Contents - SA Army

Transcription

Contents - SA Army

Contents
Editorial
Point
03 Thoughts for Future Commanders
Strategy and Operations
Book Reviews
20 The Argument for an ‘Indirect’
51 Callsign Hades
Expeditionary Warfare Concept
Lieutenant Colonel I.D. Langford
51 Fire Strike 7/9
Brigadier-General Dick Lord
Patrick Bury
Sergeant Paul Grahame
26 When Innovation becomes
Warfare and Armed Conflict
05 The Regularity of Irregular Warfare
W. Alexander Vacca and Mark Davidson
Critical
Lieutenant Evert Kleynhans
Joint Operations
Enfilade
30 Coercive Air Power and Peace
52 Why Integrity First
Enforcement
Lt. Col. Randy Huiss
Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur
Other Armies
36 The Quintessential Ones:
Lessons of Warfare
Lieutenant Colonel Kulbhushan Bhardwaj
Force Composition and Design
11 Armour…Combat Arm of
South African
Decision
Army Journal
Brigadier-General Chris Gildenhuys
2013
Issue 7
Weapons and Equipment
The official magazine of the South African Army.
39 Light and Medium Armour
Helmoed Römer Heitman
Speculative Fire
18 Protecting Rear Areas
Helmoed-Römer Heitman
The SA Army’s Rooikat falls neatly into the
medium armour category - outstanding
operational mobility coupled with good
firepower and protection.
SAAJ_#7 2013.indd 1
2013/02/11 07:55:35 AM
EDITORIAL
From the Editor's Desk
Africa continues to be interesting from a military point of view,
with multiple conflict theatres to watch and from which to learn.
Perhaps the most outstanding lesson of the past year was
how quickly situations change and how quickly rebel forces
can move.
2012 opened with rebels seizing two-thirds of Mali in just
eleven weeks, and closed with rebels seizing two-thirds of the
Central African Republic in just nineteen days. A remarkable
performance in each case, even if aided by the local army
being less than stellar in its performance. Less spectacular but
worth keeping in mind, was how M23 rebels just walked into
Goma in the DRC, the Army melting away and MONUSCO
going from strafing them the day before, to claiming neutrality
and standing aside to watch events.
The 2012/13 turn of year also brought a demonstration of
how promptly and quickly the SA National Defence Force can
respond to a crisis: The CAR government asked for help on
the 29th, the President was briefed on the 30th, the Minister of
Defence was in Bangui on the 31st and the first troops were on
the ground by the 2nd. Prompt and quick indeed.
This may have been a very small force – only a Paratroop
company and some Special Forces – and deployed chiefly
to protect the South African training team in the CAR, but its
presence combined with the deployment of troops by Central
African countries and the expanded French presence to give
the rebels pause for thought: Attempting to take Bangui could
all too easily become a real fight, even if the French and South
Africans were not there to protect the government, clashes
with them would be almost inevitable. That made a negotiated
settlement an acceptable outcome.
The impact of the small SA Army force is perhaps best
illustrated by the reaction of the rebels, who demanded that it
be withdrawn before they would sign a cease fire. Our troops
are still there, but that showed that their presence had a very
real effect on the thinking of the rebel leadership.
Consider this quick response operation and the three distant
deployments of Special Forces and other elements in early
2011, to stand by should events in South Sudan go sour and to
protect the President and other African leaders in Cote d’Ivoire
and later in Libya, and it is clear that there is real capability in
the Defence Force to back up the country’s diplomatic efforts.
That capability is, however, limited by the lack of air transport
capacity that severely restricts what can be done, and will
not be possible to retain for ever without adequate funding.
Considering the limitations of inadequate air transport capacity,
it should be sobering to consider what could have been done
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had M23 pressed on to take Bukavu – the only tarred runway
in the DRC within 400 km of Goma – and decided to attack the
SA contingent at Goma airport or the outlying company and
platoon bases.
Looking further afield within the continent, 2012 brought the
rare event of an African amphibious landing operation when
the Kenyan Navy landed troops north of Kismayo as part of
a coordinated operation to take that town from al Shabaab.
Interestingly, the Kenyan Air Force flew attacks against targets
at Kismayo to coincide with the landing to distract the attention
of the defenders. The Kenyan Air Force had also carried out
a number of air strikes previously, and the Kenyan Navy had
clashed with pirate craft and exchanged fire with ‘technicals’
along the Kismayo waterfront.
Among other developments, Ethiopia in January again
deployed forces to Somalia to support the Transitional Federal
Government forces and AMISOM, but probably also to provide
an opportunity to search out and disrupt the logistic routes used
by Ogaden Liberation Front guerrillas. AMISOM meanwhile
made real progress in Somalia, but at the cost of some heavy
fighting that routinely involved tanks and ICVs. Also worth
noting was the heavy fighting around Heglig on the Sudan/
South Sudan border, not only because the South Sudan Army
suffered as many as 1 000 fatal casualties, but because it saw
clashes between Chinese T-96 tanks of the Sudan Army and
T-72s of the South Sudan Army.
War in Africa does not only involve lightly armed guerrillas and
some ‘technicals’.
The articles in this issue will, we hope, trigger thought around
how the SA Army will deal with the wide range of operational
challenges that could come its way over the next decade or
two. We open with a short piece by the late Brigadier-General
Dick Lord of the SAAF, a true ‘officer and gentleman’ in every
sense of that phrase, and a fighter pilot with real empathy for the
‘brown jobs’ and an understanding of what they need. We also
have articles from journals in Australia, India and the United
States, to give some insight into how military professionals
there think on relevant issues.
‘Read, mark and inwardly digest’ those articles and those by
your colleagues, and put your own thoughts on paper.
In closing, we inadvertently omitted in our previous issue to
note that Commander ‘Sid’ Heal’s article, ‘Peacekeepers:
Athena’s Champions’, was reprinted with the kind permission
of the Australian Defence Journal. They have kindly accepted
our apology for that slip, and we will continue to bring you the
thinking of some of their authors.
SA Army Journal - Issue 7 (2013)
2013/02/11 07:55:35 AM
POINT
Some Thoughts for Future Commanders
Brigadier-General Dick Lord
(SA Air Force, rtd)
Editor’s Note: General Lord put these thoughts together
for the Journal, but sadly died before he could write
them up as an article. These thoughts are, therefore,
not in his usual elegant style, but are profoundly worth
contemplating.
War, in any guise, whether guerrilla, insurgency, skirmish or
confrontation, has a common denominator – the possibility
of death. To the participant, whether the military conflict is
described as low intensity or global, consequences can be the
same. Each participant views the war through the perspective
of his actual involvement – despite academic attempts to
record for posterity, the greater issues at stake.
War is a vast undertaking, the scale of which, ranging between
life, death, destruction and political change is beyond the
comprehension of most of the participants, be they political or
military. The fighting soldier concentrates on staying alive in a
hostile and dangerous environment. The politician, safe from
the slaughter of the battlefield, views the process with an eye
to gaining political advantage. The local population, usually
SAAJ_#7 2013.indd 3
Informal order group: Major-General Poole and Brigadier Palmer in Italy in
1944. Command was stressful then; it is even more so in modern war.
the major sufferers in times of war, has extreme difficulty
comprehending why fate has been so unkind to them.
Few people realise or understand each facet of a conflict.
This important fact should be borne in mind by those with the
power to commit forces to battle.
Application of Lessons Learned
• Where human life is concerned, every conflict has to be
taken seriously. The Principles of War have to be applied
by the planners and commanders. Tactical drills and SOP’s,
right down to section level, are as important in a low-intensity
patrol as in a full scale conventional war. The price of failure
to comply could be the same!
• From the safety of their position away from the front line,
politicians tend to easily resort to the military option of
problem solving. However, SERIOUS consideration to every
facet/option/possibility must be given before allowing forces
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POINT
to be committed to battle. The consequences are vast.
• Leave no stone unturned in seeking the best intelligence
on the entire spectrum of consequences of any envisaged
action. Unilateral decisions invariably backfire!
• In the case of a regional power like the RSA, it is the Air
Force that must project power, but it is only the Army that
can control/maintain the required position on the ground.
• Technology is a force multiplier. However it is expensive,
therefore the RSA must consider its needs in terms of
Africa, not globally.
• Proper training of aircrew and suitable systems to counter
the threats posed by modern weaponry are not negotiable
– but again in terms of Africa.
• Support personnel are growing in importance and require
sophisticated and thorough training to keep modern
equipment operational under battlefield conditions. If this
thought is carried further, it will be realised that these
trained people will become increasingly attractive to civilian
industry, as the level of their training increases. Proper
pay and career enhancing structures must be adopted to
ensure the military retains all its assets.
• Vietnam was the definitive case of the evils of gradualism.
However, we too were equally guilty during our bush
war. Our initial reaction to most situations was: “Send a
company of 32 Battalion and a battery of MRL’s”! Only after
this was invariably found to be insufficient, did we increase
force levels to that required to do the job properly. A drastic
problem usually requires a drastic solution!
• If you decide to start a job, know how you are going to finish
it, then do it properly the first time.
• Air superiority over a battlefield is vital. Force design must
cater for this eventuality – but remember to do it in African
terms.
• Do not initiate a military conflict you cannot win. Use
diplomatic means to negotiate a successful outcome.
• Nobody knew how, when or why the bush war would end.
Perseverance and determination ultimately achieved a
satisfactory conclusion, in contrast to the first (1961) conflict
between Iraq and Kuwait, which flared up again in 1991,
and the 1982 Falklands War, which also left the situation
unresolved, with tension again building today.
• There will always be bullies and gangs in the schoolyard.
Excellent intelligence on the who, and pro-active actions on
the why, should resolve problems before they degenerate
into military conflicts.
• As Chester Crocker stated, “Southern Africa is a rough
neighbourhood”. Therefore the forces of the RSA must be
maintained at a high readiness level to be able to counter
any of the many threats that could arise.
• Careful consideration on the country’s military capabilities
must continually be updated, and adjusted, where
necessary. In this regard it is, in my opinion, necessary
for the defence department to reduce thinking in terms
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of individual services, i.e. Army, Navy and Air Force, and
concentrate instead on a joint, military capability.
• The opinion expressed above could be/should be the basis
for the force design of the future SANDF. For instance the
statement implies that instead of budgets being divided
arbitrarily between the services, available money should be
allocated to achieving the joint force required. For example,
the Navy might want money for submarines, the Army might
want new tanks and the Air Force might want new fighters.
However, the joint force requirement might be for additional
helicopters and anti-tank missiles. This then is where the
money should be spent.
• Further, it implies a change of mindset within the military.
Traditionally, because the Army has been the largest service,
it was felt necessary that overall command of operations
should therefore resort with the Army. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The need is for the best qualified
commander to be entrusted to run the operation, no matter
which service he may be from. As he will employ assets
from all the services he not only requires a good brain, but
he must have the ability to build the best team spirit to carry
the operation through to a successful conclusion. General
Montgomery of Alamein, stated that he spent up to a third of
each working day, considering and choosing the right men
for command of operations. Inspired choices invariably led
to success.
Design the force for the mission regardless of service rivalries;
and do not forget the support personnel.
2013/02/11 07:55:36 AM
WARFARE AND ARMED CONFLICT
The Regularity of Irregular Warfare
W. Alexander Vacca and Mark Davidson
© 2011 W. Alexander Vacca and Mark Davidson
This article is published by the kind permission of Parameters, the journal of the US Army War College
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Despite the new terminology dreamt up to describe them and their actions,
irregular forces and warfare are nothing new. Nor, usually, does their
strategic aim differ from that of ‘regular’ forces.
The US military and our allies are currently facing challenges
from adversaries employing a wide range of tactics and
pursuing uncertain objectives. Policy makers, analysts, and
practitioners are grappling for terms and concepts to apply
to these challenges that convey the unique tactical and
strategic aspects of these conflicts. With these terms and
concepts they formulate and evaluate options for conducting
operations, procuring equipment, and organizing the defence
establishment. Given the great importance of these choices,
the utmost care must be used in choosing accurate terms. The
widespread use of the term ‘irregular warfare’ in official and
unofficial documents is an unhelpful and dangerous trend.
This article argues that something as seemingly innocuous
as poor terminology can have serious consequences.
conflates tactical asymmetry with strategic difference. While
the tactics employed by the belligerents may be different, the
strategic objective is the same. Suggesting otherwise is both
ahistorical and misleading.
Confronted with tactics radically different from our own
standard tactics, analysts created a new category, ‘irregular
warfare’, to describe the security challenge we face. In
creating a new category, they created more conceptual
mischief than they resolved. ‘Irregular warfare’ as a term
SAAJ_#7 2013.indd 5
By maintaining that wars that pit sides with vastly different
tactical systems and resources against one another is
‘irregular’, analysts run the risk of making deductive and
inductive errors. Deductively, analysts will fail to apply
generalized lessons and analytical frameworks to the
specifics of the strategic challenge at hand. Inductively,
analysts will fail to draw generalized lessons and place the
conflict into the broader concept of warfare. Incidents of
irregular warfare throughout history thus become analytical
orphans, of interest to military history buffs but unfairly
excluded from the scientific accumulation of knowledge in
strategic studies. This simultaneously weakens and limits
theories of warfare, while leaving strategists conceptually
disarmed when confronted with strategic challenges that do
not fit neatly in a specific model.
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Tactical asymmetries are an enduring characteristic of warfare
across three centuries. The French Republican experience
with the counterrevolution in the Vendée in the 1790s
displayed many of the characteristics of what today some
would call an irregular war, and was fought concurrently with
the traditional and proto-Napoleonic Wars of the Coalitions on
France’s eastern borders. The second phase of the FrancoPrussian War pitted Gambetta’s civilian Government of the
National Defence against Molke’s occupying armies and
was very different from the set-piece battles of Gravelotte
and Sedan in the first phase. In the second Boer War the
British had to overcome two very different phases of Boer
resistance, and develop a tactical synthesis within their army.
Strategic thinkers, even those as formidable as Moltke the
Elder, were frustrated by the apparent failure of these wars
to follow the logic of warfare. Without generalized models
or concepts to draw on, strategists struggled to formulate
effective responses. Once the wars were finished, the
historical and tactical lessons of these wars were separated
from the broader theoretical and analytic study of warfare,
degrading later military efforts to confront similar challenges.
As the United States military prepares to reflect on the history
of the previous decade of conflict, it is imperative that these
lessons not be isolated as an ‘irregular’ historical curiosity, but
are instead fully integrated into a broad and flexible tactical
and strategic understanding of warfare.
The Enduring Characteristic of Warfare
Clausewitz offers a blunt definition of warfare as “an act of
force to compel our enemy to do our will.”1 In his general
theory chapters, he does not discuss tactics, he does not
specify that war involves uniformed combatants, close
order drill, or movement through bounded overwatch. While
Clausewitz does discuss elements of tactics in the book,
these chapters have been super-seded and are now read
only by Clausewitz completists. The general chapters remain
on the reading lists of staff colleges and security studies
programs throughout the world.2
While civilian analysts are comfortable discussing military
strategy, tactics have become the domain of the specialist.3
Tactics represent an important intervening step between
the components of raw power and military outcomes. The
components of raw power, which can include population,
level of industrialization, technological prowess, and other
attributes normally considered by macro-level projects
such as the Correlates of War, are insufficient to explain
military outcomes.4 Tactical systems change the way that
military power is generated from the same resource base.5
Therefore, it makes sense that adversaries would attempt
to gain advantages through adoption of tactical systems to
offset any shortfall in the raw components of military power.
The warfare of today is irregular only because the tactics
adopted by the adversary are not identical to our own. Yet
the tactics do involve the use of lethal and nonlethal force on
the soldiers and civilians of the United States and our allies
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to achieve one or more political outcomes. If the adversary
could defeat allied forces in Afghanistan by using 1880
cavalry tactics, they would use those tactics.
The Regularity of Irregular Warfare
Tactical asymmetries go back to the beginning of time.
In the Bible, David beat Goliath by using a sling-launched
projectile rather than engage in physical contact. This section
provides a short overview of three wars that displayed
tactical asymmetries that frustrated the side with both a more
advanced tactical system and greater resources, specifically
the counterrevolution in the Vendée, the second phase of
the Franco-Prussian War, and the second Boer War. Despite
their importance and common themes, these wars have been
excluded from the contemporary canon of military theory.
The French Revolution would give birth to Napoleonic
warfare and precipitate the writing of the enduring strategic
treatises of Jomini and Clausewitz. Yet within the chaos of
the Revolution is a forgotten military operation prompted
by a counter revolt in the Vendée. What has been written
on the Vendée is primarily sociological, and the tactics and
operations of the revolt have been given almost no attention.6
As the Revolution widened its political goals to include
a complete refashioning of the French State, the very
institution of the Catholic Church came under violent attack.
The civilians of the Vendée revolted in 1793 against this
expansion of Revolutionary goals, and took up arms in
defence of the Church, and later of the monarchy. To put
down this revolt, the Republican government sent in an army
of almost 50,000. In a series of battles, detached columns of
this army were overwhelmed and destroyed by the Vendéan
forces.
The Vendéans were civilians with light armament, led by some
Royalist officers and gifted amateurs. They fought dispersed
in the countryside, and would only concentrate to destroy
isolated detachments of the Republican Army. With a whole
region to cover, the Republicans were continually dividing
their forces to seek out the Vendéan armies in battle.7 Paddy
Griffith, in the most complete English language treatment of
the military aspects of the Vendée, argues:
“There was no specific fortress to storm, no real army to
capture, and no significant economic resources upon which
the Republic could seize . . . . In this theatre the sophisticated
military education of the Revolution’s generals was found to
be largely irrelevant, in a way that was not true elsewhere.”8
The momentum of the operation only shifted when the
Vendéan army changed their strategy and attempted to lay
siege to the Republican city of Nantes. Denied their normal
advantages of cover, dispersion, and surprise, they exhausted
themselves and depleted their number in the siege.
The second Republican campaign later in the year was
fought very differently. Rather than attempt to engage the
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now weakened Vendéan forces, the Republicans remained
concentrated and methodically burned villages, destroyed
crops, and executed civilians.9 Modern historians estimate
that anywhere from a quarter to half of the Vendéan population
was killed by the Republicans.10 Three years after it began,
the uprising was put down in 1796. Yet even then the Vendée
would occasionally flare up and would require a Republican
(and later Imperial) garrison through 1815.11
The French later faced a better resourced partisan campaign
on the Iberian Peninsula, and apparently drew no links to
their experience in the Vendée. In the Peninsula War, which
gave birth to the term “guerrilla war,” the Spanish partisans
supported by English regulars slowly depleted French
resources, and caused the eventual withdrawal of Imperial
forces from the peninsula.
The Franco-Prussian War, while best remembered for the
crushing French defeat at Sedan, evolved into a complex
second phase of partisan warfare, occupation, and
inconclusive military engagements. During the first phase
of the war, French armies using standard post-Napoleonic
tactics engaged Prussian armies with more advanced postNapoleonic tactics. The Prussians defeated the French in
a series of large traditional battles, isolating a field army
at Metz, obliterating a second at Sedan, and capturing the
French Emperor, Napoleon III.12 With their armies lost and
government fallen, the French suffered a decisive defeat.
Yet the war did not end with Sedan. A civil government under
Leon Gambetta emerged, organized new military units, and
within a month had another half million men under arms. The
remnants of the French military, plus armed civilians, fortified
Paris and prepared for a long Prussian siege. Giuseppe
Garibaldi created an army of international volunteers,
christened the Army of the Vosges, and marched into France.
Lacking the training, equipment, and drill of regular soldiers,
and because French tactics had been called into question by
previous battles, these new armies did not seek to fight setpiece battles with the Prussian Army. Instead, they adopted
new tactics and dispersed across the countryside, forcing
the Prussians to turn their regular army into an occupying
force. The Prussians were forced to disperse an army of over
100,000 men to protect supply lines from partisan attacks.
In contrast to their success in set piece battles, the Prussians
were continually frustrated by this stage of the war. No less
a personage than Molke the Elder began to contemplate a
war of indeterminate duration that could only end with the
destruction of the civil infrastructure of France.13 The tide
only decisively turned against the French when Gambetta,
looking to reverse earlier French defeats, ordered French
forces to resume conventional offensive opera¬tions against
the Prussians. As they transitioned to this role, each army
was quickly routed by the Prussians, who were relieved to be
fighting set piece battles again.14
After the Franco-Prussian War, military analysts spent
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considerable effort to understand why the French were so
decisively beaten in the first phase and why both French
and Prussian casualties were so high.15 Yet the successful
resistance of the French in the second phase, and the
Prussian inability to gain traction against these operations,
attracted comparatively little attention. Those who wrote
about it at all, such as Hans Delbrück, did so in quasiphilosophical terms.16 As after the Vendée almost a century
before, traditional operations completely dominated the
military historiography of the period.
Like the Franco-Prussian War, the second Boer War, fought
between 1899 and 1902, had distinct phases, beginning
with conventional battles and later transitioning to guerilla
warfare. Yet even in the conventional battles the Boer armies
displayed asymmetric tactics. The British used close order
linear formations for infantry and the arme blanche for
cavalry.17 The Boer regular units used dispersed formations
for infantry and mounted infantry tactics for their horsemen.
This tactical asymmetry produced a series of defeats for the
British on both the offense and the defense for the first few
months of the war.18 With a new commander, new tactics, and
many more troops the British turned the table on the Boer,
eventually destroying the regular Boer armies and capturing
the capitals of the Boer republics in 1900.
The remaining Boer regulars, augmented by volunteers
but without a central government, organized themselves in
commando units, and began to fight a mobile guerrilla war
in Boer territory. For the next two years the British had to
deal with Boer commando raids and pacify the countryside.
The British developed a system of small distributed
fortifications (blockhouses), ran barbed wire throughout the
countryside, and eventually began destroying farmland and
civilian population centres. Civilians were rounded up and
concentrated in prison camps, called concentration camps,
further depriving the Boer military units of succour and
support.19
Without a civil structure for resistance, the independent
Boer units began to surrender to the British. The British and
what remained of the Boer leadership negotiated a new
civil structure, which eliminated the Boer republics but also
set the groundwork for changing the British Cape Colony
into the Union of South Africa, an element of the British
Commonwealth.
The second Boer War is important because the Boer
presented the British with two asymmetric challenges. In the
first phase they fought for traditional objectives, including
the holding and taking of specific ground, but did so with
nonstandard tactics. In the second phase they transitioned to
a full guerrilla tactical system.
In the aftermath of the second Boer War, the British military
went to great lengths to systematically reverse the tactical
reforms of the war. The Boer War was seen as an outlier,
both geographically and conceptually, involving a weak foe
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without a regular military. The revised British infantry and
cavalry tactics were seen as temporary expedients, and
changed back to 1899 doctrine.20 This tactical retrogression
would have disastrous consequences for the British in 1914.
In post World War II and colonial applications, these lessons
were “re-learned” by the French in North Africa and East
Asia, and the United Kingdom during the Malay Emergency
and to some extent in Northern Ireland.21 In a depressingly
familiar pattern, the hard-learned lessons of irregular war
had to be relearned through the expenditure of blood and
treasure. These lessons, learned also by United States
military and civilian leadership in Vietnam, were relegated
to near obscurity until recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan
brought a rush of thought and rediscovery in terms of military
education, doctrine, and cultural discourse.22
These historical examples show that very different military
powers - Republican France, Prussia, and Great Britain
- have had to face challenges from adversaries who used
asymmetric tactics during all or part of a conflict. In each case,
the side with more traditional tactics struggled to adjust to the
challenge, and defined the challenge as outside of the scope
of normal military operations. After the war, the lessons were
shunted to the side, and considered to be applicable only to
the very narrow circumstance of the specific conflict, and not
considered as part of the normal course of war.
