Nonsensical German army structure

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I'll deliver a critique of the nonsensical German army structure. It's the same bollocks as we've had for a long time, they just evolve bollocks. The German army ceased to be serious about conventional warfare sometime in the early 90's and the nonsensical army structure that would have been impossible with the 1960's, 1970's crop of generals is a symptom of this non-seriousness.

I did this before

/2008/12/todays-10-panzerdivision-bundeswehr.html

/2015/10/critique-of-german-army-brigades.html

 

I'll use the easily accessed and easily readable structure graphic from Wikipedia.

(c) Noclador see here

 

I partially checked on the Bundeswehr website whether the Wikipedia graphic is correct and as a result didn't find the Panzerbrigade 45 as part of the 10. Panzerdivision. This brigade was formally founded only days ago, so I suppose the official website is simply out of date. Another deviation is that Panzerbrigade is and always was one word, while Wikipedia calls it "Panzer Brigade", same with Panzerdivision and some battalion names.

Sigh. Let's begin, from the left.

 

1. Panzerdivision, three brigades. two to four brigades is OK for a division. An issue is Panzerbrigade 21 that doesn't fit qualitatively, later more about that. There's no divisional logistics formation.

Panzerlehrbrigade 9. A "Lehr-" formation is traditionally for testing, demonstration and training in addition to being an actual combat formation. That's a German thing. So basically, let's treat it as a Panzerbrigade and ignore the "lehr" part for the purpose of this blog post. Two tank battalions, two mechanised infantry / Panzergrenadier battalions.That's a lot, especially a lot of tanks (nominally) for a brigade. A Panzerbrigade should have a 2:1 ratio between tank battalions and (mechanised) infantry battalions. A 1:1 or 2:2 ratio suits a Panzergrenadierbrigade, but admittedly, the difference should not just be a difference of balance, but also of attitudes and tactical principles (Panzerbrigade being more dashing, while a Panzergrenadierbrigade rather moves from one solid standing to the next solid standing). Here's the big problem with this brigade: It has no artillery and no mortars. It's not a combined arms formation. There is a divisional artillery battalion, but that's no excuse. There's no engineer battalion. The Panzerlehrbrigade 9's structure is simply wrong.

Panzerbrigade 21. It isn't. There's no tank battalion, not even a mechanised infantry battalion. An armoured engineer battalion is the only trace of a mechanised kind of brigade - exactly the battalion that the Panzerlehrbrigade 9 misses! There are three Jägerbataillons (kinda motorised infantry battalions; wheeled APCs, so not really light infantry) in this brigade. So why the heck is it called a Panzerbrigade? It's a Jägerbrigade or Infanteriebrigade! Well, at least it has an artillery battalion (the artillery systems are AFVs, as we have no non-AFV artillery). So this kind of brigade doesn't necessarily belong into a Panzerdivision, but I understand a case could be made for it. A bad, but for defensive missions workable brigade design.

Panzergrenadierbrigade 41. No tank battalion and no artillery battalion, but three (!!!) mechanised infantry battalions. Now we see that the one divisional artillery battalion (a mixed self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launcher battalion IIRC) is not really enough for the two brigades that lack artillery, even if the divisional commander did assign it. The Panzergrenadierbrigade 41's structure is simply wrong.

 

10. Panzerdivision. Five brigades including the 13th Light brigade (Dutch), too many IMO. 

Panzerbrigade 12. Three tank battalions (one of which with a nonsensical 'mountain' designation, but it does use Leopard 2), two mechanised infantry battalions, artillery battalion, engineer battalion. Main criticism: It's way too big, unwieldy. This is more like two brigades in one. That's borderline acceptable for a Panzergrenadierbrigade, but a Panzerbrigade should be agile, and this one is agile only if it separates into at least two parts, for which there's no command and support structure present. A brigade commander should not lead more than four line of sight combat battalions (span of command). Also, this oversizing conceals that there's not enough artillery. There should be two artillery battalions for five line of sight combat battalions. The Panzerbrigade 12's structure is simply wrong.

