The Principle Of Mass On The Future Battlefield

Men of the U.S. Army 369th Infantry Regiment “Harlem’s Hellfighters,”in action at Séchault on September 29, 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. [Wikimedia]

Given the historical trend toward battlefield dispersion as a result of the increasing lethality of weapons, how will the principle of mass apply in future warfare? I have been wondering about this for a while in the context of the two principle missions the U.S. Army must plan and prepare for, combined arms maneuver and wide area security. As multi-domain battle advocates contend, future combat will place a premium on smaller, faster, combat formations capable of massing large amounts of firepower. However, wide area security missions, such as stabilization and counterinsurgency, will continue to demand significant numbers of “boots on the ground,” the traditional definition of mass on the battlefield. These seemingly contradictory requirements are contributing to the Army’s ongoing “identity crisis” over future doctrine, training, and force structure in an era of budget austerity and unchanging global security responsibilities.

Over at the Australian Army Land Power Forum, Lieutenant Colonel James Davis addresses the question generating mass in combat in the context of the strategic challenges that army faces. He cites traditional responses by Western armies to this problem, “Regular and Reserve Force partnering through a standing force generation cycle, indigenous force partnering through deployed training teams and Reserve mobilisation to reconstitute and regenerate deployed units.”

Davis also mentions AirLand Battle and “blitzkrieg” as examples of tactical and operational approaches to limiting the ability of enemy forces to mass on the battlefield. To this he adds “more recent operational concepts, New Generation Warfare and Multi Domain Battle, [that] operate in the air, electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domain and to deny adversary close combat forces access to the battle zone.” These newer concepts use Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA), Information Operations, long range Joint Fires, and Robotic and Autonomous systems (RAS) to attack enemy efforts to mass.

The U.S. Army is moving rapidly to develop, integrate and deploy these capabilities. Yet, however effectively new doctrine and technology may influence mass in combined arms maneuver combat, it is harder to see how they can mitigate the need for manpower in wide area security missions. Some countries may have the strategic latitude to emphasize combined arms maneuver over wide area security, but the U.S. Army cannot afford to do so in the current security environment. Although conflicts emphasizing combined arms maneuver may present the most dangerous security challenge to the U.S., contingencies involving wide area security are far more likely.

How this may be resolved is an open question at this point in time. It is also a demonstration as to how tactical and operational considerations influence strategic options.

The Russian Artillery Strike That Spooked The U.S. Army

Images of the aftermath of the Zelenopillya rocket attack on 11 July 2014. Photos from Oleksiy Kovalevsky’s Facebook page [Unian Information Agency]

In the second week of July 2014, elements of four brigades of the Ukrainian Army Ground Forces were assembling near the village of Zelenopillya, along a highway leading north to the city of Luhansk, Ukraine. They were deploying along the border with Russia as part of an operation to cut the lines of supply to paramilitary forces of the separatist Luhansk People’s Republic operating in the Luhansk Oblast.

A combined Ukrainian Army and police operation in May and June had achieved considerable success against the Separatist forces and the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had declared a unilateral cease-fire in late June. Ukrainian forces resumed the offensive at the beginning of July and fighting broke out around the Luhansk International Airport on 9 July

Zelenopillya, Ukraine and surrounding area [Google Maps]

At about 0430 on the morning of 11 July, a column of battalions from the Ukrainian 24th and 72nd Mechanized Brigades and 79th Airmobile Brigade was struck with an intense artillery barrage near Zelenopillya. The attack lasted only three minutes or so, but imagery posted online of the alleged aftermath reported a scene of devastation and scores of burned out vehicles (see below). Ukraine’s Defense Ministry admitted to 19 killed and 93 wounded in the attack, though other sources claimed up to 36 fatalities. No figures were released on the number of vehicles lost, but a survivor reported on social media that a battalion of the 79th Airmobile Brigade had been almost entirely destroyed.

Video of the aftermath of the attack on Zelenopillya. [LiveLeak]

The Ukrainians quickly identified the perpetrators as “terrorists” using short-range BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launch systems (MLRS) firing across the border from Russian territory, which was only nine kilometers from Zelenopillya. Independent analyses by various open-source intelligence groups amassed persuasive circumstantial evidence supporting the allegation. On 16 July, the U.S. government instituted a round of additional sanctions against Russia, including Russian arms manufacturers and leaders and governments of the Separatist People’s Republic of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic.

Video of Russian MLRSs allegedly firing from the same location as the 11 July 2014 strike on Zelenopillya. [YouTube]

Western military analysts took notice of the Zelenopillya attack and similar strikes on Ukrainian forces through the summer of 2014. What caught their attention was the use of drones by the Separatists and their Russian enablers to target Ukrainian forces in near-real time. The Ukrainians had spotted Separatist drones as early as May, but their number and sophistication increased significantly in July, as Russian-made models were also identified.

Analysts also noted that the Zelenopillya rocket strike incorporated a Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM)  mix of air-dropped mines, top-down anti-tank submuntions, and thermobaric fuel/air explosives to achieve a devastating effect. They surmised the munitions were delivered by Tornado-G 122mm MLRS, an upgraded version of the BM-21 introduced into the Russian Army in 2011.

The sophistication and effectiveness of the attack, in combination with other technological advances in Russian armaments, and new tactics demonstrated in the conflict with Ukraine, prompted the U.S. Army Capabilities Integration Center, then led by Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, to initiate the Russian New Generation Warfare Study to look at how these advances might influence future warfare. The advent of new long-range precision strike capabilities, high-quality air defense systems, maritime anti-access weapons, information operations and cyber warfare, combined with the adoption of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategies by potential adversaries led into the technologically-rooted Third Offset Strategy and development of the Army and U.S. Marine Corps’ new Multi-Domain Battle concepts.