.
I could be so proud of the blogging since 2007 - so much has been confirmed by the Russo-Ukrainian War.
- importance of small drones
- importance of defences against small drones
- importance of small unit electronic warfare / jamming
- Russia as main threat in Europe, small wars of occupation as stupid distraction
- unimportance of surface navies in European waters
- importance of port security
- importance of airbase security against missiles and drones
- importance of quantity of artillery munitions
- questionable effectiveness of anti-radar missiles in DEAD (destruction enemy air defences) role
- waging air war with missiles instead of strike packages
- low value of attack helicopters in face of air defences and fighters with look down radars
- importance of sub zero temperature readiness (though I focused more on electronics than boots)
- importance of having much infantry
- importance of artillery
- lethality of dumb HE shells on AFVs
- importance of readiness for conventional warfare in Europe
- judgement that Russia isn't terribly powerful conventionally (and we did thus overspend, while having a huge efficiency problem)
- importance of area air defences
- the non-usability of nuclear munitions
- the utter, devastating mental incapability of Western politicians to think about and execute a strategy that deserves to be called a strategy
- great importance of fragmentation protection, small importance of bullet protection (in body armour)
- dismissing 8x8 offroad combat/assault capabilities
- dismissing the 'frontal APFSDS duel' dogma in Western MBT design
- dismissing IFVs as being a combination of insufficient survivability and giving too few dismount seats for the buck
- importance of camouflage
- CAS unlikely to be commonplace in large conventional warfare
(The links are examples.)
I did also some things wrong, but I wrote about that before, and repeatedly so.
Great that you reflect on what you get right and wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf only UK MoD/Army had read your pages it wouldn't have wasted £1.4B of taxpayers money on a useless knockoff of Israel's Hermes 450 drone!
ReplyDeleteWe had a milblogger in Germany who sadly died of diabetes-related issues (he wasn't even fat or very old).
DeleteThat guy wrote a looong series of critical blog posts on the equivalent German drone procurement saga.
He knew that the people in the German MoD read and shared his blog posts, it changed absolutely nothing.
It's a "Heron" drone, it may have been useful in Afghanistan, but since then near-useless (maybe usable for SAR over sea).
Of course you were right about everything. Not only about the R-U war, but also in games. Right now I'm playing this RTT called WARNO that's set in Fulda Gap gone hot in 1989. Here are the lessons:
ReplyDeleteIFVs are junk. There are Marders, Bradleys, etc in the game. Just like APC and LUV you can drop off infantry at buildings and forests. But then what? You can't fight infantry armed with LAW. You can't fight planes with the slow RoF and low ammo autocannon. You can't fight tanks when their HEAT-FS reaches you before your TOW/HOT/MILAN leaves the tube. Combining fighting and carrying was a terrible idea. I'd rather have common chassis HAPC, SPAAG and MBT.
Helicopters are expensive and useless. They frequently fall prey to HMG, AC and MANPADS. At least planes can outrange SPAAG and outrun MANPADS. Only AD SAM (Buk, Tor, etc) can touch them.
Artillery is too latent. There are mortars, howitzers and MRLS in the game. They can't hit moving targets on the offensive. Only counter-battery works, to protect your defensive from enemy batteries.