Complex Web Defense Experiment

At the direction of the U. S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), the Maneuver Battle Lab at Fort Knox, Kentucky (MBL-K) conducted a series of events, from October 2007 through March 2008, designed to investigate the challenges and proposed solutions for U. S. Armed Forces performing combined arms operations against an enemy conducting a “complex web defense.” This article presents a synopsis of the insights and conclusions from the Maneuver Battle Lab’s efforts. Complex Web Defense For the purposes of these studies, the MBL-K used the term “complex web defense” (CWD) to refer to an array of tactical practices a future enemy might employ against U. S. forces, which denies the United States advantages of using high-technology sensors, massive firepower, and protected mobility, and exploits the enemy’s ability to hide in complex/urban terrain, using civilians as shields. Although many possible future enemies could employ variations of these tactics, one example of “CWD-like” tactics is how Hezbollah fought the Israelis in Lebanon during 2006. CWD has no approved U. S. Army doctrinal definition, but it is characterized by mutually supporting defensive positions, interconnected with resilient, redundant communications, and sustained by stockpiled and hidden supplies. Enemy fighters are often irregulars, but are well trained and very well equipped with top-of-the-line antitank and antipersonnel weapons. This enemy is capable of executing flexible, prearranged plans and demonstrates agility at the lower tactical levels. He rarely conducts large-scale maneuver and may attempt to contest the advance of U. S. forces only when it is to his advantage. He often allows U. S. combat elements to pass and then attempts to strike follow-on support or sustaining forces. Often, the enemy’s command and control (C2) techniques are considered low-grade technology, but effective nonetheless. They rely on wire (sometimes fiber-optic), runners, signals, and sometimes the civilian communications system (if still operating). He rarely emits in the radio-electronic spectrum, but if he does, it is more likely an attempt to deceive U. S. forces than to control his own forces. His C2 and logistics infrastructures might be underground and hidden among a civilian population. The enemy is capable of employing large numbers of sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines; how-Complex Web Defense Experiment by Lieutenant Colonel Kenny D. Harper and Colonel (Retired) William R. Betson ever, these are emplaced to harass and disrupt. He often attempts to emplace mines and IEDs after U. S. forces have passed through a location to obstruct U. S. sustaining activities. Contributing to the confusion that these devices generate, he may also employ numerous decoys and dummy positions to add to the chaos. Perhaps the most salient enemy characteristic — and the one that makes this type of defense relatively new and unique — is this enemy’s willful use of the civilian population as a physical and psychological shield. His prepared defenses are designed to ensure massive collateral damage results if U. S. forces attempt to reduce such damage, which enables him to execute a sophisticated information campaign designed to blame U. S. forces for civilian casualties. This combination of attributes makes CWD a significant challenge and poses a dilemma to U. S. forces — if they apply massive combat power against CWD, it may cause so much collateral damage that the local population would become permanently alienated. Further, international opinion would likely condemn the United States and turn tactical victory into strategic defeat. On the other hand, this enemy is lethal, and failure to apply overwhelming combat power could result in the outright tactical defeat of U. S. forces. Study Design As mentioned earlier, the MBL-K conducted a series of events to study CWD. The first comprised a series of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) conferences designed to explore the challenges this evolving threat poses to the U. S. Army’s intelligence-gathering capabilities. From October to December 2007, representatives from TRADOC Intelligence Support Activity (TRISA), and the Military Intelligence, Infantry, Aviation, Field Artillery, and Armor Centers met at Fort Knox to discuss these issues. The conferences marked the first time these organizations had come together to explore the special challenges presented by this type of evolving threat. Most importantly, the conferences achieved consensus as to the specific information that national, theater, and joint task force ISR assets could provide to tactical commanders when confronted by such a defense system. These multiple efforts enabled wargame exercises and the experiment that portrayed the appropriate conditions at the start of mission execution, and allowed the appropriate amount of contributions from higher-level commanders down to the low-level tactical fight. MBL-K conducted an asymmetric threat wargame in January 2008, designed to address issues surrounding the employment of modular forces against a CWD. The wargame placed blue force players in specific tactical