jhungary
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Modern Warfare
Don't worry, it's not about the game..........
Okay, now, we are going deeper into Military Science, and today topic is the different generation of warfare and since ISIS or ISIL (or whatever you call it these day, I can't catch up) is so much of a talking point right now, today topic is Generation of Warfare.
From the very beginning of human race, war predated any kind of civilization and religion, warfare started by 2 entities using violent to settle whatever dispute it occur during the period, and evolve to a total war situation during WW2. This is a fact that civilization progress with human, technology and social value progress and sad thing is, this progress also bring to a progress of warfare.
History of Warfare
As said, war started at the dawn of civilization. The earliest record of war comes in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq when the Stele of the Vultures recorded the first war victory of the city state of Lagash over the neighbour state Umma somewhere on or before 2300 BC.
Although the record did not actually record how the battle was fought, rather it recorded the situation upon victory. The stele is undoubtedly the first record of war exist throughout human history.
The actual earliest recorded battle were heavily contested and no probable decision can be agree on as most recorded battle show some degree of documenting but also a lot of tactical information is missing. The historian agree, however, the earliest comprehensive battle record belong to the Battle of Qadesh between the Persian and the Hittites in 1274 BC
The first war in history is also seen with the first use of combat tactics and formation, while no one actually know had the tactics been rehearse or improvised during the course of battle, the first recorded battle in detail, the Battle of Qadesh had also trail blaze the combat tactics.
Warfare progresses with technology, and with new technology being invented and put into use, the tactics and strategy would also require to update accordingly. And thus give out different generation of warfare.
Generations
Based on modern warfare, the current generation is Fourth Plus (or 4 +) the current technology does not enable a breakthrough with 5th Generation Warfare yet, yet it had somehow altered the 4th Generation And the Generation in count are as follow
Pre-Modern Warfare
Approximately lasted until 16 century with the discovery of musket. Soldier uses melee or contact combat as a way to fight war.
In this generation, which lasted the better part of 3000 years, we saw the formation of almost all modern combat tactics, and the military command structure as well as the most important of all, the Military Tradition.
While in this generation, war are fought usually with bulk of troop and depend upon the troop formation and Military tradition (Such as drills, Elite troop or Cavalry tradition).
War fought on equal term with one side meeting another fully displayed in formation, in a sense it is much like "gentlemen war" and where as the outcome of war depend solely upon the use of tactics, individual unit or individual skill are looked upon, but not heavily reliance.
First Generation Warfare (1GW)
Upon the discovery of gunpowder and musket, it basically reinvent the scenery of war, traditionally face-to-face combat would become unsustainable as the killing power is too great and war would relegated to who have the biggest number, wins.
It is because of this excelling of killing power of musket, large formation present a very large target and thus becoming obsolete. The way to approach warfare has got to change.
While still heavily depend on line and column, the beginning of First Generation Warfare see the Musket is still not as accurate to later smoothbore or modern rifled barrel, the basic principle have not changes. That means that, troop will still move in large formation, get to the battle while holding formation, and engage the enemy with a bulk formation.
But in reality, the appearance of musket bring out one things that change the face of warfare completely, and that's the first time in time of war, individual skill starting to affect the battlefield, in this case, marksman skill are now an important incorporation to this generation of warfare and for that, something need to change to address this needs
To address the issue, now would call for the overhauling of the whole Military System, with people have distinct skill which are of more "valued" than other, which directly created the "Military Rank" structure.
Before the 1st Generation Warfare, Military goes to war with a local leader. In medieval time, while command structure do exist, the chain of command is absent, while a group of soldier usually raised by the local commander which serve as head (later given the name Captain and the group would become a company), each soldier and commander, apart form the local leader are considered "First Amongst Equal" so what basically is a bunch of people who happened to fight without any organised structure. That is how war are fought in Medieval time
However, to address the issue with 1st Generation Warfare, a more appropriate ranking structure is needed in order to allow individualism on soldiering. The Diversification of rank is to accommodate the uses of smaller unit formation in that period to perfect the use of musket (Formation such as Pike and Shot, or Tercio)
Second Generation Warfare (2GW)
Somewhere before 1800 is the time when musket have turn into breech loading rifle. This breakthrough couple with another item called Cannon have yet again change the face of warfare, and thus the world entering the second generation of modern warfare
Although Cannon exist as early as 1200 AD in China, their used were actually quite limited to siege role and naval bombardment. Up until 1700, Cannon mainly fire solid round to destroy fortification and induce wooden shrapnel when used in ship vs ship combat. Not until early 1700 did the world first explosive shell exist.
