Categoría: TACTICS

The Principle of the Objective, Today. 2nd. Part.

(CONTINUATION)

An Historical Application of the Principle of the Aim in the War.

A clear and simple example of the application of this principle in the operational strategy, we have in the campaign of Ulm. In May, 1805 broke out the war between France and the Third Coalition, formed by Russia, Austria and England, its promoter. The main body of the French army was deployed along the coast of the English Channel, preparing itself to invade England. But the threat for the French army in campaign, which was the real strategic aim in the Napoleonic wars (let’s remember that the occupations of Madrid, Vienna, Moscow, were not decisive), was arising in the East Europe, from the armies of the Russian and Austrian empires. In September, 1805 Napoleon moved his «Army of England» to the Rhine, deploying it between Mainz and Strasbourg and renamed the «Great Army». The Great Armée was formed by 145.000 infantrymen and 38.000 riders, joined 7 army corps. Each one at the orders of a French marshall, a great cavalry reserve, at the orders of the marshall Prince Murat, and the Imperial Guard, directly under Napoleon. To them 25.000 Bavarian allies were added.

Taking the initiative, as was habitual with him, Napoleon decides to give the first strategic blow against the army of 72.000 Austrians, which, at the orders of the general Mack and the archduke Fernand, son of the emperor Francis II, was advancing towards Ulm, without waiting for the arrival of the Russian help. Napoleon maneuvered his army corps in a centripetal spiral over Ulm. It supposes the joint action of all the means in his “lines of action”. Of the «branched out» activity of all the units and the services, not necessarily coincidental in the time, but convergent and resultant in his efficiency and in the result. By means of the different and coordinated,lines of advance or action, the uncertainty and insecurity is induced in a prepared enemy. And always his rejection capacity is dispersed and is disturbed his plan of defense and its systematic conduction.

Resultado de imagen de battle of ulm 1805

The general Mack went out at the doors of Ulm, to surrender to Napoleon, at the foothills of mounts Michelsberg.

In a wide advance of his independent army corps, the great Armée quickly crossed the center of Germany, from the Rhine to the Danube, between septiembre, 25 and October, 6. With this he operationally intervened between the Austrians and the Russian allied forces, still distant.

The Austrians did not understand the need of the rapidity of these movements. They were thinking only about the battle, as the only instrument of the decision. Their operational strategy did not exist. And they waited his enemies, centred on Ulm and expectant. The Frenchmen initiated the crossing of the Danube on the 7th. And, during the whole week, Napoleon made converge, on an enormous constrictive maneuver, the majority of his forces on Ulm. While, an army corp was monitoring the possible arrival of the general Kutuzov from the East. The trap was remaining closed in irresistible force.

The general Mack uselessly realized several attempts of breakthrough, with the major efforts in Haslach and Elchingen. Both Austrian commanders fought between them. And the archduke Fernand separated from the main body with his 6.000 riders and tried to escape in North-East direction. But, near Trochtelfingen, his forces were surrounded and defeated by the Murat’s corps cavalry. Other 12.000 Austrians gave up themselves in Neustadt. The general Mack and the rest of his men (around 27.000, after the combats and mentioned incidents), with Napoleon in scandalous majority at the doors of Ulm from October, 14, went out to surrender their weapon at the foothills of mounts Michelsberg. The general Mack signed the capitulation of the army on the 20th. The campaign, without battles in strict sense, cost to Austria more than 50.000 men, almost 70 % of his initial troops.

The Current Process of Definition and Follow-up of the Aim.

The retreat of the USA of Vietnam produced a readjustment and another appreciation of the principle of the aim. The later evaluations of the politicians and military men led to proclaiming the imperious need to give always to their armed forces in any future conflict: the support without fissures of the people; a few clear and expressly defined operational and strategic aims and the necessary means for its achievement. This «check list» of supports of the national strategy to the military strategy, appears today as a good summary of the moral and material commitment that the peoples and the controls have with their military men, when they send them to the war for reasons of «national interest».

In the practice, the development of the operational strategy will be defining new operational and tactical aims. That are the surveyor’s poles of the sinuous way that leads to obtaining the strategic aims raised to the military men. That can be so precise and so general as: the occupation of an enemy territory, the recovery of a some provinces pillaged by that one, his effective military defeat or his surrender with or without conditions. Let’s remember that Moltke the Old was saying that the own initial plans only were resisting or were viable up to the first contact in force with the enemy.

The western democracies are provided with extensive, direct and deep communications through all their social tissue. Everything appears easily at first sight. And all the persons take the right or the obligation to debate about everything. But, in the «political military area» that is great more unstable, insecure and opaque. This does not want to say that the operational requirements should not exist. And that the need to prescribe and keep the discretion and the security necessarily limit the «universal exhibition» to the mass media in the area of the national safety.

Resultado de imagen de senate of the us

The Senate of the United States controls the evolution of the wars objectives.

It is necessary to define and to give clear aims to the military men. It implies the need of that the politicians study and compromise themselves with the high or national strategy. And, as necessary and inevitable corollary, that they give the sufficient operational autonomy to his military men. In order that they do not waste lives, efforts and a material means. In order that they neither get entangled, do not even be distracting in unproductive or secondary actions. In order that they do not lose the respect and the support of his people and gain the scorn of the neutrals and potential enemies.

But, closing an ideological and practical «curl», the age of the communications also offers advantages of rapidity and constant, reasonably trustworthy and sufficient intelligence using the military information and his management. Even in the fleeting and delicate cases, with the wireless communications of several levels and accesses, it is possible to obtain a «virtual presence» of the military chiefs and of certain politicians, in the operational distant field. This would facilitate to these controls, a successive approximation and the graduation of the actions of the military means in presence, towards the operational action. And it would facilitate the dilution in the space and the time of the need to fix the successive secondary aims, already from the beginning of a “cycle of military operations”. Keeping always a constant acceleration of the «cycles of action» on the enemy, to dislocate his rejection capacity and to seek and to act on his operational weaknesses. Already those must seek to go successively forward to the enemy, progressively turning ineffective his actions and induce in his men the abandonment of not being capable of offsetting nor overcome our tactical actions guided by our “in real time” operational strategy.

(THE END)

The Principle of the Objective, Today.

The principle of the objective demands that every operation goes towards a decisive, clear and obtainable aim with the means at disposition. This principle is applicable to the four levels of the war: the tactical, the operational, the military strategic and the total strategic or of national politics. In this last level meet to collaborate the national diplomacy and economy, who would give him his category of «total». At first, it seems that this principle of «direction of the war» is of the easiest to conceive and apply. Nevertheless, it is in the highest level of decision, that of the great strategy or national strategy, where it has not been correctly or sufficiently applied this principle. We can remember, supporting revolts of Lybia, as the great powers of the anti Gaddafi Coalition had difficulties to define the essential aims of his military intervention in Lybia.

Origins and Appearance of the Principle of the Aim in the War.

This principle is always related with the general principle of economy (or the administration) of the means. So, we rationalize our efforts and means on having centred on a complete aim. And this way, the lives and other military available means, always scanty or, even, insufficient, for a campaign, can be squandered, if the national commands fail in applying the principle of the aim at his own level. This principle is directly related to that of concentration. Which seeks to assemble all the means, not necessarily present for the moment, well simultaneous or successive, in a common effort on the aim to get. This way, for example, a combined arms unit that covers the free flank of his main body or the units of tactical exploration deployed in advance, are also taking part with his missions in this complete and synergical effort.

In the classic ancient military men (Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Frederick the Great or Jomini) the knowledge of this principle arises more by what it is deduced from his works, that for its direct mention. That is to say, up to only a few decades ago, the principle of the aim was a second-class principle. How could be giving this paradox between his managerial importance and his carelessness? The principle of the aim was implicitly careless, when the military men expressly attended to the principles of surprise, of concentration and of protection. And it was so, because it was too evident. It was really, to defeat the enemy in the minor number of possible battles. We must remember that the principles of the war originally appear in the tactical field: as the advices and directives to follow to gain the battles.

Resultado de imagen de frederick the great

Frederick II, the Great, ruled the Kingdom of Prussia for 46 years. A practiced and theorist of warfare.

Initially and even until little ago, the state matters were not of the interest or of the consideration of the people. The kings and absolute princes, even the illustrated ones, were autonomous and sufficient in the direction of the war and were not using the principle. This changed with the establishments of the diets, the parliaments and the chambers. More or less representing peoples cosovereigns with the monarches. It was already necessary to explain the motives and the aims of the wars. This way, the principle of the aim began to take form and content. And it reached his importance and sovereign, when the tactics or the art of considering and gaining the battles, already cannot by itself to gain a war.

In any operation the aim is essential. Without it there can exist neither a definite and clear plan nor the coordination of efforts (or «mass»). The last military aim is the destruction of the enemy forces in presence (not necessarily the physical annihilation, it would be enough that they were giving up themselves). Considering only the military factors, the aims must be defined from the beginning and select them in agreement with the available means. And this way, appears the paradox which we nowadays live in many cases. There exist political, economic and still strategic factors, which conspire to delay and still gets dark the definition of the aims in the war, as the case of Lybia. And, on the other hand, with the forces already displaced there, before the friends, neutral and enemy’s look, existed the urgent need to clearly define them. With it is achieved a “joint effort” (today baptized synergy) for the best utilization of the resources on the enemy.

From middle of the 19th century, appear and are consolidated the rapid globalization of the interests of the States and the scopes and powers of their military, political, economic and diplomatic means. With them, the military principles of tactical origin fullly reached the area of the national and military strategy.

The Pernicious Interference of the Politicians in the Military Actions.

Also there always was coming a moment in which the politician had to be quiet and not to intermittently meddle in the military specific occupation. Sun Tzu is the real or supposed name of a Chinese author, who wrote The Thirteen Chapters of the Art of the War. The unit of style of the work and his originality allow to affirm that it is neither a collective work nor a summary of preexisting works. His work is dated between 400 and 320 B.C. In effect, the use of the cross-bow did not generalize until 400 and the cavalry was not incorporated into the army before 320. What Sun Tzu said on the military missions and the spurious interferences, more than 2 thousand years ago?

Resultado de imagen de Sun TzuThe Statue of Sun Tzu in Enchoen, Yurihama, Japan.

«Normally, when the armed forces are in use, the general receives, first, the general orders of the sovereign. Then he assembles the troops, makes the army an homogeneous and harmonious set and installs it in his cam «. Chapter 7, verse 1.

«It is necessary to know that for the sovereign there exist three ways of taking his army to the disaster. They consist of proceeding as follows:

To ignore that the army must not advance and order that it should advance, or, to ignore that it must not move back and arrange a retreat. This is what calls «to put the army in a difficulty». Chia Lin’s comment: «there is no major calamity that the orders of the sovereign that resides in the court «.

To ignore all the military matters and to take part in his administration. This disorients the officials. To ignore all the problems of the command and to take part in the exercise of the responsibilities. This destroys the spirit of the officials». Chapter 3, verses 19 to 22.

«The one that has competent general and protects them from the (solvent) interferences of the sovereign, will be the victor». Ibid, verse 29. Ho Yen Hsi’s comment: «In the war hundreds of changes take place in every stage. To say that a general must wait for all the orders of his Superiors, is like to have to inform a Superior of that you want to extinguish a fire. Before the orders come, the ashes will be cold. And it has been said that in such circumstances it is necessary to consult the general inspector of the army! To shortly tie a competent general, while he is asked to suppress a crafty enemy, is as holding the Black Greyhound of Han and then give him the order to catch unattainable hares».

(TO BE CONTINUED)

THE MILITARY SURPRISE: concepts, effects, realization and types. 2nd. Part.

(CONTINUATION)

The three cavalry regiments of the brigade had a total of 27 officers, 228 N.C.O.s and 1,740 soldiers mounted on German horses. All those who could, carried sub-machine guns –either the MP-38 or MP-40- instead of the 7.92 mm K98 carbines. They were supported by 30 heavy machine guns (MG-34 on tripods) and 72 light machine guns (MG-34 with bipods). Their heavy support fire was provided by a battery of 6 light howitzers of 75 mm for each of three hippomobile regiments. As external support they would have artillery fire, either centralized or from the divisions placed in its flanks, for the attached observers and officers were accompanying it.

Resultado de imagen de carretas del país soviéticos Country wagons moving forward in a huge Russian plain…

They were also supported by an engineers company (pioneers) and a sanitary company. By means of a park of Russian country wagons, each dragged by a pair of native horses, the supplies, replacements, ammunitions, medical forces, etc. of the brigade would be carried to them. They also had a motorized supply column.

The nature, the structure of the brigade and its support were perfectly adapted to the mission and contributed to its simplicity. It even received the support of a tanks company (14 tanks) for the attack, when the reconnaissance saw the possibility for use it.

Another key aspect of the mission was intelligence, acting already before the conception of the operation. This provided the most complete knowledge of the enemy and operations zone. Intelligence was a combination of information acquired by all the units, that was continually updated. It allowed better definition of the mission, assignment of the means and units, and training preparation. It also allowed for more appropriate adjustments or changes in plans, etc.

Another indispensable factor in this extraordinary or heterodox operation was the training and trial of the mission. The brigade trained for 4 to 6 weeks before its activation, in areas similar to the future operations zone; this fulfilled the security factor.

The training with tanks was not done, because its employment was not foreseen. And one of the problems that arose during the operation was that communication between the cavalry and tanks was poor. In the thick wild forests the wireless radios did not work well and it was necessary to use the existing wire telephony. But these were not enough for adequate communications between all the small units.

Resultado de imagen de frente del este 1942

A characteristic of the training in these special missions is that that it must be as complete as possible, in agreement to its peculiarities. And a full trial, including the total foreseen time, is always necessary. For example, to verify the resistance of certain equipments and not only its good functioning, as would happen in a partial or incomplete test.

The brigade and 5th panzer division were in their departure positions 10 days before the start of the march towards the contact. The Soviets were not capable of detecting the activation of this unit, so the security factor remained fulfilled.

Immediately, the brigade, with the help of the tanks troops, carried out an intense reconnaisance of the intermediate area and the enemy positions (advanced combat troops and the forward limit of the defense). It was deduced that the tanks’ support in the attack was possible (in a narrow sector), if a necessary adaptation was effected in the tracks accessing the area. This innovation would add an important shock capacity and heavy direct fire to the assault, especially in the irruption, in the struggle for enemy fighting positions and in the interior of the defense zone (artillery, units in disorder or in retreat, transport, supplies, etc.)

The factor surprise was going to be achieved by the tactical innovation and the unexpected action in «field of action» chosen for the attack. It is important to remember that the Soviets were prepared and fortified against an attack that they knew was coming. In addition, since the beginning of the war the Soviets had shown themselves to be masters of defense and in disguising positions. Still, the Germans hoped that a strong attack on an unexpected place would dislocate the enemy’s combat capacity and means of defense. The German plan allowed no practical reaction time to the enemy.

Resultado de imagen de frente del este 1942

With this, the speed of action factor is obtained by the attacker. This allowed the Germans to overcome rapidly their principal vulnerability: the initial contact with the enemy in the decided «interface of action«, in which always can be produced unexpected setbacks in the face of potentially bigger forces, until the law of the action is imposed on the enemy.

As the mission begins, there is uncertainty or friction, due to the enormous number of individuals and units involved; mistakes, that are a function of the small failures that happen inevitably in all the human actions that comprise a mission; enemy action, until the fire supremacy and maneuver deprive him of initiative; opportunities, in the shape of favorable situations not foreseen by the Germans and which the commands of the small units must exploit in order to fulfill the mission.

To be able to act this way, the extraordinary or special troops must possess the commitment factor, which involves the acceptance and recognition of the entrusted mission, its important consequences and its real possibilities of success in these conditions.

A couple of days before the assault, the engineers were making progress through the forest boundaries with mechanical saws. They constructed a reinforced path and carpeted it with middle logs cut up “in situ” and arranged about a meter apart. This was to give sufficient firmness to a route up to the Soviet minefields which would support the tanks added to the hippomobile brigade in tactical subordination, which slowly initiated its advance a little later. The noise of the saws and the engines of the vehicles was drowned by the flight of reconnaisance planes at low level and sporadic harassment fire.

The joint assault began on July 2, 1942.

The hippomobile brigade had to cross 15 kilometers of forests and marshes to reach the Soviet positions. At its right was the 5th panzer division attacking, which acted as the normal force or mass of support for the assault. Its left flank was supported on this area of difficult ongoing, covered by weak infantry forces (about a company). Until, on the 3rd day, a German infantry division began its assault through this sector.

At 3 a.m. the tanks advanced close to the cavalry troops, taking advantage of the general artillery preparations. They were accompanied by engineers’ troops. The minefields were immediately detected and the engineers cleaned the area around the passing paths to extend its width. Suddenly, the forwards tanks and cavalry reached the limit of the Soviet position of defense in this decided «field of action» over them.