situations designed to provoke discussion and capture insight on rules of engagement, intelligence, maneuver, and sustainment. Most importantly, the wargame shaped approaches toward execution of the capstone experiment. The capstone event was the CWD experiment (CWDE) held at Fort Knox during March 2008. Its purpose was to inform various TRADOC capabilities assess- “The enemy is capable of employing large numbers of sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines; however, these are emplaced to harass and disrupt. He often attempts to emplace mines and IEDs after U. S. forces have passed through a location to obstruct U. S. sustaining activities.” “Perhaps the most salient enemy characteristic — and the one that makes this type of defense relatively new and unique — is this enemy’s willful use of the civilian population as a physical and psychological shield. His prepared defenses are designed to ensure massive collateral damage results if U. S. forces attempt to reduce such damage, which enables him to execute a sophisticated information campaign designed to blame U. S. forces for civilian casualties.” 13 ments and explore how U. S. forces could conduct tactical operations against an enemy employing CWD tactics. Throughout the scenario, the exercise used a heavy brigade combat team (HBCT) attacking through an enemy defensive zone to seize an operationally significant objective that supported a joint task force (JTF) campaign plan. The HBCT was supported by appropriate division- and higher-level enablers. According to the October 2007 “Force Design Update,” the HBCT designed for this experiment used a combined-arms battalion with future force technologies, a Stryker battalion, and a brigade reconnaissance squadron. Soldiers from Fort Bliss played the combined-arms battalion, the U. S. Army Infantry Center provided support for the Strykers, and the U. S. Army Armor Center provided role-player support for the reconnaissance squadron. The experiment was designed to compare three test cases. The first test case (base case) equipped the HBCT/Stryker BCT as a 2007 unit augmented with future combat systems (FCS) “spinout 1” capabilities. The second and third test cases played a brigade equipped with the anticipated HBCT program upgrades, plus FCS “spinout 1” capabilities, as well as proposed HBCT program upgrades, plus “spinout 1-3 capabilities.” The threat, played by TRISA and the “world-class opposing forces (OPFOR)” comprised of about 2,500 well-equipped and trained fighters, defended complex urban terrain and employed numerous mines and IEDs. The battlefield was interspersed with civilians, who were very difficult to distinguish from the combatants and used by the enemy to shield their activities. U. S. forces used rules of engagement (ROE), which were developed in conjunction with the Armor Center’s Staff Judge Advocate and found appropriate for conducting major combat operations (not stability or counterinsurgency operations). These ROE are similar to those employed by U. S. forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom I. Insights and Conclusions Certain insights and conclusions emerged from this study and are grouped in the five broad categories below.

I. Full-spectrum operations. The challenge of fighting such a capable enemy in and among the civilian population means that U. S. forces will be fighting simultaneously across the full spectrum of conflict almost as soon as they cross the line of departure. Even inside the battalion’s zone of attack, part of the unit could be fighting major combat operations, while another element might be protecting aline of communications and performing tasks akin to stability operations. Furthermore, the nature of the conflict could suddenly change for U. S. forces; for example, a company commander who has just taken a village after fighting a stiff opposition has to now deal with the village’s civilian leaders and assist civilian casualties. U. S. forces must be trained and organized with these challenges in mind. Our experimentation indicates that when fighting against a CWD, U. S. Army leaders at all levels, squad leader to joint task force commander, will constantly be confronted with the dilemma of “to shoot or not to shoot.” Shooting may cause unwanted civilian casualties and prove counterproductive to future civilian relations once hostilities cease. Not shooting risks the force and may even preclude the unit’s ability to reach mission accomplishment. There will be no simple rules to follow. Leaders, especially junior leaders, must be trained and prepared to exercise sound judgment based on established ROE. Tactical victory against this enemy may not translate into operational or strategic success. In the CWD experiment, U. S. forces were able to seize all of their operational objectives, but in many cases, the enemy was bypassed and hidden among the population. In all three cases of the experiment, the real issue was “exactly what U. S. forces had accomplished by seizing their objectives.” Assigning a force-oriented objective to U. S. units may be unachievable because it would require going into every cellar, in every village, to root out enemy presence. On the other