurate triangular impact pattern creates a no-escape zone for the attacked submarine and allows for a little inaccuracy of the detection. Coastal ASW could include the use of land-based anti-submarine missiles.

Survivability against torpedo attack would mostly be pursued via the usual means, possibly including miniature torpedoes for interception of heavyweight torpedoes (hard kill). The sonar would be very loud and the frigate has to escort loud and fast transport ships, so very costly measures for being very silent at low speeds are not justifiable.

To not use a hull-mounted ASW sonar may prove limiting in shallow waters, but those would be coastal waters and should usually be secured by other forces.

AAW: (also see /2018/02/modern-warships-iii-aaw.html)

A rotating inclined 3D AESA multifunction radar as the main sensor, datalink, two gimballed optronics sensor sets, passive detection and direction-finding of radar emissions are a good basic sensor suite. A smaller and cheaper rotating inclined 3D AESA multifunction radar (~Giraffe 1X) should serve as backup radar. I argue against expensive long range air search radars (American-style) because their range is even worse than that of a smaller rotating 3D radar's against seaskimming threats (bigger radar = mounted lower for better metacentric height). Distant high altitude threats can be detected by airborne radar (AEW) as well, which we need to improve detection distance against seaskimmers anyway. The main 3D AESA radar does need to be able to look up about 85° and does need to be able to detect incoming ballistic missiles, though.

An aerial drone may serve as a detection range extension against the seaskimmer threat, either free-flying or tethered (even towed). One should not expect much performance from the lightweight sensor suite and power supply of an affordable vertical landing drone design, though. 

The longest-ranged air defence missile should be a VLS-launched SM-6 equivalent, present in small quantity (~8) more as a deterrent and anti-ship missile than for actual destruction of many aircraft or missiles.

Next, lock-on-after-launch area air defence missiles capable of both defending against platforms launching glide bombs (far, high, onboard countermeasures and capable of running at Mach 1+) or seaskimmer rockets (the classic Super Étendard+Exocet combo and some supersonic anti-ship rockets would have the launching aircraft below 200 ft altitude, subsonic and briefly at less than 30 nm distance) and against seaskimmer missiles with turbfan (range well over 50 nm) is needed. This would preferably be a quad-packed (in VLS) equivalent to ESSM Block II; possibly IRIS-T SLX or CAMM MR. Minimum 20 missiles.

Third, a cheaper version of that missile for line of sight employment only with a cheap semi-active radar seeker (target illumination by the multifunction radar) equivalent to ESSM Block I would be advisable, but this is unnecessary if the previously mentioned LOAL missile uses a cheap-enough seeker (IRIS-T SLX?). Another minimum 20 missiles.

Finally, despite the stellar record of RIM-116 against test and training targets I prefer two 76 mm guns as close-in weapon systems for versatility and munition cost reasons. The forward gun should have much more ready munition than the usual 76 mm gun mount (rather ~200 than ~80) to be able to fight of saturation attacks of cheap cruise missiles ("drones").

Drones with DRFM active radar decoy tech (~3DDS, towed drones) as well as chaff and multispectral smoke should protect not only the frigate, but in containerised solutions also the protected transport ships (remote-controlled by the escorting frigates). The combination of radar and optronics for sensors and IR and radar countermeasures permits to deploy radar countermeasures against radar-using threats while shooting them with optronics-based fire control for guns and lock-on-after-launch missiles and deploying infrared countermeasures against IR-using threats while shooting them with radar-based fire control for guns and any missiles. The combination of both sensors and uncertainty would lead to either relying on datalink for LOAL missile employment or maintaining a line of sight for the shipboard optronics sensors. Dual sensor threats can be countered with multispectral smoke and chaff combined only once the hard kill munitions ran out. The frigate is an escort and has to protect other ships, not just survive itself.