Resultado de imagen de 9º ejército alemán Rzhev Model saves the day for the 9th German Army.  Column of Soviet military prisioners.

In a single thrust they burst in, breaking the Soviets’ first lines of defense. After this, the tanks were kept in reserve, since the enemy position stretched through an unknown wooded area. That morning the cavalry managed to penetrate 6.5 kilometers inside the Soviet position.

The whole time the train of country wagons was capable of advancing supplies, replacements and munitions to the tired men.

For its part, the 5th panzer division could not advance despite its superior capacity of shock and means, and suffered heavy losses by very well camouflaged Soviet forces in depth.

Around midday, a hippomobile regiment turned to attack the principal enemy positions from the east. To reach them, it had to cross a swampy forests zone where the water was knee-high. At dusk, the brigade had control of a sector of the principal road inside the Soviet position, breaking the Soviets’ tactical cohesion and turned it untenable.

Just after midnight on the 4th, Soviet resistance was collapsing in the area of assault of the 5th panzer division and hippomobile brigade. This crossed another swampy forest area of 10 kilometers depth and emerged at the operational enemy rear. Here was a scene of chaos filled with abandoned vehicles and stroked columns and groups of troops and soldiers. Arrival of the panzer forces accelerated the decline of the 39th Soviet infantry army as an organized and effective force.

That same day the whole sector of this army collapsed and the German infantry divisions of Walter Model’s 9th army converged on its interior by all its assault sectors.

In the 11 days that the operation lasted, the Germans captured 50,000 Soviet prisoners, and around 230 tanks and 760 artillery pieces.

THE CREATION OF THE TACTICAL AND OPERATIONAL SURPRISES.

Prolegomenon.

Military surprise is more a part of the art of war and its creation, than of military science, the doctrine, its regulations and the principles or «good-doing» rules of war. Of course, its scope and instruments are taken from military science. Military science has its logic and practice oriented towards applied theory.

Military doctrine forms the framework, the structure, the heart of all development and the wisdom that military science has been developing so far. The military doctrine of each state incorporates the idiosyncracy, history and civilization of the corresponding nation. The permanent virtues and the more temporary values of the former are also reflected in its military doctrine. All this channels it in one direction and one sense.

War art has in its conception and execution the characteristics of: variability; the unusual and singular conception; the different, unexpected and novel application and the relative ingenuity (naturalness and freshness) and freedom in its facts.

Resultado de imagen de general hermann balck General Hermann Balck, one of the finest German armored tactical Command.

If we are guided mainly by military science, which the enemy also knows, the results of the war dialectic will be obtained by maintaining a superiority in men and means, marches and maneuvers. And the cost will be the attrition of means and human wear in a greater proportion, and always undue, than with the use of surprise.

Thus, a defence deployed in depth and with sufficient reserves, probably deprives us of many opportunities for effective surprise. But, almost always, acting in the microfield, as using a tactical zoom, we can apply the tactical or operational surprise, unusual and unexpected.

Development.

The surprise becomes specify and materializes in an unexpected action on the enemy by fire and/or shock. That, taking advantage of the enemy’s habitual lack of combat availability, makes him the victim of an attack that he is not in a position to successfully reject.

Obviously, the units in charge of surprise must avoid enemy’s reconnaissance, advanced combat units and security. In charge of giving the units that detached them, enough time to get the combative disposition that allows the rejection of their attacker.

But, the mental surprise must not only be unexpected for the enemy. But, in order to be able to take full advantage of its potential and effects, it must also be unusual, special, infrequent. With an unquestionable tendency to be «unusual», as never seen. This unusual character, never occurred, extraordinarily reinforces the quality of unexpected and sudden use of surprise.

Imagen relacionada Soviet  T-34 /76 tank.

We don’t always have the unusual at hand. And surprise often favors, by employing the law of action, the most mobile and even only active rival.

Then, the use and manipulation of the “appearances”, the appreciated characteristics of the events and their circumstance, will allow us to establish and develop a new tactical or operational situation. Which will be surprising and unusual for the enemy. And it will give us an unexpected victory, at the beginning of the faced dialectic situation.

A Tactical example with Operational Trascendence.

Here is an example of an extraordinary force acting as a normal force and, in so doing, completely deceiving the enemy by manipulating appearances of the events.

In January 1943, with the Soviet advance threatening Rostov, the 4th Panzer Army of colonel general Hoth moved back from its positions on the banks of the Sal and established a defensive line south of the river Manich. Passing through that area were the supply and retreat routes of the 1st Panzer Army. Routes that had been kept open, if a disaster like that of Stalingrad was to be avoid. In Stalingrad, the Sixth German Army, the Army unit more powerful of the Wehrmatch, was caught. The 4th Panzer Army was assigned to protect this bottle neck in the communications of the Armies Groups Don.

Soon the Soviets reached the confluence of the Manich and Don rivers, took control of the small city of Manutchskaya that was only 30 kilometers from the mouth of the Don on the south bank, and sent advanced detachments in this direction. On January 23, the 11th panzer division and 16th infantry division counterattacked the Soviet advance spears and pushed them back to Manutchskaya.

Then, it was vital to restore the south front of the Don and Manich and to expel the Soviets from the city. Which was one of their bridgeheads (which, with much skill, could be rapidly reinforces once constituted).

The Germans made a direct assault from the southwest on the 24th, seeking to surprise the Soviets with the operation continuity. Instead, they found that the Soviets had created an antitank front in this entry to the city. Using tanks with their hulls partly buried and distributed between the buildings, along the streets, and in other difficult to see locations.

The 11th panzer division, a crack division with a magnificent tactician as chief, quickly stopped the assault when it detected the importance of defenses.

Imagen relacionada A Panther from the 11th panzer division circa summer 1943

On the 25th, the general Hermann Balck initiated an assault on the northeast sector of the city, which the Soviets identified as a main assault, similar to the previous one and following the orthodox criterion of «not insist on unsuccessful or frontal assaults» (not profitable). For it, they moved rapidly theirs antitank means (tanks are the most mobile) to the new threatened sector.

To make credible this assault (manipulation of the appearances), at the beginning the whole divisional artillery was used in its support. It was also the more dangerous direction of assault for the Soviets. Since that part of the city was nearest to the principal bridge over the Manich and its occupation would isolate the Soviet bridgehead on the south bank. These factors constituted the «primary evidences«.

The assault on the north-east sector was probably already considered by the Soviet defense as a German probably alternative assault and, because of this, they reacted rapidly to what happened.

Infantry half-track vehicles and reconnaissance light tanks executed the principal «virtual» assault, simulating the march of mechanized vehicles, concealed by smoke curtains. And seeking more to hide them from the enemy than to protect their advance. This gave a «secondary evidence» to the credibility of the «appearances«.

When the Soviet’s determination in the new defense was estimated, which confirmed the alteration of its original deployment and the attraction made by the normal «apparent» attack. The bulk of the divisional artillery threw a powerful fire blow on a sector of the southwest zone of the town. A single battery continued to support the ongoing false principal assault.

Most of the tanks of 15th panzer regiment immediately attacked the forward limit of the defense, entering the town and advancing on its interior. To attack from the rear the new defensive Soviet deployment, especially its tanks. The mechanized German infantry then closed in behind them.

The Soviet resistance crumbled. Its infantry ran to the bridge over the Manich river. But was chased by the 61th motorists battalion.

German casualties in liquidating Manutchskaya’s stronghold were, according to its own sources, one man dead and fourteen injured men. The Soviets had between 500 and 600 casualties and 20 destroyed tanks.

I believe, it is all clear and simple. Which are the characteristics of the practical and real ways to do.

THE HUNT FOR ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI.

Introduction.

The small units attacking with limited aim (a deep incursion, the capture of a critical position, the rescue of a personality, an ambush) constitute a military closed «system«. This condition imposes a some specific characteristics in his «interfaces of action» with the enemy. That not always are identical to those in the fighting of units and great units, especially in the limitation of the available means and of the time of action.

The units so committed must impose rapidly and keep a combative superiority on the enemy. To be able to obtain the local and temporary supremacy, which allows them to obtain the above mentioned limited aims.

Resultado de imagen de abu bakr al-baghdadi IN THE EARLY DAYS OF HIS JIHADIST ACTIVITY, AFTER THE U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ.

The characteristic or the factor of the conception of his mission is the simplicity. The characteristics of their preparation are the intelligence, the security and the training. The characteristics of their action are the surprise, the speed of action and the commitment of the participants in the mission.

«The Hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi» is publicly treated by enough profusion and diffusion, as for his advertising, political, legal, human and technical characteristics. Now we will analyze the tactical and operational particularities that characterized it.

How was the presence of Abu Baker and his relatives detected at that location? Evidently, once the Sunni caliphate’s bases of support and refuge in Iraq and Syria, were destroyed and liberated, the U.S. and the other countries present in the war zone were interested in al-Baghdadi and sought his capture. A repentant member of the Islamic State, who knew the Abu Baker’s messenger network, reportedly joined the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition opposing al-Assad, controlled by the Kurds of the Y.P.G. and supported by the U.S. This «repentant» became a double agent of that coalition. And because of his background, he gained access to al-Baghdadi’s inner circle and stole an intimate garment from him (apparently, a underwear).

Which served to identify him with almost 100% surely. Other US intelligence means confirmed or did not deny the DNA identification. This confirmed the investigation and established the target.

Since May, 2019, al-Baghdadi has been in Barisha. And, he was about to move to another hiding location, since every 6 months he used to move to a different shelter. He was already a fugitive, a wandering insurrect, with no stable bases of refuge, from which indoctrinate and expand his territory. And unable to make a coherent defense of his hiding places. Its only available defensive technique was concealment, seeking to be effective and impervious to enemy human and electronic detection.

The Development of the Hunting Operation for Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi.

The military unit chosen to carry out the «Operation Kayla Mueller» was the US Navy Seal. This is the unit of the Navy in charge of the punctual special actions by (sea), air (a), and land (l). The Seals were created at the end of the decade of the 50 of the 20th century. On having appreciated the need to possess polyvalent military men, extremely prepared and capable of acting in any area in demanding conditions.

At the beginning of the 60 and for desire of president Kennedy, they began to act in Vietnam. The general formation of a Seal extends during years of hard work. The Seal receives between 42 thousand and more than 65 thousand dollars a year. His meticulous, precise, hard and dangerous work is not compensated economically. To satisfy his love to the military, his vocation of service (this one is taught to him), his love to the mother land and his commitment with his colleagues and the unit are his principal pay. The «unit 6» of the Seals, a group of elite with a score of men, took part in this mission, taking charge of the principal aims. It is said that the admiral in chief directed the operation, but there is no official confirmation. The nature of the Seals, the structure of the airborne subunits participants and of the transport and supports, were elements that contributing to the simplicity of the mission, as they were adapted perfectly to it.

Resultado de imagen de abu bakr al-baghdadi IN MOSUL, AT THE END OF JUNE 2014, HE PROCLAIMED HIMSELF CALIPH OF ALL MUSLIMS.

The training and the trial of the mission were not neglected, in spite of the enormous general experience of the men. Before the activation of the unit in the al-Asad Base, in Iraq, this was trained in a «model«, which was reproducing faithfully the facilities, the extension and the characteristics of al-Baghdadi‘s urban complex and its bordering areas. This was in the outskirts of Barisha, a little town in the north of the Syrian province of Idlib, al 4 miles from the Turquey’s border. The «essay model» was raised probably in one of the training bases of the Seals. And this extended for approximately 6 weeks, with intervals. During this phase the factor security of the mission was kept, because the trials and practices that the Seals realize are varied and changeable.

The attacking unit, with a hundred of men, deployed in her principal departure operational base at least 10 days before, to not increase her stress and to facilitate the final adjustment. The security factor was kept unscathed during the great preparation phase of of the mission.

In the early morning of Sunday, 27 October 2019, the flight chief of the “transport force” took command of the operation and ordered the helicopters to take off from their al-Assad forward base. The transport force came from one of the US Army airborne divisions 82 or 101. The flight to the target was made following up to 3 or 4 different directions, so to not attract the attention of observers or onlookers on the ground. The trajectories were oriented to the west-northwest, avoiding the nearby axis of populations bunched in the great basin of the Euphrates. This protected the mission’s security and surprise factors during the approach phase.

The operations force used between 6 and 8 helicopters. Between 4 and 6 were Chinook CH-47, twin-engined, heavy-duty load, that carried the Seals, the equipment and the canine unit in support. And the others were his escort: 2 Apache AH-64 for attack and protection. Those aircraft were enough to transport back all the men and dogs, with their intelligence information booty, prisoners and Abu Bakr’s body.

When the air expedition arrived in the vicinity of the jihadist complex, a group of armed men left the complex. And they set out to get their planned positions around the buildings. There were no more than twenty. The helicopters in flight opened fire on them. And the area of their deployment was saturated with bullets and shells from the heavy weapons on board.

Already at the target, the commanding colonel of the attacking force took command of the operation. Before the assault, the helicopter loudspeakers called on al-Baghdadi to surrender. But, he ran to hide. Instead, two adults and 11 children came out.

Resultado de imagen de abu bakr al-baghdadi  DEFEATED, HIDDEN AND PERSECUTED.

The helicopter crews, equipped with heavy firepower means, sealed the outer housing complex. Assaulting Seals moved on that one from two sides. A fraction of them formed an outer defensive ring, to isolate the complex from the area. The entrance to the interior of the main house was through an opening on a side wall. For fear of booby traps in doors and windows. Most of the men were responsible for neutralizing the few remaining jihadi escorts and capturing civilians (women and children) from the houses. All the Seals were in touch between themselves by a sophisticated intranet.

A task force, the “hunting group”, led by the colonel, went for Abu Bakr. The canine unit of detection, neutralization and attack was integrated in it. The identification team was also part of this mini group of combined arms. Another group, the “inteligence collect group” was in charge of collecting all the sensitive information existing in the various facilities or shacks. Both “mission groups” were divided into subgroups, to quickly complete their missions around the complex. All the men within the perimeter were also involved in the above-mentioned detections.

Struck by heavy fire, the whole family was stunned and shocked. Al-Baghdadi escaped with two or three of his sons following a maze of tunnels dug under the house. That would allow him, after a journey of a few hundred ms., to reach the surface by a disguised and protected exit far away.

At a moment of the advance of the “hunting group” in the labyrinth, the colonel gave orders to bring forward the SEAL canine unit. His idea was to preserve the lives of his elite men in so intricate situation. One of the members of the unit, a Belgian Malinois shepherd bitch with an encrypted identity, belonging to a classified unit, overtook the other canine teams or groups and approached Abu Bakr. His name would be K-9, which corresponds to the nomenclature used on other occasions in special operations. However, the profusion of dubious news, filtered drop by drop, gives it the name of Conan, published in Newsweek magazine.

When Abu Bakr was trapped, already with broken nerves and defeated, his explosive vest exploded. Killing him and his children and injuring the bitch. The identification team went ahead, searched the scattered remains of the body for DNA and 100% confirmed al-Baghdadi’s identity.

The operation ended in about 60 minutes, but the men were about two more hours in the area. Then, they occupied their helicopters and these left back. The body of the head of the IS was deposited in the sea, within 24 hs. following the Islamic rite.

Next, United States’ ground attack aircraft launched six HE missiles, probably of the Maverick type, into the vacated area of operations, converting it into a «destruction zone». The last shelter of Abu Bakr was turned into a light grey area, laminated to ashes and crushed rubble.

THE MILITARY SURPRISE: concepts, effects, realization and types.

The common or general tactical surprise is that which is normally or frequently used and that is known and expected. There is one case we take as example, which is to ambush or hostilize enemy forces who come to help or rescue a group of their own immobilized and/or besieged by us. This attack is logical to do so, because the forces in march, and especially when the urgency drives them, are especially vulnerable: because of the weakness of their flanks, for their scant reconnaisance and greater ignorance of their marching grund to combat, and for their deployment or marching column more or less frayed.

The attack is to be made using sequential or simultaneously different techniques: ambushes, even employing small units; free shooters lines; shutts of the advance routes and his wings with mines; bombardments of the artillery and the unit’s organic mortars, using registered fire on the routes or its singular points; attacks of the own or allied aviation; appearances and assaults by an our «combat group» (of combined arms?) in his immediate rear or covering it in a flank of the itinerary that is favorable for our protection (heights line, edge of forests, industrial and urban areas).

It is necessary to use necessarily this common surprise. But, the attacker must not repeat his set of tactics and military technics during short periods of time. In order that our attack is not so predictable, also in the details and manners, which facilitates his rejection to the enemy. Since with our routine, we are announcing the enemy which is our game, showing him the cards. And, let’s know that, even with these precautions, we are teaching him to fight.