Linguistic Imprecision and Strategic Mischaracterization
The use of the term ‘irregular warfare’ is not simply a matter of
harm¬less imprecision; it exerts a pernicious effect on the way
that policy makers plan for and conduct military operations,
as well as on military historiography. Military and political
analysts fail to adequately and accurately learn lessons from
irregular operations and they fail to apply relevant lessons
from the broader knowledge base about military operations.
Political psychologists have shown that the terms we use to
describe issues can influence the way that we evaluate options
and frame potential solutions.23 Verbal metaphors imply and
cue cognitive heuristics. To modify the initial quotation from
Wittgenstein, “the choice of my language indicates the limits
of my world.” The choice to describe non-traditional tactics
and operations as ‘irregular’” limits the ability to prepare for,
and learn from, these experiences.
Irregular warfare implies a distinctness from regular warfare,
reinforced by framing irregular warfare in opposition to
regular warfare. Modern US doctrine even goes so far as
to pool ‘conventional’, ‘regular’, and ‘traditional’ warfare
as “essentially synonymous.”24 This framing very clearly
positions ‘irregular’ as something different and distinct from
normal military operations.
‘Irregular’ implies infrequency. Yet military events that depart
from standard set piece battles are frequent throughout history
and in the post-Napoleonic period. Even traditional wars have
theatres where non-traditional tactics are practiced, such as
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Allenby’s campaign against the Ottoman Turks. Biddle and
Friedman argue that even these distinctions are blurred, as
the tactical principles underlying asymmetric tactical systems
are very similar.25 Yet ‘irregularity’ implies something that
is infrequent, abnormal, and defies systematic study and
routine processes and solutions.
In addition to frequency, ‘irregularity’ also implies diminished
importance. Because irregular wars are infrequent and
abnormal, they should not receive the same level of attention
in terms of resources, training, or study, as regular warfare.
Irregular warfare thus becomes ancillary to regular warfare.
This depreciates our understanding of irregular warfare and,
ironically, of regular warfare.
Deductive Failures
The deductive failure is the inability of analysts to draw on the
general knowledge of warfare and history for recommendations
and insight on the current conflict. If the conflict is irregular, it
is apart from our generalized understanding of warfare, and
thus we toss out history and conceptual leverage which might
be very applicable to the problem if we just thought of it as
warfare.
Some analysts have argued that there are irregular aspects
to all wars. Biddle and Friedman argue that there is a tactical
continuum, and their analysis of the 2006 Lebanon campaign
shows how Hezbollah blended tactics.26 Military analysts who
rely exclusively on either pole fail to process the full effects of
Hezbollah tactics, and to the extent that Israeli tactics were
designed for one or the other pole, they were inadequate in
facing the challenge of Hezbollah.
Another consequence of this deductive failure is to break the
link between war and politics. Clausewitz is very clear that war
is a political act with political objectives. Yet in irregular war,
the political objectives are often forgotten as analysts focus on
the tactical challenges. Negotiated settlements become very
difficult to reach, or even propose. The military becomes a
jealous protector of its autonomy, citing tactical expediency as
a reason for avoiding civilian oversight. When confronted with
continued French resistance in 1871 and Bismarck’s demand
for a negotiated settlement, Moltke wrote that “ . . . only the
military point of view counted. The political viewpoint counted
only insofar as it did not demand things that were militarily
not allowable.”27 Bismarck advocated a (harsh) negotiated
settlement, while Moltke wanted to break the French civilization
once and for all by destroying population centres and farmland.28
Somewhat ironically, each incident of irregular warfare
analysed ended with military commanders recommending
courses of actions that approached the Clausewitzian ideal
type of total warfare. Having conceptually severed the link
between war and politics, the purely military solution became
unre¬strained destruction. The natural tension between politics
and total warfare which Clausewitz identified is disturbed, and
thus there is a tendency to move towards the extreme of total
warfare.
2013/02/11 07:55:37 AM
In the case of the Vendée, the Republican armies committed
deliberate atrocities on a grand scale, going so far as to rename
the region the Vengé, the French word for vengeance.29 Some
modern historians claim that Vendée was the first genocide
among post-Enlightenment European peoples.30 During the
second phase of the Franco-Prussian War, Moltke proposed
Exterminationskrieg (war of extermination) specifically
targeting civilian population and resource centers.31 In the
case of the Boer War, the British army implemented the
systematic resettling of civil populations into camps and the
deliberate destruction of farmland.32
Inductive Failures
The inductive failure is the inability of theorists and analysts
to link together the specific instances of irregular warfare into
a general theory, with general lessons and characteristics.
Thus any retrospective analysis tends to be episodic, and
disconnected from the more generalized theories of warfare.
Because knowledge and narrative are disconnected, the
lessons fail to play a part in the gradual accumulation of
knowledge which forms the basis of social science and
strategic studies.
After each irregular war, there was a disturbing pattern of
backsliding on tactical lessons learned. The historiography of
irregular wars and operations is instructive. The emergence
of the Levée en masse during the French Revolution is
the cornerstone of emerging Napoleonic warfare, but the
concurrent popular uprising in the Vendeé is a footnote.33
The first phase of the Franco-Prussian war exerted influence
through 1914, and yet the second phase has been forgotten.
The tactical innovation in the British Army during the second
Boer War had been obliterated ten years later.
Because these wars were viewed as irregular, there
appeared to be no harm in letting the lessons lapse, or even
failing to fully document these operations. Moreover, even
when documented, these wars were not analytically linked
to ‘regular’ wars, and thus remained merely case studies for
historians, not evidence for theories of warfare. This allows
the theory of ‘regular’ warfare to propagate and develop
without the influence of ‘irregular’ warfare. This hurts the
cumulative understanding of warfare as a whole, as ‘regular’
warfare studies become increasingly detached from the
actual experiences of war, while ‘irregular’ war suffers from
dramatic under-theorising.
In the case of the Boer War, the failure to incorporate specific
knowledge into the general understanding of warfare was
particularly damaging to British military doctrine. The Boer
clearly demonstrated that loosely grouped infantry, operating
in small groups and using the cover and concealment of the
landscape, could infiltrate prepared positions and then bring
decisive lethal force to bear. British writing from 1900 through
1914 discussed “Boer tactics,” and often explained why
they were not applicable to contemporary infantry or cavalry
tactical problems.34
SAAJ_#7 2013.indd 9
The infiltration tactics developed by the Boer would later
form the basis of German Stosstruppen tactics, which would
break open the static war on the Western Front during the
First World War.35 These tactics were used with particularly
devastating effect against the British in 1918. Boer success
in defending ground, even with low force to space densities,
also flummoxed the British and confounded international
military analysts.36 Yet it took the First World War belligerents
two years to begin making these tactical adjustments. The
elastic defence of strong points, rather than static defence
in massed lines, did not emerge until 1916, and open order
attack did not appear until late 1917.37 The efficacy of these
tactics was noted in 1902 after the second Boer War, but they
were isolated from the broader body of military tactics, and
not considered applicable to a general war in Europe.
Conclusion
The term ‘irregular warfare’ reinforces a false and dangerous
divide in how war is thought about and planned for. The
strategic aim of war, the use of force to compel others to
our will, is the same. Tactical concepts, including the use of
cover and concealment, local concentrations of force, and
the avoidance of decisive engagements, are the same. It is
only the peculiar tactical systems which vary, and which may
be asymmetric.
By promoting irregular warfare, analysts set it up as something
distinct from regular warfare. Once separated, this leads to
deductive and inductive logical failures. Deductively, analysts
fail to apply the general body of knowledge about warfare
to the specific situation at hand. This can include the failure
to properly evaluate and manipulate political advantages, a
failure to understand the political objective of an adversary,
a failure to resort to previously established tactical lessons,
and to pursue tactically expedient actions which complicate
political solutions. Inductively, analysts fail to place the specific
war into the accumulated body of general knowledge about
warfare. Lessons, painfully learned through experience, are
not reincorporated into the broader understanding of warfare.
Elements of tactical asymmetry have been a critical element
of warfare from at least the French Revolution and the protoNapoleonic period. The counter revolution in the Vendée,
the Franco-Prussian War, and the second Boer War all saw
adversaries adopt asymmetric tactics in order to achieve
political objectives, while belligerents relying on traditional
tactics became increasingly frustrated with the course of war,
and developed extreme tactical solutions.
In each case, lessons failed to take root in contemporary
military thinking. The Vendée was overshadowed by
emerging Napoleonic warfare. The second phase of the
Franco-Prussian War provoked existential philosophical
thought, while military planners focused on the decisive
traditional Prussian victories at Sedan and Gravelotte. The
second Boer War was deliberately excised from British
tactical development.
9
2013/02/11 07:55:37 AM
The United States is currently learning difficult tactical
lessons for which we are paying a high price. Yet if all we
remember are specific tactical responses to idiosyncratic
tactical challenges, we are doing ourselves a disservice. By
treating our current experience as ‘irregular’, and somehow
disassociated from ‘regular’ warfare, we diminish our
understanding of both.
We risk continued surprise when adversaries change tactics.
We also fail to bring our full set of historical experience,
conceptual models, and political tools to bear on these
challenges. As the US military begins to reflect on the
experience of the past ten years, it is imperative that we not
lose or de-emphasize the lessons learned at such great cost.
Notes
1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael
Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1976), 75.
2. Michael Handel, ed., Clausewitz and Modern Strategy (New York:
Routledge, 1986).
3. The notable exception is Stephen D. Biddle. See Stephen D. Biddle,
Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
4. J. David Singer and Paul Diehl, ed., Measuring the Correlates of War
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
5. Biddle, Military Power.
6. Anthony James Joes, Guerilla Conflict Before the Cold War (New
York: Praeger, 1996); Anthony James Joes, Resisting Rebellion: The
History and Politics of Counterinsurgency (Lexington, KY: University
Press of Kentucky, 2006). Charles Tilly, The Vendée: A Sociological
Analysis of the Counter-Revolution of 1793 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1964).
7. Paddy Griffith, The Art of War in Revolutionary France: 1789-1802
(London: Greenhill Books, 1998).
8. Ibid., 260.
9. Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée (Paris: University
of Notre Dame Press, 2003); Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence
and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions (Princeton NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2000),
10. Adam Jones Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed. (New
York: Routledge, 2010).
11. Gwynne Lewis, The Second Vendée: The Continuity of CounterRevolution in the Department of the Gard, 1789-1815 (New York:
Clarendon Press, 1978)
12. Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of
France 1870–1871 (New York: MacMillan, 1962); Geoffrey Wawro,
The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in
1870–1871 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
13. Stig Forster, “Facing ‘People’s War’: Moltke the Elder and Germany’s
Military Options after 1871,” Journal of Strategic Studies 10, no. 2
(1987): 209-230.
14. Robert Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich
von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 14-37.
15. Azar Gat, The Development of Military Thought : The Nineteenth
Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
16. Arden Bucholz, Hans Delbruck and the German Military
Establishment: War Images in Conflict (Iowa City, IA: University of
Iowa Press, 1985).
17. Literally, the “white arm”, this refers to the use of the lance and sword
by mounted cavalry. Douglas Haig, Cavalry Studies: Strategic and
Tactical (London: Hugh Rees, 1907); Erskine Childers, War and the
Arme Blanche (London: Edward Arnold, 1910).
18. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (New York: Random House,
1979).
10
SAAJ_#7 2013.indd 10
19. S. B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism?: Roberts and Kitchener and
Civilians in the Boer Republics, January 1900 - May 1902 (Cape
Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977).
20. Timothy H. E. Travers, “The Offensive and the Problem of Innovation
in British Military Thought, 1870-1915,” Journal of Contemporary
History 13, no. 3 (July 1978); Timothy H. E. Travers, “Technology,
Tactics, and Morale: Jean de Bloch, the Boer War, and British
Military Theory 1900-1914,” The Journal of Modern History 51, no.
2 (June 1979): 264-286.
21. Karl Hack, “Extracting Counterinsurgency Lessons: The Malayan
Emergency and Afghanistan,” Royal United Services Institute,
Analysis and Commentary (October 13, 2009).
22. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency
Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005).
23. Jonathan Baron, Thinking and Deciding, 3rd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000); Yuen Foong Khong,
Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam
Declarations of 1965 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1992).
24. U.S. Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces
Unconventional Warfare, Army Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army, September 30,
2008), 1-4 to 1-5, http://www.fas.org/irp/dodir/army/fm3-05-130.
pdf (last accessed June 2011). This manual was superseded by
FM 3-05 in December 2010.
25. Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey A. Friedman, The 2006 Lebanon
Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and
Defense Policy (Carlisle, PA: US Army Strategic Studies Institute,
September 2008).
26. Ibid., 24.
27. Helmuth Moltke, “The Campaign of 1870-1871,” in Daniel J.
Hughes, Motlke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novato, CA:
Presidio Press, 1993), 39. Moltke was discussing the possibility
of bombarding Paris after Sedan and the capture of Napoleon III.
28. Howard, The Franco-Prussian War, 436-437.
29. Griffith, The Art of War in Revolutionary France.
30. Secher, A French Genocide.
31. Forster, “Facing ‘People’s War’;” Foley, German Strategy.
32. Pakenham, The Boer War.
33. Rory Muir, Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of
Napoleon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
34. Field Marshall Sir John D. P. French, “Preface” in General
Friedrich von Bernhardi, Cavalry (trans. Major G. T. M. Bridges,
ed. A. Hilliard) (London: George H. Doran Company, 1914); Haig,
Cavalry Studies.
35. Bruce I. Gudmundsson, “A Lesson from the Boers,” Military History
Quarterly 1, no. 4 (Summer 1989); Storm Troop Tactics: Innovation
in the German Army, 1914-1918 (New York: Praeger, 1989).
36. Antulio J. Echevarria, After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers
Before the Great War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
2000), 94-120.
37. Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Change in
German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, Leavenworth
Papers No. 4 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute,
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1981).
Mark Davidson (Captain, US Navy, Retired) is currently the Director of
Strategy for Northrop Grumman and previously served as the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Reserve Affairs) and as a member
of the Secretary of Defense Reserve Forces Policy Board. He holds a
BA from the University of California and an MBA from the University of
Southern California.
W. Alexander Vacca is the Director of Business Assessment for
Northrop Grumman, earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers
University, an MA from the University of Kentucky, and a BA from the
Miami University of Ohio.
2013/02/11 07:55:37 AM
FORCE COMPOSITION AND DESIGN
Armour…Combat Arm of Decision
Brigadier-General Chris Gildenhuys
GOC SA Army Armour Formation
Armour is a concept, a state of mind, an approach
to combat that stresses firepower, mobility and
shock effect.
In order to understand the concept of armour, one needs to
contextualize it and define what armour means. In the South
African context the armour domain is defined as follows:
• SA Armoured Corps (SAAC): All those qualified armour
soldiers of the Regular and the Reserve Forces serving in
the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).
• SA Army Armour Formation: All Regular and Reserve
Force elements that are responsible for providing combatready armour forces to the Chief of the SA National Defence
Force (SANDF), including soldiers of other corps as well as
civilian employees.
• Armour Capability: The armour capability comprises
the personnel, organization, support, training, equipment,
doctrine, facilities, information, technology and budget
(POSTEDFIT[B]) that constitute a Level 6 system.
The small number of Olifant battle tanks proved to be a key force element in
the 1987/88 campaign in south-eastern Angola – despite this being typical
‘non-tank’ terrain. On the Angolan Army side the T-55s were the key threat
that had to be eliminated.
• SA Armour System: The armour system consists of all
elements responsible for the day-to-day management and
employment of the armour capability, including project
officers, product system managers, combat service
support, facilities and equipment.
• SA Armour Environment: The armour environment
comprises all elements, parties and individuals who have
an interest in the SAAC/SA Army Armour Formation,
including the Armour Association, ARMSCOR and the
defence industry.
SCOPE
This paper will address and discuss the armour capability
from an Armour Formation perspective.
11
2013/02/11 07:55:38 AM
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ARMOUR IN SOUTH
AFRICA
In his book, Black Beret – the Story of South Africa’s Armour1,
Willem Steenkamp, renowned author of several military
books and publications, writes about the 37mm pom-poms
mounted on armoured ox wagons as early as the 1890s and
also later during the Anglo-Boer War (1899 to 1902). Also
famous in this war were the so-called armoured trains used
by the British forces. It is on one of these trains that the young
war correspondent and later famous British Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, was ambushed and captured by the Boers.
Dragon Mk IID tracked mechanical haulers followed. The
Crossleys eventually saw action in German West Africa,
now Namibia.
According to Willem Steenkamp no armoured vehicles were
built in South Africa prior to 1939. The first armoured cars
built in South Africa were designated the South African
Reconnaissance Car Mk I and were two-wheel drive
versions built on a shortened Ford 3 ton truck chassis. Due
to its success, the Union Defence Force ordered 22 of these
locally manufactured vehicles to be ready by end July 1939.
That never came to fruition and the first of these armoured
cars were only delivered in May 1940. However, a Mk II
version, called the Marmon Herrington, fitted with a Ford V8
engine and four-wheel drive, was built at the outbreak of war.
Later Mk IIIs, reconnaissance cars, were designed and built
and eventually more than 5000 of these vehicles (including
a Mk IV version) were built during the war, especially for the
East African and Western Desert campaigns.
The South African Tank Corps was formed in May 1940
and the armour units of the 6th Armoured Division were
equipped with new and modern Sherman tanks with which
they saw service in Italy during World War II.
The 1960s to 1990s saw armour units equipped with the
locally manufactured Eland four-wheel armoured car armed
The Marmon-Herrington’s of WW II may have been basic, but this first South
African armoured car served the Army well.
Steenkamp writes that at the end of the first World War,
the Union Defence Force (established in 1912) noted the
rapid development of armoured fighting vehicles and their
potential, but due to an inadequate defence budget (what is
new?) and limited defence requirements, no effort was made
to procure such vehicles.
There was one exception, though. For the purpose of
training of technical personnel as well as to support soldiers
and dependents negatively affected by the war, a Governor
General’s fund was established to raise funds. Once sufficient
funds were collected, a single Whippet medium type A tank
was ordered from Britain in August 1918 at the cost of £ 4 000.
This Whippet assisted in quelling the mine uprisings in
Johannesburg in 1922. The tank was manned by South
African Air Force crews and was referred to as His Majesty’s
Land Ship (HMLS) Union. Today, this tank is displayed in
front of the historical Paratus building at the South African
Army College.
In February 1925 two Crossley armoured cars, together with
numerous other vehicles, were off-loaded in South Africa
as an Imperial Gift granted by Britain. In 1930 a further
shipment of two Vickers Mk I medium tanks and eight light
12
The Eland-90 also served the Army well through the 1970s and 1980s, often
used well beyond its intended role.
2013/02/11 07:55:40 AM
THE STATUS OF THE CAPABILITY
Armour is the combat arm of decision!
The armour capability is primarily a conventional capability.
Given the absence of any immediate conventional threat and
the situation in Southern Africa, the conventional landward
capability is not fully resourced. For more than a decade only
a so-called core growth capability2 has been maintained by
the SA Army. Due to several national priorities, the defence
budget, a lesser national priority, has declined to a mere 1.2%
of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This budget allocation
makes capability sustainment and development a rather
difficult endeavour.
The broad state of the armour capability is described by
means of the acronym POSTEDFIT(B), explained follows:
The Rooikat was developed specifically for deep- and far-ranging combat
reconnaissance and raiding operations, but will be equally useful as a
counter-attack force in more conventional situations.
with a 90 mm quick firing gun or a 60 mm breech-loading
mortar, and the manufacture of the Ratel 6x6 combat
vehicle in several variants including one with the turret of the
Eland-90 and used by some armour units, the Rooikat 8x8
armoured car with a 76 mm gun and, still today’s mainstay,
the Olifant main battle tank (MBT), originally fitted with a
84mm gun and later a 105mm gun.
South Africa’s defence industry was enjoying a boom period.
“The South African National Defence Force (SANDF)
must provide a conventional military deterrence that
demonstrates the capability and political will of the
State to defend South Africa against aggression.”
– White Paper on Defence, 1996
CURRENT ARMOUR ORGANISATION
The SANDF, of which the Army has always been the largest
service, saw major restructuring in 1999, five years after
democratic reform.
Today the force design of the 1990s is again under scrutiny
and destined to change.
All armour units currently constitute an Armour Formation
and are under command of the Formation Headquarters.
The Formation comprises a school and two regular units
as well as seven reserve units stationed in major centres
throughout the country.
The primary purpose of the SANDF is to defend the RSA
against any external military aggression. Heavy (e.g.
MBTs) as well as medium armour serves as a deterrent
against military aggression. If deterrence fails, armour
will participate in landward operations in order to create a
military situation conducive to a favourable peace for the
RSA and/or its alliance states.
• PERSONNEL. Given the low frequency of utilisation
and the absence of a requirement for armour in external
operations, new intakes of young recruits in substantial
numbers are almost non-existent. Fewer than 200 new
recruits are taken up in the Armour Formation annually.
Natural attrition normally takes place at such a rate that the
force cannot grow significantly. Both Regular and Reserve
armour units are under-staffed, although leader group
levels and posts are kept fully staffed as far as possible.
This provides for some flexibility when several leaders go
on course throughout the year. An internal programme
aiming at the development of members under command
(‘Project Developing Our People’) further adds value to the
quality of the average armour soldier and leader. Larger
intakes will undoubtedly be required soon in order to
address the obligations that need to be fulfilled.
“The SA Armoured Corps specializes in harmonizing
the capabilities of its human resource and machines
in defensive operations to secure the territorial
integrity and safety of all South Africans.”
– SA Armour Strategy
• ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE. Based on the 1999
force design, the School of Armour has been stripped of
its inherent support structures, i.e. logistics, technical
services, hospitality services and the like. This is as a
result of a premise at the time that Schools and Colleges
will focus on core business only, i.e. education, training
and development (ETD), while all support services will
be provided and in-sourced by means of service level
agreements. This shortcoming is about to be rectified with
the introduction of a new force design and structure. The
two regular units, one tank and one armoured car regiment,
are more or less correctly structured. However, due to a
bigger demand for internal operational availability such as
border safeguarding operations, all SA Army battalions and
regiments will have to be structured as so-called infantry
regiments. This structure provides for two units in one
– one unit undergoing training and one on operational
deployment or deployable. Although Reserve units are
13
2013/02/11 07:55:41 AM
structured correctly, their structures are neither funded nor
staffed.
• SUPPORT AND SUSTAINMENT. An armour force with
no or inadequate support is no force at all. No credible
mission-ready force levels can thus be sustained. Capability
sustainment, over the broad spectrum, is most probably the
single biggest challenge. This is caused by the absence of
depth and Reserve capacity. Only until such time as the
force is fully developed (across POSTEDFIT[B]) will it be
able to sustain itself over extended periods of time.
• TRAINING. The SA Army’s core business is that of force
preparation, in other words, training. Training is generally
well planned and enjoys the necessary attention. The quality
of training is sometimes a challenge. Much effort is put into
actions to get Army training institutions accredited with the
South African Qualifications Agency (SAQA). The School
of Armour is already partially accredited and some formal
training at the regiments takes place under the auspices
of the School. Formal theoretical and practical training is
conducted during initial military training and on all courses.
This is followed by force training and field exercises and
soldiers will be exposed to continuation training in the
following years of initial service. Much time is also spent
on the training of armour soldiers in their secondary
role, i.e. infantry [subject] training. This type of training
prepares soldiers to be deployed internally in operations
as infantrymen, supplementing the infantry capability. The
ultimate goal of force preparation is to provide combatready forces for possible operational deployment.
