M.7: Brace For Impact
Post 8 of 10 in a series about how cheap drones changed warfare.
Click here to for the rest of the series.
There are millions of drones on today’s battlefield. Data processing, driven by Jevon’s paradox, has gotten cheaper and lighter, which in turn spurred the rapid spread of low-cost drones. Those trends show no signs of reversing. Tomorrow’s combat can expect even more sensors and tons of cheap “precision mass”.(84)
Commanders need to account for the “mass effect” of their forces as they try to move between what Jack Watling terms the “Zones of Contestation and Opportunity”.(85) In the “Zone of Contestation”, the gravities of Hughes’ Salvo Equations advise forces disperse. As they close distance to their objective and as they suppress the enemy’s sensors and strike, then Lanchester’s Laws compel a commander to mass his forces. However, once the objective is taken, if a commander cannot continue to suppress the enemy’s cheap mass, then they must quickly disperse their own forces, lest they be “defeated in detail”.(86) This is not terribly dissimilar to the tactics of flying columns of yesteryear.
This change did not start in Ukraine in 2022, nor in Nagorno-Karabakh back in 2021. Over a decade ago manufacturers were heralding a “4th Industrial Revolution”. Technology was progressing faster and faster, and coupled with ever cheaper data and compute, showed no signs of slowing. Adoption rates that once took decades were happening in years, then months.
I first read about this in ‘No Ordinary Disruption’ back when I was a new major.(87) In the years since then, large military powers with “exquisite systems” compelled priced-out smaller states and non-state actors to be first adopters to low-cost technology.(88)
Unfortunately, this contributed to a myopia where supposed “great powers” ignored cheap drones as the refuge of “weak” actors. Those same actors are now developing, attacking, innovating, and reattacking well inside the US military’s vaunted “OODA loop”.(89) Now any and every actor can, and will, use cheap “precision mass”. Drones are not replacing humans on the battlefield but are instead augmenting them. While Ukraine has been able to leverage drones to mitigate their shortage of manpower, drones still require humans. Drones compliment and enable humans to fight faster and better.(90)
Plenty of pundits and even US military leaders have continued to minimize the impact of cheap drones.(91) Meanwhile our adversaries have stolen a march on us. We’ve allowed sunk cost biases in favor of old platforms and our own slow doctrine process to stymie innovation. Our acquisition pipeline is a further drag, founded upon US primes who built their business model on designing and selling ‘high end’ weapons that were to only be rarely, if ever, used. These ‘Birkin Bag’ platforms are the antithesis of ‘fast fashion’ low-cost drone technology.
The massive replacement cost of our exquisite munitions made ‘…their allocation a key prioritisation decision in operation design’, keeping them out of the hands of lower echelon leaders. Contrast this with a battlefield which enables ‘… the most basic infantry-level unit of 12 people—to have their own organic air power’.(92)
While there is still a role for high-end systems, the US Department of Defense needs every service to create room for design and development that doesn’t just ‘move faster’ but evolves. Future conflicts will still be bloody, brutish, and horrible. However, the “mass effect” means individual soldiers and crews are having to fight further apart than previous conflicts, with squads and platoons dispersed across distances we previously used for companies. This places new psychological demands on small units, and requires further study, and likely new leadership paradigms.(93)
This is just one example of a myriad of ways ‘precision mass’ will impact every domain, each in different ways. We have to do more to get ready. The Red Queen demands her races, and she will not wait for us to change how we fight.
That’s where my war college paper stops. But I still have thoughts on how I think the change of war’s character will impact each of the five domains. Having read Lawrence Feedman’s excellent book ‘The Future of War: A History’, I recognize I’m setting off on a fool’s errand. I’ll probably get a lot wrong, but I see value in trying to visualize the way we need to fight. I’ll start with the domain I’m most familiar with, the land, before looking to the others next week.
