Modern combat doctrine

What is the meta right now ? How does Ukraine and Russia apply them ?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    drones be bussin fr no cap

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >what’s meta
    Full spectrum dominance, large mechanized forces.
    >how is Ukraine doing?
    Given the cards they have been dealt, they are doing well.
    >how is Russia doing?
    Trash tier.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    80s soviet artillery be like JUST GONNA SEND IIIIT and ukrainian cargo cultists be like heres why losing half of our GDP is a good thing

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    in terms of ukraine a weird mix of ww1 with the stagnant artillery barrage duels, pseudo-trench warfare and low-speed low-altitude bomber aircraft and ww2 with the occasional blitzkrieg
    for a peer-to-peer war between two countries with a modern military nobody knows, as things like drones might be nearly useless because of systems like rheinmetall's skynex

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >as things like drones might be nearly useless because of systems like rheinmetall's skynex
      Drones require those systems to be employed in the first place so they're not useless. Everything has its counter, but that doesn't mean the thing in itself is worthless, just that its employment needs tactical and doctrinal consideration. Massing, dispersion, time and place on the battlefield, etc.
      Drones have already been identified as primarily disposable with the vast being destroyed quite soon, so anti-drone systems are already being worked around doctrinally.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Depending on the drone, a 12.7 or even a 7.62 RWCS can already fend them off. 35 autocannons like that also have applications for infantry support, CRAM, against light vehicles... I tend to believe that drones like we see them now, switchblades and quadcopters, will not generally deliver firepower except against pure infantry. Vehicles will push them away into an observation role (though that may be quite agressive and high-attrition as well). Firepower will be delivered by missiles and artillery.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          So we are back to 1991 just with better optics and faster Wi-Fi.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes, except the artillery can shoot and scoot on its own now, the munitions can pick up their own targets in flight and EFPs allow them to hit moving vehicles, you can have a high powered battle space software system sending out drones loaded with ammo to batteries so they run dry far less often, and you'll still have some drones picking up targets because sensors like ETOS have a range of hundreds of miles.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I suspect that future battlefields will be a hurricane of fast moving autonomous networked drones spewing out countermeasures like lasers, smoke, and chaff while mostly fighting each other, and infantry move through the battle/rave in powered exoskeletons with support from vehicles that use more active than passive protection, and actual fighting will still be done by people, with the drones doing more to shape where the fighting happens than actually kill people.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I suspect in the future there will be ECM mortars shells floating on parachutes, and so long as the ECM of both sides are stalemated it's basically mid-80s meta until one's side's ECM overwhelms the other at which point it becomes a completely one sided slaughter.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >drones spewing out countermeasures like lasers, smoke, and chaff
            Ground vehicles can do that much better than flying drones.
            >infantry in powered exoskeletons
            Or walker drones that don't have to deal with a fragile fleshbag inside.
            >vehicles that use more active than passive protection
            Definitely.
            >actual fighting will still be done by people
            Yeah, I disagree.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Ground vehicles can do that much better than flying drones
              ground vehicles will be doing it too, but the drones are going to be flying fricking everywhere, and they will have some onboard countermeasures to add a few extra seconds to how long they last after contact with the enemy and continue adding additional data to the computer models in the armored vehicles.
              >walker drones that don't have to deal with a fragile fleshbag inside.
              The walker drone can carry the batteries and gear for the meatbag who actually has a concept of what is going on and what the objective is and who can make decisions about how best to achieve it.
              >Yeah, I disagree.
              You're free to, but I suspect that ever smaller numbers of humans will still be doing the fighting, countermeasures of all sorts will pervade the battlefield from all angles, and there will be a knife's edge of difference between the countermeasures making automated decision making too unreliable to destroy the enemy and the countermeasures not being enough to stop the drones from being destroyed. So humans operating from within their drone swarm will try to identify and eliminate the humans operating the other drone swarm, and where the two swarms meet will be a hurricane of sensory overload and destruction that nothing can traverse safely.

