How does the ability to geo-locate forces change the battlefield?

2020-05-18T10:24:56-04:00

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33401/this-is-what-ground-forces-look-like-to-an-electronic-warfare-system-and-why-its-a-big-deal?fbclid=IwAR2GB03CUQNRvMMNKHQJ4zU7TQj9TgkhMKqvNk4RfF-XwZkbGjd3vQ2-p28

That passage from Brose's book hit me as well. It's a tragic example because it shocks the way we expect warfare to be conducted. I believe our military, if not the whole country, experienced the same feelings of shock as we entered the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our expectations of war were exploited and we paid the cost in human life.

Thinking as a logistician this geo-location of forces seems to translate into 3 options:

1) You cover your presence. Setting up and conducting operations involves a significant amount of covering and/or concealing your electromagnetic presence. One simple (but maybe not so simple?) application is that soldiers leave their phones at home. Don't take phones into the field! But the more realistic application is training with new strategies and equipment; all of our operations contain a new mindset of electromagnetic warfare.

2) You exploit or scramble your presence. Instead of covering ourselves up, we use some sort of technology that blows up our electromagnetic presence. Instead of seeing a bunch of little dots on a map, you see one giant one. The enemy know's where we are, but the information isn't as precise.

3) You maintain constant movement. In order to mitigate risk, logistical operations cannot remain stationary because they are constantly being detected. Training becomes centered on flexibility, responsiveness, and efficiency in environments that are rapidly changing. Logistic units must adapt their capabilities to a support train that is not stabilized.

As far as offensive operations go I believe the effect is pretty straightforward. Accurate Geo-location of the enemy means we can more effectively and continually rain hellfire down on the enemy. Artillery is the king of battle for a reason. Logistically, this means a new importance on supporting artillery units who will inevitably become the linchpins in combat operations.

this-is-what-ground-forces-look-like-to-an-electronic-warfare-system-and-why-its-a-big-deal

Response by Maj Scott Kiger, M.A.S. made May 18 at 2020 10:36 AM

2020-05-18T10:36:12-04:00

Interesting read for sure and makes you think about putting in redundancy

Response by SPC Kevin Ford made May 18 at 2020 10:50 AM

2020-05-18T10:50:59-04:00

To be honest I was shocked to find out soldiers were allowed to carry any personal electronics that broadcast any signals on a deployment. That seems like a complete no brainer.

Having said that, item two seems much more usable in a wide variety of situations over numbers one or three. Even without personal electronic devices there will always be some amount of electronic presence needed for operations and some troops may need to be at certain places for reasons of mission. That leaves option two, making the enemy try to pick out the wheat from the chaff which can be very effective.

There are all sorts of CI opportunities in there and options one and three might be able to be used at certain times. But option two seems like it is the item that is likely to have the most versatility. Having said that, we would need to get very good at option two as ML can be used to penetrate it in ways we may not understand, particularly if deep learning is used.