BMD (also see /2018/02/modern-warships-vi-other-topics.html)

A BMD hard kill requirement leads to multi-billion-Euro cruiser-sized ships and their interceptor missiles (you'd probably use 3 per incoming missile!) are terribly expensive. It's very difficult to withstand saturation attacks due to the quantity, size and cost of interceptor missiles needed. Overall, hard kill BMD does not seem justifiable to me, especially for small budget navies.

Thus I propose to rely on soft kill for all aeroballistic/quasiballistic/hypersonic missile threats that cannot satisfactorily be defended against with the normal hard kill air defences.** Timely detection by the already mentioned rotating 3D AESA radar and warning via datalink and use of the aforementioned soft kill (decoy, multispectral smoke, chaff) capabilities against the threat from above are needed. Radar-detectable wake and waves should be reduced by becoming very slow, turning enough and finally stopping in time for the very brief period of the attack. One might also deploy chaff and offboard radar jammers to interfere with wake and wave detection by ballistic missiles.

BMDs have degraded sensing due to their high speed, they have extremely little time for sensing and they have (unlike seaskimmers) no chance to search a new target if they flew through a chaff cloud mistaken for the target. Soft kill has a good track record against non-ballistic anti-ship missiles, it's even more promising against ballistic ones. I would not trust onboard radar jamming due to the issue of home-on-jam guidance.

ASuW (also see /2018/02/modern-warships-iv-asuw.html)

The main ship killers in a war shouldn't be frigates, for ship killing should be the job of land-based air power and possibly submarines. The exception would be boats showing up in coastal waters and auxiliary cruiser commerce raiders on high seas.

The longest-range SAMs (SM-6 class) and the guns would have some utility against ship targets, but additional ship attack missiles make sense.

A 127 mm gun could substitute for the forward 76 mm gun for more ASuW capability at the expense of more weight. 

Land attack would be a secondary ability, but low priority for an escort. Eight NSMs should easily fit the bill regarding ASuW and land attack and could be deployed from their usual non-VLS launchers. 

Mine countermeasures (also see /2018/02/modern-warships-vi-other-topics.html) 

Naval mines are not much of a threat on the high seas and coastal naval mine threats should be handled by coastal forces. A hull-mounted mine avoidance sonar and divers suffice for the frigate (you need the divers anyway), especially if it has the side-looking sonar drone for the submarine contact confirmation, for it would also be a minehunting drone. Minehunting beyond self-protection should be done with containerised land-based assets that can be mounted on a(n escorted) container ship as well.

 

You may have counted and come up with a minimum of 28 VLS + 8 NSM launchers. I consider 16 Mk 41 VLS as insufficient. You need more firepower to justify the expenses of a modern warship. 32 Mk 41 VLS is fine for a frigate IMO. The shortcut of avoiding the 10 VLS for anti-submarine missiles leads to a dependence on helicopters for ASW, which may not come close to being survivable enough. Additional VLS may be located on escorted ships in containerised launchers, under control by frigates via datalink. 

 

I say a small power that cannot resist having a miniature navy of conventional warships should go for four general purpose frigates of about 6,000 tons at full load. Containerized minehunting, exogeneous AEW, land-based airpower, availability of submarines (or at least underwater drones) for ASW sparring, land-based replenishment and much else would be required in addition to the frigates. To only buy frigates without affording all else that it takes for them to be effective would be a waste of public funds.

I am opposed to buying 1+ billion Euro warships and strongly opposed to buying the excessively expensive hard kill BMD tech.

Likewise, I am strongly opposed to corvettes that are lacking in AAW and ASW, focusing on ASuW (which is best done by platforms other than ships). Corvettes are a waste of money.***

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

edit: Kusha M3 might be the SM-6 equivalent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Kusha

https://idrw.org/kusha-m3-variant-drdos-400km-hypersonic-interceptor-slenderizes-at-1673-kg-outpacing-russian-rival-in-compact-design/

edit 28 April '26: Some additions for clarity in the AAW part.

