Defence and Freedom

2022/10/29

Short and long range infantry

Imagine we added just a few more features (such as a tripod, interfaces, laser beam widening lenses) and a bit of software to such a portable gadget. We could with a single device

launch anti-tank guided missiles using thermal camera head (Javelin, Spike)
launch anti-tank guided missiles using SACLOS (laser comm) or laser beamriding
launch anti-tank guided missiles using SAL guidance
launch anti-tank guided missiles using SACLOS (radio, wire or fibreoptic cable link)
launch various ManPADS (Piorun, Stinger, Mistral, maybe LMM Martlet)
launch "dumb" munitions with good accuracy to good ranges (600...1200 m) (similar to Panzerfaust 3-IT); thermobaric, high explosive, tandem HEAT, smoke
do battle damage reporting and other reporting (camera)
"see" enemy continuous laser emitters
do terrain surveillance out to about 2 km day and night
do forward observer tasks for mortar, artillery and close air support

And all this could be given to every infantry platoon as an easily man-portable (battery supply is the bigger headache than the item itself) asset under direct platoon leader control.

Should we do this?

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It's enticing, but I say "No".

The problem is the range. It has a range measured in kilometres, not in hundreds of metres. How do you site it? You site it with a long field of view, preferably over a wide angle. You place it at the edges of open terrain or on a high vantage point (high up in a building).

Those are not places where the rest of the infantry platoon should be at all. Infantrymen are the superior troops for close terrain, where fields of view are measured by tens or hundreds of metres. To leave a few men at some great vantage point to make good use of such a device while most of the platoon is in close terrain is nonsense. The platoon would often be torn apart and unified leadership would break down regularly. Such a multi tool CLU and close combat infantrymen do not belong together in one platoon.

- - - - -

This device is an extreme example because of its range of several kilometres. There are several weapons that go well beyond the core range proficiency of infantry; 12.7 mm sniper rifles (also ~2 km on good days, 1 km on normal days), .338 magnum sniper rifles (easily 700 m), 7.62NATO machineguns on tripod (easily 600 m). Even a normal 6.8 or 7.62NATO rifle with a 4x scope reaches out to 600 m or more unless it's an inaccurate design.

Such weapons with ranges well beyond hand grenades, 5.56NATO small arms, rifle grenades and 30/40 m grenades luckily have one thing in common; their users (crews) don't need to participate in assaults (other than maybe 7.62NATO universal machinegun taken from tripod and used as "light" machinegun with bipod).

This lends itself well to dividing infantry into two types: Not light or mechanised, but short and long range.

The short range infantry would fight inside buildings, inside woodland and conduct assaults (including counterattacks in platoon strength).

The long range infantry would be sited for good field of view/field of fire. They would provide suppressive fires during the short range infantry's assaults. The different siting does not necessarily mean less changes of positions. They should change position after revealing themselves by shooting, while the short range infantry may not yet be in contact and thus remain hidden where it is.

So this is not about mobile and static infantry, it's about short ranges (and lines of sight) and long ranges (and lines of sight) infantry.

- - - - -

Here are some hypothetical TO&E for infantry platoons:

short range infantry platoon

Platoon lead team (Plt leader, Assistant Plt leader, signaller, combat medic/assistant signaller
4 sections (section leader, 2 automatic riflemen, 2 grenadiers with anti-BMP LAW)

long range infantry platoon

Platoon lead team (Plt leader, Assistant Plt leader, signaller, combat medic/assistant signaller
2 or 3 MG sections (section leader, designated marksman .338magnum, machinegunner with 7.62NATO MMG, rifleman/porter)
1 or 2 missile sections (section leader, multitool (CLU) user, 4 riflemen/porters)

Brits/Canadians/Frenchmen can add a commando mortar to the platoon lead teams if they must. Chinese might want to add one of their 35 mm rifles to a MG section and expand it to 6 men, but I don't think such weapons are a must-have.

- - - - -

These hypothetical platoons would be employed very differently. The long range infantry platoon would do forward observation, long field of view picket duty, suppressive fires from more than 300 m distance, anti-tank work and battlefield air defence work.

The short range platoon does what is more commonly associated with infantry tasks, without the extra weight, training demands and tactical complications of the longer-ranged weapons and tools. Their platoon leaders would still be authorised to request mortar HE fires and artillery smoke fires. The short range infantry platoon would do a lot more training with MBT and APC crews, while the long range infantry platoon would rather train against MBTs.

Finally, one remark inspired from Ukraine war footage; the long range infantry platoon places a greater equipment weights on its members, but it would still be suitable for older infantrymen than the typically optimum infantryman age of 18...35 years. I see a lot of Ukrainians in ATGM teams that look more like 40...50 than 20...30. Younger men are more aggressive (especially the unmarried ones, while the married ones are more stubborn defenders) according to WW2 experiences.

So this short range and long range infantry division could very well also be an age division (young and old), which is important for an army that depends on reservists.

2022/10/15

Defence policy layers

Defence policy (in the sense of providing security to your own nation against blockade/bombing/invasion, not in the sense of quasi-imperialistic meddling) can be separated into layers.

Here's an example:

Foreign policy to create a safer world (by sanctioning aggressions, for example)
Abstaining from starting or needlessly joining a war
Forming or joining collective security treaties (defensive alliances)
Deter aggressors
Be able to defeat aggressors if deterrence fails
Limit damage incurred in case of war

(Any blogger with a bit of visual design skill would now use one of those onion layer graphics to illustrate the concept.)

I'm fine with layers 1...5 and think that they were somewhat neglected.

