Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: paulf@mcnc.org (Paul Damian Franzon) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: The death of mobile war Message-ID: <8890@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 9 Aug 89 03:58:05 GMT References: <8033@cbnews.ATT.COM> <8803@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Microelectronics Center of NC; RTP, NC Lines: 106 Approved: military@att.att.com From: paulf@mcnc.org (Paul Damian Franzon) In article <8803@cbnews.ATT.COM> bnr-di!borynec@watmath.waterloo.edu (James Borynec) writes: > > >From: bnr-di!borynec@watmath.waterloo.edu (James Borynec) > >I believe that we are about to have a revolution in conventional >warfare. Current doctrine maintains that we must concentrate >our forces into one section of the battlefield in order to achieve >success in offensive war. The idea is that we will be able to >overcome the enemy in that sector before he can muster sufficient >strengh to stop us. You have to do this in one (or a very few places) >because you will never have enough strengh to overcome the enemy on the >entire battlefield. > >The problem of organizing the fire is largely a matter of the proper >doctrine. The British had this down pat in WWII. Today, with modern >battlefield computers and communications, there is no technical reason >that the time from initial call for fire for all of the guns in a Corps >to the time that rounds start to land should be more than two minutes plus >time of flight (say 3 minutes in total). Several of the worlds armies >can do this today. > >The result of all of this, is that you can concentrate immense and >effective firepower faster than the enemy can concentrate his men and >machines. Since you need to concentrate your forces in order to >achieve offensive success, the defensive comes to the fore. > The big problem with trying to win a conventional Europe style war (which incidentally may today be seen as relatively unlikely compared with lower level conflicts?) with Artillery firepower is the reality of logistics. One simply does not usually have enough artillery power at the front to simply "blow away" everything you see and win the war that way. All of your firepower resources ARE needed along with carefully planned tactics. Modern Soviet dosctrine calls for very rapid movement of forces to very near the battle area and then rapid and massive concentration on narrow fronts so that in the final attack the defender almost sees wall to wall tanks. Many many artillery targets will present themselves during this process with the most concentrated target only appearing for the last 1500 meters of the attack, and it is really too late to defeat the enemy then. Thus the temptation is to engage every target you see before it reaches the attack line. Unfortunately if you do this you will run out of artillery ammo well before the main attack, much to your later discomfort :-8 One reason for this is that these pre-battle targets are not usually massed. I have been on exercises where this has happened. Lets consider some objections to this: Stockpile more ammo? Great if you can do it in time and are confident that you wont need to withdraw, leaving it behind. The other major problem with this is that artillery needs to move every time it fires to prvent effective counter-battery fire. OK, Use laser guided shells, arty delivered mines, etc to reduce the number needed? Unfortunately the number of these available are too low to use on each of the 1000+ tanks facing your front. They are quite expensive ($30k for one shell ??) though admittedly comparable with anti tank missiles in terms of cost. And remember the rate of fire of these is limited by the number of laser designators you have. ----- No, the answer is clever tactics, maximum effective use of ALL your firepower, as well as more and better shells. Use direct firepower to attrit the enemy before he masses for the attack (involves expending fewer shells.) Concentrate on "high value targets" before and during the massing, such as command and control, air defence, etc. Fool the enemy into massing at the wrong time and place to make arty more effective while not forcing a decision on your defence. Ensure that you have enough arty left to fire at high rate on his final attack and to cover your withdrawl or counter attack. The other potential problem with the "supergrunt" theory -- One guy and a radio calling in B52 strikes :-) is the "fog of battle". Command, control and communications works reasonably well up until the battle starts, then it is likely to deterioriate with jamming, and people becoming more concerned with surviving their immediate battle than with feeding enough info for a corps coordinated fire plan. ---- How can technology help? The US Army has a program here, including the development of fire & forget artillery launched tank-homing shells. It has also helped (at division level) with providing more robust communications. Still remember the limitation of only being able to shoot what you can carry in the course of a single battle results in a sever limitation on artillery use. Also remember that the "fog of battle" means that every level of commander wants firepower that is in his immediate control rather than rely on perhaps one artillery unit, that may be out of communications. Winning a battle requires a balancing act of resources and a lot of redundancy, if that makes sense. The infantryman is still the king of the battlefield :-)