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mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Punishment | Antisocial behaviour and the like display high levels of recidivism and hence are the kind of crimes most susceptible to incapacitative effects. It is shown by life-course studies that long sentences for burglaries amongst offenders in their late teens and early twenties fail to incapacitate when the natural reduction in offending due to ageing is taken into account: the longer the sentence, in these cases, the less the incapacitative effect.
Retribution: Criminal activities typically give a benefit to the offender and a loss to the victim. Punishment has been justified as a measure of retributive justice, in which the goal is to try to rebalance any unjust advantage gained by ensuring that the offender also suffers a loss. Sometimes viewed as a way of "getting even" with a wrongdoer—the suffering of the wrongdoer is seen as a desired goal in itself, even if it has no restorative benefits for the victim. One reason societies have administered punishments is to diminish the perceived need for retaliatory "street justice", blood feud, and vigilantism.
Restoration: Especially applied to minor offenses, punishment may take the form of the offender "righting the wrong", or making restitution to the victim. Community service or compensation orders are examples of this sort of penalty. In models of restorative justice, victims take an active role in a process with their offenders who are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service." The restorative justice approach aims to help the offender want to avoid future offences.
Education and denunciation: Punishment can be explained by positive prevention theory to use the criminal justice system to teach people what are the social norms for what is correct, and acts as a reinforcement.
Punishment can serve as a means for society to publicly express denunciation of an action as being criminal. Besides educating people regarding what is not acceptable behavior, it serves the dual function of preventing vigilante justice by acknowledging public anger, while concurrently deterring future criminal activity by stigmatizing the offender.
This is sometimes called the "Expressive Theory" of denunciation.
The pillory was a method for carrying out public denunciation.
Some critics of the education and denunciation model cite evolutionary problems with the notion that a feeling for punishment as a social signal system evolved if punishment was not effective. The critics argue that some individuals spending time and energy and taking risks in punishing others, and the possible loss of the punished group members, would have been selected against if punishment served no function other than signals that could evolve to work by less risky means.
Unified theory: A unified theory of punishment brings together multiple penal purposes—such as retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation—in a single, coherent framework. Instead of punishment requiring we choose between them, unified theorists argue that they work together as part of some wider goal such as the protection of rights.
Criticism: Some people think that punishment as a whole is unhelpful and even harmful to the people that it is used against. Detractors argue that punishment is simply wrong, of the same design as "two wrongs make a right". Critics argue that punishment is simply revenge. Professor Deirdre Golash, author of The Case against Punishment: Retribution, Crime Prevention, and the Law, says:
We ought not to impose such harm on anyone unless we have a very good reason for doing so. This remark may seem trivially true, but the history of humankind is littered with examples of the deliberate infliction of harm by well-intentioned persons in the vain pursuit of ends which that harm did not further, or in the successful pursuit of questionable ends. These benefactors of humanity sacrificed their fellows to appease mythical gods and tortured them to save their souls from a mythical hell, broke and bound the feet of children to promote their eventual marriageability, beat slow schoolchildren to promote learning and respect for teachers, subjected the sick to leeches to rid them of excess blood, and put suspects to the rack and the thumbscrew in the service of truth. They schooled themselves to feel no pity—to renounce human compassion in the service of a higher end. The deliberate doing of harm in the mistaken belief that it promotes some greater good is the essence of tragedy. We would do well to ask whether the goods we seek in harming offenders are worthwhile, and whether the means we choose will indeed secure them. Golash also writes about imprisonment:
Imprisonment means, at minimum, the loss of liberty and autonomy, as well as many material comforts, personal security, and access to heterosexual relations. These deprivations, according to Gresham Sykes (who first identified them) "together dealt 'a profound hurt' that went to 'the very foundations of the prisoner's being.
But these are only the minimum harms, suffered by the least vulnerable inmates in the best-run prisons. Most prisons are run badly, and in some, conditions are more squalid than in the worst of slums. In the District of Columbia jail, for example, inmates must wash their clothes and sheets in cell toilets because the laundry machines are broken. Vermin and insects infest the building, in which air vents are clogged with decades' accumulation of dust and grime. But even inmates in prisons where conditions are sanitary must still face the numbing boredom and emptiness of prison life—a vast desert of wasted days in which little in the way of meaningful activity is possible.
Destructiveness to thinking and betterment: There are critics of punishment who argue that punishment aimed at intentional actions forces people to suppress their ability to act on intent. Advocates of this viewpoint argue that such suppression of intention causes the harmful behaviors to remain, making punishment counterproductive. These people suggest that the ability to make intentional choices should instead be treasured as a source of possibilities of betterment, citing that complex cognition would have been an evolutionarily useless waste of energy if it led to justifications of fixed actions and no change as simple inability to understand arguments would have been the most thrifty protection from being misled by them if arguments were for social manipulation, and reject condemnation of people who intentionally did bad things. Punishment can be effective in stopping undesirable employee behaviors such as tardiness, absenteeism or substandard work performance. However, punishment does not necessarily cause an employee to demonstrate a desirable behavior.
See also:
Citations:
References: "Punishment" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 653.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Legal Punishment
Etymology Online
Brooks, Thom (2012). Punishment. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-85051-3.
Gade, Christian (2020). "Is restorative justice punishment?". Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 38 (3): 127–155. doi:10.1002/crq.21293.
Lippke, Richard (2001). "Criminal Offenders and Right Forfeiture". Journal of Social Philosophy. 32 (1): 78–89. doi:10.1111/0047-2786.00080.
Mack, Eric (2008). "Retribution for Crime". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 429–431. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n263. ISBN 978-1412965804. OCLC 750831024.
Zaibert, Leo (2006). Punishment and retribution. Hants, England: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0754623892.
External links:
"Punishment". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"The Moral Permissibility of Punishment". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Pyrrhic victory | Etymology: A "Pyrrhic victory" is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC and the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC, during the Pyrrhic War. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius:
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.
In both Epirote victories, the Romans suffered greater casualties, but they had a much larger pool of replacements, so the casualties had less impact on the Roman war effort than the losses had on the campaign of King Pyrrhus.
The report is often quoted as:
Ne ego si iterum eodem modo vicero, sine ullo milite Epirum revertar.
If I achieve such a victory again, I shall return to Epirus without any soldier.
or
If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.
Examples:
War: This list comprises examples of battles that ended in a Pyrrhic victory. It is not intended to be complete but to illustrate the concept.
Battle of Asculum (279 BC), Pyrrhus of Epirus and Italian allies against the Roman Republic: the Romans, though suffering twice as many casualties, could easily replenish their ranks. Pyrrhus lost most of his commanders and a great part of the forces he had brought to Italy, and he withdrew to Sicily.
Battle of Avarayr (451), Vardan Mamikonian and Christian Armenian rebels against the Sassanid Empire: the Persians were victorious and forced the outnumbered Armenians to retreat, but lost so many soldiers that the battle proved to be a strategic victory for Armenians, as Avarayr paved the way to the Nvarsak Treaty (484 AD), which assured Armenian autonomy and religious freedom.
Siege of Szigetvár (1566), Ottoman–Habsburg wars: although the Ottomans won the siege after 33 days, it can be seen as a Pyrrhic victory because of the heavy Ottoman casualties, the death of Sultan Suleiman, and the resulting delay to the Ottoman push for Vienna that year which suspended Ottoman expansion in Europe.
Siege of Ostend (1601–1604), Eighty Years' War: for three years the Spanish attempted to capture this port from Dutch and English defenders, even as the Dutch expanded their territory further east – including capturing the port of Sluis to replace Ostend before surrendering. The Spaniards ultimately captured the city, but the vast cost and casualties of the siege were compounded by Spain's subsequent campaign to recapture the Dutch gains, which achieved little, and by 1607 Spain was bankrupt. The resultant Twelve Years' Truce effectively made the Dutch Republic an independent state.
Battle of Gangwana (1741) fought between 1,000 strong Rathore cavalry of Jodhpur and combined armies of Mughal Empire, and Jaipur numbering 100,000 with hundreds of cannons and artillery at Gangwana. Jaipur emerged victorious but with heavy losses of 12,000 killed and thousands other wounded
Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), American Revolutionary War: after mounting three assaults on the colonial forces, the British won control of the Boston peninsula in the early stages of the war, but the engagement cost them many more casualties than the Americans had incurred (including a large number of officers) and led them to adopt more cautious methods, which helped American rebel forces; the political repercussions increased colonial support for independence.
Battle of Guilford Court House (1781), American Revolutionary War: in this short battle, the outnumbered British force defeated an American army; the British lost a considerable number of men, and their drive to conquer the southern colonies changed course.
Battle of Chancellorsville (1863), American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee split his army in the face of Joseph Hooker's larger Union force; the audacious strategy allowed the Confederate army to win the day against a numerically superior foe. However, 20% of Lee's army was injured or killed, including General Stonewall Jackson, and his losses were difficult to replace. Lee's weakened army went on the offensive, but less than two months later was defeated and forced to retreat after the Battle of Gettysburg.
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (1942), World War II, Solomon Islands Campaign: Japanese and Allied naval forces met during the struggle for Guadalcanal and nearby islands. After an exchange of carrier air attacks, U.S. surface ships retreated with one aircraft carrier sunk along with a destroyer and another carrier and a battleship severely damaged. The Japanese carrier forces achieved a tactical victory, as none of their ships were sunk, but the heavy loss of 100 airplanes and irreplaceable veteran aircrews was to the strategic advantage of the Allies. Japanese ground forces on Guadalcanal had also just lost the Battle for Henderson Field and were in no position to take advantage of the new situation.
Battle of Chosin Reservoir (1950), Korean War: the Chinese army attempted to encircle and destroy the much smaller United Nations forces, but in a 17-day battle in freezing weather, the U.N. forces inflicted crippling losses on the Chinese while making a fighting withdrawal. The Chinese occupied northeast Korea but they did not recover until the spring, and the U.N. maintained a foothold in Korea.
Second Battle of Quảng Trị (1972), Vietnam War: The army of the Republic of Vietnam, with the support of ground artillery, ship gunboats, and bombers, attacked the ancient citadel of Quảng Trị. Although the citadel was recaptured after 81 days and nights, the ARVN army was weakened and after only 2 years, the Republic of Vietnam collapsed and the communists unified the North and South.
