Spotted an article today on the History New Network (HNN): Win, Lose, or Draw?
This got my attention because I have outlined a book I may start work on next year (2017) called Future American Wars: Understanding the Next Twenty Years. This book is intended to complete a trio of books, one on understanding insurgencies (American’s Modern Wars), one on understanding conventional combat (War by Numbers — release date still August 2017) and this one covering the situation going forward.
My opening chapter is called: A Losing Record.
What they are recording in this article is that:
For conventional conflict we have 3 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie.
For other conflicts (what they call the “gray zone”) there are 9 wins, 8 losses and 42 draws.
Anyhow, haven’t checked the individual cases, and in some cases it depends on how your interpret win, lose and draw; but it does bring out a fundamental problem that I was partly trying to address in America’s Modern Wars, which is our track record in these conflicts is not great. My book primarily focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, which I why I felt I needed to third book to cover all the other cases of interventions, peacekeeping operations, and so forth.
Anyhow, the SOCOM briefing chart can be blown up to large size and is definitely worth looking at.
The U.S. tank has more crew (this is a good thing).
The U.S. tank is heavier (this is not a good thing).
They do claim the Chinese Type 99 may be better protected due to its multi-layered defensive systems.
The U.S. tank does not have a Laser Warning Receiver.
The U.S. tank does not have Active Protection Systems.
The U.S. tank does not have Explosive Reactive Armor.
The U.S. tank does not have a “dazzler” laser to blind other gunners.
A few points for further comment:
They state: “Moscow currently maintains good relations with Beijing, with which it shares a border, but the two powers are not close allies, having nearly come to war during the late 1960s.”
They did have multiple engagements in 1969, including two actions that were at least company sized. We were not able to find anything of more significance. See our report SS-1: An Analysis of the 1969 Sino-Soviet Conflict. Link to our report listing: TDI Reports 1992-present
I am not sure they had “nearly come to war” during that time.
They state: “The Abrams, of course, is the classic American design which devastated Soviet-made Iraqi armor in the 1991 Gulf War without losing a single tank to enemy fire.”
We were facing Soviet-built T-72s
Not sure what has been publically released on this, but according to the rumors I have heard, it was truly one-sided. The M-1 was notably superior in firepower and sensors and T-72’s armor protection was deficient.
A2/AD stands for anti-access/aerial denial. There is a recently published article from The National Interest that laid out a potential scenario concerning such an effort in the Baltic Sea. It is only 4-pages and makes for a good read: Entering the Bear’s Lair: Russia’s A2/D2 Bubble in the Baltic Sea
There are a number of NATO members on the Baltic Sea: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Non-NATO members are Sweden, Finland and Russia.
Kaliningrad is part of Russia. It is the old German city of Konigsberg and surrounding former Prussian territory. It was given to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and they attached it to Russian SFSR (which became the independent country of Russia in 1991). The Kaliningrad Oblast had a population of 941,873 in 2010. It is named after the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin (1975-1946), one of the original Bolsheviks.
This keys off of the previous post by Shawn about the “Third Offset Strategy,” of which A2/AD is a part of.
Image by Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
In several recent posts, I have alluded to something called the Third Offset Strategy without going into any detail as to what it is. Fortunately for us all, Timothy A. Walton, a Fellow in the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote an excellent summary and primer on what it as all about in the current edition of Joint Forces Quarterly.
The Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG) articulated 10 missions the [U.S.] joint force must accomplish in the future. These missions include the ability to:
– deter and defeat aggression
– project power despite antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) challenges
– operate effectively in cyberspace and space.
The follow-on 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review confirmed the importance of these missions and called for the joint force to “project power and win decisively” in spite of “increasingly sophisticated adversaries who could employ advanced warfighting capabilities.”
In these documents, U.S. policy-makers identified that the primary strategic challenge to securing the goals is that “capable adversaries are adopting potent A2/AD strategies that are challenging U.S. ability to ensure operational access.” These adversaries include China, Russia, and Iran.
The Third Offset Strategy was devised to address this primary strategic challenge.
In November 2014, then–Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced a new Defense Innovation Initiative, which included the Third Offset Strategy. The initiative seeks to maintain U.S. military superiority over capable adversaries through the development of novel capabilities and concepts. Secretary Hagel modeled his approach on the First Offset Strategy of the 1950s, in which President Dwight D. Eisenhower countered the Soviet Union’s conventional numerical superiority through the buildup of America’s nuclear deterrent, and on the Second Offset Strategy of the 1970s, in which Secretary of Defense Harold Brown shepherded the development of precision-guided munitions, stealth, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems to counter the numerical superiority and improving technical capability of Warsaw Pact forces along the Central Front in Europe.
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has built on Hagel’s vision of the Third Offset Strategy, and the proposed fiscal year 2017 budget is the first major public manifestation of the strategy: approximately $3.6 billion in research and development funding dedicated to Third Offset Strategy pursuits. As explained by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, the budget seeks to conduct numerous small bets on advanced capability research and demonstrations, and to work with Congress and the Services to craft new operational concepts so that the next administration can determine “what are the key bets we’re going to make.”
As Walton puts it, “the next Secretary of Defense will have the opportunity to make those big bets.” The keys to making the correct bets will be selecting the most appropriate scenarios to plan around, accurately assessing the performance of the U.S. joint force that will be programmed and budgeted for, and identifying the right priorities for new investment.
It is in this context that Walton recommended reviving campaign-level combat modeling at the Defense Department level, as part an overall reform of analytical processes informing force planning decisions.
