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Abstract
It has become widely accepted that the convergence of technological advances is leading to a revolution in military affairs or perhaps even a military revolution. One of the unanswered questions concerning this shift is whether it will lead to continued dominance by the offense or a period of defensive dominance. Offense dominance means that battle requires much greater resources to defend than attack. Defense dominance reverses that balance. Today several high intensity regional conflicts in various parts of the World has provided us invaluable opportunity to reassess and examine the doctrinal rationale of warfighting concepts and the implications of range of capabilities for 21th century warfare.
In this Article, we will examine the great duality of war and seek the answer to the most relevant question: Does technology favour the offensive or defensive? And in light of it, we will assess how Bangladesh Army should fight: Concepts – doctrine – organisation – training, and what it should fight with: materials – 5 modernisation priorities.
Part I
The great duality of war: Does technology favour the offensive or defensive?
To examine this question, we will provides a couple of historical examples of the shift between offense and defense dominance at the tactical level.
History records a constantly shifting balance between offense and defense, driven by a combination of social, economic, and political changes. Despite Americans’ love for technology, it alone cannot drive major shifts. For instance, defense was dominant during much of the medieval period because of the cost and difficulty of reducing a castle. This was based not only on the technology of building a castle but also the political, social, and economic structures necessary to do so. Offense was not restored until a wide range of social, political, technological, and military changes necessary for the development of military establishments capable of rapidly reducing the castles occurred. While cannons provided a key technology, the society first had to develop the political, social, and economic systems to produce and sustain them.
A much later major shift of advantage to the defense was driven by the development of rifled muskets and the cannon, the mass production of these weapons, the tactical adaptation of field fortifications, mobilization of mass manpower, economies that could pay for them, and governments that could marshal those resources. The combination of these factors led to defense dominating the tactical battlefield from the late U.S. Civil War until near the end of World War I. Governments could field and arm forces that combined the tactics and technology, which meant any unit moving above ground could be quickly observed and taken under fire. The opposing armies were forced to go to ground in massive trench systems that could be held even against numerically superior attacking forces. Failure of military leaders to recognize these changes—despite the lessons of Crimea, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese war—led to repeated, bloody, futile attempts to cross World War I’s “no-man’s-lands.”
It was not until the Germans applied new concepts and tactics to technology emerging from the second industrial revolution—first lightweight machine guns and mortars, then armor and aircraft—that movement was restored to the battlefield. The transition was not completed before the end of World War I. During the interwar period, political, social, and economic systems had to evolve in parallel to produce the skilled engineers and operators, the financial backbone, and the will to conduct the global mechanized warfare of World War II. Since then, the offense has generally dominated tactically in conventional conflicts.
Today, convergence of 21st-century technologies is dramatically changing the battlefield environment. Commercial satellite networks tied to artificial intelligence (AI) processing tools mean that we are approaching a period of constant surveillance of the planet with visual, infrared, and electromagnetic sensors, as well as synthetic aperture radar. At the same time, nations are developing AI-assisted command and control systems that will allow them to absorb, understand, and act promptly on the resulting intelligence. This will enable them to coordinate attacks across all domains, including long-range precision attacks and swarms of autonomous hunters, informed by many sources and sensors, that will seek out their prey.
These co-evolving concepts, tactics, and commercial and military technologies are
once again creating a battle-space in which movement becomes extremely
dangerous. If a unit moves, it will create a signal and can be attacked at much greater ranges than in the past. At the same time, cyber, space, and
electromagnetic domains will provide both reinforcement for and increasingly
powerful alternatives to kinetic attacks.
It is essential to understand the difference between offense domination and a temporary advantage gained by offensive action. Offense domination provides the aggressor a major advantage that can be pursued throughout the conflict. Thus, it is inherently escalatory because the side that attacks first is perceived to have a war-winning advantage. Attacking first has historically provided the advantage of selecting the time and place of the battle. But it has also often provided only a temporary advantage because the attack did not prove sustainable for several reasons. These can best be expressed by the attack reaching its culminating point before it attained its strategic goals. This has been particularly true when concepts, tactics, and technology combined to increase the inherent advantages of the defense.
Land
The impact of the fourth industrial revolution on this oldest domain of war has already been dramatic. As noted, the balance between offense and defense in land combat has shifted through the ages. Since the last year of World War I, the offense has dominated conventional ground combat. (Irregular warfare has followed its own pattern.) However, emerging technologies are shifting the balance in conventional warfare back to the defense.
Since new systems allow units to remain passive and yet see the battlefield clearly, the defense will have a distinct advantage. Electro-optical and electronic warfare sensors can provide a great deal of information that, combined with external sensors such as satellites and drones, can allow the defenders to visualize the battlefield without revealing their own positions. The defenders will not have to emit signals until they choose to fire. And they will have the advantage of fighting from prepared positions. While most current systems must be manned to operate, autonomous and remote-control systems are being developed worldwide. As these systems mature, defenders can be located at a distance from their weapons and thus not be at risk even after firing. Recent events have shown ground forces will be subject to attack by the emerging families of swarming drones.2 Inexpensive autonomous drones are flying now and can be mass produced using advanced manufacturing techniques. It is not unreasonable to expect a defender to be able to launch hundreds or even thousands of loitering munitions against each brigade-size attack.
In contrast, attackers will have to move if they intend to execute anything but strike missions against the defender. The very act of moving will create a signature. While attackers will retain the traditional advantage of selecting the time and place of attack, the advantage of physically massing either offensive or defensive forces is declining as weapons ranges increase dramatically. Mass can be achieved by assembling long-range fires rather than massing forces. This favors the defender since attackers may well be forced to pass through restrictive chokepoints, while defenders can disperse to the maximum effective range of their weapons. However, as the Azerbaijanis demonstrated against the Armenians, the offense can remain dominant if the attacker adopts modern concepts and weapons while the defender relies on 20th-century weapons and concepts.1
How army should fight?
Fighting power
Fighting power is a concept that describes the operational effectiveness of armed forces, or any element of them. Fighting power recognises the fact that forces do not simply consist of such tangibles as people and equipment, they also have intangible conceptual and moral properties that can play a decisive role in shaping their effective employment. The drive to achieve the right balance of fighting power guides force development and preparation, with each component adjusted as necessary to meet the needs of a specific context. Fighting power is therefore intrinsically linked to the required quality of adaptability. It consists of three components as described below and shown in figure.
a. The conceptual component of fighting power rests on the development and application of doctrine, a set of fundamental principles by which land forces guide their actions in support of objectives. Agile, not dogmatic, doctrine takes past experience and extracts guidance for dealing with future challenges, providing a foundation from which initiative can be applied with confidence. An understanding of relevant doctrine, as well as the dynamics of any given situation, provides the context, insight and foresight required for effective decision-making. The flexibility to adapt to deal with dynamic challenges is another essential element of the conceptual component. Realistic and demanding training to develop core skills, along with organisational and technological flexibility, based on doctrine and supported by effective lessons processes, underpin the ability to adapt successfully.