              I suspect in the future there will be ECM mortars shells floating on parachutes, and so long as the ECM of both sides are stalemated it's basically mid-80s meta until one's side's ECM overwhelms the other at which point it becomes a completely one sided slaughter.

              I suspect treaded ugvs will deploy those sorts of shells in bursts then rapidly reposition inside the drone swarm to avoid whatever counter battery fire avoids interception, and most of the drones will be largely autonomous and communicate in short bursts with directional antennas to avoid jamming.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The problem is that observation can be done with very small drones, which are hard to detect, or from very far away with modern sensor packages. To keep the costs of attrition down, you can also flood an enemies zone with cheaper decoys.

          I don't think you can get around modern observational capabilities, they just come from too many angles.

          New doctrine will have to also focused on layered defenses for when your vehicles inevitably get spotted and have fire coming in.

          In the longer term, as drones advance and autonomous systems get better, I think we'll actually see even more drones. That is, you'll get a class of interceptor designed to keep your forward airspace free from enemy spotters and to destroy enemy sensors. The result will essentially be a mini air battle.

          In any event, all trends point to engagement ranges getting longer and infantry being more vulnerable. Ukraine shouldn't be taken as a great indication of the future because it is too poor nations, both know for exceptional corruption before the war.

          10-20 years from now, autonomy is only going to be more developed, fire missions faster, your chance of being spotted higher: infantry will be dead without layered defenses, and if both sides need to stay within their umbrella, it's going to make engagements longer.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >The result will essentially be a mini air battle.
            Quite possible.
            Though perhaps that will not suffice to actually shut them down. Maybe sensor drones will be ubiquitous, giving both sides perfect view of the battlefield and it becomes a long range missile and artillery duel.
            >infantry being more vulnerable
            Indeed. IMO infantry has two problems, zero survivability against artillery unless deeply entrenched (and even that may be solved with better shells) and very low ability to fend off flying objects of all kind. Infantry can carry manpads, and maybe take some shots with their rifles (computerized firing would be necessary to actually hit anything). But infantry is fundamentally limited by what it can carry - amount of ammo, size of sensors, size of guns. And the advantage it previously had, being elusive, spread out, being hard to dislodge, are ever shrinking.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Maybe sensor drones will be ubiquitous, giving both sides perfect view of the battlefield
              this implies that both sides will be able to see the others drones, and if they can see them, they are going to try to destroy them, and both sides will take various measures to reduce the attrition of their drones, which will reduce their ability to provide battlefield intelligence.
              >it becomes a long range missile and artillery duel.
              unlikely, since long range missiles will likely be vulnerable to some of the same systems that will be employed to kill spotter drones, and even guided artillery would be difficult to put on target from extreme range while the target is maneuvering, deploying smoke and chaff, dazzling your targeting sensors with lasers, and all sorts of other tricks.
              >infantry is fundamentally limited by what it can carry
              this is the real reason for the two problems you mentioned, the infantryman of the future will need a powered exoskeleton until the technology exists to upgrade the soldier himself. Once he can carry more, then he will remain the most compact way to get a decision making intelligence into a place where he can figure out how to cause problems for the enemy, but he will be freed from the need to have a whole squad just to carry all the different types of equipment, since he'll have drones for that, I bet he'll still carry a rifle though.

              https://i.imgur.com/xEtB5Tw.jpg

              The problem is that observation can be done with very small drones, which are hard to detect, or from very far away with modern sensor packages. To keep the costs of attrition down, you can also flood an enemies zone with cheaper decoys.

              I don't think you can get around modern observational capabilities, they just come from too many angles.

              New doctrine will have to also focused on layered defenses for when your vehicles inevitably get spotted and have fire coming in.

              In the longer term, as drones advance and autonomous systems get better, I think we'll actually see even more drones. That is, you'll get a class of interceptor designed to keep your forward airspace free from enemy spotters and to destroy enemy sensors. The result will essentially be a mini air battle.

              In any event, all trends point to engagement ranges getting longer and infantry being more vulnerable. Ukraine shouldn't be taken as a great indication of the future because it is too poor nations, both know for exceptional corruption before the war.