#1 Hypocrisy kept us from sanctioning aggressions and microaggressions committed by friendly countries

#2 We needlessly joined the Afghanistan War, and needlessly send troops into many other countries that are irrelevant to our security.

#3 We are in NATO, but fail to emphasise the defensive nature of NATO (see Kosovo Air War 1999 and the frequent tolerated loudmouthing by NATO general secretaries)

#4 This works for NATO almost without effort, as there's no aggressor capable of taking even only on a fourth of our conventional forces without using nuclear warheads.

#5 See #4

- - - - -

So, what's my issue with #6?

I think #6 is cost-inefficient. It's extremely unlikely that #1...#4 fail to keep us in peace. Resources spent on #6 are better-spent on #1 (sanctioning aggressors at some economic cost to yourself) and #4 (deterring war in the first place, instead of trying to make it less horrible).

- - - - -

This blog post was triggered by news about political efforts for a missile defence in Central and Eastern Europe. That would be an extremely expensive endeavour, and by now we know that Russia has a) largely depleted its missile stocks and b) is too dumb to cause much damage with missiles.

Moreover, an aggressor would be tempted to launch many missiles with a strategic surprise, which means that such a defence system would be surprised and thus likely fail to live up to expectations.

To establish a very large area defence against cruise missiles (supersonic or stealthy) AND (quasi-)ballistic PGMs (different from cruise missiles by carrying the oxidiser for the propulsion rather than breathing air) AND hypersonic missiles (high & very fast-flying, typically air-breathing) and to stay ahead of threat munitions with all three defences would be extremely expensive. To just buy some American missiles and radars would not live up to expectations.

We need such strategic missile defences neither to deter nor to defeat. This is overreach, overspending, primitive and poorly thought-out feeding of arms industry big business.

It's yet again a primitive low effort thinking reaction, just as the primitive EUR 100 billion boost with which politicians who were too incompetent to do their job want to calm their security policy conscience in Germany.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

A new wave in MBT designs

P.S:: Some additions I made on twitter:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581621741960720385.html

The Western main battle tank development appears to mimic what the T-14 Armata already showed:

at least two crewmembers in the hull
main gun using autoloader
hard kill active protection system
lots and lots of electronics & optronics
really expensive
under 60 tons weight

A current reveal is the Abrams X with three man crew in the hull, autoloader, optionally manned turret (manual loader with poor ergonomics as backup for the autoloader).

The German KF 51 Panther demonstrator is a classic autoloader tank of three plus one optional mission specialist in the hull for the added gadgetry.

The inclusion of drones and loitering munitions in MBT designs looks like a fallback to 1920's thinking about tanks. The tank developers appear to think of a tank as a single vehicle, not as it being part of a company team-sized effort with brigade-level support.

The difference that appears to split the development paths in two is the question of whether the turret is permanently manned or not. A permanently manned turret receives MBT-ish protection, whereas an unmanned turret appears to receive IFV-ish protection. Permanently manned turret MBT concepts are less radical, and may be realised as retrofit of the post-1980 MBT generation.

A 125 mm HE or 105 mm HESH shot would likely mess up an optronics- and electronics-laden turret anyway. Likewise, 20...30 mm APDS or HE rapid rife or a few 30 mm AHEAD kinda-of-shrapnel rounds would shred much of the expensive equipment outside of the armour as well. It's thus understandable that unmanned turrets don't receive protection against 125 mm or even 152 mm APFSDS.

A question remains: Why should the crew in the hull be protected against the greatest threats when the vehicle can be immobilised by even 105 mm shots and firepower killed by anything from 30 mm upwards? Other troops on the battlefield do not get this level of protection. I don't quite see a reason for this.

The new MBT designs do not reveal any particular philosophy for tank actions to me. There's no emphasis on mountain warfare, no emphasis on extreme speed (= neglect of some other characteristics), no emphasis on affordability. The only thing that stands out at least from the German and Russian examples is a quest for even more powerful main guns. This reveals an idea of a MBT that's fighting other MBTs. This thought is very common, but at the same time very questionable. Rather few tanks were destroyed by other tanks in Ukraine. Various kinds of PGMs, 152/155 mm HE indirect fires and morale issues were the big tank killers as far as I can tell. Armoured spearhead actions would rather not face much opposition by tanks, either.

- - - - -

I stick with my fairly recent opinion on protection schemes that permits getting a tank "light" enough (~40 tons) for bandtracks. It makes no sense to add effort for crew survival in face of MBT main gun shots on top of that; the tank crews would be a tiny portion of the exposed battlefield troops. It's OK to have a main gun that defeats MBTs, albeit it doesn't need to blow them up from any angle. To firepower kill the hostile tank suffices. A 120 mm L/44 gun looks satisfactory to me. A quick fire autoloader gun of 76...90 mm calibre coupled with anti-MBT HVMs would be very promising as well.

Either the hostile tank platoon surprises yours - then they will likely knock you out by hitting your weaker sides. Or your tank platoon surprises the enemy tank platoon - then you'd do the same, even with a gun that does not penetrate the forward 60° hull protection.

It makes no sense to clutter the turret roof. A single remotely controlled weapon station ranging from a 7.62x51mm MG3 to a 20x102 mm M621 (or at most a 30x113 mm autocannon) suffices. You may use a coaxial machinegun if the RCWS features an autocannon. I'd propose a 120 mm L/44 with a .338 RCWS. I'd insist on a bulletproofed RCWS, including the munition and its feed.