• EQUIPMENT. Based on the principle of maintaining only a
core growth capability, armour units are currently equipped
with only small numbers of armoured fighting vehicles. The
remainder of the fleets is preserved in environmentally
controlled warehouses at the Defence Force’s mobilization
centres. Limited first and second line technical support
capacity poses certain challenges to the proper upkeep of
the vehicles in use. This situation is further aggravated by
obsolescence given the age of especially the prime mission
equipment. Levels of serviceability fluctuate and determine
the availability of equipment, including support vehicles, for
training and exercises.
• DOCTRINE. Doctrine development in the Armour
Formation takes place in accordance with the hierarchy of
armour doctrine. The hierarchy serves as a framework for
all armour doctrine publications of which several have been
produced over the last number of years. The hierarchy
makes provision for armour operations in war as well as in
operations other than war (OOTW), in other words conflict
and peace. Within this broad framework the hierarchy
distinguishes between heavy, medium and light armour
capabilities. Doctrine development follows a multifaceted
approach which includes research in the form of literature
studies as well as comparison and benchmarking,
observation during exercises, formal and informal
interviews with knowledgeable people and also attendance
at symposia and seminars. The Armour Formation hosts its
own Armour Symposium every three years. Several articles
by members of the doctrine development team have been
published in military journals and publications. A regular
newsletter, ‘Doctrine Dynamics’, is also circulated amongst
different stakeholders to stimulate thinking and debate, and
to convey lessons learnt and enhance levels of knowledge
amongst armour soldiers.
Not to move forward with regard to doctrine is to
stagnate, and to stagnate is to fall behind and be left
behind, therefore moving backwards…
The Ratel-90 was a major step forward in mobility and general capability
for the armoured car regiments when it began to replace the Eland-90. Not
as well armed or protected as the Rooikat, and not as mobile on the ground,
it has the advantage of being more easily air transported – two in an A400M
for example instead of a single Rooikat.
14
• FACILITIES. Armour units generally require sophisticated
workshops, technical stores, transport parks, training
facilities and the like. The School of Armour and 1 South
African Tank Regiment are co-located in Bloemfontein
and share some support facilities and infrastructure. The
eventual separation of the two units is a long term objective.
Separate administrative buildings and accommodation
(sleeping quarters and ablution facilities) are occupied
by both units. The armoured car regiment is housed in
pre-World War II buildings and facilities. An effective
‘DIY’ daily maintenance plan ensures the proper upkeep
of the facilities. Major refurbishment programmes are,
however, needed in the not too distant future. All armour
reserve units have limited base facilities, which include a
headquarters, some training facilities and (in some cases)
sleeping quarters.
• INFORMATION. The ongoing quest for capability
development depends greatly on information gathering.
2013/02/11 07:55:42 AM
medium armour profile. No need or requirement for these
capabilities for any internal or external operations exists at
the moment. It is foreseen, however, that these capabilities
will be maintained and renewed and even expanded to
include a light armour reconnaissance capability.
In an article in the Canadian Army Journal Vol 10.4 (Winter
2008) on the war in Afghanistan, Canadian Major Trevor
Cadieu says: “By deploying tanks and armoured engineers to
Afghanistan in October 2006 and supporting the acquisition
of the Leopard 2, the leadership of the Canadian Forces has
acknowledged the importance of maintaining heavy armour
in a balanced force.”
Logic suggests that the Rooikat replacement should have maximum
practicable commonality with the Badger ICV; or if the replacement is
moved further to the right, development of a new family to follow onto the
Badger to replace the remaining Ratels and serve as the platform for the
Rooikat replacement.
• TECHNOLOGY. The armour capability, as a user system,
lives and works closely with technology developments
and trends. Officers of the Armour Formation serve on
several committees and workgroups where technology
is discussed with role players from the defence-related
industry, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
ARMSCOR and other research bodies. Technology
developments and research are carried out, amongst
others, in the areas of active protection systems, active
and passive armour protection, hybrid electric drive and
propulsion, etc.
• BUDGET. An adequate budget has always been and still
is a huge challenge. The current defence budget only
represents 1.2% of GDP. This situation therefore also
impacts on the armour system’s budget, mainly due to
the fact that the armour capability, integrated with other
conventional capabilities, is neither required to take
part in current operations (due to the absence of any
potential threat), nor is it required to take part in peace
support operations (PSO) or any other OOTW. An ideal
expenditure breakdown for any organization is normally
40% for personnel costs, 30% for capital expenditure and
a further 30% for operating the system.
WHERE IS SA ARMOUR HEADING:
FUTURE SA ARMY STRATEGY (FSAAS)
Exciting new developments are being planned for the future
SA Army. The plan is for the current Armour Formation
to transform and migrate to a to-be-established Armour
Brigade with permanently grouped units under command.
The Brigade headquarters will be stationed in Bloemfontein
while the regular tank regiment, armoured car regiment and
one of two mechanized infantry battalions as well as some
supporting units are already stationed in Bloemfontein.
The current armour capability has a heavy armour and a
SA Army doctrine makes provision for armour to be deployed
in both conventional as well as OOTW, like for instance
PSO. Armour deploys as part of an integrated and balanced
force that includes infantry for close protection, indirect fire
support and combat engineers as a minimum requirement.
The combat support helicopter (CSH) plays a crucial role in
enhancing the combat capabilities in as far firepower and
maneuverability of such a mechanized force is concerned.
The SA Army’s clear premise in its future strategy is that
it will “train as it fights”. This implies, amongst others, that
formations (i.e. brigades) will be grouped permanently and
that the integration of different arms will take place as far as
possible. This is not currently the situation in the SA Army.
The grouping and integration of armour with mechanized
infantry is common practice with many armies and the SA
Army is therefore striving to institutionalize this principle. A
short to medium term objective is to amalgamate the School
of Armour with a mechanized training school.
RENEWAL PROGRAMMES
Exciting new renewal programmes are scheduled for the
renewal and rejuvenation of land systems. Amongst these
programmes are several armour projects in different phases
and stages of development. Financing for these programmes
is scheduled over the medium to long term.
• A project for the acquisition of a new generation MBT
system is registered. This project entails battle tanks,
armoured recovery vehicles, bridge laying tanks, tank
transporters, tank training simulators as well as other
logistical support and the creation of an infrastructure.
“Once associated with the Cold War, main battle tanks
are reasserting their value on the modern battlefield,
offering mobility, precision firepower, protection and
psychological influence”
– Rupert Pengelley, Jane’s International Defence
Review, July 2011.
• A newly required operational capability has just been
registered for the replacement of the Rooikat 8x8 medium
armoured car. A large portion of the current Rooikat fleet
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has been upgraded over the last five years. These local
industrial upgrades include an integrated fire control system
and night fighting capabilities, matching those of modern
tanks, as well as driveline improvments. The Rooikat system
will be in operation until at least 2020.
• Also a newly required operational capability is the registration
of a need for a light armour reconnaissance capability. There
is a real need to project force into Africa’s conflict-stricken
zones. Such capability will be air transportable in order to
have an expeditionary capability at hand that provides for
high mobility, good protection and adequate firepower.
• The current battle tank system, the Olifant Mk 1A, is about
to become obsolete. A small number have been upgraded
to Mk 2 standard. Although this is not a fully sustainable,
operationally deployable system, it is fitted and equipped
with superior fire control, night fighting capabilities and
further improved armour protection and mobility. This
provides for a somewhat more modern training capability.
A number of tank transporter trailers have been upgraded
from a 4-axle to a 5-axle configuration.
“Reversing earlier plans to retire its M1A2 Abrams
tanks, the US Army now plans to upgrade the 70-ton
behemoths, making them more lethal, better protected,
more networked – and able to serve through 2050.”
– Defense News, 30 July 2007
• The locally designed, developed and manufactured antiarmour missile system, ZT3, has been upgraded to a ZT3A2
configuration, which provides for anti-tank capabilities up
to an effective range of 5 000 metres. A unique crossfire capability enhances its flexibility and deployment
significantly. The platform for the launcher remains the
Ratel 6x6.
SIMULATION
The SA Army Armour Formation and Corps have been using
gunnery, driver and other tactical simulators, all locally developed
and manufactured, for the better part of two decades. The use
of simulators brought about huge savings, especially on the
very costly commodity of main calibre armour ammunition. All
current systems (i.e. prime mission equipment) have training
simulators to support the training programme. New projects
make provision for the development of simulators to accompany
the equipment. The integration potential of simulators facilitates
the armour/infantry integration enadeavours of the SA Army.
A well-equipped and advanced simulator training centre is in
operation at the School of Armour. All armour crews get ample
opportunity to be trained and retrained on these systems. The
SAAC also accepts that no virtual situation can completely
replace the real scenario. The Corps, however, is going a long
way in using simulators to eventually qualify top class armour
crews.
All tactical and operational level training is also supported with
war gaming and simulation capabilities vested in a Conflict
Simulation Centre (CONSIM), which is to support training
wherever such support is required. The SA Army Armour
Formation frequently makes use of this highly capable asset
within the SANDF.
THE ROLE OF THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY AND
TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT
One of the South African defence industry’s most famous
developments was the design and development of armoured
vehicles. Some specific niches are wheeled vehicles and
mine-protected vehicles. Although limited, some funding is still
invested in these industries today.
The Ratel tank destroyer variant with the Denel Dynamics 5 000 m range
Ingwe missile gives the armoured car regiments a useful capability for
overwatch and for covering operations.
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The SAAC and the SA Army Armour Formation per sé have had
a very close and professional relationship with their partners in
the defence industry and ARMSCOR. Armour commanders,
project officers and programme managers always endeavoured
to put pragmatic and realistic user requirements on the table.
Together with industry, solutions were sought in the design and
development of new equipment.
In the dynamic world of constant change, technology is no longer
necessarily the solution to conflict and hot spots, but solutions
can often be found in economy. In the eventual cost of new
armoured or armour-protected vehicles only as little as about
30% of the acquisition costs is spent on mobility while 70%,
or even more, will be spent on the survivability and C4I3RS3
related dimensions of a vehicle. This ratio may tilt even further
away from mobility expenditure.
What has become evident today, however, is that many
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) subsystem solutions can
successfully be integrated into military systems without having
to compromise reliability. In fact, in some instances it increases
reliability. This has a very positive impact on the eventual cost
of design and development and eventual cost of ownership.
Subsequently traditional manufacturers of military hardware
had to change their business models rapidly in order to remain
relevant and retain some share in the market.
Today the defence industry in broad and the SA defence-related
industry in particular are faced with three main challenges:
• To cost-effectively integrate the best possible and available
technology with respect to drivelines, protection, suspensions
and vetronics in either new vehicle products or in the upgrade
of existing systems.
• To keep pace and track with the quick and rapid changes
in user requirements (due to the dynamics of conflicts). A
solution for industry to consider lies in the modular design of
vehicles.
• To find solutions and building-blocks that have multirole
applications.
South Africa should have a fresh look at its acquisition processes
and systems. These processes can be cumbersome, tedious
and obviously bureaucratic. Unfortunately the long lead times
associated with these processes are no longer compatible with
the quick and rapid changes in user requirements. What used
to be low priorities six to twelve months ago may become very
high priorities for the military in a short space of time. Border
safeguarding operations on the RSA borders and anti-piracy
operations in the Mozambique Channel are cases in point.
Rapid changes in the environment, such as the asymmetric
conflict zone, pose serious challenges to the design and
development of vehicles and equipment as well as to doctrine.
This begs for strong and decisive leadership in order to acquire
the right stuff for the right, multirole, task. It is quite possible that
various scenarios could be encountered on the same day or in
a short space of time. These situations will thus require multirole
solutions in as far equipment, doctrine and leadership go.
SA’s defence industry is still something to be proud of. Vehicle
technology is not only limited to aged systems like Mamba 4x4
or Casspir 4x4 but SA engineers are at the forefront over the
broad spectrum of 4x4, 6x6 or 8x8 armoured vehicle designs
and development. Much capacity is vested in the institutional
memory and property of DPSS4 as a first line, in local defence
industry as a second line and in global defence industrial markets
as a third line due to shareholding by major world investors in
local companies and supported by their export success from
South Africa.
CLOSING
The SA Army Armour Formation has been on the back burner
for more than a decade now. Due to the low frequency of
use, limited resources and the improbability of external or
internal operational deployment of an armour capability in the
foreseeable future, the organization is constantly battling for
survival. The spirit of the average armour soldier, however, is
strong. An organizational culture has developed over many
years against the backdrop of customs and traditions, which is
practised and maintained by armour soldiers.
“The Flame of the Armour Burns Forever”5 is a popular and
widely used slogan of solidarity and esprit de corps in the
Armoured Corps. The flame symbolizes the inextinguishable
spirit and energy of the SA Armoured Corps. Irrespective of
the enemy, armour soldiers will advance with the Flame in their
hearts!
SOURCES
1. SA Armour Strategy. June 2004. SA Army Armour Formation
Headquarters.
2. The Future SA Army Strategy: Version 1. January 2009. SA Army
Headquarters.
3. Steenkamp, Willem. 2001. The Black Beret – Story of South Africa’s
Armour (Draft Edition).
4. “International Defence Review Vol 44” In: Jane’s, July 2011.
5. Pretorius, Gert, Director Engineering, BAE Systems South Africa.
August 2011. Personal interview.
6. Jansen, Ben, Managing Director, Industrial Automotive Design (IAD).
August 2011.
Notes
1 Book still to be published, probably in the course of 2012.
2 The core growth capability must satisfy the concept of critical mass,
meaning the minimum force levels required to retain a capability
physically, psychologically and intellectually that can conduct
operations in accordance with doctrine.
3 Command, control, communications and computers; information,
intelligence and infrastructure; reconnaissance and surveillance.
4 Defence Peace, Safety and Security, a division of the Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
5 The slogan is used at ceremonies and functions to introduce toasts.
It is then followed by the singing of the Armour Song, written and
composed by a former armour soldier and South African artist, Philip
Kotzé.
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2013/02/11 07:55:44 AM
SPECULATIVE FIRE
Protecting Rear Areas
Helmoed-Römer Heitman
security of rear areas and lines of communication is most
often neglected, and there is a common and potentially fatal
‘disconnect’ in the thinking of most armies when considering
the issue in that context:
• The enemy forces most likely to engage in operations
against rear area facilities and lines of communication are
their special forces and their airborne forces. These are
by their nature highly trained, well-armed and determined
soldiers.
• The friendly forces most likely to be deployed to protect
rear areas facilities and lines of communication are
second-line troops, over-age reservists. Often they are
also given second-rate weapons, vehicles and equipment.
The mismatch is obvious, and is part of the reason that rear
area raids can be so very successful.
This issue is particularly important in a theatre where the force
density (force to space ratio) is very low, which results in long
vulnerable lines of communication and widely dispersed,
vulnerable rear area units and facilities. Such conditions
present an ideal opportunity for potentially fatal disruption of
the rear areas.
Logistic convoys are often the most vulnerable element of a deployed force.
They must be escorted, and there should also be mobile units dominating the
area through which the supply routes run.
Any major force engaged in operations has rear areas and
lines of communication that are vital to it and that present
lucrative targets to the opponent. Cut the supply lines of a
force, destroy its forward ammunition or fuel dumps or its
field workshops, disrupt its rear headquarters, and it quickly
becomes ineffective.
This is a basic fact of military operations known to every
officer in every army, but it is still one that is often neglected
or overlooked altogether. The 2003 campaign in Iraq is
a good example: The failure to provide sufficient troops to
secure the area behind the advancing allied forces created
the opportunity for determined members of the Iraqi Army
to carry out ambushes and hit and run attacks on logistic
convoys, which gave them the credibility to recruit a
resistance movement around themselves, which grew into a
long-drawn-out insurgency.
In fact it is in the conventional warfare context that the
18
The Southern Africa theatre of operations is just such a
theatre, with the threat further aggravated by:
• Thin transport infrastructure, rendering individual
bridges and similar structures critical assets, and major
roads particularly vulnerable to ambush by virtue of
the combination of relatively few roads and very great
distances.
• Under-developed general infrastructure, which means that
a range of assets and facilities have major importance,
including power stations, telephone exchanges and lines,
civilian fuel stores, etc.
• Low population density, which reduces early warning in
friendly territory.
There is, thus, a real and potentially critical problem in
respect of protecting rear areas and lines of communication,
particularly when operating outside one’s own country.
When the problem is actually addressed, the usual solution
is to employ ad hoc units or whichever infantry battalion
happens to be available between other missions, or one that
is not good enough for frontline employment. That will not
be good enough against a competent opponent. The mission
of protecting the rear areas and lines of communication is a
critical one, and is increasingly a complex one as a result of
light forces becoming ever-more mobile and potent. There is
2013/02/11 07:55:44 AM
SPECULTAIVE FIRE
a clear requirement for units that specialize in this role, train
for it, and are equipped for it.
The solution to this problem needs to include two elements:
• Security Units that belong to the formation and are
specifically tasked with the protection of its lines of
communication and rear areas, and which are specially
organized, trained and equipped for that role.
• Rapid Response Units that either belong to the formation
or are attached to it, and that can deploy quickly when
enemy special or airborne forces elements are detected
in the rear areas, or when hard intelligence suggests a
raid is imminent.
Security Units
This role is probably best handled by suitably organized,
trained and equipped motorized infantry battalions, which
should have armoured personnel carriers to allow swift and
protected movement, patrolling and convoy escort, and
armoured cars and mortars to give fire support to overmatch
the light forces that they may encounter. These units will need
a stronger than usual intelligence element, including light UAV
systems for surveillance and reconnaissance, and possibly
also for communications relay.
Motorised rather than mechanized because APCs are cheaper
than ICVs but will be adequate for this role, because this
role will demand sufficient infantry to carry out searches and
sweeps in close terrain, and because it will sometimes be
necessary to deploy elements by helicopter, and the troops
must be used to fighting without ICVs in support.
The focus should be on the platoon level as the basic semiindependent building block of the force. The operational focus
should be on continuous patrolling of the area of responsibility
to create uncertainty for any force intending to disrupt the rear
areas or interrupt supply lines. To ensure effective operations,
the information, intelligence, action cycle must run at the
platoon level as well as at higher levels.
Rapid Response Units
This role demands something rather more specialized, these
units having something of a ‘roving commission’ once deployed,
to actively protect the rear areas, pre-empting, ambushing or
pursuing enemy special forces teams and airborne forces
elements that may attempt raids.
Their soldiers will need a combination of specialized
knowledge, training, experience, weapons and equipment
to outmatch their prey. In effect they need to be trained to a
similar standard to the Special Forces, albeit with a different
focus to their training, organization and equipment.
The baseline unit for a brigade might be a company comprising:
• A headquarters, co-located the brigade’s main headquarters.
• Five strike platoons.
• An intelligence platoon with integral COMINT capability.
The strike platoons would be larger and more comprehensively
armed and equipped than the normal infantry platoon and
organized to allow deployment by Oryx, LUH or light aircraft
without disrupting cohesion at section level. They must also
have APCs and the unit should have some light tactical
vehicles that can be sling-loaded by an Oryx. The platoons
should have integral micro UAVs for tactical reconnaissance.
The information gathering/analysis/intelligence development/
follow-up/information gathering loop needs to run as a closed
cycle at the strike platoon level during a follow up operation
and always at the company level.
The personnel requirement for these rapid response
companies would be too great to meet from Special Forces
resources, and it would not be cost effective to draw them
from among parachute trained personnel. They will, however,
need exceptional standards of aptitude, initiative, mental
and physical fitness and tactical skills, so their selection
and training criteria and programmes should perhaps be
developed by Special Forces, on the basis of those used
by the Parachute Battalion, and with specific counter-special
forces training being provided by Special Forces.
While the Army should have at least two such companies
available as regular force units, there will also be a need for
reserve force companies to work with the brigades of the
reserve force when those are reconstituted. Some Special
Forces and Parachute Battalion reservists might find these
units an interesting posting, where they can apply their
experience and skills when career and family commitments
make it difficult to remain with their parent units.
Conclusion
Lines of communication and rear areas protection are
a potentially critical matter, and should be addressed
specifically.
The most effective means of providing such protection in our
particular circumstances will be to assign the role to specific
elements organized, trained and equipped for this task.
This does not have to be a costly venture:
• The protection role can be addressed by converting
existing motorized or light motorized infantry battalions.
There is no requirement to form additional units or acquire
additional equipment.
• The rapid response role will require some specialized
company-strength units, but these are small and will use
equipment that is in service with other elements of the
SANDF. They will not present great personnel, training
or capital costs. The necessary posts could be found by
converting one infantry battalion to this role.
Effective lines of communication and rear areas protection
is, therefore, feasible, and will require only the will to
implement the necessary conversion of existing units.
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STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS
The Argument for an ‘Indirect’
Expeditionary Warfare Concept
Lieutenant Colonel I.D. Langford
DSC, Australian Army
This article is published by the kind permission of the Australian Defence Force Journal
Introduction
The ADF requires an ‘indirect’ expeditionary warfare (IEW)
concept within Army, in order to wage a protracted military
campaign against the threats and security challenges likely to
exist in future operating environments. Its purpose would be to
defeat emerging security threats pre-emptively by leveraging
off the developing set of skills in Army, as specified in ‘Adaptive
Campaigning - Army’s Future Land Operating Concept’ (ACAFLOC).1 This foundational operating methodology provides
the conceptual, doctrinal and force modernisation path for
Army, specifying its key tasks as being:
… [to] safeguard Australian territory, population, infrastructure
and resources; manoeuvre in the primary operating
environment, including amphibious manoeuvre; [conduct]
proactive combat operations against an adversary’s military
bases and staging areas; and [provide] support to domestic
security and emergency response tasks.2
AC-AFLOC also emphasises the need to develop concepts for
operating in a ‘complex warfare’ environment.3 It specifically
20
Major expeditionary operations, such as Australia’s deployment to assist East
Timor’s transition to an independent Timore Leste, are costly and potentially
dangerous for all concerned; many could be rendered unnecessary by an
early ‘indirect’ intervention aimed at defusing a crisis situation.
identifies that:
Army is to be designed for a diverse range of operations
in complex environments. [It] is to be able to operate as
combined arms teams and undertake combat in littoral and
land environments. AC-AFLOC describes these requirements
as an integrated Land Force response, within a broader joint
and whole-of-Government approach, to the demands of
complex war [emphasis added].4 The development of an IEW
capability concept would complement and enhance existing
ACAFLOC operating concepts, to ensure the ADF remains
postured to meet the demands of the future.
The future operating environment
The dominant Australian military experience throughout a
large part of the nation’s history has been the application of
military power against a defined, state-sanctioned enemy
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force within a conventional setting.5 However, after the
Second World War, Australia’s strategic environment was
more affected by strategic rivalry between nation-states and
their competition for power and influence. Towards the end
of the 20th century, the demise of the Soviet Union and the
end of US-Soviet ‘bipolarity’ saw Australia’s strategic outlook
strongly shaped by the strategic primacy of the US.6 More
recently, globalisation, changing demographic trends, growth
patterns, resource competition, urbanisation and the spread
of technology have been significant influences in shaping
today’s strategic environment.7
Modern military planners obviously conduct detailed analyses
to anticipate trends that may affect the future operating
environment and, for Australia, some of the key trends
identified in the 2009 Defence White Paper were:8
• Australia’s security outlook will be determined by an
increasingly ‘multi-polar’ distribution of global power,
• Changing climate patterns, booming population growth
and a scarcity of food and water will exacerbate existing
security challenges,
• US strategic primacy will come under increased competition
from rising states, notably China and India, in the decades
beyond 2030, and
• The convergence of global demographic change, resource
pressure, health risks and the emergence of non-state
actors, such as criminal syndicates and terrorist groups,
will increase the likelihood of inter-state and intra-state
conflict.