hand, selecting a terrain objective may result in controlling a locality, but end in being surrounded by hostile, unrestrained forces that blend into the surrounding community. Clearly, selecting correct lines of operations and tactical and operational objectives will be of increased importance during campaign planning. Despite its best efforts to avoid collateral damage, as demonstrated in the study’s wargaming and experimentation, U. S. forces will unintentionally kill significant numbers of civilians when fighting against an enemy force employing CWD. As a result of this dilemma, U. S. forces require a wide variety of nonlethal options when fighting against such an opponent, which includes the capability to disable without killing. However, it also includes an urgent requirement for better obscurants — white phosphorous, currently our only choice for artillery “smoke,” is problematic in populated areas. U. S. forces should also be prepared, equipped, and trained to conduct information engagement operations that explain civilian casualties result from the enemy’s efforts to use civilians as shields. U. S. political leaders must understand that heavy civilian losses will be a concomitant of warfare in this environment. “The challenge of fighting such a capable enemy in and among the civilian population means that U. S. forces will be fighting simultaneously across the full spectrum of conflict almost as soon as they cross the line of departure. Even inside the battalion’s zone of attack, part of the unit could be fighting major combat operations, while another element might be protecting aline of communications and performing tasks akin to stability operations.” 14

II. Intelligence. Our wargaming and experimentation results suggest that U. S. forces have difficulty finding threat forces and distinguishing them from the local population, which suggests that the “see first” component of the “quality of firsts” may not be achievable. The results of this experiment suggest an inability to “see first,” which may be more of a probability than a possibility, and this concept may need to be revisited. The ISR conferences, held as part of this study effort, reached a consensus that U. S. forces could reasonably expect to have knowledge of about 15 percent of the enemy’s infantry fighting positions, crew-served weapons, and weapons platforms prior to the initiation of direct contact. While the 15 percentile number is arbitrary, the participants were in agreement that it represents the relative order of magnitude of enemy understanding U. S. forces can expect. Hence, the ability of higher-level commanders to “shape the battlespace,” and U. S. forces to “develop the situation out of contact,” may be limited. Our wargaming and experimentation results also suggest that current U. S. sensor packages and long-range precision systems, which are mounted on systems or weapons platforms, may need design changes as these systems were primarily created to seek and identify conventional platforms. Against a CWD, the United States needs the ability to see the people, not tanks; we need the ability to discern exactly what every citizen is doing or carrying. Further, long-range precision systems, designed to kill armored vehicles, may be of limited utility as their effectiveness against personnel and buildings is reduced. Finally, our study efforts suggest that the Army needs to develop a more comprehensive ISR concept. Current doctrine was designed against a more stylized and predictable enemy. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) and situational templating should focus more on enemy capabilities than on enemy formations. The enemy will not always attack in predictable formations or have predictable numbers of weapons systems. The United States will almost certainly have to fight for information to shape current and future operations. Reconnaissance and surveillance plans built around static observation points and named areas of interest may need to be more dynamic as scouts/soldiers will have to identify suspicious activities within their assigned areas of operation. III. Maneuver. Tactical success against a complex web defense will most likely require highly skilled execution of low-level combined-arms tactics and the close synchronization of all warfighting functions. Our research suggests that the Army must focus training and experimentation on full-spectrum operations. Further, the insights from these experiments suggest that the U. S. Army may be losing its low-level tactical skills. Synchronizing the effects of the firepower available to U. S. forces is a complex task and takes practice, which our current junior leaders rarely have the opportunity to conduct. For example, a central part of the training experience at combat training centers was once the combined-arms breach of a de- “There was one major critical insight drawn from this experiment — the need for the United States to significantly improve its capability to detect and reduce mines and IEDs. The study revealed that mines and IEDs cause increased casualties and the United States should pursue a capability that will detect and disable mines/ IEDs from a protected, stand-off platform.”

