Tag World War II

Command and Combat Effectiveness: The Case of the British 51st Highland Division

Soldiers of the British 51st Highland Division take cover in bocage in Normandy, 1944. [Daily Record (UK)]

While Trevor Dupuy’s concept of combat effectiveness has been considered controversial by some, he was hardly the only one to observe that throughout history, some military forces have fought more successfully on the battlefield than others. While the sources of victory and defeat in battle remain a fertile, yet understudied topic, there is a growing literature on the topic of military effectiveness in the fields of strategic and security studies.

Anthony King, a professor in War Studies at the University of Warwick, has published an outstanding article in the most recent edition of British Journal of Military History, “Why did 51st Highland Division Fail? A case-study in command and combat effectiveness.” In it, he examined military command and combat effectiveness through the experience of the British 51st Highland Division in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Most usefully, King developed a definition of military command that clarifies its relationship to combat effectiveness: “The function of a commander is to maximise combat power by defining achievable missions and, then, orchestrating subordinates into a cohesive whole committed to mission accomplishment.”

Defining Military Command

In order to analyze the relationship between command and combat effectiveness, King sought to “define the concept of command and to specify its relationship to management and leadership.” The construct he developed drew upon the work of Peter Drucker, an Austrian-born American business consultant and writer who is considered by many to be “the founder of modern management.” From Drucker, King distilled a definition of the function and process of military command: “command always consists of three elements: mission definition, mission management and mission motivation.”

As King explained, “When command is understood in this way, its connection to combat effectiveness begins to become clear.”

[C]ommand is an institutional solution to an organizational problem; it generates cohesion in a formation. Specifically, by uniting decision-making authority in one person and one role, a large military force is able to unite subordinate units, whose troops are not co-present with each other and who, in most cases, do not know each other. Crucially, the combat effectiveness of a formation, as a formation, is substantially dependent upon the ability of its commander to synchronise its disparate efforts in order to generate collective effects. Skillful command has a galvanising influence on a military force; by orchestrating the activities of subordinate units and motivating troops, command is able to create a level of combat power, which supervenes the capabilities of each of the parts. A well-commanded force has properties, which exceed those of its constituent units, fighting alone.

It is through the orchestration, synchronization, and motivation of effort, King concluded, that “command and combat effectiveness are immediately connected. Command fuses a formation together and increases its determination to fulfil its missions.”

Assessing the Combat Effectiveness of the 51st Division

The rest of King’s article is a detailed assessment of the combat effectiveness of the 51st Highland Division in Normandy in June and July 1944 using this military command construct. Observers at the time noted a decline in the division’s combat performance, which had been graded quite highly in North Africa and Sicily. The one obvious difference was the replacement of Major General Douglas Wimberley with Major General Charles Bullen-Smith in August 1943. After concluding that the 51st Division was no longer battleworthy, the commander of the British 21st Army Group, General Bernard Montgomery personally relieved Bullen-Smith in late July 1944.

In reviewing Bullen-Smith’s performance, King concluded that

Although a number of factors contributed to the struggles of the Highland Division in Normandy, there is little doubt that the shortcomings of its commander, Major General Charles Bullen-Smith, were the critical factor. Charles Bullen-Smith failed to fulfill the three essential functions required of a commander… Bullen-Smith’s inadequacies are highly suggestive of a direct relationship between command and combat effectiveness; they demonstrate how command can augment or undermine combat performance.

King’s approach to military studies once again demonstrates the relevance of multi-disciplinary analysis based on solid historical research. His military command model should prove to be a very useful tool for analyzing the elements of combat effectiveness and assessing combat power. Along with Dr. Jonathan Fennell’s work on measuring morale, among others, it appears that good progress is being made on the study of human factors in combat and military operations, at least in the British academic community (even if Tom Ricks thinks otherwise).

