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#1 War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:45 pm
by rhoenix
I'm putting this here, because it has to do more with the process of science & logic than it does with news & politics. The process in this paper is of interest to me, due to the aspect of military organizations and functionality that I want to get right for my writing - but it's fascinating reading nonetheless. I'd also welcome any and all commentary.

This specifically covers the US Army here, and I'd also welcome commentary from those who served in various armed services for their input on what effects this might have on the other armed services, such as the Navy, Marines, and Air Force.
armtimes.com wrote:A major shift took place Nov. 20 that will change the Army as you know it.

Squads and brigades will be smaller and complemented by robotics, as well as unmanned ground and aerial vehicles. The heaviest vehicles will come in at 30 tons — less than half the weight of the M1A1 tank and the planned Ground Combat Vehicle. Front-line fighters will be equipped with intelligence gear that operates at the “speed of change.” Some soldiers may be assigned to a region for their entire career. The human and cyber domains of war will be merged.

Service leaders have been touting an expeditionary and scalable Army. Now, they’re putting their money where their mouth is. They are using the five-year drop in funding to change investment strategies and turn to innovative solutions that will reconfigure all manner of formations with rapid deployment in mind.

These revolutionary changes were not established on Congress’ floor or within the Pentagon’s halls. Instead, they came in a National Defense University conference room, where dozens of top generals and civilian service leaders gathered to discuss the results of a yearlong training exercise geared toward future conflict.

The exercise is called Unified Quest. The scenario centered on the use of chemical weapons by a collapsing nation against U.S. forces at home and abroad. The nation had chemical weapon stored in seven cities, and there was a strong possibility of nuclear weapon proliferation from a border nation.

The war game took place in 2025, and with good reason. Two separate teams independently responded to the same scenario. The first, called the “Evolution Group,” was equipped with current and planned capabilities and structures. The second, called the “Innovation Group,” was equipped largely with nonexistent but technologically feasible gear and used a variety of unique strategies and force structures.

The results were telling.

The Evolution Group took nearly four weeks to deploy and its operational fires commenced on Day 29. When the operation concluded on Day 85, the weapons of mass destruction were lost and blue forces could not account for opposition scientists.

The Innovation Group, using the same model, departed in five days and commenced operational fires on Day 8. The operation concluded on Day 24 with all WMD either secured or fixed.

With that said, it wasn’t easy for the Innovation Group. A reduced reliance on airfields and seaports resulted in increased speed and entry operations, and multiple points of entry left enemy forces scrambling. But it was difficult to move or sustain blue forces after entry. This led to an advantage for the adversary.

While the Evolution Group had more robust sustainment due to concurrent arrival, its troubles far outweighed its successes. One infantry brigade combat team had no reserve and limited resupply. The adversary massed fires and overwhelmed this “vulnerable” force. And the enemy was able to anticipate and resist the predictable (and necessary) reliance on major ports and airfields.

When the dust settled, senior leaders saw a need to change formations, strategies and gear to better succeed on future battlefields.
Changes to troops

The first battle is to prevent the battle, and win decisively and quickly if full battle is required.

The Unified Quest exercise validated the regional alignment model designed to enable soldiers to prevent and shape so they don’t have to fight and win, especially if that fight may become a large-scale conflict a cash-strapped Army is not equipped to fight. So you can expect this plan to gain steam in coming years.

A lot of preparatory training will be done at home station — a combination of run-and-gun and virtual, simulated and integrated training to replicate scenarios you are likely to face while deployed. Those threats will range from the complex to the criminal.

Expect immersion in language, regional expertise and culture training. Soldiers also will spend a lot of time training allied armies to do things they are now unable to do. There will be a lot of joint and partner-building exercises to increase U.S. influence and enhance the nation’s ability to gain access if required.

One general officer questioned whether a 19-year-old could handle the tasks described, and suggested the need for a more educated, higher-ranking force as the Army gets smaller.

A top leader rebuffed the idea and said young officers have proved they can handle responsibilities. He added that he is “overwhelmed by the increasing knowledge, understanding and capabilities of [noncommissioned officers],” and that the goal is to further develop the NCO corps for such operations and environments.