b. The moral component. The moral component concerns the human aspect of fighting power. It supplies and sustains our land forces’ will to fight. It has three mutually dependent elements. High morale enables the land force to fight and overcome the privations of conflict. This is largely dependent on confidence in
equipment, training, sustainment and leadership. Moral cohesion contributes to this success, providing a sense of shared identity and purpose that binds individuals into teams, and teams into effective fighting forces. Moral cohesion is sustained by shared values and standards, which guide the actions of every soldier. Land forces rely on the strength of their leaders at all levels to establish and sustain motivation, morale, moral cohesion and trust. Their vision, intellect, communication and unceasing motivation pave the path through chaos and confusion. To be effective, a force’s actions must reflect a sound and appropriate ethical, moral and legal foundation. The values of courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment together should guide Army's actions. They demand that the actions of our land forces are lawful, appropriate and totally professional.
c. The physical component. The physical component of fighting power, sometimes referred to as combat power, provides the means to fight. Our ability to attract, recruit and retain the right people, with the right skills, in the right quantity and at the right time is critical to fighting power. Workforce and equipment are converted into ready, deployable and resilient forces through education and training. Training must be realistic, providing the forcing function for wider innovation and adaptation, as well as creating the conditions in which our land forces’ fighting spirit can be developed. Training must therefore replicate the challenge of combat so that it inculcates the confidence and tactical innovation necessary to prevail in war. Sustainability is also essential; even if the force is fully staffed and has all the necessary equipment, if it cannot be sustained, it cannot be employed as intended. The physical component is also reliant on wider resources; staffing, equipping, training and sustaining armed forces costs money. The physical component of land forces can be broken down into units and formations, or by the function that they fulfil.
Fighting power can only be applied if it is held at the appropriate readiness, can be deployed in time and then recovered for the next operation. Readiness applies to all components of fighting power. The deployment and recovery of land forces also requires organic and non-organic enablers. For example, maritime and air forces enable the deployment of a land force to a point of disembarkation from which it may need to project itself overland for long distances. Fighting power also varies depending on the level of interoperability that the force can achieve with other military formations and with other actors. These factors must be accounted for when considering the employment of land forces in a wider context based on their readiness state and overall military utility in each situation.2
THE TENETS OF LAND DOCTRINE
Combined arms is the synchronised and simultaneous application of arms to achieve an effect greater than if each element was used separately or sequentially (ADP 3-0). Leaders combine arms in complementary and reinforcing ways to protect capabilities and amplify their effects. Confronted with a constantly changing situation, leaders create new combinations of capabilities, methods, and effects to pose new dilemmas for adversaries. The combined arms approach to operations armed conflict is foundational to exploiting capabilities from all domains and their dimensions.
Complementary capabilities compensate for the vulnerabilities of one system or organization with the capabilities of a different one. Infantry protects tanks from enemy infantry and antitank systems, while tanks provide mobile protected firepower for the infantry. Ground maneuver can make enemy forces displace and become vulnerable to joint fires, while joint fires can disrupt enemy reserves and C2 to enable operations on the ground. Cyberspace and space capabilities and
electromagnetic warfare can prevent enemy forces from detecting and communicating the location of friendly land-based fires capabilities, and Army fires capabilities can destroy enemy ground-based cyberspace nodes and electromagnetic warfare platforms to protect friendly communications.
Reinforcing capabilities combine similar systems or capabilities to amplify the overall effects a formation brings to bear in a particular context. During urban operations, for example, infantry, aviation, and armoured units working in close coordination reinforce the protection, maneuver, and direct fire capabilities of each unit type while creating cascading dilemmas for enemy forces. Army artillery can be reinforced by close air support, air interdiction, and naval surface fire support, greatly increasing both the mass and range of fires available to a commander. Space and cyberspace capabilities used to disrupt enemy communications can reinforce a brigade combat team’s (BCT’s) ground-based jamming effort to increase the disruption to enemy C2. Military information support operations can amplify the effects of physical isolation on an enemy echelon, making it more vulnerable to friendly force exploitation.3
Mission command is the Army’s approach to command and control that empowers subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation. Mission command supports the Army’s operational concept of unified land operations and its emphasis on seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative.
The mission command approach to command and control is based on the Army’s view that war is inherently chaotic and uncertain. No plan can account for every possibility, and most plans must change rapidly during execution to account for changes in the situation. No single person is ever sufficiently informed to make every important decision, nor can a single person keep up with the number of decisions that need to be made during combat. Subordinate leaders often have a better understanding of what is happening during a battle, and are more likely to respond effectively to threats and fleeting opportunities if allowed to make decisions and act based on changing situations and unforeseen events not addressed in the initial plan in order to achieve their commander’s intent. Enemy forces may behave differently than expected, a route may become impassable, or units could consume supplies at unexpected rates. Friction and unforeseeable combinations of variables impose uncertainty in all operations and require an approach to command and control that does not attempt to impose perfect order, but rather accepts uncertainty and makes allowances for unpredictability.
Mission command helps commanders capitalize on subordinate ingenuity, innovation, and decision making to achieve the commander’s intent when conditions change or current orders are no longer relevant. It requires subordinates who seek opportunities and commanders who accept risk for subordinates trying to meet their intent. It tells subordinates what to achieve and why, but not how. It is not, however, an absence of command and control, commanders must express a clear intent and main effort, provide adequate resource and give firm direction when necessary. Subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation help manage uncertainty and enable necessary tempo at each echelon during operations.4
The centrality of Combined arms and Mission command to Operational success is self-evident. Russia's tremendous losses of equipments, notably armour in early months of the Ukraine conflict is largely attributed to its inability of competent combined arms warfare. Similarly, AFRF's rigid command and control structure often resulted in tactical formations inability to seize the initiative or exploit it. Resulting in poor operational tempo.
When it comes the final tenet of land doctrine, it is about overall operational approach to war fighting. And perhaps this is where a great deal of contemporary debate and discussion lies. The age old dilemma of Manoeuvre vs attrition.
Manoeuvre warfare derives much of its meaning from its position as the proposed opposite to attrition warfare. Attrition, as a style of war, focuses on battle, mass, firepower, systematic and sequential activity, cumulative action, and the physical wearing down of an adversary. Attrition is a direct approach. Success is measured in terms of relative casualties and territory taken. Manoeuvre warfare is positioned by its proponents as the antithesis of this. Manoeuvre warfare is indirect; it seeks to avoid enemy strengths and focus on identifying and attacking enemy weaknesses. It emphasizes dislocation, disruption, and the undermining of enemy will and cohesion rather than the physical destruction of the adversary. Explicitly, manoeuvre is presented as a superior approach than attrition, the latter being characterized as incremental, costly, and time-consuming. Three themes, in particular, lie at the heart of manoeuvre warfare approaches: system-based thinking; tempo; and non-linearity.
