There Will Be War Volume III

by Jerry Pournelle

  This scheme can be made more realistic by various complications, detours and prolongations, but in our discussion, simplicity is all that is needed.

  If the aggression is waged against an opponent of approximately equivalent strength, success is dependent on some or all of the following factors: a substantial lead in mobilization; secrecy of the forward deployment; deception on the center of gravity; the location of follow-on echelons and reserves; and the preservation of technological, tactical and operational secrets. Abbreviated version: Success depends on concealment and deception.

  Now, if the defender—the target of the aggression—is operating an up-to-date and properly deployed space-warning system of the appropriate size, the aggressor’s mobilization will be noticed and so will his troop and arms concentrations, and his forward deployments. Aggression can no longer be prepared secretly. In addition, the space system will produce the aggressor’s battle order together with its geographic locations, and it will indicate the movements of the attacking force, the approximate size of each column as well as the points of the attack and the locations of the reserves. Concealment and deception would succeed only if the opposing space system were inefficiently operated.

  True, space intelligence may be reduced by weather, technical insufficiencies and defects, and limits of coverage. Moreover, the aggressor may be partially successful with his ruses and deception measures. Finally, if the victim does not react and does not increase and move his forces, the warning may be in vain.

  Normally, if a victim state acquires a warning capability, it would be for the purpose of using it and acting on the information. European NATO’s warning capability is rudimentary, and the members of the alliance must rely on U.S. signals. The manner by which the European NATO states plan to utilize American space warnings is as yet far from being optimized. At this writing, NATO has merely the potential to benefit from warning.

  Nevertheless, the would-be aggressor, though he may hope to confuse the defender through countermeasures, must assume that the aggression will be detected from its first steps onward. If despite such a handicap he wishes to go through with his project, he must estimate that he possesses strength and operational superiority adequate to defeat the opponent. Under current circumstances, a Soviet planner would presumably assume that the USSR’s numerical superiority in divisions, artillery, tanks, troop carriers and aircraft negates the warning and provides high odds for success in battle.

  Shortly before crossing the border, the aggressor is likely to launch air strikes, mainly to cripple the defending air force. Since the flight from the border to the targets is a matter of minutes, the aggressor may have a chance to catch the defending air force on the ground. If so, the experience from World War II would suggest that the defender will be more or less unable to recover.

  But let us assume the warning system includes sensors that detect air movements before the attacking aircraft reach the border and that a space warning of the air strike reaches the defending command in near real time. It also may be assumed that the defending air force was alerted to the coming danger hours, or even days, ahead of time. In this case, a substantial portion of the defender’s aircraft should succeed in starting before they are hit on the ground. Also, anti-air defenses would be ready for action. This implies that the defender can save a percentage of his bombers, which may redeploy to temporarily secure airfields or else proceed to execute a strike of their own. It implies also that an air battle would ensue, resulting in heavy losses for the aggressor, perhaps spelling failure of the aggressor’s air plan.

  Whether the defender’s tactics would be partially or fully successful depends on unpredictable circumstances. The point is that the existence of an efficient warning system, paired to preparations for instant reaction upon warning, compels the planner of the aggression to anticipate a low probability of a successful air operation.

  How would the conditions affecting the advance of an invading ground force be changed by the new technology? If history serves as a guide, the army planner would assume either that he will succeed in overrunning the defender’s forces that are deployed near the border or that he will encounter only token resistance and therefore, if he is able to move with great speed, he will execute a deep penetration. He also might assume that while the defender has been warned, he lacks the capability to carry out an effective counter-deployment in time; nor could he possibly know where the counterforce would be optimally deployed.

  For the defender, the battle at the frontier has always been an almost insoluble problem. The defender may have known that an attack was impending, but in most cases he lacked this knowledge, and he never knew the precise time and the precise direction of the assault. In addition, for reasons of operations, logistics, mobilization schedules and the need to maintain strategic reserves, the defender usually found it impractical, or even impossible, to deploy a strong force forward and engage battle in an orderly, planned fashion. Accordingly, defenders rarely tried to win the battle at the frontier, and if they attempted to stop the invasion immediately, they hardly ever succeeded and often paid a high price for their failure. (Example: the French in 1914 and 1940.)

  What new capabilities are emerging that might enhance the power of the defender?

  Let us look at robotics, cruise missiles, targeting, battlefield intelligence, C3I, accuracy and fire control.

  Without wasting time on debating class operational models, battlefield robotics should be viewed as information-collectors and transmitters, as command relays, as specialized command posts, as ground weapons, and as air weapons.

  When the U.S. Army was dragging its feet for more than ten years, Congress got into the act and insisted on an RPV program. Thereupon the army approved two major missions for remotely piloted vehicles: meterology and electronic support to the ground force.

  The latter mission includes ELINT collection, ground-based radar jamming, communications jamming and battlefield surveillance linked with C3 in space. It is also planned to use RPVs for target acquisition, artillery fire direction and target designation. The system, together with data terminals and ground-control stations, and with anti-jam data links for reconnaissance, is scheduled to be deployed by 1985.