For the ADF, the identification of such trends assists strategic
and operational planners to focus on the specific features
that are likely to be of particular relevance to their planning.
The key features highlighted in AC-AFLOC were:9
• Operational environments are likely to be littoral in nature,
• Population areas are likely to intensify in number, resulting
in the further proliferation of ‘mega-cities’ throughout the
developing and developed world,
• Intra-state conflict will be an enduring feature of warfare, as
non-state actors seek to exhaust their adversaries through
attacks on non-military targets, such as economic and
social systems,
• State-on-state warfare is possible between state actors,
• Lethality systems (weapons) will continue to permeate
from state actors to non-state actors (criminals, terrorists,
radical ideologues etc),
• The operating environment will become increasingly
disaggregated, that is, both state and non-state actors will
become more dispersed as they attempt to operate below
their adversaries’ detection threshold,
• Complex operating systems will increasingly become the
dominant battlespace in both inter-state and intra-state
conflicts, and
• These types of conflict will span all elements of national
power and will require a whole-of-nation response.
On the basis of this analysis—and similar assessments made
in the 2009 Defence White Paper—it seems reasonable to
expect that the future operating environment will continue
to adjust and shift rapidly, as well as increase in complexity.
Success for any actor within the international system, both
state and non-state, will ultimately depend on their ability to
adapt quickly, so that they rapidly emerge to a position of
superior strength relative to any opposing actor within the
international system.
The current ‘expeditionary warfare’ concept
A vital element of Army’s commitment to the defence of
Australia is the need to be proficient at ‘expeditionary
warfare’, which is defined by the US military as ‘a military
operation conducted by an armed force to accomplish a
specific objective in a foreign country’.10 The relevance of
expeditionary warfare to the modern operating environment
is obvious—the littoral nature of the future operating
environment, the emergence of ‘mega-cities’ as a result of
demographic change and the increase in competition for and
access to resources (particularly near coastal areas) make
this a vital capability for the ADF to survive and thrive in the
emergent operating environment.
The essential tenets of expeditionary warfare are captured
in AC-AFLOC. ‘Manoeuvre Theory’ (and mission command),
‘complex adaptive theory’ and ‘systems theory’, all make
up what is described by the Australian Army as ‘adaptive
campaigning’.11 It comprises five ‘lines of operation’, namely:
• Joint land combat,
• Population protection,
• Information actions,
• Population support, and
• Indigenous capacity building.12
‘Adaptive campaigning’ is designed to capture core traditional
military tasks for the Army, as well as the additional ‘frames’
and actors that can be expected to affect the future operating
environment. However, to meet these additional frames
and actors—and subsequent emergent behaviour—Army
will need additional skills beyond the traditional war-fighting
functions of a land army. These additional, non-traditional
skills could be characterised as ‘indirect’ skills, in that they
are currently beyond Army capability and do not exist within
its current core tasks. Hence, ‘indirect expeditionary warfare’
(IEW) is being proposed as a future capability to meet this
need.
An IEW capability
IEW would seek to identify emergent threats to Australia as
part of the ADF’s response mechanism to any emerging,
uncertain security situation. It would comprise a range
of conventional and irregular capabilities, with the aim of
assisting key stakeholders to avoid and/or mitigate the scale
of any emerging crisis through the conduct of preventative,
indirect actions. IEW operations would typically be time-
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focused, urgent and emphasise pro-active prevention rather
than remedial action. Needless to say, they would occur in
trying and uncertain circumstances.
Escalation of force
IEW could operate across the spectrum of conflict but would
be most influential and effective in the developing stages of
a crisis. The insertion of any subsequent and additional ADF
joint task force (JTF) would be in the ‘surged’ or sequel phase
of an IEW operation (see Figure 1). Initial IEW actions would
prepare and ‘re-frame’ the operating environment by reducing
the risk threshold for an incoming JTF—or instead ‘control’
the emerging crisis to a level that could be managed by an
alternative force, such as the indigenous force of the host
nation. At its most successful, IEW would reduce or eliminate
the need for the introduction of a JTF or major ground force,
thereby preserving ADF resources and capability for other
future conflicts.
Perceived threshold to act decisively (and introduction of major JTF FE)
Steady state
Emerging crisis identified
Introduction of IEW team
Crisis level reduction
Figure 1. Crisis prevention and mitigation through IEW.
One of the key features of IEW is its emphasis on using
indirect approaches, as an alternative to the commitment of
more traditional military forces. To that end, IEW would focus
on the following applications:
• An emphasis on the underlying economic, political, cultural
or security conditions that fuelled the emergence of the
threat,
• The use of irregular and non-conventional means and
methods against an adversary, which may include
clandestine and covert actions, operations in combination
with the host nation force or through the non-conventional
use of conventional capabilities, and/or
• Subverting the power and influence of the adversary
over the target population groups through psychological
operations, public diplomacy, public affairs, security
operations, resource control, operational deception and
other means.13
IEW would strive to exploit the cognitive, moral and
psychological dimensions of conflict. The aim would be to
attack the adversary or solve the security problem from within
and through others. The indirect nature of these operations
would generally involve fewer troops and resources, and
emphasise ‘adaptive behaviour’ as one of its key tenets.
Dynamic context and mission unity. IEW operations would
typically be conducted in fluid and volatile emerging crises.
National, strategic and possibly even theatre-level objectives
would not be clearly defined, because of the adapting nature
of the situation. The mission of the IEW force would—and
should be expected to—vary because of the changing nature
of the environment. Accordingly, IEW force elements would
constantly need to ‘frame’ (and reframe) problems, detect
emerging developments and adapt to their environment.
They should also expect to ‘immerse’ themselves into
situations in order to properly determine and advise on the
nature of the crisis. And while decentralised decision-making
is an important feature of IEW operations, it must obviously
be ‘nested’ within the overall strategic and operational intent
of the Australian Government and the host nation.
Reduction of Crisis
Time
22
Characteristics of IEW
Because of the potentially wide scope for the employment
of an IEW force, there is no single situation or frame that
describes how best to organise and arrange such forces.
Each operation would be individual in its nature and the
IEW force would be purpose-designed. There are, however,
common characteristics that can help to define the nature of
IEW and provide a basis for future IEW campaign ‘designs’.
These characteristics are not strictly the domain of IEW.
But they are not currently properly ‘enabled’ or ‘fused’ as a
capability in the ADF.
Patience, persistence and resolve. The nature of IEW
means that these operations will often be conducted in a
gradual, deliberate way. This provides important opportunities
to gain a better understanding of the key actors. It also would
give the Australian Government the time and space - through
diplomatic and other non-military means - to attempt to control
and influence the situation without unnecessarily inflaming
tensions. In IEW, the patient pursuit of objectives and their
well-defined metrics should be highlights of progress. Unlike
expeditionary warfare, where the decisive employment of
military combat power aims to achieve an absolute effect,
IEW stresses the need for operations in varied places and
over longer and more protracted periods of time.
Intelligence and action. IEW must also be able to collect,
analyse and distribute intelligence to consumers within the
intelligence community. Critically, IEW should specialise in
the collection of ‘human intelligence’ (HUMINT). The use
of ‘human terrain teams’ are a feature of IEW and their
emphasis on collecting HUMINT via cultural intelligence will
help inform decision making. These cultural aspects include
language, traditions, local law and protocols, tribal affiliations
and networks, and social studies to give IEW an ‘optic’ that
will provide the indicators and warnings needed to detect
the emergence and intentions of an adversary. IEW force
elements must also be equipped to act decisively if required.
These tasks might include (but are not limited to):
• Lethal and non-lethal force, including anti-terror and
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counter-terror operations, low signature precision strike
and counter-weapons proliferation,
• Humanitarian aid distribution,
• Key leader engagement,
• Local law enforcement,
• Psychological operations,
• Public affairs and civil affairs operations,
• Intelligence collection,
• Information operations, and
• Strategic communication and electronic warfare operations.
Typical IEW operations
For the purposes of discussion, IEW might comprise five types
of operations, tailored to the specific situation but typically
integrated and with several being conducted concurrently.
They include:
• Strategic communications operations.
• Security partnership operations.
• Decisive intelligence and precision action operations.
• Low visibility enabling operations.
• Provision of essential services.
Strategic communications operations. These operations,
drawing on US doctrine, encompass "… those processes
and efforts that understand and engage key audiences, to
create, strengthen or preserve conditions favorable [sic] to
advance national interests and objectives through the use of
coordinated information, themes, plans, programs and actions
synchronized with other elements of national power."14 They
differ from broader JTF and ADF strategic communications
in that the primary focus of the IEW message is to promote
the legitimacy of a host nation, partnership or the Australian
Government’s involvement. Common themes that could be
expected to feature include legitimacy, trust, credibility, cultural
sensitivity and perceptions. Strategic communications in IEW
would normally be seen as an offensive tool and should be
employed as part of a ‘shaping action’.
rapid expansion of host nation security capabilities is the
enduring priority of these operations, which ultimately aim
to protect the host nation from subversion, lawlessness and
insurgency.15
Security partnership operations, as part of IEW, can also
generate new capabilities for the host nation that would
otherwise be cost-prohibitive or not yet introduced into
their security forces. Examples include the provision of
tactical uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs), leaflet drops and
transistor radio deliveries (to support host nation strategic
communications operations), electronic attack, counterWMD, consequence management (in the event of a large
scale natural disaster), intelligence collection and fusion for
host nation prosecution, combat search and rescue, joint
targeting (either through trained targeting personnel or the
provision of specialist equipment) and policing technical
skills, such as forensics, criminal investigations and evidence
gathering.
Decisive intelligence and precision action operations. IEW
force elements must have the ability to transition rapidly from
indirect supporting operations to decisive military operations.
An example would be the employment of a targeting and
decisive action model known as ‘F3EA’ (find, fix, finish, exploit,
analyse).16 This uses IEW skills, such as persistent intelligence
collection, which would allow the IEW team - having adapted
to the situation - to generate tempo and decision speed that
exceeds that of an adversary. This intelligence would in turn
enable the adversary to be ‘found and fixed’, regardless of
appearance, clothing, operating methods or rate of effort. The
IEW team can then ‘finish’ the target, scaling their response in
a way that is adaptive to the adversary and the environment,
either by precision- or mass-effect weapons.
‘Information operations’ in IEW support strategic
communications and are also important in trying to understand
and influence the complex environment. They should
anticipate adversarial propaganda and develop mechanisms
for defeating it. Public affairs, civil affairs, psychological
operations and intelligence collection perform ‘enabling
actions’ for strategic communications and, importantly, set
the conditions for future IEW and expeditionary warfare,
when and if they are required.
Finally, the IEW team would ‘exploit and analyse’ the target
to gain an insight into the adversary’s system, allowing
for further weaknesses to be identified for possible future
exploitation. This, in turn, would cue the intelligence assets
to begin operations against this discovered weakness and
so the process would begin again. Indeed, an IEW force that
is F3EA-capable is able to design, plan, adapt and act while
allowing for the development of future operations that are
not contingent on a higher headquarters or external strategic
intelligence lead. And F3EA has proven itself operationally - an
example was the targeting and killing of the Al-Qaida terrorist
leader al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006.17
Security partnership operations. These operations require
a joint IEW force that works to build up and expand the
capabilities of a host nation. Importantly, they must be seen
as a preventative measure, before a smaller crisis matures
and evolves into a more serious and far-reaching security
challenge. While the force composition will depend on the
nature of the tasks, IEW deployment teams would typically
involve elements of both the military and other agencies. The
Low visibility enabling operations. Defeating an adversary
indirectly or averting a crisis usually requires the employment
of a combination of conventional and non-conventional
methods, including clandestine or covert actions, operations
in combination with irregular forces or the non-conventional
use of conventional capabilities.18 In order to achieve this, an
IEW team must be capable of operating below the detection
abilities of the adversary.
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2013/02/11 07:55:45 AM
Provision of essential services. The provision of essential
services is an important capability for IEW. Unlike major
military-civil operations, where the JTF would provide the
infrastructure and personnel for the establishment of essential
services, the IEW team would comprise personnel who are
specifically trained and skilled to advise and assist the host
nation. The provision of essential services, at an early stage
of a developing crisis, assists in providing legitimacy for the
IEW force elements and with the host nation which, in turn,
becomes more legitimate in the eyes of the civilian populace.
The ability to assess and survey the requirement for essential
services must also form part of the IEW capability, in order to
allow the priorities for the host nation and the IEW team to
shift in line with the emerging situation.
An IEW essential service capability must also be able to
complement and seamlessly operate alongside and in
consideration of other stakeholders, such as Australian
Government departments, host nation government agencies,
non-governmental organisations and foreign partner
governments and their agencies. Importantly, IEW force
elements need a substantial ‘reach-back’ capability in terms
of authorities and financial delegation, so that they can
make commitments to the host nation without excessive and
unnecessary bureaucratic interference.
IEW across the conflict spectrum
Each and every IEW operation would vary in the mix and
application of capabilities and characteristics. In certain
circumstances, it could require force elements to provide
specialist support to a faltering friendly government in danger
of losing its legitimacy against a growing insurgency. This
could occur in a climate of widespread lawlessness and
sectarian violence. Other issues may include an ongoing
humanitarian crisis, as well as unwanted interference from
another state actor. In this case, ‘decisive intelligence
and precision action’ operations, supported by ‘strategic
communications’ operations, might form the bulwark of
response from an IEW team. The subsequent introduction
of a conventional follow-on force could also be supported
through security partnership operations and the provision of
essential services. A less challenging mission could involve
the provision of assistance to a government grappling with
a natural disaster, such as a tsunami or cyclone. In this
instance, a breakdown of law and order, as well as the
loss of government services in the wake of the event, may
delegitimise the host nation government. An IEW team
might be expected to focus on strategic communications,
security partnership operations and the provision of essential
services, as part of their overall strategy to support the host
nation. In this circumstance, an IEW team may be effective
in restoring host nation government legitimacy, negating the
need for the introduction of other forces.
In either situation, the IEW team would need to understand
the emerging situation, anticipate the complexities of the
operating environment and readily adapt in order to generate
effective and enduring solutions.
Conclusion
It has been argued in this article that the ADF requires
an IEW operating concept in order to wage an effective
campaign against emerging threats to regional security. Such
a capability could act as the ‘leading edge’ of an Australiandirected ‘surge’ into a host nation, bringing capabilities and
capacities that could mitigate or eliminate the developing
causes of a crisis, especially during the early stages of its
development.
The Australian Government has many facets to its strategic
‘shaping and influencing’ activities, invariably interlinked with
a range of diplomatic initiatives. The ADF has a significant
role to play in this domain. IEW would enhance Australia’s
expeditionary capability and give those whose interests are
Australian APCs in East Timor
24
2013/02/11 07:55:47 AM
inimical to Australia reason to pause. IEW would enhance
collective security efforts. It would also provide the Australian
Government with a new range of options for ‘shaping and
influencing’ on a more consistent and ignificant scale.
Lieutenant Colonel Ian Langford, DSC is a Commando officer
within Special Operations Command. He has deployed as
an operational commander with the Special Operations
Task Group to Afghanistan. He has additionally served in
that theatre with the NATO Special Operations Coordination
Centre on the 2008 review of ISAF special operations. He is
a Distinguished Graduate of the US Marine Command and
Staff College (2009) and was the 2010 Honour Graduate the
USMC School of Advanced War-fighting. He has also served
on multiple tours to Timor Leste, the broader Middle East,
Bougainville, the Solomon Islands and as part of Australia’s
domestic counter-terrorist response.
Notes
1. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning — Army’s Future Land
Operating Concept (AC-AFLOC), Department of Defence: Canberra,
2009. AC-AFLOC seeks to build on the Australian Army’s previous
conceptual documents, ‘Complex Warfighting’ and ‘Adaptive
Campaigning’. These concepts are underpinned by the Army’s
fundamental approach to warfare as articulated in LWD 1: The
Fundamentals of Land Warfare, 2008. AC-FLOC is also reflective
of the Defence White Paper 2009, the Defence Capability Plan and
other Service initiatives. These documents establish the operating
paradigms for the formulation of all Australian Army capability within
the broader ADF framework.
2. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, foreword.
3. ‘Complex environments’ are the environment shaped by physical,
human and informational factors that interact in a mutually-reinforcing
fashion. It is terrain that limits the utility of technological intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance and which reduces opportunities
for long-range engagement with a consequent increased emphasis
on close combat.
4. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, foreword.
5. By ‘conventional’ I mean conflicts that are fought by convention
rather than with purely symmetric weapons and tactics. This is an
important distinction because the Australian Army has considerable
experience in ‘small wars’ and ‘irregular wars’, as well as largescale warfare. See F.A. von der Heydte, Modern Irregular Warfare
in Defense Policy as a Military Phenomena, translated by George
Gregory, New Benjamin Franklin House: New York, 1986.
6. Australian Government, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific
Century: Force 2030, Department of Defence: Canberra, 2009, p.
30.
7. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, p. 27.
8. Australian Government, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific
Century, pp. 29-37.
9. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, pp. 13-9.
10. ‘Expeditionary warfare’ is defined by the US Marine Corps as ‘a
military operation conducted by an armed force to accomplish
a specific objective in a foreign country’: US Marine Corps,
Expeditionary Warfare, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 3,
Department of the Navy: Washington DC, 1998.
11. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, pp. 20-40.
12. Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning, p. 22.
13. US Government, Military Support to Indirect Security and Stability
Surge Operations – A Study, Department of Defense: Washington
DC, 2007, p. 38.
Surge Operations, p. 39.
16. M. Flynn, R. Juergens and T. Cantrell, ‘Employing ISR- SOF Best
Practice’, Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue No. 50, 3rd Quarter 2008,
p. 56. While F3EA is not strictly limited to special operations, it is an
example of where special forces teams, using this targeting process,
displayed elements of CASO (complex adaptive special operations)
in their ability to continuously adapt to the environment to ensure
they maintained positive control over the targeting and killing of an
Al-Qaida leader.
17. Flynn et al, ‘Employing ISR- SOF Best Practice’, p. 56.
Bibliography
• Australian Army, Adaptive Campaigning- Army’s Future Land
Operating Concept, Department of Defence: Canberra: 2009.
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Response to Complex Warfighting,
• Version 4.15, Directorate of Combat Development and Future Land
Warfare: Canberra, 2006.
• Australian Army, Complex Warfighting: Future Land Operational
Concept, Chief of Army’s Senior Advisory Committee: Canberra, 7
May 2004.
• Australian Army, Land Warfare Doctrine 1: The Fundamentals of
Land Warfare, Land Warfare and Development Centre: Puckapunyal,
2002.
• Australian Government. Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific
Century: Force 2030, Department of Defence: Canberra, 2009.
• Bennet, Alex and Bennet, David, Organizational Survival in the
New World: the intelligent complex adaptive system, KMCI Press:
Burlington MA, 2004.
• Burns, Paul, Complex Adaptive Special Operations, Marine Corps
University: Quantico, 2006.
• Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, Princeton University Press: Princeton,
1984.
• Clay, Peter and Austin, Warwick, ‘Another Way of Thinking: A
Discussion paper on Systemic Design’, Chief of the Australian Army
Exercise Reading Package, November 2006.
• Fastabend, Brigadier David A., and Robert H. Simpson, Adapt or
Die: the imperative for a culture of innovation in the United States
Army, Concept Development and Experimentation, Futures Center,
US Army Training and Doctrine Command, undated.
• Joint Special Operations University, SOF Reference Manual, US
Government: Hulburt Field, Florida, 2008.
• Joint Staff, Joint Publication 3-05, Doctrine for Joint Special
Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Washington DC, 2003.
• Kilcullen, David, Irregular Warfare: a systems assessment, Australian
Army Headquarters: Canberra, September 2004.
• Kilcullen, David, ‘Counterinsurgency Redux’, Survival, Vol. 48, No, 4,
Winter 2006-07.
• Klein, Gary, Sources of Power: how people make decisions, MIT
Press: Massachusetts, 1998.
• Morowitz, Harold J., and Singer Jerome L. The Mind, the Brain, and
Complex Adaptive Systems, Addison-Wesley Publishing: Reading,
1995.
• Rittel, H.W., and Webber, M.M., Dilemmas in a General Theory of
Planning, Elsevier Publishing Company: Amsterdam, 1973.
• Senge, Peter M., The Fifth Discipline: the art & practice of the
learning organization, Doubleday: New York, 1990.
• US Government, Military Support to Indirect Security and Stability
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DC, 2007.
• US Marine Corps, Warfighting, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1,
• US Marine Corps, Planning, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 5,
• Wellbrink, Joerg; Zyda, Mike; and Hiles, John, ‘Modeling Vigilance
Performance as a Complex Adaptive System’, Journal of Modeling
and Simulation, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2004.
25
2013/02/11 07:55:47 AM
When Innovation Becomes Critical:
An Overview of South African Armour in the Second World War
Lieutenant Evert Kleynhans
The advent of armoured warfare during the First World
War did not initially fulfil the promise of greater mobility,
firepower, and protection on the battlefield. The use of
armoured fighting vehicles during the war only came
to fruition in the latter parts of the conflict, with notable
deployments at Cambrai and Amiens. When peace in
Europe eventually became a reality in November 1918,
armoured warfare, and most notably tanks, remained a
weapon rather of potential and promise than performance
on the battlefields of Europe.
The inter-war period in Europe saw a dichotomy in innovation
with regard to armoured warfare. Firstly, the German military
developed a revolutionary approach to war itself, and used
lessons learned from the late war in order to force innovation
in the Reichswehr (“Wehrmacht” from 1935). The German
high command, and more notably the works of Heinz
Guderian, placed immense emphasis on military innovation
in manoeuvre and armoured warfare as a prerequisite for
future warfare. Secondly, the Germans’ counterparts, the
British and French, largely failed to innovate and learn the
appropriate lessons from the First World War with regards to
armoured warfare.1
26
Vickers-Medium-Mark-II 640
The creation and refinement of armoured forces in Europe
during the inter-war period occurred rather haphazardly.
Military innovation, in terms of doctrinal and organisational
requirements, and the adaptation of new technologies,
came to be influenced by a myriad of norms that included
the influence of personalities, intellectual trends, societal
influences and the ever-important position of the military
within society. During the inter-war period, armoured
capabilities and their development became subservient to
technological innovation.
Technological innovation in turn meant that a successful
armoured capability could only be developed once appropriate
doctrinal change and modernisation took place. When Britain,
France, and Germany developed their concepts of armoured
warfare during the 1920s and 1930s, they only had a small
number of tactical and operational lessons from the previous
war on which to draw. Successful innovation in armoured
warfare was further hampered by budgets that had been
2013/02/11 07:55:47 AM
severely reduced during the inter-war period, coupled with
the great distrust that military institutions faced from society
at large.2
‘first battles’ consisted of actions both within the Union and
also outside its borders. Of importance for the UDF, were the
actions that it saw in German South West Africa, German
East Africa, and subsequently Europe.
The South African experience in the First World War,
however, remained an infantry affair, and post-war innovation
essentially became stagnant. In terms of armoured warfare
and innovation in acquiring modern forces, the UDF failed.5
During the 1920s, however, a special striking force was
established. The South African Field Force, formed around
a small mechanised nucleus, offered the UDF the ability to
deal quickly and clinically with uprisings within the country.
South Africa thus established an experimental mechanised
force well before their British counterparts.6
The Innovation Cycle
Thus, military innovation in the inter-war period could only be
measured successfully during the first battle of each nation
in the next war.
The next major war for the European powers happened to
be the Second World War, with sporadic conflicts such as the
Greco-Turkish War, the Italian-Ethiopian War and the Spanish
Civil War during the inter-war period3, where countries could
experience a ‘first battle’ that would have a direct bearing on
the success of its army in war.