System-based thinking conceptualizes the enemy as a structure of integrated sub-parts reliant for their effective functioning on critical nodes and such intangibles as cohesion, will, and decision-making. Enemies can be defeated, therefore, by collapsing their system, long before they are physically destroyed. This mind-set emphasizes the importance of the targeting of the enemy’s critical vulnerabilities: the discovery, and then leveraging, of enemy weaknesses.
Tempo can be defined as the speed of friendly forces relative to the enemy. Manoeuvre warfare approaches conceptualize warfare as an iterative, time-competitive phenomenon based on the continuous adversarial interplay between action and reaction. Manoeuvre warfare sees success in war as a function of superior tempo. Superior tempo comes from being able to identify opportunities and exploit them more quickly than the adversary, a situation that creates the basis for undermining the adversary’s moral, physical, and conceptual cohesion and bringing about their systemic collapse.
Achieving superior tempo and the systemic collapse of the enemy requires a non-linear approach to warfare. Non-linearity embraces uncertainty, friction, and disorder. Commanders must accept that they cannot wholly understand and control events. Consequently, in manoeuvre warfare, the emphasis is on agility, flexibility, surprise, individual initiative, and moral courage in order to exploit emerging circumstances without waiting for orders from above: ‘All patterns, recipes and formulas are to be avoided’. In that vein, manoeuvre warfare puts an emphasis on de-centralized decision-making, ‘mission command’, as the best way of coping with uncertainty and disorder, and the fluidity of combat.
The ‘manoeuvre’ element in manoeuvre warfare may involve physical manoeuvre, although even here, relative speed of manoeuvre, and not just position, is important. However, manoeuvre also has much wider connotations. The ‘manoeuvre’ in manoeuvre warfare is focused on attaining positions of advantage: but these positions of advantage may be temporal, psychological, and/or cognitive rather than physical. For the US Marine Corps, for example, manoeuvre is conducted ‘in the physical and cognitive dimensions of conflict to generate and exploit psychological, technological, temporal, and spatial advantages over the adversary’. In that sense, manoeuvre warfare can also be conceptualized as a philosophy of war, ‘manoeuvrism’ or ‘a manoeuvrist approach’, of general applicability across all levels of conflict and in non-physical domains. This philosophy focuses on applying to operations at all levels principles such as surprise, seizing the initiative, preemption, momentum, simultaneity, exploitation, and a focus on the psychological impact of actions. Indeed, successful manoeuvrism may involve pre-empting the need at all for battle.5
That is at least, as mentioned above, how proponents of the manoeuvre warfare would like to describe it. However, as some distinguished contemporary critics rightfully pointed out, attrition is an idea that is vastly misunderstood because of decades of being misrepresented in war studies literature and in Western military doctrine. Attrition is not a form of warfare, nor is there a set of specific tactics specifically linked to it. Instead, attrition is a state of being, and a characterisation of war in which high casualties as a result of significant direct and indirect attacks occur.
In attritional environments, both actors can be subject to high levels of destruction, or one actor can inflict high casualties on the other. In either case, a military force striving to destroy a significant amount of the enemy’s combat power, to advance the enemy toward strategic exhaustion, is not simultaneously allowing the same thing to happen to itself. Thus, arguments against attrition suggesting that destruction-oriented operations have a reciprocal impact on oneself are unconvincing strawmen that do not hold up to rigorous examination.
Moreover, attrition is a fundamental feature both of war and warfare. As a fundamental feature, and despite the Clausewitzian school of thought’s opposition to additions, attrition is a salient component of the nature of war. As a fundamental feature of war, attrition is justified as an organizing and optimization principle for modern military forces."6
Hence, a more accurate dichotomy would be Manoeuvre warfare vs positional warfare.
Positional warfare emphasises mobility and protection with firepower implicit. Formations are placed in a location that compels the enemy to attack but that are favourable to the defence. With the defence considered the stronger form of war, the adversary is placed at a disadvantage from the start of the battle in needing to attack a well-protected, entrenched force.7 Positional warfare aims to impose high attrition on the attacking enemy forces, progressively destroying an adversary’s equipments, personnel and resources at a pace greater than they can be replenished.8
Between positional and manoeuvre warfare lies a newcomer. Interchangeability war-fare accentuates protection and firepower, with mobility restrained. In this form of warfare, a force positions itself at a central location and, from there, engages the enemy, whether they are advancing or not. The force does not move around the battlefield, instead letting the range and lethality of its firepower substitute for mobility.9
'Interchangeability' is concept that says fire and manoeuvre are interchangeable. It is possible to obviate the need for one through a focused application of other. Manoeuvre is traded away for fire. In other words, Firepower to a large extent can substitute for manoeuvre on the modern battlefield.
Now coming back to 'how Bangladesh army should fight its future war', I would argue given the inherent defensive nature of Bangladesh Army with no expeditionary ambition, army should lean in favour of a flexible 'interchangeability warfare' doctrine that stresses protection and firepower, While trading maneuver for fire is fully able to engages the enemy, throughout the depth and breadth of battlefield whether they are advancing or not.10
This new way of warfare reflects the fact that there is emerging a period of firepower dominance. Here we Will examine why the Maneuverist approach is not suitable for Bangladesh Army.
a. As the World largest River delta consisting of hundreds of water ways, with nearly 80% of the country's surface area being floodplain, The terrain configuration hinders manoeuvre warfare significantly in Bangladesh.
b. Technological Advancement Denies Maneuver Advantages. Since
manoeuvre force aims at paralysing enemy’s action rather than destruction of enemy force, it requires a phantom force capable of swift movement avoiding opponent’s detection and then identify the suitable nerve centre, plan, communicate and deliver the decisive stroke. The Germans could do it initially against France during the WW-II. However, rapid advancement in the field of devastation and accuracy of firepower are outpacing the advantages of maneuver which still is limited with the capabilities of internal combustion engines of 20th century.11 On the other hand as Robert Scales (a retired major general and former commandant of the US Army War College) recently wrote-
"The three components of firepower dominance — lethality, range, and precision — have all increased killing power by at least a factor of four or five just in the past three decades alone while the speed of ground maneuver is exactly where it was during the Battle of France in 1940."12
Similarly, thanks to the modern state of art Command, control, communication and computers (C4) architecture and network enabled capability facilitating unprecedented integration of sensors, decision makers and effectors, the response time, integration and synchronisation of fires has improved dramatically.
In addition to that, the ubiquitous availability of highly attritable and high-fidelity surveillance and reconnaissance assets, from electronic and multispectral sensing, to video feeds from UAVs, leaves little room to hide. It is fair to say that Western armies have to a large extent been in denial about the impact of these capabilities. Awaiting a revolution in swarm technology and AI, Western forces have largely overlooked the fact that it is the density of sensors that is decisively reshaping the battlefield.
