November Updates

Coming up for air

Just a quick note here before I start another dissertation chapter to highlight a few newsworthy items. Part IV of the Kill the Corps series is coming but is done yet.

Recon-Strike Tactics at Work

RUSI published a new report on combined arms in Ukraine, Emergent Approaches to Combined Arms Manouevre in Ukraine. It’s by Jack Watling who is probably the best observer of ground combat actions in the war.

I was especially struck by the identified limitations of the vaunted FPV drones, which are reportedly changing the character of warfare.

Forces can easily protect positions from FPVs.

EW can effectively deny a part of the battlespace from FPVs which use radio frequency control.

FPVs do not function in bad weather, have too small a payload to engage numerous classes of targets, and are comparatively easy to shoot down.

FPV pilots must have extremely low latency connections to fly FPVs and must be static while flying them. Pilots can be detected and struck, including pilots using fibreoptic cables. As offensive counter-UAV methodologies have started to expand, pilots have been forced further away from the front, reducing their effective range of flight. As a result, the majority of FPV kills occur between -3 km and 3 km from the forward line of Ukrainian fighting positions.

This is above and beyond the manpower tax of FPV drones which is quite high, requiring not just dedicated operators but maintainers, planners, and communications specialists. FPV and other unmanned systems have become a vital addition to combined arms, but in no way a replacement for it.

The observation which immediately takes form is that the number of arms that need to be coordinated has increased, and the level at which C2 must be exercised by the brigade headquarters has moved down an echelon. At the same time, the force has become rebalanced between manoeuvre and fires, with the latter expanding to enable the former.

This is an exact description of reconnaissance-strike tactics.

The report pairs well with this post from Ben Morgan on the ongoing battle for Pokrovsk.

In the last post we discussed how Ukrainian tactics are evolving, including how Ukraine’s use of ‘drone walls.’ A ‘drone wall’ is a sophisticated web of ‘sensors’ linked to ‘shooters’ that can respond almost instantly to targeting information. ‘Sensors’ include drones, ground surveillance radar, human observers and satellites that constantly watch the battlefield identifying potential targets. ‘Shooters’ can be artillery, mortars, missiles and drones respond and attack targets identified by the ‘sensor.’ The system held to together by a digital network creating an integrated ‘kill web.’ Anything moving in this area can be quickly and decisively engaged. Recent fighting in Donetsk indicates that Ukraine’s ‘drone walls’ or ‘kill webs’ are highly effective at stopping Russian advances.

The “drone walls” are recon-strike networks and they’re most effective in more open terrain, leading to the Russian’s use of more complex terrain to mitigate their effects:

Drones appear to be less effective in complex terrain so Ukraine is forced to use more infantry soldiers to track down and neutralise the infiltrators. Essentially, Russian infiltration into urban areas forces Ukraine to fight an infantry led battle of attrition that it cannot maintain.

This reminds me of the fight against ISIS at the height of their power in Syria and Iraq beginning in 2015. Once the U.S. assembled an anti-ISIS coalition, the U.S. provided a recon-strike complex at scale to leverage its airpower, severely degrading ISIS’s ability to move after a few years. But ISIS didn’t quit, instead they focused on defending the complex terrain they had acquired to mitigate the effects of U.S. airpower, leading to the very infantry-centric battles of Mosul (2016-2017) and Raqqa (2017).

An uncontested recon-strike complex makes open terrain extremely dangerous for surface forces. But, as the RUSI report shows, there are ways to address drone-centric recon-strike networks. The danger of open spaces between complex terrain, of course, pre-dates the ubiquity of FPV drones in Ukraine and even aircraft. Far from changing the character of warfare, these systems seem to be just adding to it. Also, drone countermeasures, especially electronic warfare systems, will only get better and proliferate further.

Force Design Update

The Marine Corps released a new Force Design update last month. (Disclaimer: I am not involved in Force Design or these updates and only know what is written here.) Personally, I think the most interesting part is the announcement of Maritime Reconnaissance Companies that will be in the division, equipped with an organic (read: not Navy) vessel paired with an unmanned surface vessel. This is another lesson from Ukraine, whose navy is using Swedish CB90 vessels for a variety of missions and who have leveraged a maritime reconnaissance-strike complex to deny much of the Black Sea to Russian surface vessels.

There’s good coverage of the document here and here, but this update has been depicted as a pivot away from the ongoing Force Design effort. (The “2030” part of Force Design has been dropped because it will just continue beyond 2030 at this point.) I actually think this is an expansion of Force Design. The 4th Marine Regiment won’t become an MLR but will be reinforced with the capabilities and presumably platforms acquired for that MLR. More air defense platforms are also coming online. The recon-strike capabilities of the MLR will likely proliferate across the Marine Corps at some point, based on this part about the MEUs:

MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNITS. Just as our MLRs are being equipped with NMESIS, MADIS, resilient command and control, unmanned systems, and advanced sensing networks, those same capabilities are now being fielded across the MEUs. This modernization strengthens the MEU’s role as a versatile, multi-domain naval expeditionary force from the sea, able to project power, seize and hold key maritime terrain, sense and make sense of the operating environment, integrate with the fleet, and directly contribute to joint kill webs. Recent deployments by the 15th, 24th, and 31st MEUs have showcased the enhanced capabilities of the MEU.

At this point, Force Design has simply become modernization, a move into the emergent reconnaissance-strike regime.

This won’t actually change much about the Marine Corps. Sensing, command and control, and the coordination of organic and joint fires have been part and parcel of what the Marine Corps does for a long time. In World War II, the Marine Corps, Navy, and Army Air Service combined fire supporters into Joint Assault Signal Companies that managed joint fires for larger campaigns. After the war, the Marine Corps is the only service that maintained that structure and capability, renaming them Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Companies (ANGLICO) of which there are six today. Although they are called companies, they are battalion-sized elements commanded by an O-5 due to the complexity of the task. I expect the ANGLICOs will be exceptionally busy in the near future.

Most importantly, happy 250th birthday to all Marines past and present!