Battle of Vukovar (1991), Croatian War of Independence: the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) laid siege to the city of Vukovar, held by the Croatian National Guard and civilian volunteers. After 87 days, the ruined city fell to the JNA. Although the city was besieged from all sides, it exhausted the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries that had about twenty times more soldiers and complete armoured and artillery superiority, and they had twice as many losses. It was a turning point in the Croatian War of Independence.
Politics, sports and law: The term is used as an analogy in business, politics and sport to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr commented on the necessity of coercion in preserving the course of justice by warning,
Moral reason must learn how to make coercion its ally without running the risk of a Pyrrhic victory in which the ally exploits and negates the triumph.
In Beauharnais v. Illinois, a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a charge proscribing group libel, Associate Justice Black alluded to Pyrrhus in his dissent,
If minority groups hail this holding as their victory, they might consider the possible relevancy of this ancient remark: "Another such victory and I am undone".
See also:
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus | Beginnings: Born at Rome c. 280 BC, Fabius was a descendant of the ancient patrician Fabia gens. He was the son or grandson of Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, three times consul and princeps senatus, and grandson or great-grandson of Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, a hero of the Samnite Wars, who like Verrucosus held five consulships, as well as the offices of dictator and censor. Many earlier ancestors had also been consuls. His cognomen, Verrucosus, or "warty", used to distinguish him from other members of his family, derived from a wart on his upper lip.
According to Plutarch, Fabius possessed a mild temper and slowness in speaking. As a child, he had difficulties in learning, engaged in sports with other children cautiously and appeared submissive in his interactions with others. All the above were perceived by those who knew him superficially to be signs of inferiority. However, according to Plutarch, these traits proceeded from stability, greatness of mind, and lion-likeness of temper. By the time he reached adulthood and was roused by active life, his virtues exerted themselves; consequently, his lack of energy displayed during his earlier years was revealed as a result of a lack of passion and his slowness was recognised as a sign of prudence and firmness.
While still a youth in 265 BC, Fabius was consecrated an augur. It is unknown whether he participated in the First Punic War, fought between the Roman Republic and Carthage from 264 to 241 BC, or what his role might have been. Fabius' political career began in the years following that war. He was probably quaestor in 237 or 236 BC, and curule aedile about 235. During his first consulship, in 233 BC, Fabius was awarded a triumph for his victory over the Ligurians, whom he defeated and drove into the Alps. He was censor in 230, then consul a second time in 228. It is possible that he held the office of dictator for a first time around this time: according to Livy, Fabius's tenure of the dictatorship in 217 was his second term in that office, with Gaius Flaminius as his deputy and magister equitum during the first term: however Plutarch suggests that Flaminius was deputy instead to Marcus Minucius Rufus – presumably Fabius's great political rival of that name, who later served as deputy to Fabius himself (see below). It is of course possible that Flaminius was successively deputy to both, after Minucius's apparently premature deposition following bad augural omens: and also possible that little of note (other than, possibly, holding elections during the absence of consuls) was accomplished during either dictatorship.
According to Livy, in 218 BC Fabius took part in an embassy to Carthage, sent to demand redress for the capture of the supposedly neutral town of Saguntum in Spain. Fabius then demanded that Hannibal and his officers would be turned over to Roman custody. The Carthaginian senate refused and Fabius held up two ends of his toga, one stood for peace, the other for war. He let the Carthaginian senate choose but they insisted that Fabius would decide. After the delegation had received the Carthaginians' reply, it was Fabius himself who, addressing the Carthaginian senate, issued a formal declaration of war between Carthage and the Roman Republic. However, Cassius Dio, followed by Zonaras, calls the ambassador Marcus Fabius, suggesting that it was his cousin, Marcus Fabius Buteo, who issued the declaration of war against the Carthaginians.
Dictatorship during the Second Punic War: When the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus was defeated in the Battle of the Trebia in December 218 BC, Fabius advised that the Romans should simply bide their time and deny Hannibal any chance at a general engagement, instead letting the invasion peter out while making sure the cities of their Italian Allies were supported or protected. However, consul Gaius Flaminius opposed this and joined his colleague Gnaeus Servilius Geminus in raising two consular armies to confront Hannibal in central Italy. Flaminius' plan came to a disastrous end when he was killed during the decisive Roman defeat at the Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, with panic sweeping Rome.
With consular armies destroyed in these two major battles, and Hannibal approaching Rome's gates, the Romans feared the imminent destruction of their city. The Roman Senate decided to appoint a dictator, and chose Fabius for the role – possibly for the second time, though evidence of a previous term seems to be conflicting – in part due to his advanced age and experience. However, he was not allowed to appoint his own Magister Equitum; instead, the Romans chose a political enemy, Marcus Minucius.
Fabius sought to calm the Roman people promptly by asserting himself as a strong dictator, in a crisis perceived as the worst in Roman history. He asked the Senate to allow him to ride on horseback, which dictators were never allowed to do. He then caused himself to be accompanied by the full complement of twenty-four lictors, and ordered the surviving consul, Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, to dismiss his lictors (in essence, acknowledging the seniority of the dictator), and to present himself before Fabius as a private citizen.
Plutarch tells us that Fabius believed that the disaster at Lake Trasimene was due, in part, to the fact that the gods had become neglected. Before that battle, a series of omens had been witnessed, including a series of lightning bolts, which Fabius had believed were warnings from the gods. He had warned Flaminius of this, but Flaminius had ignored the warnings. And so Fabius, as dictator, next sought to please the gods. He ordered a massive sacrifice of the whole product of the next harvest season throughout Italy, in particular that of cows, goats, swine, and sheep. In addition, he ordered that musical festivities be celebrated, and then told his fellow citizens to each spend a precise sum of 333 sestertii and 333 denarii. Plutarch isn't sure exactly how Fabius came up with this number, although he believes it was to honor the perfection of the number three, as it is the first of the odd numbers and one of the first of the prime numbers. It is not known if Fabius truly believed that these actions had won the gods over to the Roman side, although the actions probably did (as intended) convince the average Roman that the gods had finally been won over.
Fabian strategy: Fabius respected Hannibal's military genius and so refused to engage him directly in pitched battle. Instead, he kept his troops close to Hannibal, hoping to exhaust him in a long war of attrition. Fabius was able to harass the Carthaginian foraging parties, limiting Hannibal's ability to wreak destruction while conserving his own military force, and implementing a "scorched earth" practice to prevent Hannibal's forces from obtaining grain and other resources.
The Romans were unimpressed with this defensive strategy and at first gave Fabius his epithet Cunctator (delayer) as an insult. The strategy was in part ruined because of a lack of unity in the command of the Roman army, since Fabius' Master of the Horse, Minucius, was a political enemy of Fabius. At one point, Fabius was called by the priests to assist with certain sacrifices, so Fabius left the command of the army in the hands of Minucius during his absence. Fabius had told Minucius not to attack Hannibal in his absence, but Minucius disobeyed and attacked anyway.
The attack, though of no strategic value, resulted in the retreat of several enemy units, and so the Roman people, desperate for good news, believed Minucius to be a hero. On hearing of this, Fabius became enraged, and as dictator, could have ordered Minucius' execution for his disobedience. One of the plebeian tribunes (chief representatives of the people) for the year, Metilius, was a partisan of Minucius, and as such he sought to use his power to help Minucius. The plebeian tribunes were the only officials independent of the dictator, and so with his protection, Minucius was relatively safe. Plutarch states that Metilius "boldly applied himself to the people in the behalf of Minucius", and had Minucius granted powers equivalent to those of Fabius. By this, Plutarch probably means that as a plebeian tribune, Metilius had the Plebeian Council, a popular assembly which only tribunes could preside over, grant Minucius quasi-dictatorial powers.
Fabius did not attempt to fight the promotion of Minucius, but rather decided to wait until Minucius' rashness caused him to run headlong into some disaster. He realized what would happen when Minucius was defeated in battle by Hannibal. Fabius, we are told, reminded Minucius that it was Hannibal, and not he, who was the enemy. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus | The plebeian tribunes were the only officials independent of the dictator, and so with his protection, Minucius was relatively safe. Plutarch states that Metilius "boldly applied himself to the people in the behalf of Minucius", and had Minucius granted powers equivalent to those of Fabius. By this, Plutarch probably means that as a plebeian tribune, Metilius had the Plebeian Council, a popular assembly which only tribunes could preside over, grant Minucius quasi-dictatorial powers.
Fabius did not attempt to fight the promotion of Minucius, but rather decided to wait until Minucius' rashness caused him to run headlong into some disaster. He realized what would happen when Minucius was defeated in battle by Hannibal. Fabius, we are told, reminded Minucius that it was Hannibal, and not he, who was the enemy. Minucius proposed that they share the joint control of the army, with command rotating between the two every other day. Fabius rejected this, and instead let Minucius command half of the army, while he commanded the other half. Minucius openly claimed that Fabius was cowardly because he failed to confront the Carthaginian forces.
Near Larinum in Samnium, Hannibal had taken up position in a town called Geronium. In the leadup to the Battle of Geronium, Minucius decided to make a broad frontal attack on Hannibal's troops in the valley between Larinum and Geronium. Several thousand men were involved on either side. It appeared that the Roman troops were winning, but Hannibal had set a trap. Soon the Roman troops were being slaughtered. Upon seeing the ambush of Minucius' army, Fabius cried "O Hercules! how much sooner than I expected, though later than he seemed to desire, hath Minucius destroyed himself!" On ordering his army to join the battle and rescue their fellow Romans, Fabius exclaimed "we must make haste to rescue Minucius, who is a valiant man, and a lover of his country."
Fabius rushed to his co-commander's assistance and Hannibal's forces immediately retreated. After the battle, there was some feeling that there would be conflict between Minucius and Fabius; however, the younger soldier marched his men to Fabius' encampment and is reported to have said, "My father gave me life. Today you saved my life. You are my second father. I recognize your superior abilities as a commander." When Fabius' term as dictator ended, consular government was restored, and Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Marcus Atilius Regulus assumed the consulship for the remainder of the year.
The once-looked-down-upon tactics employed by Fabius came then to be respected. It is said, asserts Plutarch, that even Hannibal acknowledged and feared the Fabian strategy and the Roman inexhaustible manpower. After Fabius lured him away from Apulia into the Bruttian territory and then proceeded to besiege Tarentum by treachery in 209 BC, Hannibal commented, "It seems that the Romans have found another Hannibal, for we have lost Tarentum in the same way that we took it."