Panzergrenadierbrigade 37. Four (!!!) mechanised infantry battalions, one tank battalion, one artillery battalion, one engineer battalion. Again too big. The Panzergrenadierbrigade 37's structure is wrong because it has at least one line of sight combat battalion too many, but I understand that some people would argue that today's staff sizes, signals equipment, battle management systems would permit a command span of five.

Panzerbrigade 45, the one to be based in Lithuania. Let's ignore this one, it's being raised. The structure as shown is acceptable, main criticism is the unusually weak (only a company) engineer support and the infantry weakness considering how much woodland is in Lithuania. I generally reject multinational formations (the brigade integrates a NATO multinational composite battalion) and I dislike it being stationed in Lithuania. For one, I reject the concept of tripwire forces and second, being stationed abroad badly hikes the personnel costs due to extra pay.

Franco-German Brigade, a mixed French-German brigade loaded with much symbolic value. As mentioned, I reject the concept of multinational brigades. That being said, it's a kind of infantry brigade and the mix of battalions is OK. 

 

Rapid forces division / Division Schnelle Kräfte. This is basically the Col War cheat of the 12th division promised to NATO being a cheap airborne division, but the current crop of leadership at the MoD probably bought into their own propaganda. A para brigade, a mountain infantry brigade, a special forces command (size-wise a big battalion) and the helicopter forces (extremely shitty due to gold-plated yet extremely bad helicopter designs). A Dutch airmobile brigade actually belongs to this division as well. Marginal support formations.

Luftlandebrigade 1 (paras). Two para regiments, no artillery. The official website does not mention independent engineer and recon companies unlike Wikipedia. Main criticism: Airborne is bollocks, see Hostomel. Secondary criticism; no artillery is bollocks, too. This brigade is crap in conventional warfare. Most likely the brigade would (it certainly should) be reduced to an administrative staff, with the two regiments attached to 1. Panzerdivision and 10. Panzerdivision as divisional light infantry formations for woodland and settlement areas, requiring non-organic artillery support.

Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23 (mountain infantry bde). Three mountain infantry battalions, no artillery (Germany doesn't use pack howitzers anymore). The Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23's structure is simply wrong for lack of artillery.

 

Heimatschutzdivision with six Heimatschutzregimentern; this is basically an object security division, not meant for conventional warfare, but rather for guarding locations against sabotage and so on. It's also supporting allied forces in Germany or passing through Germany.  wrong, but this is due to lack of maintaining suitable artillery.

General remark: I didn't comment on the recon battalions so far. German recon is really more observation by now. Actual recon should be at higher echelon. 

All brigades are lacking proper air defence. There's simply no equipment for that in the German army, so it's not a brigade or division design issue, but a long term force development issue.

I understand that shortages of material, shortages of (having maintained) suitable training infrastructure for tank crews in certain areas, restrictions regarding where usable barracks are have influences the brigade layouts. Still, these on average appallingly bad brigade designs are damning for MoD leadership. Most importantly, these brigade designs show that there's no real concept of land warfare behind them.

 

We could have

• three agile tank brigades (tank bde + mech inf bn + arty bn)
• four all-round mechanised infantry brigades (tank bn + 2 mech inf bn + arty bn)
• two infantry brigades (3 infantry bn)
• three light infantry brigades (3 light infantry bn without APCs) 

All these would lack would be additional artillery for the latter five brigades (at 2...4.5 M € per howitzer and minimum 18 howitzers per brigade this would have been affordable; less than 1 billion € including periphery). There would be a clear repertoire portfolio and thus role set for each of these four brigade types. Instead, we have nine brigades, six fo them without proper doctrine / ill-fitted to doctrine.