A ‘first battle’ can be defined as the process through which
the military prepares for conflict during peace-time, fights
its first encounter based on pre-conceived doctrine and
then subsequently alters its doctrine and tactics according
to the exigencies of ‘modern’ conflict. Thus, in turn, each
of the major powers could actively measure whether or not
their innovation succeeded after their ‘first’ armoured battles
during the Second World War.
For Germany, innovation in armour during the inter-war
period was successfully demonstrated during the opening
campaigns of the Second World War, in which the British and
French failed dismally. The notion of ‘first battles’ remained
closely linked to the process of innovation, and thus the cycle
of innovation remained constant for the remainder of the
Second World War. 4
The Union of South Africa, and most notably the Union
Defence Force (UDF), emerged from the First World War with
a whole host of ‘first battles’ in its repertoire. For the UDF, its
By 1938 the Union Defence Force was able to obtain a
statement of training policy from the then South African
Minister of Defence, Oswald Pirow.7 This document stated
that the organisation, training, doctrine, and equipment
of the UDF should be based on the possibilities of fighting
a war on African soil. The UDF thus naturally focussed its
effort on honing its skill in bush warfare.8 Desert warfare, and
armoured warfare for that matter, was not seen as a likely
prospect for the UDF. By 1938, as the war-clouds started
to loom over Europe, the South African General Staff had a
good idea of where its next theatre of war would be. Understrength, under-equipped and under-trained, the UDF started
to gear up for war by the latter half of 1938.9
By 1938, the UDF had started to work on the idea of using
armoured fighting vehicles in bush warfare. But as far as
the South Africans were concerned, their armoured warfare
capabilities would be centred on using armoured cars to
bolster the UDF’s capability.
The military high command, despite differing views from the
then Prime Minister, General J B M Hertzog, realised that
their next deployment would most likely occur in the British
Central or East African territories, and thus no provision
whatever was made to obtain any tanks.
On paper the UDF had an armoured capability consisting
of two obsolete medium tanks and two outdated Crossley
armoured cars, both received from the United Kingdom in the
1920s. Attempts were made to procure armoured cars from
elsewhere, but neither Great Britain nor the United States of
America could provide any. The Union of South Africa then
decided to produce its own armoured cars, which made up
the bulk of the armoured fighting vehicles available to the
South African Tank Corps, which was deployed in East and
North Africa from 1940.10
By November 1940 South Africa deployed a motorised
division to East Africa, which at that time, according to MajGen George Brink, one of the most mobile formations in the
Commonwealth.
27
2013/02/11 07:55:47 AM
The inaugural East African campaign, and the first South
African experience of ‘armoured warfare’, proved rather
satisfactory for the UDF. Despite the fact that the East African
geography essentially negated the successful employment
of armoured cars and the few light tanks that were available,
the South Africans were able to at least secure their ‘first’
armoured battle in that campaign, albeit against Italian
regular and irregular infantry.11
East Africa, North Africa and Madagascar. The South African
war machine found it difficult to maintain two fully-fledged
infantry divisions in the North African theatre of operations,
since enough new recruits were not forthcoming.17 A decision
was made by the South African high command that a
compromise re-organisation was necessary to transform the
two infantry divisions into a single armoured division.18
Pressure from the post-1939 Prime Minister, Field-Marshal
Jan Smuts, to convert the South African military into a modern
armoured defence force was felt as far as Whitehall and No
10 Downing Street. Due to the strong personal relationship
between Smuts and Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
the UDF was able to secure for itself a fighting role for the
remainder of the war.
The birth of the 6th South African Armoured Division (6 SAAD)
offered South Africa the opportunity to acquire modern tanks,
realign her defence needs with those of modern fighting
forces within the Commonwealth and further abroad, and
also to ensure that the Union of South Africa possessed a
modern fighting force for the foreseeable future.19
Armour training at Khataba 12
If the East African campaign is seen as a ‘first battle’ for the
South Africans, then it would mean that they would have to
go through with the post-battle development and refinement
of tactics as described by Heller and Stofft.13 For the South
Africans, however, their next deployment in North Africa
would see them engaging in offensive operations against
arguably one of the finest armoured formations in history, the
Deutsche Afrika Korps under the innovative Field-Marshal
Erwin Rommel. Thus any innovation that may have occurred
after the East African campaign became obsolete by the time
the South Africans deployed to North Africa.14
Deployment in North Africa differed vastly from East Africa,
especially in terms of armoured warfare. The campaign
in North Africa was in essence the true baptism of fire for
South African armour, despite the fact that their contribution
to large scale armoured battles was minimal.15 North Africa
provided a learning curve for the UDF. It saw the successful
employment of armoured formations in battle, most notably
tanks, by both the British and German forces in the desert.
The deployment of the UDF in North Africa should be seen
against the backdrop of the South African need, and drive, to
acquire modern fighting vehicles, notably tanks.16
By 1943, UDF deployments in the Second World War already
amounted to troops having served in three distinct theatres:
28
Italy, largely 'untankable' 20
The deployment of 6 SAAD with its armoured and motorised
brigades in Italy differed vastly from the fighting experiences
of the South African soldiers in their preceding three
campaigns.21
Actual deployment in Italy, which was largely ‘untankable’,
unlike the North African desert where the men had honed
their skills in armoured warfare. Italy was essentially an
infantry affair, due to the geography of the country.22 The
Allied armies in Italy did, however, include a high number
of armoured divisions before the arrival of the South African
troops. Despite the fact that the Allied armies in Italy had no
need for another armoured division, pressure originating both
2013/02/11 07:55:48 AM
from the United Kingdom and South Africa secured a fighting
role for 6 SAAD in Italy.23
Acting as the armoured spearhead of the British 8th Army, 6
SAAD fought its first ‘tank’ battle after the liberation of Rome.
On 10 June 1944, near the Italian town of Celleno, the 11th
SA Armoured Brigade fought its first and only ‘tank’ battle in
which the entire armoured brigade went into action together.
The battle of Celleno was, however, brief and was mainly
fought against German infantry who had no armour support.
In essence, Celleno was not an armoured battle, despite the
fact that the brigade fought as a complete entity.
For the remainder of the campaign in Italy, the UDF fought a
number of successful battles and helped to liberate numerous
parts of the northern Italian countryside. Independent armour
actions were plentiful, and thus the South African high
command was able to learn a whole host of lessons from the
campaign in Italy.24
The Second World War proved to be the major factor that
caused the re-alignment of South Africa’s defence needs
to those of a ‘modern’ defence force, with a technologically
advanced armoured capability, by 1945.
Post-war strategic re-alignment, especially by Smuts, saw
South Africa having to act as the armoured spearhead of
the Africa Defence Organisation (ADO) as well as the Middle
East Defence Organisation (MEDO). The ADO and MEDO
never, however, fully materialised.
In 1948 the National Party came to power in the Union of
South Africa. A new party in power meant serious changes
for the UDF, which directly influenced the fighting capability
of the Defence Force.25
Thus, in conclusion, the Second World War should be seen
as the major turning point in the development of a suitable
armoured capability for the UDF. Hence, the Second World
War served as the major tool which sparked the process
of innovation within the UDF in terms of securing a viable
armoured capability for the remainder of the war.
Evert Kleynhans, BMilHons (Stell.), is a post-graduate
candidate in the MMil Military History programme offered
by the Department of Military History, Faculty of Military
Science, Stellenbosch University, and is posted at the Department of Defence Archives in Pretoria. This article is a
reduction of a paper presented at the National University
of Ireland (Maynooth) during 2011. Financial assistance
for the above mentioned trip was gained from the NRF’s
Rated Researchers Incentive Programme, and is gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
1 W. Murray, ‘Armored Warfare :The British, French, and German
Experiences’ In: W. Murray and A.R. Millet (eds), Military Innovation
in the Interwar Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
6-49.
2 Murray, Armored Warfare :The British, French, and German
Experiences, 6-9.
3 The sporadic conflicts during the inter-war period gave the major
powers the ability to test their new military organisational and
doctrinal developments while intervening on the behalf of the
belligerent nations. The British saw action during the Greco-Turkish
War, whilst the Germans were able to test certain aspects of their
military during their intervention in the Spanish Civil War during
1936. Inter-war intervention meant that the militaries could test
certain aspects of their innovation after the First World War.
4 C.E. Heller and W.A. Stofft (eds), America’s First Battles 1776-1965
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986) ix- xiii.
5 H. Klein, Springboks in Armour: The South African Armoured Cars
in World War II (Cape Town & Johannesburg: Purnell & Sons, 1965)
v-viii.
6 I.J. van der Waag, ‘The Union Defence Force Between the Two
World Wars, 1919-1939’, Scientia Militaria 30 (2) 2000, 201.
7 Pirow, however, became best known for his 5-year plans of innovation
for the UDF, and his failed bush-cart scheme. Pirow believed that
bush-carts would provide the utmost mobility to the South African
forces for their expected participation in bush warfare.
8 The brunt of South Africa’s experience in the First World War
comprised of action seen mainly as mounted Infantry, and Jack
Collyer remained an ever steadfast proponent of the use of
mounted infantry for future South African military deployments.
The development of an armour capability suitably remained on the
back benches due to Pierre van Ryneveld’s obsession with the
development of the Air Force.
9 Klein, Springboks in Armour: The South African Armoured Cars in
World War II, v.
10 Ibid.
World War II, v-vi.
12 South African National Defence Force Archives Repository
(SANDFAR), Photo Collection, 781005467, Armour training at
Khataba.
13 See C.E. Heller and W.A. Stofft (eds), America’s First Battles 17761965 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986) for a complete
explanation on the notion of ‘first battles’ and the importance of
using this method as an historical tool of analysis within the realm of
military history.
14 J. Bourhill, Come Back to Portofino: Through Italy with the 6th South
African Armoured Division (Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers,
2011) 31 and Klein, Springboks in Armour: The South African
Armoured Cars in World War II, v-viii.
15 Bourhill, Come Back to Portofino, 31.
World War II, v-viii.
17 J. Kros, War in Italy: With the South Africans from Taranto to the Alps
(Johannesburg: Ashanti, 1992) 1-5 and SANDFAR, Chief of General
Staff (CGS) War, Box 173, Conversion to Armd Div, Correspondence
between General Auchinleck and Field-Marshal Smuts regarding the
conversion to armour 21 October 1941, as well as: Bourhill, Come
Back to Portofino, 31-35.
18 The National Archives (TNA) of the United Kingdom: Public Record
Office (PRO): War Office (WO)/06/4931 M.O.2B Collation, S/A 12,
South Africa Intelligence (Misc) Oct ’41- Jul ’45. Reuters extracts
covering the formation of the 6th South African Armoured Division.
19 A. Bryant, The Turn of the Tide (London: Collins, 1957) 440.
20 SANDFAR, Photo Collection, 700009982, PAG tank bogged down
on mountain slope.
21 SANDFAR, Union War Histories (UWH) Civil, Box 140, NAREP CMF
1, Trg History of 6 SA Armd Div (E. Axelson April ‘44).
22 J.F. MacDonald, The War History of Southern Rhodesia (Vol II),
(Rhodesia: Rhodesian Government Printers, 1950) 589 and J. A.
English, A Perspective on Infantry (New York: Praeger Publishers,
1981) 173-175.
23 Orpen, Victory in Italy, 17.
24 Orpen, Victory in Italy, 55-69.
25 R. Ovendale, British Defence Policy since 1945 (United Kingdom:
Manchester University Press, 1994) 109.
29
2013/02/11 07:55:48 AM
JOINT OPERATIONS
Coercive Air Power and Peace Enforcement
Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, VM*
This article is published by courtesy of the Journal of the United Service Institution of India
“To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme
excellence” - Sun Tzu
Air Power is a very seductive term – in the modern conflictridden world it seems to be the harbinger of relief from the
drudgery of long drawn out conflicts. Nowhere is it more
apparent than in conflicts where attempts are made by the
United Nations (UN) and the international community to bring
violence to a close with minimum commitment of boots on
the ground. The latest is the use of Air Power, initially by the
USA, and then by NATO in the ongoing internal strife in Libya
– as we go to the press, would it happen in Syria too?
Have air operations of the UN helped it meet its Charter of
ushering in an environment of tranquility and stability, so that
civilians caught up in a conflict start leading a normal life?
Has Air Power lived up to its aura of being an enabler for
peace for the UN? While Air Power has many roles to play in
the ambit of operations of the UN (C2, ISR, communication,
mobility, etc), this paper will study its coercive effect on peace
enforcement operations, taking the Bosnian conflict and the
Indian experience in UN Missions as baseline parameters.
30
The F-117 saw its first employment in Operation Just Cause in Panama, a
classic ‘coercive’ operation, and was then employed during Desert Storm
against Iraqi forces and against Serbian forces during the extended conflict
in the Balkans, both ‘coercive’ missions in the context of peace enforcement.
Historical Perspective
The UN Special Committee on the Balkans (1947-52) was
the first mission to get off the ground after the formation of the
UN.1 From there started the saga of international involvement
in conflict areas. Between 1947 and 1990, 21 UN operations
were started but in the decade after the end of the cold war,
i.e. till the turn of the Century, 32 new missions were launched!
Between 1987 and 1994, the Security Council quadrupled
the number of resolutions it issued, tripled the peacekeeping
operations it authorised and multiplied by seven the number
of economic sanctions it imposed per year.2 The UN has been
a busy organisation indeed – and its involvement in conflict
prone areas only seems to be increasing, as the winds of
democracy blow through hitherto uncharted territory in the
Middle East, West Asia and North African countries post the
‘Jasmine revolution’ in Tunisia.
In one of the bigger missions, even by today’s numbers,
which saw 19280 peacekeepers in the Congo in 1960,
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Air Power came into its own when it was employed under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The job of elimination of the
Katanga Air Force was taken up by the ‘UN Air Force’, which
was an assortment of the following aircraft3 :
(a)Six B-55 Canberra bombers of the Indian Air Force.
(b)Four F-86 fighters of the Ethiopian Air Force.
(c)Three J-29B Tunman fighters and two S-29C recce
fighters of the Swedish Air Force.
(d)Sixteen C-119s and a Squadron of Dakota aircraft
manned by aircrew of diverse nationalities (commanded
by Wg Cdr GB Singh of India).
Thus, began the role of Air Power, when it brought to bear
all its facets of reconnaissance, transportation and offensive
power in a conflict where an International body had assumed
the role of a peace maker and a peace enforcer. Air Power
was called in in other major UN Peace Keeping Operations
(PKO) also, but the defining ones were the first Gulf War
or Operation Desert Storm, Operation Deliberate Force in
Bosnia and, then in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
in 2003 when the Indian Air force was asked to give utility
and attack helicopters to United Nation’s Mission in Congo
(MONUC). There is, however, a major difference between
the DRC operations of the IAF and the others listed here;
Operations Desert Storm and Deliberate Force were UN
mandated operations while the ongoing actions in the DRC
are under a pure UN peace keeping force under MONUC.
Though both were authorised under Chapter VII of the UN
Charter i.e., peace enforcement, the mandated operations
were sublet to a member country or another organisation;
thus, Operation Desert Storm was a coalition led by the
US while Operation Deliberate Force was NATO led. In
reality, Bosnia was a mixture of the two – the ground force
was a Chapter VI raised under the UN flag and formed the
United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) while the air
Attack helicopters have proved crucial in several peace enforcement
operations, with a single Mi-24 a key factor in the fight against the
Revolutionary United Front guerrillas in Sierra Leone, and a small Indian
detachment having a key factor in the eastern DRC.
element was mandated to NATO to carry out a Chapter VII
operation (Op Deliberate Force). The implications of this will
be discussed later in this paper.
It is a well accepted fact that the peace keeping process
consists of four stages, as espoused by UN Secretary
General Bourtos Boutros Ghali in his 1992 seminal report
Agenda for Peace4 viz,
(a)Peace Diplomacy or Peace Making. Action to prevent
disputes from arising, and, if they have already taken
place, then to prevent them from escalating into conflicts;
included in the term would be the efforts to prevent the
dispute from spreading to other areas.
(b)Peace Keeping. To deploy a ‘UN presence between
warring parties after obtaining their consent’ as a
confidence building measure while diplomacy tries to
arrive at a solution.
(c)Peace Enforcement. To act, including with the use of
armed action, with or without the consent of the warring
parties under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
(d)Peace Building. Wherein the UN assists in building
infrastructure and civic institutions so that normal life can
be led by the populace; this phase is also called post
conflict reconstruction.
Any conflict is the result of incongruent and divergent thought
processes or principles between two or more warring parties;
when a clash takes place requiring external intervention, it
implies that self- arbitration has reached a point of no return
and failed. A treaty or accord reached thereafter to stop the
fighting is a mutually hurting stalemate – the belligerents could
not reach a settlement and an outside agency was required
to do it. Therefore, there does exist the ‘incentive’ to break
the accord, normally initiated through the actions of spoilers
(marginal groups owing allegiance to clans, tribes, religious
sub-sects et al)) who are present in all such situations; this
is thereafter used as an excuse by major groups to step-in.
The disincentive can only be a threat or actual use of timely
proportionate retribution, if peace efforts on ground fail to
bring the accord violators to heel. It is important to underscore
the words timely and proportionate, as their importance was
highlighted in the post mortem after the Bosnian conflict.
So, in what manifestation does air power come into the
equation? As an instrument that carries kinetic power into
the conflict zone or as an instrument of coercive power
to ‘persuade’ belligerent(s) to the negotiating table? The
spectacular showing of Air Power in the US-led UN-mandated
Gulf War in 1991 gave a new spurt to peace keeping efforts.
Air Power was seen to be a deliverer of peace with minimal
casualties to ground troops – in the seven month period of
Operation Desert Storm there were only 147 American deaths
due to hostile actions.5 The Security Council saw a spurt of
increased activity; and between March 1991 and October
1993, new innovative approaches were tried in other conflict
areas (the death of 18 US soldiers in Somalia seriously
undermined the will of the international body thereafter).
Thus, within this period, 185 resolutions were passed as
against 685 in the preceding forty six years of UN history
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while fifteen new peacekeeping and observer missions were
launched as against seventeen in the previous four and a
half decades. Between 1946 and 1986, thirteen operations
had been planned, while forty seven were started between
1987 and 2006.6 This was predominantly due to the new
capability that became available through smart air munitions.
However, one aspect or basic fundamental also became
clear, that, peacekeeping could not be allowed to ‘creep’
into peace enforcement. It had to be a calculated and well
thought-of decision having the required unity of effort, unity
of command and political will of the international community.
These aspects were missing from the authorisation for the UN
mandated NATO air power and the UN force, UNPROFOR,
which went into Bosnia.
UN in Bosnia
In more ways than one, the Bosnian conflict is an engagement
which can be taken as an ideal case study on how to use
or not use air power in a conflict in which the UN has been
called upon to mediate. Without going into the politics of the
Bosnian imbroglio and for the sake of simplicity it can be said
that after pitting the Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniacs, against
the Serbs in Bosnia Herzegovina, the events so unfolded
that the UN found itself as an unwitting belligerent on the
side of the former against the latter. NATO Air Power was
available on call for the UN troops on ground ‘guarding’ the
designated safe areas. In the initial stages the Serbs had
advanced in a series of steps, pausing to ascertain whether
or not NATO would use force against them. The ultimatum to
use air power had worked in the short term and in the words
of the then UNPROFOR Commander in Bosnia Herzegovina,
“it was NATO air power that helped deter attacks by Bosnian
Serbs against the safe areas”.7 Despite this assessment that
the threatened use of air power had been effective at critical
moments around Sarajevo and Gorazde, the Secretary
General advised exercising caution based on the following
reasons8 :(a)Use of Air Power had to be based on ‘verifiable’
information, and
(b)The use of Air Power would expose the UN personnel on
ground to retaliation.
The Serbs utilised the difference in opinion and the lack
of political will by taking UN troops as hostages at regular
intervals, thus blackmailing the troop contributing nations
and arm twisting the UN in not using the one instrument of
coercion that the international community had, viz, Air Power.
As the Secretary General put it, “the Bosnian Serb side quickly
realised that it had the capacity to make UNPROFOR pay an
unacceptably high price”, by taking hostages. He considered
that the episodes in which UNPROFOR had used Air Power
had, “demonstrated the perils of crossing the line from peace
keeping to peace enforcement……without proper equipment,
intelligence and command and control arrangements”9.
The Secretary General’s report makes for fascinating reading
as one ‘walks’ through the deteriorating situation, with the
evidence of massacres and ethnic cleansing being seen by
32
the world and a powerless world body. Srebrenica falls and
Zepa is under imminent threat and once the world gets fully
aware of the horrendous deaths, NATO takes an important
and long overdue decision on 25 Jul 1995 – air strikes, as
against close air support, are authorised if the UN or NATO
commanders assess that the Serbs pose a serious threat to
the safe areas. The Special Representative of the Secretary
General objects but is overruled by the Secretary General
and the authority to ask for air strikes is delegated down to
the Force Commander. This marked a seminal change in the
way the Bosnian conflict was thereafter addressed by the
international community.
Operation Deliberate Force was, thus, launched by NATO
on 30 August 1995 and marked a totally different way the
intransigence of the Serbs was dealt-with. The Rapid
Reaction Force created for NATO went into action on ground
in an offensive mode.10 The UN HQ took a diametrically
opposite view to its earlier stance, reflecting the change of
political will in the international community – it made clear that
force would be used in self-defence, including defence of the
mandate.11 This was, then, a threat as used in a classical war
because NATO and the UN had become belligerents against
the Serbs. The firm resolve was evident on the ground as
3000 sorties were flown and 60 targets attacked in a matter
of 15 days; this had the desired effect and the Serbs came to
the negotiating table12 to find a solution to the conflict.
“Civilians in the Context of UN Peacekeeping Operations’’,
a 2008 study commissioned by the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and Office of the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs analysed the crisis
response capabilities of various Missions and came up with a
very succinct analysis of where a non-UN led interventionist
force would be required if the intensity of violence has to be
halted. Based on their study of various missions, the study
group plotted the intensity of violence in missions with respect
to the passage of time and superimposed the availability of
UN forces and non-UN led mandated forces; the findings are
plotted in Figure 1.
The study goes on to say that the grey area (Figure 1), where
there is a sharp increase in violence against civilians (as in
Bosnia), has to be anticipated and planned-for in the postmandate planning process; if not done, the study says, it
transcends beyond the capability of a traditional UN PKO on
site to tackle the crisis. The only option is to call on external
mandated military forces13, as what finally happened when
the ‘curbs’ were removed on NATO Air Power (in Bosnia).
With hindsight, it can be said that in case of ONUC in
1960 (Congo Leopoldville), coercive action was taken by
the UN before the inflection in the curve – after a series of
operations (Operations Rumpunch, Morthor and UNOKAT),
the last resort was the use of coercive measures to end the
secession for the sake of unity and international peace.14 It
was here that the “UN Air Force’ brought to bear all its might
to coerce the Katanga rebels to make peace and usher-in a
peaceful political process.
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All conflicts have a political raison d’être for the discord. The
counter strategy, whether military or otherwise, aims to get a
solution that is politically acceptable to the parties involved.
Air Power, if used judiciously, can act as a catalyst to bring
the warring parties to the negotiating table. However, there
are limits to this, and if used inappropriately, the credibility in
subsequent conflicts can be greatly reduced. So, to analyse
Air Power as an instrument of coercion in peace keeping it
would be necessary to examine the linkage between the two.
Fixed-wing gunships suggest themselves as ideal for many roles in the
peacekeeping and peace enforcement environment. While the AC-130
is not affordable to most air forces, there are several lighter gunships in
development.
Measuring Coercion
A Rand study authored by Daniel L Byman and others defines
coercion as the use of threatened force, including the limited
employment of actual force to back up the threat, to induce
an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would.
Coercion is characterised by two subsets – compellence and
deterrence15.