He pointed to author Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. The goal now is to compress the experience of a 35-year-old special operator into a 25-year-old officer or NCO.

Training is one obvious aspect. But Army leadership also is looking to science and technology to build better soldiers. Such science can help people learn faster, identify those prone or immune to stress, hone decision-making skills and measure various propensities. The latter can help put people in the right teams or place the right person in the right specialty. It also can help identify toxic leaders early on.

Such science is already a part of the Brigade Pre-Command Course. One leader said this aspect gets the lowest marks among students at the onset but the highest marks upon completion.

“We probably need to do this before they become brigade commanders,” he said. “This is low-cost, high-impact.”
Changes to strategy

While deployed forces will maintain strategic balance, expeditionary maneuver will restore balance when required. The key will be getting forces in during a narrow time window before the situation deteriorates. As the exercise showed, the Army as planned doesn’t do well in this endeavor.

For starters, it is not geared well for the growth in urbanization expected in coming years. The world is growing closer physically and virtually. It’s predicted that by 2040, 65 percent of world’s population will live in megacities far larger than New York City. One-third — some 2 billion people — will live in slum conditions. The Arab Spring will continue to shake out and weapons proliferation will pose new risks. An increase in coalition building around specific problems is likely, and enemy combatants will move across borders with ease.

Many more problems can be added to that:

■Increasing deficiencies in cyber warfare.

■A lack of battlefield intelligence at the squad level.

■Increasingly hostile anti-access and area-denial capabilities.

■A lack of airlift.

Fewer than one-third of Air Force crews are airborne-qualified. Gen. Robert Cone, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, this year identified 23 deficiencies in troop delivery during a similar exercise.

“We are too heavy and too reliant on old platforms,” one senior leader said at the conference.

Army Times was granted access to this open, and sometimes contentious, discussion under the agreement of anonymity for speakers.

The exercise also found that speed doesn’t come without risk. The Innovation Group had reduced reliance on airfields and seaports. The increased speed and multiple points of entry left enemy forces scrambling. But it came close to mission failure because resupply could not keep up. And the team had to rely on linear logistics and because sea basing could not be established.

Logistics leaders agreed that their field is “not yet integrated with the global response strategy of an expeditionary Army.”

“We have 20th-century logistics supporting 21st-century fighting forces,” one said.

As such, box kickers can expect serious effort toward technical advancements.

Sustainment wasn’t the red flag. A greater emphasis also will be placed on how quickly and competently the Army can aggregate and disaggregate units. Future force structure will lean heavily on the rapid forming, dissolving and reforming of units. Brigade combat teams and divisions may not operate in habitual command relationships. These realities were not dismissed lightly, as it was a significant issue in many hot washes that followed operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite these obstacles, the exercise showed that speed of operation will matter greatly in future operations. This approach better ensures an adversary “will be forced to respond to our actions, at the time and place of our choosing,” one four-star said.

And it will keep troops safe. The high-speed Innovation Group was able to decrease from high to low threat in 15 days. The Evolution Group didn’t get there until Day 45.

An unexpected turn of events happened when the intel community made a case for using “well-versed assignments” to keep its highly trained people in their region of interest. Top leaders didn’t balk at the idea. In fact, one who has a whole lot of pull said some enablers should remain in their region of expertise, and that he was “open to idea of aligning brigades” in such a manner but couched that comment by saying the service would “know better as the structure evolves.”

Yes, the Army’s 30-year plan was released just last year. And yes, it seems much of it will be thrown out the window.

But leaders are optimistic about the changes.

Eighty percent of gear the Army will use to fight in 2020 is already in the force or in the works, participants said. The bulk of these programs were started between 1990 and 2005. Much has changed and continues to change. The Evolution Group showed that the planned Army will not be optimal in light of such radical change.

Simply put, the Army will be in a fair fight by 2025 if these changes are not made, top leaders said.

