Leading scouting/counter-scouting theorists

[jcustis]

Fuchs,

Any luck finding new material on this subject?

[davidbfpo]

Might this fit Fuchs & Jon C's quest for information?

'The French Rapid Effects System', an article from the annual RUSI publication RUSI Defence Systems:http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...0_Birchall.pdf

The UK equivalent, known here as FRES, is a project mired in controversy and after millions spent nothing has appeared.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs,

Any luck finding new material on this subject?

Not much. Tiny bits from different sources only.
My own ideas (or whatever I think are my ideas - you never know, maybe I just forgot that I've heard the idea before?) clearly outnumbered my findings from sources in the last two years.

I suspect that most relevant post-1990 works are probably linked to ideas like DO. I do also suspect that most relevant works are simply not easily accessible.


Let's at least hope that our opposition in the next major war didn't make enough progress in (counter-)scouting tactics. The Western forces surely don't even master the full scope of (counter-)scouting tactics and missions of WW2.
I'm especially concerned about the trend towards surveillance instead of scouting. Scouts ought to be something else than (very) forward observers.

[jcustis]

Might this fit Fuchs & Jon C's quest for information?

'The French Rapid Effects System', an article from the annual RUSI publication RUSI Defence Systems:http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...0_Birchall.pdf

The UK equivalent, known here as FRES, is a project mired in controversy and after millions spent nothing has appeared.

I don't understand how they determined that a single-man turret could be put to good use in something they are classifying as a IFV. It looks more like an APC, in the same vein as the Marine Corps' AAV, the US M113, etc. The allowance for a troop commander station doesn't do much more than allow him access to communication assets he might otherwise struggle with if in the back compartment.

This is a pretty interesting snippet right here:

The French demonstration troops at the Section Technique de l’Armée de Terre (STAT) and the 35th Infantry Regiment have now completed a sequence of trials on the VBCI, starting with just one vehicle in October 2008 and building up through four levels of command to a Battle Group-level trial in July 2009, which also included urban warfare. The objectives of the trials were to assess the impact of VBCI on infantry manoeuvre, make changes to tactical procedures, operational training and collective skills,
and, of course, modify field doctrine and manuals.

The findings from these extensive trials, involving more than 30 VBCIs and crews, have been profound. In his presentation to the AFV Symposium in 2009 year, Colonel Alain Vidal (STAT) described the experience as a “revolution”. Most importantly, the lessons learnt during trials have already been translated into a new doctrine that has been issued from the French School of Infantry to all infantry units, which are being equipped
with VBCI.

I read this to mean that the "revolution" was not necessarily something that complemented current capabilities, but rather that they had to take existing doctrine and re-write it to fit the limitations of the vehicle. That's what I infer from looking at the vehicle.

The challenge with recce (and some IFV) vehicles stems from a couple of factors that tend to dominate the matter of actually being effective. The first is the business of conducting the reconnaissance in the first place. In armored recce, I'd argue that the force has to have the capability to do it quickly, relative to the main forces that are waiting to make the move forward based on the information collected.

The second component is that as a force mounted in these vehicles conducts the recce, it needs to report the information. That can be done in-stride or at a halt, with the in-stride method being preferred (at least in my book) since it supports maintaining relative tempo against the enemy.

I have had the occasion to employ our Blue Force Tracker C2 system in a number of platforms, from the M1114, M-ATV, MRAP, MTVR 7-ton truck, and both the LAV-25 and LAV-C2 variants. As the vehicle bangs around and one tries to type out a message or even extract a grid location to pass over the radio via voice, it requires a ballet that keeps the vehicle commander's head down and situational awareness degrades as a result. This can be mitigated by an experienced driver who can tend to a lot of things by himself, but the most effective assistant is the vehicle gunner. When I was a company commander, I routinely had my gunner directing the movement of the LAV-25, reporting some information, answering radio calls coming from higher headquarters, as well as recording fragmentary orders while I was issuing one to the platoons.

In our light armored community, we refer to the synergy of the driver, gunner, and vehicle commander as crew cohesion, and is why we strive to avoid disrupting crew assignments as much as possible. The human factor of a crew training, qualifying, and then deploying together, is significant and has played out time and again in the real world. When everyone is working together, and utilizing a two-man turret where the gunner can direct the vehicle's movement for short periods, the commander can tend to a lot of tasks while he works the business of collecting, analyzing, and reporting that combat information. Although I know this is totally an apples-to-oranges analogy, the process of trying to do all this is akin to flying a jet fighter. I have used the term "task overload" to describe those moments when a vehicle commander cannot effectively juggle the things he needs to do to fight the vehicle. This same condition causes student pilots to wash out if they cannot manage the information coming into their brain and fly the aircraft.

A one-man turret only exacerbates the difficulty, and therefore, the French are going to get a less capable vehicle. If you want to move troops from point A to point B in an administrative fashion, then you can get away with this sort of vehicle. Their organization may be a little less tiered as well, with one platoon commander for say, 5-10 VBCIs, and those subordinate vehs might not be expected to exercise much in the way of independent action. Either way efficiently fighting or conducting recce from a on-man turret is a wholly different prospect altogether.

Also from the article:

Secondly, it has been achieved by what the French call ‘Integrated Qualification’, which means that at every stage of design and development, approval is signed off by a triumvirate of user, designer and procurer. This system pre-empts problems, speeds up development, making kit cheaper and, critically, fosters the much vaunted and desired ‘no surprise’ culture

This sounds like a great approach, but tells me that someone in the triumvirate is enamored with shiny little things, and has been checking off on capabilities that don't make much sense.

If anyone has access to the field trial information Col Vidal references, I"m keen to see it. Isn't he the program manager of the thing anyway; of course he'd declare remarkable success!

Fuch, I suppose if you were able to get a hold of some of the presentations coming out of the light armored vehicle summits for the past few years, you might be able to get some theoretical material.