Cheap cruise missiles

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The Russo-Ukrainian War brought something to public view that wasn't obvious. Even I didn't really grasp it, despite having mentioned it years ago.

There's a huge range of targets for small, cheap cruise missiles with a rather small (~ artillery grenade size rather than aircraft bomb size) warhead. 

The embodiment of this kind of cruise missile is the Shaheed-136. 

 

Shaheed-136 (c) alexpl

Hobbyist-grade propeller propulsion and navigation.

~ 200 kg total mass

~ 50 kg warhead

2,500 km claimed range (more likely less than 2,000 km)

It's obvious that this can be improved on, but the fact that a cruise missile costing low six digits (EUR or USD) would not just be a decoy, but actually a severe threat is a huge deal. Air defences are not prepared for this, albeit there was someone arguing that our air defences should include cheap missiles to intercept munitions rather than platforms.

Most air defence missiles are more expensive than such a cruise missile. The cheaper ones could largely be avoided by flying very low on well-planned (and varying) routes.

The attacker has the advantage because it can funnel a salvo of a thousand cruise missiles through a 10 km wide corrider within minutes, while defenders with cheap missiles would need to have them spread out over a defensive belt because those cheap defence missiles will have poor range unless they are very similar to their targets (a kind of unmanned kamikaze interceptor plane). Being too similar leads to an insufficient or no speed advantage, so there's stills some advantage of the attacker. Moreover, the defender may suffer damage on critical infrastructure, military equipment or economic installations on the ground, while the attacker doesn't (save for accidents).*

Aircraft on the ground are vulnerable high value targets, but they may be moved during the hours of flight of such a drone. Infrastructure and certain industry installations are more interesting and more reliable (backup?) targets. 

There are about 300 high voltage transformer stations in the German power grid; a rich country of approx. 82 million people. Several thousand more transformer stations are in the medium and low voltage grid (source, more here and a list here). One of the largetst German cities, Hamburg, has only three major transformer stations.

The sizes of such transformer stations range from small & elegant to huge. Permanent damage is particularly easy to inflict when you can hit the control building with a warhead, such as a single 50 kg high explosive warhead. 

A handful of such transformer stations can be switched to simplistic controls or be repaired, but hundreds or thousands hit within hours or weeks would vastly exceed the short-term repair capability of the entire Western world.

The locations and network are published. Aerial photography is available (Google Maps and similar) as well and everyone can do a bit of aerial scouting with a cheap consumer drone. The damage potential of even tiny payloads such as a molotov cocktail was shown to the public when the power supply of the new Tesla factory near Berlin was cut for days with a small fire.

So basically a wave of 5,000 drones costing each less than 200,000 € (total value 1 bn € only!) would stand a near-100% chance to destroy the German economy with little chance of repair within months or even one or two years. The damage could be trillions of Euros. Quadruple that budget to a mere 4 bn € and you can switch off the European economy.

We aren't even close to having any defence against that. Most likely we couldn't even tell our own Galileo global positioning satellites to stop providing service in time.

 

The electrical grid isn't the only essential asset that could be targeted and ruines by small payload cruise missiles. The entire chemical and petrochemical industries including oil and gas pipeline pump stations, oil refineries, oil storage sites, airport kerosene tanks is extremely vulnerable.

It's an enduring mystery why the Ukrainians don't apply the main effort concept and knock out one sector - railway, power grid, gas grid or fuel supply of Western Russia. They could, but they're sending their drones out as if all they were mentally capable of was spray & pray (most likely the damned "escalation manager" scum in Washington, DC and Berlin are at fault for this).

Such cheap and light cruise missiles aren't the only kind of cruise missiles that was neglected until recently. The old V-1 would be very much viable if equipped with hobbyist-grade computer, navigation and altimeter equipment. 850 kg warhead to 250 km or 250 kg to 500 km? That's clearly feasible, and all you need for survivability is distraction, flying extremely low (accurate navigation, accurate route planning, calm weather and an accurate altimeter suffice for flying between treetops) and saturation. The price of a V-1 was about the price of a sedan car at its time (with forced labour). We could produce such missiles in a car factory by the ten thousands in a year. The supply of enough explosives would be the only actual challenge in my opinion.

250...850 kg warheads can thus be deliverd to several hundred km depth at about Mach 0.4 for very little cost. The biggest expense of an accurized treetop altitude flight V-1 would probably be the explosives, which could be plain TNT or even cheaper Amatol. A quantity production on a conveyor belt assembly line could keep the cost per missile without explosives below 15,000 € even if we install a Starlink interface, a thermal camera, good intertial navigation, radio or laser altimeter and a military grade GPS/Galileo receiver.

The cruise missiles as we know them since the 80's, but in conventional form especially by Americans bombing Muslims since 1991 are based on a nuclear cruise missile paradigm. The high cost of a nuclear warhead and the need to deter by credibility did lead to that kind of cruise missile. Some later tactical aircraft-launched cruise missiles were essentially the same with less fuel and thus less range.

To leave this high end paradigm allows for cheap small warhead good range cruise missiles and for cheap big warhead short range cruise missiles. Both could be launched in saturating attack waves of hundreds of missiles and could be built to be very resilient to electronic countermeasures.

There's no lack of important yet vulnerable targets for such missiles.