Finally, I don't like how expensive tanks become. They price themselves out of the battlefield. We may afford a couple hundred, but we would not afford the needed amount of spare parts for all the vulnerable optronics. The commander's independent gimballed sensor should be bulletproofed except in its field of view and have an unimpeded all-round view. This means that the Russian approach of mating the CITV and the RCWS in one (which saves the RCWS's sensors) is the way to go, as it prevents the RCWS from restricting the view of the CITV and cuts costs. The gunner doesn't need the same quality optronics. A plain optical sight for a turret-seated gunner and a second cheap (!!!) infantry-grade thermal vision (monocular) for up to 1000 m vehicle detection range should suffice. Most combat would happen in daylight, and the CITV is a powerful sight for aiming the main gun as well.

The all-round view should be aided by small and cheap (!!!) camera sets with visual and thermal vision. This would feed the "through armour" vision of the crew (especially the driver) and an automatic threat detection (incoming ATGM, drone, persons, vehicles) software could use these cameras to support the crew.

Another means of saving weight and costs could be to use a smaller powerpack. The hybrid approach with an electric motor-generator for peak power (acceleration) with some robust rechargeable batteries for it makes sense. The battery helps greatly with powering the electronics and the turret drive without running the engine (an infrared signature issue). The electric engine is extremely compact and peak power output is rarely required, so going for a "mild" hybrid makes a newly-developed powerpack smaller than an equivalent turbocharged diesel powerpack. The electric engine also counters the turbo lag issue. In the end, the concept has to have a certain power to weight ratio, and developers appear to aim at 30 hp/ton, while 20 hp/ton was widely regarded to be sufficient for a long time and frankly, I don't see why we need the extra 50% power. Yes, having that extra power is fine, but having 5% more tanks for the same budget instead is better. And that may actually be the choice to make.

So even with an intent to cut costs, I'd only

save some expenses for special hull armour
save the operating expenses associated with the extra hull armour weight (especially fuel)
save some costs on the RCWS sight
save some costs on the gunner's sights
certainly add small costs to the tank with my insistence on anti-drone sensors and acoustic sensors

That might reduce a 15 million Euro tank to a 12 million Euro tank, but the costs for buying AND OPERATING the new MBT generation would still be severe problems. Keep in mind that even the development of the Leopard 2 did cost about as much as 200 tanks. Full development of MBTs is in itself only going to be affordable if we have production runs for well over 500 vehicles.

I don't quite see a route how we could keep tanks tactically highly capable and at the same time affordable in quantity.

There are many alternatives to the use of MBTs in slow-moving combat, and I suppose we should embrace them. MBTs should be focused sharply on rapid spearhead actions by rather compact armoured battalion battlegroups. The current crop of MBT concepts does not appear to be aimed at this, and does not appear to be affordable for more general employment.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: "affordable" is not about fiscal possibility. "affordable" means that the costs to benefits ratio is not much worse than for alternative approaches. Germany could buy hundreds of tanks that cost a hundred million Euro a piece, it would just be extremely wrong to do so.

2022/10/08

About defensive lines

What's going on in Ukraine these days can be explained without talking much (or at all) about fancy new technology. A European army's infantry regiment commander of WW2 would understand it easily.

So here's an attempt to illuminate some aspects:

Up to 1914 the idea of a prepared defensive line was that infantrymen did a long, straight trench and stand shoulder to shoulder, shooting with repeating rifles at frontally approaching enemy infantry.

By 1915 it was understood that this required too many infantrymen and they suffered too many losses. There were too many targets (infantrymen in the trenches, the trenches lacked overhead cover, a high explosive grenade exploding in a trench would hit many infantrymen because the trench was straight.

Machineguns economised on defender personnel and shooting not frontally, but near-parallel to the trench with frontal cover greatly lengthened the field of fire (own and hostile trenches were only about 200 m apart while machineguns were effective beyond 400 m) and reduced defender's losses.The downside was that the defenders in any position could not defend frontally, so they needed to trust and rely on comrades in other positions for protection.

Now we are at a first problem for the Russians; the cohesion is marginal, the infantry training apparently poor (and on average getting worse) and they are simply not good comrades on average. So they cannot trust comrades in another position to protect them. They'd be forced to defend themselves 360°, which means less if any cover against bullets above trench level and thus higher losses.

On a larger scale there's a rule of three; typically two elements (platoons, companies, battalions, battlegroups) are forward in attack or defence and one is behind in reserve.

The reserve element's task during defence is to launch a quick counterattack to help out or replace one of the forward elements. The lower the level, the quicker the counterattack (quickest with platoon).

Here are two more problems for the Russians; the morale and discipline as well as physical state of combat troops wild camping in woods low, so mustering a quick counterattack is difficult if not impossible. The other is that the front is very long, the invading combat troops not terribly many, so the Russian side can apparently not afford to keep such a large share of combat troops in reserve. No rapid counterattacks = no ability to hold ground against a peer opposing force.

It's even worse; the best defensive scheme (for such flatlands) of the First World War (and maybe since) was to have relatively weak forward positions so few of your troops are exposed much to sniping and accurate artillery fires. This forward line and the fight in the few kilometres behind would slow down the attackers, incur losses, create disorder. The attacker's advance would make his resupply and his communication more difficult. Finally, after maybe eight to ten kilometres of fighting withdrawal at most the defenders would use a well-prepared defensive line for a stiff defence and stop the offensive. Soon after reinforcements would arrive and the attackers would see little more opportunity to advance against the now reinforced defences.