The U.S. has “substantial advantage” only in interconnectivity and synthetic biology, they said. There is “considerable advantage” in armor, rail guns and robotics. Investment is needed to retain advantage in computing, night vision and UAVs. Adversaries are already overtaking advantages in active protection, cannon and rocket artillery, chemical weapons, C3/deception, solid rocket booster missiles and shaped charges.

But a “leap-ahead investment” in cyber, energetics, laser weapons, radio frequency weapons or power could be a “game-changer.” These will better allow for the self-sufficiency needed to overcome the logistics burden and operate in swift fashion.

But the delicate balance of the theoretical and practical was evident as ideas were exchanged. Representatives from research, development and acquisition fields sometimes looked perplexed, sometimes sat wide-eyed — and sometimes emitted audible gasps as uniformed leaders described the capabilities they need.

One example came when a top leader demanded a better network on the battlefield and made the familiar point to a smartphone as an example.

“We must have situational awareness while moving,” he said, describing troops as being in a black hole for hours while the aircraft draws near the mission. And when they arrive, “it is a completely different situation than when they took off.

“When we deploy, we have to put 100 damn trucks on the ground. Why?” he asked. “Instead of bringing infrastructure, let’s use the existing infrastructure. Let’s focus on the protection of data and reduce our footprint by 90 percent.”

The suits in attendance said it is a good idea, but it would require a much more open architecture that would be far more difficult to manage. In addition, cellular networks are not available everywhere. And if they are, additional capabilities may be needed. And if the people running that network “show up and turn it off on you, now you’re really going to struggle.”

The general wasn’t ready to retreat. He gave the builders and thinkers the green light to not only see what science has to offer but to help develop that technology. And while the soldier can’t always use host-nation networks, a rapid and immediate network could be developed that would have a far smaller footprint, he said before repeating the prevailing focus: “A reduced footprint means increased speed and increased lethality.”

Such differing dialogue was the exception, not the rule. The suits were motivated by the pending changes and the careful approach described by Army leaders. For example, they were told to not follow the Future Combat Systems example and instead make sure the item works before it is bought. That means experimentation such as that seen in the Network Integration Exercise will likely be required prior to acquisition.
Changes to gear

Yes, the Army’s 30-year plan was released just last year. And yes, it seems much of it will be thrown out the window.

But leaders are optimistic about the changes.

Eighty percent of gear the Army will use to fight in 2020 is already in the force or in the works, participants said. The bulk of these programs were started between 1990 and 2005. Much has changed and continues to change. The Evolution Group showed that the planned Army will not be optimal in light of such radical change.

Simply put, the Army will be in a fair fight by 2025 if these changes are not made, top leaders said.

The U.S. has “substantial advantage” only in interconnectivity and synthetic biology, they said. There is “considerable advantage” in armor, rail guns and robotics. Investment is needed to retain advantage in computing, night vision and UAVs. Adversaries are already overtaking advantages in active protection, cannon and rocket artillery, chemical weapons, C3/deception, solid rocket booster missiles and shaped charges.

But a “leap-ahead investment” in cyber, energetics, laser weapons, radio frequency weapons or power could be a “game-changer.” These will better allow for the self-sufficiency needed to overcome the logistics burden and operate in swift fashion.

But the delicate balance of the theoretical and practical was evident as ideas were exchanged. Representatives from research, development and acquisition fields sometimes looked perplexed, sometimes sat wide-eyed — and sometimes emitted audible gasps as uniformed leaders described the capabilities they need.

One example came when a top leader demanded a better network on the battlefield and made the familiar point to a smartphone as an example.

“We must have situational awareness while moving,” he said, describing troops as being in a black hole for hours while the aircraft draws near the mission. And when they arrive, “it is a completely different situation than when they took off.

“When we deploy, we have to put 100 damn trucks on the ground. Why?” he asked. “Instead of bringing infrastructure, let’s use the existing infrastructure. Let’s focus on the protection of data and reduce our footprint by 90 percent.”

The suits in attendance said it is a good idea, but it would require a much more open architecture that would be far more difficult to manage. In addition, cellular networks are not available everywhere. And if they are, additional capabilities may be needed. And if the people running that network “show up and turn it off on you, now you’re really going to struggle.”