With the mentioned variety, his combinations and the opportunity of use, the enemy will not be able to take sufficient measurements for the rejection. Since the variants of action that we can use are sufficiently different and numerous.

This is a tactical surprise, in the same level in which we are unrolling ourselves. That will allow us to increase the attrition (on the means) and the wear (of the men) of the enemy. And, even, to place and move more favorably with regard to him. But the total results will depend on the development of the set of the raised operations. Based on the forms of fight, the movements and the involved men and means.

Resultado de imagen de walther model Colonel General Walther Model.

This way, this surprise less elaborated conceptually produces fewer fruits that have operational or decisive transcendency. Everything indicates that, in order that it should take place and increases qualitatively the transcendent efficiency in our actions, it is necessary that the quality of the surprise reaches another dimension in his action.

It is necessary, so, in the operational level of the surprise, that this would be an «ungrateful surprise» for the enemy. That has catastrophic effects, though they are local, on him, at the beginning. And that the «commotion waves» in the area or the affected sections, propagate for the enemy military system attacked. Damaging his capacities, his general and grupal moral (a section, the fighters of a weapon) and his intentions and perspectives. It would be equivalent, in the raised scene, to an «exploitation of the success» of our actions. That are encouraged and perfected by the operational surprise obtained.

The following battle during World War II illustrates the use of unexpected «field of action» on the enemy, and the use of ordinary and heterodox forces. That allowed General Walther Model to take the initiative and destroy a Soviet army inserted in his operational rear.

During the winter counter-offensive of 1941-1942, the Soviet Union military had penetrated the operational rear of the 9th German army of Colonel General Model. It was integrated in the Central Armies Group, under the command of Fieldmarshal von Kluge. The Germans withdrew to positions near populated areas, tacked between them by its artillery fire and keeping open a few, precarious communications lines between the units. Thus helping maintain the operational stability of the army’s defensive area.

The Soviets had crossed the lines of the semi-continuous front, crushing weak German positions and setting up in the german rearwarsd the 39th infantry army and the XI cavalry corps (mobile forces for areas of difficult ongoing), a total of 60,000 men. Their deployment was protected in the semi wild forests and marshes between Boly and Rzhev, the principal regional city, and was supplied by a route that edged by Boly and continued to Nelidovo at the north of the zone. These Soviet forces were also in operational hibernation, waiting for the late thaw of the Russian spring.

This powerful enemy nucleus, in coordinated action with Soviet forces at the front, could compromise the German summer offensive (1942) by cutting the supply lines of the 9th army. For this reason, it was necessary to liquidate it before tackling a new campaign.

Under the instructions of General Model, a movil force was put together. This formed a hippomobile brigade with the reconnaisssance forces (a reduced battalion) of each eight divisions of infantry of 9th army, all of which had all ground transit capacity.

Resultado de imagen de batalla Rzhev The Rzhev’s projection was formed after the Soviet counter-offensive in defense of Moscow.

The mission of this brigade was to slip through enemy flanking sectors not covered by the security and principal positions of the enemy. Once in enemy territory, they were to wait for a principal important attack, to begin fighting in the enemy’s interior with the hope of occupying defense nucleus positions. The German aim was to severely unsettle the Soviets’ deployment and the conduction of their defense plan.

By using its forces in the unexpected «field of action«, the Germans hoped to recover the freedom of action to impose on the enemy the law of the action. The objective was simple, but its attainment was difficult.

The brigade, which was to penetrate the Soviet zone, was led by the 5th panzer division of Major General Gustav Fehn. That were the principal interarms forces and the mass of support or normal forces. They were to proceed following the principal reinforced surface road of the zone. Which passed from Olenino in the north and followed the western slope of the Luchesa river.

Soviet troops (39th infantry army), inside its defense zone clung to this road and had an antitank deployment (obstacles and guns). The Soviet flanks were thin but protected on each side by extensive minefields. Its right flank rested on the inhospitable and impassable woods and swamp lands of the deep valley of the Luchesa which, in the Soviets’ thinking, protected them against serious attack. The Soviet command foresaw what must be the German’s principal effort against them and deployed their forces with creativity and inventiveness.

Only healthy, strong, veteran soldiers who worked well together and whose units had cohesion could be used in this mission. It was not work for garrison troops brought from the German rear or the occupied countries. Because of this, Walther Model did not hesitate to deprive his infantry divisions of its only mobile units of maneuver to use in this battle.

THE MONGOLS INVADE EASTERN EUROPE (1238-1241). 2nd. PART.

(CONTINUATION)

 

The Mongol Army Attacks Hungary.

Subodai concentrated his army in 3 groups of march. Each one would enter Hungary by a different route, across the mountain passes and valleys of the Carpathians. This deployment was given to the Mongols more resistance to the enemy surprises. And gave them an initial unfolding for the maneuvers of their 3 mobile corps, facilitating them to face the enemy. The Hungarians, for their part, did not dare to attack any of them, for fear of an advance of the other corps on their rear or to occupy anyone of their cities. The central column, which was under the command of the prince Batu, crossed Ruske’s mountain pass on March 12 and continued his advance for the valley of the Tisza. His vanguard with combat capacity came to the Danube on the 15th and 2 days later the principal corps did it. The vanguard had realized a march of 290 km in 3 days, crossing an hostile area and still covered by high snow.

On April 3, Subodai formed his 3 columns in front to Pest, in the east bank of the Danube. In Pest the king Bela had assembled his army of 100 thousand men. At another side of the river, joined both cities by bridges, was Buda. Subodai knew they were overcome in number by the Hungarians. Having also detached a tumen in Transylvania the left column of march, to assure that the Christians were not receiving reinforcements from Romania, the Mongols were now 70 thousand. Also, it was very dangerous for them to force a crossing of the Danube at the sights of the Hungarian deployed army.

On the other hand, the more time Subodai was taking in his calculations, decisions and preparations, the more time was giving to other European leaders to decide and to come to support the king Bela. The Mongol general applied then at strategic scale one of his tactic stratagems: his army moved back towards the East. The Hungarian chiefs supposed that the Mongols were not daring to fight against their army. And, spurred by their stagnation before the not hindered advance of the Mongols 3 marching columns, asked to initiate his pursuit. The Hungarians did not notice that Subodai was attracting them out of the protection of the Danube and of the support between detachments and the army corps.

The king Bela, commanded the great majority of the army, directed the pursuit. The Mongol retreat was calculately slow. They took 6 days in reaching the Sajo river, at 160 km at the North-East of Buda and Pest. And, at the west of the river, near its mouth in the Tiszna and in the plain in front of Mohi, the principal city of the zone, Batu and Subodai decided to confront their «persecutors». On April 9, the Mongols crossed a broad gorge, advanced by a heath, crossed a stone bridge and continued 16 km up to the bushes placed at the west of the hills and vineyards of Tokay. In them, they had numerous places where to camouflage or to hide. In effect, when a Hungarian reconnoissance detachment followed them that evening and came up to Tokay’s west, it did not find absolutely nothing. The Hungarian army, who realized a frontal pursuit, encamped in the heath, arranging his cars, joined by chains and ropes, closing a circle, where installed his tents and mounts. At the right of the camp, were the marshes of the bank of the Tisza, at his front, the heath of the Sajo was spreading and forests and hills were covering his left side.

Resultado de imagen de BATTLE of buda and pest 1241 FIGHTING ON THE BRIDGE.

At dawn of Wednesday, the 10th of April, 1241, Batu and 40 thousand men threw towards the stone bridge by its east side. The Hungarians defended it with all energy, until they had to withdraw for the fire bombs of that the Mongols catapults threw them, on having been in a very narrow fighting sector. The Mongols went on to the west side, but during more than 2 hours, were terribly pressed by the Hungarians charges and only the shots of their archers briefly restored their defense line. Little by little, the Hungarian army deployed to liquidate the Mongol bridgehead. Suddenly, the general Subodai, who also had crossed to the west side by a circumstances bridge stretched downstream of the Sajo, while the Hungarians were distracting with the threat in the bridgehead, appeared with 30 thousand Mongols on the Hungarian rear. Struck and stunned, but with guts and experience not to fall down in the panic, the Hungarians moved back in good order to their camp. But the Mongols threw to it, surrounding almost totally the camp and covering it with incendiary bombs and arrows. Which were burning the load coaches and the tents and frightened away the beasts, spreading chaos between their enemies and undoing the autoconfidence of the Hungarians.

The Mongols prepared to throw a charge on the uncohesioned groups of the Hungarian army. But they continued without finishing to cover with any detachment, the siege to the camp by the access gorge to the heath. The Hungarian knights with enough moral courage yet formed a wedge, to resist the charge; it was the last firm resistance of the Hungarian army. But the majority of them moved back by the existing «gap» in the siege, fleeing in small groups towards what they were thinking that would be their salvation. And really falling down In a mortal trap, which was spreading over the whole route of their flight towards Pest.

The Mongol light cavalry, without risking anything, softened from a distant with his arrows the driven to despair deployment of the knights and, later, taking his opportunity, the heavy cavalry charged to squash them. Numerous Mongol light detachments went out in pursuit of the fled ones. A part them was pressing on their rear, to increase their commotion, their chaos and their fear. While, other detachments realized the overflowing pursuit, reaching them from the sides and spearing them or throwing their arrows to them with their small and most powerful compound arches, which shot from the mounts. Along 50 km, in the way of return to Pest, spread the remains of the Hungarians, their mounts and their equipments. More than 70 thousand Hungarians knights and auxiliary died in the battlefield, in the camp and in the escape towards the southwest. After the battle of the Sajo, the Hungarian resistance collapsed.

The Mongols immediately attacked Pest and burned it. But they did not dare to cross to the west side of the Danube in the exploitation of the success. In spite of the moral and numerical supremacies that they enjoyed in these moments. Batu and Subodai gave rest to their army and consolidated the positions at the east of the great river. And so more than half a year passed, where the principal related event was a slightly spirited declaration of Crusade against them from the Pope, of which it was obtained little in the practice. In December, 1241 the Danube froze in this great region.

Resultado de imagen de king bela IV of hungary  MONGOL’S LIGHT AND HEAVY CAVALRIES.

The Mongols made good use of their time to plunder Buda, realized a reconnaissance in force in Austria and sent a detachment to the South, towards Zagreb, in pursuit of the king Bela. And on the 25th they assaulted Gran, the Hungarian capital and See of his archbishop, taking with them everything of value and antiquity they could.

A marvellous End for Europe. Who, What for?

Central and Western Europe were mature for a Mongol invasion. The Europeans did not have an army capable of facing this threat, which already was throwing them the breath in his napes. The strategic plan explained by Subodai to the Khan and to his generals seemed to be faithfully fulfilled up to his last parts. But, this was already only an illusion, the impossible one. An «appearance», which Sun Tzu would say. On December 11, 1241 they had received in the headquarters of Batu and Subodai an escorted messenger from Karakorum, the Mongol capital in the Eastern Asia. He was bringing the news that Ogadai, the Great Khan, had died and that his widow was acting as regent, until a new Mongol emperor was elected and promoting to the throne. The Mongol present princes were anxious to make worth their rights for the succession and decided to return to their capital, taking with them the imperial tumens.

Batu knew that without these select troops, he could not keep Hungary in his power. But he thought that with the Turkoman recruits, who already were experienced and taken part in combats, he might keep most of his territories. This way, the Mongols evacuated Hungary, without being hindered, harassed or pusued by their enemies. Though behind they left the land that was theirs. This was a symbol of their idiosyncrasy and exploiter character up to the extinguishment, land bandit and absolute predator. And without the minor aptitude to create, to keep, to develop, to extend and bequeath his successors, a civilization that was deserving this name. And not only to leave them the accumulated results of his outrages, bails, taxes, plunders and booties and the military educations to obtain them.

Batu returned to his departure field base, in Sarai, near the Volga and at scanty 100 km north of Astrakhan. And there established a Mongol subsidiary empire, which was known as the Golden Horde. The Mongols would not have another equal opportunity to invade Europe. After this aberrant nightmare suffered by the Europeans, these invented all kind of stories and myths, in which they narrated how they had defeated the «Tartar» invaders (this way they in general knew the Mongols) and had forced them to return to their lands.

This unthinkable, sudden and happened, in the last possible moments resulted… marvellous, Was it a matter of Destinity and of Europa’s Karma and his privileged Civilization? ¿Or was it the result of a Divine Intervention by the intercession of the Holy Virgin Mary? Certainly, humanly was an excessive and incredible chance. But the faith can never give some «evidences», because it would stop of being and would turn into the verifiable reality. The Divine effective intervention, in favor of Europe and his civilization, which without the Christianity operating from his marrow, would never look alike to what it went and to what is. But It is probable, because That is never thundering or overwhelming. God did not visit Elias in the beams storm or in the hurricane-force wind, but using a tenuous and soft breeze. And, to the esoteric and sincretists, the explanation might be «a cosmic action of the astral and akasic forces, in favor of the Light, the Peace and the human Civilization, towards the top levels of the Universal Conscience «.

Also, there exists a «rational» and common explanation of what happened, but that cannot specify the moment to begin this opportune retreat. The Mongols and the central Asiatic associate tribes were creating an Euro-Asian empire in the first half of the 13th century. But their material capacities and their ideological and religious resources were not corresponding with such important aim. As already we saw, for the peoples of the occupied countries, they did not have anything satisfactory and lasting to offer them. The Mongols were kept in these foreign lands by the threat of the known terror. As it would happen with other tyrants, that tried to become «worldwides», their necessary collaborators were ethnic or ideologically similar. But the Mongol etnia and his related ones were demographically insignificant, to be able to monitor and defend alone such vast empire. All this, in the decades of the invasion of Eastern Europe, had tightened up to the point of break their military capacities. This way, more early that late, the Mongols had to realize that retrograde general march, to assure and consolidate their lands in the East of Eurasia. Moving away from the contact with dynamic, Ideological and expansive civilizations, as the European. With whom the relations of vicinity and the first exchanges of merchants, explorers and adventurers would been solved by the military clash.

THE END.

THE MONGOLS INVADE EASTERN EUROPE (1238-1241).

After the death of Gengis Khan in 1227 his the second surviving son, Ogadai, succeeded him in the Mongol throne. The Mongol expansion eastward was limited by the Pacific Ocean and scarcely were staying free enclaves in China and Persia. But, towards the West, the great steppes of Russia were offering to the Mongols an enormous opportunity of conquests. Using these extensive areas, which were favorable to the advance and the maintenance of his rapid hippomoviles armies. These steppes had been awarded to the grandson of Gengis, Batu. The great Mongol general Subodai urged his conquest, to strategically protect the west flank of the Empire and as possible operational headquarters for the invasion of the green plains of Hungary. These natural plains might serve in its moment for the advance in north and west directions of the Mongols tumens («divisions»), towards the conquest of the core heart of the Christian Europe.

The Prolegomenons of Europe’s Invasion.

This «strategic panoramic» insight of Subodai filled with enthusiasm the court and the Mongolian chiefs. And, this way, Ogadai provided the general with around 50 thousand veteran men, under Batu’s nominal control, to conquer the steppes of the west Russia. In the winter of 1237, the Mongols crossed the frozen Volga and penetrated in Russia. The Mongol army was reaching 120 thousand light and heavy riders, with auxiliaries and luggages. Including their catapults for the heavy fire and the means of siege and to construct these. And it had increased with the recruitments of Turkoman realized in the advance route and authorized by Ogadai. The quality of this reinforcement for the Batu and Subodai’s army was deficient and variable, in comparison with the Imperial tumens.

During the following 3 years, the Mongols systematicly destroyed the feudal Russian kingdoms of the west. Using the frozen rivers as broad and long routes without obstacles to deeply penetrate in them and to positionally dislocate the enemy defenders forces. With the capture of Kiev in December, 1240, the rest of the Russian organized resistance disappeared. And the Mongols were reaching in force the Carpathians mounts, the natural obstacle that was protecting Hungary.

Resultado de imagen de BATTLE of buda and pest 1241

Though in this epoch, in the beginning of the Low Middle Ages, the European leaders did not know practically anything on the Mongols, both the general Subodai and the prince Batu were regularly informed about the difficult political European situation. In effect, in February, 122, Subodai and Jebe, at the command a corps army of 20 thousand Mongols initiated a reconnaissance in force of two years in the western Russian steppes, looking for advance routes for the Mongol armies towards Europe. There they recruited a permanent and well paid spies’ network in different nations. And they realized a secret alliance with Venice, for which, in exchange for relevant information about the geography and the always changeable politics of the European states, Venice would get a trade monopoly in the Mongol conquered territories.