 

*: Not a true ASW helicopter as we've seen them for decades, for these are horribly expensive and not survivable enough against possible use of air defences by submarines. Think of a MD500 equipped for finding/identifying/boarding ships in day and night (radar, flir, ropes, winch), capable of towing a MAD, carrying a 100 kg torpedo/drone and six ~16 kg sonobuoys. Beartrap, inflatable floats and at least partially folding rotor for naval use.

**: Very short ranged anti-ship ballistic missiles are rather similar to diving supersonic anti-ship missiles and could be defended against with the nomral area air defence SAMs if their developers paid a little attention to this scenario.

***: See also /2018/11/fixed-and-variable-costs.html and /2014/02/corvettes-and-air-defence.html

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Troublemaker countries categorized

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The terms "rogue state" and a while ago "axis of evil" were used to categorize countries with some kind of supposedly evil policies. There's no consensus on whether these categorizations make sense, for they appear to be biased to say the least. The "axis of evil" looked more like an enemies list, for example.

 

I'm not a fan of the term "rogue state", regardless whether it fits my opinion or not

 

I created a different categorization, akin to the hurricane scale with I being mild trouble and V being catastrophic (at least in the region). Every entry will have the reasons mentioned. I will only consider troubles caused during the past 25 years, which just barely excludes the Kosovo Air War from consideration. An extension to including this conflict would upgrade Germany to category I, for example.

This list is the work of one man with limited resources and bound to be incomplete.

 

Category 0 complicit actors / dishonourable mentions:

Germany is supplying arms to and effectively subsidising Israel. It provides bases (mostly Ramstein) for U.S. aggressions (esp. Iraq 2003) and subsidises the U.S. by funding said bases and construction efforts on them. 

Poland marginally supported the war of aggression against Iraq and to my knowledge never showed remorse or intent to improve in this regard. 

Denmark bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted.* 

Norway bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted.*  

Italy bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted.* 

Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain are providing bases for the U.S. war of aggression against Iran. Saudi-Arabia and the UAE are fuelling foreign civil wars (Sudan, Yemen). (Their direct intervention in the Yemen Civil War was likely permitted by the Yemeni national government.)

Belarus allowed the Russian federation to wage a war of aggression against Ukraine through its territory.

Category I troublemakers:

Iran feels encircled, beleaguered and seeks foreign allies, which it finds and produces itself by arming Shia (majority religion of Iran) minority groups (who are local or regional majorities) abroad. These, in turn, engage in warfare (mostly civil wars) with terrible consequences. Iran lightly attacked Saudi-Arabia and in response to U.S. aggression a U.S. military base in Qatar** in 2025 with drones/cruise missiles. It struck at Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE in retaliation for attacks by the U.S. in 2026 that supposedly happened with support of and partially originated from these countries (in case of Kuwait there's no doubt about this origin).

Pakistan harrasses India via insurgent/terrorist proxies.

 

Category II troublemakers:

Rwanda is destabilizing Congo because of issues going back the the Rwandan genocide in the 1990's. It even invaded Congo in 2022 and it still has troops in Congo without permission.

Turkey is illegally occupying Northern Cyprus and has done so for decades. It bombed and invaded Iraq and Syria, mostly (but in case of Syria not only) to harm Kurdish non-government groups rather than their national governments (this may have been permitted by the natioal government behind the scenes).

Morocco illegally occupies Western Sahara since its independence.

 

Category III troublemakers:

The UK waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq without evidence of having learnt from it to abstain from such aggressions. It bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted. It attacked targets in Syria 2026 (possibly with consent by the Syrian government).

France illegally bombed Syria (2018). It bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted. It attacked targets in Syria 2026 (possibly with consent by the Syrian government).

North Korea harrasses South Korea with infiltrator attacks and a couple years ago a sinking of a warship. There's no peace treaty between both countries after the Korea War, but that's no excuse for North Korea considering that North Korea was the aggressor in that war. North Korea supports the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine with military goods exports and directly with a substantial military force (albeit the latter apparently so far only on recognized Russian territory).