Walton concludes by identifying the major obstacles in carrying out the Third Offset Strategy, some of which will be institutional and political in nature. However, he quickly passes over what might perhaps be the biggest problem with the Third Offset strategy, which is that it might be based on the wrong premises.
Lastly, the next Secretary of Defense will face numerous other, important defense challenges that will threaten to engross his or her attention, ranging from leading U.S. forces in Afghanistan, to countering Chinese, Russian, and Islamic State aggression, to reforming Goldwater-Nichols, military compensation, and base structure.
The ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq show no sign of abating anytime soon, yet they constitute “lesser includeds” in the Third Offset Strategy. Are we sure enough to bet that the A2/AD threat is the most important strategic challenge the U.S. will face in the near future?
Walton’s piece is worth reading and thinking about.
“Bring out your dead!” Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
As I mentioned recently, the U.S. Army is in the process of deciding whether or not to proceed with the XM-25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a precision targeted, shoulder-fired 25mm grenade launcher. The Defense Department’s Inspector General’s office released a pointedly critical evaluation of the weapon nicknamed “the Punisher” in August. Among the negative reviews the report cited was one from the Army Capabilities and Integration Center, directed by Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster’s office has had a change of heart about the XM-25 since that evaluation, however.
“My initial assessment from 2013 did not reflect 30 additional months of testing and improvements to the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System,” McMaster told Military.com in an email.
“The Army has worked closely with the system’s prime contractor to address the safety issues on the XM25 through engineering design changes and improvements to the system. Prototypes employed during two Forward Operational Assessments allowed the Army to learn from and correct system shortcomings, and feedback has been positive.”
The XM25 is not a simple grenade launcher, McMaster maintains. The sight has an integrated day/thermal sight, a laser range finder, and a ballistic computer working in unison to allow the shooter to effectively engage enemy targets under cover.
The weapon is semi-automatic with a five-round magazine that ensures effective fires and rapid re-engagement, as necessary, in all operational environments — jungle, urban, day/night, woodland, subterranean and desert, McMaster said.
“Worldwide urbanization, coupled with the extensive proliferation of rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, allowed our enemies to exploit our desire to end engagements with minimal collateral damage,” McMaster said.
“The XM25 provides an innovative capability that mitigates this vulnerability and minimizes operational risks facing our soldiers, limiting collateral damage in the surrounding area while allowing our dismounted squads to decisively end firefights.”
The Army has indicated that it will make a determination on the XM-25’s future by the end of September.
War by Numbers is available in the UK for pre-order through Casemate: War by Numbers
I gather this is where the European customers can order the book. There is some restrictions as to who can sell where.
Interesting marketing blurb. Parts were pulled from the intro to my book and parts from the conclusions. Still no book cover picture, although I have seen a draft. Has a tank on the cover (tanks always sell).
The Russia’s Armata family of armored combat vehicles (Tank, IFV and SP Artillery) sort of takes the approach we were using with the Future Combat System (FCS)…(which we did some work on for Boeing, oddly enough using Kursk data).
The Armata has an unmanned turret (it really does help to be able to stick your head out and look around).
They then compare it to the M-1 (still on page 1)
“The tank that sees the enemy first almost always wins the fight”
“Further, there is the question of whether the T-14 can be produced in numbers….given the state of Russia’s economy.”
They then compare it to the U.S. TOW missiles (early on page 2 and covers the rest of the article)….and the Javelin.
Syrian FSA rebels have TOW missiles (but not Javelins).
TOW-2A is wire guided and probably can be defeated by the Armata.
“If only the notorious F-35 could boast a similar record.” (to tie this article back to a previous posting).
TOW-2B can probably defeat an Armata, because of its top attack capability.
I am guessing that so to can the Javelin (they actually don’t address that).
Right now, only 100 Armata’s are slated for production.
There are a couple of useful links in this article, including the one to a 27-page report by the Congressional Research Service on Army and Marine Corps Active Protection Systems: CRS Report on APS
It appears that the Army’s XM-25 Counter-Defilade Target Engagement System, a shoulder-fired 25mm grenade launcher, may not get the opportunity to fulfill its destiny as the Weapon That Will Change Infantry Warfare Forever after all.
Military.com reports that the Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s Office has recommended that the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Katrina McFarland, “determine whether to proceed with or cancel the XM25 program after reviewing the results of the 2016 Governmental testing,” which will be completed this fall. The Army has indicated that it concurs with the recommendation.
The Army delayed acquisition funding and extended the XM-25’s development phase in 2014 in response to problems encountered during field testing and critiques of the weapon by the 75th Ranger Regiment and the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence. During a live-fire exercise in 2013, an XM-25 “experienced a double feed and an unintentional primer ignition of one of the 25mm high explosive rounds,” which fortunately, caused only minor injuries to the soldier testing it, but potentially could have been much worse.
More consequentially for the XM-25 program, the Rangers found that infantry squad soldiers assigned to wield it could not also carry a rifle due to the extra weight. This limited the ability of the XM-25 bearer to perform battle drills and deprived the squad of a rifle in close range combat. The XM-25 also quickly depleted all of its 36 rounds in action. As a result, the Rangers declined to use an XM-25 in an assault on a fortified compound in Afghanistan in 2013, on the grounds that the weapon’s limited utility did not justify leaving out an M4A1 carbine.
The DOD IG criticized the Army for not specifying the exact costs of the extended development and for declining to state how many XM-25s it is considering initially procuring. Stay tuned…