              10-20 years from now, autonomy is only going to be more developed, fire missions faster, your chance of being spotted higher: infantry will be dead without layered defenses, and if both sides need to stay within their umbrella, it's going to make engagements longer.

              >fire missions faster
              eventually the very concept of a fire mission may seem as quaint as lining up in a field and waiting for your officer to give the order to fire, and instead autonomous systems will use a mesh network where each drone system acts as a specialized node.
              >your chance of being spotted higher
              I suspect that countermeasures will become more widespread, with the whole battlefield smothered in smoke and chaff, so spotting may become NP-hard in some circumstances.
              >a class of interceptor
              I suspect a whole ecosystem of drone fighters will evolve

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >this implies that both sides will be able to see the others drones
                Perhaps. I don't think we can say with certainty how the game between drones, counter-drone-drones and platform based (gun or laser) drone defenses will play out, and how much vision of the enemy one will have. All I'm rather certain of is that firepower-delivering drones are not the future, because they are slow and big, easy to fend off.
                >long range missiles will likely be vulnerable to some of the same systems that will be employed to kill spotter drones
                As opposed to short range systems? I'm not seeing it. The big factor in missile survivability imo is speed - having a longer distance to pick up terminal speed is actually good. The survivability of artillery shells will be interesting though.
                >most compact way to get a decision making intelligence
                This is the only advantage a human still has over a machine. And I doubt it will stay that way, rather I think an AI with complete datalink integration will make faster and better decisions than a human. Not to mention, the AI isn't subject to silly things like fear or exhaustion. If human intelligence is still required, it can be datalinked in from a command vehicle.

                Of course all of this is highly speculative. I recall a military writer (these are not my own thoughts) saying that getting tactics right is the harder, the more technical a field is. And this is extremely technical. We who are not experts on future military hardware can barely be sure what kind of hardware will be possible, determining the best way to employ it is basically impossible.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Btw. I think they should make a kind of game where you can define and use military tech in a competition scenario, complete with all the specs, the costs, the effectiveness against each other etc. as predicted by experts. Then train an AI to play it. I think we would see some weird shit coming out of it.
                Then change the parameters slightly, let another expert enter his assumptions, see how it changes.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >firepower-delivering drones are not the future
                missiles are a type of drone, and that's not just being pedantic, as the technology develops, the line between a multi stage missile that can loiter and a drone that delivers munitions is going to blur into nonexistence.
                >As opposed to short range systems?
                No, I was trying to say that I don't think that engagements will primarily be long range duels between artillery batteries. Long range missiles are just easier to intercept than shells, at least currently, so I figured that bore mentioning.
                >I think an AI...
                The sort of AGI you are envisioning would eliminate the need for human cooperation, and would turn every person into a sort of feudal king of their own little robotic kingdom that could provide everything for them. Wars would be so radically different in that scenario that it's not really possible to imagine how they'd work. Fortunately that sort of AI seems like it's a ways off, so in the present, we still need humans, and they're going to need to be close enough to the action to communicate in spite of the broad spectrum hell that is being unleashed, so infantry will still have a lot of advantages.
                >If human intelligence is still required, it can be datalinked in from a command vehicle.
                probably not, my whole point is that the battlefield of the future will probably involve a lot more things that make communication harder and make it harder to know what is going on, and that is a double edged sword, it's just duller on your side. In current wars, the signal to noise ratio is already pretty bad, and it's already possible to make it much worse, so I don't see any reason to assume data links will be reliable or provide useful info, and I think the communication problems will get worse with range.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The meta right now is flying cheapo civilian drones to spot the enemy and then hit them with artillery. If neither side can secure airspace from airborne and ground threats then the war turns into a grinding slog of attrition and trench warfare. Western armies are not prepared for this type of conflict because they do not have enough equipment/vehicles in stock nor do they have the industrial base to manufacture shit.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >nor do they have the industrial base to manufacture shit.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >The meta right now is flying cheapo civilian drones to spot the enemy and then hit them with artillery
      that's only the meta of shit armies like russia

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >nor do they have the industrial base to manufacture shit.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    there is no "light infantry" any more.