 

Category IV troublemaker:

The PRC is illegally occupying Tibet and is aggressive in border conflicts with India. Its preparations to militarily enforce its territorial claim on the de facto independent Republic of China (Taiwan) via invasion is a major threat to world peace. It is supplying Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Is is violating the maritime sovereignty of the Philippines in the South China Sea and similarly disrespecting the sovereignty of Vietnam and Malaysia.

 

Category V troublemakers:

Russia waged wars of aggression against Georgia and Ukraine. It maintains illegal de facto occupations of parts of Moldova and Georgia. Russia violated the sovereignty of NATO countries by territorial aerial incursions, murders and sabotage in many cases.

The U.S. waged wars of aggression against Iraq and Iran. It illegally attacked Venezuela. Attacks on Syria, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen were conducted, albeit it's unclear, whether a legitimate national government consented to this. It bombed Libya in excess of what the UN permitted. The U.S. openly disrespects the sovereignty of its allies Canada and Denmark as well Cuba's.

Israel waged illegal wars of aggression against Lebanon and Iran. it is in violation of a multitude of UN resolutions. It illegally occupies territory of Palestina, Syria and Lebanon, practicing colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid there. It committed genocide in Gaza and very likely is repeating it now in Lebanon. It's stealing water and destroys agriculture, which deprives neighbouring populations of their ability to feed themselves. It's stealing offshore fish from Palestina.

 

Noticeably, only nuclear powers are present in categories III, IV and V!

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Low confidence because I did not deeply research this. 

**: There's good reason to believe that this was a racket, a farce, fake attack with toleration by both the government of Qatar and of the U.S..

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On the issue of IFV and APC costs

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"Kraftfahrzeuge und Panzer" 1st Ed. by Werner Oswald (1970) has a nice list of the approximate prices of AFVs as of end-60's. I appreciate it as a look back at the price ratios of a time before electronics bloated the prices of AFVs.

M-113 (tracked APC, 11 dismounts, machinegun ): 250k DM 

HS 30 (tracked IFV, 5-6 dismounts, 20 mm gun): 350k DM

Marder (tracked IFV, 7-8 dismounts, 20 mm gun OWS): 800k DM

Leopard (MBT, 105 mm gun): 1,000k DM

 

Marder protection upgrade over M-113 and HS 30 was mostly resistance to 14.5 mm API, which was later cheaply realised for Israeli M-113 with add-on armour. The Leopard's protection (maximum 70 mm steel) was barely enough to protect against a T-34/85 and T-44, unsatisfactory even against a T-54. 

The only substantial electronics in these vehicles were a radio and an intra-crew communication system. The Leopard had a gyrocompass and main gun stabilisation. HS30 and M-113 had petrol instead of diesel engines at that time, but a diesel wouldn't have changed the price much.

Electronics got MUCH more expensive starting in the 1980's when thermal imagers (sometimes for gunner AND commander) and laser rangefinders were introduced in quantity. That is, except for APCs, which didn't need those because they had no weapon to "justify" the expense. Many IFVs (IIRC beginning with some Bradley upgrade in early 90's?) even receive full main gun stabilisation (Warrior being a notable Western exception).

So the cost multiplier between having a bullet-proofed and fragment-proofed box driving off-road with a strong infantry section and a full-blown IFV combat vehicle with a small infantry section systemically increased.

The ability to provide high offroad mobility with protection to great many infantrymen thus vanished. Nowadays you may spend more than a million Euros per dismount seat if you stick with the IFV concept.

 

In this light I'm hoping for good success of the Trackx, a new tracked APC project by Patria - a company known for having the most affordable yet good 6x6 APCs  among Western countries.

 

It's more of a MT-LB successor than a M-113 successor, but it would be most promising with a mass-produced C-UAS RCWS (low price due to economies of scale, with machinegun).