The Historical Combat Effectiveness of Lighter-Weight Armored Forces

A Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle-Dragoon fires 30 mm rounds during a live-fire demonstration at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., Aug. 16, 2017. Soldiers with 2nd Cavalry Regiment spent six weeks at Aberdeen testing and training on the new Stryker vehicle and a remote Javelin system, which are expected to head to Germany early next year for additional user testing. (Photo Credit: Sean Kimmons)

In 2001, The Dupuy Institute conducted a study for the U.S. Army Center for Army Analysis (CAA) on the historical effectiveness of lighter-weight armored forces. At the time, the Army had developed a requirement for an Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV), lighter and more deployable than existing M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank and the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, to form the backbone of the future “Objective Force.” This program would result in development of the Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

CAA initiated the TDI study at the request of Walter W. “Don” Hollis, then the Deputy Undersecretary of the Army for Operations Research (a position that was eliminated in 2006.) TDI completed and submitted “The Historical Combat Effectiveness of Lighter-Weight Armored Forces” to CAA in August 2001. It examined the effectiveness of light and medium-weight armored forces in six scenarios:

  • Conventional conflicts against an armor supported or armor heavy force.
  • Emergency insertions against an armor supported or armor heavy force.
  • Conventional conflict against a primarily infantry force (as one might encounter in sub-Saharan Africa).
  • Emergency insertion against a primarily infantry force.
  • A small to medium insurgency (includes an insurgency that develops during a peacekeeping operation).
  • A peacekeeping operation or similar Operation Other Than War (OOTW) that has some potential for violence.

The historical data the study drew upon came from 146 cases of small-scale contingency operations; U.S. involvement in Vietnam; German counterinsurgency operations in the Balkans, 1941-1945; the Philippines Campaign, 1941-42; the Normandy Campaign, 1944; the Korean War 1950-51; the Persian Gulf War, 1990-91; and U.S. and European experiences with light and medium-weight armor in World War II.

The major conclusions of the study were:

Small Scale Contingency Operations (SSCOs)

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. It would appear that existing systems (M-2 and M-3 Bradley and M-113) can fulfill most requirements. Current plans to develop an advanced LAV-type vehicle may cover almost all other shortfalls. Mine protection is a design feature that should be emphasized.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). The need for armor in SSCOs that are not conventional or closely conventional in nature is limited and rarely approaches the requirements of a brigade-size armored force.

Insurgencies

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. It would appear that existing systems (M-2 and M-3 Bradley and M-113) can fulfill most requirements. The armor threat in insurgencies is very limited until the later stages if the conflict transitions to conventional war. In either case, mine protection is a design feature that may be critical.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). It is the nature of insurgencies that rapid deployment of armor is not essential. The armor threat in insurgencies is very limited until the later stages if the conflict transitions to a conventional war and rarely approaches the requirements of a brigade-size armored force.

Conventional Warfare

Conventional Conflict Against An Armor Supported Or Armor Heavy Force

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. It may be expected that opposing heavy armor in a conventional armor versus armor engagement could significantly overmatch the IAV. In this case the primary requirement would be for a weapon system that would allow the IAV to defeat the enemy armor before it could engage the IAV.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). The IBCT could substitute as an armored cavalry force in such a scenario.

Conventional Conflict Against A Primarily Infantry Force

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. This appears to be little different from those conclusions found for the use of armor in SSCOs and Insurgencies.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). The lack of a major armor threat will make the presence of armor useful.

Emergency Insertion Against An Armor Supported Or Armor Heavy Force

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. It appears that the IAV may be of great use in an emergency insertion. However, the caveat regarding the threat of being overmatched by conventional heavy armor mentioned above should not be ignored. In this case the primary requirement would be for a weapon system that would allow the IAV to defeat the enemy armor before it could engage the IAV.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). Although the theoretical utility of the IBCT in this scenario may be great it should be noted that The Dupuy Institute was only able to find one comparable case of such a deployment which resulted in actual conflict in US military history in the last 60 years (Korea, 1950). In this case the effect of pushing forward light tanks into the face of heavier enemy tanks was marginal.

Emergency Insertion Against A Primarily Infantry Force

  1. Implications for the Interim Armored Vehicle (IAV) Family of Vehicles. The lack of a major armor threat in this scenario will make the presence of any armor useful. However, The Dupuy Institute was unable to identify the existence of any such cases in the historical record.
  2. Implications for the Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT). The lack of a major armor threat will make the presence of any armor useful. However, The Dupuy Institute was unable to identify the existence of any such cases in the historical record.