Before that time, cannon are large and cumbersome, some even go up to 20,000 lbs range. It is not suitable for field operation, however, things turn around pretty quickly due to industrialisation in France means the metallurgy and production speed have a major overhaul as well as metal science. Hence the development of Light Artillery from the heavy cumbersome cannon.
To say Napoleon in love with artillery is an understatement. The man is what make artillery known to the world, as an artillery officer himself, he had perfected what could be the playbook for artillery. Since between 1600 and 1800, soldier still fight in a large, albeit fractured formation, the concentrated hit of artillery barrage can cause the utmost devastation.
The change? In come manoeuvre warfare.
The basic of avoiding artillery fire, if you move around you will be safe as artillery fire could not hit moving target (Not in that era anyway). However, had they kept the line, column and profile, moving that big of a troop can be very chaotic. So the need to break down a smaller group arise. And the small unit tactics were borne. Along with the rank of NCOs were filled during this period.
Also another breakthrough is concealment, look at it this way, if your enemy cannot see you, they cannot bloody well shoot you right? It does not matter how accurate their gun can be, but if they can't see you, it will all become a moot point. Hence the development of fighting position, dugout, trenches and camouflage
Third Generation Warfare (3GW)
As with all other previous generation, the advance in generation were once again triggered by an invention of Military Technology. This time is the advancement of aviation technology and tanks.
What that added to the equation is that the speed and manoeuvrability, while in 2GW, all defence are linear, where units "hold the line" one abreast with another.
During WW1, the trench warfare set out the defensive line, and the line were protected and connected to trenches. Since Artillery are effective against linear defences, the mobility of artillery is lacking as during that time, even as light artillery is not easily deployable, and in term of mobility, army just cannot move the gun along with the Soldier to provide cover and engage strong point.
3GW could said sometime that it started at the end of WW1, when both Allied and Axis power trying to out manoeuvre each other, and indeed, aviation branch and tank were both first used in WW1 which often credited as the breakthrough in this generation. But the fact is, even during WW2, with the focus of combine arms doctrine, the tactics remain the same as with the last 70 years. This problem being the technology have evolve but the doctrine and training simply cannot catch up with the movement of technology.
3GW officially started during late Korean War to Vietnam war. When the overall doctrine and strategy have shift from the tradition linear defence and block movement. With the invention of Helicopter, the final puzzle of manoeuvre warfare, by now the existence of defence line would totally collapse and in this generation of warfare, focus on out-speed and out-flanking the enemy.
The advance can be seen in 2 parts, while the invention of tank and mechanized infantry concept increase speed, the mobility plus firepower offered by tank and IFV can now foregone the line vs line battle, where now attacking force can concentrate on one point of a line and break the defence by punch thru it and roll up the flanks.
Another part being Aerial insertion of troop, mostly with helicopter can now put troop in any corner of your battlefield and supply it which essentially make the whole linear defence system worthless.
Also since the mobility time had decreased significantly, the use of Strategic Reserve have overcast the use of Tactical Reserve as now unit as big as a division can simply bunch in a plane, truck or train to send in to reinforce other unit in need in breakneck time.
3GW therefore is a generation focus on Speed and Unit Manoeuvrability, focus on placing troop movement and quick deployment of troop to counter the speed and rapid deployment
Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)
Some would suggest that 4GW is a total revamped concept of warfare, some consider 4GW is not an progress that made from any breakthrough.
4GW was coined in the 1988, by a team of Military analyst in the United States. Officially, the term was to response to the increasing separatist attempt in the S.E. Asia. But retrospectively, it was a term that used to represent all form of warfare that apply to Violent Non State Actor (VNSA) which can trace back to the Hispanic Resurrection during Roman Republic time.
Although the one biggest indicator is the VNSA, which act as a guerrilla fighters, 4GW have been defined as a state of decentralized warfare, which mean the power in charge of a given war in this period is not of a single entity, which usually the Department of Defence or War Department, but rather a distributed, dispersed and non organised form.
Contrary to civil war, which usually involved a government representative combating a violent state actor, which usually an organised defence force. The term organised however, is not a pre-requisite of 4GW . What separate 4GW and A simple organised resistance movement is that the representation of the actor usually act without government sanction, or were act not on behalf on any party of a state.
