MODERN ARMIES – THE NATURE OF OPERATIONS (PART I)

Colonel I.L. MAKARCHUK, Candidate of Technical Sciences
Colonel K.A. TROTSENKO, Candidate of Military Sciences

PART I  /  PART II  /  PART III

ABSTRACT

Based on the analysis of operational scale warfare in modern military conflicts, lessons are identified, conclusions are drawn, and the nature and content of future army operations are predicted.

The nature of warfare in Ukraine, which has gone beyond the concepts and forecasts of recent decades, has required not only new views on modern wars, but also a rethinking of the experience of armed conflicts of these most recent decades. Naturally, the parties involved turned out to be the most in need of correct perception, and in this regard is of interest the series of articles "The Nature of Operations of Modern Armies" published in the Russian military-theoretical periodical "Military Thought"¹. The most interesting is the consideration of the origins that determined the rise of modern warfare. From this point of view, the "first bells", sounded during the invasion of US-led coalition in Afghanistan, and noticed by the authors are quite curious.

For majority of researchers (including the most sophisticated), the military component of operations turned out to be drowned out by pronounced "hindrances" of the political dimension. In addition, the objective political component served as a convenient cover/justification for both the highest decision-making statesmen (who tagged the rapid withdrawal a long-term strategic move of "chaos management" in the Russia-China-Iran triangle) as well as the military (who soon realized the small prospect of success of military operations). But in fact, the scattered actions of small units of the Taliban movement, which had a strategic result, led to the need to answer the theory and practice of operational art and tactics to the question of future nature of the modern armies operations.

In short, what happened can be described as a victory of the network structure of the Taliban units, arising under the influence of the situation and circumstances, over the initially network operational and strategic structure of the US Armed Forces and their allies. The network system with a smaller structure prevailed. It also demonstrated how one system with a network structure can fight against another system with a network structure by controlling the dimension of its elements. With regard to the objectives of the offensive, groups of Taliban forces were quickly formed from dispersed tactical detachments and carried out coordinated strikes on the most vulnerable positions, objects and units of the adversary at certain moment.

In Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, the illegal armed groups (IAG) has also adapted to the situation by engaging groups with a density of forces and means below the level of their determining by modern intelligence means and the possibility of their effective massive fire destruction, including precision weapons. Acting in a dispersed battle order, the IAG forces and means could continuously maneuver at the discretion of the commanders of small tactical units within the areas of responsibility assigned to them, and if necessary, concentrate efforts or withdraw to neighboring areas and into the depth of defense. In addition, the IAG detachments demonstrated a fairly high sustainability to strikes of the massed “classic” operational and tactical troops and arms, forcing them to get bogged down in the network of their tactical units’ areas of responsibility, rather than repealing their attack. The advancing troops could not find and to defeat the structural nodes of the defense of the IAG, and thus decrease its stability as a whole. The defense of the IAG was perceived by them as a continuous series of ambushes, but with the use of modern sensors and heavy weapons. As a result, the pace of the offensive decreased to 1-2 km per day, and therefore the result turned out to be unstable and extremely expensive. In the meantime, the IAG itself did not suffer significant losses and, as a result, did not reduce its activity.

The IAGs success in these theaters of operations have practically denounced previously fashionable theory of remote and contactless wars.

Turkish Armed Forces have perceived the capabilities of the net-centric battle order, and created a mixed grouping of Turkish troops and the Syrian Free Army IAG detachments during the operation "Source of Peace" in October 2019. They’ve reached the pace of the offensive 4-6 km during the first day and 6-8 kilometers in the following. The features and advantages of such an order remained largely unnoticed – both due to the inertial perception of this TO as secondary to military theory, as well as thanks to competent control of the Turkish party over information.

They remained in the shadows also during the Second Karabakh War in the autumn of 2020, which practically became an advertising campaign of the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAV. Meanwhile, it was the unconventional, net-centric battle order of the attacking party in a single-echelon operational formation. After failed breakthrough attempts the "classical" way during the first week, իt allowed to destabilize the tactical defense zone of the Armenian side by the actions of small, independent groups supported by fire and intelligence. At the next stage, these small detachments advanced further and ensured the introduction of tactical groups into the depth of defense, shattering the stability of the whole defence and creating favorable conditions for units attacking from the front.

What can we expect in the future?

• Providing the troops fighting in dispersed netcentric combat formations with minimal AD, direct air (including UAV), long-range fire (missiles and artillery), reconnaissance and maneuver support, the ability to intercept the initiative of modern high-tech formations of regular troops both on a tactical and operational scale; achieving major operational successes without creating large strike groups localized in time and place and without technical superiority over the adversary.
• Achieving superior combat effectiveness by:
• a) the creation, battle order and use of units with the density and mobility of their constituent forces and means below the threshold being identified by modern means of reconnaissance and massive fire destruction;
• b) a significant reduction in the number of critical elements of the combat order of the unit and the acquisition of uniformity;
• c) the transition from shock tactics to the basics of fire tactics of small units with a low density of battle formations, but superiority over the enemy at each stage of preparation, maneuver and firing.
• Anticipating the adversary's C2 cycle by organizing the actions of small units based on common goals and decentralized definition of tasks by field commanders who find themselves in certain given conditions.
• Achieving asymmetric superiority over the enemy through the introduction of a fundamentally new organization of forces as a purposeful and multi-intelligent (social) combat system with a time-varying net-centric structure of relatively homogeneous elements with functional uniformity and the ability for autonomous actions.

Published: 15/01/23