Politely, I think we’re in a step change with Drones, and a half step change with EW. I say half step because we the West are “relearning” lessons we institutionally forgot, as we had other Expeditionary and Colonial priorities. The military knew, the military warned, but the resources were placed elsewhere. The same can be said of the bread and butter, artillery for instance.
I think it may be an error to put the lessons of the battlefield in Ukraine onto lacking in staff competencies, certainly on the Russian side.
The Sea change is quite literal for the Black Sea Fleet, and others would do well to take heed.
Manned Aircraft may want to be Fabian with actual pilots.
As noted matters return towards a mean, certainly the tank and armor remain important, but EW and cope cages as well as changes in tactics and operations are warranted.
Drones:
The Empty Battlefield may become the empty theater, meaning more than ever full camouflage and sound security measures physically, tactically and emissions control will be applied or the enemy will teach harsh lessons. We did this during the Cold War and Desert Storm, indeed well into the 90s and we can do it again.
If I want to be radical about the new environment, pardon me;
Shoot, move, Communicate.
If you shoot or communicate you’d better move or be shot.
You’d better move light, pack light, and Command Post light, same with logistics which has just entered a major period of insecurity. Our logistics just became quite complicated compared to the past, never mind the recent Colonial past. We’ll adapt, just as we did with IEDs on all our MSRs. We have done all this before, we can again.
We should start now.
My recommendation is to load up fast on cheaper countermeasures, push them to the kids and see what they figure out and build our “doctrine” up, we won’t have 3-6 years for people to rotate back to Leavenworth and develop an approved Doctrinal solution down. The Company and Battalion leaders being pushed tools and resources, training will give us the best results.
Top down will fail, we need tools now, yesterday, not the Lateran Council of Kansas and the Potomac getting solutions (that will be dated) by 2027.
Solving the problems will come from the frontline soldiers and leaders, the Top is used to fielding systems from concept to deploying in years or decades, when we have weeks or months.
Give the kids the tools that exist now in quantity and then distill the answers. The money wasted is better than wasting blood.
After all, it takes 19 years to make a physical E3. Many materials can be built faster than 19 years.
The kids and the line unit soldiers have the lessons now. Push the tools.
You might like this podcast about the Russia-Ukraine drone war:
https://open.substack.com/pub/soberchristiangentlemanpodcast/p/s2-ep-10-drone-wars-we-have-crossed-d30?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=31s3eo
Thank you.
Politely, I think we’re in a step change with Drones, and a half step change with EW. I say half step because we the West are “relearning” lessons we institutionally forgot, as we had other Expeditionary and Colonial priorities. The military knew, the military warned, but the resources were placed elsewhere. The same can be said of the bread and butter, artillery for instance.
I think it may be an error to put the lessons of the battlefield in Ukraine onto lacking in staff competencies, certainly on the Russian side.
The Sea change is quite literal for the Black Sea Fleet, and others would do well to take heed.
Manned Aircraft may want to be Fabian with actual pilots.
As noted matters return towards a mean, certainly the tank and armor remain important, but EW and cope cages as well as changes in tactics and operations are warranted.
Drones:
The Empty Battlefield may become the empty theater, meaning more than ever full camouflage and sound security measures physically, tactically and emissions control will be applied or the enemy will teach harsh lessons. We did this during the Cold War and Desert Storm, indeed well into the 90s and we can do it again.
If I want to be radical about the new environment, pardon me;
Shoot, move, Communicate.
If you shoot or communicate you’d better move or be shot.
You’d better move light, pack light, and Command Post light, same with logistics which has just entered a major period of insecurity. Our logistics just became quite complicated compared to the past, never mind the recent Colonial past. We’ll adapt, just as we did with IEDs on all our MSRs. We have done all this before, we can again.
We should start now.
My recommendation is to load up fast on cheaper countermeasures, push them to the kids and see what they figure out and build our “doctrine” up, we won’t have 3-6 years for people to rotate back to Leavenworth and develop an approved Doctrinal solution down. The Company and Battalion leaders being pushed tools and resources, training will give us the best results.
Top down will fail, we need tools now, yesterday, not the Lateran Council of Kansas and the Potomac getting solutions (that will be dated) by 2027.
Solving the problems will come from the frontline soldiers and leaders, the Top is used to fielding systems from concept to deploying in years or decades, when we have weeks or months.
Give the kids the tools that exist now in quantity and then distill the answers. The money wasted is better than wasting blood.
After all, it takes 19 years to make a physical E3. Many materials can be built faster than 19 years.
The kids and the line unit soldiers have the lessons now. Push the tools.
Or fail.
Good luck.