Technology & Winning Wars

(Draft) The Illusion of Technology & Winning Wars

Thanks to Discovery Channel and History TV we know of how awesome some of our modern military technology is. From drones that can see you scratch yourself from 30,000 feet to the ability of radar technicians in Colorado to see an apple thrown in the air in Russia. Fighters that can defeat radar to get in quick strikes to billion-dollar guided missile destroyers. All in all, anyone who would dare oppose the United States of America on the battlefield better beware: we are the most technologically advanced and most trained military in the world.

It’s a pretty amazing title, but it means nothing. Furthermore, it has cost more and lead to tactical stupidity. If any TV crew for Discovery Channel’s “Future Weapons” show ever went to the National Training Center in Ft. Irwin CA it was for B-roll only, and maybe the demonstration of some sort of new super weapon – like an experimental new heavy machinegun that ten years after filming has still not gone into production. While NTC sounds impressive, a monstrous acreage of land to simulate battle, complete with a full time opposing force made up of National Guardsmen who exist as their own conventional military complete with rank structure, insignia and unique equipment; foreign nationals imported to speak the local language of whatever operational theater US Forces are operating in as local civilians in mock villages; to wounded amputee veterans who play casualties in more realistic scenarios.

NTC is not really known to the public, though there are a smattering of documentaries that mention these facts. NTC however is really good at hiding the truth about the modern US Military from the public: it is the site of repeated scandal for the US Army. Why? These scandals are usually related to insufficient food for troops, whole units not having transportation to return to their garrisons, outbreaks of disease, fatal training accidents and constant failure of equipment and most notable: failure of US units to certify as “operational.” It turns out that the training environment meant to prepare US forces to go to war, is just as dangerous as the real thing. Perhaps part of the reason NTC and its sister facilities (JTC in Louisiana and regular garrison training areas) go unknown by the public is they carry different names. When troops talk about problems “in the Box” the average American has no idea that this means the actual graded performance area of NTC. The latest rage in veteran clothing are items that celebrate wars in “Atropia” and “Pineland” to list a few: these are the fictional nations that claim the lands of these training areas.

This B-roll however also hides some real issues in the amazing training our forces endure to be ready for battle. It is impressive to the untrained eye to see troops advancing methodically through a mock village, engaging the enemy and rapidly achieving the objective. What is the camera not catching? Nothing is stopping this advance: blank ammo sounds impressive but there is no telling if the enemy is killing you because you are standing in the open. Much of this training is an impressive “proof” of concept and military theory. There is great value to the training from a low level tactical perspective but that has little to do with the fact that real combat cannot be simulated and operates far differently than we “think” it does.

As warfare shifted to an industrial enterprise, planners realized that prior to the start of WWI that warfare would shift from a “manpower” measure of effectiveness to a logistical one. US doctrine going into WWII was based on an “industrial” technological advantage – namely that the US could produce more units of fighting equipment/day than our enemies. This doctrine appeared to have “proof” in the end outcome of the war, and it certainly was a critical factor in the victory over both Japan and Germany. This has further clouded US public and military thinking.

As the cold war began the USSR eventually passed the US and the West in the ability to manufacture more units per day. Now faced with disadvantages in both manpower and industrial capability the US was forced to shift to a new doctrine: technology. This subtle shift is actually stretched over the reality of industrial doctrine in WWII in the history books: it has been widely ignored for example that the M4 Sherman tank for example was outclassed on the battlefield by even earlier models produced by the enemy. The M1 Garand was exceptional rifle in 1942, but by 1945 better more effective designs had taken root in every other military involved except Japan – but the US continued to use this rifle for decades.

Technology did play a huge role in the air – and the US was undisputedly ahead in that category. So much so that in the remaining 1940s it is unlikely that had any other power gained the atom bomb that it would be employable in the opening acts of a “hot” Cold War. This advantage however diminished by the 1950s. The narrative of “best in the world” in the USA is clouded in nostalgia, and generally carried by the uninformed masses. Had the USSR stayed out of WWII for example, Germany would have ended the war by 1943 with ease. This would even be the case if the USSR supplied the other Allies with material support but not combat forces. This could not have happened since Germany invaded the USSR, but had the script been flipped – and the allies simply aided the USSR in material support (as they did) and not fought on the ground, the USSR may have still won the war. One in four US Jeeps went to the USSR in the war – but those Jeeps were crewed by Russians, and it was Russians not Americans that were killing German troops. This dynamic plays out again and again in modern US history – and the “proof” that it works is based on our “winning” of WWII with it.