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Hegseth and tunnel vision

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I noticed some not fully idiotic people on Twitter are praising Hegseth. 

That seems ludicrous considering the overt stupidity and incompetence among other things, but bear with me - there's a reason.

 

Consider this: The status quo is a set of compromises. These compromises have upsides and downsides. Many (maybe all) of these compromises are suboptimal. 

Now imagine you're a zealot regarding a single issue or a handful of issues. You're vehemently opposed to the downsides of certain compromises and you may actually be correct about that, too. Being a zealot, you apply a tunnel vision. The things you care the most about get weighted like 95%, all else 5% - at least until something terrible happens to you or people whom you love. 

Then there's Hegseth acting as wrecking ball against decency and integrity,  wrecking some of those compromises without replacing them with better compromises.

The tunnel vision guy that you are notices that Hegseth wrecked compromises that caused downsides that you zealously hate and campaigned against. You apply the issue weighing of 95% and suddenly Hegseth looks like the saviour to you.

 

Meanwhile, people who pay attention at a more wide angle easily see that Hegseth is worse than even the warmonger Rumsfeld, who deservedly burns in hell right now.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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About optimizing and scale

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There's a curious thing happening when I do thought experiments, trying to optimise things to the best of my knowledge, processing ability (and preferences):

Answers ends up being very concise, clear and elegant when I look at the macro level.

Answers often end up very detailed and non-standardised when I look at the micro level.

This is for the same problem, such as "What should have been done about German anti-tank challenges by early 1942?".

I noticed this pattern repeatedly. 

- - - - -

This leads to a mystery: Which set of answers is actually the better one?

The micro set could be better because it's taking into account details

The macro set could be better because it's taking into account the big picture. 

- - - - -

I do suspect that armed bureaucracies mostly apply the micro approach because top leadership rarely forces elegant, decisive decisions that fit the macro answer pattern. They delegate and lots of subordinates ponder about micro level problems, coming up with many detailed answers.

 

IMO we could look at macro level to devise answers, then take the micro level into account to see whether the answers are feasible. To look at the micro level for more options leads away from standardisation, elegance, simplicity and in the end - it (likely) leads away from efficiency. 

 

This might be part of the answer to why armed bureaucracies fail to standardise vehicles, munitions and even training properly. It may thus in turn be part of the answer why armed bureaucracies have such very high costs.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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A look back: My theses as of 2014

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I had a summary of Defence & Freedom (my) theses back in (and up to) 2014:

/2014/05/blog-defence-and-freedom-theses.html 

Let's use that to see how good or bad that list looks today.

 

2007 looks fine to me, save for the fortifications thing. Field fortifications wouldn't work against Westerners, but Russians are incapable enough that they work against them.

2008 I suppose opinions vary about the counter-piracy thing. 

2009 I suppose my take on IFVs is still an outlier, despite the failures of BMPs in Ukraine. 

2010 looks fine. 

2011 The low force density thing is very debatable in light of how the Russo-Ukraine War went down, though I was rather thinking of a different scenario.

2012 The remarks on deconfliction, navies, army aviation and air force combat aviation are still outlier opinions. 

2013 I know the opinion on submarines is still an outlier. 

2014 They actually began getting ACV six years later, albeit I'll say those are underwhelming.

 

So 57 theses, only three of them were kinda (though not clearly) refuted by events and six are still very much outlier opinions (even though somewhat supported by events, but events did not change majority opinions).

 

I actually expected the list to have fared worse.

Maybe I should write a bit about the many "I told you so" theses. 

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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American-Clausewitzian thought falls short on the strategy level

 

So, here's the issue that makes American-Clausewitzian thought rather useless for strategy:

They write about winning a war 1vs1 or coalition vs. coalition and do not properly account for escalation.