  For the time being, merely the use of mini RPVs is envisaged, but the small robots will have interesting characteristics, to wit, real-time information through video and zoom video, long flight endurance, high survivability and short training time, as well as net, parachute and automatic recovery. Thus the RPVs are no longer viewed as “drones,” and they are assigned to important missions. But no combat mission was approved.

  Whether or not RPVs should be used as an “independent” weapons system is debatable. In their Beka Valley operation, the Israelis used missiles to knock out radars, and they jammed interceptors, which they also attacked with missiles using heat-seeking (infrared) guidance. In combination with AWACS-type command aircraft, and with propeller-driven planes carrying radar detection and analysis equipment, the Israelis were using RPVs. They went all out for electronic techniques and electronic countermeasures, and in particular they utilized the frequencies that their opponent employed to track the Israeli RPVs, to knock out the surface-to-air missiles of the Syrians.

  Those tactics required RPVs as a major link in the combination. But bigger and more “independent” missions can be envisaged, especially if electronic warfare and anti-radar operations should grow in significance.

  RPVs are usable for telecommunications relay, photo and radar recce, for SIGINT, ELINT and COMINT, for ECM such as jamming, saturation and deception, for target locating, target marking, fire control, air attack, and also for suppression and destruction, provided they are linked into space-based navigation systems and weapons-control systems and are equipped with special ammunition. The RPVs are divided into recoverable and non-recoverable equipment, the latter being chiefly cheap minis.

  The combination of RPVs with helicopters for fast deployment and firepower could prove to b
e very potent.

  The vulnerability of RPVs against interception must be reduced: They already offer a low radar profile and a weak IR signature, and they are flying very low. Presumably they can be built from non-reflecting materials. For missions requiring many sorties, RPVs probably will be more cost-effective than manned aircraft, especially since the Soviets must be expected to make excessive use of anti-air weapons. It is important to remember that a loss quota of 3 percent per sortie may result in the destruction of half an entire air force within a week.

  Armed RPVs could carry out many jobs. However, numerous jobs must be accomplished without firepower. It is primarily important that there are plenty of RPVs with diversified capabilities. With their endurance of something like seven hours, they should be doing plenty of flying, close to the ground.

  In comparison with RPVs, ground robots, including self-propelled vehicles, are lagging in development. There is no doubt, however, that they can make great contributions to defense.

  As a minimum, the ground robots would discharge four major missions: in connection with the C3I system, collection of battlefield intelligence; exercise of mobility or the holding of territory; combat actions against selected stationary and mobile targets; on-the-spot tactical operations analysis.

  Accordingly, a robot unit needs leadership groups equipped with a vehicle carrying computers, software and communications materiel plus vehicles transporting various sensors; plus manned and unmanned electronic support vehicles, including RPVs. Depending on its mission, the unit would also have weapons and ammunition. In fact, unless the robot unit is entirely stationary and mainly engages in passive tasks like surveillance, it requires firepower to protect the equipment and the crews, if any.

  The intelligence would be secured by electronic means, also by photography and by observation, and much information would be received from higher command.

  The mobile control station would be housed in a container mounted on the ground or on a truck, and its computer would be tied to plotting devices, teleprinter, display, communications, mappers, link interfaces, countermeasures and equipment to support air, land and sea operations.

  Main targets include radars, tanks and apes (with troops), artillery and aircraft. Logistics and other targets may be added to the list. Enemy jammers and other ECM capabilities, some of which are mobile and accompany the invading force, are necessarily high-priority targets.

  Anti-tank weapons may use line-of-sight guidance like wires and fiber optics, gun sights, range finders and accuracy devices. In good weather and during daylight, such devices would be aimed by lasers; in bad weather and during the night, other beams must be used, e.g., microwave and IR. Tank targets may be laser-illuminated by a soldier on the ground. For that matter, projectile-firing guns, in particular anti-tank guns, may be replaced by ruby lasers. The laser family is growing, and the lasers are becoming increasingly versatile due to tunability of frequency and color so that the acuity of various sensors will be enhanced.

  A key anti-tank weapon may be a robotic tank-destroyer carrying a gun, possibly a laser gun, or a rocket with real accuracy, a good range and fire-control links.

  A robotic tank could be built for employment against “dismounted” infantry.

  Battlefield C3I is based on microprocessors and special software. To be usable by robots or an infantry squad, such systems weigh less than fifty pounds and require not more than two hundred watts. They can be combined with a display system that handles all types of sensors, including photography. The “superposition” of the several images produced by different sensors is a key for really useful battlefield intelligence.

  The control station of a robot unit must be assisted by a computer that can transmit commands. The computer systems that will be used in connection with robotics defense will be those of the future—ten years from now—and they might incorporate artificial intelligence features for the anticipation of enemy moves and the identification of alternate courses of action.