I really wonder why anyone thinks we should invest in expensive strike packages, expensive stealth bombers or pays attention to nonsense such as Oreshnik. Luxembourg could afford airpower that could bring Russia to its knees within weeks!

BTW; it takes three freighters (cost less than 300 million dollars) loaded with three billion dollars worth of such cruise missiles in Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean to crash the U.S. economy in a strategic surprise attack. The ANG could not stop enough of them. Even a shadowing USN destroyer would not be able to do much, as the rocket-assisted launches could be compressed into a minute or less.

three 2,000 km radius circles

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Here is an explanation why a belt is usually superior to point defence.

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To understand things sometimes requires appropriate training

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So he doesn't understand why, and I suppose that's because his training never equipped him to understand something like this even with benefit of hindsight. 

It's an issue in which figures and calculations are very important, and in abstract ways that are simply not taught in preparation of most professions.

 

So being a merchant mariner by heart and profession, he thinks the Suez Canal is super important. A "most important lifeline", even. That's quite some prose.

An economist isn't satisfied with such prose. An economist asks "How important?", and expects figures with currency symbols as answer. "How many $ would the average American lose by a closed Suez canal?" "What would be the reduction of U.S. GDP in short term, in long term in %?" 

And then an economist would be tempted to do at least a quick & dirty first order approximation calculation (or for the scientifically inclined, a full text search in a scientific paper database).

 

The result looked like this about a year ago:

/2023/12/the-suez-canal-issue.html

0.03% GDP or a meal at McDonald's was my answer THEN.

WITHOUT the advantage of nearly a year of hindsight.

(To be honest, I wasn't able to do a quick&dirty short term calculation and actually agreed that in short term the blockade would be "troublesome".)

Even today, he does not appear to be inclined to check his assumptions about the Suez Canal's importance. Maybe you can help him and point out the de facto blockade's effect on inflation?

source https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

(The current Red Sea Crisis began on 19 October 2023).

 

Long story short; those 99.9% of Americans who don't care according to him are correct to not care.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Anti-tank lessons from Ukraine

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It appears that drone teams greatly complemented ATGM teams and Panzerfaust/Bazooka/RPG style short range weapons in anti-tank missions in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Anti-tank mines proved essential to prevent breakthroughs through well-fortified sections of the frontline.

Military history showed that heavy weapons (anti-tank guns, assault guns, tank destroyers, tanks) destroyed by far the most tanks. Even millions of Panzerfausts didn't change that outside of the urban battlefield of Berlin. ATGMs and MBTs were expected to be the big tank killers during the Cold War and justified this expectations in 1967, 1973 and 1991. The small infantry weapons such as Panzerfaust/Bazooka/RPG were rather repelling weapons that served to keep tanks at a distance and that kept tanks from moving through closed terrain (forestry roads, streets).

Videos from Ukraine showed that sometimes tanks and IFVs fight against infantry at incredibly short distances such as 50 m. Maybe the enemies were known to be poorly equipped, but the commonly deployed poor prenetration or poor effect man-portbale anti-tank wepaons may explain this as well.

Most tank killing is done by multi-kilometre anti-tank systems such as ATGMs and FPV drones, as was to be expected. Hardly any MBT vs. MBT fights were documented, they appear to be exceedingly rare at least since the fronts became fortified. This may be different in a more mobile phase.

FPV drones have vastly more opportunities to engage enemy tanks than the in-service milspec ATGMs and tanks because they don't rely on a line of sight between user and target. We had this approach with rocket or turbojet motor missiles decades ago (EFOGM, Polyphem), few such missiles were introduced and instead the imaging infrared seeker missile approach (Javelin, Spike etc.) became the fashion that achieved the big sales.

My longtime insistence that we shouldn't trust even the best ATGMs because they're too easy to counter was rebuffed by Russians not having fielded ANY improvements over 1980's Red Army tank protections. They even lack simple things such as digital camera-based missile approach sensors and red phosphoroues (shorttime opaque in infrared spectrum) smoke munitions. In short; the Ukrianians are lucky that the Russians are so stupid.

Attack helicopters played almost no role whatsoever against tanks in this conflict.

 

This greatly questions the whole (very expensive) approach of NATO's anti-tank efforts.

We could make do with fibreoptic and thermal camera-guided FPV drones. Simply use these sub-1,000€ drones to saturate whatever defences exist against them, then engage any tank in 5-10 km radius. Such drones can safely touch down and lie in ambush for a while without losing radio commlink or requiring an airborne radio repeater. An approaching tank company could be faced by a hundred fibreoptic thermal cmaera FPV drones lying in wait at its route, having arrived there just in time.

What anti-tank weaponry does the infantry still need? Whatever portable anti-tank equipment they could have would be heavy or of little use.

It may be that the section or platoon leaders' radios deserve to be not just the main but even the only anti-tank capability in infantry platoons. So that radio link needs to be reliable and not cut by emissions control orders.

This frees up weight carried by the infantry. This in turn can be used either to lighten the burden and/or to increase the firepower against "soft" targets (which includes buildings, by the way). The ability to blast open a door (maybe even create a wall hole to crawl through) at 30 m or to badly injure an enemy in a 100 m distant room with closed window is still very desirable. Greater ranges are of little relevance and no necessity IMO.