Given the range and endurance of modern ISR capabilities, and the distance that armoured and mechanised forces must traverse under threat before actually coming into the direct fire zone, it must be doubted whether existing concepts of armoured manoeuvre will remain viable, as armoured units face persistent attrition before ever they reach an adversary ground formation. As the weight of most armoured units – with a correspondingly limited operational reach – restricts long marches, the distance from a safe start line to an objective may render the logistics and break down rate prohibitive for established norms of operation.13
c. Maneuver Warfare Flexibility or Too Much Uncertainty? An indirect approach may take too long a time which subsequently would degrade the force strength and morale. It may also be too vulnerable to fog and friction due to constant adjustment with situation and changes of plans. Changing decisions continuously to keep up with the ever-changing circumstances (OODA loop) is also a part of the game. There is an old saying in the US Navy about it, “Order, counter order, disorder!” Again, in the process of attacking the enemy’s weaknesses, there comes up the requirement to fix the enemy’s strength. If there is no ‘the vulnerable ground’ (VG), a force may attack series of relative weaknesses and become susceptible to ultimate attrition. On the other hand, the same result with less time and casualties may be achieved by a decisive engagement of enemy’s critical strength. The most important requirement for a successful maneuver warfare is accurate, up-to-date intelligence on the disposition of vital enemy command, support and combat units. As no one can guarantee intelligence of maximum accuracy; implementation of strategies based on inaccurate intelligence can become problematic. Again, when faced with an opponent, capable of maneuvering and redeploying quickly and discreetly, the prospect of maneuver strategies to deliver victory become even more challenging. Lebanon War in 2006 may be sited as an example where such shortcomings had been exposed as Israeli forces were unable to deliver a decisive blow to the flexible command structure of Hezbollah.
On the other hand, today it can be argued that, with latest technological advancement of firepower having real-time datalink, AI aided comprehensive C4 systems, easy availability of highly attritable and high-fidelity surveillance and reconnaissance assets, from electronic and multispectral sensing, to video feeds from UAVs, as well as satellite and GPS coverage for target acquisition and engagement by precision and smart munitions, much of the same pre-emption, disruption and destruction can an be achieved by firepower alone. The risk of a decisive battle at a decisive moment for neutralising the CG always entails the danger of own attrition. Thus, the notion which is gaining ascendancy in many circles is ‘maneuver battle field fires than maneuver units’. The extended range, accuracy, target acquisition and ultimate devastation at target end are allowing commanders to create desired maneuver effect without committing his forces to a prolonged deadly combat. Nowadays, a commander only needs to synchronize operational and tactical fire (both lethal and non-lethal) to accomplish this task. Modern attrition warfare has taken a revolutionary shape of an exclusive fire power warfare which is centred on Manoeuvring battle field fires rather than maneuvering units.14
Similarly, today Tempo is becoming more about the relative speed of judgment than action. The blurring of political, informational, and military spheres not only increases the complexity of the operating environment, but also produces a a level of data that tends to overwhelm decision makers. This challenge is compounded by the shrinking of operational battlespace with non-nuclear precision missiles that can traverse thousands of km, multiple combatant commands, and a dizzying array of competing command authorities. While tactical engagement, massing fires, and effective sustainment remain the foundation of effective warfighting, an ability to cut through the complexity and make effective decisions faster than an adversary is the new high ground. Much of this advantage is gained through effectively processing what can amount to petabytes of data — a task impossible for a single human and difficult for large staffs. Hence by applying highly sophisticated AI/ML to aggregate data, parse trends, identify patterns, and pass the results to humans to apply context and make decisions, friendly force can drive much of operational tempo.15
Organising principles
Based on armed conflict’s attritional nature, force optimization must start with organizing and equipping to account for destruction and battlefield losses. Arguments that the future of conflict will be any less deadly or destructive are out of touch with reality, are borderline delusional and are in no way supported by much more than wishful thinking. Forces must therefore be constructed with the capacity required to absorb casualties and equipment losses. Force structure should be optimised around the ideas of elasticity, redundancy, mobility and localised overmatch.16
Training
a. Rigorous combined arms training and exercises are fundamental to enhance the army's war fighting capabilities.
As described above, combined arms team concept implies that, units and sub units are organized for combat with mixed grouping of all arms and are customized for specific tactical mission. The nucleus of such a team is armour and Mechanized Infantry. Around this nucleus, a team/ group is formed supported by elements of self-propelled Artillery, Air Defence Artillery, Engineers, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME), Signal and air assets (Attack helicopter). At present training modules are conducted in isolation, not keeping harmony between armour and mechanized infantry as combined arms concept (CT/CG/CC). In addition, ongoing training (Mechanized Infantry Course -UN, conducted by SI&T and ACC&S) on mechanized forces focused on UN employment rather than their conventional employment. Therefore, it is necessary to redesign the overall training concept keeping in mind the classic role of mechanized forces. Bangladesh Army may take a closer look for developing a separate center and school for mechanized infantry. A separate institutional training and formation training curriculum for the officers and men need to be developed in order to strengthen the effectiveness of mechanize forces. Besides, few designated training areas (Sarnaw Deep and Hathazari Field Firing Range) need to be developed to conduct CT/CG/CC level maneuver exercise with live firing, at least once in a year/alternative year.17
b. To adapt and implement the philosophy of mission command on large scale, Bangladesh Army must put more emphasis on modernising the training and education of CO, JCO and NCO. More broadly, employing the mission command approach during all garrison activities and other training events is essential to creating the cultural foundation for its employment in high-risk environments.
c. Necessity of adequate CCD training to gain the qualitative edge in war fighting.
Camouflage, concealment and decoy (CCD) is the use of materials and techniques to hide, blend, disguise, decoy, or disrupt the appearance of military targets and/or their backgrounds. CCD helps prevent an enemy from detecting or identifying friendly troops, equipment, activities, or installations. Properly designed CCD techniques take advantage of the immediate environment and natural and artificial materials. One of the imperatives of current military doctrine is to conserve friendly strength for decisive action. Such conservation is aided through sound operations security (OPSEC) and protection from attack. Protection includes all actions that make soldiers, equipment, and units difficult to locate.
CCD training must be included in every field exercise. Soldiers must be aware that an enemy can detect, identify, and acquire targets by using resources outside the visual portion of the EM spectrum.
INDIVIDUAL
Each member of the unit must acquire and maintain critical CCD skills. These include the ability to analyze and use terrain effectively; to select an individual site properly; and to hide, blend, disguise, disrupt, and decoy key signatures using natural and artificial materials.
UNIT
Unit CCD training refines individual and leader skills, introduces the element of team coordination, and contributes to tactical realism. If CCD is to conserve friendly strength, it must be practiced with the highest degree of discipline. The deployment and teardown of camouflage; light, noise, and communications discipline; and signal security must be practiced and evaluated in an integrated mission-training environment. CCD proficiency is developed through practicing and incorporating lessons learned from exercises and operations. A unit must incorporate CCD (who, what, where, when, and how) into its tactical standing operating procedure (TACSOP). Generally, CCD is additive and synergistic with other defensive measures. CCD enhances unit survivability and increases the likelihood of mission success. A unit that is well trained in CCD operations more easily recognises CCD as employed by an enemy, and this recognition enhances a unit’s lethality.18
To be continued with Part II……….