After his dictatorship: Shortly after Fabius had laid down his dictatorship, Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus were elected as consuls. They rallied the people through the assemblies, and won their support for Varro's plan to abandon Fabius' strategy, and engage Hannibal directly. Varro's rashness did not surprise Fabius, but when Fabius learned of the size of the army (eighty-eight thousand soldiers) that Varro had raised, he became quite concerned. Unlike the losses that had been suffered by Minucius, a major loss by Varro had the potential to kill so many soldiers that Rome might have had no further resources with which to continue the war. Fabius had warned the other consul for the year, Aemilius Paullus, to make sure that Varro remained unable to directly engage Hannibal. According to Plutarch, Paullus replied to Fabius that he feared the votes in Rome more than Hannibal's army.
When word reached Rome of the disastrous Roman defeat under Varro and Paullus at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, the Senate and the People of Rome turned to Fabius for guidance. They had believed his strategy to be flawed before, but now they thought him to be as wise as the gods. He walked the streets of Rome, assured as to eventual Roman victory, in an attempt to comfort his fellow Romans. Without his support, the senate might have remained too frightened to even meet. He placed guards at the gates of the city to stop the frightened Romans from fleeing, and regulated mourning activities. He set times and places for this mourning, and ordered that each family perform such observances within their own private walls, and that the mourning should be complete within a month; following the completion of these mourning rituals, the entire city was purified of its blood-guilt in the deaths. Although he did not again hold the office of dictator – and indeed, it was granted to others over him – he might as well have been one unofficially at this time, because whatever measures he proposed were immediately adopted with little or no further debate.
Honors and death: Cunctator became an honorific title, and his delaying tactic was followed in Italy for the rest of the war. Fabius' own military success was small, aside from the reconquest of Tarentum in 209 BC. For this victory, Plutarch tells us, he was awarded a second triumph that was even more splendid than the first. When Marcus Livius Macatus, the governor of Tarentum, claimed the merit of recovering the town, Fabius rejoined, "Certainly, had you not lost it, I would have never retaken it." After serving as dictator, he served as a consul twice more (in 215 BC and 214 BC), and for a fifth time in 209 BC. He was also chief augur (at a very young age) and pontifex, but never pontifex maximus according to Gaius Stern (citing Livy on Fabius). The holding of seats in the two highest colleges was not repeated until either Julius Caesar or possibly Sulla.
In the senate, he opposed the young and ambitious Scipio Africanus, who wanted to carry the war to Africa. Fabius continued to argue that confronting Hannibal directly was too dangerous. Scipio planned to take Roman forces to Carthage itself and force Hannibal to return to Africa to defend the city. Scipio was eventually given limited approval, despite continuous opposition from Fabius, who blocked levies and restricted Scipio's access to troops. Fabius wished to ensure that sufficient forces remained to defend Roman territory if Scipio was defeated. Another motive mentioned by Plutarch was personal jealousy of Scipio's popularity, so that Fabius continued to argue against the African expedition even after its initial successes. Fabius became gravely ill and died in 203 BC, shortly after Hannibal's army left Italy, and before the eventual Roman victory over Hannibal at the Battle of Zama won by Scipio.
Part of his eulogy is preserved on a fragment, which praised his delaying strategy in his altercations with Hannibal during the Second Punic War. The inscription reads as follows: "...[as censor] he conducted the first revision of the senate membership and held committal elections in the consulship of Marcus Junius Pera and Marcus Barbula; he besieged and recaptured Tarentum and the strong-hold of Hannibal, and [obtained enormous booty?]; he won surpassing glory by his military [exploits?]."
Legacy: Later, he became a legendary figure and the model of a tough, courageous Roman, and was bestowed the honorific title, "The Shield of Rome" (similar to Marcus Claudius Marcellus being named the "Sword of Rome"). According to Ennius, unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem – "one man, by delaying, restored the state to us." Virgil, in the Aeneid, has Aeneas' father Anchises mention Fabius Maximus while in Hades as the greatest of the many great Fabii, quoting the same line. While Hannibal is mentioned in the company of history's greatest generals, military professionals have bestowed Fabius' name on an entire strategic doctrine known as "Fabian strategy", and George Washington has been called "the American Fabius". Mikhail Kutuzov has likewise been called "the Russian Fabius" for his strategy against Napoleon.
According to its own ancient legend, the Roman princely family of Massimo descends from Fabius Maximus.
See also: Fabian Society, a British socialist society founded at the end of the 19th century and still active today. Their name derives from the tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus | Virgil, in the Aeneid, has Aeneas' father Anchises mention Fabius Maximus while in Hades as the greatest of the many great Fabii, quoting the same line. While Hannibal is mentioned in the company of history's greatest generals, military professionals have bestowed Fabius' name on an entire strategic doctrine known as "Fabian strategy", and George Washington has been called "the American Fabius". Mikhail Kutuzov has likewise been called "the Russian Fabius" for his strategy against Napoleon.
According to its own ancient legend, the Roman princely family of Massimo descends from Fabius Maximus.
See also: Fabian Society, a British socialist society founded at the end of the 19th century and still active today. Their name derives from the tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus.
Gens Fabia
List of ancient Romans
Footnotes:
References:
Primary sources: Fabius, by Plutarch
Secondary material: Encyclopædia Britannica, Fabius Maximus Cunctator
Plutarch Makers of Rome translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert 1965, Penguin Books, London
Livy The War with Hannibal translated by Aubrey de Selincourt 1974, Penguin Books, London
Further reading: De Beer, Sir Gavin (1969). Hannibal Challenging Rome's Supremacy. New York: Viking Press.
Lamb, Harold (1958). Hannibal: One Man Against Rome. New York: Doubleday.
McCall, Jeremiah (2018). Clan Fabius, Defenders of Rome: A History of the Republic's Most Illustrious Family. Barnslet: Pen and Sword. ISBN 1473885612.
Scullard, H. H. (1981). Roman politics: 220–150 BC. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-23296-2.
== External links == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | History:
First experiments: As early as 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz showed that radio waves could be reflected from solid objects. In 1895, Alexander Popov, a physics instructor at the Imperial Russian Navy school in Kronstadt, developed an apparatus using a coherer tube for detecting distant lightning strikes. The next year, he added a spark-gap transmitter. In 1897, while testing this equipment for communicating between two ships in the Baltic Sea, he took note of an interference beat caused by the passage of a third vessel. In his report, Popov wrote that this phenomenon might be used for detecting objects, but he did nothing more with this observation.
The German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer was the first to use radio waves to detect "the presence of distant metallic objects". In 1904, he demonstrated the feasibility of detecting a ship in dense fog, but not its distance from the transmitter. He obtained a patent for his detection device in April 1904 and later a patent for a related amendment for estimating the distance to the ship. He also obtained a British patent on 23 September 1904 for a full radar system, that he called a telemobiloscope. It operated on a 50 cm wavelength and the pulsed radar signal was created via a spark-gap. His system already used the classic antenna setup of horn antenna with parabolic reflector and was presented to German military officials in practical tests in Cologne and Rotterdam harbour but was rejected.
In 1915, Robert Watson-Watt used radio technology to provide advance warning of thunderstorms to airmen and during the 1920s went on to lead the U.K. research establishment to make many advances using radio techniques, including the probing of the ionosphere and the detection of lightning at long distances. Through his lightning experiments, Watson-Watt became an expert on the use of radio direction finding before turning his inquiry to shortwave transmission. Requiring a suitable receiver for such studies, he told the "new boy" Arnold Frederic Wilkins to conduct an extensive review of available shortwave units. Wilkins would select a General Post Office model after noting its manual's description of a "fading" effect (the common term for interference at the time) when aircraft flew overhead.
By placing a transmitter and receiver on opposite sides of the Potomac River in 1922, U.S. Navy researchers A. Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Young discovered that ships passing through the beam path caused the received signal to fade in and out. Taylor submitted a report, suggesting that this phenomenon might be used to detect the presence of ships in low visibility, but the Navy did not immediately continue the work. Eight years later, Lawrence A. Hyland at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) observed similar fading effects from passing aircraft; this revelation led to a patent application as well as a proposal for further intensive research on radio-echo signals from moving targets to take place at NRL, where Taylor and Young were based at the time.
Similarly, in the UK, L. S. Alder took out a secret provisional patent for Naval radar in 1928. W.A.S. Butement and P. E. Pollard developed a breadboard test unit, operating at 50 cm (600 MHz) and using pulsed modulation which gave successful laboratory results. In January 1931, a writeup on the apparatus was entered in the Inventions Book maintained by the Royal Engineers. This is the first official record in Great Britain of the technology that was used in coastal defence and was incorporated into Chain Home as Chain Home (low).
Before World War II: Before the Second World War, researchers in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, and the United States, independently and in great secrecy, developed technologies that led to the modern version of radar. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa followed prewar Great Britain's radar development, and Hungary generated its radar technology during the war.
In France in 1934, following systematic studies on the split-anode magnetron, the research branch of the Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF) headed by Maurice Ponte with Henri Gutton, Sylvain Berline and M. Hugon, began developing an obstacle-locating radio apparatus, aspects of which were installed on the ocean liner Normandie in 1935.
During the same period, Soviet military engineer P.K. Oshchepkov, in collaboration with the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute, produced an experimental apparatus, RAPID, capable of detecting an aircraft within 3 km of a receiver. The Soviets produced their first mass production radars RUS-1 and RUS-2 Redut in 1939 but further development was slowed following the arrest of Oshchepkov and his subsequent gulag sentence. In total, only 607 Redut stations were produced during the war. The first Russian airborne radar, Gneiss-2, entered into service in June 1943 on Pe-2 dive bombers. More than 230 Gneiss-2 stations were produced by the end of 1944. The French and Soviet systems, however, featured continuous-wave operation that did not provide the full performance ultimately synonymous with modern radar systems.
Full radar evolved as a pulsed system, and the first such elementary apparatus was demonstrated in December 1934 by the American Robert M. Page, working at the Naval Research Laboratory. The following year, the United States Army successfully tested a primitive surface-to-surface radar to aim coastal battery searchlights at night. This design was followed by a pulsed system demonstrated in May 1935 by Rudolf Kühnhold and the firm GEMA in Germany and then another in June 1935 by an Air Ministry team led by Robert Watson-Watt in Great Britain.