This opinion is an advance on my previous opinion that the infantry should only carry anti-BMP weapons rather than anti-MBT weapons most of the time and be issued anti-MBT weapons rarely. The German army disbanded the anti-tank branch and left the use of ATGMs to infantry (and Panzergrenadiere, often nto be considered to be infantry).

It appears that a return of the anti-tank branches is superfluous. We should probably build up a PGM branch for up to battalion level instead.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Blog posts about American fascism (summary)

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https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2019/12/lets-open-our-eyes-to-ugly-reality-as.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2022/07/threat-country-ranking-for-germany-top.html 

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2022/08/it-security-for-real.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2024/07/free-europes-security-challenge-if.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2024/07/free-europes-security-challenge-if_8.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2024/07/free-europes-security-challenge-if_19.html

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2024/07/free-europes-security-challenge-if_29.html

The sitting POTUS is a weakling in foreign policy and too undisciplined in regard to domestic spending. His predecessor and potential successor is a lying demented moron who is a caricature of a Fascist. A village idiot on the grandest stage because of filthy rich daddy, corrupted media and an already rotten political party.

The European politicians are almost all useless, weak minded people with insular competence at getting into power. None of them prepared properly against the threat of a Fascist America that we may face very soon. I don't mean preparing for facing Russia alone; anyone who pretends that Free Europe couldn't stop Russian military might without American help is a fool. The Russians can't even defeat the Ukrainians who receive a little help. Their Soviet heritage arms and munitions stocks are almost exhausted. No, the issue is that we are not prepared to at least mitigate what harm a Fascist POTUS would want to inflict on us, much less deter any such aggression.

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Return fire on the intertubes!

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Why don't we run a society infiltrating and disintegrating campaign against the Russian government as it does to us?

We have literally a million Ukrainians in the West, hundreds of thousands of them are mothers who cannot work full-time except in the flat. 

 

They all speak Russian, understand the Russian mind, know Russian habits, know Russian history, know Russian institutions and places.

They could

(1) make corruption an omnipresent discussion topic

(2) expose hypocrisy & lies

(3) sow distrust vs. Chinese, North Korean, Iranian governments

(4) spread 'conspiracy theories' about false flags by Putin

(5) sow distrust regarding popular software

(6) sow distrust in Russian election integrity

(7) fuel minority nationalism

(8) fuel aversions against Chechens/Kadyrovites

(9) sow distrust against PMCs

(10) sow distrust in pension system

(11) share tips how to evade conscription

(12) inform about how stupid volunteering for the military is

(13) spread subversive songs, graffiti templates

(14) de-normalise crazy things of Russian society that make the people compliant subjects

(15) sow aversion against paying taxes, governmental revenue services

(16) ridicule and denigrate governmental security services personnel, the services themselves

(17) promote alcohol consumption

(18) trivialise drugs

(19) reveal how to make your own drugs

(20) promote foreign luxury goods

(21) share information about how to dodge taxation

(22) share information about how to dodge conscription

(23) share information to help criminals evade the police

(24) share information how to conduct sabotage

(25) share information how to evade surveillance

There are no elections of consequence in Russia, so aiding particular parties makes no sense. Political parties and movements are no effective message multipliers, either.

 

And if they want us to stop, they need to stop first.

BTW, I included drugs and alcohol because the Russian government is very concerned about these. Those points go beyond sabotage of society & economy, they are attempts to influence government decisionmaking favourably.

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Breakthroughs again

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The Russo-Ukrainian War is yet again a positional war without 'proper' breakthroughs and exploitations of the same. This is similar to WWI in 1915 and 1916 and the Iraq-Iran War in the 80's.

Breakthroughs would be possible with 2010's tech if enough local superiority was amassed IMO. That's what NATO would do; bomb a front sector to dust, then drive through.

Good breakthrough schemes usually unite superior local forces (/effects) a.k.a. superior mass, surprise and speed. Having two of these three factors united may suffice for a breakthrough.

I will here make the case that the Ukrainians and Russians are about to get that effective mass again and will thus SOON be able to break through well-prepared defensive lines again.

But first a word of caution; breakthrough is worth very little if not followed by an effective exploitation of the breakthrough. That was the difference between offensives in 1916-1918 and 1941-1945. 

The Ukrainian artillery munition shortage in 2022-2023 forced them to innovate with drones. They did mostly replay the air warfare innovations of 1915-1917 with small unmanned rotorcraft.

Radio jamming and interferences limited this to the level of harrassment fires, though. You cannot have a thousand drones transmit video feeds simultaneously from one km of front. The signals would interfere. Radio datalink drones cannot muster the mass required for a breakthrough.

This finally changed with the successful introduction of fibreoptic datalinks that do not interfere and cannot be jammed and seem to rarely break or be cut.

Western armies had such ddvelopments going on in the 90's and a few such missiles were introduced.

https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1832101575634133472?t=nomA2pNeUEDcreXI3fYD1g&s=19

https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1831776498526908596?t=0wepU3MZZPUqmQyanTnjUg&s=19

5,000 fibreoptic drones in action on 5 km width and up to 5 km ahead of the attack force, supported by some high vantage point observation drones and battlefield radars could enable a breakthrough even with 1980's equipment and without terribly many artillery shells.