New Geometry
Watling’s “Zone of Contestation” lays out a new battlefield geometry that units need to navigate. He describes a division’s frontage between 60 and 100 km wide with logistics stores kept at a depth 100 km from the front.(94) He proposes the need for four distinct elements, each as large as a brigade, to fight in this space: one “manoeuvre system” dedicated to reconnaissance and screening; a second system focused on fires; a third assault system; and a final support element to sustain and command.(95) To survive under the constant threat of pervasive sensors and cheap strikes, the “manoeuvre system” has to disperse into smaller and more mobile elements while it works to set the conditions for mass to seize key positions.(96) In the meantime the assault and sustainment systems are kept outside the range of enemy sense and strike systems. Only once an enemy’s sense and strike threat are neutralized or pushed back can assault forces mass to take an objective.(97)
We are seeing both this dispersion and the challenges of massing on both sides of the FLOT in Ukraine today. B.A. Friedman astutely identifies the return of “dragoon tactics” as personal mobility platforms help disperse ground forces mass while giving them much needed mobility. The Russians have been seen “… increasingly using electric scooters, motorcycles and ATVs, which allow them to disperse quickly across the front”.(98) The USMC, working to disperse its own forces as part of their Force Design 2030, has adopted the same platforms US SOF have used for years.(99)
However, neither side has found reliable ways to effectively mass within the “zone of contestation” nor reliably push its boundaries back.(100) Without an effective counter-reconnaissance, once a maneuver force was committed, “…their ground lines of communication became predictable and targetable, collapsing tempo.”(101) Many NATO advisors have failed to appreciate “…the proliferation of non-line of site capabilities that are precise can deliver very effective point damage…”. The Ukrainian have been frustrated as they struggle to win a fight where “…some Western tactics and techniques appear unsuitable or dated.”(102)
Instead, forces are left to slug it out in slow attrition. This approach has favored the Russians, who have little regard for the survival of their forces nor the Laws of War. Writing about the Russian approach, Stefan Korshak is worth quoting at length here:
“First push forces in range to hit Ukrainian rear areas with drones and when closer with artillery, then attack by attack push forces to either side of the main supply line to the town you want to capture, and put that supply route under fire. Target civilian infrastructure like power, water and heating to distract Ukrainian authorities from taking action to slow down Russian attacks, to helping civilians. Where strong Ukrainian defenses are located, pound the area with glider bombs day after day. It doesn’t matter if the glider bombs are sometimes inaccurate because misses increase the civilians that will need help and assistance from Ukrainian authorities. When it’s time for assault send throwaway troops first to get footholds close to Ukrainian positions, then follow up with skilled infantry to clear positions house-to-house. Accept losses. Assault units that are wiped out gaining ground are a plus, because a wiped-out unit requires no casualty collection or treatment of wounded.”(103)
This is Russia’s approach to the “mass effect”. If you don’t or can’t create the conditions that enable maneuver, then the alternative is to rely on a mass of human bullet-sinks to absorb the huge volume of cheap precision. However, if you’re the US and the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) is your pacing threat, this isn’t going to work. Harper’s early calculations propose the PRC could generate between 50 and 100 days of drone suppression across the First Island Chain.
Navigating the Hoffman Transfer
Western forces will instead have to take Hughes’ original advice:
“Victory through superior scouting is promoted in importance, and new tactics of dispersal and sequential engagement become attractive”.(104)
Armies will need to elevate their surprise and deception, storied alumni of the principles of war, to gather mass on the objective.(105) Offensively this will require both denying enemy sensors where possible, and deceiving them where it is not. In the defense, deception seeks to induce the other side to converge too early, exposing themselves to the defenders own sensor-strike complex.(106)
Traditional masking won’t be enough. Decoys must trick a variety of different sensors at the same time, to include AI/ML assisted ones. However, there is potential to distract or even confuse ML sensors by simple exploits. While harder to achieve, surprise is still possible. As the Ukrainian assaults into Kursk and Belgorod demonstrate, the battlefield is not fully transparent.(107)
In his book Arms of the future, Jack Watling lays out a compelling breakdown of the various requirements for a maneuver brigade fighting in the “zone of contestation”. He describes a highly mobile brigade command and control node spread across four separate vehicles.(108) Dr. Watling’s work is well sourced, and — in my opinion — visionary. It also doesn’t describe any battalion or above command node I’ve been in over my 20+ year career. Our command nodes are going to have to get painfully light, and a lot smaller, if they want to survive the “mass effect”. B.A. Friedman seems to agree:
'…the general staff system in use by every major military is reaching the end of its life cycle. Indeed, it probably should have died already but its natural life has been extended by pushing ever more staff officers, computers, meetings, boards, and working groups into the system to try and deal with the increasing amount of information the staff must process. It has worked so far but is not likely to work in the future especially as large, concentrated staffs can be targeted by adversaries through an increasing amount of emergent capabilities.’