In January, 1241, Subodai concentrated the army around Lvov and Przemysl, close to the river San, tributary of the Vístula. This «strategic departure base» was at the north of the Carpathians and at a distance of 300 km to the Hungarian Danube. To realize the invasion, the army only was possessing then 100 thousand men. The reason was that it had to keep occupation detachments in the Russian west and to protect its communications towards his base. The operational gravity center of these were the mountain passes of the Carpathians towards the south, towards Hungary.

That were defined by the Tisza and his tributaries network, which were forming the Carpathians valleys. But the advance of the Mongols towards Gran, the great capital at that time, at 40 km to the northwest of Buda and Pest, all on the Danube, would leave the invading army exposed to an operational counterattack of the Germans, Austrians, Bohemians or Poles. That might fall down on his right flank and eastward communications. Threatening them, this way, with serious losses or isolating them from their base, being able to surround some Mongol detachments.

The Mongol worry towards the enemy was generally strategic, thinking about their exposed flanks at the level of the occupied countries. This worry was originated in his always exiguous number of riders for the entrusted or looked aims. And also in the not tactical invincibility of his forces, if were meeting an organized, skilful enemy, who was using opportunely and effectively his heavy and light cavalries, and calm to resist their tricks and feints. The Europeans only were possessing the heavy cavalry. Where his nobles and chiefs fighted and around which, as main weapon, his infantry armed retinues and armies were articulated. This way, Gengis Khan, in 1221, after the conquest of the Moslem empire of Samarqand, placed approximately between the Sir Daria and the Amur Daria, systematicly plundered Afghanistan. And his son Tului killed most of the inhabitants of the north of Persia (Khorasan). With it they were protecting the south flank of the brand-new empire.

The Beginnings of the Invasion of 1241.

To defend this flank of the mentioned assaults, Subodai divided his army in 2 «very asymmetric army corps». The principal corps would carry out the invasion of Hungary and the auxiliary, small corps, would fulfill the double mission of clear the European threats to his advance on those Hungarian cities and his communications with the Carpathians. The auxiliary army, at the orders of the princes Baidar and Kadan and formed by 2 tumens, advanced first, in March, 1241 and, crossing the Vistula by Sandomir, surprised the Poles. But, to separate them from Hungary, «they» had «to allow» his mobilization and later concentration. This way, dividing his meager forces, Kadan advanced through Poland in northwest direction. Seeking to extend the alarm and the consternation for all his interior and «to threaten» the German States placed at the west of the Oder.

Resultado de imagen de Mongolians attack Pest

For his part, Baidar went in southwest direction, directly towards Cracow, the capital, burning and plundering everything what could at his passage, to attract on his detachment the enemy attention. And, suddenly, close to Cracow, the Mongols stopped and initiated in a short time their retreat, following the opposite direction to the previous advance. They were simulating this way to be a small incursion force, possibly explorer, already moving back to his base. The Polish cavalry forces, concentrated for the defense of Cracow, did not recognize the rapid retrograde enemy march as a tactical trick. And, filled of a warlike ardor that was inflaming their senses, they were thrown after what they thought that it was a great victory already in their hands. This way, they left their positions under the protection of the infantry and the walls of Cracow, to realize a frontal warm pursuit. Without before having really beaten their enemy and leaving in hands of the wind all the due precautions. On having seen them, the Mongols accelerated their march and even left their prisoners, with what the Poles saw insured the «reality» of his conjectures. But in Chmielnik, at 18 km from the capital, a very ungrateful surprise was waiting for them. The whole Mongol light cavalry, conceal for the distant sights and deployed forming a half moon with his checkered detachments, began to throw clouds of arrows with piercing punch arrowtips, that easily penetrated in the armors and protections of the Polish mounts and riders. The majority of these simply died. The inhabitants of Cracow, when the news came, terrified fled in mass, and the Mongols, reaching the Polish capital, set it on fire.

Baidar continued up to Breslau, the Silesia’s capital, where found that the population had lit fire to the city and sheltered in the citadel. There he knew that in Liegnitz, at 65 km to the west, Henry, the king of Silesia, had formed a very heterogeneous army of 25 thousand men to attack them. He also knew that the king Wenceslao of Bohemia was going with his army of 50 thousand men to meet Henry. Baidar decided to rapidly go to Liegnitz, to prevent the meeting of both enemy armies. In the way, Kadan and his mobile detachment, which already had completed his mission of general grieve the Poles and Eastern Germans, joined him. Both tumens reached Liegnitz on April 8, 1241. The 9th, the king Henry went immediately to facing them. He did not know that Wenceslao and his army were situated at only a day of march. In times of difficult and precarious communications, the ignorance, which is rash for its simplification, was replacing the lacks of information with own elaborations, based on the greed and the dread. His army deployed near the city in a plain.

Resultado de imagen de Mongolians attack Pest BATTLE OF LIEGNITZ

When the Mongol vanguard appeared in the horizon, Henry sent a small detachment to reject it. But a rain of arrows made it to move back to his rows. The king counter-attacked with all his cavalry. The Mongol vanguard, saw threatened, avoided the immediate contact and moved back. In what looked like to the knights an escape, after having kept the calm opposite to minor forces. The charge of the Silesian cavalry transformed in a career at full gallop, being disorganized and dispersed, looking for his prey. The Mongol archers were waiting for them in calmness, provided with their perforating cuirasses arrows. When the Silesian riders were inside their effective range, the Mongol archers covered them with arrows, knocking down many people and pulliing up sharply their clumsy assault. Already beaten the knights, the Mongol heavy cavalry charged against them and dissolved them. In turn, the light cavalry, screened by smoke bombs in his sector of advance, threw against the Silesian infantry, that were waiting at the end of the deployment. Behind, the Mongol heavy riders also charged, knocking down everything at their steps and killing the king Henry of Silesia.

When Wenceslao known about the disaster of the Silesians, stopped his march and moved back to protect Bohemia. Receiving for it reinforcements of the kingdoms of Saxony and Thuringia. The allied army formed in Klodzko, close to the gorges of the river Glatz, at 100 km to the south-east of Liegnitz. But, the Mongol reconnaissance detachments warned their princes of the dangers of those. In addition, the Mongol army corps had suffered enough losses in his raids and previous battles. In that moments, in less than one month of operations, 20 thousand Mongols had crossed around 650 km in enemy territory and gained 2 decisive battles. Poland was beaten and shocked and the Germans at the west of the Oder were moving back and preparing to defend their kingdoms.

The Bohemians, still intact, were at 400 km from the Hungarian defensive positions in the Danube. For what their army was operationally ineffective to achieve the decision in the Mongol attack to Hungary. To make sure of Wenceslao’s «intention», the Mongols realized a demonstration towards the west, inside Germany. Wenceslao pursued them. At a decided moment, the tumens deployed in small and slippery detachments. And, forming an almost invisible cloud for the enemy, they slipped for both sides of the Bohemian army and moved away from this.

In his retreat to meet Subodai, the Mongols crossed for Moravia, destroying his settlements, stores and fields. This way, they created a wide desert plateau, which would protect furthermore the right flank of the principal Mongol corps. On having left these lands unable to support for a time an army crossing it. In this secondary campaign Baidar and Kadan managed to eliminate any possibility that the Czechs, the Germans, the Poles and the Austrians were sending their troops in aid of the Hungarians. And they did it taking and keeping the initiative against a very numerous enemy, who was acting unco-ordinated. Whose principal weapon was the heavy cavalry, that acted only by the shock. And operating with a greater operational movement capacity, protected by the secrecy and the concealment, supported by a sufficient and constant information. And using in the combats decided by them the whole repertory of the tactics and technics of their cavalry, which were almost incomprehensible for the Europeans. And they could come in time of rejoining with Subodai’s corps at almost the end of the Hungarian campaign.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

THE RECONNAISSANCE AND THE INTELLIGENCE: A MILITARY OPERATIONAL SYSTEM. 2nd Part.

(FINAL)

The near future of tactical reconnaissance.

Major tactical reconnaissance weapons, tanks and low level flying aircraft tend to be vulnerable to modern infantry antiaircraft and antitank missiles. They appeared on the battlefield in the 1970s and have become more effective since then. Since the mid 1990s, these rockets have been incorporating various technologies such as double active heads, multiple search engines, which allow them to discriminate against enemy decoys and secure the target, and those that allow them to use variable flying heights. For example, upcoming infantry tank rockets will be able to locate, define and confirm their target by magnetic distortions of the environment (generated by the relatively large metal mass of the tank), acoustic signals, heat emissions (human and motor and weapons) and short wave emissions. Their way to the target will oscillate to circumvent possible weapons deployed against them.

Resultado de imagen de deep range combat and reconnaissance patrols NEW ZEALAND’S LONG RANGE RECON PATROL.

All this will tend to give greater importance in the reconnaissance of to the deep range combat and/or reconnaissance patrols. They are inserted by air or river means, as close as possible to its operations area and designed to stay longer in it.

Combat reconnaissance: The immediate and continuous contact with the enemy and determination of the capabilities of the fighting ground.

Combat reconnaissance conducts ground reconnaissance, the relation of his own army’s adjacent units in established contact points and the location of the enemy to help determine the enemy’s intentions and characteristics. This latter mission is subordinate to the goal of obtaining intelligence. Every unit must establish it always, without need for specific orders. It is important to advance the subunits as rapidly as possible; if only is conducted by infantry, it may be necessary use vehicles to transport troops, who can then continue on foot.

In open flanks and exposed wings, its range must be adequately extensive. By means of anticipated patrols, combat reconnaissance constitutes in its actuation a real security for units in the front.

 Its organs are armored reconnaissance companies and platoons, reconnaissance patrols of units in the different sectors, observatories and forward platoons of artillery, etc. The platoon at disposal of the H. Q. and services company can be useful in the battalion area for rapid action.

Combat reconnaissance has a basic function to detect resistances and weaknesses in the enemy deployment and weapons, and in the “interfaces of action” created on him. It needs to use tested skill, sufficiently intense and never superficial, that is knowledge about the weaknesses of tactical units and the fortresses of opposing deployments, as well as its efforts to present the illusion of such deployments. It is important to act according to the mission and the gravity center of the effort ordered by the high command. Colonel Tor made this point in his book “Infantry” (page 31 Madrid, 1943), “…advance through the enemy weak points and fight from one’s own strong points».

Resultado de imagen de soldiers on patrol  A PATROL…

Information collected from various sources, becomes available intelligence and is transmitted to those interested.

The reconnaissance generates information on the different action levels and the ground, which it also recognizes. That must be converted into intelligence. This is the reasonably reliable and sufficient knowledge (never excessive or intoxicating) of the enemy, of his intentions and possibilities and of the terrain, in its possibilities of struggle, transitability (more than ground ongoing), etc. Received updated and without continuity solution.

The elaborating organs of intelligence are different for operational and combat reconnaissances, since also they both generate different types of information. The principal difference are their qualitatively different levels of actuation, in which they must give the set vision: enemy, area and possibilities. And that the need for combat intelligence is urgent and more continuous, and its transcendence, very fleeting, so it is much less elaborate and more direct to fighting units, from its reconnaissance.

Once intelligence is created, it is integrated by the superior command, G-2. It will then be transmitted to units and interested commanders. Transmission must be protected by all existing means, guaranteeing secrecy and its arrival to the addresses by means of double couriers, coding, etc.

Transmitted intelligence must assemble the suitable characteristics of the moment and ensure reliability, continuity, transmission security, and the wealth of content and its sufficiency. It must also be opportune and continuous. The security of transmission of intelligence affects plans and decisions that based on it. It must be sufficient, rich and trustworthy enough to give command, within a reasonable amount of time, as complete idea as possible of a situation and to plan for its possible evolution and factors that will affect that evolution. Sufficiency drastically limits the excesses of unnecessary information which disorients and tires those in command that try to use them.

G-2 is converted this way into the penetrating and lucid eyes of the operative command.

The security as “opposed complementary” of the reconnaissance.

The reverse of the own reconnaissance is the fight against the enemy reconnaissance and the intelligence. She has as purpose to blind the enemy about our intentions and deployments, depriving him of operational information on us or misleading them. Security is the “opposite” (complementary, not antagonistic) of our reconnaissance.

Resultado de imagen de soldiers on patrol   COVERING A SECTOR…

One of the active ways of fighting enemy reconnaissance is employing our operations security. Other is to employ advanced detachments, type reinforced platoons, to push back the enemy’s reconnaissance by means of mobile fighting with its “center of gravity” focused on where his reconnaissance have to operate. A pushed back reconnaissance can give erroneous information to its intelligence on the actual possibilities of possible axes of advance towards us, our real capacities or our defensive intentions.

One purpose of security is the immediate protection of units against surprises and the unforeseen, by keeping a sufficient “combat readiness” for such situations. Units must also keep necessary forces alert as part of maintaining a practical reaction time. The tasks of security are to protect units from direct fire of infantry heavy weapons, to detect and avoid surprises, ambushes and enemy incursions and to detect and reject enemy reconnaissance. Every unit establishes at all times the security sector, zone (brigade or regiment) and area (division), according to its size. Between 1/3 and 1/6 of the unit, according to the situation, carry out security functions; the organs of which are the different sub units of the branches employed.

For camping units or in assembly areas of different classes, a safety line is established to delimit the protected units and at suitable points (accesses, etc.) double sentries are placed. At difficult to secure places (gorges, etc.) rapid mine barriers are placed. From this line, security units advance fixed and mobile patrols. Fixed patrols monitor critical security points (dominating points, enemy possible observatories, inevitable passing points, etc), relying on the mobile units to achieve always an active security.

Resultado de imagen de campos de minas militares  MINES BARRIER.

And, this so useful and simple, is always done? No, sir, not always.

«On June 10, 1944, soon after the midnight, the second battalion of the 29th division of infantry of U.S.A. was prepared to pass the night. The men had traveled approximately 25 kilometers over the last 20 hours. The official in charge of the battalion, Commander Maurice Clift, chose a zone of two meadows so that the troops were to spend the night in the open. The men entered the zone and set themselves up for sleep along terraced hedges. They were so tired that no one bothered to untie their rucksacks and personal equipment. The majority fell asleep at once. Some heard the noise of approaching engines but thought they were American vehicles.

However, the vehicles were actually German tanks and trucks belonging to the 352nd infantry division. Unknown to each side, the Germans had been withdrawing along the same route that the American battalion followed in its advance. When they stopped, the German explorers detected the North American movements encamped in the meadows. They quietly advanced and surrounded the meadows.

Suddenly, the Germans threw flares. Under the sinister light, almost as brilliant as the midday light, its assault cannons opened fire on the hedges against the Americans. Along one of the hedges a platoon got up and was cut down by the German machine guns. Many Americans, scared and disoriented, were running in search of a way out of the meadow while the German infantries continued knocking them down them with repetitive fire. The shells of the German mortars were falling all over the meadows. The Americans responded with weak rifle fire, directed at the opposite hedges, which ran the risk of hitting either the Germans or their own men.

«It was terrible”, a survivor told General Cota. «We crawled more than 90 meters out of the field when we heard from behind the shouts of our men. I thought that the Germans were launching a bayonet charge against them».

The commander of second battalion, Lieutenant Colonel William Warfield had his command post in a farm close to the highway. Warfield tried in vain to establish a defense. Those officials who ran from the house towards the field were brought down rapidly. A German shouted in English to the command group: «Give up, give up!». «We will certainly not give up!”, roared Warfield. He tried to lead a small group towards meadow where the rest of his men were, but was killed instantly.

The battle lasted around 20 minutes. The battalion had 150 casualties with some 50 dead, slightly more than one third of its effective force. Just before dawn a gravely injured young lieutenant who was reporting to his division commander, General Charles Gerhardt, fell down suddenly on his knees and struck the soil with his fists, sobbing that he was sorry that all his men were dead and that he had left them where they had fallen.

General Gerhardt was angry. “Without regard for safety, he shouted, The battalion simply came to the field to fall asleep».

THE RECONNAISSANCE AND THE INTELLIGENCE: A MILITARY OPERATIONAL SYSTEM.

The reconnaissance generates information of the different operational levels of military action. This must be turned into intelligence. That is the reasonably trustworthy and sufficient knowledge of the enemy, his intentions and capacities and the fighting possibilities and transitability of fields, etc. To enable us to take a “founded resolution”, based on the use of our means and fighting forms, in accordance with our objectives.

Concepts y Principles of the Reconnaissance.

Reconnaissance is one of the most important functions to be fulfilled by units during operations. The information it provides, how it is elaborated and transmitted and to whom is a fundamental part of intelligence. This, finally, is one of the key factors of decisive command.

Resultado de imagen de SDKFZ 263.    SDKFZ 263.