A division of labour between drones could be

a) scouting (even below trees and into buildings, even dugouts)

b) battlefield interdiction (waiting by roadside for vehicles)

c) FPV kamikaze with light warheads

d) de-foliaging and de-netting drones with incendiary spray

d) bombers to drop heavy blast charges into dugout entrances and buildings and on mine barriers

e) fighter-interceptors to counter enemy drones (two versions; high performance and cheap)

f) mine locating drones (mostly thermal camera with magnetic detector for confirmation)

Imagine a kilometres-deep screen of such unjammable drones clearing the path with overwhelming local superiority of numbers.

The next challenge would be 'proper' exploitation.

 
S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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Elegance in procurement

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Some people who comment on military affairs develop an inadvisable fixation, such as everything should be "light, or everything should be "small" , "unmanned", "8x8". One might think that "elegance" (reducing things to essentials without luxuries) is my weakness. Maybe it is, but I have very rational reasons(,too):

Think about my lists of really essential equipment, examples of how we could reduce the variety of weapon systems in an army.

The army bureaucracies and the associated ministry of defence bureaucracies are not coping well with the current fashion of having very many different weapon systems in use, procurement, under development.  Their badly limited competence at buying things (the initial purchase and replacement purchases, spare parts purchases) could and IMO should be focused on fewer, truly important systems.

Moreover, large countries should have a look at how small countries buy stuff for their armies There are differences, and in recent years it appears that the big countries tend strongly towards having systems developed to their own specs (then often cancelled instead of introduced), while smaller ones either buy market leader equipment  versions (CV90, F-16, FN SCAR), domestic equipment (Czech Republic with Tatra, similar in Slovakia) or unusual systems such as Korean AFVs or Israeli tech.

Sometimes the smaller armies get superior kit, sometimes they get worse kit. Sometimes a procurement by a small army is so badly expensive in terms of per-copy price that it smells of corruption, other times a procurement by a large army is so badly expensive in terms of per-copy price that it smells of corruption.

It's interesting to see that small armies do not appear to make worse deals on average despite obviously more limited procurement establishments (smaller, no domestic testing infrastructure). They sure do freeride on the equipment testing and R&D of the bigger countries, but they also appear to often procure equipment more quickly and less stupidly.

Any quick repair of an army from rotten state to fitness for purpose should focus on the key equipment pieces. Everything else can stay at 1980's level or be commercial off-the-shelf. Our resources for competent procurement are too stretched by too many programs.

Standardisation is not only a theoretically costs-saving approach; it may also be a beneficial impetus towards self-discipline.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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The "keep it simple" reserve brigade of the line

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I keep coming back to a simplified infantry brigade meant for reservists and for small countries*. I'm convinced that such a force could be designed to be both valuable and low cost, so in essence extremely good value for money. The affordability would enable to have many such brigades in the alliance, taking away potential aggressors' hopes that we have the weak spot of lacking mass.

These features are essential:

• effective anti-tank capability
• effective support fires capability (against soft targets)
• effective and reliable communications
• electronic warfare for detection and selective jamming
• effective battlefield air defence (excluding anti-manned platform air defence)
• effective night vision (including thermals)
  
• low cost of equipment
• standardisation of equipment
• low training requirements for equipment use
• modest tactics repertoire
• use of many reservists**
• portable equipment consistent with employment by reservists
• battlefield taxi capability
• suitable weather protection
• sufficient supply
  

Personnel

I'm thinking of a scheme in which volunteers get hired for six months of training (four months basic infantryman training, then two months of specialisation training at individual & small unit level).
Promising candidates*** would be asked to extend for a year to become NCOs; six months NCO course plus another six months employed as NCO in a small unit leader and trainer job.
Promising candidates among the NCOs would then be asked to extend for another year to become senior NCOs or junior officers; again a six months course followed by employment in their new rank in another training rotation of six months. Those who fail in a course (should be about 20...40% would drop out of the service immediately (though if the reason was medical they could stay in service and repeat the course).

This way the militia or army could create trained enlisted men, junior and senior NCOs and junior officers (basically the ranks up to lieutenant) for the reserves without any conscription. Further volunteer training could lead to company leaders, battalion commanders and even regimental or brigade commanders. There are hardly any officers necessary above the brigade command rank (colonel), for almost all 'higher' officer positions are de facto management positions for which many experienced civilian managers with basic six months volunteer background would be more qualified.

Organisation

The organisation would be optimised for forces of the line purposes. Rapid movements against armed resistance would not be required, largely eliminating the need for armour units. Attacks over large open fields would only be done with appropriate higher echelon support.

• brigade HQ
• 2-4 infantry battalions
• combat support battalion
  
• sustainment battalion

The commanding officer would be a colonel (brigade) and the chief of staff a major. The other HQ members don't need to be officers. (These reservists would draw most of their skills, work ethic and character development from civilian life. Imagine a senior NCO in brigade staff as being a middle management guy in a huge corporation, for example!)
A signaller small unit and a MP (also guards) small unit are attached. The command post would be hidden in a building or in coniferous woodland, with radio antennas set up more than one km away from it.

The infantry battalions would have 

• a HQ platoon (all personnel & material administration in this staff)
  
• nine infantry platoons
• a forward observation & sniping platoon (in this order!)
  