It has become widely accepted that the convergence of technological advances is leading to a revolution in military affairs or perhaps even a military revolution. One of the unanswered questions concerning this shift is whether it will lead to continued dominance by the offense or a period of defensive dominance. Offense dominance means that battle requires much greater resources to defend than attack. Defense dominance reverses that balance. Today several high intensity regional conflicts in various parts of the World has provided us invaluable opportunity to reassess and examine the doctrinal rationale of warfighting concepts and the implications of range of capabilities for 21th century warfare.
In this Article, we will examine the great duality of war and seek the answer to the most relevant question: Does technology favour the offensive or defensive? And in light of it, we will assess how Bangladesh Army should fight: Concepts – doctrine – organisation – training, and what it should fight with: materials – 5 modernisation priorities.
Part I
The great duality of war: Does technology favour the offensive or defensive?
To examine this question, we will provides a couple of historical examples of the shift between offense and defense dominance at the tactical level.
History records a constantly shifting balance between offense and defense, driven by a combination of social, economic, and political changes. Despite Americans’ love for technology, it alone cannot drive major shifts. For instance, defense was dominant during much of the medieval period because of the cost and difficulty of reducing a castle. This was based not only on the technology of building a castle but also the political, social, and economic structures necessary to do so. Offense was not restored until a wide range of social, political, technological, and military changes necessary for the development of military establishments capable of rapidly reducing the castles occurred. While cannons provided a key technology, the society first had to develop the political, social, and economic systems to produce and sustain them.
A much later major shift of advantage to the defense was driven by the development of rifled muskets and the cannon, the mass production of these weapons, the tactical adaptation of field fortifications, mobilization of mass manpower, economies that could pay for them, and governments that could marshal those resources. The combination of these factors led to defense dominating the tactical battlefield from the late U.S. Civil War until near the end of World War I. Governments could field and arm forces that combined the tactics and technology, which meant any unit moving above ground could be quickly observed and taken under fire. The opposing armies were forced to go to ground in massive trench systems that could be held even against numerically superior attacking forces. Failure of military leaders to recognize these changes—despite the lessons of Crimea, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese war—led to repeated, bloody, futile attempts to cross World War I’s “no-man’s-lands.”
It was not until the Germans applied new concepts and tactics to technology emerging from the second industrial revolution—first lightweight machine guns and mortars, then armor and aircraft—that movement was restored to the battlefield. The transition was not completed before the end of World War I. During the interwar period, political, social, and economic systems had to evolve in parallel to produce the skilled engineers and operators, the financial backbone, and the will to conduct the global mechanized warfare of World War II. Since then, the offense has generally dominated tactically in conventional conflicts.
Today, convergence of 21st-century technologies is dramatically changing the battlefield environment. Commercial satellite networks tied to artificial intelligence (AI) processing tools mean that we are approaching a period of constant surveillance of the planet with visual, infrared, and electromagnetic sensors, as well as synthetic aperture radar. At the same time, nations are developing AI-assisted command and control systems that will allow them to absorb, understand, and act promptly on the resulting intelligence. This will enable them to coordinate attacks across all domains, including long-range precision attacks and swarms of autonomous hunters, informed by many sources and sensors, that will seek out their prey.
These co-evolving concepts, tactics, and commercial and military technologies are
once again creating a battle-space in which movement becomes extremely
dangerous. If a unit moves, it will create a signal and can be attacked at much greater ranges than in the past. At the same time, cyber, space, and
electromagnetic domains will provide both reinforcement for and increasingly
powerful alternatives to kinetic attacks.
It is essential to understand the difference between offense domination and a temporary advantage gained by offensive action. Offense domination provides the aggressor a major advantage that can be pursued throughout the conflict. Thus, it is inherently escalatory because the side that attacks first is perceived to have a war-winning advantage. Attacking first has historically provided the advantage of selecting the time and place of the battle. But it has also often provided only a temporary advantage because the attack did not prove sustainable for several reasons. These can best be expressed by the attack reaching its culminating point before it attained its strategic goals. This has been particularly true when concepts, tactics, and technology combined to increase the inherent advantages of the defense.
Land
The impact of the fourth industrial revolution on this oldest domain of war has already been dramatic. As noted, the balance between offense and defense in land combat has shifted through the ages. Since the last year of World War I, the offense has dominated conventional ground combat. (Irregular warfare has followed its own pattern.) However, emerging technologies are shifting the balance in conventional warfare back to the defense.
Since new systems allow units to remain passive and yet see the battlefield clearly, the defense will have a distinct advantage. Electro-optical and electronic warfare sensors can provide a great deal of information that, combined with external sensors such as satellites and drones, can allow the defenders to visualize the battlefield without revealing their own positions. The defenders will not have to emit signals until they choose to fire. And they will have the advantage of fighting from prepared positions. While most current systems must be manned to operate, autonomous and remote-control systems are being developed worldwide. As these systems mature, defenders can be located at a distance from their weapons and thus not be at risk even after firing. Recent events have shown ground forces will be subject to attack by the emerging families of swarming drones.2 Inexpensive autonomous drones are flying now and can be mass produced using advanced manufacturing techniques. It is not unreasonable to expect a defender to be able to launch hundreds or even thousands of loitering munitions against each brigade-size attack.
In contrast, attackers will have to move if they intend to execute anything but strike missions against the defender. The very act of moving will create a signature. While attackers will retain the traditional advantage of selecting the time and place of attack, the advantage of physically massing either offensive or defensive forces is declining as weapons ranges increase dramatically. Mass can be achieved by assembling long-range fires rather than massing forces. This favors the defender since attackers may well be forced to pass through restrictive chokepoints, while defenders can disperse to the maximum effective range of their weapons. However, as the Azerbaijanis demonstrated against the Armenians, the offense can remain dominant if the attacker adopts modern concepts and weapons while the defender relies on 20th-century weapons and concepts.1
How army should fight?
Fighting power
Fighting power is a concept that describes the operational effectiveness of armed forces, or any element of them. Fighting power recognises the fact that forces do not simply consist of such tangibles as people and equipment, they also have intangible conceptual and moral properties that can play a decisive role in shaping their effective employment. The drive to achieve the right balance of fighting power guides force development and preparation, with each component adjusted as necessary to meet the needs of a specific context. Fighting power is therefore intrinsically linked to the required quality of adaptability. It consists of three components as described below and shown in figure.
a. The conceptual component of fighting power rests on the development and application of doctrine, a set of fundamental principles by which land forces guide their actions in support of objectives. Agile, not dogmatic, doctrine takes past experience and extracts guidance for dealing with future challenges, providing a foundation from which initiative can be applied with confidence. An understanding of relevant doctrine, as well as the dynamics of any given situation, provides the context, insight and foresight required for effective decision-making. The flexibility to adapt to deal with dynamic challenges is another essential element of the conceptual component. Realistic and demanding training to develop core skills, along with organisational and technological flexibility, based on doctrine and supported by effective lessons processes, underpin the ability to adapt successfully.