The Russians' problem is that they live in a dictatorship. They have elections, but they cannot un-elect their president for real. Dictators tend to be mistrust their generals out of fear of coups. They promote loyalists over gifted commanders, and after a decade or two they are right in distrusting their generals' competence. This doesn't make the dictator more competent at land warfare tactics or operational art, but nobody dares telling them so. Such dictators often meddle in tactical decisions, and particularly typical is an order to defend locations without withdrawal. Stiff defence. Strengthen points so much they don't get lost - which is the opposite of the elastic defence I described beforehand. We saw in WW2 how this plays out; locations with names on a map such as a city get reinforced to avoid capture, the voids around them are not properly defended and the opposing forces can more easily encircle the named strongpoints (Stalingrad, Lyman...).

The Russian army is largely mechanised (DPR, LPR and VDV remnants not so much). In theory it's more configured for rapid and brutal offensive pushes than for positional defence. The ideal tactic for such an organisation would be (if they got other basics right) to mount a rather mobile defence: A string of pickets backed up by powerful and many mobile counterattack forces. Again, a dictator tends to order the opposite; mechanised forces dispersed along a long front line.

Dictators behave this way because they are a lot weaker and more insecure than people commonly assume. Dictators are perpetually trying to maintain a critical mass of (public) support (and avoid poisoned food). To lose battles or to lose terrain in battle (which is quite the same to the civilian public) chips away from their support and thus endangers the dictator. The land warfare tactics agnostic dictator thus orders the army to avoid such embarrassments and when it fails he tries to order defensive success by ordering to not yield any terrain (or a least not any named locations that his subjects can find on a map).

It's a common trope that supposedly much is new in a just ongoing war. That's at least what those say and write who have no clue about what happened in pats wars and why. People also get distracted by gadgets very easily, for there are photos of gadgets and manufacturers who promote them, but to understand the inner workings of an army or of a battle requires much study of war and military affairs.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

2022/10/01

Neglected tech (II): Megaphones

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This is about the opposite of part I in some ways, and it should be a no-brainer because the tech is so cheap and simple.

Before you kill someone in battle, you could and often should ask him to surrender. The easiest way to do that is to have an acoustic device that extends the reach of your voice. You can also enter his radio network and just speak to him in there, but that won't be heard by the vast majority of hostile troops and may be impossible with some digital encrypted radios.

So whenever you lack surprise, just do something scary (tracked AFV noises, powerful bombardment, fire effects, suggest encirclement or imminent flank attack by noises, big blasts) and then proceed to ask for surrender. Wait a bit, rinse, repeat.*

I don't say that every infantryman should have a megaphone and not every tank should have a giant megaphone/loudspeaker. One per infantry platoon and one per tank company would likely suffice. The required effort would be minimal.

PsyOps campaigns could greatly assist such efforts.

Loudspeakers can and were used to simply demoralise hostile troops (typically infantry), even if that does not lead to desertions. Even as late as 1944 the German army ran a very successful propaganda campaign against the Red Army using among other things loudspeakers, and bagged many thousands of deserters.

- - - - -

Megaphones and loudspeakers can also be used for one-way communication with friendly troops when shouting, radioing, arm signals, whistles, tracers and laser pointing are insufficient or unavailable means of communication.

- - - - -

Megaphones and loudspeakers are also useful for interacting with civilians. Civilians may form an obstacle (such as a traffic jam by refugees) and military police or combat troops may need to disperse them. To use a loudspeaker is a much nicer way than guns and a much better one than mere shouting.

- - - - -

Megaphones and loudspeakers might also be used for deception purposes, but I consider this potential as to be very small.

Long story short; give megaphones to all infantry platoons and MP cars/motorcycles as well as loudspeakers to a fraction of the armoured vehicles on the battlefield. The effort (costs, mass, volume, power supply) is negligible compared to the utility.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Not to be followed brainlessly, of course. Megaphones/loudspeakers make sense when there's not too much noise and your position to the nearby hostiles is known anyway.

edit:

Fitting to my current blog post; a photo of a ZS-82 loudspeaker vehicle from the war (I forgot to make use of the photo in the blog post). pic.twitter.com/duQr9ldJN6
— Defence and Freedom (@DefenceFreedom) October 3, 2022

2022/09/24

Neglected tech (I): Acoustic sensors

6 years earlier, similar blog post: https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2016/10/acoustic-sensors.html

The typical forward observer of the Second World War did not enjoy a great vantage point, had no mast-mounted thermal camera with zoom and did not fly in an aircraft. The typical forward observer had thus a limited ability to see what's going on. I recommend looking around when you're driving in Europe; you can usually not see much farther than 2 km, unless there are some mountains or hills involved. There's usually something breaking up the line of sight, usually trees or buildings. There's additionally smoke from pyrotechnics, smoke from other burning stuff and dust involved, too. The typical WW2 forward observer needed to be able to assemble a situational picture mostly from what he heard. Only occasionally did he actually see enemies and could identify them as such.

The typical way of detecting howitzer batteries to counter them by counter-battery fires during the World Wars wasn't aerial reconnaissance (only). It was sound ranging, at night assisted by flash spotting when observers had a good vantage point (or were using a tethered balloon). The flash spotting could be countered with additives placed in front of the propellant charges, though. The sound ranging used the time delay between shot sounds arriving at different listening stations. It's a very capable approach when not too many guns fire at the same time, and not for too short a time (the sound takes about a minute to travel 20 km). Radar is much quicker and more accurate in calculating the battery positions, but it's dependent on treacherous emissions.

Counter-sniper detectors were all the rage before the jammers against radio command-controlled mines (fashionably: "IED") took over the lead as most fashionable must-have tool for moving around as soldiers in distant countries that didn't attack us and where people want you dead. The principle was not always focused on the muzzle noise; at least some counter-sniper acoustic sensor systems were rather using the sonic boom of the supersonic bullet, an approach that would fall flat against subsonic bullets as I pointed out before.