• a drone platoon (observation, attack and intercept drones, ~ 5km radius)
  
• a (large) battle taxi and company supply platoon
• a signals & electronic warfare platoon
• four company command teams (captain as CO and senior NCO as company sergeant major)

The combat support battalion would feature

• howitzer fires (mostly HE and IR smoke)
• (10...20 km) observation capabilities
  
• (10...20 km) attack aerial drones
  
• (very) low level air threat detection & defence
• carrier drones with embedded radio repeater feature
• minesweeping
• major demolitions works (wall breaching is for infantry)
  
• passive electronic warfare
• military intelligence teams
• area or aimed RF jamming 

The sustainment battalion would

• receive & store supplies (mostly fuel and munitions)
• provide packaged potable water
• repair roads
• create ditch crossings
• do vehicle recovery&repair
• large-scale electrical power supply
• store&distribute batteries
• provide a secured and low observability intranet (especially chat, chat group, photo exchange, voice recording and voice call communication in the formation and via VPN with whitelisted family/partner at home) as safer mobile phone service replacement.

Equipment

Motor vehicles would play a relatively minor role, for the brigade would not manoeuvre very much. It would do road marches, move some bulk supplies around at night and it would need a battle taxi service. The road march capability could most cheaply be realised by using commandeered and quickly repainted civilian 4x4 cars and trucks. The battletaxi approach could be realised quite cheaply with

• a very low silhouette optionally manned vehicle with thin all-round (not roof) fragmentation protection armour**** and bomblet dud mine protection armour, capacity one wounded man on stretcher or equivalent volume 150 kg cargo, hemisperical coverage smoke system AND
  
• a cargo multicopter drone with good enough inertial navigation and EMP hardening to counter all soft kill threats, for the same cargo (CASEVAC only as last resort)

I stick to previous year's list regarding weapons, but with exceptions; a high speed propeller-driven 'interceptor' drone and a fibreoptic guidance FPV attack quadcopter appears to be effective, reliable and much cheaper.***** I'm also unsure about the artillery; that blog post was about a stand-alone force design, while a 'keep it simple' reserve brigade of the line could limit itself to a light howitzer and rely on higher echelon support for deeper fires.

The exact weapons and munitions choices don't matter as much as keeping them cheap, easy to master and not too burdensome on the procurement bureaucracy.

Stocks of equipment, spares and munition

The proper storage of the equipment (not just ready for war, but also for exercises) with basic amount of supplies (fuels, winter-compatible coolants&lubricants, spare parts, three days worth of munitions at the brigade depot) is of particular interest. The brigade would have to use a car & truck park that's shared between brigades for any exercises. The reserve brigades need to have simultaneous refresher trainings once in a while to prevent that the army cheats by moving equipment around for exercises instead of maintaining sufficient equipment levels. This means the training areas would be insufficient and some refresher trainings would have to happen outside of training areas.

Sensors

A rather static front-line is effective only against armed fores that are far below state of the art, such as the Russian Army. It provides security for objects and troops in the rear area and restricts the tactical repertoire of the enemy. Scouting on the ground is very much restricted.

The 'modern' (That's not the same as state of the art!) front-line as observed in Ukraine is a defence in depth. It begins with a repulsion and suppression effort; guided missiles such as GUMLRS are used to attack troops concentrations, high value targets and munition dumps at almost 100 km depth, informed by satellite reconnaissance and agents. High value target need to hide or move frequently, big munition dumps get established farther away and smaller ones are still close to the front but often hidden.

More battlefield interdiction begins about 20 km deep in hostile territory. Kamikaze drones engage troops and vehicles on sight, making movements hazardous especially in daylight when cheap visible spectrum camera-equipped drones can be used. This battlefield interdiction would be limited to about 10 km if no repeater drones and no carrier drones can be employed.

Detected high value targets and troops get shot at with artillery. The howitzer fires into marshalling areas were said to have caused more losses to Red Army troops in WW2 than the actual assaults. Furthermore, it was also said that most infantry assaults that failed actually broke down more than 400 m away from the defenders' positions. These WW2 veteran remarks cannot be fact-checked any more, but their emphasis that defenders should generously apply indirect fires already before the actual assault was likely well-justified.

The sensors that enable such fires to be effective are thus of great importance for the defensibility of a front-line. This is thus equipment that's almost certainly well worth its price.

• (tethered) observation drones for 2-10 km spotting distance
• mast-mounted battlefield radars with ability to detect vehicle movements and ID between tracked and wheeled
• portable and mast-mounted thermal and E/O camera sets for observation (including flash spotting) with very accurate direction measurement
  
• portable and mast-mounted radar for C-UAS detection, mortar locating and ground movement detection (& classification) out to 20 km
  
• passive EW for location-finding and listening (backed up by decryption)
• ability to timely download and process data from higher echelon sensors (mostly aircraft and satellites)
• microphone networks for non-line of sight detection of land vehicles and helicopters
  
• analysis of POW belongings (especially smartphones, radios, maps) with tools for military intelligence
  

There's often a wide (a km or two rather than a few hundred metres as in WWI) dead man's land (unoccupied area) between the opposing forces. This requires surveillance, including by observer-sniper teams. Sometimes UGVs are used to deploy surface-laid anti-tank mines in this no man's land.

The first actual defences are often entrenched platoon-sized pickets among anti-tank minefields. I strongly suspect that the relatively low casualty counts (relative to munitions expended compared to lethality during WW2) are mostly about the rarity of immediate unit-level counterattacks and about a very low force density (far from well-manned uninterrupted trench lines).

