NOTE: While looking for an old post to update with a chart I recently found (that troop density post linked in the body below), I discovered this 2018 post in draft form. I have no idea why I didn't publish it. It is possibly more relevant now given the stalemate in the Winter War of 2022. So here it is:
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Winning battles requires massing killing power. When muscle power ruled, massing killing power meant massing troops. Archers, javelins, and catapults made the massing a little tougher but the basic equation held with combined arms to counter those killing options. As gunpowder increased range the troops had to spread out to survive the ability to mass power via firepower. That firepower range and now accuracy is increasing and so disperal to survive must continue its long historical trend.
As This essay by Robert Scales is pretty good. And dispersing while remaining a cohesive unit is the natural response to increasingly accurate and long range fires capabilities. But details remain to be filled in:
The challenge of disaggregated forces is to maintain the ability to mass fires and maneuver from dispersed positions. It can be done. Late in World War II, the Wehrmacht perfected the ability to assemble attack formations on very short notice from scattered clusters of small units. Disaggregation is made more feasible thanks to the micro-electronic revolution. Huge and vulnerable Cold War communications nodes can now be replaced with small discrete facilities, easy to hide and relatively invulnerable to detection. Thanks to the network, yesterday’s air defense and surface artillery complexes are much smaller and capable of operating as discrete (in some cases individually emplaced) weapons. Dispersed formations can only be kept cohesive and capable of massing on demand if a robust cyber network ties them together. Dominate the cyber spectrum and maneuver at will. Lose it and suffer the consequences of defeat in detail.
Just as fronts once covered by a man standing a yard from his compatriots were replaced by strong points with the ground in between covered by direct and indirect fires, units may have to break down further. In theory this is possible given that troop density has dropped dramatically. But the increase in firepower has been accompanied by increases in persistent surveillance.
On defense the dispersed forces holding the front need to be mobile to avoid enemy precision firepower. And they need to be able to dig in deep when they do stop.
On defense disaggregated forces need the ability to fire in sufficient volume to destroy and slow enemy units entering the larger gaps. But they also need to be mobile to avoid counter-fire in the face of persistent enemy surveillance.
How will logistics and support formations enable the dispersed and constantly moving combat units continue the fight?
Will units--even support forces--that aren't mobile, armored, with active protection systems, and under the umbrella of defensive systems that shoot down missiles and shells be able to survive in that environment?
I just don't see fragile aircraft surviving over the battlefield. If ground forces are easily targeted, even aircraft hugging the ground will be visible. I don't think speed will provide protection in the face of persistent surveillance and precision weapons unless aerial movement is only done rapidly in gaps in enemy surveillance before the enemy can reform their surveillance over that part of the battle area.
To move the front forward, you have to mass to gain superiority over the defenders. But massing must mean massing effects rather than troops lest troops die in large numbers due to the factors that disperse the defense. Fires and cyber directed at the main effort to break the enemy "line" will be how mass is achieved.
Will the force-to-space ratio get too high to allow maneuver even with shrinking numbers of soldiers in armies? Is there a limit to the range of weapons cheap enough to equip platoons and companies with to allow ever wider dispersal?
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NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