I will argue that we should pay more attention to acoustic sensors despite the availability of radars. I will further argue that the acoustic sensors are complementary to radars and gain much utility by digital datalink networking that's been all the rage for two decades anyway.

First, let's look at what benefits a battlefield vehicle (tracked AFV, wheeled AFV, scout car, unmanned ground vehicle) could have from employing a 3D microphone array:

sniper detection (at least against supersonic bullets)
approx. detection of relatively nearby (~20 km) artillery
detection (triangulation) of AFV main gun shots (probably down to 30 mm calibre)
detection of firing 60...160 mm mortars (normal mortar pattern)
more accurate direction-finding (not triangulation) to tracked AFV noises
detection and direction-finding to multicopters
aiding in detecting and confirming subsonic anti-tank guided missiles
helicopter detection, including non-line of sight
limited non-cooperative IFF against helicopters
giving AFV crews acoustic sensing of their surroundings when the hatches are closed

The mass and power demands of such acoustic sensors are negligible in the overall picture, the costs affordable. The volume of such systems and how the clutter for example a tank's turret roof might be an issue in some cases - especially when we're talking about upgrades that get patched onto a tank.

And here's the beauty: We do not need to develop, produce and retrofit or issue a gazillion different acoustic sensors to make practically full use of the technology's potential! We just need to develop one type and field it, and even its integration into a tank with an already cluttered rooftop won't be too much of an issue, either.

I've argued that we need a large quantity of decentralised anti-drone hunter-killer systems to cope with saturating drone swarms of the near future. The old approach of fielding one dedicated anti-air system such as the Gepard SPAAG of the 1970's won't cut it because drones can attack from within trees, below trees, from within buildings. The drones may switch between flying and ground movement. The typical attack of a drone swarm could be in areas of short lines of sight rather than over open fields. We need many defence systems to cover those areas, and their range can be short without this being much of a downside.

My recommendation is thus a remotely controlled weapon station (RCWS) with a rapid fire weapon (7.62 mm MG3 with high rate of fire might be enough, the maximum would be a 30x113 mmB autocannon with AHEAD shrapnel with .338 machineguns and 20x102 mm autocannons with self-destructing HE-T in between). Such a RCWS needs identification and targeting sensors (thermal camera with zoom, electro-optic camera with zoom, laser rangefinder), but this wouldn't be enough. Even an automated search (rotating gimballed sensor package on top) would not suffice in my opinion. The challenge wouldn't be the targeting, it would be 24/7 readiness and ability to detect threats in time. Diving loitering munitions that have already shut their engine down are a huge challenge, but at least all those rotary flying drones could very well be detected by acoustic sensors at useful distances. So the base of the RCWS should have a microphone ring and the gimballed sensor head on top should have a microphone as well (for calculating the elevation angle towards the noise source).

The very same RCWS could be mounted on a MBT, IFV, APC, other AFVs, 8x8 logistic vehicles, 6x6 logistic vehicles, 4x4 vehicles and some unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). Almost all vehicles except assault bridgelayer tanks and cabrio low profile scout cars would qualify (remember, I'm against red cross-marked vehicles on the battlefield). An American-style combat brigade has approx. 4,000 personnel and approx. 1,000 motor vehicles. Imagine it having approx. 900 such RCWS! Saturation attacks by drone swarms would still be possible, but the bar for them would be much higher.

All these vehicles would have a digital radio datalink capability anyway (yes, even the logistic vehicles), so all these sensors could transmit their interesting sound readings with timestamp and direction to a server at a battalion command post which would then be able to determine movements and firing positions of hostiles (and friendlies). Target acquisition drones could be tasked to look at the acoustic contacts and would find the exact position of AFVs and mortars. Air threat warnings could be issued about moving multicopter swarms or helicopters, and fibreoptic-guided missiles (or fast radio-controlled loitering munitions) might be launched to engage hostile helicopters and artillery beyond the line of sight.

All this, and not one radar would have directed its beam towards hostiles. Just the (anyway quite unavoidable) radio communications would be required, and those could use tiny sub-kilobyte message packets.

Quite importantly, the sensors could also confirm the absence of noise sources. A rumour about a tank assault could be debunked by the absence of tracked AFV noises in that area, for example. Reports about the absence of hostile activity are hugely useful to clear the fog of war, one should keep that in mind.

/2017/08/very-low-level-air-defence-against.html

/2018/05/summary-modern-air-defences-for-europe.html

Part II: Soon, promised, I already know what it will be about.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

edit March 2024: Ukraine uses a microphone network to detect and track flying kamikaze drones.

2022/09/17

Zentraler Sanitätsdienst / medical services in a military

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According to the Bundeswehr itself, the central medical service of the Bundeswehr counts 19,860 personnel out of a total of 183,116 (31st July 2022). This does not include soon-to-be officers who are studying at universities, those are counted separately. The personnel share is thus 10.8%. The Heer has a 34.3% share only! This is insane. The constitutional mission of the Bundeswehr is defence, not being a self-licking ice cone.

This large share is not all due to the greater ease of recruiting (particularly for officers, as they can easily transition into high-paying civilian jobs after their volunteer term). The Bundeswehr does traditionally maintain an oversized medical branch, and it did protect itself well against the otherwise widespread outsourcing to civilian contractors.