Tactics repertoire

The brigade would be designed for flat or hilly terrain with woodland, settlements and agricultural areas (pastures and corn fields, with light fences and drainage ditches).

Concealment and minimised long-carrying RF emissions should be prioritised over camouflage and deception. 

Field fortifications would have to be created quickly and be designed against near (20 m) hits by 152 mm HE with PD fuse. NATO/EU would not conduct much trench war, but some countries might reasonably believe that more intense preparations for using field fortifications make sense (examples South Korea, Greece). The effective concealment of such field fortification is more important than the difference between being able to withstand a direct or an indirect 152 mm HE hit.

The brigade would be capable of attacks with limited objectives. Very small such attacks (platoons raiding 2 km deep for taking prisoners) would be within its own means against entrenched opposition, while larger attacks with limited objectives against effective defences (pushing the frontline forward) would require higher echelon support.

The brigade would have to master delaying actions and elements of elastic defence as well as river line and ridgeline****** defence tactics. The weak motorisation would make delaying actions very difficult (low force density) in open terrain, though.

The attack tactics for open terrain are a problem. IFVs and APCs would be expensive and of questionable survivability. Massive employment of IR smoke and suppressive HE fires would require much outside fire support. It may sound ridiculous, but infiltration tunnels might become a thing in infantry warfare again. AFAIK nobody outside of Vietnam and Gaza used tunnels offensively recently.

I opted for a forces of the line design rather than a forces of exploitation design because the latter is much more demanding; so demanding that I somewhat doubt that a single army is truly competent and well-equipped for having forces of exploitation.

To call such a brigade an "infantry brigade" is traditional, but badly misleading. The sensors and indirect fires capabilities are too important. Infantry would be less than 50% of the personnel, for sure. I propose a different name, one that's also helpful for recruiting and for political reasons: "Defender brigade".

Last but not least: please don't misunderstand this as just another fancy forces idea; it's meant to convey several thoughts about setting priorities very differently compared to what the army establishments prefer!

related:

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-budget-brigade-for-2020.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 *: Small countries often fall for the miniature military syndrome, trying to have a sophisticated (mechanised brigade, some paratroopers) standing army, an own separate air force with supersonic combat aircraft and an own navy with frigates and submarines if there's at least a tiny strip of coastal real estate in the country. This is inefficient bollocks.
**: extremely important to keep personnel costs down - reservists proved to be competent in war again and again
***: judged by observation, good health and IQ>100 as well as no intention to pursue a career in jobs that would be exempt from wartime mobilisation
****: The Ukrainians use dune buggys that are so low silhouette that they're nearly invisible to ground threats when driving on roads. The only onboard protection against flying drones would be multispectral smoke throwers to buy time or to break a lock-on. Frag protection equivalent to no more than 2 mm RHAeq.
*****: than LMM&RALAS / Though quadcopters are much slower than the (already untypically slow) LMM rocket. This means less defences against low-flying combat aircraft, but NATO troops would hardly ever see those anyway. Moreover, the other list has RCWS with C-UAS capability; this brigade design has hardly any vehicles, so those RCWS would have to be based on some of the low silhouette vehicles and would serve as semi-stationary very short range C-UAS.
******: Keeping the advantage of using radios and sensors from high vantage points, but keeping most defenders behind the ridgeline unless the forward slope offers much concealment.    .

 

Musings on army personnel policy for very poor countries

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I wrote about an all-round gendarmerie designed to not be corrupt and to not launch any coup d'états as a replacement for a miniature military in (very) poor countries back in 2011.

Today I want to build on that foundation, especially with very fundamental musings.

 

The exposure to heavy metals such as lead and malnutrition (especially lack of iodine) negatively affects the development of a child to an adult. There's not just "stunted" growth (being much shorter and weaker), but also a much-reduced mental development. Malnutrition during childhood can easily reduce the IQ by about 15 points. There are more childhood factors that are statistically (and probably causally) linked to reduced IQ scores. Frankly expressed, the populations of some countries are mostly dumb because of such factors.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_health_on_intelligence

These countries need to make the most out of the about 10% smartest people (men) of the country to get anywhere good. This is hard because leaders are all-too often not exactly in that group.

 

Deterrence and defence are unproductive resources drains on a country. The fiscal aspect is already bad, but a brain drain to the military can be even worse. So the army must not be too prestigious and it must not be wasteful regarding the 10% highest IQ demographic.

In short: A very poor country needs an army model that's cheap and can make do with almost exclusively dumb individuals. The latter requirement should only be eased once the malnutrition, environmental factors and primary education woes have been largely solved and a new generation of bright individuals becomes available.

 

So the organisation should be able to work with few officers. The demands on non-commissioned officer competencies should be modest. The bulk of troops who would go to war should NOT be active duty troops (so their productivity benefits the country in peacetime and the fiscal stress is reduced). The doctrine should be kept simple and the way it's taught should be paced and designed to work with dumb troops. The equipment should be easy to master. Most wartime motor vehicles should be commandeered.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Real social democrats

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Imagine the developed world well before the 1970's: blue collar workers' children would become blue collar workers, children of academics would become white collar employees. There was little social mobility. The result was that there were great many highly intelligent workers and craftsmen.