I believe this continued (I kept complaining since 2008 !!!) failure to set up a sensible army structure is not tolerable, not excusable, not forgivable. The German citizens gave the German armed forces much money during this time. Much of it was wasted on bollocks. Relatively small changes in big ticket procurement would have sufficed to enable a MUCH more sensible army structure, as I laid out above. Instead, we get one abomination after another. The German public doesn't wake up to this, but in my opinion the presumption of competence in favour of the ministry of defence and the top leadership of the army has to be thrown out. Competent people don't produce such abominations. I understand there are restrictions, but those restrictions are not an excuse after 17 years. Every single minister of defence in this period was crap, their ministry bureaucracy was crap, the army heads were crap. The distraction by the idiotic Afghanistan missions are no excuse either. We've left Afghanistan almost four years ago. That's plenty time to reorient an army towards conventional warfare IF COMPETENTS ARE IN CHARGE ! They had enough money, but they are too incompetent to use it well. This is but the structure; personnel system, equipment issues, maintenance issues, training issues abound as well.

related:

/2022/04/an-army-corps-for-germany-revised.html

/2023/04/a-compact-and-agile-exploitation-brigade.html

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Two paths to Fascism / A permanent challenge for societies IV

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I think I figured out why people have such a hard time to believe that the current American government is Fascist.

There are two paths to fascism. 

One entails forming an ideology based on certain roots, jingoism, it includes building up organisations, rewriting/reinterpreting national mythology and history. The mythically inflated nation becomes supreme to the individual. It's an effort of thousands of people.

The other path is to simply be an ignorant piece of shit who doesn't give a shit about the well-being of fellow citizens. This path is just fine for ignoramuses, including those who fell for propaganda lies that amoral yet intelligent people devised decades earlier. This path leads to Fascists who don't proclaim to be Fascists, and make minimal use of Fascist-y visual elements. Basically, this is Fascism as the natural destination of moronic sociopaths.

The challenge is probably not so much to be alert and push back against the beginnings of formal Fascism. The challenge for the society is rather to keep dangerous idiots away from extraordinary power.

 

But I repeat myself.

/2009/07/permanent-challenge-for-societies.html

/2012/09/a-permanent-challenge-for-societies-ii.html

/2013/08/a-permanent-challenge-for-societies-iii_5.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Canada's deterrence & defence

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Irony of history. There were some voices obsessing about the Arctic and calling for more Canadian military preparations to counter the oh-so fearsome Russians in the Arctic region; icebreakers, infantry with snow vehicles and whatnot.

Now it becomes obvious that the actual threat to Canada's sovereignty isn't coming from the North; it's coming from the South - icebreakers and fancy snow special forces won't make a difference.

Canadian deterrence & defence isn't about navy, air force or armoured vehicles any more. It's about occupation-proofing themselves  by becoming an armed nation.*

Being allied with Europe won't help Canada much if the Fascists in Washington, D.C. Mar-A-Lago get too greedy for land. It's simply not credible deterrence, for Europe cannot defend Canada against the U.S. given the logistical issues and requirement for troops to face Russia in parallel.

So I offer four advices for Canada

1. Avoid angering the Fascists too much, particularly don't suddenly shut down the electricity exports.
2. Arm yourself with training, equipment, weapons and munitions that would make an occupation impractical and bloody even with a million occupation troops, and let the American public know about it. Conscription for three to six months training is warranted under the current circumstances in my opinion, much longer conscription service for personnel qualified to train the recruits.
3. Build up a conventional deterrent, such as the ability to launch ten thousand cheap cruise missiles within an hour to destroy thousands of fragile power grid and (petro-)chemical industry targets up to 1,500 km deep in Fascist America.
4. Ward against subversion. Shut out American media, prohibit immigration and travel from Fascist America, minimise the quantity of Fascist American diplomats to a skeleton crew in Ottawa, cut all intelligence and security cooperation including ejecting all American military personnel (even embassy marines), shut down NORAD.

Canada: Stop wasting money on toying with a miniature balanced military. Almost none of it has any relevance to Canadian security.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 *: The Americans have the myth that a nation armed with light weapons such as assault rifles is a nation that cannot be occupied. The current crop of American  politicians is stupid enough to believe such propaganda, and so will be the loyalty-over-competence crop of new generals that get installed in commands to coup-proof the Fascist regime. 

