asymetric warfare

pervect writes:

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 17:46:51 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

You and Phil, and to a lesser extent George, who should know better,
don't seem to realize that killing the enemy C&C is how the US fights
wars today. The days of grinding towards the Capital worrying only
about the front line and hoping a golden bullet takes out the Leader
are dead and gone. This is 2003 not 1943.

I think there are technologies that our fictitious nation of Elbonia
can use that will make disrupting their C&C structure a lot more
difficult. I would even go so far as to say that investing in a
modern C&C infrastructure would probably be the best first investment
Elbonia could make.


I would say that investing in a *robust* C&C infrastructure is the
third best investment Elbonia could make. That's not the same as
a *modern* C&C infrastructure, especially in Elbonia.

The first best investment, of course, would be a professional NCO
corps, and the second best a professional officer corps. Well led
forces can be somewhat effective even when completely isolated;
poorly led troops a phone call away are no asset.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:27:28 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

pervect wrote:

:On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 05:29:52 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:
:
:pervect wrote:


:If you think tanks can't kill anything, you might want to explain how
:you came to that conclusion, it isn't very apparent to me.

Oh, *I* don't think that. However, 'your' side has made the argument
that tank-killing SUVs are practically because tanks can't hit them,
as "all they have to do is dodge by half their vehicle width".

I hadn't realized we were picking teams. Who else do you think is on
"my" side, and for that matter, who is on yours?

ess (phil hunt) writes:

On 19 Dec 2003 15:56:55 GMT, Bertil Jonell wrote:
In article ,
phil hunt wrote:
Yes. The progrsamming for this isn't particularly hard, once you've
written software that can identify a vehicle (or other target) in a
picture. It's just a matter of aiming the missile towards the
target.

Have you looked up "Tactical and Strategic Missile Guidance" by Zarchan
(ISBN 1-56347-254-6) like I recommended?

I haven't -- I tend not to read off-net sources, due to time, space
and money constraints.

Then you know just enough about any subject to be dangerous. We're
still at least a decade away from the net being more than a suppliment
to the printed word - what gets put online now is the stuff that is
exciting and/or bragworthy, not the rigorous in-depth studies needed
to actually understand a new subject.

If you want to talk intelligently about what it takes to make a guided
missile, you need to know stuff that is printed in Zarchan and a very
few other (unfortunately expensive) textbooks and is to the best of my
knowledge not online anywhere. A good library may substitute for the
out-of-pocket cost of the book; there is no substitute for the time
and effort of reading the book.

And that's true of just about any other subject you might want to
discuss here.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:40:27 -0800, Steve Hix
wrote:

One problem here; totalitarian regimes tend not to tolerate lots of
initiative in their underlings, which makes preparing for this sort of
fighting somewhat harder.

True, but there are exceptions, Nazi Germany being an obvious one.

Hardly, the Wehrmacht certainly encouraged soldiers to use their
initiative at the tactical level but when it came to strategy $Godwin
insisted on micro managing the war down to battalion level.

The Panzer reserve was held back on D-Day because only
the Fuhrer could release them and he had taken a sleeping
pill and couldnt be wakened.

Keith

On 23 Dec 2003 11:18:11 -0800, (John Schilling)
wrote:



I would say that investing in a *robust* C&C infrastructure is the
third best investment Elbonia could make. That's not the same as
a *modern* C&C infrastructure, especially in Elbonia.

Robust is closer to what I should have said than modern, some of my
bias for modern technology is showing. A nice, modern centralized
commuinication system that can be quickly decapacitated with one
strike is a liability.

The first best investment, of course, would be a professional NCO
corps, and the second best a professional officer corps. Well led
forces can be somewhat effective even when completely isolated;
poorly led troops a phone call away are no asset.

In message , phil hunt
writes
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 20:40:27 -0800, Steve Hix sehix@NOSPAM
speakeasy.netINVALID wrote:
One problem here; totalitarian regimes tend not to tolerate lots of
initiative in their underlings, which makes preparing for this sort of
fighting somewhat harder.

True, but there are exceptions, Nazi Germany being an obvious one.

The Wehrmacht had a good system of mission command at company level and
below, but was absolutely devoid of initiative at the operational level:
witness Hitler's orders that forbade any retreat under any
circumstances, even a false withdrawal to draw the enemy into a prepared
killing zone being forbidden (to say nothing of 'move it or lose it'
escapes)

It was obvious as early as 1940 (the Luftwaffe's fighters are most
effective high above the bombers they're protecting, but the bomber
crews want to _see_ their escorts, so the fighters get ordered to fly
slow weaves next to the bombers) and continued through the war.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

Chad Irby writes:

In article mail-0E43D5.00500922122003@localhost,
Michael Ash wrote:

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

The DPRK is hopeless at economics, yes, but the NKPA does traditional
twentieth-century warfighting reasonably well. I have recently argued
in another post that their ability to destroy Seoul by artillery fire
is vastly overrated, that with few exceptions the guns simply won't
reach.