As stated in most publication there are 5 different groups of VNSA
4GW evolve the battlefield beyond the traditional "Frontline" and the concept of enemy are blurred to a point of non-existence, the use of terrorist, guerrilla and insurgent made the identification of friend or foe increasingly difficult. And hence as a war fighting principle term, the enemy would become more fluid and they would exceed all mobility and deployment limit, simply saying enemy could now be nowhere or anywhere.
The objective of the VNSA would be simply to survive, long enough to have the state actor to realise it would not be sustainable to neutralise or to pacify. Or to weaken the national force in order to launch a conventional attacks
For the State Actor, its goal would be weed out the VNSA via civil program, the goal is not to and should not be engage VNSA in a military front, but rather their political and/or ideology behind the VNSA. The ultimate solution should not be engage or got suck into an open resurrection, but get around the insurrection and target directly at the core value of insurgence.
Fourth Plus Generation Warfare (4GW+)
As ISIS emerged out in the Middle East, this deviated the 4GW from a traditional sense of Violence Non State Actors. Technically, ISIS is partly an VNSA on the Syria front as one of the opposing faction of the Syrian Government. However, at the same time, ISIS also controlled and administrate a part of Iraq.
What added to the 4GW is that now the organisation is become transnationals, or from a non-state actor into a state who sponsor terrorism.
The effect would be simple, while in a transitional sense, the way to deal with VNSA is to go around the insurgence and engage the core value of insurgence. But it could not do that if the VNSA are supported by a national entity.
The problem is that, while the VNSA part usually feed off population support, and since there are no national entity, the government or other National Entity would be able to separate the Population and the VNSA group, but at 4GW+ they are supported by an national entity, which inturn were protected by an organised defence. At an transnationals entity, the situation is then further complex by the area of control. To which, it (The VNSA) may have been a problem for one nation, it may not be for another nation.
Therefore, the only solution to engage in a 4GW+ conflict is to engage all aspect at once, it would be still doable if the conflict is limited to local activities. The aspect of a transnationals VNSA conflict would require either all involved national entity agreed to engage the VNSA at once, either voluntarily or by a greater force to force upon. If the engagement is not done all as once and together, either the national entity part or the VNSA would simply supplement each other.
Don't worry, it's not about the game..........
Okay, now, we are going deeper into Military Science, and today topic is the different generation of warfare and since ISIS or ISIL (or whatever you call it these day, I can't catch up) is so much of a talking point right now, today topic is Generation of Warfare.
From the very beginning of human race, war predated any kind of civilization and religion, warfare started by 2 entities using violent to settle whatever dispute it occur during the period, and evolve to a total war situation during WW2. This is a fact that civilization progress with human, technology and social value progress and sad thing is, this progress also bring to a progress of warfare.
History of Warfare
As said, war started at the dawn of civilization. The earliest record of war comes in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq when the Stele of the Vultures recorded the first war victory of the city state of Lagash over the neighbour state Umma somewhere on or before 2300 BC.
Although the record did not actually record how the battle was fought, rather it recorded the situation upon victory. The stele is undoubtedly the first record of war exist throughout human history.
The actual earliest recorded battle were heavily contested and no probable decision can be agree on as most recorded battle show some degree of documenting but also a lot of tactical information is missing. The historian agree, however, the earliest comprehensive battle record belong to the Battle of Qadesh between the Persian and the Hittites in 1274 BC
The first war in history is also seen with the first use of combat tactics and formation, while no one actually know had the tactics been rehearse or improvised during the course of battle, the first recorded battle in detail, the Battle of Qadesh had also trail blaze the combat tactics.
Warfare progresses with technology, and with new technology being invented and put into use, the tactics and strategy would also require to update accordingly. And thus give out different generation of warfare.
Generations
Based on modern warfare, the current generation is Fourth Plus (or 4 +) the current technology does not enable a breakthrough with 5th Generation Warfare yet, yet it had somehow altered the 4th Generation And the Generation in count are as follow
Pre-Modern Warfare
Approximately lasted until 16 century with the discovery of musket. Soldier uses melee or contact combat as a way to fight war.
In this generation, which lasted the better part of 3000 years, we saw the formation of almost all modern combat tactics, and the military command structure as well as the most important of all, the Military Tradition.
While in this generation, war are fought usually with bulk of troop and depend upon the troop formation and Military tradition (Such as drills, Elite troop or Cavalry tradition).