b. The moral component. The moral component concerns the human aspect of fighting power. It supplies and sustains our land forces’ will to fight. It has three mutually dependent elements. High morale enables the land force to fight and overcome the privations of conflict. This is largely dependent on confidence in
equipment, training, sustainment and leadership. Moral cohesion contributes to this success, providing a sense of shared identity and purpose that binds individuals into teams, and teams into effective fighting forces. Moral cohesion is sustained by shared values and standards, which guide the actions of every soldier. Land forces rely on the strength of their leaders at all levels to establish and sustain motivation, morale, moral cohesion and trust. Their vision, intellect, communication and unceasing motivation pave the path through chaos and confusion. To be effective, a force’s actions must reflect a sound and appropriate ethical, moral and legal foundation. The values of courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment together should guide Army's actions. They demand that the actions of our land forces are lawful, appropriate and totally professional.
c. The physical component. The physical component of fighting power, sometimes referred to as combat power, provides the means to fight. Our ability to attract, recruit and retain the right people, with the right skills, in the right quantity and at the right time is critical to fighting power. Workforce and equipment are converted into ready, deployable and resilient forces through education and training. Training must be realistic, providing the forcing function for wider innovation and adaptation, as well as creating the conditions in which our land forces’ fighting spirit can be developed. Training must therefore replicate the challenge of combat so that it inculcates the confidence and tactical innovation necessary to prevail in war. Sustainability is also essential; even if the force is fully staffed and has all the necessary equipment, if it cannot be sustained, it cannot be employed as intended. The physical component is also reliant on wider resources; staffing, equipping, training and sustaining armed forces costs money. The physical component of land forces can be broken down into units and formations, or by the function that they fulfil.
Fighting power can only be applied if it is held at the appropriate readiness, can be deployed in time and then recovered for the next operation. Readiness applies to all components of fighting power. The deployment and recovery of land forces also requires organic and non-organic enablers. For example, maritime and air forces enable the deployment of a land force to a point of disembarkation from which it may need to project itself overland for long distances. Fighting power also varies depending on the level of interoperability that the force can achieve with other military formations and with other actors. These factors must be accounted for when considering the employment of land forces in a wider context based on their readiness state and overall military utility in each situation.2
THE TENETS OF LAND DOCTRINE
Combined arms is the synchronised and simultaneous application of arms to achieve an effect greater than if each element was used separately or sequentially (ADP 3-0). Leaders combine arms in complementary and reinforcing ways to protect capabilities and amplify their effects. Confronted with a constantly changing situation, leaders create new combinations of capabilities, methods, and effects to pose new dilemmas for adversaries. The combined arms approach to operations armed conflict is foundational to exploiting capabilities from all domains and their dimensions.
Complementary capabilities compensate for the vulnerabilities of one system or organization with the capabilities of a different one. Infantry protects tanks from enemy infantry and antitank systems, while tanks provide mobile protected firepower for the infantry. Ground maneuver can make enemy forces displace and become vulnerable to joint fires, while joint fires can disrupt enemy reserves and C2 to enable operations on the ground. Cyberspace and space capabilities and
electromagnetic warfare can prevent enemy forces from detecting and communicating the location of friendly land-based fires capabilities, and Army fires capabilities can destroy enemy ground-based cyberspace nodes and electromagnetic warfare platforms to protect friendly communications.
Reinforcing capabilities combine similar systems or capabilities to amplify the overall effects a formation brings to bear in a particular context. During urban operations, for example, infantry, aviation, and armoured units working in close coordination reinforce the protection, maneuver, and direct fire capabilities of each unit type while creating cascading dilemmas for enemy forces. Army artillery can be reinforced by close air support, air interdiction, and naval surface fire support, greatly increasing both the mass and range of fires available to a commander. Space and cyberspace capabilities used to disrupt enemy communications can reinforce a brigade combat team’s (BCT’s) ground-based jamming effort to increase the disruption to enemy C2. Military information support operations can amplify the effects of physical isolation on an enemy echelon, making it more vulnerable to friendly force exploitation.3
Mission command is the Army’s approach to command and control that empowers subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation. Mission command supports the Army’s operational concept of unified land operations and its emphasis on seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative.
The mission command approach to command and control is based on the Army’s view that war is inherently chaotic and uncertain. No plan can account for every possibility, and most plans must change rapidly during execution to account for changes in the situation. No single person is ever sufficiently informed to make every important decision, nor can a single person keep up with the number of decisions that need to be made during combat. Subordinate leaders often have a better understanding of what is happening during a battle, and are more likely to respond effectively to threats and fleeting opportunities if allowed to make decisions and act based on changing situations and unforeseen events not addressed in the initial plan in order to achieve their commander’s intent. Enemy forces may behave differently than expected, a route may become impassable, or units could consume supplies at unexpected rates. Friction and unforeseeable combinations of variables impose uncertainty in all operations and require an approach to command and control that does not attempt to impose perfect order, but rather accepts uncertainty and makes allowances for unpredictability.
Mission command helps commanders capitalize on subordinate ingenuity, innovation, and decision making to achieve the commander’s intent when conditions change or current orders are no longer relevant. It requires subordinates who seek opportunities and commanders who accept risk for subordinates trying to meet their intent. It tells subordinates what to achieve and why, but not how. It is not, however, an absence of command and control, commanders must express a clear intent and main effort, provide adequate resource and give firm direction when necessary. Subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation help manage uncertainty and enable necessary tempo at each echelon during operations.4
The centrality of Combined arms and Mission command to Operational success is self-evident. Russia's tremendous losses of equipments, notably armour in early months of the Ukraine conflict is largely attributed to its inability of competent combined arms warfare. Similarly, AFRF's rigid command and control structure often resulted in tactical formations inability to seize the initiative or exploit it. Resulting in poor operational tempo.
When it comes the final tenet of land doctrine, it is about overall operational approach to war fighting. And perhaps this is where a great deal of contemporary debate and discussion lies. The age old dilemma of Manoeuvre vs attrition.
Manoeuvre warfare derives much of its meaning from its position as the proposed opposite to attrition warfare. Attrition, as a style of war, focuses on battle, mass, firepower, systematic and sequential activity, cumulative action, and the physical wearing down of an adversary. Attrition is a direct approach. Success is measured in terms of relative casualties and territory taken. Manoeuvre warfare is positioned by its proponents as the antithesis of this. Manoeuvre warfare is indirect; it seeks to avoid enemy strengths and focus on identifying and attacking enemy weaknesses. It emphasizes dislocation, disruption, and the undermining of enemy will and cohesion rather than the physical destruction of the adversary. Explicitly, manoeuvre is presented as a superior approach than attrition, the latter being characterized as incremental, costly, and time-consuming. Three themes, in particular, lie at the heart of manoeuvre warfare approaches: system-based thinking; tempo; and non-linearity.