Any forces or headquarters not agile enough to survive will need to take refuge outside the “zone of contestation”, potentially as far as 100km back from the front. Alternatively, these forces could be located in spots beyond the strategic risk appetite of their adversaries. In 2023 NATO forces trained Ukrainian units in nearby NATO countries, under the shield of Article Five without fear of Russian targeting. Though the value of an Article Five deterrent isn’t what it used to be.
Obstacles, including minefields, will remain critical to disrupting an opponent's ability to form their forces at the place and time of their choosing. Here drones are helping by improving the precision and lethality of mines.(109) However, this does not inherently favor the defense, as the “mass effect” still applies. Static defenses are vulnerable to being spotted and attacked via cheap strike. Defensive fortifications need to reassess their design, since vectors previously assumed safely in the “rear” can quickly find a suicide-drone barreling down them.(110)
One obstacle that cheap drones have made even harder is water. “Wet gap crossings” have always been one of the hardest things for a military to do. Much of the history of Rome was circumscribed by the Rhine and Danube rivers. River crossings require scarce specialized units and channelize a lot of mass into a narrow and often predictable location. Ukraine has leveraged cheap drones to massacre Russian forces attempting river crossings. In many cases, the current challenges to these crossings may become “insurmountable”.
‘Amateur’s talk tactics…’
The place “mass effect” is perhaps most broadly felt is in logistics. Supplies have to be stockpiled and must be amassed prior to any offensive. It is critical that transportation forces bring critical sustainment close on the heels of any gains. Defenses need their own depots within easy reach for resupply.
But sustainment stores, in particular munitions and fuel, are critically vulnerable to sympathetic detonations. Since they’re already made of explosives, gas and ammo are prime cheap drone targets. A single $100 thermite grenade can destroy billions of dollars of ammunition.(111)
The larger the logistics stores, the further from the edge of battle they now must be kept. Both Russia and Ukraine have executed their own “strategic strike campaigns” via drone strikes. The Ukrainians have struck fuel and ammo depots deep inside Russia, and even inside warehouses.(112)
As command and sustainment are pushed further and further back from the FLOT, frictions compound. Longer supply lines create more attack surface area, in particular for mechanized and armored forces which burn more fuel and maintenance. Managing this balance and timing of when and where to mass sustainment has become dramatically more complex. Which is why Jack Watling counsels the focus, talent, and location of higher headquarters should be outside the “zone of contestation”, in contrast to its traditional locus on maneuver and the front.(113)
And perhaps most perilously, cheap “Precision Mass” will also continue to drive combat into urban terrain. The city’s masking and the power generation it provides will be too important to pass up. Drone pilots on both sides across the FLOT in Ukraine typically opt to launch and control their drones from urban terrain wherever possible. While cities and suburbs can mask some forces, they also expose combat units to potentially even more sensors in the pockets of every local. This civilian surveillance is part of why Russian drones are targeting civilians in Kherson, seeking to push back sensors and punish local civilians.
‘Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable.’
Warfare has always been hellish, but if you compacted all of my worst days in combat into a single hour, it wouldn’t measure up to the fighting the Ukrainians defending their country have seen. I can barely imagine it, despite being able to see it so easily thanks to ubiquitous video. In his book Arms of the Future, Jack Watling lays out some very forward thinking on how land forces need to change to meet the new challenges. I cannot recommend his book enough.
Cheap drones don’t make things impossible; they just make everything harder for everyone. We always knew fighting in cities sucked, but now we’ll have no way to just bypass them. Logistics was already a nightmare before you had to figure in the logistics of logisticians also being their own infantry and air defenders. Dispersion is hard on economics, but it’s even harder on the psychology of the soldiers forced to fight further and further away from one another. Crossing a river has always been one of the hardest things for a military to do, which is why history is littered with hundreds of ‘The Battle of [Somewhere] Bridge’.1 Now it’s at least twice as deadly.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be asked to do it. Because sometimes you just have to cross some water to win a fight. That’s where we’ll pick up next post.
Tragically, in the 1995 Oscar winning film Braveheart, the Battle of Stirling Bridge… has no bridge.