Reconnaissance can be divided into strategic, operational or tactical and combat, according to its mission and the area it encompasses. The strategic one seeks to uncover key information about the enemy in the operations deep theater: his concentrations of forces, his great movements, his important defensive lines and possible surface targets, etc. A surface target becomes a “destruction zone” by the effective action of heavy weapons of destruction, for example, reactive artillery or tactical nuclear devices.

The operational or tactical reconnaissance tries to define the situation and the intentions of the enemy in the operations area of the great units, type division, corps or army. It determines the movements of the enemy in the border zone between forces, his formations and deployments, his defense lines and possible surface targets. This reconnaissance is carried out by aviation, drones, specific reconnaissance units and the reinforced reconnaissance armored battalion of the corps. In this respect, a total connection and complement must exist in the missions of aviation and ground reconnaissance and keeping in mind that its task is never of fighting.  

The reinforced reconnaissance battalion operates in a sector of up to 60 kilometers wide and 100 kilometers deep. Its advance over the parent unit must be at least 6 hours in order to utilize gathered information. On the basis of its reconnaissance order, battalion commander, keeping his companies always under control, can send up to 16 patrols of 3 vehicles to covering his sector, looking always for a gravitational center of the deployment. Having done this, he can send on the concentric center of the effort up to 2 patrols’ echelons, being relieved or being inserted, according to the used method. Finally, if the area to reconnoiter is occupied by the enemy, he can advance his companies as attack spears, under the screen of advance patrols. The battalion must not infiltrate very deeply inside the enemy deployment, if there exists a serious risk of being isolated.

Resultado de imagen de Panhard AML-245    PANHARD AML 245.

Not all Armies have given or given sufficient value to this last reconnaissance type, which depends on their military doctrine.

All the operational principles of reconnaissance could be summarized as follows: Always focus on the objective received from the command (its mission is to generate information, the combat will be done by others), seeking the maximum use of time and its means, getting and maintaining contact with the enemy and never losing the freedom of action. It will allow him to perform and to escape, without being caught by ever higher forces.

The tactical reconnaissance is also needed in the urban combats. Not always the tactical reconnaissance penetrates too much in the disputed or enemy area. The industrial or populated zones, full of «concealing relative heights» and staggered in depth, which offer protection from the enemy sights, even nearby, and covers against the light and heavy fire, «thicken» considerably the tactical maneuver of the contenders. Reducing this way, the depth of the fighting zone of the infantry. So, masses of the artillery, as batteries and medium groups of it, are deployed at very short distance to his enemy. In a artillery fighting zone then very next to the forward limit of the own defense position.

“On October 9, 1942 a patrol of Soviet reconnaissance entered behind the German lines in Stalingrad, seeking to detect the enemy movements in his rear. The 4 men sheltered in an auxiliary railroad coach, torn and left, placed in a railroad between the workshops of the Red October factory (where before were made metallic pieces and small weapon), at North-East of the city. And the disputed Mamaiev hill, towards the geographical center of Stalingrad, which was offering grand sights on most of the city.

Resultado de imagen de Engesa EE-9 Cascavel brasileño. ENGESA EE-9 CASCAVEL.

During almost the whole day they remained in that hiding place, communicating by radio to his lines the German activity. They had located several dozens of German mortars and howitzers, accompanied by the trucks which were moving his ammunition, by the rear roads to some emplacements placed in the suburbs of Stalingrad’s west. Also they located numerous mortars and pieces placed in a glen at the north of the Mamaiev hill, doing fire against the Soviet positions in the city.

On having got dark, the explorers broke a telephonic cable of the fixed enemy network of communications and hoped that the Germans were coming to repair it. Very soon they observed the light of a lantern and when the soldier came closer, killed him to shots. One of the Soviets disguised himself with his uniform and placed close to the route of the railroad, hoping that another German came closer the cut cable. Soon another lantern started approaching by the way. The soldier fell in the ambush and the explorers made it unconscious. On having recovered, he met 4 Soviets of foot together near him. Pulled down the soldier Willy Brandt gave his name, range and unit of belonging. Psychologically they had already gained the hand on him.

Resultado de imagen de drones guerra Vietnam   DRONE AQM-34 Ryan Firebee, IN VIETNAM.

Immediately afterwards, the German told to the explorers that 94th German infantry division had come to the factories zone from the south of the city, that 24th panzer division was going towards there and that the Fuehrer had ordered that Stalingrad should be totally taken by October, 15. This confirmed to them the reason of the extensive movements estimated by them in the German operational zone.

For the small reconnaissance patrol, to take with it after his lines, a prisoner already interrogated, was more a nuisance and a danger that a minimal success. And, in spite of the hardness, even the brutality, of the combats in the city, they neither killed, nor mutilated him. The Soviets reported to Brandt that had revealed military secrets, took him to the railroad line and indicated the direction that he had to continue to reach his comrades and left him free”.

But, what is this of speaking about operational reconnaissance in the age of the electronics, the robotics and the computer science?

Almost 50 years ago, the North Americans had developed an arsenal of electronic devices, directed to the vigilance (surveillance) of his enemies in Vietnam. Already they had reconnaissance drones to monitor «from above» their guerrilla slippery enemy. That transmitted his images by television to the planes of detection and transmission, placed at dozens of km from the observed zone.

Resultado de imagen de sensor ADSID   ADSID SENSORS .

The principal sensor used in the remote vigilance was the ADSID (Air Delivered Seismic Intruder Device). It was thrown principally from the F-4 Phantom, following guidelines of navigation by radar, in order to cover adequately the observing zone, as a traffic route of men and vehicles, a parking or store. The device measured 91 cm. of length and 15 cm. of diameter. And on having fallen down was remaining almost buried, opening then a transmitting aerial of 120 cm. height, camouflaged as if it was a defoliated bush. His battery allowed it to issue during a month and half.

With these sophisticated artifices they were trying to observe the traffic of goods and men by the Ho Chi Minh Route, the route of supplies of the Popular Army of North Vietnam and the Vietcong in South Vietnam. It was a highly branched out and protected route that, departing from North Vietnam penetrated in Laos and crossed it. And then, detached diverse routes towards the different communist operations zones in South Vietnam.

The program «White Igloo» destined 1,7 thousands of million dollars between 1966 and 1971, for these tasks of compilation of information with the ADSID. With the information gathered from the traffic in the routes, the Americans were deciding the interdiction bombardment actions, using his different air devices, including the invisible and inaudible (with his cruise height) B-52 strategic bombardiers. At the beginning of 1971, the information of the aerial photos after the bombardments, taken by planes that were flying after the assault formations, allowed the analysts to suppose that the «war of trucks» was causing a very severe effort to the industrial capacity of the suppliers of North Vietnam (the USSR and China).

Resultado de imagen de Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System  A BOEING OF THE JSTARS SYSTEM.

But, if it was true that were destroying so many trucks and equipment, how was possible that the communists were keeping the tactical initiative in South Vietnam? On the other hand, where were the tens of thousands of remains of trucks that literally had to cover many of the ways and parks of the Route? Who were bothering to remove them? The response was given soon by the American junior officers: they were ate by a monster called the «Great Laotian Truck Eater»; a horrible rotten that was getting up towards the dawn and was devouring the vehicles destroyed by the aviation during the night, after the photography for «wreck count». Because the Americans are very scrupulous with the statistics and consider the lie an almost inexcusable social sin for his civil servants.

Up to today, almost 50 years later, the electronics, the robotics and the computer science have continued improving. But it does not seem that they are useful in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, to detect a “donkey bomb”; to avoid that group of cruel fanatics without God («as Allah does the Good, make you also the Good and do not promote the corruption (the “evil», the Noble Koran orders them), destroys great part of one of the principal mosques sanctuaries of the chiism in Samarra; to know if in an Iraqi or Syrian house are terrorists or only a terrified Arabic family, before demolishing her with heavy fire from a distance and extremely, according to his military operational doctrine.

In addition, during enough time still the air and spatial American means, as spy satellites, drones or not crewed planes and planes of the system Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), will have serious limitations for the detection and check of small ground, even regular, forces. In the areas of difficult transitability and with possibilities of concealment, as mountains, jungles and forests, marshes and urbanized zones (industrial, of logistics, and of housings). Those not only offer concealment, but also coverings from the fire up to the near combat distances.

The Americans do not use the tactical reconnaissance, which demands some tactical characteristics of semi independent elite forces and a specific moral courage. And that is one of the most difficult tasks of the infantry. They use the combat reconnaissance and call her, expressively, reconnaissance.

(TO BE CONTINUED).

IN PURSUIT OF THE MILITARY EXCELENCE.

THE INCOMPLETE AND SLANTED THEORY OF SHIMON NAVEH

The author realizes a methodical and deep critique of the different fighting forms in each of the historical epochs.

It is specially hard and mordant with the form of fight of the Germans during the World War II. His aim is to degrade and minimize it, to reduce it importance and validity in the history of the ground operations. Depriving this way the evolution of the American theory on the those operations, of any intellectual influence or debt with the doctrine of the German war.

The one that the author considers to be more opportunist and tactics, that complete and scientific. And he thinks that it was favored in its results by the lacks and the mistakes of its enemies. It is possible that an academic analysis of the form of German fight, approaches to give this verdict.

But, the evidence is the touchstone of the reality without appearances. And the case is that the Germans triumphed widely and extensively with that one, during the first stage of the World War II in Europe: 1939 1942. During which, his enemies could learn of the tactics, technologies and the German operational strategy. Since it extended too much in the time, on having multiplied the theatres of the war.

Imagen relacionada

And that, in the last phase of the war: 1943-1945, the Germans were exceeded, overwhelmed and, finally, defeated. To what contributed the qualitative and quantitative differences in the logistic flows, which supported both armed rivals; the enormous bleeding of the German commands and cadres, which turned out to be irrecoverable and reduced the qualities of his units; and the quantitative demography of the Allies.

Naveh grants wide quality and esteem to the military doctrine of the Soviets. That he considers to be scientific, because it was following a linear process of arguments, logic and results (that for a long time, were only longed for or foreseen). And that was adapting and guiding specifically and really, to an army of slightly educated masses and nourished by a resounding demography. That always had an insufficient logistic support, when it was not precarious. The mechanization of the infantry to collaborate with the tanks, was always a longing and a hope, more than an average real capacity.

Resultado de imagen de germany military power ww2

At the first times after the Bolshevik revolution, even directed by the young theorist of the deep maneuver, general Mikhail Tujachevski, the Russian armies remembered «slow and exhausting hordes» in their marches. That were living for the sustenance from the own or strangly territory where they were advancing. The men more relatively educated, always scanty, were enlisted in the technical weapons: artillery, engineers, aviation. Or in the most effective and necessary branches for the penetration and the exploitation of the enemy operational rear: tanks, Guard infantry.

Finally, Shimon Naveh concentrates his efforts, summary and praises in the long process of development of the American AirLand Battle doctrine and his following updates. Whose kindness and efficiency got reality in the air and ground offensive against the Iraqi regime in the War of the Gulf of 1991, looking for the liberation of Kuwait from the power of Saddam Hussein. War that was the touchstone of that doctrine supposedly culminada.

Initiated the ground offensive, the American forces and his allies rapidity faced to practically all the Iraqi forces that were occupying and defending Kuwait. From the Persian Gulf operated the naval forces, that threatening with an amphibious disembarkation on the narrow coasts of the emirate. From the south, the American marines took charge in fixing the Iraqi forces of the south flank of the defense. Confirming this way, for the Iraqis, that the assault front of the allies would be the south and east.

Resultado de imagen de soviet polish war THE SOVIET POLISH WAR OF 1920.

But, at the south of Iraq / Kuwait, the bulk of the Allies mechanized forces penetrated in whirlwind along the western front of the Iraqi deployment, blind and static. Immediately afterwards to be divided this allied deployment in several advance spears, over all the Iraqi units of this flank.

The campaign was a great atrition operation: of the strongest against the strong, for the major technological means and capacities of the Allies. Where a simultaneous assault was looked, to the Soviet style, to all the steps of the enemy order of battle and in the depth of his defensive rigid deployment. In the south of this one there existed armored or motorized Iraqi divisions, ready to counter-attack any allied penetration. Towards the center and north, there was the thickness of the Republican Guard, ready to counter-attack any operational Allied action.

Where a simultaneous attack was looked for, of the Soviet style, to all the levels of the enemy order of battle and in the depth of his defensive rigid deployment. In the south of this existed armored or motorized Iraqi divisions, ready to counter-attack any Allied penetration. Towards the center and north, was the bulk of the Republican Guard, ready to counter-attack any Allied operational action.

The concentrations, maneuvers and actions neither were searching, nor had, a gravity center of the efforts. That was successively defined and applied as the campaign was developing. But, using the already mentioned advantages, the allied forces were seeking to fix and crush the enemy units at their range, by a direct and almost joint form. Creating really this way, a battle of encircle and annihilation, of the family of Cannas and Tannenberg, where the liquidation of the siege was done by parts and was uniformly accelerated in the time.

Resultado de imagen de soviet polish war SWEEPING THE RUSSIAN HORDES.

The Iraqi divisions at the east were submitted to the central and direct control of Saddam Hussein and his Central Staff. That depriving them of initiative, flexibility and freedom of action. If not, some Allies’s corps or divisions could have been put in difficulties by the action of some great Iraqi unit. After the beginning of the ground attack and having the Allies the air supremacy in the campaign, the Iraqis were deprived of the operational exploration. So, the surrounding maneuver of the Allies by the east and towards their rearward, was concealed to them.

 

 

The operational Strategy in the Irregular War.

Naveh, nevertheless, does not approach, far from it penetrates and analyzes, a type of war that already existed from a lot of time ago. Before the genesis and ripeness of the American operational strategy. And that is the guerrilla warfare, word taken from the Spanish by all the languages. The one that, pompously, the Anglo-Saxons called war of IVth generation. Though it is almost as ancient as the human conflict. The modern technological armies find difficulties to face this form of fight. Using the means, the doctrine and his regulations, the order of battle and the trainings with which they are provided.

The guerrilla war is synonymous of long and deeply rooted conflict in the civil society, where it appears and develops. It is of low military intensity, except in its last stage (if she reaches it) and of great ideological politicization and polarization of the rivals. These characteristics do that inevitably the civilians are involved in her and that the military conflict is arbitrary, hard and cruel. There face positions and antagonistic interests, which, in the use of the violence, derive towards her limits and that of the suffering of whom involve her.

The author might speak about the application of the operational strategy in the guerrilla warfare. Or used in the direction and the operations of the elite units (marines, rangers, SEALs, etc.), that realize counterinsurgency missions. Here, the gravit centers of the efforts, globally coordinated, include the economic, military, political and social areas. And will exist in these fields and will be applied in a harmonic, joint and coordinated way. Working for a common and convergent effort, using different combinations of means in the different cases that appear.

A central counterinsurgency command will exist, that must bring together and direct the efforts, means and actions. In agreement with the specialization of the means that act and the actions and the aims that are looked for in each of the mentioned levels or fields of action. A characteristic of the acts and their effects is that they must be convergent. Looking for the multiplication and increase of these and the synergy of the first ones. This way, in any action, from a level of forces, budget or looked for results, will act the Counterinsurgency Command.

As examples, in the military area will be gravity centers the semipermanent bases, the communications between the bands and with the countrymen, including the logistics, and the movements of the rebels groups. The static defense will be kept in the centers and means necessary for the effort of war. Others will have to defend by a system of garrisons for the defense of the territory. That will be supported by a military system of mobile patrols and of reconnaissance and of ground attack aviation. The special units will realize deep incursions of attack, exploration and harassment in the areas in dispute with the guerrillas or in power of these.

The Tactical or Operational Military Success. Its Signs.

Introduction.

It is not a question of defining how to act, thing that already we try to do in other published articles or that they will be in a future. But that, perceiving in the operations development certain facts, guidelines or behaviors of the conflicting parts and of the objective conditions (of the ground, etc.), we will be able to diagnose a very probable forecast for the culmination of those operations.

This way, we will be able to trust in and to rest on these favorable forecasts. And to reinforce mental and physically our signs of the Tactical and Operational Military Success. To control better the fears, worries, assignments of the scanty forces, uncertainties, endless lacks, unexpected bad understanding, recoverable frustrations and the partial crises. Which will arise inevitably during the operations development.

The main Signs of the Tactical or Operational Military Success to look for:

The Signs of Tactical or Operational Success about Us:

The operational military plans will be simple, flexible and with capacities of alternative developments. They must be capable of adjusting to the unforeseen and the contingencies. And endlessly incorporating intelligence updates about the intentions and possibilities of the enemy and ground reconnaissance. This is specially important in maneuver operations.

There will exist an operational own initiative, that will allow us to develop our plans. Always using us the activity, even in the defense. And keeping endlessly the action freedom and given priority to its recovery, in case of its loss.