Other Conclusions

Wheeled Vehicles

  1. There is little historical evidence one way or the other establishing whether wheels or tracks are the preferable feature of AFVs.

Vehicle Design

  1. In SSCOs access to a large-caliber main gun was useful for demolishing obstacles and buildings. This capability is not unique and could be replaced by AT missiles armed CFVs, IFVs and APCs.
  2. Any new lighter tank-like vehicle should make its gun system the highest priority, armor secondary and mobility and maneuverability tertiary.
  3. Mine protection should be emphasized. Mines were a major threat to all types of armor in many scenarios. In many SSCOs it was the major cause of armored vehicle losses.
  4. The robust carrying capacity offered by an APC over a tank is an advantage during many SSCOs.

Terrain Issues

  1. The use of armor in urban fighting, even in SSCOs, is still limited. The threat to armor from other armor in urban terrain during SSCOs is almost nonexistent. Most urban warfare armor needs, where armor basically serves as a support weapon, can be met with light armor (CFVs, IFVs, and APCs).
  2. Vehicle weight is sometimes a limiting factor in less developed areas. In all cases where this was a problem, there was not a corresponding armor threat. As such, in almost all cases, the missions and tasks of a tank can be fulfilled with other light armor (CFVs, IFVs, or APCs).
  3. The primary terrain problem is rivers and flooded areas. It would appear that in difficult terrain, especially heavily forested terrain (areas with lots of rainfall, like jungles), a robust river crossing capability is required.

Operational Factors

  1. Emergency insertions and delaying actions sometimes appear to be a good way to lose lots of armor for limited gain. This tends to come about due to terrain problems, enemy infiltration and bypassing, and the general confusion prevalent in such operations. The Army should be careful not to piecemeal assets when inserting valuable armor resources into a ‘hot’ situation. In many cases holding back and massing the armor for defense or counter-attack may be the better option.
  2. Transportability limitations have not been a major factor in the past for determining whether lighter or heavier armor were sent into a SSCO or a combat environment.

Casualty Sensitivity

  1. In a SSCO or insurgency, in most cases the weight and armor of the AFVs is not critical. As such, one would not expect any significant changes in losses regardless of the type of AFV used (MBT, medium-weight armor, or light armor). However, the perception that US forces are not equipped with the best-protected vehicle may cause some domestic political problems. The US government is very casualty sensitive during SSCOs. Furthermore, the current US main battle tank particularly impressive, and may help provide some additional intimidation in SSCOs.
  2. In any emergency insertion scenario or conventional war scenario, the use of lighter armor could result in higher US casualties and lesser combat effectiveness. This will certainly cause some domestic political problems and may impact army morale. However by the same token, light infantry forces, unsupported by easily deployable armor could present a worse situation.

U.S. Army Solicits Proposals For Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) Light Tank

The U.S. Army’s late and apparently lamented M551 Sheridan light tank. [U.S. Department of the Army/Wikipedia]

The U.S. Army recently announced that it will begin soliciting Requests for Proposal (RFP) in November to produce a new lightweight armored vehicle for its Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program. MPF is intended to field a company of vehicles for each Army Infantry Brigade Combat Team to provide them with “a long-range direct-fire capability for forcible entry and breaching operations.”

The Army also plans to field the new vehicle quickly. It is dispensing with the usual two-to-three year technology development phase, and will ask for delivery of the first sample vehicles by April 2018, one month after the RFP phase is scheduled to end. This will invariably favor proposals using existing off-the-shelf vehicle designs and “mature technology.”

The Army apparently will also accept RFPs with turret-mounted 105mm main guns, at least initially. According to previous MFP parameters, acceptable designs will eventually need to be able to accommodate 120mm guns.

I have observed in the past that the MPF is the result of the Army’s concerns that its light infantry may be deprived of direct fire support on anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) battlefields. Track-mounted, large caliber direct fire guns dedicated to infantry support are something of a doctrinal throwback to the assault guns of World War II, however.

