U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined 12 basic requirements for a new agreement with Iran on nuclear and regional issues:
1. Iran must provide a complete account of its previous nuclear-weapons research.
2. Iran must stop uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing.
3. Iran must provide the International Atomic Energy Agency “unqualified access” to all sites in the country.
4. Iran must stop providing missiles to militant groups and halt the development of nuclear-capable missiles.
5. Iran must release all U.S. and allied detainees.
6. Iran must stop supporting militant groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
7. Iran must respect Iraqi sovereignty and permit the demobilization of the Shiite militias it has backed there.
8. Iran must stop sending arms to the Houthis and work for a peaceful settlement in Yemen.
9. Iran must withdraw all forces under its command from Syria.
10. Iran must end support for the Taliban and stop harboring al Qaeda militants.
11. Iran must end support by its paramilitary Quds Force for militant groups.
12. Iran must end its threats to destroy Israel and stop threatening international ships. It must end cyberattacks and stop proxies from firing missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Any model of air combat needs to address the effect of weapons on the opposing forces. In the Dupuy Air Combat Model (DACM), this was rifled bullets fired from machine guns, as well as small caliber cannon in the 20-30 millimeter (mm) class. Such was the state of air combat in World War II. This page is an excellent, in-depth analysis of the fighter guns and cannon. Of course, technology has effects beyond firepower. One of the most notable technologies to go into active use during World War II was radar, contributing to the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force (RAF), successfully holding off the Wehrmacht’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.
Since that time, driven by “great power competition”, technology continues to advance the art of warfare in the air. This happened in several notable stages during the Cold War, and was on display in subsequent contemporary conflicts when client or proxy states fought on behalf of the great powers. Examples include well-known conflicts, such as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, but also the conflicts between the Arabs and Israelis. In the Korean War, archives now illustrate than Russian pilots secretly flew alongside North Korean and Chinese pilots against the allied forces.
Stages in technology are often characterized by generation. Many of the features that are associated with the generations are driven by the Cold War arms race, and the back and forth development cycles and innovation cycles by the aircraft designers. This was evident in comments by Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, remarking that the Jas-39 Grippen is actually a sixth generation fighter, based upon the alternative focus on maintainability, operability from short runways / austere airbases (or roadways!), the focus on cost reduction, but most importantly, software: “The reason that the JAS 39E may earn a Gen 6 tag is that it has been designed with these issues in mind. Software comes first: The new hardware runs Mission System 21 software, the latest roughly biennial release in the series that started with the JAS 39A/B.”
Upon close inspection of the DACM parameters, we can observe a few important data elements and metadata definitions: avionics (aka software & hardware), and sensor performance. Those two are about data and information. A concise method to assign values to these parameters is needed. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) Air Combat Command (ACC) has used the generation of fighters as a proxy for this in the past, at least at a notional level:
[Source: 5th Generation Fighters, Lt Gen Hawk Carlisle, USAF ACC]
The Fleet Series game that has been reviewed in previous posts has a different method. The Air-to-Air Combat Resolution Table does not seem to resonate well, as the damage effects are imposed against either one side or the other. This does not jive with the stated concerns of the USAF, which has been worried about an exchange in which both Red and Blue forces are destroyed or eliminated in a mutual fashion, with a more or less one-for-one exchange ratio.
The Beyond Visual Range (BVR) version, named Long Range Air-to-Air (LRAA) combat in Asian Fleet, is a better model of this, in which each side rolls a die to determine the effect of long range missiles, and each side may take losses on non-stealthy units, as the stealthy units are immune to damage at BVR.
One important factor that the Fleet Series combat process does resolve is a solid determination of which side “holds” the airspace, and this is capable of using other support aircraft, such as AWACS, tankers, reconnaissance, etc. Part of this determination is the relative morale of the opposing forces. These effects have been clearly evident in air campaigns such as the strategic bombing campaign on Germany and Japan in the latter portion of World War II.
Dealing with this conundrum, I decided to relax by watching some dogfight videos on YouTube, Dogfights Greatest Air Battles, and this was rather entertaining, it included a series of engagements in aerial combat, taken from the exploits of American aces over the course of major wars:
Eddie Rickenbacker, flying a Spad 13 in World War I,
Clarence Emil “Bud” Anderson, flying a P-51B “Old Crow” in European skies during World War II, flying 67 missions in P-51Ds, 35 missions in F-80s and 121 missions in F-86s. He wrote “No Guts, No Glory,” a how to manual with lots of graphics of named maneuvers like the “Scissors.”