The own exploration and intelligence are fundamental, the more creative and risky is the operation to realizing. Reciprocally, the enemy exploration and his perceptions will be pushed back and/or be disturbed systematically. Will be included in this repulse and mixtify, the security of the units, false positions, advanced detachments and combat patrols, fogs and smokes, the combat for the wireless communications, etc.

The knowledge of the enemy and his actions will be always incomplete and imperfect. And will be extended with the evolution of the situation in relation to him. They will not be known temporarily, even positions, movements, combat readiness, deployments or fundamental units. But not those that affect us direct and tactically in our operation under way. On those we will place the gravity center of our exploration. That will be even “in force” against certain enemy hard objectives.

The own combat capacity for the propose operation will be sufficient and will be equipped, distributed and protected. Considering the friction and inevitable minor errors, derivatives of our own military activity in the hyperfunctional chaotic environment, and the necessary reserves. Our security will inexorably be kept during the operation and in the consolidation of occupied terrain. And specially defending, with combat detachments, the advance sectors of our “mobile groups” operating in the enemy operational rear.

Decisions on which tactical battle areas will be engaged, will consider: accessibility (whether they offer neutral or favorable transitability); vulnerability, whether one’s forces can apply sufficient combat capacity against an enemy, in an area that had not attracted much of his attention; transcendent, the action will produce the decision or will contribute decisively to her and the tactical result will have operational efficiency.

One example is the operational counterattack of the German Armies Group Don of Marshal Von Manstein. That was carried out between February and March of 1943 in the Donbass river basin and around the city of Kharkov. Let us remember the development of this counterattack, its tactical combats and their effect on the “sui generis” Tanks Army of General Lieutenant Popov (Group Popov), the Infantry Armies and both Tank Corps as the mobile reserve of the Southwest Front of General Vatutin and, apart and also, the 3rd Tanks Army of Lieutenant General Ribalko.

The logistics is an essential piece of the victory. When the armies are modern, mechanized and technical. And they are, this way, highly dependent on the fuels, the spares, the supplies of all kinds and on the rotation or reinstatement of units. It is supposed tactic and operationally that the means of all kinds are available and more or less nearby. To support the impulse, the fire and the operative efficiency of all the “units of action”, it is necessary to guarantee them a constant and sufficient flow of the mentioned means. Therefore, the commands must take the actions to defend the «physical support» of the logistic structure. Specially against assaults from the enemy depth or in sensitive and critical points or in the routes most far from our units. Constituted by all the “supplying routes”, from the units up to our operational rear. And that are still more important that the so called “retreat routes”. Though they could coincide in some sections. Among other things, because the modern forces must count with remaining isolated for a certain time. And keeping in this period their tasks, in agreement with the entrusted missions.

The Signs of our Tactical or Operational Military Success about the Enemy:

There will be a passiveness or operational delay in the enemy. Generally he will act with an intention that is not convergent with our own. And, at least, not harmful for our operation, especially in the first stages of the process. When she develops her impetus or push or movement quantity (combat capacity X average sustainable speed, in every stage). This sign of the tactical or operative success is a «pear in sweet», that not always will give itself so clearly, as in the following example.

It is worth to remember the development of the Blitzkrieg in the West and invasion of France by Germany in the spring of 1940. The main part of the French maneuver troops, their three more modern armies, and the British Expeditionary Force rushed toward Holland and Belgium to stop the German scythe-like advance. That was supposed directed at the interior of France and the rear of her Maginot line. The Allied High Commands, whose doctrine had not evolved, were thinking that in May 1940 Germany would repeat their “Schlieffen modified plan” of 1914 in their new invasion of France.

Resultado de imagen de INVASION francia 1940 THE OPERATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

Resultado de imagen de INVASION francia 1940 ITS RESULT…

In agreement with the new plan of General Erich Von Manstein, really the “blow of scythe” was given by the Armies Group A of colonel general Von Rundstedt. Which was possessing as spear lance the Panzer Group of general Von Kleist. His five Panzer and five Motorized divisions, integrated in three Panzer Corps, were going to cross the Ardennes and to carry on a wide break in the French line around Sedan. Turning then rapidly towards the west and pressing finally on the flank and the rear of the Allied forces in Belgium. Which would find operationally isolated, with their line of communications, support of their logistics of supply, cut off.

The tactical enemy activity is inevitable. It will be permanent, harmful and even it will be unexpected and will partially affect us. But it will not be fundamental for our plans. Remember that we are looking for signs of our success, not those of the enemy. The best sign of maturity will be that it does not worry excessively to our tactical or operational commands. If this activity did not exist, it would be because the enemy was not there. To overcome and to get used to these tactical accessory crises and not be left to drag by them, harming our principal operation, is the touchstone of the serenity of the commands. Always we must bear in mind the possibility that the enemy appears tactically in «the moment and in the zone» more inconvenient and difficult for us. If it does it operatively it is that we have incurred a mistake of intelligence or of the valuation of the correlation of forces and of the enemy capacities or intentions.

Napoleon, without getting to exhaust the reserves, but without they were exceeding, attended to the different local tactical crises that appeared in Austerlitz’s battle. After the occupation of Pratzen’s heights by two infantry divisions of the Army Corp of marshal Soult. This sealed the destruction of the joint Russian Austrian army and his Austerlitz’s victory.

Resultado de imagen de Napoleon Austerlitz CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR THE MILITARY DECISION: AUSTERLITZ.

Let’s see the process of development of the tactical containment of the Allied enemy. With the enemy forces concentration attacking the supposed tactical and operative (without protecting the line of retreat towards Vienna) Frenchmen deployment weakness. The grenadiers of Oudinot were sent from the Zurland hill to support the south flank, where the principal battle was getting away. Bernadotte advanced up to Blaswitz village, to cover the Soult’s north flank. The Murat’s cavalry reserve, in the Santon hill, the left flank (at north) of the French deployment, had to fight against Liechtenstein’s cavalry, to support the novices of Lannes’s Corp who were defending it. Kutusov managed to bring towards Pratzen part of the forces of his left wing (at south). And Soult, attacked by three sides, had to employ part of the general artillery reserve to contain the enemy with its wearing fire. Around 1 p. m. Constantine and the imperial Russian Guard counter-attacked the already tired Frenchmen in Pratzen. Their first line yielded. The cavalry of the French Imperial Guard, who had been advanced by Napoleon, supervised by marshal Béssiers and general Rapp, attacked the Russians and put them in escape. And Bernadotte, from Blauswitz, sent a division in support of the center of the punished French deployment.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

THE INFANTRY FIGHTING: EAST VS WEST II.

(CONTINUATION)

 

This doctrine spreads and concerns, across the NATO, the strategic aims of his allies and the assigned and specific means to reach them. The training with IT programs is an example of the new practices of military training. Instead of moving soldiers in the Boot Camps or the vehicles of the mechanized or motorized units in the maneuvers areas, the NATO is developing new artifices in the Network (online) to instruct the personnel. And, though it could not be the norm of formation or training, the project is illustrative of that the Alliance adapts to the new times of «financial global restrictions» for the Armies. But this goes against and impedes, almost for definition, the adjustment of the light infantries to the war against the regular and irregular “broken-down” enemies. And it goes against and prevents the use and the employment of the «maneuvers war» at the levels of the small units and men groups, entrusted to realize it in the fight zone of the infantry. Because the demanding and constant training of the men is here essential and is a condition necessary for his success in the combat.

Peculiarities of the modern Fight in the Infantry Zone.

Any assault aim of the small unit or group of action always will present a route of covered, defilade or secret approximation. That can be exploited to approach up to the close fight distance. This without losses of his combat capacity and without having an engineers’ high formation. So, the “routes” like that might be the curbs of the sidewalks or the sewers in the urban or industrial zones. For the distant or air (drones and crewed planes) observation these singularities do not exist and this way, the enemy does not detect the potential vulnerability of his positions.

Resultado de imagen de deep battle american doctrine

In the rejection the same thing happens, but the other way round. A deployed company in his platoons for the usual circular defense, presents several tens of small exposed careless or not attended flanks. And these can be used by the trained enemy in the use of the microarea to approach and to slip between his combat positions, patrols and fox holes. And to be positioned to attack her by reverse a little later. Or to destroy some important assets (hangar, fuel deposits, vehicles parkings, artillery, aircrafts, arsenals, command positions). And these vulnerabilities and deficiencies are kept and, even, they increase almost unfailingly with the confidence and the carelessness that arise in the routine and current activities.

However much there exist protocols, regulations and theoretical advices that affect in the alert and the keeping of the vigilance and security. Because the permanent «combat availability» neither is kept, even does not exist. And it is not a question, as it is in the habit of doing, of creating any more procedure or of hardening those who exist. Because the bureaucracy and his evils will kill the initiative and the inventiveness of the bureaucratized soldiers. It is a question of carrying out those with interest, commitment with the missions and, the most difficult thing, banishing the mental stupor of the routine. Nor, and this is a deficiency derived from the most panoramic vision that is looked, these elementary “microunits” are trained for correctly and temporarily defend itself. If they are surrounded or overcome in number by the regular or irregular enemy, who exploits the “microarea” and knows the field. And, consistently, they also lack enough organic weapon, as to avoid to be surrounded by an enemy major unit.

In West this specific formation is tended to give to his elite units, whereas his «poor» enemies form in her all his infantry: elite, regular, light and irregular. These «bare» armies have to use more the human resources, on having lacked so many modern and sophisticated means. His men are educated in the control (physical and mental) of the risk and of the fear, to survive. And in the discovery and the development of his warlike potentials, turning one with his environment, to overcome the obstacles, to triumph in the mission and to continue living. Some of the personal characteristics that must be more developed in the western «small units», to obtain a «bonus», a complement, of security, surprise and efficiency in his «interfaces of action» on the enemy in the fight in the infantry zone are: motivation, formation and constant training; mobility, concealment and knowledge of the enviroment; safety, surprise and creativity; resistance, patience, quietude, silence, sobriety, calmness, alert of the senses (dulled by the withdrawal from the nature and the plethora of information that is received at all the levels) and self-sufficiency; freedom of action, initiative and decision at the level of his behavior and mission.

It is evident that, if the men fullly develop these military characteristics and tasks, we will be forming units of elite. But the certain thing is that the added ones or «adendum» of these qualities that they acquire, will give them major autoconfidence. And will qualify them to carry out better the infantry fight against «broken down» enemies armies, that have incorporated them into his usual form of combat.

During enough time still the air and spatial American means, as spy satellites, not crewed planes and planes of the system Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), will have serious limitations for the detection and the check of small ground, even regular, forces, in the areas of difficult ongoing and with possibilities of concealment, as mountains, jungles and forests, marshes and urbanized zones (industrial, of storage and distribution, and of housings). Those also offer covered to the fire up to the close combat distances. It is paradoxical that the western armies, who try to take care and to protect his members, do not sufficiently form them in the fight that his «ragged» enemies realize. These «modern infantry» units would fight by means of the infiltration or the slide; the cover and the concealment; the rapid or imperceptible movements for the enemy observer, according to the case; and always silent; the dispersed and/or camouflaged of circumstances positions and in the later slope; the constant surprises; the countershocks and the ambushes; in both forms of fight: defense and attack.

As for the guerrilla war against the irregular enemies, we will treat the «wide zone» where the rebels do not dominate, but they keep the pulse with the military men and try to go snatching them the people and the areas. This is the zone where would have clearer and direct application the modern western infantry units, to fight against the irregular orientals. The only effective way of defending from these rebel groups is obtaining the initiative, dislocating his movements between positions and towards their aims, exhausting his operatonal rear, taking from them the freedom of action and demonstrating the people whom have the means and the determination to gain the war, supporting his government and authorities. To defend himself is not to be left to reduce or to corner in the garrisons, by the action and the extension of the bands. Garrisons that turn in enormous and costly «protected warehouses» of materials and men without using. This is to be left to oxidize, to demoralize and to enervate by the mobil, active and very asymmetric enemy. And was the “main way” used by the high commands in Afghanistan and Iraq. The “patrols and small military positions” network of in this «critical zone», it has as operational task to deny the initiative and the mobility to the guerrillas, cutting his communications with his bases, with his collaborators’ network and between them, and raise off them, like in the hunt, from his protective bases of civil character and from his isolated redoubts. The «official network», which covers operationally a wide extension, is also capable of catching sensitive information. The knowledge of the rebels, of the zone and of the neighborhood can be one of his major assets. The conviction of impunity of the rebels will disappear.

A necessary and forgotten complement of the regular network to fight against the guerrilla are the rebels «false bands». These would be destined to operate in zones inclined to the insurgency, from where several of his members come. And his action and concealment would be favored by the decentralized character of the rebel groups. His missions would be to obtain information, to prove the loyalty of the civilians and to annihilate enemy small groups or suicides. They should not be major of a reinforced squad, except in the special occasions of combat. This can seem to be imaginary or, at least, theoretically, and unrealizably. But the case is that in the definitive defeats of the Apaches bands in the southwest of the USA, between 1872 and 1886, after the changes effected in the deployments, the tactics and technics and the doctrine by the general Crook, was decisive the incorporation of numerous Apaches explorers in the US Army Cavalry. Not only to locate the hostiles bands, but to attack them specially and hardly. And the taciturn, distant, slightly nice and haughty or indifferent character of these Indians towards other Americans, that can be observed in an attentive visit to a reservation, was not making them precisely inclined to be «collaborationists» of the whites men.

THE END

THE INFANTRY FIGHTING: EAST VS WEST.

The last tens of meters up to reaching a determined enemy or gullible in his positions, form the fighting zone of the infantry. And she has yet major validity and importance in the actual wars. With the approximation to the combat from the brigade, the last global direct human possible vision of the units and resources, and the division, the western doctrines tend to be fixed in the dominant characteristics of the area and of his transitability or ground ongoing throughout the day and of the years seasons and according to the climate, to realize his plans.

But they neglect the use of the microarea at the levels of squads, teams, companions pairs and weapon servants. In the microarea, by means of the cover, the patience, the secrecy and the concealment, those «combats groups» might use against the enemy, his capacities of resistance (to the surprise), of mobility or concealed tactical «activity» (in the defense), of initiative and of freedom of action. Operating over him in minuscule «action interphases» (or microsectors). This is specially actual and necessary in the fight against regular and irregular «nobody» enemy, which lack the modern military technological advances and the economic resources to provide them. And that search for need and/or idiosyncrasy, to compensate his asymmetries with the domain of this infantry fight, seeking to see this way the white of the eyes of the enemy.

The military American Doctrine for the modern Wars.

The news that are received since years from the war operations zones in the countries in conflict, proceeding from the journalists inserted in the fighting forces, of the correspondents detached in the different populations of those (Kabul, Baghdad, Saigon, Hue) and those that the armies in presence issue, are revealing a series of characteristics that are common to the forces of the different western modern armies. They all are following the trend initiated by the Americans of having the enemy less nearby, more seen and observed and more beaten by the heavy air and artillery fire. It is not looked with this, in increasing effects order, to blind it, to disturb it, or to neutralize it, but to destroy it. That is the costliest and improbabliest of his effects and that demands an increased and deficient expense of the resources. And the worse thing is that does not always exist his direct connection with the offensive maneuvers of the ground forces. That often do not come to beating the broken enemy after the fires blows. The ground deployments are «secondary» and, therefore, also are his movements, dispersions and concentrations. The heavy fire has turned into a «economic and industrial» substitute (it changes military effort into dollars) of the maneuvers and the assaults of the ground forces. And the reason of all that is known by the poor and asymmetric enemies of West: the horror to the risk in combat and to assuming falls.

Resultado de imagen de deep battle american doctrine MONGOLS SOUGHT FOR THE ENEMY DISRUPTION, ATTACKING ITS VULNERABILITIES, PENETRATING ITS EMPTY REARWARDS, MOVING FASTER AND CREATING APPEARANCES FOR THE ENEMY.

The massive employment of the heavy fire is the principal «argument» of the Pentagon. His doctrine (Field Manual of the US Army 100-5, Operations) does not emphasize the initiative and rests in enemy reacts to the «real or potential action» from protected positions in the whole operations zone. The USA has created a ground forces with few capacity and skill in his small units for the combat in the infantry fighting zone, where more risk take the men. The trend of the doctrine looks for a formation (knowledge, education and command) and an intelligence (as elaborated, sufficient and constant information) excellent and abundant for the chiefs and officials. They are the managers of conceptualize the combat and the persons in charge of the fulfillment of the mission of his units and small units. It is supposed that the soldiers will do well and will work well, being able to use his sophisticated equipments and those of his companions of unit and fulfilling the orders of his subofficials and officials. These are supposed elaborated at the sufficient level, to give them perspective and cohesion with the intention of the high controls.

Resultado de imagen de deep battle american doctrine GOOD AGAINST A II GENERATION ARMY AND MORE CENTRALIZED THAT OURS: THAT OF SADAM HUSSEIN.