There was a noted tendency during World War II to use anything on the battlefield that resembled a tank as a main battle tank, with unhappy results for the not-main battle tanks. As a consequence, assault guns, tank destroyers, and light tanks became evolutionary dead-ends in the development of post-World War II armored doctrine (the late M551 Sheridan, retired without replacement in 1996, notwithstanding). [For more on the historical background, see The Dupuy Institute, “The Historical Effectiveness of Lighter-Weight Armored Forces,” August 2001.]

The Army has been reluctant to refer to MPF as a light tank, but as David Dopp, the MPF Program Manager admitted, “I don’t want to say it’s a light tank, but it’s kind of like a light tank.” He went on to say that “It’s not going toe to toe with a tank…It’s for the infantry. It goes where the infantry goes — it breaks through bunkers, it works through targets that the infantry can’t get through.”

Major General David Bassett, program executive officer for the Army’s Ground Combat Systems concurred. It will be a tracked vehicle with substantial armor protection, Bassett said, “but certainly not what you’d see on a main battle tank.”

It will be interesting to see what the RFPs have to offer.

Previous TDI commentaries on the MPF Program:

https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2016/10/19/back-to-the-future-the-mobile-protected-firepower-mpf-program/

https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/03/21/u-s-army-moving-forward-with-mobile-protected-firepower-mpf-program/

TDI Friday Read: Tank Warfare In World War II

American troops advance under the cover of M4 Sherman tank ‘Lucky Legs II’ during mop up operations on Bougainville, Solomon Islands, March 1944. [National Archives/ww2dbase]

In honor of Tony Buzbee, who has parked a fully-functional vintage World War II era M-4 Sherman tank in front of his house in Houston, Texas (much to the annoyance of his home owner’s association), here is a selection of posts addressing various aspects of tank warfare in World War II for you weekend leisure reading.

https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2016/08/23/counting-holes-in-tanks-in-tunisia/

U.S. Tank Losses and Crew Casualties in World War II

Tank Loss Rates in Combat: Then and Now

https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/04/03/was-kursk-the-largest-tank-battle-in-history/

A2/D2 Study

Against the Panzers

And, of course, Chris Lawrence has written the largest existing book on the largest tank battle in history, Kursk.

Back to the Future

The opening sentence of an article by Dan Goure caught my attention: “Every decade of so since the 1960s, the U.S. Army creates a requirement for what can nominally be described as a light tank.” The article is here: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/its-back-the-future-mobile-protected-firepower-20539?page=show

It reminds me of a meeting we had in late 2000 with Walt Hollis, Deputy Under Secretary of the Army (Operations Research). He started the meeting by telling us that something like “Every now and then, someone seems to want to bring back the light tank.” He then went on to explain that these requirements are being pushed from the top (meaning by the Chief of Staff of the Army) and they should probably have a study done on the subject. He then asked us to do such an effort.

We did and it is here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/mwa-2lightarmor.pdf

We decided to examine the effectiveness of lighter-weight armor based upon real-world experience in six possible scenarios:

  1. Conventional conflicts against an armor supported or armor heavy force.
  2. Emergency insertions against an armor support or armor heavy force.
  3. Conventional conflict against a primarily infantry force (as one might encounter in sub-Saharan Africa).
  4. Emergency insertion against a primarily infantry force.
  5. A small to medium insurgency (includes an insurgency that develops during a peacekeeping operation).
  6. A peacekeeping operation or similar Operation Other Than War (OOTW) that has some potential for violence.

Anyhow, I am not going to summarize the report here as that would take too long. I did draft up a chapter on it for inclusion in War by Numbers, but decided to leave it out as it did not fit into the “theory testing” theme of the book. Instead, I am holding it for one of my next books, Future American Wars.

The interesting aspect of the report is that we were at a meeting in 2001 at an Army OR outfit that was reviewing our report, and they told us that the main point of action they drew from the report was that we needed to make sure our armor vehicles were better protected against mines. As our report looked at the type of tank losses being suffered in the insurgencies and OOTWs, there were a lot of vehicles being lost to mines. Apparently they had not fully realized this (and Iraq did not occur until 2003).

