Historical Military Cycles

The challenges facing military vehicle developers are changing, and so the solutions must change. Just as the tactics and doctrine for one era are not suitable for the one that follows and must change, so must the materiel-hopefully in an evolutionary way. Battlefield threats are changing rapidly and if the period between the introduction of new combat vehicle gstems is too great, the design changes to meet this new threat may have to be revolutionary. This basic fact, literally an apocalypse, has not been widely understood nor accepted. Noteworthy, also, is the fact that few people in the development community or the usually articulate critics of Army-vehicle development programs, have expressed their views on this, at least not in a constructive way.

This needed change in the approach to basic fundamentals in combat vehicle design has been trying to surface for 10 years or more with the need becoming more urgent in the last 3-5 years. This just happens to be the period in which the MI, M2, and M3 were completing development and entm'ng pro-ahction. This may account for some of the criticisms these vehicles have received. The uncomfortable feeling regarding recent in-house design concepts for the M I, M2, and M3 follow-on have also added to doubts about the old approach. The recently com-pletedfirst phase of the Future Close Combat Vehicle (FCCV) studies by four industry teams have con.rmed that anew approach must be taken for the next family of close combat vehicles.

This article, written from a historical viewpoint, is in part a result of the author trying to gain a better understanding of the challenges facing developers, and hopejidly will cause others to explore new approaches to understanding the problems. C. B. The cyclical nature of the world we live in is generally accepted by everyone-even though few of us really understand the contributing factors and the effects of the cycles on our lives. In fact, all aspects of our lives, including those of us in the military-vehicle development community, are affected to some degree by most of these continually re-cumng cycles.

Three rather simple conclusions can be drawn in assessing the cyclical nature of the world in which we live. First, most of the cycles have been happening for many years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Second, there is very little that we have been able to do to change or even significantly influence the cycles. Third, and on a more positive note, we can study, chart, and analyze these cycles in order to better understand them and thus try to use the information for planning the future. With this third conclusion as a goal, let us explore this cyclical phenomenon in terms of historical military events, and see what we can learn from the past to help us prepare for the future. In padcular, one can seek to determine if there are some significant trends that can benefit us in terms of choosing o p tions and alternatives in the development and employment of future military vehicles. Throughout history, the fate of fiefdoms, kingdoms, and nations has been strongly ARMOR linked to the size and capabilities of their military forces. The capabilities of these forces, in addition to the classic military values of leadership, tactics, training, and discipline, have also been closely coupled with understanding and using new technologies that contribute to improved weapons of war. Over the years, military technological developments have tended to fall into the categories of the enhancement of weaponry and the survival against weaponry; thus contributing to the age-old military contest of offense versus defense. While technological developments have tended to benefit both the offensive and defensive capabilities of armies, these technological innovations have emerged in a cyclical pattern. In fact, a technological discovery enhancing the capability of one has tended to drive the introduction of a counter capability for the other. Thus, technology has been the major factor in the age-old and still continuing oneupmanship game between offensive and defensive capabilities of the world's armies. The Pendulum Analogy. To create a more vivid mental picture of the events taking place, the cyclical nature of events have often been compared to the swing of a pendulum. The extreme end points of the pendulum's swing can be labeled as the competing factors being studied, and the time of the pendulum's swing as the time for a change, or swing, from the dominance of one extreme to the other. Also, and equally impomt, the swing of the pendulum can be temporarily stopped for analytical purposes to explore the impact of the events along its arc. For purposes of illustrating the above, and to conduct an exploratory entry into how we might learn from studying the cyclical nature of military history, let us portray fmpower and survivability on the opposite ends of the pendulum’s arc. Then, for purposes of clarification, let us include additional information. For example, under firepower we will include such subfactors as sensors, cannons, projectiles, antitank guided missiles (ATGM), “smart” munitions, and fm control (which also includes battlefield surveillaneall of which can be favorably enhanced bv advancine technolopv. On the ogy. Having described each end of the pendulum let us show the ability of a force to maneuver as a variable, with advancing maneuvering ability occurring as a result of the influence of survivability, and decreasing ARMOR

- \, \ -< other side, Gder surviv\bility, let us list such I derivative of that relationship at any particu-lartime, let us select some historical, military events and locate those events in their proper position along the arc of the pendulum. 1600-1800. Let us begin with the period 1600 to 1800 A. D. (figure 2). This era has been selected because in its beginning, fmpower was the dominant factor. By the end of the period, however, maneuver had become the principal factor. The firepower emphasis established by the Swedish ruler and tactician, Gustavas Adolphus, in the early 1600’s set the trend for future military leaders for the next 100 years or more. In combining firepower (with the pike and missile) with shock, Gustavas put the principal emphasis on firepower. He employed the Spanish “countermarch” concept in which front rank musketeers moved to the rear to reload after firing. Sine he had improved the loading process, he was able to have two ranks of musketeers fire simultaneously before countermarching. Further, the countermarch was so executed that the formation moved forward. The fire was in effect a small arm’s rolling barrage. Although Gustavas ruled in what has been historically a firepower-oriented era. the contributions he made to warfare certainly helped to start the pendulum moving toward the other extreme. He combined cavalry, musketeers, and artillery in a unique way. He gave to infantry and cavalry the capacity for offense; he increased firepower and made it the preliminary for shock; he made artillery mobile; he made linear formations more flex-MANEUVER

Figure 2.