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An URGENT to do list for free Europe

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I hate having been correct so much with my Cassandra warnings about Americans turning Fascist and against Europe. I hate having been correct with my warnings that small wars are bollocks and alliance defence & deterrence are getting too much neglected inf ace of Russian aggressiveness.

I erred on the side of caution and overestimated Russian military and military-technological prowess (which still pointing out that they weren't as strong as they pretend and are widely believed to be).

 

So here's a list of things we need to URGENTLY do now, exploiting that the mainstream finally woke up to 'security policy' being something deserving attention:

 

1. Harden ourselves against American economic sabotage through Microsoft, Cisco and the likes
2. Harden ourselves against other American economic sabotage such as cutting us off from SWIFT backoffice financial services.
3. Quickly create an alternative to Starlink and an alternative to SpaceX's reusable rockets for low satellite lift costs. 
   
4. Kick Russian & American intelligence and most "diplomats" out, especially stop tolerating them snooping on our telecoms. This includes closing the "Russian House"s.
5. Stop relying on NATO, for it's compromised by Americans, Hungarians, Slovakians and possibly Turks
6. Stop relying on the EU for security policy because it's compromised and blocked by Hungary and Slovakia.
   
7. Establish a new alliance that's designed to neutralise 5th column (Americans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Turks and whoever might turn to the dark side) sabotage & betrayals. 
8. Improve nuclear deterrence based on the French arsenal (though American BMD is turning this into an elevated challenge).
9. Establish conventional deterrence against the Americans (vs. American threats of naval blockade, naval air attacks and missile attacks)
10. Kick American troops out of Europe.
11. Effectively counter propaganda networks (Transatlantiker in Germany, Putin's stooges, European unification ideologues, Murdoch media, TikTok, Twitter) in order to create freedom of political action.
12. Understand that most European nation states are capable of great efforts, not impotent.
13. Reorient our armed forces to focus 99% on deterrence & alliance defence.
14. Force our armed services to become more efficient (liberally fire generals & admirals), including breaking the 'miniature balanced forces' bollocks. The armed forces shall not be permitted to follow self-interest; they exist to serve!
15. This includes focusing on mobilised strength, not peacetime active duty personnel strength & structure. 
16. Stop relying on the arms industry. Create arms & munitions production capacity outside of the sluggish established arms makers, just as we did to nowadays unfathomable success in both world wars. The artillery munition production efforts so far are scandalously inept compared to 1915ff and 1939ff.
17. Understand that Putin's regime has to lose its war of aggression beyond reasonable doubt (no efforts to help them saving face!) and support Ukraine accordingly, including direct intervention. Start by telling the Russians that they have already lost now that we decided so and enact a naval blockade as a first step.
18. Get ready for a new Cold War, this time against Russia and the U.S.. This goes beyond the pure defensive on the European continents and its peripheral seas.
19. Stay out of East Asian great power games.
20. Seek India as defensive ally to add mass and economic potential to the bloc, but be wary of them turning full (Hindu-)Fascist, for we might find ourselves in need of allying with the PRC in the worst case scenario!
21. Establish a "Stay out of Europe" doctrine vs. the Chinese AND the Americans and enforce it

Please note I did not pretend that huge military spending increases are necessary or in any way central to free Europe's successful deterrence & defence!

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Air-to-air missile categories

(I advise to first read this blog post. You'll later see why.)

Air-to-air missiles have commonly been grouped in short, medium and long range missiles. Short range was and is dominated by passive infrared seekers, medium range was dominated by semi-active radar seekers until AMRAAM (active radar seeker), which also blurred the distinction between medium and long range with its D version. Long range missiles have radar guidance (infrared seeker windows would be blinded by heating up much during long flights).

I believe that such categories are by now of little use. I propose a different system:

• Pursuit missiles
• Counter-Pursuit missiles
• Close-In missiles
• Low cost missiles

 

Pursuit missiles have the speed, range and seeker to reach hostile tactical combat aircraft even if they try to avoid the hit by running. Their no-escape zone is great. It happens that they also threaten and thus push back hostile support aircraft (AEW, ESM, ElInt, tanker, MPA, air/ground radar planes).

