• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Informing the Army’s Future Structure

PS - those Marines and landing ships for which there is no strategic purpose are regularly deploying in the Baltic and on the Norwegian coast.

 
Well personally I would consider both the Dutch and Canadians to be poorly prepared. I do think that the Dutch are better prepared for a broad range, as well as having a real IFV for their Army.
 
Well personally I would consider both the Dutch and Canadians to be poorly prepared. I do think that the Dutch are better prepared for a broad range, as well as having a real IFV for their Army.
It is kind of sadly humourous that we're arguing over which non-US NATO member has crapped the bed more thoroughly in providing for an adequate and well equipped military.

Brandon Scott Jones Reaction GIF by CBS
 
Your focus is entirely on the army equipment and, notwithstanding the pejorative language you use every time you mention a Canadian capability,
With respect, any pejoration outside of "fistful" with respect to armoured vehicles is entirely inferred, rather than implied. The other comparisons are just factual data points. That they appear negative is because they are
The Dutch have downsized a very capable Cold War army to a small one with a few good equipment choices. I don't think that one artillery battalion and two CV90 battalions give you very much in the form of capability.
Two CV90 bn's, properly outfitted for full spectrum warfare, a SP 155m bn, with a MN tank, an AD umbrella for them to fight under.... sounds like the kind of NATO contribution we aspire towards (and have been asked for)
The three reconnaissance squadrons use a rough analogue to our TAPV/LRSS but there are far fewer of them.
Their recon squadrons are our regiments- 97 Fennek's to the squadron (plus a platoon to each Mech Bn)- and "rough analogue" is very generous- a purpose built low signature recon vehicle of demonstrated efficacy vs a FrankenMrap lemon not fit for purpose and 66 vehicles that won't reach FOC until sometime this year
Yes, they've made some more intelligent choices when it comes to AD and AA systems.
Those choices being to maintain a proper capability

the fact is that all that they can muster is 48,000 personnel forces wide for more money than Canada spends.
Is headcount the be all end all?

The fact is that as of the start of hostilities, with roughly the same FT army headcount
- a multi-layered AD umbrella, with expeditionary capability
-3 fully outfitted infantry bde's, 1 each light, motorized, mech
-a full Bn of SPH's
-a robust ground/ armoured recon cability
-a method of maintaining and generating a deployable squadron of tanks


If only we had the same jump off point in January 2022
 
It's not a question of Boots OR Bullets.....it's the ratio of Boots:Bullets

Both are required and the ratio may vary depending on the specific effect you're looking for.

Stipulated.

How many boots are you prepared to give up to buy how many bullets? At the micro level I still see it as an either/or matter.
 
Boots without bullets don’t do much…

I would favor a smaller but better equipped and supplied force.
Agree....for the most part.

There does however come a point when your quantity of excellent [insert capability/platform here] becomes too small to be effective.

Stipulated.

How many boots are you prepared to give up to buy how many bullets? At the micro level I still see it as an either/or matter.
True when the dollar amount is relatively fixed or even being reduced (as has been the case with the Canadian military for decades) but at certain points in history the world situation changes such that either/or decisions are no longer made based on what you can afford but decisions are made rather on what you need (regardless of price). We may be approaching such a situation now unfortunately.
 
True when the dollar amount is relatively fixed or even being reduced (as has been the case with the Canadian military for decades) but at certain points in history the world situation changes such that either/or decisions are no longer made based on what you can afford but decisions are made rather on what you need (regardless of price). We may be approaching such a situation now unfortunately.

There is that. (y)
 
at certain points in history the world situation changes such that either/or decisions are no longer made based on what you can afford but decisions are made rather on what you need (regardless of price). We may be approaching such a situation now unfortunately.
I would say that time for Canada was approx 2 years ago…
 
Some people here may find this interesting (though it seems like wishful thinking on the Netherlands part).


It shows both the peacetime and wartime structure of the Netherlands military in 1985. This includes mobilization and collapsing of support/training commands into field formations to support the war effort.
 


there is a reason technology is often called a “force multiplier” — it’s best when it helps our forces, not when it replaces them. All of it leads back to the basic principles of multiplication: 1 x 10 equals 10, but 0 x 10 unfortunately still equals 0.

Lessons from Ukraine and Israel on how America should approach new tech

"There is a reason technology is often called a 'force multiplier' — it’s best when it helps our forces, not when it replaces them," write Rachel Hoff and Reed Kessler of the Reagan Institute.​

By RACHEL HOFF and REED KESSLERon February 16, 2024 at 12:40 PM


The twin conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are providing two very different sets of lessons for how militaries can and should incorporate technology. In this new op-ed, Rachel Hoff and Reed Kessler of the Ronald Reagan Institute argue the US needs to make sure it’s learning why it’s not enough just to have the best tech.


Over the last 10 years of the Reagan National Defense Forum, a consensus has emerged that in America’s long-term competition with China, our ability to deter conflict (and, if necessary, to fight and win) hinges on our technological superiority. At December’s event, the imperative to move faster to integrate innovative technologies into US warfighting systems took center stage in a new way. As Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin noted at the time, “The future will be all about human-machine teaming.”