Figure 4.

weapons of the age of gunpower were assimilated into consistent patterns of military theory and practice. After centuries of experimentation, the tactical means of employing weapons in combination with each other and with cavalry had been refined to the point where a skillful commander could exploit the full potential of his weapons and his various arms to achieve decisive results with minimum cost.

During this period, great strides were achieved in ordnance development. Arsenals and foundries were creating innovations and improvements in cannon manufacture that heralded a revolution in the science of gunnery. These technological innovations, coupled with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, were to set in motion unprecedented changes in warfare. The new technological means for waging and supporting warfare meant that for the fm time, the concept of a “nation at war” was possible. Thus, the stage was set for the American Civil War to become a historical milestone-the fmt truly modem warand the first “total” war, in the modem sense. Firepower was to emerge once again as the dominating factor on the battlefield. Improvements in the design and manufacture of cannons and the intmduction of elongated, streamlined shells with explosive charges spelled certain death for troops in the open. In small arms, the range, accuracy, and volume of fire of individual weapons were increased. The machine gun was emerging as an important weapon. Field mines and booby traps were used, and modem prototypes of trench mortars and hand grenades were used by both sides. Thus, in the Civil War, man’s ability to kill on the battlefield at rapid rates at extended ranges reached anew high. However, strategists and battlefield tacticians failed to fully realize the awesome potential of these “modem” weapons to kill; and, although there were some noteworthy exceptions, tactics did not keep pace with technology. The BATTLEFIELD MOBILITY

The costly lessons learned during the Civil War were slow to sink in, both in Europe and the United States. The full impact of fuepower’s dominating role was not fully understood by military planners and strategists. To this must be added the fact that the development and refinement of weapons continued at an ever increasing rate. This set the stage for World War I to unfold in a period of firepower’s total dominance of warfare. The pendulum had reached the end of a swing that had started right after the French Revolutionary War.

The deadliness of modem rifles, machine guns, and artillery in WW I played havoc with frontal assaults and ended forever the shock value of cavalry. The obvious result of this awesome weapon effectiveness was to dig in. Trench warfare, barbed wire, and fortification were the order of the day. Battlefield mobility was not possible. Thus, the stage was set for the introduction of one of the most important developments of this century, the tank. The first tank was a combination of the internal combustion engine, caterpillar tracks, and naval boiler plate. Although initially conceived early in WW I solely as an anti-machinegun vehicle, it was destined to be the instrument that would restore mobility to the battlefield. Thus, the pendulum would start swinging back toward survivability and increasing maneuver. Toward the end of WW I, the original anti-machinegun vehicle concept evolved, at least in the minds of some farsighted persons, into an offensive combination of mobile, protected, firepower, and anew means of imparting shock to the enemy. In the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917,474 tanks were used by the British in an offensive action employing massed armor, a milestone in the history of mor warfare.

1920-1950. Initially conceived to provide mobile firepower support to infantry, the tank was slow in growing into the total offensive machine it was to become (figure 4). Between WW I and the late 1930’s, the tank’s slow evolution was due mainly to the lack of imagination on the part of military leadership. However, a few farsighted people in the United Kingdom and Germany had foreseen the real potential of the tank for offensive warfare, and that the tank was destined to become the centerpiece of land combat. Tactical aircraft, another new innovation, were also destined to play a major role in the changing battlefield. WW II became known as the war of maneuver. Technological progress had made possible vastly improved mobile ordnance, fast tanks and other crosscounby vehicles, including armored, infantry carriers. These new systems, coupled with imaginative and effective use of tactical aircraft, combined to produce a doctrine of mobile warfare at speeds heretofore impossible. Maneuver was at its zenith.

1945-1985. Although the tank with its uniquely combined firepower, mobility, and protection had emerged from WW I1 as the king of the battlefield, technological forces were already at work that would cause some to wonder if the future of the tank was limited (figure 5).

During the late 1950’s, considerable progress was made in metallurgy that led to greatly improved cannons and projectiles. The relatively ineffective bazooka of WW II gave way to more accurate and longer-range, shaped-charge antitank weapons for the infantry. Improved rockets and fmt-generation antitank missiles appeared in the late 1950’sand early 1960’s. The fullbore tank cannon projectile was replaced by the high-velocity and very effective armor-piercing, discarding-sabot (APDS) projectile. The accelerated progress in electronics and, finally, the laser have provided vastly improved hit probability against armored targets. By the TOP ATTACK

FIXED @%.

Figure 6.

late 1960’sand early 1970’s, highly-accurate, second-generation, antitank missiles, capable of killing tanks at extended ranges, were entering the scene. These missiles are soon to be replaced by systems even more effective in range, accuracy, and lethality. These third-generation missiles can be employed from attack helicopters which adds anew dimension to the antitank threat on the battlefield.