In 1935, Watson-Watt was asked to judge recent reports of a German radio-based death ray and turned the request over to Wilkins. Wilkins returned a set of calculations demonstrating the system was basically impossible. When Watson-Watt then asked what such a system might do, Wilkins recalled the earlier report about aircraft causing radio interference. This revelation led to the Daventry Experiment of 26 February 1935, using a powerful BBC shortwave transmitter as the source and their GPO receiver setup in a field while a bomber flew around the site. When the plane was clearly detected, Hugh Dowding, the Air Member for Supply and Research, was very impressed with their system's potential and funds were immediately provided for further operational development. Watson-Watt's team patented the device in patent GB593017.
Development of radar greatly expanded on 1 September 1936, when Watson-Watt became superintendent of a new establishment under the British Air Ministry, Bawdsey Research Station located in Bawdsey Manor, near Felixstowe, Suffolk. Work there resulted in the design and installation of aircraft detection and tracking stations called "Chain Home" along the East and South coasts of England in time for the outbreak of World War II in 1939. This system provided the vital advance information that helped the Royal Air Force win the Battle of Britain; without it, significant numbers of fighter aircraft, which Great Britain did not have available, would always have needed to be in the air to respond quickly. The radar formed part of the "Dowding system" for collecting reports of enemy aircraft and coordinating the response.
Given all required funding and development support, the team produced working radar systems in 1935 and began deployment. By 1936, the first five Chain Home (CH) systems were operational and by 1940 stretched across the entire UK including Northern Ireland. Even by standards of the era, CH was crude; instead of broadcasting and receiving from an aimed antenna, CH broadcast a signal floodlighting the entire area in front of it, and then used one of Watson-Watt's own radio direction finders to determine the direction of the returned echoes. This fact meant CH transmitters had to be much more powerful and have better antennas than competing systems but allowed its rapid introduction using existing technologies.
During World War II: A key development was the cavity magnetron in the UK, which allowed the creation of relatively small systems with sub-meter resolution. Britain shared the technology with the U.S. during the 1940 Tizard Mission.
In April 1940, Popular Science showed an example of a radar unit using the Watson-Watt patent in an article on air defence. Also, in late 1941 Popular Mechanics had an article in which a U.S. scientist speculated about the British early warning system on the English east coast and came close to what it was and how it worked. Watson-Watt was sent to the U.S. in 1941 to advise on air defense after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Alfred Lee Loomis organized the secret MIT Radiation Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts which developed microwave radar technology in the years 1941–45. Later, in 1943, Page greatly improved radar with the monopulse technique that was used for many years in most radar applications.
The war precipitated research to find better resolution, more portability, and more features for radar, including small, lightweight sets to equip night fighters (aircraft interception radar) and maritime patrol aircraft (air-to-surface-vessel radar), and complementary navigation systems like Oboe used by the RAF's Pathfinder.
Applications: The information provided by radar includes the bearing and range (and therefore position) of the object from the radar scanner. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Watson-Watt was sent to the U.S. in 1941 to advise on air defense after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Alfred Lee Loomis organized the secret MIT Radiation Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts which developed microwave radar technology in the years 1941–45. Later, in 1943, Page greatly improved radar with the monopulse technique that was used for many years in most radar applications.
The war precipitated research to find better resolution, more portability, and more features for radar, including small, lightweight sets to equip night fighters (aircraft interception radar) and maritime patrol aircraft (air-to-surface-vessel radar), and complementary navigation systems like Oboe used by the RAF's Pathfinder.
Applications: The information provided by radar includes the bearing and range (and therefore position) of the object from the radar scanner. It is thus used in many different fields where the need for such positioning is crucial. The first use of radar was for military purposes: to locate air, ground and sea targets. This evolved in the civilian field into applications for aircraft, ships, and automobiles.
In aviation, aircraft can be equipped with radar devices that warn of aircraft or other obstacles in or approaching their path, display weather information, and give accurate altitude readings. The first commercial device fitted to aircraft was a 1938 Bell Lab unit on some United Air Lines aircraft. Aircraft can land in fog at airports equipped with radar-assisted ground-controlled approach systems in which the plane's position is observed on precision approach radar screens by operators who thereby give radio landing instructions to the pilot, maintaining the aircraft on a defined approach path to the runway. Military fighter aircraft are usually fitted with air-to-air targeting radars, to detect and target enemy aircraft. In addition, larger specialized military aircraft carry powerful airborne radars to observe air traffic over a wide region and direct fighter aircraft towards targets.
Marine radars are used to measure the bearing and distance of ships to prevent collision with other ships, to navigate, and to fix their position at sea when within range of shore or other fixed references such as islands, buoys, and lightships. In port or in harbour, vessel traffic service radar systems are used to monitor and regulate ship movements in busy waters.
Meteorologists use radar to monitor precipitation and wind. It has become the primary tool for short-term weather forecasting and watching for severe weather such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter storms, precipitation types, etc. Geologists use specialized ground-penetrating radars to map the composition of Earth's crust. Police forces use radar guns to monitor vehicle speeds on the roads. Automotive radars are used for adaptive cruise control and emergency breaking on vehicles by ignoring stationary roadside objects that could cause incorrect brake application and instead measuring moving objects to prevent collision with other vehicles. As part of Intelligent Transport Systems, fixed-position stopped vehicle detection (SVD) radars are mounted on the roadside to detect stranded vehicles, obstructions and debris by inverting the automotive radar approach and ignoring moving objects. Smaller radar systems are used to detect human movement. Examples are breathing pattern detection for sleep monitoring and hand and finger gesture detection for computer interaction. Automatic door opening, light activation and intruder sensing are also common.
Principles:
Radar signal: A radar system has a transmitter that emits radio waves known as radar signals in predetermined directions. When these signals contact an object they are usually reflected or scattered in many directions, although some of them will be absorbed and penetrate into the target. Radar signals are reflected especially well by materials of considerable electrical conductivity—such as most metals, seawater, and wet ground. This makes the use of radar altimeters possible in certain cases. The radar signals that are reflected back towards the radar receiver are the desirable ones that make radar detection work. If the object is moving either toward or away from the transmitter, there will be a slight change in the frequency of the radio waves due to the Doppler effect.
Radar receivers are usually, but not always, in the same location as the transmitter. The reflected radar signals captured by the receiving antenna are usually very weak. They can be strengthened by electronic amplifiers. More sophisticated methods of signal processing are also used in order to recover useful radar signals.
The weak absorption of radio waves by the medium through which they pass is what enables radar sets to detect objects at relatively long ranges—ranges at which other electromagnetic wavelengths, such as visible light, infrared light, and ultraviolet light, are too strongly attenuated. Weather phenomena, such as fog, clouds, rain, falling snow, and sleet, that block visible light are usually transparent to radio waves. Certain radio frequencies that are absorbed or scattered by water vapour, raindrops, or atmospheric gases (especially oxygen) are avoided when designing radars, except when their detection is intended.
Illumination: Radar relies on its own transmissions rather than light from the Sun or the Moon, or from electromagnetic waves emitted by the target objects themselves, such as infrared radiation (heat). This process of directing artificial radio waves towards objects is called illumination, although radio waves are invisible to the human eye as well as optical cameras.
Reflection: If electromagnetic waves travelling through one material meet another material, having a different dielectric constant or diamagnetic constant from the first,
the waves will reflect or scatter from the boundary between the materials. This means that a solid object in air or in a vacuum, or a significant change in atomic density between the object and what is surrounding it, will usually scatter radar (radio) waves from its surface. This is particularly true for electrically conductive materials such as metal and carbon fibre, making radar well-suited to the detection of aircraft and ships. Radar absorbing material, containing resistive and sometimes magnetic substances, is used on military vehicles to reduce radar reflection. This is the radio equivalent of painting something a dark colour so that it cannot be seen by the eye at night.
Radar waves scatter in a variety of ways depending on the size (wavelength) of the radio wave and the shape of the target. If the wavelength is much shorter than the target's size, the wave will bounce off in a way similar to the way light is reflected by a mirror. If the wavelength is much longer than the size of the target, the target may not be visible because of poor reflection. Low-frequency radar technology is dependent on resonances for detection, but not identification, of targets. This is described by Rayleigh scattering, an effect that creates Earth's blue sky and red sunsets. When the two length scales are comparable, there may be resonances. Early radars used very long wavelengths that were larger than the targets and thus received a vague signal, whereas many modern systems use shorter wavelengths (a few centimetres or less) that can image objects as small as a loaf of bread.
Short radio waves reflect from curves and corners in a way similar to glint from a rounded piece of glass. The most reflective targets for short wavelengths have 90° angles between the reflective surfaces. A corner reflector consists of three flat surfaces meeting like the inside corner of a cube. The structure will reflect waves entering its opening directly back to the source. They are commonly used as radar reflectors to make otherwise difficult-to-detect objects easier to detect. Corner reflectors on boats, for example, make them more detectable to avoid collision or during a rescue. For similar reasons, objects intended to avoid detection will not have inside corners or surfaces and edges perpendicular to likely detection directions, which leads to "odd" looking stealth aircraft. These precautions do not totally eliminate reflection because of diffraction, especially at longer wavelengths. Half wavelength long wires or strips of conducting material, such as chaff, are very reflective but do not direct the scattered energy back toward the source. The extent to which an object reflects or scatters radio waves is called its radar cross section.
Radar range equation: The power Pr returning to the receiving antenna is given by the equation:
P
r
=
P
t
G
t
A
r
σ
F
4
(
4
π
)
2
R
t
2
R
r
2
{\displaystyle P_{r}={\frac {P_{t}G_{t}A_{r}\sigma F^{4}}{{(4\pi )}^{2}R_{t}^{2}R_{r}^{2}}}}
where
Pt = transmitter power
Gt = gain of the transmitting antenna
Ar = effective aperture (area) of the receiving antenna; this can also be expressed as
G
r
λ
2
4
π
{\displaystyle {G_{r}\lambda ^{2}} \over {4\pi }}
, where
λ
{\displaystyle \lambda }
= transmitted wavelength
Gr = gain of receiving antenna
σ = radar cross section, or scattering coefficient, of the target
F = pattern propagation factor
Rt = distance from the transmitter to the target
Rr = distance from the target to the receiver. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | In the common case where the transmitter and the receiver are at the same location, Rt = Rr and the term Rt² Rr² can be replaced by R4, where R is the range.
This yields:
P
r
=
P
t
G
t
A
r
σ
F
4
(
4
π
)
2
R
4
.