This was the pool from which workers' parties could draw their politicians, their organisers. The result was that we had several generations of very intelligent politicians in workers' parties who actually had a strong socio-economic links to workers.

Such worker parties were effective at improving social mobility and schooling, and thus a later generation of blue collar workers' children were able to realise their potential at school and become academics.

What about the worker parties? Just as their politicians, they had ever less socio-economic links to workers. Some devolved into grifting and self-service organisations that abused power to hand out well-paying jobs to their most loyal politicians. Networking became ever more important, and leading politicians were able to build & maintain networks by handing out such well-paying jobs in administrations, government-owned companies, social insurances, in stock company advisory boards and last but not least - the EU.

What about their policies? They became ever less workers-centric, but keep in mind what kind of people joins a workers party rather than a conservative party in the first place: People with at least  a bit idealism. People who sympathise with the underdogs. People who sympathise with minorities.

Thus the (former) workers' parties fell into the trap of representing underdogs, minorities a lot. They allowed to be attached to minority opinions, unpopular opinions. They were caught preferring the well-being of foreigners over the well-being of workers.

And thus we have no real social democrats in Germany any more, no party that convinces the vast majority of workers that it's working hard in their interest.

What we have are parties focused on scapegoats, stirring aversions and being 100% 24/7 365 days a year utterly, completely worthless and doing nothing of any value that would actually make life of a worker's family any better. They do lick Putin's boots, though. In fact, our biggest such party is actively working for the benefit of the rich and high income earners. The workers don't notice, though. They don't have any high intelligence co-workers any more who would point that out, high IQ has been selected away from blue collar jobs.

There's sociological research that shows that a neighbourhood collapses socioeconomically (and culturally) when the share of people who 'made it' drops below 4%. There are not enough role models left, the neighbourhood turns into a poverty ghetto. A third to a half of Germany is emulating that. 

That's not about the foreigners intruding the society, it's about internal threads that were torn.

Germany BADLY needs a new, a REAL social-democratic party!

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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Outlaw support for wars of aggression!

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The German constitution outlaws warmongering and requires that it shall be punished (article 26). The respective laws are §80(a) in the criminal code and §13 in the Code of crimes against international law.

It's obvious what's missing by now: We need to illegalise

• support for ongoing war of aggression
• support for the country that commits a war of aggression (including any kind of trading)
  
• as well as HARSHLY punish (which in Germany means 15 years prison time) those who take money from a country that's waging a war of aggression or from their agents/intermediaries
  

The burden of proof needs to be set to an achievable level.

The punishment for individuals should be set to "lebenslänglich" (de facto 15 years), explicitly with no chance of parole. The punishment for corporations should be set to an extremely painful level (such as equivalent to profits of past 10 years or 50% of last year's turnover or average yearly turnover during last 10 years - whatever is the highest), preferably to be paid by seizing all profits, voiding all top and involved managers' bonuses and 'golden parachutes' and limiting manager pay until the punitive payment has been completed. The corporate punishment should also apply to political parties if their politician commits the offence in office (revenue instead of turnover then).

To support a war of aggression such as the Russian one against Ukraine or the American-British aggression against Iraq or the American aggression against Panama or the American aggression against Grenada or the Iraqi aggression against Iran should become UNTHINKABLE, well outside the political, business and even pub talk repertoire. A total no-go area. Even such a thing as Schröder's support to the American aggression against Iraq behind the scenes would send people to jail.

And most importantly; the politically NOT independent federal top prosecutor must be prohibited from seizing the indictments (to then let them fail). We should even bypass the ordinary state attorneys; people form outside the legal system ought to be able to launch an indictment against warmongers and their supporters!

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Infantry section design considerations

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Fantasy force designs are almost a hobby to some people with interest in military affairs. I did very largely resist this albeit I did a couple to bring some points across.Today I'll do another one, at the very basic level: The Infantry section (squad).

I will mention some factors that influence this small unit designing first.

1. Vehicle capacity. Infantry fighting vehicle: Dismount elements in mechanised infantry/Panzergrenadiere have to fit into their battlefield transport vehicles, often seven dismounts. Car size: A commandeered 4x4 car would usually fit no more than four men, albeit five would be possible if they store their kit in the trunk (=low readiness) or if it's considered tolerable for one to sit in the open trunk.
   
2. Buddy principle: Two infantrymen form a buddy team, watching each other, supporting each other psychologically, cross-loading (especially in two-men machinegun teams or anti-tank teams),  leapfrog alternatingly and much more. Furthermore, section leaders have a reduced workload when they only have to deal with buddy teams instead of individuals. Buddy teams may cut the need for intrasquad radios (and their battery supply) by half.
   
3. Fireteam/Trupp: The concept of a three to four men group smaller than a section; as scouting or manoeuvre element. Quasi-permanent fireteams have usually a heterogeneous armament.
   
4. Firepower categories
• aimed single shots,
• bursts (=machinegun or "automatic rifle" job) for suppressive effect, into suspected target locating behind concealment or against fleeting targets (important: ability to sustain bursts despite need to reload or deal with hot barrel)
  
• high explosive projection (throwing range or longer, includes some anti-tank capability
  
5. Ability to continue mission after taking a casualty or more (depends on behaviour; section of six may be incapacitated and obsessed with casualty evacuation after taking one leg shot, but the not injured men might also just continue the mission, with grey zone in between). Rule of thumb would be that you need two men to evacuate one severely wounded man.
6. Platoon-like ambitions: The huge U.S. Marines infantry squads are more like small platoons.
7. Ease of leadership Big sections are difficult to lead; command span at higher levels is often limited to three or four.
   