An interesting paraphrase by Cunningham of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron’s statement: “When he sees the enemy, he attacks and kills, everything else is rubbish.” What Richthofen said (according to skygod.com), was “The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish.” Richtofen would not let members of his Staffel strafe troops in the trenches.
The list above is a great reference, and it got me to consider an alternative form of generation, including the earlier wars, and the experiences gained in those wars. Indeed, we can press on in time to include the combat performance of the US and Allied militaries in the first Gulf War, 1990, as previously discussed.
There was a reference to the principles of aerial combat, such as the Dicta Boelcke:
Secure the benefits of aerial combat (speed, altitude, numerical superiority, position) before attacking. Always attack from the sun.
If you start the attack, bring it to an end.
Fire the machine gun up close and only if you are sure to target your opponent.
Do not lose sight of the enemy.
In any form of attack, an approach to the opponent from behind is required.
If the enemy attacks you in a dive, do not try to dodge the attack, but turn to the attacker.
If you are above the enemy lines, always keep your own retreat in mind.
For squadrons: In principle attack only in groups of four to six. If the fight breaks up in noisy single battles, make sure that not many comrades pounce on an opponent.
Appendix A – my own attempt to classify the generations of jet aircraft, in an attempt to rationalize the numerous schemes … until I decided that it was a fool’s errand:
Jeffrey H Michaels, a Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies at the British the Joint Services Command and Staff College, has published a detailed look at how Hackett and several senior NATO and diplomatic colleagues constructed the scenario portrayed in the book. Scenario construction is an important aspect of institutional war gaming. A war game will only be as useful if the assumptions that underpin it are valid. As Michaels points out,
Regrettably, far too many scenarios and models, whether developed by military organizations, political scientists, or fiction writers, tend to focus their attention on the battlefield and the clash of armies, navies, air forces, and especially their weapons systems. By contrast, the broader context of the war – the reasons why hostilities erupted, the political and military objectives, the limits placed on military action, and so on – are given much less serious attention, often because they are viewed by the script-writers as a distraction from the main activity that occurs on the battlefield.
Modelers and war gamers always need to keep in mind the fundamental importance of context in designing their simulations.
It is quite easy to project how one weapon system might fare against another, but taken out of a broader strategic context, such a projection is practically meaningless (apart from its marketing value), or worse, misleading. In this sense, even if less entertaining or exciting, the degree of realism of the political aspects of the scenario, particularly policymakers’ rationality and cost-benefit calculus, and the key decisions that are taken about going to war, the objectives being sought, the limits placed on military action, and the willingness to incur the risks of escalation, should receive more critical attention than the purely battlefield dimensions of the future conflict.
These are crucially important points to consider when deciding how to asses the outcomes of hypothetical scenarios.
This is like saying, “A team can’t score in football unless it has the ball.” Although subsequent verities stress the strength, value, and importance of defense, this should not obscure the essentiality of offensive action to ultimate combat success. Even in instances where a defensive strategy might conceivably assure a favorable war outcome—as was the case of the British against Napoleon, and as the Confederacy attempted in the American Civil War—selective employment of offensive tactics and operations is required if the strategic defender is to have any chance of final victory. [pp. 1-2]
Only offensive action achieves decisive results. Offensive action permits the commander to exploit the initiative and impose his will on the enemy. The defensive may be forced on the commander, but it should be deliberately adopted only as a temporary expedient while awaiting an opportunity for offensive action or for the purpose of economizing forces on a front where a decision is not sought. Even on the defensive the commander seeks every opportunity to seize the initiative and achieve decisive results by offensive action. [Original emphasis]
Interestingly enough, the offensive no longer retains its primary place in current Army doctrinal thought. The Army consigned its list of the principles of war to an appendix in the 2008 edition of FM 3-0 Operations and omitted them entirely from the 2017 revision. As the current edition of FM 3-0 Operations lays it out, the offensive is now placed on the same par as the defensive and stability operations:
Unified land operations are simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities’ tasks to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative to shape the operational environment, prevent conflict, consolidate gains, and win our Nation’s wars as part of unified action (ADRP 3-0)…
At the heart of the Army’s operational concept is decisive action. Decisive action is the continuous, simultaneous combinations of offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks (ADRP 3-0). During large-scale combat operations, commanders describe the combinations of offensive, defensive, and stability tasks in the concept of operations. As a single, unifying idea, decisive action provides direction for an entire operation. [p. I-16; original emphasis]
It is perhaps too easy to read too much into this change in emphasis. On the very next page, FM 3-0 describes offensive “tasks” thusly:
Offensive tasks are conducted to defeat and destroy enemy forces and seize terrain, resources, and population centers. Offensive tasks impose the commander’s will on the enemy. The offense is the most direct and sure means of seizing and exploiting the initiative to gain physical and cognitive advantages over an enemy. In the offense, the decisive operation is a sudden, shattering action that capitalizes on speed, surprise, and shock effect to achieve the operation’s purpose. If that operation does not destroy or defeat the enemy, operations continue until enemy forces disintegrate or retreat so they no longer pose a threat. Executing offensive tasks compels an enemy to react, creating or revealing additional weaknesses that an attacking force can exploit. [p. I-17]
The change in emphasis likely reflects recent U.S. military experience where decisive action has not yielded much in the way of decisive outcomes, as is mentioned in FM 3-0’s introduction. Joint force offensives in 2001 and 2003 “achieved rapid initial military success but no enduring political outcome, resulting in protracted counterinsurgency campaigns.” The Army now anticipates a future operating environment where joint forces can expect to “work together and with unified action partners to successfully prosecute operations short of conflict, prevail in large-scale combat operations, and consolidate gains to win enduring strategic outcomes” that are not necessarily predicated on offensive action alone. We may have to wait for the next edition of FM 3-0 to see if the Army has drawn valid conclusions from the recent past or not.