{\displaystyle P_{r}={{P_{t}G_{t}A_{r}\sigma F^{4}} \over {{(4\pi )}^{2}R^{4}}}.}
This shows that the received power declines as the fourth power of the range, which means that the received power from distant targets is relatively very small.
Additional filtering and pulse integration modifies the radar equation slightly for pulse-Doppler radar performance, which can be used to increase detection range and reduce transmit power.
The equation above with F = 1 is a simplification for transmission in a vacuum without interference. The propagation factor accounts for the effects of multipath and shadowing and depends on the details of the environment. In a real-world situation, pathloss effects are also considered.
Doppler effect: Frequency shift is caused by motion that changes the number of wavelengths between the reflector and the radar. This can degrade or enhance radar performance depending upon how it affects the detection process. As an example, moving target indication can interact with Doppler to produce signal cancellation at certain radial velocities, which degrades performance.
Sea-based radar systems, semi-active radar homing, active radar homing, weather radar, military aircraft, and radar astronomy rely on the Doppler effect to enhance performance. This produces information about target velocity during the detection process. This also allows small objects to be detected in an environment containing much larger nearby slow moving objects.
Doppler shift depends upon whether the radar configuration is active or passive. Active radar transmits a signal that is reflected back to the receiver. Passive radar depends upon the object sending a signal to the receiver.
The Doppler frequency shift for active radar is as follows, where
F
D
{\displaystyle F_{D}}
is Doppler frequency,
F
T
{\displaystyle F_{T}}
is transmit frequency,
V
R
{\displaystyle V_{R}}
is radial velocity, and
C
{\displaystyle C}
is the speed of light:
F
D
=
2
×
F
T
×
(
V
R
C
)
{\displaystyle F_{D}=2\times F_{T}\times \left({\frac {V_{R}}{C}}\right)}
.
Passive radar is applicable to electronic countermeasures and radio astronomy as follows:
F
D
=
F
T
×
(
V
R
C
)
{\displaystyle F_{D}=F_{T}\times \left({\frac {V_{R}}{C}}\right)}
.
Only the radial component of the velocity is relevant. When the reflector is moving at right angle to the radar beam, it has no relative velocity. Objects moving parallel to the radar beam produce the maximum Doppler frequency shift.
When the transmit frequency (
F
T
{\displaystyle F_{T}}
) is pulsed, using a pulse repeat frequency of
F
R
{\displaystyle F_{R}}
, the resulting frequency spectrum will contain harmonic frequencies above and below
F
T
{\displaystyle F_{T}}
with a distance of
F
R
{\displaystyle F_{R}}
. As a result, the Doppler measurement is only non-ambiguous if the Doppler frequency shift is less than half of
F
R
{\displaystyle F_{R}}
, called the Nyquist frequency, since the returned frequency otherwise cannot be distinguished from shifting of a harmonic frequency above or below, thus requiring:
|
F
D
|
<
F
R
2
{\displaystyle |F_{D}|<{\frac {F_{R}}{2}}}
Or when substituting with
F
D
{\displaystyle F_{D}}
:
|
V
R
|
<
F
R
×
C
F
T
4
{\displaystyle |V_{R}|<{\frac {F_{R}\times {\frac {C}{F_{T}}}}{4}}}
As an example, a Doppler weather radar with a pulse rate of 2 kHz and transmit frequency of 1 GHz can reliably measure weather speed up to at most 150 m/s (340 mph), thus cannot reliably determine radial velocity of aircraft moving 1,000 m/s (2,200 mph).
Polarization: In all electromagnetic radiation, the electric field is perpendicular to the direction of propagation, and the electric field direction is the polarization of the wave. For a transmitted radar signal, the polarization can be controlled to yield different effects. Radars use horizontal, vertical, linear, and circular polarization to detect different types of reflections. For example, circular polarization is used to minimize the interference caused by rain. Linear polarization returns usually indicate metal surfaces. Random polarization returns usually indicate a fractal surface, such as rocks or soil, and are used by navigation radars.
Limiting factors:
Beam path and range: A radar beam follows a linear path in vacuum but follows a somewhat curved path in atmosphere due to variation in the refractive index of air, which is called the radar horizon. Even when the beam is emitted parallel to the ground, the beam rises above the ground as the curvature of the Earth sinks below the horizon. Furthermore, the signal is attenuated by the medium the beam crosses, and the beam disperses.
The maximum range of conventional radar can be limited by a number of factors:
Line of sight, which depends on the height above the ground. Without a direct line of sight, the path of the beam is blocked.
The maximum non-ambiguous range, which is determined by the pulse repetition frequency. The maximum non-ambiguous range is the distance the pulse can travel to and return from before the next pulse is emitted.
Radar sensitivity and the power of the return signal as computed in the radar equation. This component includes factors such as the environmental conditions and the size (or radar cross section) of the target.
Noise: Signal noise is an internal source of random variations in the signal, which is generated by all electronic components.
Reflected signals decline rapidly as distance increases, so noise introduces a radar range limitation. The noise floor and signal-to-noise ratio are two different measures of performance that affect range performance. Reflectors that are too far away produce too little signal to exceed the noise floor and cannot be detected. Detection requires a signal that exceeds the noise floor by at least the signal-to-noise ratio.
Noise typically appears as random variations superimposed on the desired echo signal received in the radar receiver. The lower the power of the desired signal, the more difficult it is to discern it from the noise. The noise figure is a measure of the noise produced by a receiver compared to an ideal receiver, and this needs to be minimized.
Shot noise is produced by electrons in transit across a discontinuity, which occurs in all detectors. Shot noise is the dominant source in most receivers. There will also be flicker noise caused by electron transit through amplification devices, which is reduced using heterodyne amplification. Another reason for heterodyne processing is that for fixed fractional bandwidth, the instantaneous bandwidth increases linearly in frequency. This allows improved range resolution. The one notable exception to heterodyne (downconversion) radar systems is ultra-wideband radar. Here a single cycle, or transient wave, is used similar to UWB communications, see List of UWB channels.
Noise is also generated by external sources, most importantly the natural thermal radiation of the background surrounding the target of interest. In modern radar systems, the internal noise is typically about equal to or lower than the external noise. An exception is if the radar is aimed upwards at clear sky, where the scene is so "cold" that it generates very little thermal noise. The thermal noise is given by kB T B, where T is temperature, B is bandwidth (post matched filter) and kB is the Boltzmann constant. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Another reason for heterodyne processing is that for fixed fractional bandwidth, the instantaneous bandwidth increases linearly in frequency. This allows improved range resolution. The one notable exception to heterodyne (downconversion) radar systems is ultra-wideband radar. Here a single cycle, or transient wave, is used similar to UWB communications, see List of UWB channels.
Noise is also generated by external sources, most importantly the natural thermal radiation of the background surrounding the target of interest. In modern radar systems, the internal noise is typically about equal to or lower than the external noise. An exception is if the radar is aimed upwards at clear sky, where the scene is so "cold" that it generates very little thermal noise. The thermal noise is given by kB T B, where T is temperature, B is bandwidth (post matched filter) and kB is the Boltzmann constant. There is an appealing intuitive interpretation of this relationship in a radar. Matched filtering allows the entire energy received from a target to be compressed into a single bin (be it a range, Doppler, elevation, or azimuth bin). On the surface it appears that then within a fixed interval of time, perfect, error free, detection could be obtained. This is done by compressing all energy into an infinitesimal time slice. What limits this approach in the real world is that, while time is arbitrarily divisible, current is not. The quantum of electrical energy is an electron, and so the best that can be done is to match filter all energy into a single electron. Since the electron is moving at a certain temperature (Planck spectrum) this noise source cannot be further eroded. Ultimately, radar, like all macro-scale entities, is profoundly impacted by quantum theory.
Noise is random and target signals are not. Signal processing can take advantage of this phenomenon to reduce the noise floor using two strategies. The kind of signal integration used with moving target indication can improve noise up to
2
{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}
for each stage. The signal can also be split among multiple filters for pulse-Doppler signal processing, which reduces the noise floor by the number of filters. These improvements depend upon coherence.
Interference: Radar systems must overcome unwanted signals in order to focus on the targets of interest. These unwanted signals may originate from internal and external sources, both passive and active. The ability of the radar system to overcome these unwanted signals defines its signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). SNR is defined as the ratio of the signal power to the noise power within the desired signal; it compares the level of a desired target signal to the level of background noise (atmospheric noise and noise generated within the receiver). The higher a system's SNR the better it is at discriminating actual targets from noise signals.
Clutter: Clutter refers to radio frequency (RF) echoes returned from targets which are uninteresting to radar operators. Such targets include man-made objects such as buildings and — intentionally — by radar countermeasures such as chaff. Such targets also include natural objects such as ground, sea, and — when not being tasked for meteorological purposes — precipitation, hail spike, dust storms, animals (especially birds), turbulence in the atmospheric circulation, and meteor trails. Radar clutter can also be caused by other atmospheric phenomena, such as disturbances in the ionosphere caused by geomagnetic storms or other space weather events. This phenomenon is especially apparent near the geomagnetic poles, where the action of the solar wind on the earth’s magnetosphere produces convection patterns in the ionospheric plasma. Radar clutter can degrade the ability of over-the-horizon radar to detect targets.
Some clutter may also be caused by a long radar waveguide between the radar transceiver and the antenna. In a typical plan position indicator (PPI) radar with a rotating antenna, this will usually be seen as a "sun" or "sunburst" in the center of the display as the receiver responds to echoes from dust particles and misguided RF in the waveguide. Adjusting the timing between when the transmitter sends a pulse and when the receiver stage is enabled will generally reduce the sunburst without affecting the accuracy of the range since most sunburst is caused by a diffused transmit pulse reflected before it leaves the antenna. Clutter is considered a passive interference source since it only appears in response to radar signals sent by the radar.
Clutter is detected and neutralized in several ways. Clutter tends to appear static between radar scans; on subsequent scan echoes, desirable targets will appear to move, and all stationary echoes can be eliminated. Sea clutter can be reduced by using horizontal polarization, while rain is reduced with circular polarization (meteorological radars wish for the opposite effect, and therefore use linear polarization to detect precipitation). Other methods attempt to increase the signal-to-clutter ratio.