In the mid to late 1970’s, anew and vastly more effective kinetic energy, armor-piercing projectile, longer in length and made from new material, appears to be capable of penetrating any practical level of armor. Terminally guided missiles and artillery rounds are also now entering the battlefield. It thus appears that the technology contributing to methods of killing the tank is advancing at a much faster rate than technology contributing to the survivability of the tank. Protecting the frontal 50-60 degree arc of a tank will become less and less effective in the highly fluid battles projected for the future. A most knowledgeable and highly-respected senior Army officer is reputed to have observed shortly after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, “On today’s battlefield, if your tank can be seen, you can be hit, and if hit with modem tank and antitank weapons, you can be penetrated and killed.” For the tank, the widening gap between offensive and defensive technology promises to continue at least throughout this decade. Thus, the question that must be faced is: Has the pendulum moved full swing again from WW 11, and does firepower once again dominate the battlefield with resultant ad-vem consequences for maneuver? The awesome amy of threats that face armored combat vehicles is shown in figure 6. “On today’s battlefield, ifyour tank can be seen, you can be hit, and if hit with modern funk and antitank weapons, you can be penetrated and killed.”

W h t Does If Mean? If the preceding analogy is acceptable, at least in principle, what does this mean now to tacticians. weapon system developers, and Army planners? Are we truly entering a firepower-dominated era? All the indicators must be closely analyzed and assessed. An important consideration is that the current ascendancy of the fmpower threat may pose an entirely different challenge to the employment of armored formations than did the firepower threat faced by troops in the open during the Civil War and WW I. For example, baning a nuclear attack, it is unlikely that we will see tanks killed en masse as were troops in the open who faced the concentrated artillery and automatic weapons fire of the wars just mentioned. What we are more apt to see is individual tanks or relatively small tank formations faced with any one or several of the array of weapons in figure 6. Therefore, this contingency, and other considerations and their impact on tactical doctrine, must be factored into the overall assessment of cyclical military history.

“This oneupmanship approach was destined inevitably to bring us to the M1, but that may be the end of the line. It just will not work forever. ’’ There may be something to be learned from this analogy for those planning future tactics and doctrine. Just as the tactics from the Napoleon era were not suited for the firepower dominance in the Civil War, the tactics from the maneuver era of WW I1 may not be suited for the firepowerdominated era we are now entering. It is apparent that the options or choices for tactics must reflect an awareness of the position of the pendulum and of the degree of maneuver that may be possible on the battlefields of the next decade or so.

Thus far, the quantitative relationship of the opposing armies have not been addressed. However, it would seem that the high or advanced maneuver side of the pendulum arc, with superb generalship possible, would tend to permit bold tactics and superior leadership to offset enemy numbers. On the other hand, it is equally appropriate to think that in an era dominated by firepower, the side that is outnumbered and possesses only matching fmpower per unit of strength is in a very untenable situation for which there are at least two theoretical solutions. The Outnumbered side can try to significantly increase their firepower per unit of strength to the point where, althoughoutnumbered, their firepower is superior; or, they can focus all their technological resources on developing countermeasures, or anti-firepower systems, in order to move the pendulum back toward a more tenable situation.

The fmpower side of the pendulum offers engineers and scientists an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership, perception, and innovation. For example, if rapidly advancing firepower technology is threateping the dominance of the tank, then the side that has the greaternumber of tanks has no real advantage over the one having fewer tanks. It would seem that the side having fewer tanks should concentrate all the technology possible toward making the greater number of the enemy’s tanks obsolete rather than trying to improve the quality of their fewer tanks, which may be matched by the enemy because he must play the tank game in order to perpetuate his numerical advantage. So, if we are in a firepower-dominated era, let’s get on with what must be done to reduce the enemy’s advantage. The answer must come from innovative technology directed toward ARMOR killing tanks rapidly and at c beyond the direct fm mne, Battle’s Power Punch:’ Sepl MOR) and improved means their firepower at extended dh The pendulum has been side to side for hundreds of years: &d will continue to do so. With the increasing influence of technology on military weapons, and the rapid rate at which technology itself is changing, the periods of the pendulum between offense and defense dominating the battlefield are getting shorter. This has an ominous message for system developers. It means that away must be found to shorten the development cycle for military vehicles and to reduce the time required to insert new technology in a product improvement pro-g-.

Combat vehicle design philosophy states that combat vehicles’ performance can be significantly enhanced by increases in armor, firepower, and mobility, judiciously blended in a skillful and harmonious way. This sounds simple, but it worked because of affordable technological growth in the “building blocks. ” This oneupmanship approach was destined inevitably to bring us to the M 1, but that may be the end of the line. It just will not work forever.

served as Chief of the Exploratory Development Division, Tank-Automotive Concepts Laboratory, Tank-Automotive Command (TACOM) preceding his retirement in May 1982. He joined TACOM in 1951 after receiving his BS degree in mechanical engineering from Wayne State University. Before entering college, he served in the US. Army from 1940 to 1945 with the 7th Cavalry Brigade and 1 st and4th Armored Divisions. Following a 15-month engineering training program at TACOM, he was associated with advanced militaryvehicle concepts for his entire career, and participated to some degree in all major vehicle development programs initiated at TACOM. januaty-februaty 1 983