Overpriced, overweight, oversized MEDEVAC - a nightmare

I will propose an entirely different way of doing business that would provide better care* AND reduce costs. But first, let me make a statement appraising the extremely important role of army medical services:

The confidence of the fighting men in getting good and timely medical treatment is an extremely valuable boost to morale. The effect of seeing a comrade in pain with a leg bone shattered by a bullet turns into sheer horror if you think that he'll either bleed to death, get his arm amputated or die in agony due to wound infections. Small unit leaders can get the minds of his comrades back on track to pursue a mission if the wounded man's pain gets treated (so he stops screaming), his bleeding stopped and blood loss compensated with intravenous liquid (better things than saline solution are available) supply. He needs to be moved away for medical treatment properly, and well-informed troops will understand that the survival rate can be near-100% if wounded men arrive at a surgical hospital within an hour, as even the really bad cases have a good chance of survival if they arrive there alive.

The army needs to take care of its soldiers and doing so does indeed help accomplishing missions. I don't doubt that at all, it's just that the bloated peacetime medical service is largely unnecessary and partially even detrimental to this.

So here's how I would do it (or rather, this is a first order proposal for a long-term transition):

(First, a precondition; the German military is for deterrence & defence, not for military adventure bullshit on distant continents. Any deployment outside of geographic Europe and NATO-included territories should be banned (save for tiny 2-men military observer missions).)

Every soldier has to join an ordinary Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung (regulated health insurance, the most common kind of health insurance in Germany) and the Bundeswehr pays 100% (rather than the normal 50% employer co-pay) for the basic health insurance (no co-pay for any extras, but 100% reimbursement for dental treatments after service-related dental injuries and for certain jobs also 100% co-pay for eye surgery for improved vision). Illnesses and injuries in peacetime would thus overwhelmingly be dealt with by civilian medical care capacities.

The peacetime medical personnel gets reduced to

One medical doctor per battalion-sized garrison, ideally with a civilian government-employed medical doctor (Amtsarzt) as helping out as backup. This medical doctor (actually no doctor degree required) gives medical courses at the garrison, confirms when a soldier is really too sick for work and is part of the battalion HQ.
One combat medic with a combat medic backpack (and additional stuff stored in motor vehicles) per almost every** platoon meant for employment on the battlefield (not a member of the medical branch)
Soon-to-be reservists on basic training
Reservists on two-week refresher exercise
A tiny, tiny overhead at whole Bundeswehr level administration for medical topics, mostly busy trying to introduce improvements (methods, tools, consumables, vehicles) and getting necessary procurement initiated.

(No medical doctors would be needed for the navy, for I would disband the useless service.)

The mobilised/wartime medical support would look like this:

Every non-officer in the Bundeswehr completes a full First Aid course (with a theoretical and practical test that needs to be passed!) every 2nd year, army personnel additionally receives combat injury-specific courses during the other years (also biannually, also with mandatory pass test). All personnel has a personal injury kit (mostly stored in upper leg pouches due to the low weight) and at least one canteen with (ideally sterilised) water (essential for treating white phosphorous wounds, for example).

Combat medics at platoon level stop external bleeding, replace blood loss (avoid volume shock), treat injury pain, provide quick assembly stretchers and arrange for casualty evacuation together with the assistant platoon leader. These combat medics would still be armed with a self-defence subcarbine with 100 m iron sights and carry maybe 2x20 rounds for it. Some platoon combat medics would receive secondary training as a signaller, to watch radio traffic for the platoon leader when the primary signaller is not available. Infantry combat medics would additionally carry non-munitions supplies such as batteries and not have an active combat role (other than keeping an eye on radio traffic and the back).

Battalion battlegroups have a bandaging station with a medical doctor and a few medics. They provide extra blood loss compensation, improve the blood loss stop and take care of burn wounds to limit the risk of infections. These bandaging stations/vehicles are the transfer point between casualty evacuation (CASEVAC***, transport by ordinary vehicle) to medical evacuation (MEDEVAC, using a dedicated vehicle with a medic taking care of the wounded during transportation - usually 4x4 vehicles). They need to be highly mobile and should generally match the mobility of the battlegroup (so at least two 4x4 vehicles of less than 8 tons gross weight with 1.2 m maximum fording depth ability, better a 20 ft ISO container on a 8x8 universal container/pallet transport vehicle with protected cab). I would prefer complete camouflage over Red Cross markings for these vehicles, as the Russian military doesn't respect the Red Cross anyway.

We should not rely on helicopters for MEDEVAC, but (mostly civilian) helicopters could be commandeered for the purpose (with a new crudely-applied paintjob) - maybe their employment is not too risky, after all. No gold-plated nightmares like NH90 would even only be maintained in service, neither for MEDEVAC nor for CASEVAC.

An (the) army corps maintains two pairs of leap-frogging (moving alternatingly) mobile surgical hospitals. These would not be container & tent villages, but rather prefer to make use of civilian buildings with man-movable equipment (same as headquarters above battalion). Tents would be backups that should be avoided. Such a mobile surgical hospital would be the place for surgical treatment (including for eye and burn injuries), largely drawing on civilian emergency room experience of their personnel. Much attention would be on maximising the survival rates of highest priority patients, so these surgical hospitals have to be within range for the golden hour for battlefield injuries of almost all combat troops (not forward scouts). The primary job of these mobile surgical hospitals would be to make the patients ready for transportation by civilian medical transport vehicles to civilian hospitals. It would take care of all patients until they can be transported. This explains why we'd need leap-frogging hospitals; whether the army corps advances or withdraws or simply moves laterally to a different region; one hospital of the pair would stay behind with those patients that cannot be moved except in most dire emergencies. The exact required quantity of hospitals is driven by the operations area of the Corps (all combat formations within one hour radius of a mobile surgery hospital) and this leapfrogging (x2).

The MEDEVAC vehicles and their crews (for movement of wounded to the mobile surgical hospitals) would form each one MEDEVAC Company per mobile surgical hospital, consisting almost entirely of reservist drivers and reservist medics.