Coercion is not a one way action taken only by the coercer; it
is a dynamic two (or more) party process in which the target
of coercion also takes remedial or evolutionary action to
negate the coercion – sometimes the coercer gets countercoerced. It does not have a discreet beginning but is a
continuum, with some elements present all the time. The
measure of success too is not a simple yes or no, as there
are only limited effects that take place during the process – it
all depends on a precise definition of the behaviour sought.
Even limited effects, in tandem with other coercive measures,
may be sufficient to change an opponent’s decision making,
leading to change in his behaviour16. As Thomas Schelling in
his landmark work, “Arms and Influence’, put it – the power
to hurt, though it can usually accomplish nothing directly, is
potentially more versatile than a straight forward capacity
for forcible accomplishment17. Coercers must recognise that
perceptions are many times more important than actualities
on ground; the adversary must fear its costs, not just suffer
them.
It has been brought out earlier in the paper that the capacity
to escalate is an important constituent in the projected
capability of a coercer. Air Power has this important
ingredient as an intrinsic part of its capability – it can very
easily and very quickly escalate or threaten to escalate,
thereby increasing the stakes for the adversary; equally
importantly, it can de-escalate at a very fast pace. Thus, the
power to manipulate, space out the events and control the
tempo is easily achievable through Air Power. This capability
to control the intensity of violence is an invaluable tool in the
hands of a commander in a peacekeeping environment who
is trying to implement a UN mandate to ensure peace and not
gain a military victory in the traditional sense. Schelling has
explained the adversary’s desired behaviour in a different
way; he brings out that while brute force of two parties can
cancel each other in physical terms, pain and grief do not
(emphasis added); it is this threatened pain and grief – the
likely impending effect – that the coercer tries to impress
upon the coerced18. Thus, one of the reasons for success
of air power in Bosnia in 1995 was that, once the curbs on
employment of Air Power were removed, the Serb leaders
came to realise that air strikes could increase in number and
intensity and inflict greater costs (pain and grief) on them.19
There are, however, domestic compulsions that restrain the
freedom with which Air Power can be used. When national
interests are not vitally involved, Air Power usage becomes
restrictive. The approval ratings for American involvement in
Somalia were only 43 per cent, with 46 per cent of those
polled disapproving it (11 per cent had no opinion); what is
of importance is that this was even before the October 1993
Mogadishu incident in which 18 US servicemen lost their
lives.20 In case of coalitions it would be worse, as was seen
in Bosnia where the British and French put restrictions in the
use of Air Power because they felt that their troops operating
under Chapter VI, would be targeted. This ambiguity was
used by the Serbs to their advantage. The massacres at
Gorazde and Srebrenica were caused by the complicated
decision making procedure (result of political compulsions)
shown in Figure 2 — both ‘keys’ had to be ‘turned’ for air
strikes to be authorised.21
Coercion and Non State Actors
Generally, in an intra-state conflict, one or more sides of
the conflict are belligerent(s) who is (are) non state actors.
Thus, as conflicts have evolved in the past three decades,
the United Nations has been called-in to mediate in many
such crises situations. This is going to be more of a norm,
as in the 1990s, 94 per cent of conflicts resulting in more
than 1000 deaths were civil wars. In 2004, one source
found 25 emergencies of “pressing” concern, 23 of which
were civil wars. As Thomas Weiss, a prolific UN observer
puts it, the future battlefields will not feature conventional
front lines but would consist more of violence born out of
resources and economic opportunism for which borders are
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meaningless. The new wars are characterised by situations
where battleground states have minimal capacity and their
monopoly on violence is opposed in almost equal measure
by internal armed groups.22 It is, thus, necessary to study
whether Air Power of the international community, whether
mandated or part of a UN peace keeping force, can be
instrumental in bringing peace under such circumstances.
Coercion implies threatening something or a value that an
adversary holds dear to itself; where there are non-state
actors, this becomes a nebulous situation and complicates this
core assumption. Since their chain of command is diffused and
holding of fixed or identifiable assets very limited, if not nonexistent, the odds or the probability of non-state actors to get
coerced becomes remote. Bombs cannot have a significant
impact against a determined enemy who chooses to fight an
infrequent guerrilla war23. The UN faced this in Rwanda and
the DRC and the Russians in Chechnya. After the miniscule
Chechen ‘air force’ was destroyed by the Russians, the
Chechen leader Dudayev had reportedly signalled the Russian
Commander, “I congratulate you and the Russian Air Force on
another victory in achieving air superiority over the Chechen
Republic – will see you on the ground”.24 Motivation of a group
cannot be measured by its physical military holdings, and the
one thing that armament cannot destroy is the intangible which
constitutes the driving force or impulse of a rebel group; this
could be a religious or clan/tribe belief or something very real
and down to earth as sheer banditry for physical survival. The
lack of a formalised state structure implies that the non-state
entity is more resilient than a recognised group, since the
‘belief’ cannot be destroyed by arms, Thus it was possible for
the UNPROFOR and NATO Air Power to subdue or coerce
the Bosnian Serb Army (partially through pressure exerted
on the Serbs, its external sponsor) but not General Aideed
in Somalia. The UN succeeded to a certain extent in Congo
Leopoldville in the 1960s, as there was a formalised Katangan
military structure as an adversary; however, the same has not
happened in the past decade in Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda
(FDLR) is more a movement of many groups than a state.
Indian Experience
India has always operated in an international peacekeeping
environment under the UN umbrella, other than its brief
dalliance in Sri Lanka, when an Indian Peacekeeping Force
went in for a short period in what was essentially seen as a
destabilising conflict in its backyard. The Indian Air Force (IAF)
was, perhaps, one of the pioneers in committing its resources,
when it sent Canberra bombers in 1960 (frontline aircraft of
those times); the deployment was under Chapter VII and during
their two year stay, they were used extensively for destroying
the Katangan Air Force’s assets and infrastructure25 and helped
bringing about the capitulation of the secessionist Katangan
rebels. This was followed by Chapter VII deployments in
Somalia (1993), Sierra Leone (2000) and DRC (2003) and
a Chapter VI mission in Sudan (2005). The IAF took with it
its experience of flying helicopters in the most inhospitable
of terrains and in conditions that can only be described as
34
challenging. While the utility Mi-8s and Mi-17s flew logistic
support sorties, casualty and medical evacuations and inserted
and extracted troops, the Attack Helicopters (AHs) became
indispensable assets to ensure that the utility helicopters flew
safely, the convoys moved unhindered on ground and that
rebels and spoilers did not interfere with the mandate.
The Indian missions in Sierra Leone and Somalia were short
for a variety of unconnected political reasons and it was in
MONUC in DRC that the coercive nature of Air Power was
used very successfully, almost on a daily basis, as evidenced
by two landmark operations that IAF helicopters undertook.
The intimidating effect of Air Power was exemplified in 2006
in an engagement which has become well known in UN
peacekeeping circles as the ‘Sake incident’ when rebels owing
allegiance to rebel Commander General NKunda, marched
towards Goma pillaging, killing and raping the inhabitants;
the UN base at Goma was itself threatened. In a series of
coordinated actions in which attack helicopters played a
pivotal role, the UN troops repulsed the rebels and re-took
Sake.26 In 2008, at a place called Masisi, UN troops were
stoned by the locals protesting UN ‘inaction’ against NKunda
rebels. AHs were called in and in a show of coercive action,
that included firing of a few rockets, the situation was brought
under control.27 It has been a well-accepted fact that the mere
appearance of offensive air assets, viz, the AHs resulted in
the rebels either moving out of the area or not indulging in any
violent activity; psychological coercion by attack helicopters is
an understated capability of this weapon system.
A paper prepared by the Centre on International Cooperation
of New York University for discussion during an international
workshop on Rotary Wing Assets held on 27-28 Apr 11 at
New York, noted that military helicopters were required to
air maintain close to 25 Operating Bases (OBs) in a week
in MONUC of which 10 were in medium and high risk areas.
Swedish Air Force Tunnan fighters deployed to the Belgian Congo in 1961 as
part of the UN force, seeing combat there in the next few years.
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Air operations to these ‘risky’ OBs were permitted only with
Attack Helicopters (AHs) giving airborne protection. Due to the
withdrawal of four IAF Attack Helicopters in 2010, operations
had been affected significantly. In MONUSCO Ituri Brigade,
operations to medium and high risk areas had ceased, said
the paper; it further stated that if the remaining four AHs
were withdrawn in July 2011 (as asked by the Government of
India), the situation would become ‘grave’. This showed the
deterrence and almost indispensable worth that the IAF AHs
had in the mission area. The enemy was not structured, but
the mere presence of the AHs in the vicinity made the rebels
‘put their head down’. The compellence or coercive nature of
Air Power was thus clearly demonstrated in the past six years
of AH ops in MONUC/MONUSCO. The CIC paper stated that
Armed Groups (AG) made forays into villages at night and
made a getaway in the morning – “however the arrival of night
capable Mi-35s became a deterrent to these nightly raids….”28
and underscored the coercive capability of Air Power against
non-state actors.
Analysis
Air Power, as an instrument of compellance, retains its
potency only if the coercer can ensure sustained application
of force, with the ability to escalate when required. In conflicts
where there is an identifiable adversary having physical
holdings of tangible assets then coercive pressure can be
brought to bear by, as Schelling put it, the threat of inflicting
of ‘pain and grief’. In such cases the following imperatives
arise:(a)There should be a clear and unambiguous mandate
available for the air component.
(b)Sufficient air assets should be available to deliver the
required ‘weight of attack’ on the adversary – this is
not limited to application of kinetic power but includes
intelligence (by confronting the opponent with proof of his
misdemeanors), surveillance and reconnaissance.
(c)The application of coercive assets should be intelligently
graduated, with its punch being delivered before the point
of inflection (see Figure 1) beyond which extra ordinarily
high quantum of force would be necessary.
(d)The coercive capability of Air Power must not be
overestimated, as boots on ground would always be
required in a peace keeping environment. There would
be times though, when compellence of supporting groups
or factions could help squeeze the main adversary into
doing one’s own bidding – in the final analysis, Bosnia is
a classic example of this.
In case of the adversary being a non-state actor, a combination
of ‘soft’ application of kinetic Air Power with adequate and
timely psychological operations is enough to help the field
commander achieve his mandate; the Indian experience in
DRC is proof of this deduction.
Conclusion
Human history is witness to the fact that war, inter and intra
state, is and will continue to be, an incontrovertible part of
our existence. The past is also witness to the process of
rapprochement (both externally driven and self-concluded)
that has invariably taken place between the warring parties,
no matter how delayed the start of the process. Modern
human history, especially after the birth of the United Nations,
shows that the international community is seized of the need
to push belligerents to find a solution. It is true that during the
period of the Cold War, the two Super Power blocs had their
own agendas to play out, thus ensuring a modicum of stability
in areas where their vital interests were not threatened.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world saw a rise
in conflicts where mediation of the international community
was required; the UN rose to the challenge and this increased
engagement coincided with the revolution in military affairs
and the availability of smart munitions, the lethal combination
of which was seen in the first Gulf war.
Air Power came into its own in Operation Desert Storm and
was brought to bear by NATO in Bosnia thereafter under a
UN mandate. From a faltering adjunct to UNPROFOR, the
UN force on ground, Air Power became a catalyst in ‘bombing
the Serbians to the negotiating table’. Though this process of
coercing the Serbs was greatly aided by additional factors on
the ground, the major cause for the revitalisation of its potency
was the removal of ambiguity from the tasking process
and strengthening of the political will of the international
community. The potency against non-state actors is altogether
on a different plane; since there is no asset or real estate to be
lost the use of Air Power to coerce becomes restricted. Since
the aim of the coercion is to threaten ‘pain and grief’, the
employment of Air Power has to be very judicious – while the
results are not as ‘impressive’ as when there is a structured
enemy, they have a big psychological impact on the nonstate actors. The AHs of the Indian Air Force were great force
multipliers for the UN in DRC, as their mere presence was
itself coercive enough for the rebels on ground; in incidents
when the rebels tested the UN’s resolve, they got a fitting and
proportionate response from the air.
Sun Tzu had said that "know your enemy as yourself" – study
the adversary minutely so as to know everything about him.
This is most applicable in the use of coercive Air Power as an
enabler for peace enforcement; the Security Council needs to
deduce what would cause the maximum ‘pain and grief’ to the
adversary and accordingly mandate and equip the Mission
with forces to achieve this – this would ensure fulfilment of the
mandate given to the UN Mission.
*Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, VM was
commissioned in the Helicopter stream of the Indian Air Force
in 1976. He commanded the first IAF aviation contingent
of the UN Mission in Sudan in 2005 and laid down policies
and procedures for utilising helicopter assets of the IAF in
Sudan. Presently, as ACAS ops (T & H), he is in charge of the
operational deployment of the transport and helicopter fleet
both within the country as well as overseas.
Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CXLI,
No. 584, April-June 2011
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OTHER ARMIES
The Quintessential Ones:
Lessons of Warfare
Lieutenant Colonel Kulbhushan Bhardwaj*
This article is published by courtesy of Journal of the United Service Institution of India
General
Man has been fighting wars since time immemorial, ever
since there was a failure to resolve amicably, any difference
of opinion between two or more persons. Wars have been
fought for myriad reasons – land, power, ego, money,
women, oil - even football! At the end of each war, certain
lessons have emerged for the discerning soldier. From the
aftermath of any battle, these lessons are the ones which
should be grasped, to preclude any future defeat. Therefore,
the lessons of any war are also to be won, not the war alone.
Even though these lessons of warfare have emerged, a
posteriori, over aeons of warfare, no detailed treatises on
them have been authored by students or practitioners of
warfare. As a result, these lessons have been forgotten time
and again between the halcyon years of peace between
wars, only to be relearnt again in the next war, often by
paying in blood. For war planning, these lessons of warfare
are undoubtedly more important than principles of war.
Military History – The Fountainhead for Lessons of
Warfare
On studying military history, a cautious student of warfare
can definitely codify certain lessons which have remained
as relevant since the earliest times of Epaminondas and
Alexander (4th Century BC) or Hannibal (3rd Century BC);
through the ages and the intervening eras of Mongols,
Napoleon, Prussia, World Wars, as they are today. On an
in-depth analysis of various military campaigns, certain
immutable lessons of warfare emerge, based on the
distillation of historical military wisdom. It is de rigueur
that these lessons of warfare be studied, absorbed and
judiciously applied during making of operational plans.
In this article, some of the critically important quintessential
lessons of warfare, are enunciated, which epitomise the
wisdom of warfare gained over millennia of warfare.
The Lessons of Warfare – At National Level
At the National level, important lessons to be kept in mind
for any war are enunciated in the succeeding paragraphs.
Political Aim Commensurate with Military Resources.
Assuming that the tenet of Clausewitz that war is a
continuation of policy by other means to be true even
today, the political aim of a nation must, therefore, be
36
commensurate with its military resources. A nation should
not pursue a policy based on a goal, which, if unattainable
through politics and diplomacy, is beyond its military
means too. Should this be so, future war portends only
disaster. If the military resources cannot achieve what the
politics want, then war should not be waged. Either time
should be taken to build-up the military resources in the
pursuance of the political aim, or, political aim should be
judiciously reviewed, or, other means – like diplomacy –
should be used to achieve that political aim. For example,
to achieve Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum, the Germans
aimed for the collapse of Russia in the Second World War
(WW II).1 Consequently, they declared the military aim (in
the war plans for Operation Barbarossa in 1941 in Directive
No 21) was conquest of areas up to the line Archangel to
Astrakhan - a straight line running east of Moscow from
north to south.2 This was beyond Wehrmacht’s military
capability. Had Hitler secured peace through diplomacy
after the fall of France in June 1940, then history indeed
would have been different. In the case, however, oblivion
of the Third Reich was the outcome.
Correct Visualisation of The End State. Any nation
which accepts war as an instrument for achieving a
stated goal, must enunciate the desired end state which
will signal the end of hostilities. It is futile to fight a war
that has lost its relevance vis-à-vis the aim for which it is
being fought. If ‘selection and maintenance of aim’ is the
first tenet of war, then ‘correct visualisation of the desired
end state’ should be the final one, to complete the loop.
Favourable Public Opinion and Peoples’ Will.
Interlinked with the political aim is the public opinion
and the people’s will, especially in a democracy. There
has to be strong public support to fight a war. In case
the public support wanes, then it has a cascading effect
on the waning of the political will of the government and
consequently the military operations. Public opinion has
the power to take a nation to war or to prevent the nation
from fighting a war successfully. In the 21st century,
media and internet are two most important means to
muster and shape the public opinion for/against a war;
hence this factor assumes significant proportions. The
ongoing revolutions in the Arab world in North Africa and
Middle East are the latest examples of this immutable
verity.
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OTHER ARMIES
The Lessons of Warfare – In Military Planning and
Execution
For the military planners and soldiers on the battlefield,
the important lessons to be kept mind for any war are
enunciated in succeeding paragraphs.
Sound Strategy, Doctrine, Operational Art, Tactics,
Training and Organisational Framework. Whenever the
armed forces of a nation go to war, they must have a sound
military strategy of conducting the war. Military strategy
– which itself is a derivative of the national strategy and
dependent on the military resources – is the fountainhead
of the military doctrine. The military doctrine in turn
should take into cognisance the resources, training and
organisational framework of its armed forces. Thereafter,
suitable tactics, techniques and procedures should be
evolved, and operational art be developed and practised
during training. Material alone does not guarantee victory.
For example, French Army had more material (read tanks,
3,000 to Germany’s 2,700)3 vis-à-vis the Germans in May
1940, yet they lost to the Germans in WW 2. This was due
to following important factors: wrong strategy (reliance on
positional warfare and defensive mindset); lack of sound
doctrine (Germans practiced auftragstaktik i.e. outflanking
tactics); professional acumen in operational art (cultivated
over decades of training in the War Academy and
symbolised by Germany’s Generalstab or General Staff);
organisational framework (Germans had Panzer Divisions,
which were combined arms divisions based on tanks) and
the famous Blitzkrieg tactics (Blitzkrieg, literally means
‘lightening war’).4 The result – Paris fell to Wehrmacht in
about 6 weeks in May-June 1940.
Unified Command and Decentralised Control. It is an
operational imperative that there is a unified command,
for incisive decision making and optimum utilisation of all
available military resources in furtherance of the operations
being undertaken. The overall military commander can then
nominate subordinate military commanders and allocate
military resources to them for specified durations, as per
the overall plan. This single overall military commander is
then responsible to the political authority for all the military
operations being undertaken, while the subordinate
commander(s) can practise warfare within the intent of
the higher commander(s). For example, in WW II, there
existed a dichotomy in the command of the Wehrmacht
wherein both the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres i.e.
Army High Command) and OKW (Oberkommando der
Wehrmacht i.e. Armed Forces High Command) reported
to Hitler, thereby leading to dichotomies in the war plans
and military aims.5 This led to eventual defeat of Germany.
Joint Operations. The recent history of warfare makes it
crystal clear that joint operations are the capstone of any
present day military operation with reasonable chances
of success. The ‘jointness’ has to be in terms of aim,
marshalling and utilisation of resources, complementing
each other’s strengths and nullifying the weaknesses,
intelligence sharing, integrated operations, and implying
‘combined services’ approach. The joint operations have
been in existence since millennia – right from the times
of Hannibal when he used cavalry and infantry of different
nationalities together, till the present day wars wherein
land, air and sea components conduct joint operations.
These must, therefore, be meshed during operational
planning.
Judicious Selection and Training of Higher
Commanders. It is an oft overstated cliché - armed
forces of a nation must be well trained. But the more
critically important truth is this – the armed forces must
be well led. The selection and training of commanders
who lead troops into battle must be done with utmost
care. Incompetent commanders can lead to disastrous
consequences, even if they have well trained troops under
their command. For example, the pitiable initial Russian
response to Wehrmacht in 1941-42 in WW II was – apart
from other factors - due to their inefficient and inept senior
commanders, who were not capable of handling forces at
their disposal. This was mainly due to the fact that military
genie like Tukhachevsky and other military brains of the
Red army had been executed in the purges of 1936-38 on
Stalin’s orders.6 With no capable commanders at the top
levels, the initial losses were but inevitable, despite the
obstinate Russian defence and raw courage.
Balance Courage and Intellect. Physical courage in
battles is undoubtedly the haute couture of all qualities
in a commander. However, it is the intellect that spells
the doom for the enemy. A well-made operational plan
will preclude the need for over-the-top-bravado on the
battlefield, leading to victory. Pyrrhic victories are the stuff
good short tales for children are made up of, not the dream
of a military planner. Hence, in a trade- off between intellect
and physical courage, the former should be the preferred
in senior commanders (i.e. at the operational and strategic
levels) and the latter in junior leaders (i.e. at the tactical
level). As regards moral courage, there is no ambiguity:
it is the foundation of any commander’s character and is
hence indispensable. France 1940 in WW II accentuates
the importance of intellect over courage while conceiving
operational plans and the physical courage to execute it.
This brilliant plan - conceived by Manstein - envisaged
breakthrough at Sedan and then westwards towards the
English Channel, not southwards towards Paris. This
ingenious plan required a bold commander to approve
it. Hitler did so. The cascading effect of its astounding
success was the brittle nerves of all commanders at all
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OTHER ARMIES
hierarchical levels – especially the senior ones of the old
school. The plan required extraordinary battlefield courage
to be fully executed, as conceived. It was left to Guderian,
to show that Herculean mental and moral courage, and
character are essential to execute it.7 The result – collapse
of France in just six weeks.
Strategy Trumps Tactics. Ideally, both strategy and
tactics should form a formidable mesh to trap and destroy
the enemy. However, if given a choice, it is better to have
correct strategy vis-à-vis tactics. With the correct national
and military strategy in place, sooner or later, victory will
be at your feet, even if the tactics employed ab initio on
the battlefield are unable to deliver decisive victories. But
if strategy itself is wrong, then perhaps redemption on
the battlefield is but a mere illusion. In the military rivalry
between Rome and Carthage in 3rd Century BC, despite
the tactical virtuosity of Hannibal in his battles like Cannae
in 216 BC, Carthage ultimately lost the war to the Fabian
Strategy of Rome - avoiding battle and pursuing slow
attrition.8
Prefer Indirect over Direct. If only one lesson of warfare
were to be passed onto the next generation, it should be
this: indirect is better than direct. Indirect application of
forces will pay rich dividends in the long term and will result
in less bloodshed of own forces. The genre of manouevre
warfare along with its ingredients of surprise, pre-emption,
dislocation (physical, functional and psychological) and
finally disruption belongs to the indirect approach. At the
operational level, the manouevres of envelopment and
turning movement, requiring a high level of virtuosity in
senior commanders, fall into this category of warfare. At the
tactical level, ‘indirect’ translates into ‘flank’ i.e. flank attack
should be preferred to a frontal attack. Frontal attack must
be the last resort, always.
Multiple Objectives. It is always preferable to have
multiple objectives leading to a singular aim. This forces
the enemy to ride on the horns of a dilemma, delays his
decision making and increases his Observe-Orient-DecideAct (OODA) Loop. Threatening of two or more enemy
objectives simultaneously thus leads to achieving success.
An operational plan which threatens multiple objectives
will lead to the achievement of the war aim, for even if one
or more of its thrusts are parried by the enemy, the other
thrust(s) will succeed.
Conduct Warfare Based On Surprise and Intelligence.
Surprise is the sine qua non of operational planning. The
combination of the duo is the most potent combination
during any operation. It is essential to have battlefield
intelligence before a nation’s military goes to war. Wrong
intelligence will lead to erroneous planning and thence,
38
complete annihilation of own forces involved. Therefore,
intelligence picture must be absolutely clear before any war
is undertaken.