War fought on equal term with one side meeting another fully displayed in formation, in a sense it is much like "gentlemen war" and where as the outcome of war depend solely upon the use of tactics, individual unit or individual skill are looked upon, but not heavily reliance.
First Generation Warfare (1GW)
Upon the discovery of gunpowder and musket, it basically reinvent the scenery of war, traditionally face-to-face combat would become unsustainable as the killing power is too great and war would relegated to who have the biggest number, wins.
It is because of this excelling of killing power of musket, large formation present a very large target and thus becoming obsolete. The way to approach warfare has got to change.
While still heavily depend on line and column, the beginning of First Generation Warfare see the Musket is still not as accurate to later smoothbore or modern rifled barrel, the basic principle have not changes. That means that, troop will still move in large formation, get to the battle while holding formation, and engage the enemy with a bulk formation.
But in reality, the appearance of musket bring out one things that change the face of warfare completely, and that's the first time in time of war, individual skill starting to affect the battlefield, in this case, marksman skill are now an important incorporation to this generation of warfare and for that, something need to change to address this needs
To address the issue, now would call for the overhauling of the whole Military System, with people have distinct skill which are of more "valued" than other, which directly created the "Military Rank" structure.
Before the 1st Generation Warfare, Military goes to war with a local leader. In medieval time, while command structure do exist, the chain of command is absent, while a group of soldier usually raised by the local commander which serve as head (later given the name Captain and the group would become a company), each soldier and commander, apart form the local leader are considered "First Amongst Equal" so what basically is a bunch of people who happened to fight without any organised structure. That is how war are fought in Medieval time
However, to address the issue with 1st Generation Warfare, a more appropriate ranking structure is needed in order to allow individualism on soldiering. The Diversification of rank is to accommodate the uses of smaller unit formation in that period to perfect the use of musket (Formation such as Pike and Shot, or Tercio)
Second Generation Warfare (2GW)
Somewhere before 1800 is the time when musket have turn into breech loading rifle. This breakthrough couple with another item called Cannon have yet again change the face of warfare, and thus the world entering the second generation of modern warfare
Although Cannon exist as early as 1200 AD in China, their used were actually quite limited to siege role and naval bombardment. Up until 1700, Cannon mainly fire solid round to destroy fortification and induce wooden shrapnel when used in ship vs ship combat. Not until early 1700 did the world first explosive shell exist.
Before that time, cannon are large and cumbersome, some even go up to 20,000 lbs range. It is not suitable for field operation, however, things turn around pretty quickly due to industrialisation in France means the metallurgy and production speed have a major overhaul as well as metal science. Hence the development of Light Artillery from the heavy cumbersome cannon.
To say Napoleon in love with artillery is an understatement. The man is what make artillery known to the world, as an artillery officer himself, he had perfected what could be the playbook for artillery. Since between 1600 and 1800, soldier still fight in a large, albeit fractured formation, the concentrated hit of artillery barrage can cause the utmost devastation.
The change? In come manoeuvre warfare.
The basic of avoiding artillery fire, if you move around you will be safe as artillery fire could not hit moving target (Not in that era anyway). However, had they kept the line, column and profile, moving that big of a troop can be very chaotic. So the need to break down a smaller group arise. And the small unit tactics were borne. Along with the rank of NCOs were filled during this period.
Also another breakthrough is concealment, look at it this way, if your enemy cannot see you, they cannot bloody well shoot you right? It does not matter how accurate their gun can be, but if they can't see you, it will all become a moot point. Hence the development of fighting position, dugout, trenches and camouflage
Third Generation Warfare (3GW)
As with all other previous generation, the advance in generation were once again triggered by an invention of Military Technology. This time is the advancement of aviation technology and tanks.
What that added to the equation is that the speed and manoeuvrability, while in 2GW, all defence are linear, where units "hold the line" one abreast with another.
During WW1, the trench warfare set out the defensive line, and the line were protected and connected to trenches. Since Artillery are effective against linear defences, the mobility of artillery is lacking as during that time, even as light artillery is not easily deployable, and in term of mobility, army just cannot move the gun along with the Soldier to provide cover and engage strong point.
3GW could said sometime that it started at the end of WW1, when both Allied and Axis power trying to out manoeuvre each other, and indeed, aviation branch and tank were both first used in WW1 which often credited as the breakthrough in this generation. But the fact is, even during WW2, with the focus of combine arms doctrine, the tactics remain the same as with the last 70 years. This problem being the technology have evolve but the doctrine and training simply cannot catch up with the movement of technology.
