Success on the 21st century battlefield: Ensuring Pak Army's readiness

For more than a decade, the Pak Army has been involved in a grueling battle on the Western front. The key characteristics of this battle have been difficult, mountainous terrain, and a technologically and numerically inferior enemy motivated by a fanatical zeal combining guerilla like tactics with open warfare, and wielding the dishonorable weapon of terrorist attacks against soft targets.

Recently, the hard work of over a decade has started bearing fruit. As a result, we have observed a return to normalcy in some of the most unmanaged, out of control areas in northern Pakistan. Quite rightly, the Pak Army is extremely proud of this achievement. The knowledgeable reader will be well aware how the world's most modern and elite armies, with budgets running into hundreds of billions, have failed miserably in similar circumstances.

Although these successes are laudable, it would be highly disingenuous to take them as irrefutable proof of Pak Army's prowess in all modern battlefield scenarios. As a matter of fact, the astute reader will appreciate how a narrow focus on COIN can lead to a strategic imbalance in the army's capability for modern warfare. Successes in one could impair one's judgment of his ability to excel in the other.

If we take a high level view of the latest military innovations and advancements, we find that the key underpinnings are electronics, algorithms, electromagnetics, and materials science. Research in these areas has led to some truly amazing capabilities in surveillance, target acquisition, tracking, and target engagement. To the layman, these advancements create a perception that in order to win, one must amass as many advanced systems as possible. Victory shall be achieved by the party which wields more weapons that are technologically superior. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, every system has weaknesses. And the key to winning on the modern battlefield is exploiting the weaknesses in the enemy's defences to neutralize his offensive and defensive capabilities. And the crucial characteristics that enable this are in-depth scientific and technical knowledge, creativity, and out of the box thinking.

Let us analyze a recent example of such out of the box thinking to winning a tehcnologically asymmetric battle. The downing of a US F-117A Nighthawk by Yugoslavia. For our analysis, we shall rely on openly available information on wikipedia. To quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown

Unknown to NATO, Yugoslav air defenses operators had found they could detect F-117s with their obsolete Soviet radars after some modifications.[3] In 2005, Colonel Zoltán Dani confirmed this in an interview, suggesting that those modifications involved using long wavelengths, which allowed them to detect the aircraft when the wheel well or bomb bay doors were open.[4] In addition, the Serbs had also intercepted and deciphered some NATO communications, and thus were able to deploy their anti-air batteries at positions best suited to intercept NATO planes.[4]

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At about 8:15 pm local time, with a range of about 8 miles (13 km) several missiles were launched. According to Sergeant Dragan Matić, who was identified in 2009 as the soldier who fired the missiles, they detected the F-117 at a range of about 50 to 60 kilometres (31 to 37 mi), operating their equipment for no more than 17 seconds to avoid being locked on to by NATO anti-air suppression.[2] According to Dani in a 2007 interview, his troops spotted the aircraft on radar when its bomb-bay doors opened, raising its radar signature.[7]
Lt. Colonel Dale Zelko was the pilot of the downed F-117A

The F-117, callsign "Vega-31", was being flown by Lt. Col. Dale Zelko,[2][8] an Operation Desert Storm veteran.[9] He observed the two missiles punch through the low cloud cover and head straight for his aircraft.[10] The first passed over him, close enough to cause buffeting, but did not detonate. The second missile detonated, causing significant damage to the aircraft and causing it to tumble, out of control.[9] The explosion was large enough to be seen from a KC-135 Stratotanker, flying over Bosnia.[9]

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There are many key lessons to be learnt from this story. First, we observe that the Yugoslavs had a disproportionate technological disadvantage. But more important from the Pakistani perspective is the enormous psychological barrier that existed in 1999 about American technological prowess. To a casual Pakistani observer, a 'stealth' plane made by the Americans would be undetectable. No radar system in the world could detect it, and no missile system in the world could destroy it. But the Yugoslavs displayed an indomitable spirit. Against all odds, they did not simply give up. And so, the very first lesson for modern warfare is the willingness to go all out. To do whatever it takes. To explore all possibilities. To never give up.