    >mechanized infantry
    solders ride around in basically armored cars, then perform light infantry tactics. "air assult" is the same but with helicopters.
    >combined arms
    different parts of the military operate integrally in the sub components. they rarely make massed formation attacks as an independent unit. Ex: a tank never enters combat without infantry support.
    >information technology
    access to information allows solders to evaluate the battle field, and make informed decisions at the lowest levels.
    >drone technology
    allows high risk information gathering or more effective resource management at a lower cost of operation and the reduction of loss of human life.
    >cyber operations
    less important to Ukraine, in the traditional sense, but information disruption and management is doubly important.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Ukraine seems to be Muhammad Ali military.

    Let the enemy exhaust himself, while striking his weak points in the rear. Then punch him back when he's exhausted.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >What is the meta right now ?

    Complete ISR and HUMINT supremacy and deleting stuff with missiles and smart bombs so your enemy can't even fight a war. Special forces to do tasks on the ground without getting bogged down.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Accurate Fire over Fire Superiority

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    There are loads of good points in this thread.
    But the bottom line is simple:
    Don't start a fight unless you're sure you can win.
    This is not just a rule in war, it's a rule in life.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >meta
    Using drones from Walmart to drop grenades on enemy solders.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The emerging meta is a move to far more automation, automation of everything from recon to fire missions.

    Neither Ukraine nor Russia are in a good place to take advantage of these emerging technologies. At best, they can show us what the extreme budget version looks like (e.g., using commercial drones to stop advancing soldiers or to correct artillery fire). They don't have autonomous artillery systems, which are quite new, and the drones they are using aren't specialized for feeding targeting data back to fire mission queue that can have any of several guns in range instantly adjust for the mission.

    Their soldiers don't even necessarily have optics, let alone ones that can designate a mortar strike or a zone for a ground drone to lay down machinegun or automatic grenade fire on.

    Doctrine is currently in a state of upheaval in wealthy nations. Autonomous systems are finally good enough to use. They are still "dumb' and need humans making all the operational decisions, but they can now find targets, move themselves around, etc. These systems can act as huge force multipliers.

    The future of targeting/recon will be multilevel. It isn't just drones, although low altitude drones are a huge asset and will be very common. You'll be using everything from high altitude weather balloons, to small drones at 300 feet, to satellites (which have been used to direct artillery fire effectively).

    There are now many, many ways to get eyes on targets further away. There are now many more ways to hit these targets. E.g., frick waiting in ambush to fire on a tank if you can hit it 15 miles out with a loitering munition. More and more autonomous indirect fire systems, paired with smart munitions, mean you can act on everything the drones, etc. see very quickly.

    In Ukraine, you see footage from either side with multiple cuts, moving shadows. Eyes on the target but getting fire missions takes time and correcting takes time. Picture this, many times faster.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >What is the meta right now ? How does Ukraine and Russia apply them ?
    US/NATO has abso-fricking-lutely ZERO clue, evidenced by the $200billion dollars, and the emptying of the nato-zoo, all to get fricking destroyed by quadruple-felon-cannibals, wielding soviet era garbage

    the west un-ironically has no doctrine for a 'near-peer' scenario
    our weapons are'nt even made for such a case

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Human wave attacks with your country's criminals. Solves two problems at once.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >What is the meta right now ?
    For the civilized world?
    Combined arms dominance, within the physical battlespace and beyond. Aircraft rule the battlespace. A war is decided by the ability to suppress anti-air capabilties. On the smaller level, war is about intelligence. It always has been, but today so much more can be known and much more can be done with the information.
    A naive observer might call drones the big innovation of this war, but the truth is, this war only reveals the inability of Russia and the so-called Ukraine to engage in electronic warfare and the suppression of drone forces.

    The truth is, War has not changed, not since Desert Storm and it probably won't. Perhaps you could say it hasn't changed since prehistory.
    The name of the game is still destruction of cababilities before they reach the battlespace.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Instead of reading hot takes on /k/ you can read the RUSI report here:
    https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022

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