Suppose somebody would design a Clausewitzian campaign against Russia. I've just today seen an article by a prolific article writer who wrote a lot of nonsense about that. Still, going with the American-Clausewitzian nonsense that Americans write and think of Schwerpunkt as the one thing you need to knock out to win (that's not really what Clausewitz wrote about):

You would go for either Putin or the fuel industry (which Ukraine did, but not enough for decisive effect, at least not decisive so far). 

Why would this not be done in a decisive way in the year 2026?

Fear of escalation. 

You had to fear adding more enemies in previous wars, such as Germany adding the U.S. as enemy in 1917 by conducting unrestricted submarine war against the UK*.

In 2026, you fear escalation by Russian nukes instead.

So in order to dare to press that "I win" button, you need to first overcome the fear of escalation. You might position your own nukes to deter first nuke use by the enemy, you might kidnap the enemy leader's only daughter, you might position lots of potential allies who would join the fray if powers join your enemy or you might simply have 'big balls' (something that sounds more like Sun Tzu than von Clausewitz).

There are "I win" buttons, military history and military technology leave hardly any doubt about that. You first need to make them usable, relevant - or else all talk about them is pointless blathering by people who only fool themselves and a few others into thinking they're big military thinkers.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

*: compounded by a huge British hatemongering campaign in American press that still leaves its mark more than 100 years later with the "huns" thing and the myth about Germans having been unusually militaristic 

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Simple WW2 infantry regiment arms

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I keep looking at historical army equipment and it's fascinating how simple the equipment even of an entire infantry regiment can be.

  

An example from WW2:

All an infantry regiment really needed (if I break it down to minimum required quantity of arms types) was:

• rifle
• submachinegun
• universal machinegun
• recoilless gun
• mortar

This can be further reduced with an automatic closed bolt action such as StG 45 had (a late WW2 prototype weapon, but not out of reach technology-wise by early WW2):

• battle rifle
• universal machinegun
• recoilless gun
• mortar

 

(c) 

Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Wehrtechnischen Studiensammlung Koblenz e. V.

Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Wehrtechnischen Studiensammlung Koblenz e. V.

 

(c) Pollyanna1919

source https://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt07/recoilless.html

 

source https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1414802

  

(Keep in mind mines, demolition charges, rifle grenades and hand grenades count as munitions rather than weapons. Flare guns were a tool rather than a weapon outside of German armed forces. Pistols were not a serious weapon post-1871 and irrelevant by WW2.)

 

Moreover, recoilless gun and mortar could be had in one calibre (90...120 mm smoothbore), sharing some fuze and grenade designs and not needing any expensive rifled barrels. A 105...120 mm smoothbore recoilless gun would excel at using shaped charges for anti-tank work out to about 500 m distance (moving target, 1 km against standing tank). A rifled one would instead be able to penetrate 100+ mm of RHA with a HESH/HEP approach.

 

The whole arsenal of such a force could have been produced in backyard workshops save for the supply of unfinished steel parts including barrels. (Again, munitions excluded, but TNT, mercury fulminate and cordite are enough and all simple 19th century tech.) No extraordinary skill was needed, one fully qualified gunsmith, one metalworks machining instructor and maybe one welder would have sufficed to train the entire workforce via snowball system. The only extraordinary production tech was the then-new stamping (particularly for the StG45 - modern machinery, but usable by unskilled labour). 

    

The most difficult equipment to produce for such an infantry regiment were probably the radios with their rechargeable batteries. The typewriters were quite complicated, too. And then there were the motor vehicles, but those were still optional during WW2.

 

You may think something is missing - air defence. Actually, effective air defence (better than ordinary machineguns) was hardly ever present in WW2 infantry regiments. A well-rounded one could have had something like the Madsen 20 mm M/38 for keeping ground attack aircraft at 1.5 km distance and dealing with nimble armoured cars, of course.

 

BTW, historical WW2 infantry regiment arsenals weren't that much more complicated. Again excluding pistols and flare guns, about seven weapons types was an ordinary diversity of arms types. 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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