The second lesson is analyzing the situation from first principles. Imagine one does not have any clue about how the enemy's 'stealth' aircraft achieves the impossible. Given a basic understanding of radars, if one was to design a 'stealth' system, one would try to either absorb the incoming radiation, or scatter it in such a way that the waves do not reach back to the receiver. But, is the enemy able to achieve this in all scenarios? Are all stages of flight covered? The indomitable spirit, guided by technical knowledge, continues to probe the advanced system with what meager tools it has. In this case, Yugoslavia's outdated radar system. Combined with covert knowledge of the location of enemy's 'stealth' aircraft and the various stages of flight it goes through, the Yugoslav's pinpointed the weakness to certain flight stages.

It should be noted that the Americans themselves might not have known about these weaknesses. Hence, gaining this information was not simply a matter of espionage. The knowledge was acquired in realtime. Which leads us to our third lesson in modern warfare: one must face the unknown in war, so one must be prepared to analyze the unknown during war, using whatever tools are at one's disposal. Every encounter with the unknown capability is another opportunity to probe, to learn about its limits. Although it is vital to prepare oneself during peactime, one must be prepared to acquire knowledge on-the-fly during wartime.

So how can the Pak Army incorporate these characteristics within its ranks? The most fundamental characteristic of a modern army is the modern, creative, broadminded outlook of its rank and file. And the key element that supports such thought processes is knowledge. Given the hi-tech nature of the modern battlefields, Pak Army battle commanders and planners need an intimate knowledge of modern algorithms, computer systems, electronics, radars, missiles, and communication systems.

But equally important is the adoption of the 'hacker mentality'. The word 'hacker' usually inspires visions of computer geeks sitting in dark rooms trying to break into computer systems over the internet. But 'hacking' is a frame of mind that can be applied to any domain. The basic question a 'hacker' asks is what are the weaknesses in a system, and how can I use them to induce an outcome of my own liking? And the proficient hacker is able to acquire knowledge about a system and get a sufficient answer to this question. This mentality needs to be ingrained within the Pak Army's core battle commanders and planners.

Admittedly, transforming the army to a whole new mindset is challenging. But just in the last decade or so, the army has gone through challenging transformations. If history shows us anything, it is that once the Pak Army sets its goals, it achieves them with outstanding success. The main question is whether top Army command feels an urgent need for such a transformation.

@Bilal Khan (Quwa) @Bilal Khan 777 @Oscar @Horus @Zarvan @Sarge @Windjammer @Rashid Mahmood @Zaki @The SC @naveedullahkhankhattak @Khafee @Naif al Hilali

As far as I have seen, Pak army is blessed with creative minds at all levels. Our SSG soldiers have displayed these talents in deployments and have come up with out of box scenarios to deal with Ts. Similarly at policy making levels, deliberate strategic shifts have helped to maintain conventional parity with India despite her having opened a second front on the western border of Pakistan. Pakistan Army despite facing these two huge challenges, has also brought about a u turn in its perception and has significantly increased its ability to influence and protect Pakistan's future. But I agree with the author that we need to make sure that supply of adequate talent doesnt run out.

Even in war against terrorism a lot can be learned and implemented in conventional war scenario.
1) increase communication of tri-services.
2) Soldiers fitness level. as facing enemy using hit and run tactic you need strong and superfit men.
3) same strategies which terrorists have successfully used can be even in more destructive way with more sophisticated manner be used against any army in the world.
4) During long war on terror. soldiers learn a lot from experiences. I have met many soldiers and learned that now they can use any kind of small and medium arm weapons with precision without any training.
5) these type of war needs strong intelligence. which means more strong and better networks in own country. Syrian arab army is not losing because syrian army had established strong intelligence for whatever political reasons.
6) in conventional war, soldiers would line up and move forward toward enemy defense. War on terror had changed Pakistan army tactics. Also Pakistan army soldiers have gained strong experience in overcoming and capturing posts well defended by taliban. Indian army still have to adopt and in my opinion it will be the only reason india will lose next war or atleast suffer high casualities.
7) most of the anti terror training which almost every pakistani soldier had recieved is mostly commando training.
8) Terrorists mostly made large ambushes on Pakistan army. In war armies do that. pakistan army soldiers have already survived those ambushes and also have learnt many ways of successfull ambushes from taliban attacks consisting of hundreds of attackers per attack. while indian army never faced such scenario.
9) In such operations the coordination between different units of army is necessary. Like arillary,infantry,special forces, aviation, paramilitaries etc. It is also needed in conventional conflicts.
10) Pakistan rangers have also been active in war on terror along with Army, which increased it's capabilities to army level.
11) FC had been modernized. which will help Pakistan in any conflict keeping in mind that whole kargil war was fought brilliantly by NLI which was a paramilitary force but with experience of fighting along with Pakistan army on LOC.
12) In counter terror ops you need strong transport system with more safe vehicles to save soldiers life in case of ambushes. Pakistan have learnt a lot in this regard and it's capabilities have been increased(but at a cost).
13) Taliban without tanks have destroyed many Pakistani tanks. ISIS in iraq,syria had done that too. The experience in using anti tank weapons have been gained in this war.
14) soldiers communication systems have been increased and evolved for such ops.

POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGES:
1) This war will have some effects on Pakistan army capability to use all weapons normally which were not required in fighting terrorism like air defense systems. but even during war on terror PA have realized the importance of such deficiencies so many big field exercises like AZM E NAO were conducted. so this problem may not arise as adversary have also relied on such exercises only. Mean while as air defenses were not involved in war so they could have not lost the focus. like in iraq where ISIS is using drones.
2) Pakistan airforce have done ground operations this could hve resulted in decrease in PAF capabilities but thank to visionary leadership it didn't happened because of exercises conducted regularly. The air to air combat skills have increased which were demonstrated in exercises with other friendly countries.

@thebaj @naveedullahkhankhattak the main point is that we need to be ready to employ creativity in the face of a technologically superior enemy whose technology we have not encountered before. Do we have the technical know how to surmount such challenges in realtime when a war is under way?

By the way, I am not at all denying the commendable achievements some of which @naveedullahkhankhattak has described. These are valuable lessons learnt, but we need to think about new challenges. To summarize: creativity at the tactical level, in the face of new, previously unencountered technological threats posed by a superior enemy, during an ongoing engagement/escalation of hostilities, or after war has already started.

CriticalThought said:

@thebaj @naveedullahkhankhattak the main point is that we need to be ready to employ creativity in the face of a technologically superior enemy whose technology we have not encountered before. Do we have the technical know how to surmount such challenges in realtime when a war is under way?

By the way, I am not at all denying the commendable achievements some of which @naveedullahkhankhattak has described. These are valuable lessons learnt, but we need to think about new challenges. To summarize: creativity at the tactical level, in the face of new, previously unencountered technological threats posed by a superior enemy, during an ongoing engagement/escalation of hostilities, or after war has already started.

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Every good army have these capabilities.
1) These capabilities come with strong intelligence. That is the reason adversaries try to steal the field exercises result and types of weapons used in them to know the enemies capabilities and weakness.
2) Strong R & D knowledge and skilled people who can learn from mistakes and can study enemy technology to find and explore it's weakness.
3) Strong military relations with friendly countries. Many countries use different equipments. In joint exercise you can know about their equipment's capabilities,tactics and can learn and know alot. for example Pakistan did joint exercises with US airforce in the past when US had inducted F 15 for first time. Pakistani pilots learnt a lot about them and the result of exercise were not just one sided as it was the case in F 15 encounter with other airforces.
4) information sharing with other countries may help in finding the weakness of many systems. South africa was helped by israel in one war with such information, which turned the tide of war. Israel gave them just a hand book written by Pakistani pilot on "how migs fight f 16", which was in israeli intelligence possession provided to them by one israeli spy who found it in a book store some where.
5) Reading and studying different strategies used by different countries using the books available in market mostly written by ex Military officers. Like US strategy in desert storm is given in their generals book.
6) constantly learning from mistakes, even during war. let not allow enemy use same strategy and tactic again and again. Increase and modify your equipment of use it in different way according to requirement. It is possible only if your men completely know his equipment capabilities, which depends on training and experience. You cannot always get new equipment during war but you can better use the already available equipment. Example Pakistan airforce used transport planes as bombers. Anti aircraft guns have been modified to be used on enemy at ground.

yaar

There are thousands of mobile sites in Paksitan. Every Mobile tower/site is a Receiver and Transmitter...a transceiver like a radar. The antennas run on Frequency band 800/900 MHZ and 1800/2100 MHZ, But the frequency spectrum for these band is large, not just one frequency.

Radar waves are either deflected or absorbed. The radar waves which are deflected by a stealth aircraft go in different directions. The mobile towers in the country can be used as receivers to pick up such signals not coming from a sim card, send them to the back bone (BTS->BSC->MSC (server which can be connected to PAF AD control), then triangulation can be used to locate the path and flying pattern of an aircraft.