The script was changed in the following wars: putting US troops in the Jeeps. Korea & Vietnam proved to be examples where US boots did the driving and US troops did the shooting. Neither war ended in the manner in which planners desired. US forces were initially successful in Korea, where the Achilles heel of the “pro-technology” US camp first arose. Never mind that it was a lesson learned by the USSR in the previous decade, and for them it was learned the opposite way (and that is perhaps why it stuck there but not here). Impressive military technology is usually countered by simple solutions.

The problem with highly technological weapons is their ability to do one thing great and nothing else. In Korea the problem was simply numbers – as long as you field more troops than the enemy has bullets you can win. A better example of this however is the history of the MRAP. Replacing the Jeep in 1985 was the High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). This truck has a variety of configurations to meet a litany of logistical needs for a mechanized military. Drawn up, installed and initially operated in a tracked military – the US Army of the 1980s was “heavy” – meaning that front line vehicles were generally tracked, heavily armored and capable of surviving on the battlefield. At the close of the cold war, planners (calling tracked vehicles and the “heavy” military obsolete) the US Army became a wheeled force, favoring rapid campaigns with lightly armored wheeled vehicles, trading numbers for maneuverability; specifically, a doctrinal shift that you do not need to hold ground if you can beat the enemy to the same place each time. To do this the concept of the “front line” was erased and in its place operating bases with arcs of influence that troops stationed at them could reach quickly to maintain control of the battle space.

By 2004 the “advanced” capability of this Light force to operate effectively in Iraq was countered by the IED – at this time usually an anti-tank mine or wired artillery projectile placed by non-conventional forces. This meant that the logistical trains – unarmored wheeled vehicles – were now threatened by a threat not originally intended for them. The solution was to armor the logistical trains – everything became an armored vehicle (at great expense and common maintenance problems). The anti-tank mines were still a problem as they had been designed to defeat modern main battle tanks, and thus the Mine Resistant Armored Personnel (MRAP) was born.

The MRAP is perhaps one of the shortest sighted “technology” programs in modern US history. The vehicle was literally designed to do one thing: defeat EFP (explosive formed projectile) IEDs; and it succeeded in doing just one thing: defeating EFP IEDs. To make the vehicle “safe” the design meant that the vehicles were slow, required extensive drivers training, were impossible to fight from, and that US troops were restricted to driving on even paved highway. These flaws are hidden by the fact that “MRAP” is commonly used to refer to the whole range of armored wheeled vehicles, though it is only one specific class of unit. The MRAP is so useless that when the US left Iraq – they left them there. The MRAP was ineffective in Afghanistan and required a new class of vehicles more capable of non-road use (and these traded protections for mobility).

The reason for bringing up the MRAP however is not that if driven off road it would simply tip over (so much a problem that all US personnel going into theater were required to practice surviving and escaping from rolled over MRAPs in special “roll-over” simulators, which often times injured troops prior to going into combat). Rather, that when the US utilized the church of technology to defeat the EFP IED threat, a simple alternative was used by insurgents to defeat the MRAP. In the same way that once armored knights became so armored they could not be struck, IEDs went from EFP weapon to simple explosive devices intended to use shock against the vehicle. The first order of damage came from the rolling of the vehicle – the IED could still take out the MRAP, it just couldn’t pierce the armor. The rolling usually caused injury to the crew and disabled the vehicle – halting the convoy in the kill zone. The second effect came from the concussive blast – the shockwave of the explosions killing and injuring those trapped inside the vehicle.

This change actually made the use of IEDs more wide spread – their original use in Iraq was largely based on the fact that massive arsenals of anti-tank mines and artillery munitions were available to insurgents for use. The IED did not really make its appearance to Afghanistan until the MRAP came along – trading the need for industrialized production for simple homemade explosives to produce an IED.

None the less, the MRAP represents the pinnacle of public belief in technology winning wars. The American Public is impressed by a vehicle that is invincible to the EFP (so long as you ignore that as long as the EFP was fired from a few feet off the ground it still was effective) complete with remote weapons stations that allow the crew to fight from inside the vehicle and not expose themselves to fire. Best of all, the optical systems on these can produce videos to flood Youtube and Discovery Channel documentaries. Yet, little attention is paid to the fact that ISIS captured much of the US stock of MRAPs left behind in Iraq, nor the ease at which these vehicles have been destroyed in “conventional” combat (and 6 years in been replaced with homemade versions). There is more to the MRAP story, but this concludes it for our purposes.

German tanks were the best in WWII, and every tanker who didn’t ride in one respected that as a fact. In 1944 Germany had superior fighter jets, infantry rifles, tanks and cannons. Faced with industrial and manpower inferiority – Germany turned the same way the USA did in the 1960s: technology. Germany lost the war. The number of tanks Germany could produce in a month, the US could produce in a day. These tanks were impressive on the battlefield and alone could turn the tide of a battle – but they were never plentiful enough to be used effectively. Most Americans are oblivious to the fact that the US produced so many aircraft in WWII that even lightly damaged naval aircraft were simply pushed overboard and another fresh off the factory line would be flown out and crewed.