The general wasn’t ready to retreat. He gave the builders and thinkers the green light to not only see what science has to offer but to help develop that technology. And while the soldier can’t always use host-nation networks, a rapid and immediate network could be developed that would have a far smaller footprint, he said before repeating the prevailing focus: “A reduced footprint means increased speed and increased lethality.”

Such differing dialogue was the exception, not the rule. The suits were motivated by the pending changes and the careful approach described by Army leaders. For example, they were told to not follow the Future Combat Systems example and instead make sure the item works before it is bought. That means experimentation such as that seen in the Network Integration Exercise will likely be required prior to acquisition.
The approach here, of two approaches being used for the problem (one being an evolution of current ideas, the other a drastic redesign based on current capabilities) reveals many interesting facts - in this case, that while the focus was on combat units themselves, it hasn't yet echoed into supply & fueling approaches. As the one section mentioned, they were using 21st century tech, with 20th century supply lines.

However, I completely understand that affecting the supply sections for such a test as well would be a more daunting prospect, especially if undertaken at the same time.

#2 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:17 am
by General Havoc
I'm reminded of the occasion in which one submarine during a wargame exercise in the navy managed to use a clever strategy to get close enough to a carrier to sink it. The captain then turned around and declared that the navy was sticking their head in the sand for not cancelling the exercise and scrapping the carriers in response to this one data point.

Wargames are a useful tactical tool, but not so useful that you can build your army around a single datapoint. The "revolutionary" new type of force relies entirely on technologies that are, at best, "feasible", meaning completely untested and entirely theoretical. We all recall how long it took the "technically feasible" Osprey to start working, don't we? Should we have scrapped the helicopter fleet immediately upon reception of the first focus group or theoretical simulation indicating that they were awesome?

Unproven technology is not trusted for a reason. This wargame is interesting, but by itself, it is nothing but a single, theoretical suggestion at this point. Dropping the entire army for the purposes of trying out a new, untested idea, is, rightly, well beyond the intentions of the US Army at present.

#3 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:56 am
by rhoenix
General Havoc wrote:I'm reminded of the occasion in which one submarine during a wargame exercise in the navy managed to use a clever strategy to get close enough to a carrier to sink it. The captain then turned around and declared that the navy was sticking their head in the sand for not cancelling the exercise and scrapping the carriers in response to this one data point.

Wargames are a useful tactical tool, but not so useful that you can build your army around a single datapoint. The "revolutionary" new type of force relies entirely on technologies that are, at best, "feasible", meaning completely untested and entirely theoretical. We all recall how long it took the "technically feasible" Osprey to start working, don't we? Should we have scrapped the helicopter fleet immediately upon reception of the first focus group or theoretical simulation indicating that they were awesome?

Unproven technology is not trusted for a reason. This wargame is interesting, but by itself, it is nothing but a single, theoretical suggestion at this point. Dropping the entire army for the purposes of trying out a new, untested idea, is, rightly, well beyond the intentions of the US Army at present.
I'm not saying that the Army should. I'm saying that an example of this process of improving in microcosm is interesting. New and untested ideas usually need great amounts of money and time to make practical, that's true - but tests such as this at least a good proving what is practical to develop at all.

#4 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:55 am
by Josh
General Havoc wrote: Unproven technology is not trusted for a reason. This wargame is interesting, but by itself, it is nothing but a single, theoretical suggestion at this point. Dropping the entire army for the purposes of trying out a new, untested idea, is, rightly, well beyond the intentions of the US Army at present.


I'm not saying that the Army should. I'm saying that an example of this process of improving in microcosm is interesting. New and untested ideas usually need great amounts of money and time to make practical, that's true - but tests such as this at least a good proving what is practical to develop at all.
Dude, you're totally dissing on the successes of the Pentomic forces of the fifties.

#5 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:35 pm
by Cynical Cat
War games are extremely easy to rig. Results without an analysis of how they are run are literally worthless.

#6 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:53 pm
by General Havoc
Josh wrote:Dude, you're totally dissing on the successes of the Pentomic forces of the fifties.
The what?