3GW officially started during late Korean War to Vietnam war. When the overall doctrine and strategy have shift from the tradition linear defence and block movement. With the invention of Helicopter, the final puzzle of manoeuvre warfare, by now the existence of defence line would totally collapse and in this generation of warfare, focus on out-speed and out-flanking the enemy.
The advance can be seen in 2 parts, while the invention of tank and mechanized infantry concept increase speed, the mobility plus firepower offered by tank and IFV can now foregone the line vs line battle, where now attacking force can concentrate on one point of a line and break the defence by punch thru it and roll up the flanks.
Another part being Aerial insertion of troop, mostly with helicopter can now put troop in any corner of your battlefield and supply it which essentially make the whole linear defence system worthless.
Also since the mobility time had decreased significantly, the use of Strategic Reserve have overcast the use of Tactical Reserve as now unit as big as a division can simply bunch in a plane, truck or train to send in to reinforce other unit in need in breakneck time.
3GW therefore is a generation focus on Speed and Unit Manoeuvrability, focus on placing troop movement and quick deployment of troop to counter the speed and rapid deployment
Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)
Some would suggest that 4GW is a total revamped concept of warfare, some consider 4GW is not an progress that made from any breakthrough.
4GW was coined in the 1988, by a team of Military analyst in the United States. Officially, the term was to response to the increasing separatist attempt in the S.E. Asia. But retrospectively, it was a term that used to represent all form of warfare that apply to Violent Non State Actor (VNSA) which can trace back to the Hispanic Resurrection during Roman Republic time.
Although the one biggest indicator is the VNSA, which act as a guerrilla fighters, 4GW have been defined as a state of decentralized warfare, which mean the power in charge of a given war in this period is not of a single entity, which usually the Department of Defence or War Department, but rather a distributed, dispersed and non organised form.
Contrary to civil war, which usually involved a government representative combating a violent state actor, which usually an organised defence force. The term organised however, is not a pre-requisite of 4GW . What separate 4GW and A simple organised resistance movement is that the representation of the actor usually act without government sanction, or were act not on behalf on any party of a state.
As stated in most publication there are 5 different groups of VNSA
- Terrorist Organisation
- Insurgency
- Militia
- Criminal Group
- Warlords
4GW evolve the battlefield beyond the traditional "Frontline" and the concept of enemy are blurred to a point of non-existence, the use of terrorist, guerrilla and insurgent made the identification of friend or foe increasingly difficult. And hence as a war fighting principle term, the enemy would become more fluid and they would exceed all mobility and deployment limit, simply saying enemy could now be nowhere or anywhere.
The objective of the VNSA would be simply to survive, long enough to have the state actor to realise it would not be sustainable to neutralise or to pacify. Or to weaken the national force in order to launch a conventional attacks
For the State Actor, its goal would be weed out the VNSA via civil program, the goal is not to and should not be engage VNSA in a military front, but rather their political and/or ideology behind the VNSA. The ultimate solution should not be engage or got suck into an open resurrection, but get around the insurrection and target directly at the core value of insurgence.
Fourth Plus Generation Warfare (4GW+)
As ISIS emerged out in the Middle East, this deviated the 4GW from a traditional sense of Violence Non State Actors. Technically, ISIS is partly an VNSA on the Syria front as one of the opposing faction of the Syrian Government. However, at the same time, ISIS also controlled and administrate a part of Iraq.
What added to the 4GW is that now the organisation is become transnationals, or from a non-state actor into a state who sponsor terrorism.
The effect would be simple, while in a transitional sense, the way to deal with VNSA is to go around the insurgence and engage the core value of insurgence. But it could not do that if the VNSA are supported by a national entity.
The problem is that, while the VNSA part usually feed off population support, and since there are no national entity, the government or other National Entity would be able to separate the Population and the VNSA group, but at 4GW+ they are supported by an national entity, which inturn were protected by an organised defence. At an transnationals entity, the situation is then further complex by the area of control. To which, it (The VNSA) may have been a problem for one nation, it may not be for another nation.
Therefore, the only solution to engage in a 4GW+ conflict is to engage all aspect at once, it would be still doable if the conflict is limited to local activities. The aspect of a transnationals VNSA conflict would require either all involved national entity agreed to engage the VNSA at once, either voluntarily or by a greater force to force upon. If the engagement is not done all as once and together, either the national entity part or the VNSA would simply supplement each other.
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