The Sultan Murad group, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel militia backed by Turkey, announced today that it had captured the town of Dabiq in northern Syria, following the retreat of Daesh fighters. Part of Operation Euphrates Shield, initiated by Turkey in August following a Daesh suicide attack on the city of Gaziantep, FSA forces have cleared a section of Syrian territory north of Aleppo with the aid of Turkish tanks, aircraft, and special operations forces.
Dabiq’s fall is significant for Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate, given the role accorded to the city in the group’s propaganda. In hadith, or sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammad, Dabiq was to be the location of the final battle between Muslims and infidels before Doomsday. Daesh featured Dabiq prominently in its messaging and used it as the title for its sophisticated online journal. Several American and British aid workers were executed there.
“The Daesh myth of their great battle in Dabiq is finished,” Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, told Reuters.
The fall of Dabiq is the latest in a succession of military defeats Daesh has suffered this year, including losing control of the historic city of Palmyra and much of the territory it had controlled in northern Syria. Iraqi forces retook Fallujah and most of Anbar province, and the beginning of a long-planned operation to free Mosul in northern Iraq appears imminent.
Part of the drama of the Russia budget shortfalls is that they kept making budgets based upon an unrealistically optimistic predictions of oil prices. This forces them to revise their budgets rather drastically during the year. It appears they have finally accepted that oil prices are going to be around $40 a barrel for a while and have planned their budget accordingly: Russia budget oil price
A few points:
This is for the next three years and even though oil is currently at $50 a barrel.
There current budget deficit is 3.7% of GDP and is expected to remain above 3% for next year. To put this in perspective the U.S. has had a budget deficit greater than 3% a year from 2008 through 2013.
Cash reserves were $91.7 billion in September 2014…now expected to be $15 billion at the end of this year.
Energy now only accounts for 37% of all government revenues, vice the 50% it used to be. I gather that this is because energy revenues have precipitously declined, not because they have developed other significant sources of revenue.
As the article notes at the end: “Eurasia Group analysts say the government is still opting for more austerity rather than genuine economic reform.”
A previous post on 29 September noted that there were 1,000 “resistance fighters” in Mosul, which if true, would create a pretty significant Fifth Column: More on Mosul Offensive
A recent article originally in Reuters claims that 58 of them were rounded up by ISIL and executed (by drowning): ISIL Crushes Mosul Rebellion
So there are either 942 “resistance fighters” left…..or……..
Anyhow, hard to really know what is going on. The Reuters article in an exclusive based upon what “residents and Iraqi security officials” said.
Raytheon’s new Long-Range Precision Fires missile is deployed from a mobile launcher in this artist’s rendering. The new missile will allow the Army to fire two munitions from a single weapons pod, making it cost-effective and doubling the existing capacity. (Ratheon)
While the U.S. Army has made major advances by incorporating precision into artillery, the ability and opportunity to employ precision are premised on a world of low-intensity conflict. In high-intensity conflict defined by combined-arms maneuver, the employment of artillery based on a precise point on the ground becomes a much more difficult proposition, especially when the enemy commands large formations of moving, armored vehicles, as Russia does. The U.S. joint force has recognized this dilemma and compensates for it by employing superior air forces and deep-strike fires. But Russia has undertaken a comprehensive upgrade of not just its military technology but its doctrine. We should not be surprised that Russia’s goal in this endeavor is to offset U.S. advantages in air superiority and double-down on its traditional advantages in artillery and rocket mass, range, and destructive power.
Jacobson and Scales provide a list of relatively quick fixes they assert would restore U.S. superiority in long-range fires: change policy on the use of cluster munitions; upgrade the U.S. self-propelled howitzer inventory from short-barreled 39 caliber guns to long-barreled 52 calibers and incorporate improved propellants and rocket assistance to double their existing range; reevaluate restrictions on the forthcoming Long Range Precision Fires rocket system in light of Russian attitudes toward the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty; and rebuild divisional and field artillery units atrophied by a decade of counterinsurgency warfare.
Their assessment echoes similar comments made earlier this year by Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, director of the U.S. Army’s Capabilities Integration Center. Another option for countering enemy fire artillery capabilities, McMaster suggested, was the employment of “cross-domain fires.” As he explained, “When an Army fires unit arrives somewhere, it should be able to do surface-to-air, surface-to-surface, and shore-to-ship capabilities.
The notion of land-based fire elements engaging more than just other land or counter-air targets has given rise to a concept being called “multi-domain battle.” It’s proponents, Dr. Albert Palazzo of the Australian Army’s War Research Centre, and Lieutenant Colonel David P. McLain III, Chief, Integration and Operations Branch in the Joint and Army Concepts Division of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, argue (also at War on the Rocks) that
While Western forces have embraced jointness, traditional boundaries between land, sea, and air have still defined which service and which capability is tasked with a given mission. Multi-domain battle breaks down the traditional environmental boundaries between domains that have previously limited who does what where. The theater of operations, in this view, is a unitary whole. The most useful capability needs to get the mission no matter what domain it technically comes from. Newly emerging technologies will enable the land force to operate in ways that, in the past, have been limited by the boundaries of its domain. These technologies will give the land force the ability to dominate not just the land but also project power into and across the other domains.
Palazzo and McClain contend that future land warfare forces
…must be designed, equipped, and trained to gain and maintain advantage across all domains and to understand and respond to the requirements of the future operating environment… Multi-domain battle will create options and opportunities for the joint force, while imposing multiple dilemmas on the adversary. Through land-to-sea, land-to-air, land-to-land, land-to-space, and land-to-cyberspace fires and effects, land forces can deter, deny, and defeat the adversary. This will allow the joint commander to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.