Examples are Meteor, PL-21, AIM-260 and AIM-174B

Their drawbacks are heavy weight, big size and very high costs.

Counter-pursuit missiles lack a no-escape zone large enough to force a kill. They can kill if the target is unaware, but not if it's aware enough to avoid the no-escape zone and running in time.

Examples are AIM-120, MICA RF and R-77-1

They can easily be carried by strike fighters and their cost is usually in the 1...2 million € range. This category started out as a replacement for the Sparrow/R-27 medium range air-to-air missile category and was the main weapon of fighters for about two decades, but the similar ranges mean that it's difficult to get an enemy fighter into the own no escape zone without getting into his missile's no escape zone. Tail-mounted radars and handing over the missile to another fighter to be able to give midcourse corrections by radio datalink to the missile while flying away from the threat help little if both sides use it. State of the art medium range missile air combat without decisive range (no escape zone size) advantage would likely end up as a Cannonade of Valmy; an expenditure of munition with little physical effect.

So the use for these  missiles in high end air war is likely mostly in a counter-pursuit role - it's defensive.

Close-in missiles were "dogfight"and relatively cheap missiles in the past. Their infrared seekers have become smarter, wider field of view, more sensitive, capable of 'seeing' an aircraft from any angle and capable of lock-on-after-launch. You can now shoot such a missile at a fighter behind your aircraft and hit.

R-73 fired at target behind launching fighter

I do strongly suppose that their primary mission should shift from dogfight shot vs. a platform to hard kill defence versus an incoming missile. Fuse and warhead need to be designed accordingly. They may also be usable as short-time freeflying decoy if equipped properly.

These missiles need to (and short range air-to-air missiles do) cost much less than a million €, but I think so far the short-ranged missiles are still primarily designed to hit platforms. Thrust vectoring permits to minimise fins and rudders, so these missiles could be packed in compact multiple missile launchers.

 

Low cost missiles have recently been introduced to fight cheap drones over the Red Sea and Ukraine. So far they are unguided 70 mm Hydra rockets with a cheap guidance and steering nose section. Some fighters have 30 mm guns (example Rafale) and can make use of the new 30 mm HE munitions with proximity fuse to battle cheap drones, so they would not need a low cost missile for the job.

- - - - -

How do 'stealth' fighters fit in this? They may be very difficult targets for any kind of missile. IR-guided missiles might be main killers in a stealth fighter vs. stealth fighter combat. Or maybe stealth fighters avoid hostile peer ground to avoid detection by hostile long wavelength radars (which usually require big antennas and are thus not installed in fighters). They might end up as 'fleet in being', deterring deep incursions and serving as launch platforms for pursuit missiles (if those fit into missile bays). The Su-57 was meant to be a stealthy-enough fighter with DIRCM (dazzling laser that targets infrared seekers). This might prove to be much more formidable IF THE DIRCM WORKS than the interested public gives credit to the concept. Stealth-DIRCM vs. stealth-DIRCM might require a spam of missiles with seekers that have spectral filters to block out the laser - three missiles with three different filter setups would defeat a Su-57 even if the latter used two different laser wavelengths in its lasers. Then the killing blow missiles would be "pursuit missiles", but their required range would be driven by the demand for a no-escape zone as great as the own platform's (fighter's) effective sensor range against the opposing fighter.

 

I think these missile categories make more sense than the traditional ones. My categories guide attention towards the diminished lethality of AMRAAM et al when both sides have such missiles, guide attention towards the hard kill defence concept and towards the issue of defeating super cheap drones (/cruise missiles) with even less expensive munitions.

 

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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Appropriate demands for peace talks in the RUS-UKR war

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I've seen some stupid takes on what Russia and Ukraine should negotiate about. So let's write about that.

 

Appropriate points for negotiations are:

(1) Russian armed forces withdraw from Ukraine's territory (as of 2013) within 7 days

(2) Russia recognises the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine (as of 2013)

(3) Russia hands over all minefield maps regarding the Ukrainian territory

(4) All persons who UKR considers to be POW in Russian hands have to be repatriated within 14 days.