One of the operation principles that gathers strength in this renewed doctrine is that of the simultaneity. This establishes to beat at the same time, with heavy fire of artillery and aviation, the first and second enemy attack echelons and even his reserve, using against her the aviation and the tactical rocketry. The infantry and tanks forces are designed to attack or to counter-attack this now beaten enemy in all his depth and to assure the battle decision. Here does not exist the detection and the assault to the enemy weak points. Nor the «general saving» (an essential, universal and original principle of the war, according to Fuller) of means and of human lives. Nor the skilful, risky and fruitful maneuvers of functional and/or positional dislocation of the enemy. In opened area, the infantry cannot attack without indirect and/or direct heavy fire support and without concealment (night, fogs, smokes, draggings). But this complementary support has been hypertrophying, up to turning into a «weapon» for itself (as decades ago it was tried to do with the tanks) in the mix of the military resources and in one supposedly «maneuvers warfare». About which speak, but not well applied, the updates of the FM 100-5 from 1985. The such promising, already omnipresent and wished “not driven planes” of exploration and/or bombardment or «drones» are not more than the global projection in scope, safety of employment for the user and game of possibilities of the heavy fire, about which we speak. The marshall von Hindenburg designed the adage: «A battle without Schwerpunkt (the place where or the unit that applies our “principal effort”) is like a man without character». The North American army acts generally evoking a heavy, forceful mace, hammering and excessive. The Afrika Korps, by the contrary, reminded us an elegant, agile, unforseeable, (almost) sufficient and effective foil.

The Employment of a IIIrd Generation Army in the “military asymmetric” Enviroment.

The wars of fourth generation are the counterinsurgency wars or guerrilla wars or irregular wars or armed revolts or national liberation wars or organized banditry, which always have existed, coexisting with the conventional variants where only regular forces combat. They are those that the USA has lost or not won lately: Vietnam, The Lebanon (Marines’ peace disembarkation, then demolished in his barrack), Somalia (the uncontrollable and unforseeable wasp’s nest of «all against all» of the tribal masters of the war and the militias of the Islamic Courts, now of al-Shabab), Iraq and Afghanistan. They are very unequal wars against an enemy of lower technological military level man relative to the own regular forces, taken root almost always in the own or occupied civil population, militarily low intense and extensive or long in the space and the time. With awkward frequency, when the human (own or local agents) or technological Americans «sensors» detect some probable rebel activity of the yellow ones, muhaydins or hostile foreigners, they first devastate the building, the «block», the zone. What for them is really a surface target. And then they are going to wipe off and to do the corpses inventory, the «body count». Sometimes between the rubbles they can meet the corpses of a yellow, blackish or innocent and numerous Muslim family. It abuses of the attrition, when the enemy fuses with the civilians. It is careless the active, unexpected patrolling work, who needs proportionally less material and human means. But that bases In the military trade, the physical and moral courage, the freedom of action and the creativity in the low and intermediate commands and in the men.

Imagen relacionada OBAMA FIRED CENTCOM GENERAL MATTIS WITHOUT A PHONE CALL.

The western soldiers have exchanged or forgotten the «principles» or rules of the good to do in the war, for the simultaneity and the depth of the distant fire, covering the whole enemy highly probable zone. With it there is neither means economy, nor principal effort, nor the necessary discrimination between soldiers and the potentially enemy civilians. The armies look eagerly for the safety and the confidence in his decisions and missions. Precisely when the environment in which they are and act in the last 5-years periods, the guerrilla or asymmetric wars, is variable, fleeting, without definite limits, confused and hard to grasp. The uncertainty, the chaos, the mistakes, the friction and the failures, the scanty means and the partially fulfilled plans, the weariness and the fear are the «omnipresent demons», that characterize and concern this neutral «magma» of the war. And it is neutral because it leaves being drive and guide largely by the human superior «plans and actions». That are stimulated by the «correct sense» of the commands, the determination, the will, the physical and moral courage, the motivations (ideological, religious, ethnic, social…), the suitable training, the sufficient equipment, the commitment with the tasks and missions and the respectable and respected commands.

Resultado de imagen de obama got away from iraq and afghanistan SOME DEADLY RECORDS.

George Bush’s strategic national doctrine established, but without being due explained, not tacitly accepted by both American parties, that the «asymmetrical wars» (irregular and with low level of military equipment) were supported and necessary, to remove of the American territories and those of his allies, the threats of the fundamentalist foreign terrorism of any origin, religion or ideology. It justified the ill-fated post war bad oriented occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. But, with a fiscal and exterior deficits ran away and with a Democrat Administration, it is necessary for the USA to save in military resources. To dedicate them «to construct a nation here, at home», as defined Obama. This way, the USA lowered qualitatively the bar of the exterior terror, putting al-Qaeda as almost the only one violent not national enemy. This internationalist salafist terrorist «network», with delirious and impossible ideas, without own territory, with his operational chiefs known, fled and not wished as guests in a normal country, is a more attainable, adaptable and manageable aim for his forces and means of «rapid punctual incursions». This justifies the increase of the use of the drones, spy satellites, own or local agents in the hostile areas, operations of assaults by elite units and small expeditionary forces and of Marines amphibious assault. These transported by «ships of control and transport» of strategic projection with his naval escort. The deployments of tens of thousands of military men and his luggage and specific equipment for several years in an operations theatre, they are indefinitely rejected by the new «doctrine» of the «diminishing defense».

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Modern Allied Urban Warfare against the Insurgency.

Introduction.

The American and European troops are prepared to fight against a regular military enemy provided with a masses army. Or even more modern, of the IIIrd generation, with more elaborated technologically means and better trained men, to support the lonelinesses and tensions of the awaited current battlefields. Definitively, his «way», his action space, is the direct and opened clash in presence of a great profusion of probable enemy targets. His instrument is the attrition, the destruction of the aims that the enemy presents and could be detected and acquired in all the depth of his march or assault deployment. The last two enemy echelons, nowadays increasingly remote or deep, are reached by the longe range support aviation or with the ballistic or autonomous missiles of medium range.

Resultado de imagen de Russian Ordnance fire in Middle East

Which is here the role of the man? To detect and confirm the enemy targets, to try to fix them, if it is about a patrol or a small combat unit and to call his «ordnance» in order that it devastates them. Only his elite units, always scanty and, therefore, exceptional and precious, are formed in the nearby infantry fight using only his organic means.

In Iraq and in Syria the islamist bases are always in the cities and populations more favorable for the activity of his different bands. And they are surrounded or permeated by military local and foreign forces. Already initiated the war, the North American intelligence intercepted a memorandum of 17 pages written by Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, former chief of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, to Osama bin Laden. In it he was expressing his worry for his survival: «In Iraq there are not mountains where we could shelter, nor forests in whose thickness we could hide. There are spies eyes everywhere. Our backs are exposed and our movements are realized in view of all». And this geographical military space is similar in Syria.

The Action of the military Forces against the current Insurgency.

In the books on the guerrilla warfare, it is discused of the tactics of the siege to the military fixed or semipermanent positions. The guerrillas, deprived in the first phases of an ideological armed revolution (communists, of fight against the foreign occupant) of enough military capacity, have their guidelines to attack the mentioned military positions.

Resultado de imagen de Russian Ordnance fire in Middle East RUSSIAN REACTIVE ARTILLERY IN SYRIA

In the zones not dominated by the guerrillas, but bordering the areas under his control, it is where develops the fight of those for removing the military enemy. Seeking to also control these areas and to realize in them his ideological indoctrination of the populations. The guerrilla bases only can grow in space or increase his number, when the military enemy moves back. Or when his positions (advanced positions, barracks) are submitted to a more or less nearby and ferreous siege. That must be continuous in his effects: that is to say, controlling the approximation and exit routes of those. To threaten, harass, check and to attack in its moment the surrounded forces. And the reinforcement and supply columns of that come to help. Using limited attacks, ambushes and traps and registered fire bags.

In the regions infected by the guerrillas, not necessarily occupied by them, the military positions are protective, extensive and few fortress. His garrison is high. The military set evokes there a blind, awkward and low mobile bunker. The military men realize from them special forces operations of reconaissance and against guerrilla positions and of march to the combat on targets of zone, at charge of strong columns. To occupy and then defend them, according to the capacities of the military forces. In this, the commitment and moral of them is decisive.

Resultado de imagen de Bombing in Middle East GOVERNMENT CARPET BOMBING IN SYRIA.

In the irregular war against the bands of the Islamic State, the armed forces and his auxiliary ones use in his operational strategy, some of Mao Ze Dong’s 10 military principles to direct the tactics of the Chinese guerrillas and semi regulars. Those were enunciated by Mao on December 25, 1947 in his speech before the Central Committee of the PCC. Let’s see, in not necessarily original order: 1) To attack first the isolated and spread enemies and later the stronger enemy forces. 2) To take first the small villages and, finally, the big populations. 3) Not to fight combats, if you are little prepared for, nor present combats in which the victory is not sure. 4) To concentrate always for each combat forces absolutely superior to those of the enemy. 5) To destroy the enemy while it moves and is more vulnerable. 6) To use the intervals between campaigns to rest and to regroup and to train the troops…but not allow that the enemy have a pause, not even a breather. 7) Take first the populations low defended. And, when the conditions are favorable to us, those with medium defenses. And wait to increase our advantages, to assault the better defended cities.

This operational strategy outlined by Mao, using simple, didactic and efective procedure, is of a low military level. As corresponds to an insurrection that had to grow, to develop and to spread. And that was employing rural uncultured forces and was arming itself principally with the enemy captured weapon. Mao said that he «had a call option in the weapon of the British arsenals».

Resultado de imagen de ejercito iraquí chií IRAQI TANK WITH SHIA BANNER…

But this same orthodox operational strategy of the weak rebel against the strong military, is that are going to use the Allied forces, agglutinate and supported by the USA and Russia (in Syria), to attack an islamist insurgency, entrenched in his urban bases. And keeping the massive, repeated and overwhelming employment of the modern air and ground heavy fire on the rebels. So much in the battles and combats that appear, as for the wear and interdiction of the islamist positions, his facilities and movements.

Seeking as strategic aims to defeat the rebels and to occupy his bases or positions. That would be finally select for a policeman’s labor. Bases that are the only hard, definite and static aims, which the guerrillas have. With a qualitative difference with the diffuse, evasive, fleeting and slippery aims that the guerrillas offer in movement. Bases that are directly attacked, using the military forces (to those that is supposed better trained and equipped and, at least, equally motivated, that the rebels) and his enormous power of direct and indirect fire.

Resultado de imagen de german anti partisan operations RUSSIAN PARTISANS.

The military and social problem that exists here is that the Allied rebel Arabic groups, the Kurdish peshmergas and the Iraqi military men and his loyal militias, lack the military virtues of the National complete armies. And they have acquired not military habits on the preservation of his men in combat. Avoiding them at any price the mutilation and the death. In It have influenced decisively the religious and social origins of the different «allied» soldiers groups and his interests and divergent aims, at times even antagonistic, within these two civil wars. Social elements and parameters contaminated, spurious and, even strange, before the concept of the Umma or community of faithfuls of the same god, Allah.

Resultado de imagen de shia tanks against isis IRAQI SHIA MECHANIZED ARTILLERY AGAINST ISIS

They follow for it this operational strategy of going very little by little, first occupying the weakest islamist positions that surround and defend the biggest. Devastating with the heavy fire from the distance the islamist disclosed positions, which are intermingled with with the houses and refuges of the civilians. Because the war they do, so much the Americans as the Russians and all his allies, in the urban fighting areas that are the islamist occupied populations of Iraq and Syria. And the prolongation of the war, the major time that they will use to obtain his military aims, preserving his men in the combat, the civilians will pay it. With his blood, with the destruction of his material means and buildings and with his massive displacements, seeking to save already only the life and without knowing who will receive and help them.

Let’s see a historical example of the action of counterinsurgents forces, in high unfavorable conditions for them. The German forces antipartisans in the USSR always tried not to be forced by the guerrillas to the passiveness of the garrison or the escort. In his manual of «War against the Bands» they were establishing that “the initiative must be always ours. Even if the commander only has a small force at his disposition, he must not show failures in his resolution. If it is possible, every action of the bands must be answered».

The Germans not only were prevented in his operations against guerrillas by a men’s habitual inferiority. But, also, for the heterogeneous quality that they were having. His antipartisans troops were consisting always of variable combination of forces of diverse origins and qualities: borders troops and German troops of security and policemen; security troops of his Allies in the front of the East, specially Italians and Rumanians; and a high-colored mixture of Allied «Russian» forces of security and of self-defense, sometimes, insafe. The hard core of the units were the Germans. The posts did not have homogeneous troops. In them, the men’s qualities were intermingled, in order that mop or novice was encouraging by the presence of the strong, and in him was removed the thoughts of weakness or desertion.

Resultado de imagen de german anti partisan operations LIGHT ARMORED VEHICLES GIVING SUPPORT TO AN ANTIPARTISAN OPERATION IN RUSSIA.

Before the inability to provide troops and security to his rearguard in the whole territory conquered to the USSR, at the west of an imaginary laid out between Leningrad and Stalingrado, the Germans had to select very well the points of garrison. These rarely had more than one platoon of counterguerrilla forces. In addition, it was thinking that with 4 or 5 men, the post could be defended for a time. While, others, in 1 or 2 patrols, were going out to chase the partisans in the nearby villages, to monitor the vital line of communications or to support other positions. When new units were created or if there was a temporary «surplus» of antipartisans forces, there were formed reconnaissance and combat patrols. Something like reconnaissance in force patrols, to locate and harass the guerrillas. When it was necessary to realize an offensive major action, against a guerrilla threat or the location of an important bands concentration, even there were temporarily brought troops from the forward line (of the operational zone), for the assault and destruction of that one, generally looking for his siege and annihilation.

It is true that the German results were limited. And also it is true that the principal operational aim of his antipartisans forces was fulfilled. The lines of supplies were kept reasonably opened from Germany, Poland and Romania up to the rears of the German forces and his allies in the East. And the flow of men, armaments, equipments, supplies and goods that received was constant. To allow the gigantic effort of war against the almost inexhaustible resources of the USSR. Millions Soviet prisoners were sent to the Reich and towards there there came back countless units and men of the Wehrmatch, in his continuous rotations.

The Ambushes against military Patrols and Units.

Introduction.

One of the principal tasks of the military men of the International Forces in Support of the Security, deployed in the Southwest of Asia, in the countries menaced by the islamist terrorism, is the motorized patrolling by the dusty ways that interlace the zone of influence of their barracks. These areas almost lacks Tarmac roads. When there exist they are not a great thing. The caps of asphalt have between one and two fingers of thickness; and the heats soften them and pot-holes and bubbles are easily formed. Usually, this is not an aggressive patrol. It is an exhibition, routine and of visual and logistic link patrolling, between their principal and secondary positions and with the nearby population centers.

When the military men think that there can be problems, they receive the support of the air observation. They are reconnaissance not manned planes (the UAV, in his initials in English), whose use spreads in these asymmetric conflicts. They can detect (in ideal conditions) at 5 thousand meters if a person is armed. The Americans use the Predator model (which is armed also) and the the Searcher (without attack capacity), being able both to operate up to 350 km from his base.

Resultado de imagen de Guerrillas sunníes JAISHALADL SUNNIS IRAQIS GUERRILLA POSING…

In some cases the rebels and bandits have dared to attack some of the military marching columns. Fighting from fixed and spread, hasty fortified positions, forming a fringe like a half moon or crescent, which was embracing the march way. Their problem was that the rebel weapon were of tense fire and so their fighting positions were in the forward slope. So, the armed light armoured vehicles with foreign infantry, could combat profitably with the guerrillas in their reinforced fox holes, small trenches and folds of the ground. In effect, their targets acquisition and machine-guns fire control systems, were allowing them the selection and the precision of their fires against the punctual targets of the irregular rebels. And were forcing them to move back and to hiding in the near hamlets.

There are more others cases in which the rebels use the explosive handcrafted artifices (in English, «improvised explosive devices») in the ways crossed by the military men in patrol. They usually place them setting off from the villages, as their improvised forward base, and taking advantage of the concealment and the protection of the nights. There is a high afraid to these artifices, already famous from the postwar period of Iraq. Because they are unexpected, unpredictable and hard to detect. Also, are enervating (the mental perspective of a possible, though improbable explosion, burdens much more than the real probability of the hurts in the attack) and they put the men in the passive defense and in the wait, knowing that active measurements to avoid them are not taken.