#7 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:09 pm
by Batman

#8 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:35 pm
by frigidmagi
Josh wrote:Dude, you're totally dissing on the successes of the Pentomic forces of the fifties.
What successes would those be? The Pentomic division was abandoned after 3 years.

#9 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 6:15 pm
by Josh
C'mon Frigid, the Pentomic force structure eliminated nearly every regiment in the US Army. That's pretty successful in my book.

For Bats (and maybe Havoc if he's not joking) the Pentomic concept was for dispersed units that could survive a tactical nuclear environment. The main problem with it was that while it was theoretically usable for that nuke situation, it was too dispersed and useless for a conventional fight.

#10 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2013 1:36 am
by Lys
The biggest issue with pentonomic divisions was the pentonomic arrangement itself. People have what is called a span of control/command, which is how many independent units a person can handle at once. Humans in general have a span of control in the 2-5 range, with most clustering in the 3-4 range. This is closely related to how the human mind normally deal with numbers. Most people simply cannot picture more than 4 or 5 objects in their mind without grouping (my limit is 4, but with grouping I can manage 10 000). Some can go as high as 10 or so, but it's rare, anyone who can manage more is probably a savant. It's just how we're wired. That's why some cultures don't have words for numbers greater than three or four, they don't know how to count. Counting is a mental trick, humans cannot do it without being taught. To people who haven't invented counting quantities such as "six" and "ten" are simply "many".

So, going back to the Pentomic division. It's called pentonomic because it's made up of five battle groups, each composed of five companies. This is within the normal human span of control, but the upper end of it. An officer whose personal span of control is 4 can probably hack it, but one who is a 3 is going to struggle. Moreover, in reality each pentonomic division and its component battle groups would have more than five subsidiary units, because things like artillery, engineers, recon, communications, and armour would be attached to them on an as needed basis. This made the entire structure extremely unweildy. You average battle group commander had to keep track of his four line companies, his own headquarters company, the mortar battery, and whatever else happened to be attached to his battle group as the situation demanded. The division commander was even more overworked, having to keep track of his five battle groups, HQ unit, divisional artillery, and tactical nuclear missile battery, besides whatever other supporting units were attached to his division.

Exacerbating all these problems was the fact that the arrangement caused an officer progression ladder to have long periods in which they would not be directly commanding manoeuvre elements. For example a Captain would be a company commander, but once he got promoted he would be stuck serving in secondary, administrative, and advisory positions until he made Colonel, which is a lot of time without exercising your skills at commanding manoeuvre elements, and like any other skill it erodes without practice. In the prior organizational schema he'd get to command a battalion as a Major or Lt. Colonel.

#11 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2013 4:25 am
by General Havoc
I'm sorry, next time I will not engage in conversation nor ask questions, for it makes me weak and deserving of mockery.

#12 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2013 5:45 pm
by Batman
Or the next time I do it you could mock me?
Yeah, okay, so I forgot the freaking smiley again. My bad. I keep forgetting that tongue-in-cheek comments are a lot harder to identify as tongue-in-cheek in writing.

#13 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:41 am
by Hotfoot
Batman wrote:Or the next time I do it you could mock me?
Yeah, okay, so I forgot the freaking smiley again. My bad. I keep forgetting that tongue-in-cheek comments are a lot harder to identify as tongue-in-cheek in writing.
You manage to do it when the answer is literally in bold text in front of you, so there's something of a basic level of competence involved here. Havoc is asking for contextual information based on knowledge of a subject that he does not have, rather than pretending to have detailed information on that knowledge based on a quick wiki check.

The difference here is ignorance versus stupidity. Havoc was ignorant of the subject and asked for information and the context for which it applies in this context.

You, meanwhile, are a child that apes at being an educated and informed adult. It's okay though, I'll just remind your live-in nurse to restrict your internet time again.

Adding an emoticon doesn't turn being an asshole into being funny, though, as I will show here you insignificant speck of carbon waste. :wink:

#14 Re: War game compares response of 2 versions of future Army

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:50 am
by frigidmagi
Okay, that's enough. Both of you.