New WWII German Maps At The National Archives

The situation in Army Group Center’s sector of the Eastern Front on 6 December 1941. [National Archives]

The Special Media Archives Services Division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C. announced on it’s blog, The Unwritten Record, the recent opening of two new series in Record Group 242: National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized. The new series are German Situation Maps of the Western Front, 1944-1945 (NAID 40432392) and Various German World War II Maps, 1939-1945 (NAID 40480105).

The collections contain photographic reproductions of a full map of Germany including how many states in Germany existed at the time, as well as reproductions of various daily situation report maps created by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command) and Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command) to brief Adolph Hitler and senior German leaders. They show friendly (blue) and enemy (red) forces down to the division and detachment level. The original maps were captured by U.S. forces, which were later duplicated and then returned to the Germans.

Maps. Beautiful Maps

The NARA blog post includes several wonderful, high-quality digital scans in JPG format, although a quick check of the online NARA catalogue shows that these digital maps have yet to be posted online. As the existence of the images in the post show, however, this cannot be too far behind.

The maps themselves are priceless historical records containing truly amazing amounts of information. A portion of the Lage Ost (Situation East) map for 6 December 1941, above, is particularly notable. It depicts the military situation at what can be argued as the high tide of German fortunes in World War II, with its forces closing in on Moscow. However, 6 December was also the beginning of the great Soviet winter counteroffensive that would drive the German Army permanently away from Moscow.

A Map Is Worth At Least A Thousand Words

Several details immediately jump out. The northern prong of the German offensive, led by the Third Panzer Group and Forth Panzer Group, and the southern thrust by the Second Panzer Army can be clearly seen. While Second Panzer Army’s divisions are concentrated for the push from Tula northward, the army’s eastern flank is merely screened by elements of the 10th and 25th Motorized Infantry divisions, the 112th Infantry Division,  and a detachment of the 18th Panzer Division. Large-scale, abstract maps of the war on the Eastern Front often depict the battle lines as solid, when in fact, they were thinly-held or gapped.

This is significant because of what this map does not depict: the several dozen divisions the Soviets had amassed around Moscow for their counter-offensive. In fact, the first Red Army counterattacks had started on 5 December, against the LVI Panzer Corps, north of Moscow (at the top of image above). Soviet maskirovka, or military deception efforts, had successfully hidden the build-up from German intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets. Soviet troops infiltrated these gaps, forcing the Germans to halt their attack and then withdraw to avoid encirclement.

This is only a fraction of the story contained in these maps. Hopefully, NARA is diligently digitizing the rest of the collection and will get them online as soon as possible,

War Stories-The Podcast for Military History Nerds

Angry Staff Officer says, "Safety is paramount in all things. Terrorists fear safety glasses that are also reflective."
The Angry Staff Officer says, “Safety is paramount in all things. Terrorists fear safety glasses that are also reflective.”

If you like military history and podcasts, then I would like to recommend that you give War Stories a listen. It is a new production from two members of the Military Writers Guild, Adin Dobkin and a serving Army National Guardsman who posts publicly under the nom de guerre, Angry Staff Officer. Seeking to bridge the gap between military history that focuses on engagements or battles, and broad sweeping analysis, Dobkin and ASO tell stories that link specific instances with a broader narrative arc. In doing so, they hope to “engage the human interest angle while also tracing broader trends in warfare, through balancing narrative and dialogue.”

The first season of the podcast is tracing the development of modern tank warfare from its dawn on the battlefields of France in the First World War, through the present day. The result is Basil Liddell Hart meets This American Life. Dobkin and ASO both have engaging personalities and military history nerd-wit in abundance. They bring a youthful perspective leavened by recent military experience and the perceptive eye of today’s well-trained and highly educated military officer corps.

The first four episodes begin with doomed British cavalry charges on the Somme battlefield in 1916, to George Patton’s first combat experiences at the St. Mihiel salient in 1917, to the clash of Russian and German inter-war tanks in the Spanish Civil War, to the baptism of fire of the American tank destroyer corps in Tunisia in 1943.