System-based thinking conceptualizes the enemy as a structure of integrated sub-parts reliant for their effective functioning on critical nodes and such intangibles as cohesion, will, and decision-making. Enemies can be defeated, therefore, by collapsing their system, long before they are physically destroyed. This mind-set emphasizes the importance of the targeting of the enemy’s critical vulnerabilities: the discovery, and then leveraging, of enemy weaknesses.
Tempo can be defined as the speed of friendly forces relative to the enemy. Manoeuvre warfare approaches conceptualize warfare as an iterative, time-competitive phenomenon based on the continuous adversarial interplay between action and reaction. Manoeuvre warfare sees success in war as a function of superior tempo. Superior tempo comes from being able to identify opportunities and exploit them more quickly than the adversary, a situation that creates the basis for undermining the adversary’s moral, physical, and conceptual cohesion and bringing about their systemic collapse.
Achieving superior tempo and the systemic collapse of the enemy requires a non-linear approach to warfare. Non-linearity embraces uncertainty, friction, and disorder. Commanders must accept that they cannot wholly understand and control events. Consequently, in manoeuvre warfare, the emphasis is on agility, flexibility, surprise, individual initiative, and moral courage in order to exploit emerging circumstances without waiting for orders from above: ‘All patterns, recipes and formulas are to be avoided’. In that vein, manoeuvre warfare puts an emphasis on de-centralized decision-making, ‘mission command’, as the best way of coping with uncertainty and disorder, and the fluidity of combat.
The ‘manoeuvre’ element in manoeuvre warfare may involve physical manoeuvre, although even here, relative speed of manoeuvre, and not just position, is important. However, manoeuvre also has much wider connotations. The ‘manoeuvre’ in manoeuvre warfare is focused on attaining positions of advantage: but these positions of advantage may be temporal, psychological, and/or cognitive rather than physical. For the US Marine Corps, for example, manoeuvre is conducted ‘in the physical and cognitive dimensions of conflict to generate and exploit psychological, technological, temporal, and spatial advantages over the adversary’. In that sense, manoeuvre warfare can also be conceptualized as a philosophy of war, ‘manoeuvrism’ or ‘a manoeuvrist approach’, of general applicability across all levels of conflict and in non-physical domains. This philosophy focuses on applying to operations at all levels principles such as surprise, seizing the initiative, preemption, momentum, simultaneity, exploitation, and a focus on the psychological impact of actions. Indeed, successful manoeuvrism may involve pre-empting the need at all for battle.5
That is at least, as mentioned above, how proponents of the manoeuvre warfare would like to describe it. However, as some distinguished contemporary critics rightfully pointed out, attrition is an idea that is vastly misunderstood because of decades of being misrepresented in war studies literature and in Western military doctrine. Attrition is not a form of warfare, nor is there a set of specific tactics specifically linked to it. Instead, attrition is a state of being, and a characterisation of war in which high casualties as a result of significant direct and indirect attacks occur.
In attritional environments, both actors can be subject to high levels of destruction, or one actor can inflict high casualties on the other. In either case, a military force striving to destroy a significant amount of the enemy’s combat power, to advance the enemy toward strategic exhaustion, is not simultaneously allowing the same thing to happen to itself. Thus, arguments against attrition suggesting that destruction-oriented operations have a reciprocal impact on oneself are unconvincing strawmen that do not hold up to rigorous examination.
Moreover, attrition is a fundamental feature both of war and warfare. As a fundamental feature, and despite the Clausewitzian school of thought’s opposition to additions, attrition is a salient component of the nature of war. As a fundamental feature of war, attrition is justified as an organizing and optimization principle for modern military forces."6
Hence, a more accurate dichotomy would be Manoeuvre warfare vs positional warfare.
Positional warfare emphasises mobility and protection with firepower implicit. Formations are placed in a location that compels the enemy to attack but that are favourable to the defence. With the defence considered the stronger form of war, the adversary is placed at a disadvantage from the start of the battle in needing to attack a well-protected, entrenched force.7 Positional warfare aims to impose high attrition on the attacking enemy forces, progressively destroying an adversary’s equipments, personnel and resources at a pace greater than they can be replenished.8
Between positional and manoeuvre warfare lies a newcomer. Interchangeability war-fare accentuates protection and firepower, with mobility restrained. In this form of warfare, a force positions itself at a central location and, from there, engages the enemy, whether they are advancing or not. The force does not move around the battlefield, instead letting the range and lethality of its firepower substitute for mobility.9
'Interchangeability' is concept that says fire and manoeuvre are interchangeable. It is possible to obviate the need for one through a focused application of other. Manoeuvre is traded away for fire. In other words, Firepower to a large extent can substitute for manoeuvre on the modern battlefield.
Now coming back to 'how Bangladesh army should fight its future war', I would argue given the inherent defensive nature of Bangladesh Army with no expeditionary ambition, army should lean in favour of a flexible 'interchangeability warfare' doctrine that stresses protection and firepower, While trading maneuver for fire is fully able to engages the enemy, throughout the depth and breadth of battlefield whether they are advancing or not.10
This new way of warfare reflects the fact that there is emerging a period of firepower dominance. Here we Will examine why the Maneuverist approach is not suitable for Bangladesh Army.
a. As the World largest River delta consisting of hundreds of water ways, with nearly 80% of the country's surface area being floodplain, The terrain configuration hinders manoeuvre warfare significantly in Bangladesh.
b. Technological Advancement Denies Maneuver Advantages. Since
manoeuvre force aims at paralysing enemy’s action rather than destruction of enemy force, it requires a phantom force capable of swift movement avoiding opponent’s detection and then identify the suitable nerve centre, plan, communicate and deliver the decisive stroke. The Germans could do it initially against France during the WW-II. However, rapid advancement in the field of devastation and accuracy of firepower are outpacing the advantages of maneuver which still is limited with the capabilities of internal combustion engines of 20th century.11 On the other hand as Robert Scales (a retired major general and former commandant of the US Army War College) recently wrote-
"The three components of firepower dominance — lethality, range, and precision — have all increased killing power by at least a factor of four or five just in the past three decades alone while the speed of ground maneuver is exactly where it was during the Battle of France in 1940."12
Similarly, thanks to the modern state of art Command, control, communication and computers (C4) architecture and network enabled capability facilitating unprecedented integration of sensors, decision makers and effectors, the response time, integration and synchronisation of fires has improved dramatically.
In addition to that, the ubiquitous availability of highly attritable and high-fidelity surveillance and reconnaissance assets, from electronic and multispectral sensing, to video feeds from UAVs, leaves little room to hide. It is fair to say that Western armies have to a large extent been in denial about the impact of these capabilities. Awaiting a revolution in swarm technology and AI, Western forces have largely overlooked the fact that it is the density of sensors that is decisively reshaping the battlefield.