Resolute Preparation. As the adage goes – if you have
24 hours to chop a tree, use 23 in sharpening the axe.
Therefore, do not give battle to the enemy if you are
unprepared. Take adequate time to prepare all facets of the
impending war. Select the time, place and manner, after due
preparation, in which to give battle to the enemy - the aim
being to win. It is well known that Field Marshal Manekshaw
refused war with Pakistan in April 1971, stating to the then
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that the army was not yet
ready and preparation time was reqired.9 Over the next few
months, the Indian Army prepared for the impending war
and achieved a decisive victory in the eastern sector in just
13 days and a new nation - Bangladesh - was created.
Innovative Plans. Whenever there is a major military
hurdle which seems insurmountable, then innovative
planning and new techniques will invariably succeed.
There are numerous instances of this axiom, the most
famous one being the Trojan Horse, in which the apparently
insurmountable obstacle – the fortress city of Troy - was
overcome by the eponymous idea. Another innovative plan
was executed by Epaminondas at the Battle of Leuctra in
371 BC. Epaminondas, even though vastly outnumbered,
created his left wing stronger and then attacked the Spartan
right wing, thereby concentrating his forces at the point
of decision, thus achieving victory by adopting innovative
planning and tactics.
Conclusion
These are the quintessential lessons of warfare that have
(not?) been learnt over the ages. These are not all the lessons
and there are many more which have not been discussed
here. However, those listed here are the quintessential ones
and bear testimony to the lost battles, and decisive victories
encased in blood and guts spread over millennia of wars.
Perhaps these quintessential lessons will aid a soldier in
unravelling the mystery of the crucible of war. If these are
imbibed, better operational plans are likely to emerge and
executed at a lesser cost of human lives. If that happens,
we can say that we, as true soldiers, have learnt the lessons
of warfare well and have done our duty to the nation.
*Lieutenant Colonel Kulbhushan Bhardwaj was
commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery in June 1995.
Apart from LGSC and DSSC, the officer has also attended
Psychological Operations Course in the USA. Presently, he
is posted as GSO 1 in HQ PMO CIDSS.
Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CXLI,
No. 584, April-June 2011.
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WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT
Light and Medium Armour, and ‘Armour’
Helmoed Römer Heitman
Division
AT THE BEGINNING …THERE WAS LIGHT ARMOUR
We have become so used to the main battle tank that many
of us have forgotten that the first armoured vehicles to see
combat were armoured cars, the epitome of light armour;
and very light indeed in every sense of that word, beginning
with a Duryea tricyle armed with a Colt machinegun, built in
1896 by Major Royal Page Davidson and the cadets of the
Northwestern Military and Naval Acadamy near Chicago in
the United States.
Other early efforts included:
• 1898: Simms ‘Motor Scout’; De Dion-Bouton quadricycle;
Maxim machinegun.
• 1899: Simms ‘War Car’ (completed in 1902); armoured;
two 360o traverse Maxims.
• 1902: British and French ‘mobile machinegun posts’.
• 1903: Austro-Daimler; first purpose-built armoured
car; first 4x4 combat vehicle and first with a
traversing turret; fuel for ten hours. Developed
and demonstrated in Austria; decided against by
Emperor Franz Josef because it could “frighten the
horses”.
Armoured vehicles of various types, from protected patrol vehicles to these
Indian Army BMPs in the DRC, have been an important force multiplier in
many peace support missions.
• 1905: First Russian armoured car, a 3 ton, 50 km/h
car with, 4-8 mm armour and a machinegun.
Developed in Georgia; built in France; and one
‘lost’ in transit through Germany.
The Russian interest in armoured cars came as a result of
Russo-Japanese war, and focused providing ‘mechanised
machinegun support’ for infantry breakthrough operations.
While that is closer to the role for which tanks were later
developed, their organization is of interest even today:
Independent platoon of three Austin armoured cars, four ‘staff
cars’, a supply truck, a fuel truck, a mobile workshop and four
motorcycles, a small self-contained force potent for its time.
In 1914 the Russian Army developed the 11 ton PutilovGarford armoured car, armed with a 76.2 mm field gun and a
machinegun in a rear-mounted 180o traverse turret and two
machine-guns in side sponsons. Each armoured car platoon
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received one of these in place of one of the Austins. This was
arguably the first example of ‘medium armour’, well ahead
of other armies and later echoed in the German Army’s
armoured reconnaissance battalions, in which heavier eightwheeled cars complemented and supported the four-wheeled
lighter cars.
The Inventive Major Davidson
Davidson and his cadets had meanwhile followed up their
tricycle in 1898 with a similarly armed Duryea ‘quadracycle’.
It had a range of 300 km with a crew of four, 4 000 rounds
of ammunition and tents, blankets, rations, etc for several
days. In 1900 Davidson and a crew of cadets drove their
vehicle some 1 100 km from Chicago to Washington. That
so impressed US Army Chief of Staff General Nelson
Miles that he proposed equipping all five cavalry regiments
with Davidson’s cars as an ‘automobile’ corps, “for patrol,
reconnaissance, road marking and military survey”. As so
often with new ideas, nothing came of that proposal.
Meanwhile Davidson went on to develop a lightly armoured,
steam-powered version in 1901, the ‘Davidson Colt Battery
Car’, which mounted an M1895 Colt-Browning machinegun
with 180o traverse, and forming a “machinegun patrol” of two
such cars in the following year.
Then Davidson, by now a colonel, developed:
• A Cadillac armed scout car (1909);
• A Cadillac ‘balloon destroyer’ armed with two machineguns
(two built in 1910);
• Two Cadillac armed radio/heliograph cars for Guatamala
(1911/1912);
• A Cadillac reconnaissance car fitted with observation
equipment including periscopes for ‘looking over walls’,
an ‘altitude indicator’, ‘range and elevation finders’,
roller-mounted maps, map-making equipment and a
Dictaphone;
• Two more armed radio cars with telescopic masts and
110V generators;
• A ‘field cooking car’ fitted with electric stoves powered by
an on-board generator;
• A ‘hospital vehicle’, complete with operating table and an
X-ray machine; and finally
• A 120 km/h armoured car in 1915, armed with a Colt
machinegun in the open cabin behind the driver and fitted
with a self-recovery winch.
combat group Zulu covered 3 159 km in 33 days, fighting fifty
assorted actions en route.
The Adventurous Commander Samson
The first use of amoured vehicles that really exploited
mobility came in Belgium, and what is interesting about that,
is that the initiative was taken by a naval aviator, Commander
Charles Samson of the Royal Naval Air Service. Deployed to
Belgium with the mission of keeping a 100 mile area around
Dunkirk free of German forces and with too few aircraft for
that task, he began using civilian cars for scouting and then
raiding purposes.
Before long this had developed into a new concept of
operations: Aircraft went out to find the German forces and
dropped a message with the details for a ground column of
armed cars to attack them. The fighting cars were armed with
Maxim machineguns, fitted with boiler plate protection, were
accompanied by unarmoured cars in a logistic support role.
These columns, ‘mechanized naval raiding columns’, were
manned by a 250-strong force of Marines and also conducted
covering operations.
A concept of operations that would fit nicely indeed into may
theatres of operation today, and very similar to that developed
by the South African Army and Police sixty years later for use
in counter-insurgency operations.
This early concept became the RNAS Armoured Car Section
and then the RN Armoured Car Division of 20 squadrons of
each 12 cars, before being taken over by the Army in 1915.
Once owned by the Army, these units began to be used in a
different and more conventional role, becoming part of the
Machinegun Corps and being used to support infantry units,
much as in the Russian Army.
That year he and some cadets drove an eight vehicle convoy
(armoured car, reconnaissance car, balloon destroyer, two
communications cars, field cooking vehicle, hospital vehicle
and a quartermaster’s car) more than 3 000 km from Chicago
to San Francisco in 34 days. The first strategic deployment
by a balanced – albeit very small – mechanized force.
In fact, that was a distance hardly matched since, except
by the SA Army’s initial campaign in Angola in 1975, when
40
Part of Major Davidson’s 3 000 km convoy in 1915; the armoured car in the
centre had a top speed of 120 km/h.
2013/02/11 07:55:50 AM
The German Army found that 4x4 vehicles were simply not up
to the demands of operations in Russia, where greater mobility
and better armament were essential. Their 4x4 armoured
cars were gradually phased out of the frontline units and were
passed on to unit conducting rear area security operations:
Road patrols, convoy escort, sweeps and fire support (the
20 mm cars and those with 28/20 mm anti-tank guns) for
infantry engaged in offensive actions against partisan. They
were soon joined in that role by the 6x6 armoured cars and
later by the original 8x8 cars that did not do well in the terrain
of Russia, and were often complemented with captured and
improvised armoured vehicles.
The 76 mm armed Putilov-Garford used in small numbers by the Russian
Army in WW I looks rather fanciful, but presaged the later generations of fire
support vehicles employed by reconnaissance units.
One exception was a squadron that remained with the RNAS
and was deployed to Russia, where it continued in a ‘high
mobility operations’ role. Another was 20 Squadron, which
was to evolve into the ‘Landships Committee’ that brought
us the tank.
Before closing this discussion, it is worth noting that one
armoured car squadron served very successfully with South
African forces in German South-West Africa, and a small
number of cars served with the South Africans in German
East Africa, albeit hampered by the terrain. A squadron of
nine cars was also allocated to T.E. Lawrence, who referred
to them as “more valuable than rubies” in supporting the Arab
revolt.
What stands out is that the roles of these early armoured
cars were very similar to the roles for which modern armies
employ today’s armoured cars and other light armour.
World War II
The outbreak of war in 1939 found all of the combatant
armies fielding large numbers of light armoured vehicles –
armoured cars for general and deep reconnaissance, and
light tanks and ‘tankettes’ for close reconnaissance and
infantry support. The realities of combat soon forced the
‘tankette’ off the battlefield, not to return until 1980s in a quite
different role.
The light armoured car fared better, with both the British
and the Germans making extensive use of them during the
campaigns in North Africa. The British Army, in fact, remained
true to the light armoured reconnaissance concept, staying
with 4x4 armoured cars through to the end of that war,
albeit adding towed anti-tank guns and halftrack-mounted
infantry to make the reconnaissance regiment a more flexible
organization.
The German armoured reconnaissance units meanwhile
developed from light all-arms units – still with motorcycle
infantry – to what amounted to medium all-arms mechanized
combat groups able to conduct high-mobility operations.
More of that later. More of that later. A new 4x4 car was to
be built for the infantry divisions, on components of the new
8x8 and with 30 mm frontal armour and a new 20 mm cannon
turret, but never made it into production.
The US Army fell halfway between the British and German
examples, strengthening the fire-power of its reconnaissance
battalions substantially, but retaining very light, jeep-mounted,
scout sections.
Towards the end of the war came a new role for light armour
– airborne operations. The British-designed Tetrarch and the
US-designed Locust both being designed for deployment
by glider to support parachute units. Only the Locust saw
service, and did not perform well, being badly under-gunned
and too lightly protected to stand up to German tanks and
assault guns that responded to the landings.
LIGHT ARMOUR TODAY
Today there are three quite distinct approaches to the role
of ‘light armour’, including one that does not really look like
‘armour’ as soldiers of most armoured corps envisage it.
Armoured Reconnaissance
The British Army, after a brief excursion into medium
armoured reconnaissance with the 6x6 Saladin with a short
76 mm gun, returned to light vehicles with the similarly armed
Scorpion, albeit changing over to tracks for the Central
European theatre of operations, and the 30 mm armed 4x4
Fox for operations where the terrain allowed. The Scorpion
served as the basis for a family of reconnaissance vehicles
including the 30 mm armed Scimitar, a tank destroyer with
the Swingfire and a small APC. In 1982 the Scorpion was
deployed to the Falklands in a role entirely different to that for
which it had been developed, essentially serving as assault
guns over terrain impassible to other vehicles.
The Scorpion family is, however, now to be replaced with a
new reconnaissance vehicle that falls squarely into upper
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end of the medium armour, in fact at between 30 and 35 tons,
just outside the definition of medium armour for the purposes
of this conference.
The French Army used AML light armoured cars in some
of its reconnaissance units, but that car had actually been
developed for counter-insurgency operations, and was
too limited in its cross-country mobility for conventional
operations. It has since been replaced with the 6x6 ERC as
a light armoured car and the 4x4 VBL as a scout car, while
the role of true combat reconnaissance went to the 105 mm
armed 6x6 AMC-10RC, the successor to the 8x8 EBR of the
1950s and 1960s.
The South African Army, ever different, simply went ahead and
used the AML-90 in semi- conventional operations anyway,
for reconnaissance and as de facto light tanks, as well as in
their original COIN role. Just as the Scorpion proved itself as
an assault gun, the Eland-90 as the local variant was termed,
actually proved surprising successful in its unintended role.
It has, however, since been replaced by the 28 ton, 76 mm
armed, 8x8 Rooikat, developed with a specific eye to highmobility operations over extended distances in a road-poor
theatre.
combat reconnaissance is required, the concept is to attach
tanks and ICVs to the reconnaissance unit.
Thus armoured reconnaissance has swung firmly in the
direction of medium vehicles, except in respect of scout
cars and in the case of light formations. Some armies have
also chosen to use only tanks and ICVs in the combat
reconnaissance role or in combination with scout cars.
Airborne Operations
Despite the failure of the Locust and Tetrarch, the development
of light armour for strategic mobility operations was taken
further by several armies, accepting the limits on firepower
and protection that come with the requirement for strategic
mobility. Examples include:
•
The Russian BMD family of vehicles, designed to be
air-dropped or sling-loaded.
•
The French ERC 6x6 armoured cars, used by their
airborne and marine units;
The usefulness of the BMD was demonstrated in actual
combat by Cuban forces in Ethiopia in early 1978, when
several BMDs werre lifted by Mi-6 helicopters over mountains
into the rear of the Somali forces, entirely unhinging their
defence.
The US Army also developed an air-landed and air-droppable
capability in the form of the Sheridan, but this vehicle has
since been phased out without replacement, despite several
attempts to develop and field a new vehicle.
The German Army did something different: They developed
the extremely small and light Wiesel, essentially a modern
version of the ‘tankettes’ of the late 1930s. The key capability
was the ability to deploy the Wiesel by helicopter to deal with
paratroops landed in the rear of major formations. The 20
mm armed Wiesel was followed by a tank destroyer (TOW),
a light APC in several sub-variants including an observation
vehicle, and a 120 mm mortar variant.
The French Army’s Panhard ERC has proved itself a very useful vehicle;
easily deployed by air or sea, with good mobility and useful firepower.
The German Army for a time operated the small tracked
Hotchkiss in the reconnaissance role but then replaced it
with the 8x8 Luchs, a large and very lightly armed vehicle
that was able to deploy a four-man scout team, and that
was supported by tanks and ICVs when necessary. Today
the Germans are back in the light reconnaissance vehicle
business, together with the Dutch, in the form of the Fennek.
While that is perhaps not a very light vehicle in terms of its
actual mass, it is very lightly armed and clearly intended for
only its specific reconnaissance/ surveillance role. Where
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General Patrol Operations
The third role of light armour is one that has developed
more recently and is in many respects a return to its roots:
Most of the armies involved in Iraq and now Afghanistan
have developed and deployed various lightly armoured and
later better armoured and mine-protected vehicles for tasks
such as road patrols and convoy escort, clearance patrols
around bases, general area patrols and deploying as mobile
observation posts. The shift away from clear front lines has
also meant that armoured liaison vehicles have become
necessary for armies to function in the field.
Examples of vehicles intended for these roles range from
armoured HMMMVs at the lower end through protected
patrol/utility vehicles such as the Lince, Panther and RG32M,
to newer and more combat-focused types like the RG34.
2013/02/11 07:55:50 AM
Those vehicles represent the modern version of the cars
developed by Major Davidson some hundred years ago:
Four-wheeled, highly mobile on roads and reasonably
mobile in gentle terrain, lightly protected (ignoring here the
mine-protection), lightly armed and fitted with a range of
observation and mapping equipment.
So a century of development and hard-won combat
experience has brought armies back to the light scout
vehicle.
If that does not sound entirely like armour at work, we need to
go back to think about what it is that light armour was intended
to do in the first place. And we need to think about what it is we
mean when we speak of ‘armour’.
We say “armour is a concept; it is not a tank or a specific
weapons system, but rather a state of mind, an approach to
combat that stresses firepower, mobility and shock effect”. Do
we really understand what we are saying?
Consider what Commander Samson was about.
WHAT DOES LIGHT ARMOUR OFFER?
At the heart of what light armour offers the soldier is protected
mobility. That is what makes all of the other options possible
– be it adding firepower in the form of a cannon or missiles,
‘close-action firepower’ in the form of some infantry, or
‘long-range firepower’ in the form of artillery fire or airstrikes
called in by a JTAC mounted in one of these vehicles; or be
it the ability to patrol, reconnoiter, scout, show presence or
deploy interpreters or medical teams.
All those functions are important, even critical, in many
security and peace support missions, and basic protected
mobility and good observation and communications systems
can also be critical to effective border patrol and similar
undertakings. As can the light weight that makes them easy
to deploy over long distance, even by air, and the relatively
low demands they make on logistic systems, which makes
them readily supportable far from bases.
Many of these ‘light armour’ vehicles also have the
inestimable advantage of not only being bullet-proof, but
of looking fairly innocuous, which is important in terms of
how employment of armour is addressed in the media and
perceived by the public, both at home and abroad.
MEDIUM ARMOUR
Armour development in the First World War essentially went
straight from light armoured cars to tanks designed to support
infantry, essentially more assault guns than tanks in today’s
parlance. Those included light machinegun tanks (eg Renault
FT17) and the much larger and much more heavily armed
intended for the main break-through battle. Despite some
attempts (eg the Whippet), medium armour did not really
develop as a category.
The period between the wars brought change, most armies
developing what were in essence medium tanks. The Second
World War then brought two interesting lessons regarding
what we would today term as ‘medium armour’.
Medium Armour: The Heart of Blitzkrieg
When we speak of ‘medium armour’ today, we often forget
that the German armoured force that triumphed in France
in 1940 was barely a medium armoured force: The bulk of
the force comprised Mk Is, armed with machineguns very
thinly armoured and Mk IIs with a very thin skin and a 20 mm
cannon useless against all but the opposing ‘tankettes’. There
were 680 Mk IIIs, Pz 38 and Pz 35 armed with 37 mm guns,
and 278 Mk IVs with a short 75 mm howitzer. Better protected
and armed, they could not penetrate the armour of the 800
French Army Somua 35s and Char Bs or of the small number
of British Army Matilda IIs, while the guns of those tanks and
the British and French anti-tank guns could penetrate their
armour easily.
The German Army’s operational concept and style enabled
them to defeat the stronger and technologically more
advanced opposing force.
That same medium armoured force all but destroyed the Soviet
Army in 1941, despite their good T-26, outstanding T-34 and
‘super heavy’ KV, all of which could penetrate the armour of
the German tanks and the last two of which were invulnerable
to all German tank and anti-tank guns, being vulnerable only
to 88 mm anti-aircraft guns pressed into anti-tank service.
Medium armour dominated WW II mechanised operations. The German
Army’s Panzer IV was its heaviest tank in 1940, armed with a short 75 mm for
infantry support. The final versions towards the end of the war were armed
with a 75 mm L48 gun that could take on anything short of a Stalin III
And, of course, the final victors were the Sherman and the
T-34, both very definitely medium tanks even by the standard
of their time.
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ARMOURED RECONNAISSANCE:
HIGHLY MOBILE MEDIUM ARMOUR
While armoured operations of WW II centred on the
employment of armoured divisons with their tanks and
mobile infantry, all of the major armies developed armoured
reconnaissance units based on light and medium vehicles.
Often overlooked is that the sloped armour of the German Army’s halftracked infantry combat vehicles was equivalent to the protection offered by
the thicker but vertical armour of the battle tanks of the time, the Panzer III
and the early Panzer IV.
The lesson is that well-handled medium armour can defeat
poorly handled heavy armour. Not much of a surprise,
perhaps, but worth bearing in mind.
As a final aside, it is interesting to note that the effective
armour thickness of the SdKfz 251 half-track armoured
personnel carriers was roughly the same as that of the Mk
III and Mk IV tanks they accompanied. Perhaps there is a
lesson in there for today’s armies, almost all of which insist in
assuming that medium-protection ICVs can work with main
battle tanks?
The German Army’s most successful combat reconnaissance vehicles in WW
II were its second-generation 8-wheeled armoured cars, most armed with a 20
mm cannon like this one, which was complemented by a fire-support variant
armed with a short 75 mm gun. Later models included the Puma with a 50 mm
gun in an enclosed turret and a self-propelled 75 mm anti-tank variant.
44
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this period is how
the four major mechanised armies moved away from light
reconnaissance forces to heavier and more combat-capable
armoured reconnaissance units that were in effect all-arms
battle groups. The British and the Russians were partial
exceptions: The British reconnaissance regiments remained
relatively light, with no medium combat vehicles; the Russians
shifted toward using their standard battle tank as the core
of the combat elements that were deployed to conduct
reconnaissance in the absence of dedicated reconnaissance
units. The German and US armies shifted decisively towards
the mechanized all-arms combat group model, with the US
Army later moving further to develop a true heavy all-arms
reconnaissance unit.
German Divisional Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion
(1944)
• HQ Company
o 6 Armoured Car Platoons @ 3 eight-wheel cars with a
20 mm cannon
o 1 Close Support Platoon with 3 eight-wheel SP 75 mm
howitzers
o 1 Anti-Tank Platoon with 3 eight-wheel SP 75 mm antitank guns
• 1 Armoured Reconnaissance Company
o 8 Platoons @ 2 halftracks (20 mm) and 1 halftrack
APC.
• 2 Reconnaissance Companies
o 3 Platoons @ 6 halftrack APCs (3 two-car sections)
o 1 Heavy Platoon (2 SP halftrack 75 mm howitzers, 2
SP halftrack 80 mm mortars)
• Heavy Company
o 1 Assault Pioneer Platoon (7 halftracks)
o 1 Close Support Platoon (6 halftrack SP 75 mm
howitzers)
o 1 Mortar Platoon (6 halftrack SP 80 mm mortars)
Total: 78 reconnaissance vehicles and 26 fire support
vehicles.
US Army Divisional Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron
(1943-45)
• 4 x Cavalry Reconnaissance Troops of
o 3 x Reconnaissance Platoons (each 9 M8 armoured
cars, 18 jeeps)
• 1 x Light Tank Company with 15 M-5s or M-24s
• 1 x Assault Gun Troop 8 M8 short 75 mm guns.
Total: 96 reconnaissance vehicles and 8 fire support vehicles.
Note: One troop later replaced with a platoon of mechanized
infantry (“dragoons”).
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Two things stand out:
• Either armies over-estimated the need for combat
reconnaissance, or it became a habit to misuse their
reconnaissance units; and they probably did so because
• These battalion-strength combined arms teams proved
inordinately valuable manoeuvre units in a wide range of
situations.
One key lesson from this is the value of relatively light armour
even in high-intensity warfare - albeit in a combined arms
team.
The problem here is, of course, who does the reconnoitering if
the reconnaissance units are being used for other missions?
By the end of WW II the US Army was equipping its armoured reconnaissance
units with the M-24, reflecting the growing role of combat reconnaissance, as
opposed to scouting and screening.
Equally interesting is that the German and US experience
was that their reconnaissance units spent relatively little of
their time conducting reconnaissance.
In one incident in 1941 a Panzer Regiment’s supply column
found itself entering a Russian village around dusk, some
hours ahead of the leading tanks – and while the Russians
were still in residence.