(5) All UKR-identified abducted children have to be repatriated within 14 days of UKR demanding it (could be years later) 

(6) Russia has to pay reparations equal to UKR loss of GDP relative to trend path PLUS Ukrainian increases of military spending during invasion 2014 - date of peace treaty relative to 2013 military budget PLUS 200 billion € (for damage done)

(7) Russia has to withdraw all armed personnel from Moldova (Transnistria)

Further appropriate (though not necessary) points for negotiations are:

(8) Destruction of the Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers save for a handful thoroughly demilitarised museum pieces

(9) Demilitarisation of the Russian oblast bordering on Ukraine

(10) Russia recognising the sovereignty and internationally recognised borders of all other CIS countries

(11) Payment of reparations through transfer of seized Russian assets abroad, in USD/EUR/JPY/CHF in annual (inflation correcting) rates for the next 30 years, ten years of steady natural gas deliveries in yearly amount of Ukraine's consumption in 2013 valued at the price it paid for Russian gas in 2013 (no inflation correction)

(12) Russia accepts that the treaty about Russian use of Sevastopol for its navy is voided

(13) Russia  recognises the Holodomor genocide committed by the Soviet government (capital Moscow) against the Ukrainian people 

(14) Russia permits all ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars to move to Ukraine including their wealth

(15) Russia accepts repatriation of all voluntary Russian passport holders in Ukraine

Nice to have:

(16) Demilitarisation of Kaliningrad Oblast

(17) Ban on Russian warships in the Black Sea

(18) Russian withdrawal of armed Personnel from Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia) 

(19) Russia returns all captured heavy equipment to Ukraine (to avoid war propaganda shows)

(20) Russia is banned from having airborne ground forces

(21) Russia is banned from having surface target missiles of 100...5.000 km range for 25 years

(22) Russia reimburses the foreign countries who assisted Ukraine for their deliveries to Ukraine (not for domestic capacity building)

(23) Russia reimburses the foreign countries who had expenses for war refugees due to this war 

(24) Russia joins the cluster ban convention (destruction of all covered cluster munitions within 6 months) and permits international inspections to verify its compliance with it

 

Ukrainian bargaining chips are:

(1) occupied Kursk Oblast territory (though it's of symbolic size)

(2) whether, when and which sanctions of Russia end

(3) when Russian POWs will be released

(4) continuing attacks to collapse the Russian economy (especially attacks on and sabotage of oil refineries)

(5) threat of advance on the ground

(6) threat of commerce raiding Russian maritime commerce with auxiliary cruisers with European help

 

Acceptable locations for the negotiations: Switzerland, Ukraine

 

War losers don't gain territory or  reparations.

Aggressors should not be rewarded with territory or reparations.

The Russian Federation is both aggressor and (soon) loser in this war.

Framing the conversation matters. It's irresponsible to let Russians or American idiots frame the discussion on how a peace settlement should look like.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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The stay out of Europe doctrine

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The Americans created the "Monroe Doctrine", basically the ambition to keep European powers out of messing in the Americas. They weren't able to enforce it until they were. It's a rare example of clear-cut grand strategy, and it kinda worked for a very long time.

Anyone who thinks clearly about the security of free Europe and uses the publicly available (and certainly not very far off) data understands that the Russians aren't able to challenge free Europe in war, certainly not after squandering the Soviet legacy equipment and millions of artillery shells and rockets. The only really troublesome conventional warfare threat to free Europe (understanding that the Fascist Americans are more likely adversaries than allies, but would certainly not engage in much continental land warfare in Europe) is a combination of Russia AND China.

A proper grand strategy for the security of free Europe in the Eastern direction thus has to deter China from coming to Europe with any substantial land forces.