Clutter moves with the wind or is stationary. Two common strategies to improve measures of performance in a clutter environment are:
Moving target indication, which integrates successive pulses
Doppler processing, which uses filters to separate clutter from desirable signals
The most effective clutter reduction technique is pulse-Doppler radar. Doppler separates clutter from aircraft and spacecraft using a frequency spectrum, so individual signals can be separated from multiple reflectors located in the same volume using velocity differences. This requires a coherent transmitter. Another technique uses a moving target indicator that subtracts the received signal from two successive pulses using phase to reduce signals from slow-moving objects. This can be adapted for systems that lack a coherent transmitter, such as time-domain pulse-amplitude radar.
Constant false alarm rate, a form of automatic gain control (AGC), is a method that relies on clutter returns far outnumbering echoes from targets of interest. The receiver's gain is automatically adjusted to maintain a constant level of overall visible clutter. While this does not help detect targets masked by stronger surrounding clutter, it does help to distinguish strong target sources. In the past, radar AGC was electronically controlled and affected the gain of the entire radar receiver. As radars evolved, AGC became computer-software-controlled and affected the gain with greater granularity in specific detection cells.
Clutter may also originate from multipath echoes from valid targets caused by ground reflection, atmospheric ducting or ionospheric reflection/refraction (e.g., anomalous propagation). This clutter type is especially bothersome since it appears to move and behave like other normal (point) targets of interest. In a typical scenario, an aircraft echo is reflected from the ground below, appearing to the receiver as an identical target below the correct one. The radar may try to unify the targets, reporting the target at an incorrect height, or eliminating it on the basis of jitter or a physical impossibility. Terrain bounce jamming exploits this response by amplifying the radar signal and directing it downward. These problems can be overcome by incorporating a ground map of the radar's surroundings and eliminating all echoes which appear to originate below ground or above a certain height. Monopulse can be improved by altering the elevation algorithm used at low elevation. In newer air traffic control radar equipment, algorithms are used to identify the false targets by comparing the current pulse returns to those adjacent, as well as calculating return improbabilities.
Jamming: Radar jamming refers to radio frequency signals originating from sources outside the radar, transmitting in the radar's frequency and thereby masking targets of interest. Jamming may be intentional, as with an electronic warfare tactic, or unintentional, as with friendly forces operating equipment that transmits using the same frequency range. Jamming is considered an active interference source, since it is initiated by elements outside the radar and in general unrelated to the radar signals.
Jamming is problematic to radar since the jamming signal only needs to travel one way (from the jammer to the radar receiver) whereas the radar echoes travel two ways (radar-target-radar) and are therefore significantly reduced in power by the time they return to the radar receiver in accordance with inverse-square law. Jammers therefore can be much less powerful than their jammed radars and still effectively mask targets along the line of sight from the jammer to the radar (mainlobe jamming). Jammers have an added effect of affecting radars along other lines of sight through the radar receiver's sidelobes (sidelobe jamming).
Mainlobe jamming can generally only be reduced by narrowing the mainlobe solid angle and cannot fully be eliminated when directly facing a jammer which uses the same frequency and polarization as the radar. Sidelobe jamming can be overcome by reducing receiving sidelobes in the radar antenna design and by using an omnidirectional antenna to detect and disregard non-mainlobe signals. Other anti-jamming techniques are frequency hopping and polarization.
Signal processing:
Distance measurement:
Transit time: One way to obtain a distance measurement (ranging) is based on the time-of-flight: transmit a short pulse of radio signal (electromagnetic radiation) and measure the time it takes for the reflection to return. The distance is one-half the round trip time multiplied by the speed of the signal. The factor of one-half comes from the fact that the signal has to travel to the object and back again. Since radio waves travel at the speed of light, accurate distance measurement requires high-speed electronics.
In most cases, the receiver does not detect the return while the signal is being transmitted. Through the use of a duplexer, the radar switches between transmitting and receiving at a predetermined rate.
A similar effect imposes a maximum range as well. In order to maximize range, longer times between pulses should be used, referred to as a pulse repetition time, or its reciprocal, pulse repetition frequency. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Signal processing:
Distance measurement:
Transit time: One way to obtain a distance measurement (ranging) is based on the time-of-flight: transmit a short pulse of radio signal (electromagnetic radiation) and measure the time it takes for the reflection to return. The distance is one-half the round trip time multiplied by the speed of the signal. The factor of one-half comes from the fact that the signal has to travel to the object and back again. Since radio waves travel at the speed of light, accurate distance measurement requires high-speed electronics.
In most cases, the receiver does not detect the return while the signal is being transmitted. Through the use of a duplexer, the radar switches between transmitting and receiving at a predetermined rate.
A similar effect imposes a maximum range as well. In order to maximize range, longer times between pulses should be used, referred to as a pulse repetition time, or its reciprocal, pulse repetition frequency.
These two effects tend to be at odds with each other, and it is not easy to combine both good short range and good long range in a single radar. This is because the short pulses needed for a good minimum range broadcast have less total energy, making the returns much smaller and the target harder to detect. This could be offset by using more pulses, but this would shorten the maximum range. So each radar uses a particular type of signal. Long-range radars tend to use long pulses with long delays between them, and short range radars use smaller pulses with less time between them. As electronics have improved many radars now can change their pulse repetition frequency, thereby changing their range. The newest radars fire two pulses during one cell, one for short range (about 10 km (6.2 mi)) and a separate signal for longer ranges (about 100 km (62 mi)).
Distance may also be measured as a function of time. The radar mile is the time it takes for a radar pulse to travel one nautical mile, reflect off a target, and return to the radar antenna. Since a nautical mile is defined as 1,852 m, then dividing this distance by the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s), and then multiplying the result by 2 yields a result of 12.36 μs in duration.
Frequency modulation: Another form of distance measuring radar is based on frequency modulation. In these systems, the frequency of the transmitted signal is changed over time. Since the signal takes a finite time to travel to and from the target, the received signal is a different frequency than what the transmitter is broadcasting at the time the reflected signal arrives back at the radar. By comparing the frequency of the two signals the difference can be easily measured. This is easily accomplished with very high accuracy even in 1940s electronics. A further advantage is that the radar can operate effectively at relatively low frequencies. This was important in the early development of this type when high-frequency signal generation was difficult or expensive.
This technique can be used in continuous wave radar and is often found in aircraft radar altimeters. In these systems a "carrier" radar signal is frequency modulated in a predictable way, typically varying up and down with a sine wave or sawtooth pattern at audio frequencies. The signal is then sent out from one antenna and received on another, typically located on the bottom of the aircraft, and the signal can be continuously compared using a simple beat frequency modulator that produces an audio frequency tone from the returned signal and a portion of the transmitted signal.
The modulation index riding on the receive signal is proportional to the time delay between the radar and the reflector. The frequency shift becomes greater with greater time delay. The frequency shift is directly proportional to the distance travelled. That distance can be displayed on an instrument, and it may also be available via the transponder. This signal processing is similar to that used in speed detecting Doppler radar. Example systems using this approach are AZUSA, MISTRAM, and UDOP.
Terrestrial radar uses low-power FM signals that cover a larger frequency range. The multiple reflections are analyzed mathematically for pattern changes with multiple passes creating a computerized synthetic image. Doppler effects are used which allows slow moving objects to be detected as well as largely eliminating "noise" from the surfaces of bodies of water.
Pulse compression: The two techniques outlined above both have their disadvantages. The pulse timing technique has an inherent tradeoff in that the accuracy of the distance measurement is inversely related to the length of the pulse, while the energy, and thus direction range, is directly related. Increasing power for longer range while maintaining accuracy demands extremely high peak power, with 1960s early warning radars often operating in the tens of megawatts. The continuous wave methods spread this energy out in time and thus require much lower peak power compared to pulse techniques, but requires some method of allowing the sent and received signals to operate at the same time, often demanding two separate antennas.
The introduction of new electronics in the 1960s allowed the two techniques to be combined. It starts with a longer pulse that is also frequency modulated. Spreading the broadcast energy out in time means lower peak energies can be used, with modern examples typically on the order of tens of kilowatts. On reception, the signal is sent into a system that delays different frequencies by different times. The resulting output is a much shorter pulse that is suitable for accurate distance measurement, while also compressing the received energy into a much higher energy peak and thus reducing the signal-to-noise ratio. The technique is largely universal on modern large radars.
Speed measurement: Speed is the change in distance to an object with respect to time. Thus the existing system for measuring distance, combined with a memory capacity to see where the target last was, is enough to measure speed. At one time the memory consisted of a user making grease pencil marks on the radar screen and then calculating the speed using a slide rule. Modern radar systems perform the equivalent operation faster and more accurately using computers.
If the transmitter's output is coherent (phase synchronized), there is another effect that can be used to make almost instant speed measurements (no memory is required), known as the Doppler effect. Most modern radar systems use this principle into Doppler radar and pulse-Doppler radar systems (weather radar, military radar). The Doppler effect is only able to determine the relative speed of the target along the line of sight from the radar to the target. Any component of target velocity perpendicular to the line of sight cannot be determined by using the Doppler effect alone, but it can be determined by tracking the target's azimuth over time.
It is possible to make a Doppler radar without any pulsing, known as a continuous-wave radar (CW radar), by sending out a very pure signal of a known frequency. CW radar is ideal for determining the radial component of a target's velocity. CW radar is typically used by traffic enforcement to measure vehicle speed quickly and accurately where the range is not important.
When using a pulsed radar, the variation between the phase of successive returns gives the distance the target has moved between pulses, and thus its speed can be calculated.
Other mathematical developments in radar signal processing include time-frequency analysis (Weyl Heisenberg or wavelet), as well as the chirplet transform which makes use of the change of frequency of returns from moving targets ("chirp").
Pulse-Doppler signal processing: Pulse-Doppler signal processing includes frequency filtering in the detection process. The space between each transmit pulse is divided into range cells or range gates. Each cell is filtered independently much like the process used by a spectrum analyzer to produce the display showing different frequencies. Each different distance produces a different spectrum. These spectra are used to perform the detection process. This is required to achieve acceptable performance in hostile environments involving weather, terrain, and electronic countermeasures.
The primary purpose is to measure both the amplitude and frequency of the aggregate reflected signal from multiple distances. This is used with weather radar to measure radial wind velocity and precipitation rate in each different volume of air. This is linked with computing systems to produce a real-time electronic weather map. Aircraft safety depends upon continuous access to accurate weather radar information that is used to prevent injuries and accidents. Weather radar uses a low PRF. Coherency requirements are not as strict as those for military systems because individual signals ordinarily do not need to be separated. Less sophisticated filtering is required, and range ambiguity processing is not normally needed with weather radar in comparison with military radar intended to track air vehicles.