The 2017 US Military is technology dependent, framed by a populace that from pop-culture and an information-driven business culture, believes that information is power. Our information gathering is so impressive that we know the individual movements of fighters inside fighting cells in our current combat theaters. We know the specific counts of munitions, training capabilities and combat experience of each individual enemy fighter. None of this information however impedes the fighters from carrying out their operations. The introduction of US Airpower in Syria for example did force IS to stop massing troops in initial battle positions, and to abandon conventional military logistical practices that initially propelled their effectiveness against heavier armed and larger opponents – but that same technology has not prevented or even critically impacted IS from carrying out offensive and defensive operations on the ground. In fact, this technological advantage has been so unsuccessful that conventional (non-technological) artillery units and ground troops have deployed to Syria to counter IS.

There is much belief in US planning that technology will win the war. The US 5th Generation Fighter has cost Trillions to develop and can outperform the 4th Generation fighters of all our foes. This is however countered by the few million spent to develop the 4th Generation SAM technology Russia has introduced. In the same fashion as Germany in WWII – the number of US 5th Gen Fighters produced in a year is outpaced by the number of 4th Gen SAMs Russia can produce in a day. Perhaps a better example is our “Nuclear Navy.”

While the term “Nuclear Navy” is actually a reference to the nuclear-powered ships of the US fleet, there is a more popular cultural belief on this given the nuclear capability of most combat vessels in the fleet. In the original reference, the term is misleading. The Nuclear Navy gives US admirals the ability to flex American naval power without range consideration or refueling requirements. A nuclear aircraft carrier can stay at sea for decades! Never mind that the only ships in the US arsenal to be nuclear powered are submarines and aircraft carriers. The escorts and bulk of the US fleet is still oil powered, as it was 100 years ago. The Russians on the other hand do have other nuclear powered surface ships (though there is no effective operational gain).

The larger popular understanding of this however is perhaps more relevant – it is true that generally every US warship is capable of delivering a nuclear strike. Granted, the lack of public understanding that the bulk of US nuclear missiles are small yield tactical warheads not city smashing earth ending missiles plays into this, but even so this capability yields little in the way of actual naval fighting. Rather, it hampers it – since ships can carry only so many weapons, and the use of these weapons is so specialized, the ships would benefit from leaving them in port (and they do). Even so, the 5” mount is more used today than the cruise missiles (again, just like 100 years ago). The latest use of Americas technological advantage was to strike Syria with cruise missiles in retribution for an alleged chemical attack.

The use of these weapons sent a signal – we can strike you from afar with high technology weapons. The weapons however were as effective as the conventional artillery that was already in range of the target. US Marine Artillerymen in Syria could have just as easily launched the strike and achieved the same result – only it would not have looked impressive on the nightly news, and it would have looked no different than the IS artillery men shooting on Youtube. Using the same technology (literally, since IS uses captured US Howitzers) as the technologically inferior enemy and producing the same tactical result doesn’t play well into the US psyche of technology trumping our foes. The same farce played out in 2003 when conventional cold war era artillery attacked Baghdad in “Shock and Awe” despite being played off as strikes from a technologically superior Navy and Airforce.

In fact, in March of 2003 the technology impression was played off by the effective use of tactics developed by the Red Army in 1944. Imbedded journalists witnessed little of the real fighting simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time – and thus – working to fill a 24 hour news cycle featured stories on the awesome and advanced capabilities of Americas technological wonders – who conveniently were available for filming and interviews because they were not actually being used. Sure, our fighters could drop guided munitions that can “move through a window without touching the curtains,” but the 2000lb bombs being dropped were not so sophisticated. The Patriot Missile Systems were very effective in killing SCUDs (while making for easy camera footage) – but the lack of body armor on the infantry shooting it out with the Republican Guard certainly wasn’t stopping bullets.

In fact, written accounts from front line tankers were comparable to accounts of Soviet and German tankers on the Ost Front in ’43 – and no level of super technology was effective. The awesome thermal capability of our tank sights was defeated by household blankets. There were no imbedded news crews with these forces, so pilot interviews played on the news while tankers and infantrymen slogged through fighting like their grandfathers did, using rifles and grenades.

This is not to suggest that technology doesn’t have its place, and that technology cannot influence the tactical picture – but rather – that the massive technological gap enjoyed by the USA means little. A bullet manufactured in the Tula Plant outside of Moscow in 1966, fired by an Islamic State fighter in Syria can still kill the most advanced trained warfighter in the world equipped with the most technologically advanced equipment backed by the most advanced logistical system in the world.