It is my understanding that he was the person who was responsible for making sure that DACM (Dupuy Air Combat Model) was funded by AFSC. He then retired from the Air Force in 1994. We completed the demonstration phase of the DACM and quite simply, there was no one left in the Air Force who was interested in funding it. So, work stopped. I never met General McInerney and was not involved in the marketing of the initial effort.
But, this is typical of the problems with doing business with the Pentagon, where an officer will take an interest in your work, generate funding for it, but by the time the first steps are completed, that officer has moved on to another assignment. This has happened to us with other projects. One of these efforts was a joint research project that was done by TDI and former Army surgeon on casualty rates. It was for J-4 of the Joint Staff. The project officer there was extremely interested and involved in the work, but then moved to another assignment. By the time we got original effort completed, the division was headed by an Air Force Colonel who appeared to be only interested in things that flew. Therefore, the project died (except that parts of it were used for Chapter 15: Casualties, pages 193-198, in War by Numbers).
Our experience in dealing with the U.S. defense establishment is that sometimes research efforts that takes longer than a few months will die……because the people interested in it have moved on. This sometimes leads to simple, short-term analysis and fewer properly funded long-term projects.
Last night, as I was watching the Capitals trash Tampa Bay in the third round of the Stanley Cup play-offs….the announcer mentioned that only twice in the last 41 years (or cases) has a team won the third round of the play-offs after loosing the first two games. Tampa Bay was lost the first two games. So, historically, in only 4.878% (say 5%) of the cases has someone come back from loosing the first two play-off games to win. Note that the Capitals did this against Columbus in the first round.
Now, there are seven games in a play-off round. So with five games left, Tampa Bay has to win 4 of the 5 games. So, assuming the teams are equal (50% chance of either winning a game), then the odds of Tampa Bay winning 4 of the next 5 games I calculate as .09375 (mathematicians…please check me on this) or 9%. So if the teams are equal, then Tampa Bay should statistically have a 9% chance of coming back and winning the round. Historically, it has only happened 5% of the time.
Suppose Tampa Bay is the better team. Lets say their odds of winning are 60% for each game, then their odds of winning 4 out of 5 rises to 18.144%. They did win 2 out of 3 games against the Capitals in the regular season, so maybe their odds of winning any single game is really 67%. This is a 26.34% chance of coming back. Let us say they are really good and motivated and have a 75% of winning each game, then the odds are 39.55%. On the other hand, to get to the historical 5% win rate in this situation, then team that is behind had to have around a 42% chance of winning each game.
[This post was originally published on 3 April 2017.]
Displayed across the top of my book is the phrase “Largest Tank Battle in History.” Apparently some people dispute that.
What they put forth as the largest tank battle in history is the Battle of Brody in 23-30 June 1941. This battle occurred right at the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union and consisted of two German corps attacking five Soviet corps in what is now Ukraine. This rather confused affair pitted between 750 to 1,000 German tanks against 3,500 to 5,000 Soviet tanks. Only 3,000 Soviet tanks made it to the battlefield according to Glantz (see video at 16:00). The German won with losses of around a 100 to 200 tanks. Sources vary on this, and I have not taken the time to sort this out (so many battles, so little time). So, total tanks involved are from 3,750 to up to 6,000, with the lower figure appearing to be more correct.
Now, is this really a larger tank battle than the Battle of Kursk? My book covers only the southern part of the German attack that started on 4 July and ended 17 July. This offensive involved five German corps (including three Panzer corps consisting of nine panzer and panzer grenadier divisions) and they faced seven Soviet Armies (including two tank armies and a total of ten tank and mechanized corps).