The alternate purpose is "look-down/shoot-down" capability required to improve military air combat survivability. Pulse-Doppler is also used for ground based surveillance radar required to defend personnel and vehicles. Pulse-doppler signal processing increases the maximum detection distance using less radiation close to aircraft pilots, shipboard personnel, infantry, and artillery. Reflections from terrain, water, and weather produce signals much larger than aircraft and missiles, which allows fast moving vehicles to hide using nap-of-the-earth flying techniques and stealth technology to avoid detection until an attack vehicle is too close to destroy. Pulse-Doppler signal processing incorporates more sophisticated electronic filtering that safely eliminates this kind of weakness. This requires the use of medium pulse-repetition frequency with phase coherent hardware that has a large dynamic range. Military applications require medium PRF which prevents range from being determined directly, and range ambiguity resolution processing is required to identify the true range of all reflected signals. Radial movement is usually linked with Doppler frequency to produce a lock signal that cannot be produced by radar jamming signals. Pulse-Doppler signal processing also produces audible signals that can be used for threat identification. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Pulse-doppler signal processing increases the maximum detection distance using less radiation close to aircraft pilots, shipboard personnel, infantry, and artillery. Reflections from terrain, water, and weather produce signals much larger than aircraft and missiles, which allows fast moving vehicles to hide using nap-of-the-earth flying techniques and stealth technology to avoid detection until an attack vehicle is too close to destroy. Pulse-Doppler signal processing incorporates more sophisticated electronic filtering that safely eliminates this kind of weakness. This requires the use of medium pulse-repetition frequency with phase coherent hardware that has a large dynamic range. Military applications require medium PRF which prevents range from being determined directly, and range ambiguity resolution processing is required to identify the true range of all reflected signals. Radial movement is usually linked with Doppler frequency to produce a lock signal that cannot be produced by radar jamming signals. Pulse-Doppler signal processing also produces audible signals that can be used for threat identification.
Reduction of interference effects: Signal processing is employed in radar systems to reduce the radar interference effects. Signal processing techniques include moving target indication, Pulse-Doppler signal processing, moving target detection processors, correlation with secondary surveillance radar targets, space-time adaptive processing, and track-before-detect. Constant false alarm rate and digital terrain model processing are also used in clutter environments.
Plot and track extraction: A Track algorithm is a radar performance enhancement strategy. Tracking algorithms provide the ability to predict future position of multiple moving objects based on the history of the individual positions being reported by sensor systems.
Historical information is accumulated and used to predict future position for use with air traffic control, threat estimation, combat system doctrine, gun aiming, and missile guidance. Position data is accumulated by radar sensors over the span of a few minutes.
There are four common track algorithms.
Nearest neighbour algorithm
Probabilistic Data Association
Multiple Hypothesis Tracking
Interactive Multiple Model (IMM)
Radar video returns from aircraft can be subjected to a plot extraction process whereby spurious and interfering signals are discarded. A sequence of target returns can be monitored through a device known as a plot extractor.
The non-relevant real time returns can be removed from the displayed information and a single plot displayed. In some radar systems, or alternatively in the command and control system to which the radar is connected, a radar tracker is used to associate the sequence of plots belonging to individual targets and estimate the targets' headings and speeds.
Engineering: A radar's components are:
A transmitter that generates the radio signal with an oscillator such as a klystron or a magnetron and controls its duration by a modulator.
A waveguide that links the transmitter and the antenna.
A duplexer that serves as a switch between the antenna and the transmitter or the receiver for the signal when the antenna is used in both situations.
A receiver. Knowing the shape of the desired received signal (a pulse), an optimal receiver can be designed using a matched filter.
A display processor to produce signals for human readable output devices.
An electronic section that controls all those devices and the antenna to perform the radar scan ordered by software.
A link to end user devices and displays.
Antenna design: Radio signals broadcast from a single antenna will spread out in all directions, and likewise a single antenna will receive signals equally from all directions. This leaves the radar with the problem of deciding where the target object is located.
Early systems tended to use omnidirectional broadcast antennas, with directional receiver antennas which were pointed in various directions. For instance, the first system to be deployed, Chain Home, used two straight antennas at right angles for reception, each on a different display. The maximum return would be detected with an antenna at right angles to the target, and a minimum with the antenna pointed directly at it (end on). The operator could determine the direction to a target by rotating the antenna so one display showed a maximum while the other showed a minimum.
One serious limitation with this type of solution is that the broadcast is sent out in all directions, so the amount of energy in the direction being examined is a small part of that transmitted. To get a reasonable amount of power on the "target", the transmitting aerial should also be directional.
Parabolic reflector: More modern systems use a steerable parabolic "dish" to create a tight broadcast beam, typically using the same dish as the receiver. Such systems often combine two radar frequencies in the same antenna in order to allow automatic steering, or radar lock.
Parabolic reflectors can be either symmetric parabolas or spoiled parabolas:
Symmetric parabolic antennas produce a narrow "pencil" beam in both the X and Y dimensions and consequently have a higher gain. The NEXRAD Pulse-Doppler weather radar uses a symmetric antenna to perform detailed volumetric scans of the atmosphere. Spoiled parabolic antennas produce a narrow beam in one dimension and a relatively wide beam in the other. This feature is useful if target detection over a wide range of angles is more important than target location in three dimensions. Most 2D surveillance radars use a spoiled parabolic antenna with a narrow azimuthal beamwidth and wide vertical beamwidth. This beam configuration allows the radar operator to detect an aircraft at a specific azimuth but at an indeterminate height. Conversely, so-called "nodder" height finding radars use a dish with a narrow vertical beamwidth and wide azimuthal beamwidth to detect an aircraft at a specific height but with low azimuthal precision.
Types of scan: Primary Scan: A scanning technique where the main antenna aerial is moved to produce a scanning beam, examples include circular scan, sector scan, etc.
Secondary Scan: A scanning technique where the antenna feed is moved to produce a scanning beam, examples include conical scan, unidirectional sector scan, lobe switching, etc.
Palmer Scan: A scanning technique that produces a scanning beam by moving the main antenna and its feed. A Palmer Scan is a combination of a Primary Scan and a Secondary Scan.
Conical scanning: The radar beam is rotated in a small circle around the "boresight" axis, which is pointed at the target.
Slotted waveguide: Applied similarly to the parabolic reflector, the slotted waveguide is moved mechanically to scan and is particularly suitable for non-tracking surface scan systems, where the vertical pattern may remain constant. Owing to its lower cost and less wind exposure, shipboard, airport surface, and harbour surveillance radars now use this approach in preference to a parabolic antenna.
Phased array: Another method of steering is used in a phased array radar.
Phased array antennas are composed of evenly spaced similar antenna elements, such as aerials or rows of slotted waveguide. Each antenna element or group of antenna elements incorporates a discrete phase shift that produces a phase gradient across the array. For example, array elements producing a 5 degree phase shift for each wavelength across the array face will produce a beam pointed 5 degrees away from the centerline perpendicular to the array face. Signals travelling along that beam will be reinforced. Signals offset from that beam will be cancelled. The amount of reinforcement is antenna gain. The amount of cancellation is side-lobe suppression.
Phased array radars have been in use since the earliest years of radar in World War II (Mammut radar), but electronic device limitations led to poor performance. Phased array radars were originally used for missile defence (see for example Safeguard Program). They are the heart of the ship-borne Aegis Combat System and the Patriot Missile System. The massive redundancy associated with having a large number of array elements increases reliability at the expense of gradual performance degradation that occurs as individual phase elements fail. To a lesser extent, Phased array radars have been used in weather surveillance. As of 2017, NOAA plans to implement a national network of Multi-Function Phased array radars throughout the United States within 10 years, for meteorological studies and flight monitoring.
Phased array antennas can be built to conform to specific shapes, like missiles, infantry support vehicles, ships, and aircraft.
As the price of electronics has fallen, phased array radars have become more common. Almost all modern military radar systems are based on phased arrays, where the small additional cost is offset by the improved reliability of a system with no moving parts. Traditional moving-antenna designs are still widely used in roles where cost is a significant factor such as air traffic surveillance and similar systems.
Phased array radars are valued for use in aircraft since they can track multiple targets. The first aircraft to use a phased array radar was the B-1B Lancer. The first fighter aircraft to use phased array radar was the Mikoyan MiG-31. The MiG-31M's SBI-16 Zaslon Passive electronically scanned array radar was considered to be the world's most powerful fighter radar, until the AN/APG-77 Active electronically scanned array was introduced on the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
Phased-array interferometry or aperture synthesis techniques, using an array of separate dishes that are phased into a single effective aperture, are not typical for radar applications, although they are widely used in radio astronomy. Because of the thinned array curse, such multiple aperture arrays, when used in transmitters, result in narrow beams at the expense of reducing the total power transmitted to the target. In principle, such techniques could increase spatial resolution, but the lower power means that this is generally not effective.
Aperture synthesis by post-processing motion data from a single moving source, on the other hand, is widely used in space and airborne radar systems.
Frequency bands: Antennas generally have to be sized similar to the wavelength of the operational frequency, normally within an order of magnitude. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Phased-array interferometry or aperture synthesis techniques, using an array of separate dishes that are phased into a single effective aperture, are not typical for radar applications, although they are widely used in radio astronomy. Because of the thinned array curse, such multiple aperture arrays, when used in transmitters, result in narrow beams at the expense of reducing the total power transmitted to the target. In principle, such techniques could increase spatial resolution, but the lower power means that this is generally not effective.
Aperture synthesis by post-processing motion data from a single moving source, on the other hand, is widely used in space and airborne radar systems.
Frequency bands: Antennas generally have to be sized similar to the wavelength of the operational frequency, normally within an order of magnitude. This provides a strong incentive to use shorter wavelengths as this will result in smaller antennas. Shorter wavelengths also result in higher resolution due to diffraction, meaning the shaped reflector seen on most radars can also be made smaller for any desired beamwidth.
Opposing the move to smaller wavelengths are a number of practical issues. For one, the electronics needed to produce high power very short wavelengths were generally more complex and expensive than the electronics needed for longer wavelengths or didn't exist at all. Another issue is that the radar equation's effective aperture figure means that for any given antenna (or reflector) size will be more efficient at longer wavelengths. Additionally, shorter wavelengths may interact with molecules or raindrops in the air, scattering the signal. Very long wavelengths also have additional diffraction effects that make them suitable for over the horizon radars. For this reason, a wide variety of wavelengths are used in different roles.