But simply having cutting-edge technology isn’t enough — a lesson that is playing out live, in different ways, on the battlefields in Ukraine and Israel. American policymakers would be wise to internalize these lessons as quickly possible as they consider how to best prepare for great power competition.

Start with Israel, where one of the most advanced militaries in the world was caught by surprise as a low-tech adversary plowed through its billion-dollar wall on the Gaza border. Analysts continue to evaluate what conditions allowed the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas to occur, but a central critique is that the attacks were successful, at least in part, because of Israel’s over-reliance on technology as a cure-all.

Israel’s impressive defense-tech sector and technologically sophisticated military led planners to believe that its “smart wall” could relieve the need for as many boots on the ground along the Gaza border, freeing up additional manpower to deploy in the West Bank instead. On paper, the border fence — fitted with advanced sensors, radar, and automated machine guns — in conjunction with the Iron Dome would provide ample warning of an incoming threat to muster an adequate response. Despite a historical doctrine favoring offensive action due to limited strategic depth, Israel was gradually lulled into a defensive posture that relied heavily on its overwhelming technological superiority.

Hamas didn’t need advanced technologies
to study points of weakness along the Gazan border and launch an asymmetric attack to exploit these opportunities. Low-tech capabilities enabled its success. Hamas avoided digital communications to evade detection by using hard-wired phones. It used commercial, low-tech drones traveling at a speed and altitude that thwarted Israeli sensors and radar to drop explosives on automated machine guns and communications towers, jamming the IDF’s calls for reinforcements, while snipers blinded Israeli forces by targeting surveillance cameras. Hamas identified vulnerable breach points and used bulldozers to bust through the smart wall and deliver fighters across the border, overwhelming the reduced IDF troop presence. Israel’s reliance on technology as a substitute for boots on the ground translated to a single point of failure that led to confusion, chaos, and mass violence.

Contrast that outcome with what has happened over two years of fighting in Ukraine. Ukrainians are using high-tech capabilities to amplify their military power — but pairing it with savvy force employment. Their use of unmanned and autonomous systems is integrated into the focused efforts of their human troops, not as a replacement for them.

Sensors, attritable drones, cloud technology, Starlink satellites, artificial intelligence, and civilian apps like Diia help locate enemy forces, identify targeting solutions, and guide fires. All of it is designed to enable military personnel to make optimal decisions on the battlefield. The empowerment of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors at all levels to show initiative, experiment with technology, and integrate it into their combined arms tactics has outclassed a rigid, highly centralized, and unimaginative Russian military for much of the war’s trajectory.

These two case studies demonstrate the power of pairing capable soldiers with technology, as well as the peril of attempting to replace the former with the latter. Kyiv’s integration of technology complements its focused war effort centered on the force employment of its soldiers, acting as a force multiplier. Conversely, Tel Aviv’s drift toward using technology as a stand-in for humans to guard the border with Gaza demonstrates the limits of technology alone.

Technological breakthroughs show enormous promise across the spectrum of warfighting. As the United States grapples with the challenge of the PRC as a pacing competitor bent on technological supremacy, concerted efforts to rebuild America’s military-technical edge will be critical to our national security. We can and should strive to test, develop, and field these new capabilities to ensure that American servicemen and women have the best tools at their disposal and never walk into a fair fight.

But there is a reason technology is often called a “force multiplier” — it’s best when it helps our forces, not when it replaces them. All of it leads back to the basic principles of multiplication: 1 x 10 equals 10, but 0 x 10 unfortunately still equals 0. The experiences of allies and partners in ongoing conflicts against very different enemies are teaching us where innovation has the potential to exponentially improve warfighting capabilities, but also where we should guard against an over-reliance on technology that exposes new vulnerabilities.

As we look to tomorrow’s fight, we would do well to remember that the United States has the most highly trained and capable military in the world not only because of the resources at its disposal but because of its human capital. As US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reminded us at the Reagan National Defense Forum, “Our people are the greatest strategic asset that we have.”

Rachel Hoff serves as Policy Director at the Ronald Reagan Institute, the Washington DC office of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Before joining the Institute, she was Speechwriter and Policy Advisor for John McCain at the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Reed Kessler is the Associate Director of Policy at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington D.C. She previously served at the Department of State in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the UN Operations and Crisis Centre and the Council on Foreign Relations. Reed also holds an Olympic world record as the youngest athlete ever selected to compete in her sport at the London Olympics.

The empowerment of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors at all levels to show initiative, experiment with technology, and integrate it into their combined arms tactics

Taking 10 years to develop and field the perfect solution, telegraphed to the opposition, is not a war winner when the opposition is cobbling together counters with hardware, software and tactics on a daily basis.
 
Spot the links









There is an awful lot to unpack in those articles

The changing nature of the fight from the physical to the electronic.
The advantages of a small operation like the Marines cobbling together solutions on the Ukrainian model vs the inertia of the bureaucratic solutions of the Pentagon and the Air Force.
Drones, drones and drones. - and the multiplicity of ways in which they can be used.
And why crawl over the dirt when you can fly over it?