My tank counts for the southern attack staring 4 July 1943 was 1,707 German tanks (1,709 depending if you count the two Panthers that caught fire on the move up there). The Soviets at 4 July in the all formations that would eventually get involved has 2,775 tanks with 1,664 tanks in the Voronezh Front at the start of the battle. Our count of total committed tanks is slightly higher, 1,749 German and 2,978 Soviet. This includes tanks that were added during the two weeks of battle and mysterious adjustments to strength figures that we cannot otherwise explain. This is 4,482 or 4,727 tanks. So depending on which Battle of Brody figures being used, and whether all the Soviet tanks were indeed ready-for-action and committed to the battle, then the Battle of Brody might be larger than the attack in the southern part of the Kursk salient. On the other hand, it probably is not.
But, this was just one part of the Battle of Kursk. To the north was the German attack from the Orel salient that was about two-thirds the size of the attack in the south. It consisted of the Ninth Army with five corps and six German panzer divisions. This offensive fizzled at the Battle of Ponyiri on 12 July.
The third part to the Battle of Kursk began on 12 July the Western and Bryansk Fronts launched an offensive on the north side of the Orel salient. A Soviet Front is equivalent to an army group and this attack initially consisted of five armies and included four Soviet tank corps. This was a major attack that added additional forces as it developed and went on until 23 August.
The final part of the Battle of Kursk was the counter-offensive in the south by Voronezh, Southwestern and Steppe Fronts that started on 3 August, took Kharkov and continued until 23 August. The Soviet forces involved here were larger than the forces involved in the original defensive effort, with the Voronezh Front now consisting of eight armies, the Steppe Front consisting of three armies, and there being one army contributed by the Southwestern Front to this attack.
The losses in these battles were certainly more significant for the Germans than at the Battle of Brody. For example, in the southern offensive by our count the Germans lost 1,536 tanks destroyed, damaged or broken down. The Soviets lost 2,471 tanks destroyed, damaged or broken down. This compares to 100-200 German tanks lost at Brody and the Soviet tank losses are even more nebulous, but the figure of 2,648 has been thrown out there.
So, total tanks involved in the German offensive in the south were 4,482 or 4,727 and this was just one of four parts of the Battle of Kursk. Losses were higher than for Brody (and much higher for the Germans). Obviously, the Battle of Kursk was a larger tank battle than the Battle of Brody.
What some people are comparing the Battle of Brody to is the Battle of Prokhorovka. This was a one- to five-day event during the German offensive in the south that included the German SS Panzer Corps and in some people’s reckoning, all of the III Panzer Corps and the 11th Panzer Division from the XLVIII Panzer Corps. So, the Battle of Brody may well be a larger tank battle than the Battle of Prokhorovka, but it was not a larger tank battle than the Battle of Kursk. I guess it depends all in how you define the battles.
“…war alone cannot account for the vast number of Afghan migrants or the great distance they are travelling.”
“Globally, up until 1960, the ratio of refuges to fatalities in conflict zones was below 5:1.”
“…in 2015 there was an almost unprecedented 50 as asylum applicants for every civilian killed.”
“Whereas in 1979 over 90% of the Afghan refugees travelled less than 500 km and cross one border, now more than 90% travel over 5,000 km to seek asylum…”
“There are now 1.3 million internally displaced Afghans, with the total increasing by 400,000 a year.”
“The pull of economic opportunity plays a large part in the decision to migrate.”
“In 2015, the population of Afghanistan was 32 million.”
“…it is nonetheless obliged to import enough wheat to feed 10 million people…”
“…Afghanistan’s population will pass 40 million in ten years.”
“the natural growth rate of 2.3% a year added 700,000 to the Afghan population in 2015.”
“Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the economy and security in that time, 16 million will depend on food aid…”
Zentralbild, II. Weltkrieg 19139-45 Der von der faschistischen deutschen Wehrmacht während des Krieges entwickelte neue Panzerkampfwagen Typ “Panther”. UBz: die Verladung neuer “Panther”-Panzerkampfwagen zum Transport an die Front (1943).
The Voice of America (VOA) interviewed me about Kursk and the current Russian Army for some articles they were working on. The interviewer, Alex Grigoryev, was a journalist in Russia before he immigrated to the United States. The first interview, on Kursk, is on video here, with me speaking in English with Russian subtitles: https://www.golos-ameriki.ru/a/ag-kursk-battle-book-of-cristopher-lawrance/4384650.html
A few things I would change, but I don’t think I completely embarrassed myself.