Given the range and endurance of modern ISR capabilities, and the distance that armoured and mechanised forces must traverse under threat before actually coming into the direct fire zone, it must be doubted whether existing concepts of armoured manoeuvre will remain viable, as armoured units face persistent attrition before ever they reach an adversary ground formation. As the weight of most armoured units – with a correspondingly limited operational reach – restricts long marches, the distance from a safe start line to an objective may render the logistics and break down rate prohibitive for established norms of operation.13
c. Maneuver Warfare Flexibility or Too Much Uncertainty? An indirect approach may take too long a time which subsequently would degrade the force strength and morale. It may also be too vulnerable to fog and friction due to constant adjustment with situation and changes of plans. Changing decisions continuously to keep up with the ever-changing circumstances (OODA loop) is also a part of the game. There is an old saying in the US Navy about it, “Order, counter order, disorder!” Again, in the process of attacking the enemy’s weaknesses, there comes up the requirement to fix the enemy’s strength. If there is no ‘the vulnerable ground’ (VG), a force may attack series of relative weaknesses and become susceptible to ultimate attrition. On the other hand, the same result with less time and casualties may be achieved by a decisive engagement of enemy’s critical strength. The most important requirement for a successful maneuver warfare is accurate, up-to-date intelligence on the disposition of vital enemy command, support and combat units. As no one can guarantee intelligence of maximum accuracy; implementation of strategies based on inaccurate intelligence can become problematic. Again, when faced with an opponent, capable of maneuvering and redeploying quickly and discreetly, the prospect of maneuver strategies to deliver victory become even more challenging. Lebanon War in 2006 may be sited as an example where such shortcomings had been exposed as Israeli forces were unable to deliver a decisive blow to the flexible command structure of Hezbollah.
On the other hand, today it can be argued that, with latest technological advancement of firepower having real-time datalink, AI aided comprehensive C4 systems, easy availability of highly attritable and high-fidelity surveillance and reconnaissance assets, from electronic and multispectral sensing, to video feeds from UAVs, as well as satellite and GPS coverage for target acquisition and engagement by precision and smart munitions, much of the same pre-emption, disruption and destruction can an be achieved by firepower alone. The risk of a decisive battle at a decisive moment for neutralising the CG always entails the danger of own attrition. Thus, the notion which is gaining ascendancy in many circles is ‘maneuver battle field fires than maneuver units’. The extended range, accuracy, target acquisition and ultimate devastation at target end are allowing commanders to create desired maneuver effect without committing his forces to a prolonged deadly combat. Nowadays, a commander only needs to synchronize operational and tactical fire (both lethal and non-lethal) to accomplish this task. Modern attrition warfare has taken a revolutionary shape of an exclusive fire power warfare which is centred on Manoeuvring battle field fires rather than maneuvering units.14
Similarly, today Tempo is becoming more about the relative speed of judgment than action. The blurring of political, informational, and military spheres not only increases the complexity of the operating environment, but also produces a a level of data that tends to overwhelm decision makers. This challenge is compounded by the shrinking of operational battlespace with non-nuclear precision missiles that can traverse thousands of km, multiple combatant commands, and a dizzying array of competing command authorities. While tactical engagement, massing fires, and effective sustainment remain the foundation of effective warfighting, an ability to cut through the complexity and make effective decisions faster than an adversary is the new high ground. Much of this advantage is gained through effectively processing what can amount to petabytes of data — a task impossible for a single human and difficult for large staffs. Hence by applying highly sophisticated AI/ML to aggregate data, parse trends, identify patterns, and pass the results to humans to apply context and make decisions, friendly force can drive much of operational tempo.15
Organising principles
Based on armed conflict’s attritional nature, force optimization must start with organizing and equipping to account for destruction and battlefield losses. Arguments that the future of conflict will be any less deadly or destructive are out of touch with reality, are borderline delusional and are in no way supported by much more than wishful thinking. Forces must therefore be constructed with the capacity required to absorb casualties and equipment losses. Force structure should be optimised around the ideas of elasticity, redundancy, mobility and localised overmatch.16
Training
a. Rigorous combined arms training and exercises are fundamental to enhance the army's war fighting capabilities.
As described above, combined arms team concept implies that, units and sub units are organized for combat with mixed grouping of all arms and are customized for specific tactical mission. The nucleus of such a team is armour and Mechanized Infantry. Around this nucleus, a team/ group is formed supported by elements of self-propelled Artillery, Air Defence Artillery, Engineers, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME), Signal and air assets (Attack helicopter). At present training modules are conducted in isolation, not keeping harmony between armour and mechanized infantry as combined arms concept (CT/CG/CC). In addition, ongoing training (Mechanized Infantry Course -UN, conducted by SI&T and ACC&S) on mechanized forces focused on UN employment rather than their conventional employment. Therefore, it is necessary to redesign the overall training concept keeping in mind the classic role of mechanized forces. Bangladesh Army may take a closer look for developing a separate center and school for mechanized infantry. A separate institutional training and formation training curriculum for the officers and men need to be developed in order to strengthen the effectiveness of mechanize forces. Besides, few designated training areas (Sarnaw Deep and Hathazari Field Firing Range) need to be developed to conduct CT/CG/CC level maneuver exercise with live firing, at least once in a year/alternative year.17
b. To adapt and implement the philosophy of mission command on large scale, Bangladesh Army must put more emphasis on modernising the training and education of CO, JCO and NCO. More broadly, employing the mission command approach during all garrison activities and other training events is essential to creating the cultural foundation for its employment in high-risk environments.
c. Necessity of adequate CCD training to gain the qualitative edge in war fighting.
Camouflage, concealment and decoy (CCD) is the use of materials and techniques to hide, blend, disguise, decoy, or disrupt the appearance of military targets and/or their backgrounds. CCD helps prevent an enemy from detecting or identifying friendly troops, equipment, activities, or installations. Properly designed CCD techniques take advantage of the immediate environment and natural and artificial materials. One of the imperatives of current military doctrine is to conserve friendly strength for decisive action. Such conservation is aided through sound operations security (OPSEC) and protection from attack. Protection includes all actions that make soldiers, equipment, and units difficult to locate.
CCD training must be included in every field exercise. Soldiers must be aware that an enemy can detect, identify, and acquire targets by using resources outside the visual portion of the EM spectrum.
INDIVIDUAL
Each member of the unit must acquire and maintain critical CCD skills. These include the ability to analyze and use terrain effectively; to select an individual site properly; and to hide, blend, disguise, disrupt, and decoy key signatures using natural and artificial materials.
UNIT
Unit CCD training refines individual and leader skills, introduces the element of team coordination, and contributes to tactical realism. If CCD is to conserve friendly strength, it must be practiced with the highest degree of discipline. The deployment and teardown of camouflage; light, noise, and communications discipline; and signal security must be practiced and evaluated in an integrated mission-training environment. CCD proficiency is developed through practicing and incorporating lessons learned from exercises and operations. A unit must incorporate CCD (who, what, where, when, and how) into its tactical standing operating procedure (TACSOP). Generally, CCD is additive and synergistic with other defensive measures. CCD enhances unit survivability and increases the likelihood of mission success. A unit that is well trained in CCD operations more easily recognises CCD as employed by an enemy, and this recognition enhances a unit’s lethality.18
To be continued with Part II……….
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