The Israeli Army, having read the US Army exhortations to
employ cavalry for “economy of force missions”, made that
mistake in 1973 on both fronts and paid dearly for it in Sinai
and on one occasion only fortuitously avoided catastrophe
in Syria.
A post war US Army study found that its divisional
reconnaissance units had spent only 13% of the time
conducting reconnaissance. 48% of their employment
involved serving as mobile reserve, providing rear area
security and control and liaison mission; 24% involved
screening or protecting flanks, conducting contact patrols
and filling gaps; and 15% involved offensive operations. The
cavalry groups at the higher command levels spent only 3%
of their time on reconnaissance missions. For many such
missions the squadron served as the core of a larger force
including artillery.
The German Army is well known for having used armoured
reconnaissance units in a range of other roles, and during
the high speed advances in Russia the reconnaissance units
were more often used to cover deep flanks than to lead the
way, that role usually falling to the tank regiments.
This is also illustrated by a reconnaissance company
commander in North Africa reporting that his company
“performed combat tasks and security missions.
Reconnaissance missions were not assigned to the company.
However, individual platoons, reinforced with armoured
cars, anti-tank guns and a captured British 25 pdr, were
used for reconnaissance in force. The following missions
were performed by the company: Attack on hostile forward
positions and counter-reconnaissance screens; breaking
through hostile motorized elements to eliminate flank threats;
attack on enemy positions; blocking hostile attempts at
penetration; defence against attacks by enemy armoured
vehicles; counter-attacks”.
The last of the German Army’s WW II reconnaissance vehicles matched the
turret of the 8-wheeled armoured car with the hull of the Czech Panzer 38 to
cope with the mud and snow on the Eastern Front.
MEDIUM ARMOUR TODAY
Medium armour is today found mainly in reconnaissance
units, in armies that have chosen to use wheeled combat
vehicles or ‘light tanks’ to suit their terrain or to match their
particular operational style, and in the mechanized infantry.
ICVs dominate this class, assuming that one accepts
mechanized infantry as part of ‘armour’, as the German Army
did, and this category includes a wide range of vehicles from
very light 6x6 and 8x8 types (eg BTR-80), through relatively
heavy 8x8 types (eg the 28-ton Badger in development for the
South African Army, to tracked vehicles such as the BMP and
the joint Austrian/Spanish ASCOD, that just squeaks into the
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limit defined for medium armour for this conference. Tracked
and wheeled ICVs have also provided the basic platform for
most of the current medium/heavy reconnaissance vehicles
and heavy armoured cars or light tanks.
Reconnaissance vehicles include the British Army’s
future scout vehicle based on the Ascod ICV, the French
Army’s AMX-10RC, the Russian Army’s BMP variants
and the Piranha-derived US Army and Marine Corps 8x8
reconnaissance vehicles.
Medium vehicles intended for direct combat include the
Austrian’s Kürassier tank destroyer; the Italian’s Centauro, a
heavy combat reconnaissance vehicle and a tank destroyer;
the South African Rooikat, built for combat reconnaissance
and raiding; and the Swedish IKV-91 light tank. There are
also heavy armoured car/light tank variants of most ICVs, but
acceptance has been quite limited.
Of these medium reconnaissance and combat vehicles, only
the AMX-10RC, Centauro and Rooikat were not developed
on the basis of ICV platforms, and the former two in fact have
ICV derivatives.
armour over-matches light forces and entirely out-matches
threats such as the heavily-armed ‘technicals’ increasingly
encountered in peace support operations. Where light
armoured vehicles are often out-gunned by some of those
technical with their 14.5 mm and even 23 mm weapons,
medium armour can out-range them and some vehicles,
such as the South African Rooikat and Badger, can absorb
their fire in the course of an engagement. That can provide
the edge a force required to be taken really seriously by the
parties to a conflict, without the cost, logistic difficulties and
political issues involved in deploying heavy forces.
On the downside, most medium armour looks very ‘military’
and ‘warlike’. While it can be explained to the media as not
being ‘tanks’, it is difficult to present as anything other than a
serious military force.
Security Operations
Depending on how one defines ‘light armour’ and ‘security
operations’, those are actually a part of the business of war in
which light armour premiered, the other being reconnaissance
in its various forms.
There are also, of course, the various large MRAP APCs but,
while medium in size and mass, those are hardly ‘armour’ in
any real sense, not being intended to have any combat role.
And then there is a completely different class of vehicle
that is definitely medium in terms of mass and size, albeit
generally armed only with machineguns: Those are the
heavily protected vehicles developed on truck chassis for
the road patrol and convoy escort role, both clearly combat
rather than transport roles. So, are the Mastiff, the Wolfhound
and their kin armour?
What does Medium Armour Offer?
Essentially it offers the same as light armour but with the
ability to enter combat with a good chance of success. In
the purely military environment its great advantage lies in
the generally good operational mobility of its vehicles, and
particularly of the wheeled vehicles. Not as strategically
mobile as light armour and not as well-protected as heavy
ICVs or battle tanks, these are nonetheless vehicles that can
fight and win.
They also provide a capability that must be taken seriously by
heavy forces, which can be the difference between warding
off a conflict or not, one example being the Austrian Army’s
use of Kürassier tank destroyers along its border with the
former Yugoslavia as that country was falling apart. They
did not deploy main battle tanks, but the ‘defensive’ tank
destroyer had the combination of mobility and fire power to
deter any adventure by the combatants.
Perhaps more to the point of this conference, medium
46
The French Army’s AMX-10RC, which proved itself in the major combat
operations of the 1991 campaign to evict the Iraqis from Kuwait, having the
mobility to execute a fast-moving, long-distance flanking operation.
Light armour in the form of armoured cars – and briefly also
‘tankettes’ – took over the roles of the Hussar of the mounted
era: Raids, patrols and standing patrols, convoy escort,
presence and show of force deployments, and liaison tasks.
As early as 1900 US Army Chief of Staff General Miles
proposed an ‘automobile’ corps “for patrol, reconnaissance,
road marking and military survey”. Nothing came of that, but
by 1914 those roles were within the ambit of armoured cars
on the Western and Russian fronts, and in Africa and the
Middle East.
Between the wars armoured cars were a central piece
of colonial security operations in Africa and Asia, in the
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And, as before, improvised armoured vehicles also played a
role, one example being the convoy escort ‘gun trucks’ of the
US Army in Vietnam, although by mass and size, those are
perhaps better described as ‘medium’.
Most armies also employed true medium armour in their
operations, be it the 8x8 EBRs of the Portuguese Army in
Angola, the M-41s of the South Vietnamese Army, the BMPs
of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan or Ratel ICVs of the South
African Army in southern Angola. The US Army in Vietnam,
the Soviet Army in Afghanistan and the Angolan Army also
used heavy armour in the form of tanks against guerrillas,
Unita for one never quite coming up with a real answer to
that challenge.
Armoured cars became a key element of colonial security operations after
WW I, like this Vickers-Crossley with British forces in the Middle East; a role
that is still well suited to light armour of all kinds.
British case being tied in with aircraft in an early example
to joint operations. Not that these operations always
went as envisaged, the South African Army suffering the
embarrassment during a policing operation of only one of two
cars reaching its objective, and the crew of that car being
forced to debus hurriedly in the face of a determined attack
by a swarm of bees.
During the Second World War the German Army made
extensive use of its armoured cars for rear area security
missions against partisans, supplementing them with
light tanks no longer suited for frontline service and with
improvised armoured vehicles for road patrol and convoy
escort tasks. The key capability of the armoured cars was the
speed with which they could be deployed, both tactically and
operationally, in the latter respect including the relatively low
demands they made on the logistic system. The British made
similar use of their armoured cars in, for instance, Iraq.
Through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s various armies made
equally extensive use of armoured cars and light armoured
personnel carriers in counter-insurgency operations: The
French in Vietnam and Algeria, the British in Aden and
Malaysia, the Americans in Vietnam, the Portuguese in
Angola and Mozambique, the Rhodesians in their war, and
the South Africans in northern South-West Africa as it then
was. The roles for which those armoured cars, light tanks
and APCs were employed were essentially the same roles
for which the early armoured cars had been employed in the
First World War.
In all these cases it was the combination of mobility, protection
and economy in personnel that made armoured cars a good
choice for so many missions and tasks.
The roles for which that medium armour was used varied
from army to army, many of them using such vehicles for
much the same tasks as their light armour. One exception
was the South African Army, which used medium mechanised
forces to engage the guerrillas in their bases, thereby seizing
the operational and tactical initiative and again facing their
opponents with a demanding asymmetric challenge.
Perhaps the best developed doctrine for medium armour in
such operations, if we concede that it was ‘armour’ in concept,
was the ‘mechanised follow up’ system first developed by an
SA Army major, rejected by the Army, adopted by the Police
with outstanding success and finally adopted by the Army
after all.
That concept centred on employing well-armed mineprotected APCs, mainly the Casspir, as armoured cars that
happened to carry some trackers. Key elements included the
freedom to go where the action was, handling the information/
intelligence/action cycle at platoon level, and what amounted
to ‘netcentricity’ – constant radio chatter than made quick
concentration of additional patrols and gunships simple.
And, of course, the APCs gave the patrol an edge against
which guerrillas had little chance: The endurance to keep
going for several days, the speed to follow up quickly, radio
communications for coordination and, once in contact, the
advantages of ‘high ground’, the vehicle itself, and its armour
protection and machineguns.
Essentially it combined armoured car tactics in security
operations with on-board infantry and trackers to give the
pursuers an unfair advantage. Asymmetry in action.
Peace Support Operations
Despite the pontifications of the pundits – an irresistible
combination of terms! – armour has proved exceedingly
useful in the conduct of peace support operations of various
kinds. The current stabilization operations in Afghanistan
and Somalia, as in Bosnia before them, have in fact also
demonstrated the outstanding value of heavy armour in
some situations: Leopard 2, M1 Abrams and Marder ICVs
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in Afghanistan and Ugandan T-55s in Somalia being current
examples, the Danish Army’s ‘Operation Hooligan Bashing’ in
Bosnia in April 1994 with its Leopard Is being a good example
in recent history.
Medium and light armour has seen extensive use in such
operations: APCs of various types in Darfur, APCs and
ICVs in the DRC (in the 1960s and again today), APCs in
Somalia and in Timor Leste, the extensive range of MRAP
vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq, mine-protected vehicles of
all kinds in UN peacekeeping operations from Cambodia to
the Caucasus, and not forgetting Bosnia and Cyprus. Various
French and European operations in Africa have also seen
light and medium armour deployed, including Italian Army
Centauro armoured cars and German Luchs armoured cars
and Fuchs APCs in Somalia, and French EBRs and APCs in
Central and West Africa.
At the very light end of the scale even the German
paratroopers’ Wiesel has been deployed to Afghanistan.
And, as in both World Wars and in Vietnam, improvised
armoured vehicles are once again proving to be a valuable
element of modern forces – the Mastiff and Wolfhound being
two examples.
The key in all cases is that armoured vehicles provide the
protected mobility that makes the peace support force
credible, and that armour crews are often better suited to
some missions and tasks that would be infantry in APCs. That
aspect has been nicely argued by Brigadier Simon Caraffi of
the British Army: “Armoured Corps crews have an inherent
understanding of how to fight a vehicle; they are used to
dealing with crew-served platforms; and are trained to go
into the close combat arena with a direct fire weapon system,
An RG32M of the Swedish Army, being used as a scout and patrol vehicle
in Afghanistan.
48
mounted on a platform”; and that the resultant “mental agility”
allows them to apply manoeuvre thought to good effect in
other situations.
The choice between ‘light’ or ‘medium’ armour for a peace
support operation will have to be taken on the basis of:
• The risk of peacekeeping sliding into peace-enforcement;
• The weaponry available to the belligerents;
• The nature of the terrain and the carrying ability of the
roads and bridges; and
• The ability to present the deployment effectively in the
media.
If a peace support mission is deployed to simply assist parties
who have fought each other to a standstill in coming to an
acceptable arrangement, armoured pick-ups will probably
suffice. If the mission is one of peace-enforcement, main
battle tanks may be necessary, as was the case in Bosnia.
Anywhere in between those two extremes, and both light and
medium armour will have their role to play.
INTERNAL AND BORDER SECURITY
Perhaps one of the least-known uses of armour in this context,
was the Austrian deployment of Kürassier tank destroyers
along its border with the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan
crisis of the 1990s. They were deployed as mobile outposts
with good observation equipment, good communications
and good mobility, and also as a deterrent to any combatant
elements that might try to use Austrian territory to outflank
their opponents.
At the other end of this scale is the situation in Mexico, where
drug cartels have begun to use improvised armoured vehicles
to move their product. Those vehicles are impervious to
A German Army Fennek scout car on security duites in Afghanistan.
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control and riot control situations and their vehicles are not
really suited to such operations; and employment of armour
in such situations will inevitably worsen the situation as
perceived by observers in the media, in other parts of the
country and in other countries.
Alternative Equipment Sets
There is another aspect to be considered in the context of
this symposium: The characteristics of armour will often
be well, even ideally, suited to the demands of a particular
mission, but the nature of the mission might not be suited
to the typical vehicles of the armoured corps, or even of the
mechanised infantry. The vehicles might be too large or too
heavy, generally too destructive of fragile infrastructure, too
disruptive of relations along a border, and simply too high
profile in the media.
Brazilian Army M-113 armoured cavalry vehicles and Cascaval armoured
cars have been employed in urban anti-narcotics operations.
small-arms fire and sooner or later the Mexican authorities
are going to have to deploy armoured combat vehicles of
some type to deal with them.
The answer to that problem is to go back to the definition
of ‘armour’ as “a state of mind” rather than the equipment
being used.
That opens the possibility of providing armoured corps
units with alternative equipment sets to be used in such
situations.
In between those two extremes are the normal missions
associated with border security, anti-terrorist operations and
general internal security duties.
Border patrol missions can readily be handled by military
armoured reconnaissance vehicles, which have all of the
necessary attributes, and will in fact be useful practical
training for their crews - albeit at the expense of perhaps
annoying a neighbor who might not be pleased to see
military forces on the border.
Anti-terrorist and general internal security tasks are mostly
more effectively and efficiently handled by specialized
personnel with specialized vehicles than they can be by the
armour of the national army.
That said, the British Army employed Saracen armoured cars
in Ulster during its Operation Motorman in 1972, in support
of APCs and combat engineer vehicles. More recently we
have seen the Brazilian Army deploy its Cascaval armoured
cars in support of urban anti-narcotics operations, and the
Colombian Army deploy armoured cars for rural patrols in
areas infested by narcotics gangs and terrorists. We have
also seen the Egyptian Army use its armour – even tanks
– to keep hostile crowds from being able to engage each
other, and doing so without firing a shot or driving over
anyone. A tank is not just impressive, it is also difficult to
ignore or dislodge.
Overall, however, internal security operations are not an
ideal employment of armour as such - armoured vehicles,
yes; armour, no. Armour crews are not trained for crowd
The British Army’s Wolfhound may not look like ‘armour’ but is used in that
role. The key is to be flexible in what equipment is optimal for the mission;
there is no good reason why Armoured Corps units cannot have alternative
vehicle sets for some of their roles
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That approach has, for mixed reasons, been taken by
the British Army in Afghanistan where, for instance, 2nd
Royal Tank Regiment deployed with Mastiff 2 protected
patrol vehicles and Warthog articulated APCs instead of
their Challenger 2 main battle tanks. Two squadrons of the
regiment used the Mastiffs for road patrol and escort tasks,
definitely an armour task if not normally one for tanks; the
third squadron used its Warthogs as a combination ICV and
assault gun in both mounted and dismounted combat.
The Jackal is used by the British Army as a reconnaissance and patrol vehicle
in Afghanistan; a good example of a specific to mission vehicle that may be
a step too far in that it is hardly likely to be useful under other conditions.
The Royal Armoured Corps also had a Reconnaissance
Squadron deployed with a mix of tracked Scimitar CVR (T)
s and wheeled Jackal 2s, and the Brigade Reconnaissance
Force was operating the Jackal and the Coyote tactical
logistic support variant.
None of these types is a tank or armoured car, or even
an ICV, but all are being used to good effect by Armoured
Corps crews in Afghanistan, in roles not that far removed
from the roles of those vehicles in conventional operations.
The difference lies in the balance among the key factors
of firepower, mobility and protection, adapted to suit the
nature of the operations and the theatre.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this symposium has been to consider
the potential roles of light and medium armour in various
operations short of war.
The question inherent in that statement is perhaps best
answered by referring, yet again, to the definition of
armour as “a state of mind”, or perhaps by saying that
‘armour is as armour does’. Armour in its various forms –
even if one does not include mechanized infantry, which
one should – is, like the infantry, a general purpose force.
It offers the commander a range of capabilities from which
50
he can choose what best suits the demands of the mission
at hand.
There are, however, perhaps some additional caveats or
thoughts to ponder:
• Armour means protected mobility, and often being
bulletproof will be enough; but there will be situations
where more protection is required, even to the level
of a battle tank. In a pre-First World War assessment
of armoured vehicles the Austrian Army made the
comment that “an armoured vehicle that does not
protect, is harmful ballast”.
• Deploying and operating in combined arms – read
combined capabilities – teams is even more important
for light or medium armour in such operations short of
war than it is for heavy armour in open war; and those
‘combined capabilities’ will sometimes be very varied
indeed, including non-military elements;
• As a corollary, the concept of a ‘family of vehicles’
providing a mix of capabilities with no additional
support demands, is arguably even more important in
such operations than in open war;
• Wheels or tracks? That will depend primarily on the
terrain and climate, with two key provisos that argue in
favour of wheels where the terrain does not absolutely
demand tracks: Wheels are more politically acceptable
than tracks; and one can at least reverse or tow a
wheeled vehicle out of the way after it has lost a wheel
to a mine, a tracked vehicle can only move in circles
and becomes a roadblock;
• Active protection systems can make all the difference;
given an effective system of this kind, it becomes
possible to deploy even light vehicles where otherwise
considerations of force protection might have demanded
at least heavy ICVs if not battle tanks.
• IEDs will remain a challenge, even for battle tanks, and
the answer there must for now centre on intelligence,
intelligent reading of terrain and electronic countermeasures.
Finally, to sum up: The tasks most likely to arise for mobile
force elements in security, peace support and internal
security missions are patrols, standing patrols, convoy
escort, presence, show of force, liaison and, occasionally,
raids.
Those are all tasks for which armoured forces, light and
medium are ideally suited by training and equipment, and
are in fact the tasks for which armour was developed in
the first place.
The tank came later; and the tank has done to armour
thinking what the combination of trench and machinegun
did to the infantry’s thinking. Perhaps it is time to think
anew, remembering that “armour is a concept”, and not
necessarily a tank or even an armoured car.
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BOOK REVIEW
Callsign Hades
Callsign Hades
Author - Patrick Bury
Publisher - Simon & Schuster (2010)
Another easy read, Callsign Hades provides an interesting look into the making
of an infantry officer, from the first days at Sandhurst through field training in
Wales and in Kenya, to his development as a leader in combat. Bury spent
seven months deployed in the Helmand province as a platoon leader of the
Royal Irish Rangers, and his up-close descriptions of routine in the field and of
tactical moves, patrols and contacts provide a number of lessons that can be
applied to any Army. Not a handbook or manual, but very definitely a book that
young officers should read before they deploy operationally.
Fire Strike 7/9
Fire Strike 7/9
Author - Publisher Sergeant Paul Grahame
-
Ebury Press (2010)
Firestrike 7/9 reads like a thriller but also offers very useful insight into
the employment of fire support teams (FIST) and, particularly, the role of
the Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC) at the company and platoon level.
Perhaps the most interesting aspects are:
•That a JTAC was available to accompany quite small – platoon level –
patrols; and
•The value of informal COMINT as low as company and even platoon
level – with a radio operator listening to the PTT radios used by the
Taliban, and an interpreter providing immediate interpretation that allowed
tactical analysis of the Taliban’s chatter.
•How that informal COMINT and analysis capability enabled the JTAC to
place precision-guided munitions directly on key targets.
Also interesting is the variety of assets available for employment by a JTAC in support of the company or patrol he
is accompanying. Sergeant Grahame at various times during his tour in Afghanistan controlled strikes by USAF A-10
ground attack aircraft, USAF F-15E strike fighters, US Navy F-18s, French Air Force Mirage 2000s, Dutch Air Force
F-16s, Royal Air Force Harriers, USAF B-1B bombers and AC-130 gunships, British Army AH-64 Apache attack
helicopters and armed Lynx helicopters. In addition to these combat aircraft, he also directed the use of Predator
UAVs in support of the force he was with, and controlled casevac CH-47 Chinooks, and had to coordinate his
employment of the various aircraft with what fire the artillery team of the FIST were calling in.
What stands out from reading Firestrike is the level of knowledge and training required of a JTAC and the level of
responsibility resting with him.
51
2013/02/11 07:55:53 AM
ENFILADE
Why Integrity First?
Lt. Col. Randy Huiss, US Air Force
The same holds true with the pilot sitting next to me or my
loadmaster in the back. How about the weight of the cargo being
loaded? It is imperative that the ‘port dawg’ does his job correctly
and avoids cutting corners. Otherwise, I may be unknowingly
handed a jet that is out of ‘balance’, which could have deadly
consequences. Our profession is a dangerous one, but most of
all, it is one that requires teamwork and trust to be successful.
Integrity goes well beyond answering simple questions honestly
though. Your personal ‘integrity meter’ should have absolutely
nothing to do with whether or not you get caught. If it is wrong, it
is wrong ... period. Is the Article 15 and $1,500 fine worth the $65
cab ride that you supposedly ‘lost’ the receipt for? I think not, but
integrity issues go well beyond any monetary figure associated
with them. Once you have lost the trust of those around you, you
may never gain it back.
Soldiers will risk their lives in combat if they trust their officers.
"In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities:
integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the
first, the other two will kill you."
Warren Buffet, the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway.
A number of years ago, while interviewing for a flying assignment,
I was asked a simple question, "Which Air Force core value do you
consider the most important?" I immediately thought to myself,
"Finally, an easy question”.
Than answered with a simple "integrity first."
That interview was approximately 12 years ago, but my response
today would be exactly the same.
Why integrity first? While I expanded my answer during the
interview, I simply pointed to a few different examples that all
revolved around being able to trust the word of those around you
without having to question whether or not what was said was true.
For example, a simple question to the crew chief asking, "How's
the jet?" and getting a response, "Good to go, sir." Is it? I sure
hope the maintainer has integrity when he tells me this as my life
and those on board with me are counting on him and the rest of
the maintenance team each and every time I strap the jet onto my
back.
52
Additionally, there is always the ‘man in the mirror’ who will be
looking at you every day knowing the true story. I need to be
able to count on the honesty and integrity of those around me as
they require the same of me. Otherwise, we are merely fooling
ourselves and destined to fail.
I have been extremely lucky throughout the course of my
career to work with some absolutely incredible people. I have
witnessed way more good examples of integrity than bad, as we
are held to a higher moral and ethical standard than our civilian
counterparts ... and we should be. We should never sacrifice our
own standards or integrity because "everyone else is doing it".
We should be setting the example and making those around us
better.
Maria Razumich-Zec said, "Your reputation and integrity are
everything. Follow through on what you say you're going to do.
Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the
history of your words and actions."
As your integrity and reputation are built over time, they can also
be destroyed in an instance of weakness. Never allow this to
happen. It always takes less time to do the right thing, than to
have to explain why you chose to do it wrong.
Finally, I leave you with a quote I found by Francis Bacon Sr.
whose meaning is really quite simple ... with integrity you are
judged on your actions, not simply your words: "It's not what we
eat, but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain
but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what
we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess,
but what we practice that gives us integrity."
2013/02/11 07:55:54 AM

Contents - SA Army

Transcription

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