A BTS is a mobile tower.
BSC controls many BTS's (8-12 sometimes)
MSC is the back bone.Can be connected to PTCL or NTC etc.

The antennas on towers are looking towards roads and buildings to give coverage there, not looking towards the sky so using as transmitter is not really useful.

There is also another type of antenna on BTS, which is used for communication between BTS if fibre optics is not available or expensive. It operates at even higher frequency than UHF and requires LOS to communicate between BTS's. This antenna can be used as Receiver also. Its not linked to sim cards.

@PanzerKiel my apologies for bothering you, but wanted to bring your attention to the OP in this thread. Your valuable comments are sought.

unfortunately, that indomitable spirit, will to "go all out and whatever it takes", the creativity and intelligence have not been the defining traits of armies of south asia.
on the contrary, over cautiousness, timidity half hearted measures have defined the conflicts in this region. these unwanted traits have been amply displayed by all sides.

Ghost 125 said:

unfortunately, that indomitable spirit, will to "go all out and whatever it takes", the creativity and intelligence have not been the defining traits of armies of south asia.
on the contrary, over cautiousness, timidity half hearted measures have defined the conflicts in this region. these unwanted traits have been amply displayed by all sides.

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We are trying to discuss how we can change this for Pak Army.

Still a lot to learn logistical connection needs a major improvement we should be a quick force ready to take over mountains ridges and posts be it in the desert or high altitude terrain for this we need to improve logistical transport and our conventional support power such as artillery we need to increase the number off light howitzer especially in the 155mm calibre we need to drastically increase our towed artillery capability

Great Janjua said:

Still a lot to learn logistical connection needs a major improvement we should be a quick force ready to take over mountains ridges and posts be it in the desert or high altitude terrain for this we need to improve logistical transport and our conventional support power such as artillery we need to increase the number off light howitzer especially in the 155mm calibre we need to drastically increase our towed artillery capability

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Or, come up with innovative tactics and create new technology that gives us an edge without having to match the enemy in a numbers game.

CriticalThought said:

Or, come up with innovative tactics and create new technology that gives us an edge without having to match the enemy in a numbers game.

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Yes that includes artillery transport harmony with airborne elements unfortunately we have not really improved much in the said fields

Great Janjua said:

Yes that includes artillery transport harmony with airborne elements unfortunately we have not really improved much in the said fields

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If transporting artillery is an issue, why not try to increase artillery range and precision? Put seekers and control surfaces on shells so you can effectively engage from a distance.

CriticalThought said:

We are trying to discuss how we can change this for Pak Army.

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well that need a major overhaul from top to bottom in armed forces. i understand that it wont happen in a day or two, it ll take years, perhaps decades.
starting from recruitment process, selection of both, the officer cadets and soldier recruits of higher IQ. In prevailing systems in indo Pak and middle eastern armies soldiers are not supposed to think, that responsibility is squarely put on officers shoulders which has adverse implication for armies as a whole on battlefield on all three tactical, operational and strategic levels. that need to change, better educated and aware soldiers have more chance of standing firm and exercising initiative in difficult situations. in short the whole mentality has to be changed.
Same applies to officer. In 1999 in Yoguslavia/Serbia somebody was aware of the vulnerability of dreaded night hawk and they used that knowledge to their advantage. That knowledge of enemy capabilities, his shortcomings vis a vis own resources and capabilities is vital for warfighting skills of officers of every rank at their respective level. perhaps this element is lacking in the officers of armies in this part of the world. One of the reason for this is their young age and inexperience. By the time they gain enough tactical knowledge sufficient for their early services on tactical or sub tactical level they are promoted and the level of their command raised and again faced by tasks for which they are not ready. this process goes on till top....as a result a job for which in a modern army a lieut should be enough is being carried out by a major or even senior officer. This is the reason why performance of officers and formations as a whole above regiment level remained doleful and pathetic in all indo Pak wars from both sides.
priorities are required to be shifted towards conventional operations now. After capacity building of Paramilitaries like FC/ rangers and new raisings they should be enough to tackle insurgencies in balochistan and earstwhile fata. Focus of regular army has to be shifted completely towards eastern border to effectively and timely counter the ever evolving indian warfighting strategy. Next war will have a time and space relation, time will be cruicial for the aggresor to achieve his objectives and for the defender to thwart them at just the right time and throw the enemy off balance by its own counter offensive.
procurement and careful allocation of funds for just the right things is of utmost importance aswell.