As an example of their concept, Palazzo and McClain cite a combined, joint operation from the Pacific Theater in World War II:
Just after dawn on September 4, 1943, Australian soldiers of the 9th Division came ashore near Lae, Papua in the Australian Army’s first major amphibious operation since Gallipoli. Supporting them were U.S. naval forces from VII Amphibious Force. The next day, the 503rd U.S. Parachute Regiment seized the airfield at Nadzab to the West of Lae, which allowed the follow-on landing of the 7th Australian Division. The Japanese defenders offered some resistance on the land, token resistance in the air, and no resistance at sea. Terrain was the main obstacle to Lae’s capture.
From the beginning, the allied plan for Lae was a joint one. The allies were able to get their forces across the approaches to the enemy’s position, establish secure points of entry, build up strength, and defeat the enemy because they dominated the three domains of war relevant at the time — land, sea, and air.
The concept of multi-domain warfare seems like a logical conceptualization for integrating land-based weapons of increased range and effect into the sorts of near-term future conflicts envisioned by U.S. policy-makers and defense analysts. It comports fairly seamlessly with the precepts of the Third Offset Strategy.
However, as has been observed with the Third Offset Strategy, this raises questions about the role of long-range fires in conflicts that do not involve near-peer adversaries, such as counterinsurgencies. Is an emphasis on technological determinism reducing the capabilities of land combat units to just what they shoot? Is the ability to take and hold ground an anachronism in anti-access/area-denial environments? Do long-range fires obviate the relationship between fire and maneuver in modern combat tactics? If even infantry squads are equipped with stand-off weapons, what is the future of close quarters combat?
First, they actually don’t really compare their potential combat performance relative to each other, it is just a discussion of the three tanks in one article. This could have easily have been three separate articles.
Not sure these tanks will face each other in the near future:
The Amata could face an M-1 if we supply them to Ukraine or Georgia and they clash with Russia. Right now, they do not have M-1’s.
Ukraine is using T-64s, T-72s, T-80s and T-84s, all Soviet designs or Ukrainian updates to Soviet designs. Ukraine is exporting T-84s.
Georgia is using T-72s modified with the help of Israel.
The Amata could face an M-1 if Russia intervenes somewhere else in the world (Russian intervention away from its border areas is fairly rare…..Syria not withstanding).
There is armed conflict between NATO and Russia (not very likely).
I do not think there are any plans to export Moscow’s latest high-tech tank.
Amata could face a Type 10 if Russia conflicts with Japan (again, not very likely).
If Japan sell its tanks to other nations (has never happened before) than then they could later conflict with Russia.
The Type 10 and M-1 facing each other is very unlikely.
The T-14 is going to be around for a while. There are only 100 Amata’s slated for production right now. In light of the economy, we shall see if they get around to manufacturing the other 2,200.
It is interesting that both Russia and Japan went with lighter tanks. This trend is noted but not analyzed.
Otherwise it is a decent article.
Perhaps The National Interest should do an article comparing the T-14 to the T-72 and T-84. This is a more likely scenario (not sure if they follow this blog).
My book, Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka has sold out on Amazon.com. If you click on the Amazon.com link below the book picture, you will see the statement “This item is only available from third-party sellers.” There are 32 there, including 25 “Amazon warehousedeals” starting $205.31.
To date, I don’t think any of Japan’s post-WWII tanks have seen service outside of Japan. There is no real comparative analysis to other tanks here, except a general statement towards the end that its “advantages” over the M1 Abram and Leopard 2 are “relatively minimal.” This appears to be a classic case of Japanese understatement.
The Wikipedia description on the tank has an extended section labeled “concerns.” This is kind of unusual. For example, one states that: – Tank is claimed to “successfully downsized” from 50 tonnes to 44 tones from Type 90 with “modular armor” but how such a feat is achieved or whether the armor thickness or effectiveness is impacted or not is not mentioned.
Anyhow, Japan does maintain its independent armor design and manufacture capability, but this tank clearly does not have the armor protection of an M1 or Leopard 2.
The Remote Controlled Abrams Tank [Hammacher Schlemmer]
Over at Defense One, Patrick Tucker reports that General Dynamics Land Systems has teamed up with Kairos Autonomi to develop kits that “can turn virtually anything with wheels or tracks into a remote-controlled car.” It is part of a business strategy “to meet the U.S. Army’s expanding demand for unmanned ground vehicles”
Kairos kits costing less than $30,000 each have been installed on disposable vehicles to create moving targets for shooting practice. According to a spokesman, General Dynamics has also adapted them to LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicles and M1126 Strykers.
Tucker quotes Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (who else?), director of the U.S. Army’s Capabilities Integration Center, as saying that,
[G]etting remotely piloted and unmanned fighting vehicles out into the field is “something we really want to move forward on. What we want to do is get that kind of capability into soldiers’ hands early so we can refine the tactics, techniques and procedures, and then also consider enemy countermeasures and then build into the design of units that are autonomy enabled, build in the counter to those counters.”
According to General Dynamics Land Systems, the capability to turn any vehicle into a drone would give the U.S. an advantage over Russia, which has signaled its intent to automate versions of its T-14 Armata tank.
![The Remote Controlled Abrams Tank [Hammacher Schlemmer]](https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/remote-control-m1a2-abrams-tank-xl.jpg)