fended com plex obstacle. Many of our current captains have not had the opportunity to execute this task; we must find ways to address these issues and continue to maintain our core competencies and full-spectrum capability at lower tactical levels. In our experimentation, the modernized HBCT, with its combination of protected, mobile firepower and long-range precision weapons was able to dominate the battlespace against a CWD. The HBCT, equipped with current systems, took heavy casualties to long-range enemy precision systems. Experimental results indicated that the advanced protective system, mast-mounted sensors, Excalibur artillery round, armed robotic vehicle-light (ARV-L), class I unmanned aerial systems, and small unmanned ground vehicles (SUGV) were particularly effective when encountering and fighting this type of threat. Data collected from the experiment suggests a more modernized force is capable of killing more enemy forces and sustaining fewer casualties. The study further suggests that the United States vigorously pursue modernizing the HBCT program. There was one major critical insight drawn from this experiment — the need for the United States to significantly improve its capability to detect and reduce mines and IEDs. The study revealed that mines and IEDs cause increased casualties and the United States should pursue a capability that will detect and disable mines/IEDs from a protected, stand-off platform. Finally, heavy combined-arms forces and reconnaissance forces seem to require substantial numbers of dismounted infantry and scouts to accomplish their missions. CWD tactics exploit complex and urban terrain, which often permits heavy, mounted forces to bypass enemy force positions while they await softer targets. Dismounted infantry and scouts are needed to clear buildings and terrain that vehicles cannot enter. Further, large urban areas consume large amounts of infantry. As in World War II, the tank/dismounted infantry team seemed to be the solution, but when fighting against an enemy that is largely comprised of infantry, the current HBCT 50/50 split of infantry and tanks may not be optimal. IV. Sustainment. Our studies suggest that CWD tactics pose a significantly increased risk to U. S. sustainment operations — every part of the BCT zone was threatened. In all cases, the U. S. commander was forced to devote a considerable portion of his combat power to lines of communications (LOC) protection and moving sustaining forces forward to conduct replenishment, which had to be planned and executed as combat operations. During the experiment, it proved impractical for U. S. forces to “open and close” LOCs on an as-needed basis. If the LOC was abandoned, the threat swiftly infiltrated back to its location, which required combat action to restore it. Experimentation results suggest that evolving U. S. doctrine should reconsider the idea that pulsed logistics preclude the need for continuous open lines of communications. The continuous threat presented to LOCs during the experiment suggests that all vehicles in the BCT need some level of protection from enemy direct fire, as well as mines/IEDs. Even if logistics elements are escorted by combat formations equipped with tanks, or if they are packed in tightly behind combat companies, the enemy often simply fires first on unprotected support vehicles. In addition, with the rear areas remaining unsecured, moving unescorted ground ambulances proved too dangerous during experimentation; thus, reliance on aerial medical evacuation increased. Our data indicates that all combat support and combat service support units operating within an HBCT area or zone will likely require some measure of self-protection. There are simply not enough combat units to accomplish the main mission while protecting sustaining elements, especially in a BCT with only two maneuver battalions. Organizational design of logistics elements must account for this.

V. Rules of engagement. Our studies indicate that the laws of land warfare are broad enough to accommodate the measures necessary for the United States to defeat a CWD. Most ROE issues are in the realm of policy and commanders’ judgment, not law. Developing ROE is in the realm of the art of war, not science. Commanders (not lawyers) must develop ROE that balance the competing demands of destroying the enemy and influencing the populace and world opinion. The U. S. military education system must educate, train, and develop commanders capable of making these judgments soundly. The complex web defense experiment has significantly impacted the Army’s experimentation and force development programs. Its results have been briefed to current and former TRADOC commanders. The Commanding General, TRADOC, General Martin Dempsey, recently directed that all future TRADOC experiments include a “hybrid enemy” who practices tactics similar to those conducted in this experiment. Additionally, the simulations that the Army uses to test new doctrine, organizations, and equipment are being adapted to better portray this type of enemy. Much work is also being done to ensure that the impact of civilians on the battlefield, or “human terrain,” is represented adequately. But perhaps most importantly, the experiment has helped ensure that our future Army is designed, manned, and equipped to fight the enemy it is most likely to face. Lieutenant Colonel Kenny D. Harper is currently the chief, Maneuver Battle Lab (Virtual Constructive Simulation Division), Fort Knox, KY. He received a B. S. from Ohio State University. His military education includes U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combined Arms and Services Staff School, Armor Officer Advanced Course, and Armor Officer Basic Course. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include XO and S3, 1st Squadron, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (1CD), Fort Hood, TX; G3 Battle Command, III Corps, Fort Hood; commander, B Company, 3d Squadron, 8th Cavalry, 1CD, Fort Hood; and mortar leader, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Squadron, 8th Cavalry, 3d Armored Division, Gelnhausen, Germany. Colonel (Retired) William R. Betson is currently the project manager, Maneuver Battle Lab Support Team, Fort Knox, KY, and assistant vice president, Alion Science and Technology Corporation. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and received an M. A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M. M. A. S. from the School of Advanced Military Studies. His military education includes U. S. Army War College, U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Infantry Officer Advanced Course. During his career, he served in various command and staff positions, to include special assistant to the assistant chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, DC; commander, U. S. Army Garrison, Fort Stewart, GA; senior armor trainer, senior brigade trainer, and deputy commander, Operations Group, National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA; G3, Berlin Command, Berlin Brigade; and commander, 6th Battalion, 40th Armor Regiment, Berlin Brigade. This article is dedicated to the memory of Colonel Mark Eastman. 16