But what fixed targets are within 15-20km of the border, those are
going to get plastered. The North Korean artillery is seriously
hardened; area weapons like MRLS will not even annoy it, only the
one-on-one attention of guided penetrator munitions. We can't
deliver those fast enough to take out the guns before they shoot
through their ready stocks of ammunition.

And the command and control battle, *on this issue*, favors the
North. Planned bombardment of fixed targets by prepositioned
artillery assets, requires only the general distribution of an
"Execute War Plan A" message in real time. War Plan A itself
can be distributed ahead of time, and as securely dug in as the
guns that will execute it. The implementation order goes out by
general broadcast, landline telephone, bicycle courier, signal
flare, and I wasn't kidding about carrier pigeons. With massive
redundancy in all channels. It will get through.

Once events diverge from War Plan A, yes, the NKPA will be blind,
dumb, and paralyzed. But the first day of battle, on the border,
will probably be theirs.


For reference, look at the "massive" weapons infrastructure in Iraq, and
how they never managed to get more than a few percent of them into play.
And Iraq was in relatively good shape compared to what Korea's going
through right now.

But Korea set everything up when, with Soviet and/or Chinese assistance,
they were in relatively good shape themselves. Given their patrons'
taste for extremely robust hardware designed for operation by illiterate
conscripts, that system will outlast the rest of North Korea by at least
a decade.

And the comparison with Iraq, misses some key differences. The Hussein
regime spent roughly a generation trying to opportunistically exploit
whatever weaknesses or instabilities their neighbors showed, and defend
against whatever threats arose, anywhere on a 2,500 km open desert border.
That requires flexibility at every level; "Execute War Plan A" doesn't
help the Iraqis.

North Korea, has had two generations to dig in and prepare for battle
with one specific adversary, on a 250 km front characterized by mountain
and storm. They know what they'll be facing on the first day of the
war, they are going to smash it hard, and we probably can't stop it.

Doesn't mean they would *win*, just that it won't be Iraq all over again.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On 23 Dec 2003 16:07:42 GMT, Alistair Gunn wrote:
In sci.military.naval John twisted the electrons to say:
UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads ...

Operative word there being *can* - by all accounts, they only carry 3
warheads per missile. This being done to defuse the peace-niks in the UK
by saying it's not a massive upgrade over Polaris because it only has the
same number of warheads ...

Possibly. Another interpretation is that it's in continuation of
british policy of getting bad value for money in military equipment.
Another example of the same policy is the MRAV armoured vehicle:
Britain spent large amounts of money developing an 8x8 wheeled
vehicle (why? there are plenty of others on the market, and its a
mature technology so no big breakthroughs are possible), then
decided it didn't want the thing after all.

The UK has very small armed forced considering the size of the
country's defence budget. Compare the UK (Population 59
million, spends 2.5% of GDP on arms) ordering 220 Typhoons whereas
Sweden (population 9 million, spends 2% of GDP on arms) can order
almost as many (204) Gripens. Even taking into account that Britain
spends a larger proportion of its defense budget on its navy, and
the Typhoon's unit cost is larger than the Gripen's, there's
something wrong here.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 17:14:50 +0000, Paul J. Adam wrote:
In message , Peter Stickney
writes
Actually, John, you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how
tanks work, or what the typical engangement ranges are.
Five miles is right out.
The longest range kill achieved by a tank to date is a 3,000m (roughlt
1.5 Statute Mile shot by a British Challenger II vs. an Iraqi T72 in
the 1990-91 Gulf War.

5,150 metres by a Challenger 1. (Allegedly a first-shot hit)

I've seen a figure of 7 km for a Panther during WW2. I'm not sure I
believe it.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

In article ,
(John Schilling) wrote:

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

A twelve gauge.

But the other question you *didn't* ask is "how effective is a homing
pigeon?"

The DPRK is hopeless at economics, yes, but the NKPA does traditional
twentieth-century warfighting reasonably well.

Really? Who have they gone up against in the last twenty years? How
well did they do?

And are you gauging the pre-starvation NK military, or the current one?

North Korea, has had two generations to dig in and prepare for battle
with one specific adversary, on a 250 km front characterized by mountain
and storm. They know what they'll be facing on the first day of the
war, they are going to smash it hard, and we probably can't stop it.

If it ever happens. That "go" order is the hard one to get out, and
it's seeming less and less likely that they'd be able to give it under
*any* circumstances.

Doesn't mean they would *win*, just that it won't be Iraq all over again.

You're right. It might be shorter and less of a fight.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.