8. Ability to exploit microterrain: Big sections have difficulty to find enough concealment/stay undetected long enough. More men = more opportunities to make mistakes that endanger the whole section. Scouting detachments are 2-3 men for this reason.
   
9. Ability to keep functioning if not all nominal members of the section are available for a mission. Sections are commonly reduced in size by lack of replacements, soldiers being away, injuries, sickness and many more reasons. Units should probably have supernumerarii (excess personnel) to cope with this, but one might also expect that a section remains capable with less than nominal head count.
10. Head count demands for certain basic capability missions such as 24 hrs picket duty.
11. Considerations of 24/7 360° security effort (difficult to pull off with a strength of two heads, for example).
12. Ability to carry extra stuff, especially mission-specific add-on stuff that's not basic equipment (an example being heavy anti-MBT weapons).
    

So here's a section design that could fit:

5-7 men headcount: 1 section leader + 2 buddy teams (2 grenadiers + 2 automatic riflemen, variable: mixed buddy teams or homogenous buddy teams) + optional buddy team (2 riflemen)

1. Vehicle size: Would fit into IFVs (albeit I could not care less about that)
   
2. Buddy principle: In use except for the section leader (unless the section is at even headcount).
3. Fireteam is not used, although a badly weakened section could end up at fireteam strength.
   
4. Firepower categories: Two aimed shot&HE projection members plus two burst firepower projection members in core team of five, optional buddy team usually adds more single shot firepower and especially more carrying capacity (more munitions for bursts and HE). Burst fire alternates between the two automatic riflemen.
   
5. Ability to continue missions after taking a casualty: Buddy of the buddy team is default carer for a wounded member. Drag to safety, carry to treatment with a combat medic (not section member).
6. Platoon-like ambitions: That's what platoons are for.
7. Ease of leadership: Buddy principle used to reduce the span of command of the section leader to three. 
8. Ability to exploit microterrain: Seven is more able to do so than eight or more, obviously.
   
9. Ability to keep functioning: Section of seven can make do with five (an ability that is a product of doctrine, equipment & training).
10. Head count demands for basic capability missions: Five suffices usually.
    
11. Considerations of security effort: Five suffices.
12. Ability to carry extra stuff: Whole optional buddy team available as porters, for their basic equipment is minimised.
    

What's "unusual" in this section design? It takes self-discipline to plan for two riflemen without much basic equipment load (other than rifle/carbine and its munitions). 'Normal' force design would not have that at all.

Weaknesses of this section design:

• There's no wizardry, so you cannot have huge firepower such as two medium/universal machineguns plus multi-shot automatic grenade launcher plus section commando mortar plus anti-MBT weapon in such a small section. I understand many people would prefer to replace one automatic riflemen with a real machinegunner. That's doable by temporarily allotting an actual machinegun if the headcount is at least six (else it's IMO too much weight unless it's about trench defence). It would even be possible to use two temporarily allotted machineguns in trench defence (because trench defence is least sensitive to heavy burdens).
• No strongly penetrating & long distance accurate 'designated marksman rifle'. Automatic rifle/assault rifle/carbine use the same magazines and munition. The addition of a different calibre would cause headaches. The use of a powerful calibre by the whole squad means excessive weight = less agile = less survivable outside of trench fights
  
• The "grenadiers" would be the ones assaulting a building with demolition charges and hand grenades or lead a trench-clearing action, thus getting more typically close with the enemy than the automatic riflemen. Getting close means sights should be optimal for close up, not optimised for long distances. The automatic riflemen would have their weapons shot hot (and thus inaccurate) often, so cannot really deliver accurate single shots at long (in this case 200+ m) distances. The section leader must not reduce himself to tunnel vision. So who is going to be red dot sight user (optimal for short distances), who is going to be magnifying sight user (tunnel vision if more than 1.5x, optimal for long distances*)?
  

 

The inspiration to go for 5-7 was actually a book on Panzergrenadiere in WW2, in which the author recalled that the nominally larger sections quickly shrank to 5-7 members and then remained at that strength for quite a while.Sections larger than seven would be too difficult to lead, experienced section leaders would even leave men behind rather than going into battle with a bigger section than seven.**

So next time you see a section design discussion (such as about whether a new combat transport vehicle should have seating for seven or eight dismounts), you have (I presume) a couple more ways to judge the opinions brought forward.

related:

youtube.com/watch?v=2s_rowtboNI&list=PLwb1pjLd3hpLpFiEUJiSL4F7Q295HxoQ7

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Magnifying sights are also very helpful for identification purposes, but identifying hostiles or friendlies would be the section leader's job. He has the binoculas that the sectionneeds for picket duty and calling in fire support anyway. The section leader controls the section firepower and has a lot of demanding special tasks like this one.

**: I never saw this claim corroborated elsewhere, though. Source "Die Panzergrenadiere" F.M. von Senger und Etterlin, J.F: Lehmans Verlag, 1961, page 102

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