Resultado de imagen de improvised explosive devices

The explosive hollow charges that form the majority of these artifices, attack the “low guts” of the military foreign vehicles, their most vulnerable and less protected part. Down there, they cannot carry the reactive charges of repulsion or a multiple layers “shield” with ceramics, like the hulls of the main battle tanks. It is calculated that the Afghan Taliban and the members of the ISIL rebels can place and activate during a year, more 10 thousands of these handcrafted mines. Some correspondents call the artifices, the most effective weapon of the insurgency. Though they are, in their operational set, like an immense minefield; but that are not simultaneously placed and super widespread, improbable and without being covered by the enemy fire.

The Technologies and Tactics to eliminate the Danger of the Ambushes and Explosive Traps in the Tracks.

There are several, the passive or reactives and the actives, assuming that the initiative and the aggressiveness, against worse prepared and trained rebels, is with the military men. They all are «defensive». Since the Department of the War passed to be named long ago of the Defense, everything is “defense”.

Between the passive ones can be to increase the visual recognition of the tracks, observing protuberances and changes of color that should not correspond, in the soils of those. The «travel times» of the columns would diminish a lot. It is necessary to cross those more slow, looking at the soil and looking over the horizon, searching also for careless observers, not very distant. They do not use too much cable activators. These are expensive and weigh, and the rebels are in isolated zones and their logistics is weak and complicated.

The devices are activated generally by the pressure of the vehicle or by a transmitter of a given frequency and range; it can serve an opening doors device. With their frequency inhibitors, the military men try to offset the radio waves of the probable frequencies in the zone. Being the most expensive and complicated transmitters, that with more range, power and frequencies range of use. It is the game of the cat and the mouse. The problem arises when the guerrillas of an area receive a transmitter activator that uses an unforeseen frequency.

Also the columns might be harassed by registered mortar fire during the stops that they were doing to confirm or to eliminate some possible artifice, as some of them might be simulated.

Resultado de imagenGENERAL VALERIANO WEYLER.

Another way would be to move out of the tracks, cross-country running. For the wheel vehicles, this not always is possible. And, in addition, their wear of the pieces and the consumption of fuel increase very much, as also the march schedules. At the same time, it diminishes the comfort and increases the weariness of the travelers in missions of long range and routine patrolling.

That it is not said that it is impossible or very difficult to do. Since this was what the general Valeriano Weyler did, to frighten the Cuban mambises of the surroundings of the ways and tropical paths. On February 10, 1896, the general was taking charge of the government of Cuba and of the headquarters of the Spanish army deployed in her. The president of the Cabinet, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, restorer of the Bourbon monarchy, was supporting the politics of keeping the colonial domination in Cuba, up to «sacrificing the last man and the last peseta». And named Weyler for the mentioned positions, in substitution of the general Arsenio Martínez Campos, the peacemaker of the war from 1968 to 1978. Which this time failed in bringing positions over with the armed rebels.

Imagen relacionada GENERAL ARSELIO MARTÍNEZ CAMPOS.

The Cuban guerrillas, in this new war, were taking advantage of the concealment of the “manigua” (tropical jungle) and his nearness to the ways, to harass with rifle fire the Spanish columns and to cause them some falls, without getting involved in a fight. Weyler prompt designed the tactic of rejection the enemy. A reconnaissance with combat capacity was going suitably forward to the Spanish columns in march. It was moving by the jungles (autochthonous bushes) that were surrounding the routes of march, without moving away too much from the paths. The “mambises” or Cuban armed rebels, forming variable and scanty harassment forces, were this way raised from their ambushing positions and drove away from the principal Spanish forces.

Particularities of the mountainous zones and their inhabitants.

The mountainous areas of the geopolitical region of the Southwest of Asia are specially dangerous for the foreign military units of any size in maneuver. The spurs of the heights are frequently crossed by wadis or seasonally dry riverbeds of brooks and springs. In them it can conceal a group of men. That will not become visible until his opportunity of harassment by the fire arises, from rapidly reinforced and camouflaged positions, of the military units. Or have an encounter skirmish with some military group that comes out to the hollow without precautions.

Also it is easy to approach some rocky outcrop, adorned or not by a small thorny bushes, without detecting any enemies patiently crouched down behind it. That will attack the carelessness soldiers, using their knives or cutlasses. Even, when the men return to the principal way, after establishing and keeping a defense position to secure the march of the principal column, giving them the back.

The tribes who live there have as characteristics in their identity and customs, the belligerence and the intertribal brawls. The most important and widespread are the etnia pashtun and the baluchis.

The surprise, which is an effective multiplier of the «specific combat capacity» of a given unit, is constantly and systematicly employ by the irregular fighters. This way, it happens that, «in this wide, ocher and arid valley, they have never attacked us», because the mountains that frame it are at 300 or 400 m. in the horizon. Well, today they are going to attack you with short bursts (2 to 6 shots) of machine gun with bipod, when you advance gullible and spread in that dull and known valley. Without bothering for establishing the march security with pickets, which protect the principal column. And offering multiple small targets to the tenacious, thoughened and poisonous enemy.

Military Tactics in the counterinsurgency fighting.

Finally, some specific tactics and techniques exist for the fight against irregular rebels, that can be used here. It looks to keep the initiative, the creativity and the law of the action in our side. It is a question of the independent employment of light infantry small units (at first, type plattoon or section) in reconnaissance and attacks tasks of the enemy bands.

For the defense of the own communications, they can be used aggressively against the bands that scourge or that hinder them (the artifices are like more spread and selective mines). For example, they can advance and conceal in a sector where the terrorists or local bandits bands are active. In the night, when those are usually placing in the tracks their explosive artifices, they will attack thoughtlessness them (with the maxim surprise and for the major effect). This demands of all the men of the patrols and units: formation, motivation, commitment with the mission, specific training, initiative, creativity, self-sufficiency, sobriety, patience, serenity, alert of the senses, silence and quietude.

An advantage that will multiply the combat capacity of the military patrols, resides in that these bands usually neglect their security in what they think that it is their rear. As soon as a combat has taken place with the rebels, the patrol must be extracted or return to his barracks. To rest, report or brief, return to train, to be equipped and to move to another sector, when it be appropriated, in another mission.

Epilogue.

Any ambush that turns out to be effective involves a failure, a deficiency, a carelessness in the security of the attacked. The routine of the actions; the softness of the men; the sufficiency and conceitedness of the direct and top commands; the scanty formation of the soldiers; the insufficient motivation of all the military men and his lack of commitment with the tasks or missions. They constitute serious departure faults to the creation and the maintenance of an effective march security. In the reconnaissance and of combat patrols and in the movements of the units and small units.

And, though the security does not appear frequently in the «lists» of the principles of the war, specially in the most short, the security has come to remain. And the failure to keep this principle will concern in major or minor degree and extension the efficiency of other «companions or partners principles». Since the whole of the principles forms a holistic, synergic, concurrent and convergent group, on the military actions. Defining all simultaneously the «what to do» in the war or in the armed conflict.

THE MILITARY SURPRISE AS ART AND HETERODOXY

Almost all the technologies, tactics and operations directed to obtaining the tactical or operational surprise over the enemy, can be benevolent considered at the edge of the regulations and existing procedure. That are practised in the different countries and groups of them or supranational alliances.

Between other reasons, to fight only according to the «book» is usually too much acquaintance and predictable. In addition, many of the general «knowledge» gathered in them are shared by different blocs and nations, even antagonistic. And it is necessary, to respect the regulations and ordinances and to look for the aim indicated by the command, as the goal to obtaining.

But the creative and decisive action must follow the one that we call the «way of the surprise«. As guide, compass, of our decisions and actions. Looking for that fleeting and juicy opportunity that arises in the development of the mutual actions between the armed rivals; those careless or vulnerable enemy weaknesses, in conditions that we can create sometimes, equally more unforeseen and unusual. To obtain our goals with more forcefulness, efficiency, elegance and rapidity. Achieving it with fewer loss of time, of men and of means. Let’s remember the basic and universal principle of the economy of the means.

Sure that following always the «book» they will be able to approach and to take to good term the common operations. But, apart from the fact that the enemy has an essentially equal doctrine and regulations, a way of fighting will be first known and then learned or dominated and, probably, up to overcome finally by the enemy. The triumphant Germans in the first period 1939-1941, with the extension of the war, allowed the knowledge and the learning of his war of combined weapon by his enemies. That finally overcame them in technologies, tactics and operations and drove them to their thunderous defeat in 1945.

And this «guide» is of special need and affection in the bureaucratized and crystallized armies. Where the unforseeable, not guilty failures, are not only a contingency to be overcame by the set. But they can be also an administrative or political weapon against the persons in charge. And where the follow-up of the «book» and the superiors orders to the letter, armour and protect the low commands of the responsibility of their acts and results.

Martin Van Creveld said that was the anteroom, before the final unworkability and prostration, of «the military organizations that were not getting up-to-date and renewing». Martin Van Creveld was expelled as lecturer, many years ago, from Israel’s Military High College.

Then, the results will be obtained increasingly at the cost of the wear and the men means and materials losses. Tending to triumph then the rival that more demographic and economic capacity has.

There arises then a corollary of this way of thinking the military thing. The zeal to avoid human falls, extended to all the modern armies or of IIIrd generation, will lead to the preventive, protective and therapeutic employment of the own heavy fire. Looking that the own forces do not have to fight at close ranges. This is called military modern technology and is highly regarded by the national armament industries. This is not more than the perversion and trick of the heavy fire. Whose functions or tasks, in increasing order of action and efficiency, are: to blind, to disturb, to neutralize or cover and to destroy the enemy in the different fighting forms and situations.

And the action over the aim will tend to the physical destruction, as guarantee of the security of the men. In the actual civil wars in Iraq and Syria, we have the examples in the exagerate and methodical bombardments on the enemies. Armed and civilians; real and suspects.

The Military surprise, looking for the enemy dislocation and shock

During his operations, the enemy deployment is conforming in the direction and with the intention that he has decided and determined, for his military echeloned means and for his logistic routes. This way, he is showing his «cards» to his rival, depending on his action tempo and he is commiting, according to those.

Our surprise can create «per se» a new «exposed flank«, another more or less critical «vulnerability» in the enemy. That he was not considering yet, that he was not waiting, nor was prepared to defend her by some of the fighting forms. That are the attack and the defense, in their varieties and combinations.

Our surprise «penetrates» in the enemy deployment, seeking to shock and dislocate functionally or positionally it. And, at least, to cause him losses, to occupy profitable positions for our operational development, to diminish his tempo or operational pace and to confuse, delay and disturb him in his plans and deployments. Using for it, by our part, the minimal means expense and seeking to achieve the maximum possible effect on the enemy. With which we optimize the effort of our actions, following the general principle of the economy of the available means.

When the enemy reacts, to offset and overcome the effect of our surprising action, he is adapting necessarily to our intention. And, if that one is serious, he moves away more or less from his interests and plans. With his reacting movements for the rejection and the attack to our forces, the enemy is disregarding his intention and his mission. In relation to these, the enemy is removed from them and also unbalanced. This way, a right conceived, planned and realized surprise can «prepare» the enemy for us. So, he face in disadvantage, with fewer available resources and a worse deployment, our offensive principal action. That would be already more direct, massive and orthodox.

In such a way that exist a whole range of possible effects to obtaining over the enemy with our surprising actions. That will change also according to the means destined to obtain our surprise, the conception, the preparation and the accomplishment of it and the available time, considering also the set of our operations.

WARFARE IN THE INFORMATION AGE.

Introduction.

The appearance of the IT treatment of the information supposed a revolution in the capture, production and transmission of the existing or caught information. Whose possibilities and transcendency are still far from know, even in his scope and his limits. The information generated in a battlefield or an operations theatre of is enormous, ephemeral in diverse times, almost immeasurably and fluid. The latter quality is fundamental for the production of the intelligence. That is the information caught by the units and sensors of all kinds and that is digested or prepared by the specific organs (G2, S2 and agencies of intelligence), to create a sufficient, effective, opportune and constant intelligence. That is used by the «advanced users» or commands in the different levels of military action (tactical, operative and strategic).

Since it could not be otherwise, in view of the brief exposed scheme, the IT industry soon found an enormous area of activity and possibilities in the military field. And the high military commands, often in «ad hoc» prepared meetings and coctails, received from the manager directors and chairmen of the branch corporations, animated, brief and exciting presentations of the enormous performances that might give to their units of all the branches, the designed, elaborated and installed softwares and hardwares by these vanguard technical companies. The battlefield or the operations zone (the area, the enemy and I), known, conveyed and controlled in real time by my men!!!

The Support of the military Information Systems.

It is not the case that these new technologies allow to elaborate a complex and integrated weapon system. This already existed before the information age and the electronic existing advances allowed his creation. For example, the AEGIS defense system for ships against aircraft, warships, missiles and submarines was designed, created and installed for the first time in 1973. It is equiped by destroyers and even frigates (in a simpler model) of the USA and his allied nations. And this way they are called the «shields or defenders of the Fleet». In effect, every «naval group» centred and escorting an aircraft carrier and every «naval combined force of strategic projection», rely on several ships provided with the AEGIS system. This consists of a powerful radar of several megawatts of power, capable of catching and continuing up around 200 potential targets, placed at distances of up to 350 km to the installed system.

The caught information goes to a computer center that reports to a decision center. Which arranges the launches of missiles depending on the mission of the group or naval force and the estimated danger generated for him by the target. The system is installed in front of the armoured control center of the ship. That gives the final permission for the launch of the missiles. These are arranged in rows of vertical silos (habitually, are four with 4 missiles each one) placed in the front cover, in the part that was occupying the conventional artillery. The silos are re-fed from the interior of the ship with other missiles after the launches. The missiles are propeled by solid fuel, which allows that they should be smaller than the land launched. And the adjustment of the system is studied for the destruction of the enemy ballistic missiles.

Resultado de imagen de warfare in information age

The activities that the military men realize in action in front the enemy are numerous, varied and some of them are complex. And all of them demand a sufficient attention from the controls and men. Let us see some of the most significant. Regarding the movement in the ground: to advance, to stop and to move back; so much running as walking, crawling or incorporated, and doing it by jumps or in zig zag. Regarding placing and valueing the environment, hostile or not: to observe, to detect, to process, to decide, to transmit or not the results and to act. Regarding the form of fight (rejection or attack): to hide, to cover and to be protected, to change position, to define well evasive detected targets, to receive the orders of the immediate chief, to attack them with deliberate, rapid, etc. fire, (if it is a question of an infantry). Regarding the communication with his “group” (team, weapon, squad, section): to receive orders and information, to send information and orders, to spread information. And they carry out all this under the uncertainty, the lack of comfort, the tension, the loneliness, even of his companion or buddy, and the fear … The constant and repeated sometimes audio-visual information, that is communicated by the modern digital systems can relieve this physical and psychic load of the soldiers? So to achieve it, would really be of great help for them.

Resultado de imagen de warfare in information age ARE THEY LOOKING, DECIDING OR FIGHTING?

Resultado de imagen de warfare in information age IS IT USEFUL HERE?

To all that, it could join a flood of information, insignificant in this moment for his mission or his immediate action. This can generate an increase of the needs of the attention capacities of the military men. Through the more important senses, the sight and the ear. And to originate a diversion of his effective available attention (if there is), towards external not fundamental or neutral stimuli of the images and the conversations. The system is going to transmit them a clearer and detailed information of the targets, even defining some more ephemeral or veiled. But it will not give them information about the intentions and the mental conditions of the different located enemies and their group. Though the system is served with probabilities, previous experiences, alogarithms and reliable estimations…

A practical Application.

In the new model of fighting, the attacking force would be kept simultaneously dispersed, communicated and informed in real time and looking for and attacking the enemy. It would be the supposed advantages of the swarm and his concentric and simultaneous assault, which would count now with the knowledge of the ground and the enemy, thanks to the multiple sensors and systems and the real, caught and transmitted information (not intelligence) to the units of the force.

Are similar in capacity all the units of the force? Then we are demanding from them that each one acts as a «polyvalent» fraction of the unit, without specializing them. With what they will probably have some specific, quantitatively insufficient capacities. Are specialized the units of the force? Then they will have to rely on the simultaneous concurrence, in the defense and the attack, of several units. That should complement between all the necessary functions of this tasks «group». And if the enemy electromagnetic countermeasures work against the wireless communications and is established a communications «silence»? And if we now do not have the telephony circular network of the unit and do not possess double couriers for the transmission of “parts and orders” to the chief and from the chief?

And if the enemy deploys in the same way as us? So we would come to a general clash of weak individual forces against enemies weak forces individual. As the great units spread out for his fighting form. Clash that would be solved by multiple partial and isolate combats, using the attrition. They would be like the singular combats of champions and leaders, which happened in other times. And would gain those who were finally keeping a major number of valid units. It would be a clash won by pure material wear of means: men, military means and expensive and sophisticated IT material, almost without transcendent application.