  Such ground facilities will in due time be connected to positioning systems operating in space. Positioning systems can spot with high accuracy the location both of the weapon and the target, thus increasing the accuracy that can be achieved from ground fire. This means robot units, through their computers and communications, need to provide tactical fire control from advanced positions. The fire that is brought to bear from distant bases, by missiles and bombs, would be equipped with lasers or equivalent target-seekers and guidance devices.

  Whereas radars can be easily hit and damaged, small enemy units like guerrilla bands remain difficult to locate. The robot units may lack the firepower to eliminate them. But they can call in and direct fire from distant bases using missiles or aircraft-launching missiles or dropping bombs. Small or guerrilla units would not be important in the context of a large Soviet attack. In the case of a sizable invasion, the robot units on the ground would not look for a few soldiers; instead, they would report on tanks, radars and large units which, presumably, they will spot before they are spotted themselves and which might be delayed by robot-controlled mine fields.

  The new characteristics spell a new dimension of accuracy. The probability of hitting targets has grown, and targets can be hit at longer ranges and with higher speeds. Moreover, the invader may lose a large portion of his radars, in which case the effectiveness of his force would be degraded. At the same time, weapons are smaller and therefore harder to see and more difficult to shoot down by the infantry. This in turn means that fewer weapons are needed to knock out targets, offsetting some of the costs of the new equipment. Not to overlook is the probability that the risks to military personnel and platforms will decline. Whatever the details, the growing lethality of precision weapons must cause changes in the structure of combat and in the organization of the forces.

  What does it all signify? First of all, it is obvious that the old concept of a “land battle” is obsolete. The U.S. Army has been operating for some time under the concept of the air-land war. Today’s and tomorrow’s reality is, however, that of a land-airspace or, since naval elements may be used in some geographies, a surface-air-space conflict. The space element includes synchronous orbiters and low-earth-orbiting satellites for reconnaissance, low-level photography, ferret operations and ocean surveillance, as well as synthetic aperture radar observation.

  The second fact is that all military operations and movements, as well as strategic and tactical decisions and actions, are dependent on electronics such as sensors, command, control and communication links, computer memories, processing and analysis, and intelligence, as well as electronics embedded in the weapons.

  The third fact is that robots will supplement and partially replace troops and manned aircraft. For example, anti-tank rockets, which need not weigh more than twenty pounds and which have a range of more than four hundred meters and fire a shaped charge, can be handled by a single soldier. This sounds as though one soldier who is well-trained and armed with a modern antitank weapon is the equivalent of a tank. If this equation depicted only an approximation, and if it were impractical to concentrate more than a few hundred tanks in one operational sector, a small number of well-prepared soldiers should be able to stop a tank attack. Precisely this capability of the soldier was assumed by Ludendorff in 1918, when his assumption was crazy. It may turn out to be correct after a time lag of seventy years. Whether this means that robots can take over the initial defense of forward areas and that this would free troops for maneuver and counterattack deployment may be left open until we know better what robots can do and what their limitations are. In any event, this much is clear: There will be many crucial locations where it is infeasible to deploy troops in adequate strength. Such locations can be “occupied” by robots with self-defense capabilities. It is also clear that in places where friendly troops are outnumbered by the enemy, robots may be used to cover the deficit.

  The fourth fact is that robot weapons allow a vast improvement of tactics, e.g., they are necess
arily employing kamikaze tactics. As another example, robots can quickly clear a mine field or, for that matter, lay one down.

  The fifth fact is that an invading force and virtually all of its elements are henceforth subject to near real-time surveillance. As a result, they can be attacked at any time with long-range weapons, such as cruise missiles.

  The sixth fact is that embedded computers can be reprogrammed within a very short time. In Falkland, British naval weapons were adjusted to the Exocet threat within twenty-four hours, a unique occurrence in military history. This capability of quickly updating weapons technology will be improved as the progress of computer hardware technology and software design continues.

  Naturally it is to be expected that the technological revolution in the “land battle” will not be restricted to one side. The new technology will be bilateral. But it is also to be expected that qualitative differences will be large. The prospect that electronics will equalize military strengths is not impressive. There is a better chance that the computers that are now middle-aged have rendered the array of Soviet tanks potentially obsolete. This does not preclude a Soviet attack on Western Europe: The Soviets may rely on crude quantitative superiority and NATO may not modernize fast enough.

  Still, the new technology is unquestionably strengthening the deterrence of a Soviet conventional attack. It also reinvigorates the defensive that, for some thirty years, was being overpowered by the offensive.

  CASE 2

  In looking at ground defense in nuclear conflict, do we consider a conflict that is restricted to the European theater or is the battle for the control of Europe merely a segment of a worldwide struggle, in particular of a contest between the USSR and the U.S., which is overarching the European encounter?

  It is generally assumed that nuclear attack by the USSR in Europe would be risked only if and when the Kremlin is ready to take on the U.S. at the same time. Furthermore, difficulties in the European battle might create unmanageable complications in the main contest. Hence the usual scenario ascribes top priority to a first strike by the Soviets against the American Triad.