Battalion-level garrison medical doctors exist as in peacetime (though typically being reservists in wartime) unless the garrison is largely empty (it might be in use for refresher training for reserves in wartime).

And that's it. The use of civilian medical care in peacetime improves the care and reduces costs, while the wartime strength of the medical service would largely depend on reservists, especially regarding medical doctors.

The key challenge would be to recruit the medical doctors and medics who would normally work in the civilian world, but be available as reservists. This is so far being done by giving people contracts for 17 years including the time when they study medical jobs at civilian universities.

We'd need to apply a different motivation than providing medical training while paying them on the job for many years. I basically propose to pay only as much as necessary; they get subsidies for their years at a civilian university and become reserve officers (medical doctors for surgery/emergency care and for eye emergency care) and reserve non-commissioned officers (medics) with little basic military training and a two-week refresher course once every 2nd year (ideally with much of the 2nd week overlapping with a non-computer exercise at corps or at last battalion battlegroup level). The pay would be good, the intrusions into their life kept minimal and they would be shielded from the usual red tape bollocks as much as feasible.

Now keep in mind; this was partially tailored to an army that's based in its own country, preparing for being deployed to a rather populous (not desert-ish, devoid of hospitals) developed world region for alliance defence. This approach would work just as well for Republic of Korea (save for the navy) or Taiwan (save for their stupid forward fortress islands and their navy) and any European country if it abstains from stupid military adventures such as the stupid occupation wars of the past two decades or the war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.

- - - - -

You may have noticed that what I described is not extremely different from what's being done or meant to be done, but I

skipped insane waste of budget by relying more on civilian medical personnel,
opposed the container+tent village nonsense for field hospitals,
opposed MEDEVAC (dedicated vehicles) within the manoeuvre forces on the battlefield****
and opposed gold-plated helicopters due to their high costs and survivability concerns.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Disclosure: I received spectacularly bad dental "service" in the Bundeswehr in the 90's myself, and this poor treatment was directly caused by persisting systemic nonsense. The dental assistants were inexperienced and thus incompetent and did not find the correct tools for the dentist.

**: Not for tank platoons, for example. Platoons of mostly vehicle crews (also some logistics small units) could simply have some extra supplies such as IV solution and extra bandages stored in their vehicles and a member or two with extra training. It would be difficult to find a good place for a medic in such platoons.

***: By the way; vehicles suitable for CASEVAC (this includes APCs and if existing IFVs, both of which should have folding seats to enable transportation of stretchers and small pallets) should have equipment to mark themselves as in CASEVAC action, so for example military police knows to prioritise them in traffic. This could range from detachable blue lights to a red cross flag attached to the vehicle front.

****: I am in favour of having tracked protected carriers with a crew of two but no dedicated cargo or passengers, held at infantry battalion level. These kind of (H)APCs would move infantry, supplies, prisoners of war (evacuation only) and civilians (evacuation only) through dangerous areas of the battlefield, preferably with concealment (by smoke and terrain features), rarely support by neutralising or suppressive fires (usually only for infantry assault to objective). They would have thin folding seats on the sides of a separated transport compartment to offer maximum cargo and stretcher capacity with folded seats. These universal battlefield transports would be preferred for casualty evacuation and could easily store a couple litres of medical supplies. The infantry would normally ride in vehicles that have the very same (limited offroad, 1.2 m fording, 1000 km road range, 80 kph road march) mobility and protection (presumably mostly against 99% fragments of 152mm HE@50 m, maybe PKM ball bullets @100 m threat) as the vehicles of the battalion battlegroup support.

2022/09/10

The ideal scout car

I want to go on record with my opinion about scout cars.

The background is not offensive scouting, certainly not offensive scouting over long distances. The core missions of such scout cars would be rather providing near reconnaissance at 10...20 km distance to friendly combat troops in a mobile land warfare situation (defence against invaders, so on own or allied territory) and defensive reconnaissance along the lines of this.

Both tasks would largely require surveillance (including acoustically) and defeating lightly armoured hostile scouts (BMP-2-like threats at most).

This is also a relevant blog post (this is no mistake, despite it seemingly being about something else initially).

The vehicle

4wd cabrio car (polycarbonate windscreen folding forward, tarp weather protection not for use on a mission), electric drive (one electric motor per axle) with range extender engine (even a two-stroke petrol engine without catalytic converter would be militarily acceptable) for rare long marches. A classic forward engine compartment holds the batteries, as an underfloor battery would increase the height of the chassis.

Variable height suspension.

Camouflage paint, camouflage mats, additional camouflage materials (burlap, netting, local plants), including reversible to adapt to two different environments in a matter of minutes. Various civilian tire profiles in use.

This is the ideal configuration; a civilian 4wd SUV could be converted into an acceptable vehicle in a day by field workshop.

Close, but too high and lacking a .50cal.