The results are both informative and quite entertaining. My only (minor) quibble is that it would help to have some maps and photographs to go with the narrative to help pin down places, faces, and tank silhouettes. If you appreciate the fact — as Dobkin and ASO do — that the Soviet T-34 tank owes its existence to the American engineer  J. Walter Christie, this is the podcast for which you have been searching.

The Curious Case of the Missing WWII Shipwrecks

Sonar image of the Java Sea bed location where the wreck of the HMS Exeter used to be.
Sonar image of the Java Sea bed location where the wreck of the HMS Exeter used to be. [BBC]

The Netherlands and British Ministries of Defense recently announced that the wrecks of three Dutch Navy, three British Navy, and one U.S. Navy ships sunk off the coast of Indonesia during World War II have disappeared. Divers intending to photograph the Dutch ships for a 75th year commemoration of the 1942 Battle of the Java Sea discovered the wrecks were missing. After three dimensional sonar imagery revealed only sea bed indentations where the light cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java had been discovered in 2002, and partial remains of the destroyer HNLMS Kortenaer, the diving crew surveyed the other battle wrecks in the Java Sea area and discovered them mostly missing as well.

[BBC]
[BBC]

The British government has condemned what it believes is the result of illegal salvaging of the wrecks of the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter and destroyers HMS Encounter and Electra, and has asked the government of Indonesia to investigate and take “appropriate actions.”

Although some experts expressed skepticism that the Dutch ships had been salvaged from under 70 meters of water, 60 miles off the Indonesian coast, other World War II Pacific naval wrecks have been victims of scavenging in the past. According to the Guardian,

Crews posing as fishermen and using long rubber hoses to stay underwater for hours have scavenged the waters around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, locating the wrecks and stealing parts, including steel, aluminium and brass.

The potential worth of metal-built shipwrecks is estimated at hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some of the propellors, often the first items to be stolen, are made of phosphor bronze scrap metal, valued at over £2,000 per tonne.

The British Ministry of Defense has also been accused of not doing enough to prevent looting of British and German ships sunk in the North Sea during the World War I Battle of Jutland in 1916.

Tank Loss Rates in Combat: Then and Now

wwii-tank-battlefieldAs the U.S. Army and the national security community seek a sense of what potential conflicts in the near future might be like, they see the distinct potential for large tank battles. Will technological advances change the character of armored warfare? Perhaps, but it seems more likely that the next big tank battles – if they occur – will likely resemble those from the past.

One aspect of future battle of great interest to military planners is probably going to tank loss rates in combat. In a previous post, I looked at the analysis done by Trevor Dupuy on the relationship between tank and personnel losses in the U.S. experience during World War II. Today, I will take a look at his analysis of historical tank loss rates.

In general, Dupuy identified that a proportional relationship exists between personnel casualty rates in combat and losses in tanks, guns, trucks, and other equipment. (His combat attrition verities are discussed here.) Looking at World War II division and corps-level combat engagement data in 1943-1944 between U.S., British and German forces in the west, and German and Soviet forces in the east, Dupuy found similar patterns in tank loss rates.

attrition-fig-58

In combat between two division/corps-sized, armor-heavy forces, Dupuy found that the tank loss rates were likely to be between five to seven times the personnel casualty rate for the winning side, and seven to 10 for the losing side. Additionally, defending units suffered lower loss rates than attackers; if an attacking force suffered a tank losses seven times the personnel rate, the defending forces tank losses would be around five times.

Dupuy also discovered the ratio of tank to personnel losses appeared to be a function of the proportion of tanks to infantry in a combat force. Units with fewer than six tanks per 1,000 troops could be considered armor supporting, while those with a density of more than six tanks per 1,000 troops were armor-heavy. Armor supporting units suffered lower tank casualty rates than armor heavy units.

attrition-fig-59

Dupuy looked at tank loss rates in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and found that they were consistent with World War II experience.

What does this tell us about possible tank losses in future combat? That is a very good question. One guess that is reasonably certain is that future tank battles will probably not involve forces of World War II division or corps size. The opposing forces will be brigade combat teams, or more likely, battalion-sized elements.