It should be understood that we need to establish and maintain a taboo, similar to how the Monroe doctrine eventually started to keep Europeans from pursuing ambitions in the Americas: Any Chinese ground forces are taboo in Europe and its periphery. This is unlike the Russian thinking that as a great power, it can dictate to small powers around itself ('influence sphere'/Russki Mir): For one, it's defensive and second, it's not about infringing sovereignty. It would just lead to sanctions on China for entering the sphere with ground forces (beyond embassy guards and military attachés). European forces should reciprocate by staying the eff out of East and Southeast Asia with their own land forces, even in regard to temporary military exercises.

It's obvious to me that this needs to be extended to North Korea, which is under Chinese influence and has no business of having troops in Europe.

 

Obviously, this was not what European politicians heeded when North Korea sent its slave-soldiers to help Russia attack Ukraine. 

It wasn't possible to further sanction North Korea and it wouldn't have been prudent to sanction China for this North Korean behaviour, but we could have set up a fund for Ukraine to buy Western weapons and fill it with one million Euros for every North Korean soldier that we believe entered Europe to assist Russia in its war of aggression.

Once again, I diagnose grand strategy incompetence and impotence among the leadership of the major European countries. Somehow it's the smaller countries such as Finland, Estonia and Czech Republic that have MUCH more competent political leadership. Germany didn't have a good chancellor in for four decades, for example.

related:

/2014/08/if-western-great-power-gaming-wasnt-so.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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"Offensives" and Ukraine

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The Russo-Ukrainian War turned into a trench war contrary to my expectations. The Russian ground forces' ability to break through such defences is shockingly and ridiculously marginal - I did not expect that.

This is a shocking display of incompetence in no small part because the recipe for breakthrough has very largely been found in 1917 already (Bruchmüller's artillery tactics and modern infantry training and small unit manoeuvring of Stoßtruppen).  

You don't even need armoured vehicles for it. A skilful and sufficient application of artillery (and nowadays glide bombs) and a simultaneous assault by many infantry sections on a wide-enough sector would do the trick if supported by a few modern ingredients such as barrage jamming in the 0.2...1 kHz band and fragmentation protection vests.

So I decided to write this blog post in order to help readers arrange their thoughts on offensives in an orderly manner:

The forms of attacks are (I rephrase the official lingo a bit here):

1. raid
2. counterattack
   
3. meeting engagement
4. pursuit
5. hasty attack
   
6. deliberate attack with limited objectives
7. breakthrough offensive
   

raid: The usual purpose is to storm one position, take prisoners of war, capture radios, get away without trying to hold any newly gained ground.

counterattack: Can happen from lowest to highest levels. Attackers are particularly vulnerable (position-wise and in terms of morale) to a sudden attack. So often times a company defending a trench system would immediately launch a platoon-sized counterattack when the signal arrives that  enemy assault troops are reaching another platoon's position, for example.

meeting engagement: Both forces are entering battle in a mobile phase of war (does not apply to trench warfare).

pursuit: Similar to meeting engagement, except that one side doesn't want to accept battle other than for purposes of delay at most. Not very relevant in trench warfare.

hasty attack: This is a planned attack with up to a few hours of preparation.

deliberate attack with limited objectives: The Russians do n inept form of this very much. The objective is limited (such as capture this village, eliminate this bridgehead, create a bridgehead, take this hill, take this trench system) and "deliberate" communicates that there was plenty time for preparations.

breakthrough offensive: This is what happens very rarely, mostly by Ukrainians and successfully only against particularly weak Russian sectors (Kharkiv, Kherson and Kursk Oblast offensives).

I wrote before; we know how breakthrough could be achieved. The Russians appear to be too incompetent, the Ukrainians (also quite an 'amateur' army with few peacetime-trained troops) appear to be rather risk-averse and in fear or the consequences of a major defeat in battle.

 

But here's a problem: Breakthrough in itself is of marginal value. Germany broke through the Entente fronts in France in 1918 on unprecedented widths, yet it lost the war months later. The British created a glimpse of how to exploit a breakthrough when they created the "fast" Whippet tank in 1917. Post-WWI they did split up tank development in infantry tanks for breakthrough and cruiser tanks for exploitation. They didn't get much more than that right, though.