The crew

A crew of three; driver, commander/dismount and gunner

The equipment

eLORAN/GPS/Galileo precision navigation
microphone array (direction finding against tracked vehicles, engine noises, helicopters, mortar shots, gunshots from small arms to tank guns
IFF interrogator for aerial targets (as the one on the man-portable Stinger launcher)
IFF interrogator for land vehicles (if that's in use with the army)
fresh water and provisions for days
a tactical radio linked to vehicle power supply, allowing to feed info into a battle management system
a hand-held thermal viewer + colour camera with GPS/Galileo/laser rangefinder/digital magnetic compass
a high powered spotter scope
a small radio for the commander to transmit imagery from the handheld sensor through the tactical vehicle radio into a battle management system
tablet computer with battle management system / navigation software
collapsible ladder, equipment for fast-roping from a vantage point on a roof
a pintle-mounted 12.7x99 mm machinegun with red dot + thermal sight and SLAP munition
a few 1 kg anti-tank mines (magnetic fuse, shaped charge warhead, activated by radio signal for the next minute)
tools to overcome fences and ditches, break into garages and houses
possibly unattended ground sensors (radio datalink, GPS/Galileo, battery and possibly additional PV power) mostly to detect traffic along roads (vibration wake-up, sound recording and wide angle photo for ID)
cheap radiation and chemical agent detector equipment
the crew itself may have carbines, mostly to deal with hostile stragglers (else pistols would be plenty firepower)

The tactics

These scouts would basically be everywhere behind FLOT*; no need to send scouts out before combat troops move into a certain direction; the scouts are already there and can report what's there and what's not and how usable the routes are.
Hostile scout vehicles short of main battle tanks could be defeated at about 500 m or more (depends on heading of the target). To upgun to a M621 20 mm gun would further increase this effective range, but I consider this unnecessary.
Threats would be detected, reported, even indirect fires could be called to defeat temporarily not moving threats.
The costs per team would be considerable (less than 250 k € should be possible, though), but super affordable compared to IFV-like scout vehicles.
The team and its vehicle would be super stealthy; silent, low silhouette, well-camouflaged, the vehicle would be easily hidden even in civilian car garages and ISO containers.**
The team has a third person*** to dismount while retaining mobility (driver) and firepower (gunner). The dismounting commander could inspect buildings including bridges and could interact with local civilians to gather information.

There is the question of why no armour? The scout team would need very, very bad luck to be hit by artillery or mortar effects. The weakest weapon that hostile scouts would likely use is a 14.5x114 mm machineguns with about 30 mm RHA penetration. Even a mere vertical all-round protection for the crew (not engine compartment) would amount to more than a ton weight and add much cost. Moreover, any armour at window level would greatly increase the silhouette and this is detrimental to survivability. Many hostile scout vehicles would have 30 mm guns with at least APDS, and to protect against this leads to a well-armoured IFV that cannot be hidden easily at all. The whole armour thing is a super slippery slope towards being big & expensive and thus unavailable in the desirable quantities.

The idea is furthermore that dedicated military vehicles might be used by the army/militia in some quantity, but could be reinforced and replenished by civilian conversions with about identical tactics. Representatives of the latter category should thus also be used on ~10% of the exercises in the field.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Forward line of own troops. Likely not really a "line", and certainly not a straight one. It's just the briefest way to say that they're not infiltrating to scout between hostiles.

**: The option of hiding the vehicle and deploying the acoustic and handheld viewer sensors to an observation post for a dismount is a good reason not to choose a mast-mounted sensor as in the Fennek vehicle.

***: I see absolutely no reason why a volunteer woman would not be suitable for this team, so I did not write "man".

2022/09/09

It's the four big levers and the basics, stupid!

The recent wars (Azerbaijan-Armenian and Russo-Ukrainian) confirm and -to those who pay attention- remind us of what really matters in defence, and it's not what you normally read about.

Only a few key levers absolutely need to be covered with good-enough hardware, even against a 1st rate opposition:

You need to be able to destroy many main battle tanks.
You need to be able to very largely mitigate the effects of hostile air power.*
You need to have effective support fires.**
You need to be able to usually maintain quick (message) communications***

Then everything else is about will (morale), good-enough doctrine (what is being taught & trained), good-enough training (quantitatively & qualitatively)**** and getting basics right.

The latter includes avoiding building a hollow force.*****

Your doctrine doesn't need major updates over what was state of the art (of war) up to the 1960's. Most things haven't changed much anyway, and (almost?) all armies are incapable of matching that level or tactical, operational and strategic proficiency anyway.

To get the basics right is laborious, inglorious, largely the job of non-commissioned officers and it's hardly profitable for the arms industry. Politicians know much about allocating more funds to the military, and next to nothing about what basics their army and air force don't get right, and how to fix that.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: "very largely" ~ 80+% / This does not require big, expensive hardware. All that it takes could be distributed on civilian pickup SUVs.

**: Artillery shooting 105 mm HE shells of WW2-ish quality and range would suffice, as long as the gun and its crew are survivable enough to pull it off.

***: "usually" ~ 80% connectivity even in face of a main effort attack / "quick" = quicker than motorcycle couriers, so by cable or by light or by radio frequency comms. Such quickness is important to achieve responsive (and thus effective) support fires. High bandwidth is no requirement. One 100 bytes message per minute is plenty bandwidth on a company leader to battalion HQ line.

****: Well-trained troops have better morale and are incredibly more effective. A well-trained reservists crew could be reassembled after two years of civilian life and be 10x as useful with a Soviet-era (1983) Buk M1 air defence system than the average Russian crew could be with the newest (2006) Buk M3 air defence system, for example.

*****: If you raise an army of a thousand howitzers, you better also buy millions of shells, fuzes and proportional quantities of propellant charges for it and store those properly. So for a thousand howitzers better have at least two million shells, and if that's too much in your opinion then a thousand howitzers are too many. If you think you can make do with 200,000 shells, then don't buy and train for more than a hundred howitzers. One might disagree on how many shells per gun exactly are appropriate and the correct figure may be different for Singapore than for Vietnam, for example. Yet the figure surely is between 1,000 shots and about 10,000 shots. At certain high round per gun counts you'd additionally need to be have certain spare parts and the corresponding maintenance & repair capacity, for that will be needed long before 10,000 rounds can be spent. .