Dupuy did not have as much data on tank combat at this level, and what he did have indicated a great deal more variability in loss rates. Examples of this can be found in the tables below.

attrition-fig-53attrition-fig-54

These data points showed some consistency, with a mean of 6.96 and a standard deviation of 6.10, which is comparable to that for division/corps loss rates. Personnel casualty rates are higher and much more variable than those at the division level, however. Dupuy stated that more research was necessary to establish a higher degree of confidence and relevance of the apparent battalion tank loss ratio. So one potentially fruitful area of research with regard to near future combat could very well be a renewed focus on historical experience.

NOTES

Trevor N. Dupuy, Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (Falls Church, VA: NOVA Publications, 1995), pp. 41-43; 81-90; 102-103

Back To The Future: The Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) Program

The MPF's historical antecedent: the German Army's 7.5 cm leichtes Infanteriegeschütz.
The MPF’s historical antecedent: the German Army’s 7.5 cm leichtes Infanteriegeschütz.

Historically, one of the challenges of modern combat has been in providing responsive, on-call, direct fire support for infantry. The U.S. armed forces have traditionally excelled in providing fire support for their ground combat maneuver elements, but recent changes have apparently caused concern that this will continue to be the case in the future.

Case in point is the U.S. Army’s Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program. The MPF seems to reflect concern by the U.S. Army that future combat environments will inhibit the capabilities of heavy artillery and air support systems tasked with providing fire support for infantry units. As Breaking Defense describes it,

“Our near-peers have sought to catch up with us,” said Fort Benning commander Maj. Gen. Eric Wesley, using Pentagon code for China and Russia. These sophisticated nation-states — and countries buying their hardware, like Iran — are developing so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD): layered defenses of long-range sensors and missiles to keep US airpower and ships at a distance (anti-access), plus anti-tank weapons, mines, and roadside bombs to decimate ground troops who get close (area denial).

The Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Ft. Benning, Georgia is the proponent for development of a new lightly-armored, tracked vehicle mounting a 105mm or 120mm gun. According to the National Interest, the goal of the MPF program is

… to provide a company of vehicles—which the Army adamantly does not want to refer to as light tanks—to brigades from the 82nd Airborne Division or 10th Mountain Division that can provide heavy fire support to those infantry units. The new vehicle, which is scheduled to enter into full-scale engineering and manufacturing development in 2019—with fielding tentatively scheduled for around 2022—would be similar in concept to the M551 Sheridan light tank. The Sheridan used to be operated the Army’s airborne units unit until 1996, but was retired without replacement. (Emphasis added)

As Chris recently pointed out, General Dynamics Land Systems has developed a prototype it calls the Griffin. BAE Systems has also pitched its XM8 Armored Gun System, developed in the 1990s.

The development of a dedicated, direct fire support weapon for line infantry can be seen as something of an anachronism. During World War I, German infantrymen sought alternatives to relying on heavy artillery support that was under the control of higher headquarters and often slow or unresponsive to tactical situations on the battlefield. They developed an expedient called the “infantry gun” (Infanteriegeschütz) by stripping down captured Russian 76.2mm field guns for direct use against enemy infantry, fortifications, and machine guns. Other armies imitated the Germans, but between the wars, the German Army was only one to develop 75mm and 150mm wheeled guns of its own dedicated specifically to infantry combat support.

The Germans were also the first to develop versions mounted on tracked, armored chassis, called “assault guns” (Sturmgeschütz). During World War II, the Germans often pressed their lightly armored assault guns into duty as ersatz tanks to compensate for insufficient numbers of actual tanks. (The apparently irresistible lure to use anything that looks like a tank as a tank also afflicted the World War II U.S. tank destroyer as well, yielding results that dissatisfied all concerned.)

Other armies again copied the Germans during the war, but the assault gun concept was largely abandoned afterward. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union developed vehicles intended to provide gunfire support for airborne infantry, but these were more aptly described as light tanks. The U.S. Army’s last light tank, the M551 Sheridan, was retired in 1996 and not replaced.

It appears that the development of new technology is leading the U.S. Army back to old ideas. Just don’t call them light tanks.