Ukraine has effectively exploited civilian software designed to manage taxicabs to manage both their artillery support and their air defence systems.

Ukraine’s UAV Strike Units, ‘Neon’ Software​

Ukraine’s Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister for innovations, development of education, science & technologies, said in a remote address to the Munich Security Conference today that Ukraine produced 300,000 drones last year, and its armed forces have also built up an “Army of Drones” comprising of 60 UAV strike units.

The strike force, he claimed, has destroyed 14,270 pieces of Russian land warfare equipment including tanks, trucks, self-propelled artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and ammunition storage houses.

“[The strike units] provide significant feedback both for military and drone producers” he explained. “R&D [and] mission planning relies on the information from” the UAVs.

He also said Ukraine is using a system called “Neon,” roughly defined as a predictive software tool used to collect cruise missile route data from an enemy attack that can then be used to reposition air defence systems to dodge future volleys.

Scaling up production of electronic warfare systems, “robots” and drone ammunition
are some of the more innovative projects Kyiv is currently focused on, said Fedorov.

Outside of mass producing FPV drones, Kyiv wants to also increase production of long-range strike types.

“To achieve this 100 times growth of the drones market,
we as a government created a so called ‘Fast Track for Innovations,’ meaning that we simplified dozens of bureaucratic procedures and got rid of unnecessary ones, [including introduction of a] favorable tax regime, [lifting of] import duties, and many more,” he explained.

Ukrainian naval drones have been used to devastating effect recently against Russian warships.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency claimed Wednesday that a special operations unit sank the Ropucha-class landing ship Cesar Kunikov with Magura V unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

Video footage posted on Telegram showed the drones striking the ship off the coast of Crimea.

Similarly, the Russian Ivanovets warship was also reportedly sunk earlier this month. A Ukrainian drone operator said 10 Magura vessels were used to destroy the surface ship, six of which struck it directly, according to CNN.
 
These seem to be the systems that the CAF has bought for Latvia
(Note that Latvia has taken a leading position in a coalition of countries dedicated to manufacturing and providing drones to assist Ukraine - Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, UK, Germany along with Ukraine)

Defense Systems - Falcon Shield
Falcon Shield is a C-UAS for a variety of security applications, including border patrol and critical infrastructure.
www.leonardo.us
www.leonardo.us

1708189364419.png

Anti-Drone in Singapore | TRD Systems Pte Ltd (Singapore)

Our Company is located in Singapore. Our Business are Producer of Anti-Drone System, Turn-Key, System Integration, Supply, Systems, Technology Focus - C4I & Security, Market Focus - ASEAN, Reaching out to Middle East & Europe
www.trd.sg

1708189654709.png

https://www.caci.com/sites/default/files/2021-12/F583_2110_BEAM3.0.pdf

1708189741543.png

Those are all focused on countering drones.

.....

But the Ukrainians are also using the Backpack Jammers to enhance their own offensive drone operations.

The Ukrainian companion piece to the Backpack Jammer (BEAM = Backpackable Electronic Attack Module) is this backpackable drone hangar.

1708189814682.png

Apparently a large part of Ukraine's success with drones is being able to saturate the Russian zone with short range jammers while being able to leave clear paths for their own drones.

I am guessing the analogy is to a Carrier Wing having its own Growler Squadron to co-ordinate its attacks.
 
“If we're providing literally hundreds of one-way attack drones to Ukraine, then when we look at our own army where are our one-way attack drone regiments?


During a talk at the DSEI defence exhibition, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin has called on forces to rapidly adapt their fighting capabilities, suggesting they build a fleet of 500 warships but with “400 of them drones”, or an air force of 2,000 fighters but three quarters of them unmanned aerial vehicles.

He also questioned why the military had to “live with some of our ridiculous hierarchy and processes to do things differently in order to deliver more”.


Ukraine was also demonstrating that long-range missiles and attack drones were having a real impact on the ability to penetrate a country’s defences, with both Moscow and Kyiv suffering strikes.

“Do we need to have a conversation about integrated air missile defence?” he asked. “Do we need to work even more closely with GCHQ and our intelligence partners in order to better protect not only the department of defence but our nation?”


Does Canada need to harden its civil air infrastructure?
 
Does Canada need to harden its civil air infrastructure?
No, but it needs the capability to do so if needed.

You don’t need a MSHORAD Troop and TTHAAD Bty on duty at every airport or port, but you do need to be able to bring a bubble about key areas when a credible threat is reported.
 
No, but it needs the capability to do so if needed.

You don’t need a MSHORAD Troop and TTHAAD Bty on duty at every airport or port, but you do need to be able to bring a bubble about key areas when a credible threat is reported.

Well, many reports say that our air infrastructure is crumbling due to under investment, especially since COVID...

 
No, but it needs the capability to do so if needed.

You don’t need a MSHORAD Troop and TTHAAD Bty on duty at every airport or port, but you do need to be able to bring a bubble about key areas when a credible threat is reported.
How about creating civilian bubbles of sensors, security and DEL/EW that can be hardened with kinetics if and when?
 
Back
Top