Exploitation requires more than just full motorisation and tanks that are faster than a bicycle. The German army developed the attitude and had the superior idea of what exploitation is good for in its Moltke the Elder's Cannae (encirclement battle) fixation. Blitzkrieg was created, characterised by (in 1940 and 1941) hugely successful breakthrough exploitations.

The Russians have another historical root that should and could have informed them how to do things well in a pursuit (Suvorov's battles-winning obsession with quickness and getting into a fight before the enemy is ready for it, on all levels). Imagine a boxing fight in which one boxer is slow and the other lucky punches him before he's got his cover up the first time, then the quicker boxer goes in up close and the hits keep coming till knockout. That's a form of meeting engagement.

The German Blitzkrieg style used some parts of this as well, most notably there was an understanding that a tank division is not very good in positional defence, it should rather defend the flanks of a breakthrough or a bridgehead by attacking. The aim was to overrun the hostile reserves as they move to attack themselves, but haven't deployed for a fight yet.

 

Both the Russian and the Ukrainian side are INCREDIBLY far from the state of art of warfare of 85 years ago and I'm convinced that this is not technology's fault. Technology does NOT keep them from being more competent on the offence.

We should understand that both sides are fairly incompetent at most things. They know most about the state of man-in-the-loop drone warfare and associated electronic warfare, and that's about all their top competence.

The Russian ground forces has been rotten for decades and the quickly mobillised troops are either old or poorly trained, period.

The Ukrainian army has been rotten till 2014, then it tried to get its act together (also lots of warbands/warlord armies/militias that were later integrated into the regular forces). Its budget and thus its means for training had been small until 2022, though. Now they have lots of old and too briefly trained troops that are nowhere near Western conceptions of proper training levels, though they do have wartime experience. Almost all of that wartime experience since 2014 was about positional warfare and attacks with limited objectives and limited means, though. Both old age of infantry and deep experience in positional defence are rather detrimental to breakthrough efforts.

 

Long story short: We do NOT see the state of art of offence and defence in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast. What we see there is more akin to watching the Iraq-Iran (Gulf) War during the 1980's, a war fought with 1970's equipment but (at most) WWI levels of competence.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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The West doesn't understand nationalism

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My thesis is that the West doesn't understand nationalism (any more). It understood it until about the Second World War. The First World War almost shattered our societies, the second one kind of did.

Back in 1950 when North Korea attacked South Korea 'we' interpreted that as the spearhead of communist world revolution, but it was an attempted war of national unification.

When North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam 'we' interpreted it as the spearhead of communist world revolution, but it was a (successful) war of national unification (with an additional war for small farmer liberation from rich landowners).

When the Russian federation attacked the Chechens 'we' interpreted it as a great power's attempt to avoid fracturing, but it really was part of Russian nationalism/imperialism.

All the troubles that the Russian Federation caused in its periphery; Moldova, Ukraine, South of Caucasus region; it was (and is) all about keeping the independent countries from drifting away so they can once again become part of a Russian empire.

Likewise, China is understood as being a country, but it really is the Han tribe dominating a big bunch of actually different peoples, some of which have actually been convinced that they're the same as the Han. Having a script that can be read in any language helped the Chinese empire for thousands of years and was probably the reason why "China" is now considered to be a country, not a continent or subcontinent like fractured Europe.

We don't properly understand nationalism at home, either. It doesn't matter to many of us whether immigrants are useful for elderly care and other vacant jobs. Immigrants in our nation states feel like squatters in an inherited family home; they don't belong there, why would they get to enjoy what's ours by birthright? So basically, modern immigration policy (and European unification ideology/policy) utterly disregards nationalism, which has been designated as a harmful relic rather than a source of cohesion and strength.

I suppose we won't get much better policies on immigration, deterrence&defence, trade or plain foreign policy until our Western societies learn to understand nationalism again. It's a thing, it won't go away anytime soon and to disregard it only builds up huge internal friction and tension. A failure to understand foreign nationalism leads to failures in immigrant integration and in foreign, deterrence & defence policies.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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