The traditional band names originated as code-names during World War II and are still in military and aviation use throughout the world. They have been adopted in the United States by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and internationally by the International Telecommunication Union. Most countries have additional regulations to control which parts of each band are available for civilian or military use.
Other users of the radio spectrum, such as the broadcasting and electronic countermeasures industries, have replaced the traditional military designations with their own systems.
Modulators: Modulators act to provide the waveform of the RF-pulse. There are two different radar modulator designs:
High voltage switch for non-coherent keyed power-oscillators These modulators consist of a high voltage pulse generator formed from a high voltage supply, a pulse forming network, and a high voltage switch such as a thyratron. They generate short pulses of power to feed, e.g., the magnetron, a special type of vacuum tube that converts DC (usually pulsed) into microwaves. This technology is known as pulsed power. In this way, the transmitted pulse of RF radiation is kept to a defined and usually very short duration.
Hybrid mixers, fed by a waveform generator and an exciter for a complex but coherent waveform. This waveform can be generated by low power/low-voltage input signals. In this case the radar transmitter must be a power-amplifier, e.g., a klystron or a solid state transmitter. In this way, the transmitted pulse is intrapulse-modulated and the radar receiver must use pulse compression techniques.
Coolant: Coherent microwave amplifiers operating above 1,000 watts microwave output, like travelling wave tubes and klystrons, require liquid coolant. The electron beam must contain 5 to 10 times more power than the microwave output, which can produce enough heat to generate plasma. This plasma flows from the collector toward the cathode. The same magnetic focusing that guides the electron beam forces the plasma into the path of the electron beam but flowing in the opposite direction. This introduces FM modulation which degrades Doppler performance. To prevent this, liquid coolant with minimum pressure and flow rate is required, and deionized water is normally used in most high power surface radar systems that use Doppler processing.
Coolanol (silicate ester) was used in several military radars in the 1970s. However, it is hygroscopic, leading to hydrolysis and formation of highly flammable alcohol. The loss of a U.S. Navy aircraft in 1978 was attributed to a silicate ester fire. Coolanol is also expensive and toxic. The U.S. Navy has instituted a program named Pollution Prevention (P2) to eliminate or reduce the volume and toxicity of waste, air emissions, and effluent discharges. Because of this, Coolanol is used less often today.
Regulations: Radar (also: RADAR) is defined by article 1.100 of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) ITU Radio Regulations (RR) as:
A radiodetermination system based on the comparison of reference signals with radio signals reflected, or retransmitted, from the position to be determined. Each radiodetermination system shall be classified by the radiocommunication service in which it operates permanently or temporarily. Typical radar utilizations are primary radar and secondary radar, these might operate in the radiolocation service or the radiolocation-satellite service.
Configurations: Radar come in a variety of configurations in the emitter, the receiver, the antenna, wavelength, scan strategies, etc.
Bistatic radar
Continuous-wave radar
Doppler radar
Fm-cw radar
Monopulse radar
Passive radar
Planar array radar
Pulse-doppler
Synthetic-aperture radar
Synthetically thinned aperture radar
Over-the-horizon radar with Chirp transmitter
See also: Terrain-following radar
Radar imaging
Radar navigation
Inverse-square law
Wave radar
Radar signal characteristics
Pulse doppler radar
Mmwave sensing
Acronyms and abbreviations in avionics
Definitions
Amplitude-comparison monopulse
Constant false alarm rate
Sensitivity time control
Application
Proximity fuze
Hardware
Cavity magnetron
Crossed-field amplifier
Gallium arsenide
Klystron
Omniview technology
Radar engineering details
Radar tower
Radio
Travelling-wave tube
Similar detection and ranging methods
Acoustic location
Lidar
LORAN
Sonar
Historical radars
List of radars
Chain Home and Chain Home Low
Würzburg radar
Hohentwiel radar
H2S radar
SCR-270 radar
Notes and references:
Bibliography:
References: Barrett, Dick, "All you ever wanted to know about British air defence radar". The Radar Pages. (History and details of various British radar systems)
Buderi, "Telephone History: Radar History". Privateline.com. (Anecdotal account of the carriage of the world's first high power cavity magnetron from Britain to the US during WW2.)
Ekco Radar WW2 Shadow Factory Archived 12 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine The secret development of British radar.
ES310 "Introduction to Naval Weapons Engineering.". (Radar fundamentals section)
Hollmann, Martin, "Radar Family Tree". Radar World.
Penley, Bill, and Jonathan Penley, "Early Radar History—an Introduction". 2002.
Pub 1310 Radar Navigation and Maneuvering Board Manual, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Bethesda, MD 2001 (US govt publication '...intended to be used primarily as a manual of instruction in navigation schools and by naval and merchant marine personnel.')
Wesley Stout, 1946 "Radar – The Great Detective" Archived 28 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine Early development and production by Chrysler Corp. during WWII.
Swords, Seán S., "Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar", IEE History of Technology Series, Vol. 6, London: Peter Peregrinus, 1986
General: Reg Batt (1991). The radar army: winning the war of the airwaves. R. Hale. ISBN 978-0-7090-4508-3.
E.G. Bowen (1 January 1998). Radar Days. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-7503-0586-0.
Michael Bragg (1 May 2002). RDF1: The Location of Aircraft by Radio Methods 1935–1945. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9531544-0-1.
Louis Brown (1999). A radar history of World War II: technical and military imperatives. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-7503-0659-1.
Robert Buderi (1996). The invention that changed the world: how a small group of radar pioneers won the Second World War and launched a technological revolution. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-81021-8.
Burch, David F., Radar For Mariners, McGraw Hill, 2005, ISBN 978-0-07-139867-1.
Ian Goult (2011). Secret Location: A witness to the Birth of Radar and its Postwar Influence. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5776-5.
Peter S. Hall (March 1991). Radar. Potomac Books Inc. ISBN 978-0-08-037711-7.
Derek Howse; Naval Radar Trust (February 1993). Radar at sea: the royal Navy in World War 2. Naval Institute Press. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radar | Robert Buderi (1996). The invention that changed the world: how a small group of radar pioneers won the Second World War and launched a technological revolution. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-81021-8.
Burch, David F., Radar For Mariners, McGraw Hill, 2005, ISBN 978-0-07-139867-1.
Ian Goult (2011). Secret Location: A witness to the Birth of Radar and its Postwar Influence. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5776-5.
Peter S. Hall (March 1991). Radar. Potomac Books Inc. ISBN 978-0-08-037711-7.
Derek Howse; Naval Radar Trust (February 1993). Radar at sea: the royal Navy in World War 2. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-704-4.
R.V. Jones (August 1998). Most Secret War. Wordsworth Editions Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85326-699-7.
Kaiser, Gerald, Chapter 10 in "A Friendly Guide to Wavelets", Birkhauser, Boston, 1994.
Colin Latham; Anne Stobbs (January 1997). Radar: A Wartime Miracle. Sutton Pub Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7509-1643-1.
François Le Chevalier (2002). Principles of radar and sonar signal processing. Artech House Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58053-338-6.
David Pritchard (August 1989). The radar war: Germany's pioneering achievement 1904-45. Harpercollins. ISBN 978-1-85260-246-8.
Merrill Ivan Skolnik (1 December 1980). Introduction to radar systems. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-066572-9.
Merrill Ivan Skolnik (1990). Radar handbook. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 978-0-07-057913-2.
George W. Stimson (1998). Introduction to airborne radar. SciTech Publishing. ISBN 978-1-891121-01-2.
Younghusband, Eileen., Not an Ordinary Life. How Changing Times Brought Historical Events into my Life, Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Cardiff, 2009., ISBN 978-0-9561156-9-0 (Pages 36–67 contain the experiences of a WAAF radar plotter in WWII.)
Younghusband, Eileen. One Woman's War. Cardiff. Candy Jar Books. 2011. ISBN 978-0-9566826-2-8
David Zimmerman (February 2001). Britain's shield: radar and the defeat of the Luftwaffe. Sutton Pub Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7509-1799-5.
Technical reading: M I. Skolnik, ed. (1970). Radar Handbook (PDF). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-057913-X.
Nadav Levanon; Eli Mozeson (2004). Radar signals. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 9780471473787.
Hao He; Jian Li; Petre Stoica (2012). Waveform design for active sensing systems: a computational approach. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01969-0.
Solomon W. Golomb; Guang Gong (2005). Signal design for good correlation: for wireless communication, cryptography, and radar. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521821049.
M. Soltanalian (2014). Signal Design for Active Sensing and Communications. Elanders Sverige AB. ISBN 978-91-554-9017-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Fulvio Gini; Antonio De Maio; Lee Patton, eds. (2012). Waveform design and diversity for advanced radar systems. London: The Institution of Engineering and Technology. ISBN 978-1849192651.
E. Fishler; A. Haimovich; R. Blum; D. Chizhik; L. Cimini; R. Valenzuela (2004). MIMO radar: an idea whose time has come. IEEE Radar Conference.
Mark R. Bell (1993). "Information theory and radar waveform design". IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. 39 (5): 1578–1597. doi:10.1109/18.259642.
Robert Calderbank; S. Howard; Bill Moran (2009). "Waveform diversity in radar signal processing". IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. 26 (1): 32–41. Bibcode:2009ISPM...26...32C. doi:10.1109/MSP.2008.930414. S2CID 16437755.
Mark A. Richards; James A. Scheer; William A. Holm (2010). Principles of Modern Radar: Basic Principles. SciTech Publishing. ISBN 978-1891121-52-4.
External links:
MIT Video Course: Introduction to Radar Systems A set of 10 video lectures developed at Lincoln Laboratory to develop an understanding of radar systems and technologies.
A set of educational videos created for air traffic control (ATC) staff.
Glossary of radar terminology |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Radiological warfare | Salted nuclear weapons: A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon that is equipped with a large quantity of radiologically inert salting material. The radiological warfare agents are produced through neutron capture by the salting materials of the neutron radiation emitted by the nuclear weapon. This avoids the problems of having to stockpile the highly radioactive material, as it is produced when the bomb explodes. The result is a more intense fallout than from regular nuclear weapons and can render an area uninhabitable for a long period.
The cobalt bomb is an example of a radiological warfare weapon, where cobalt-59 is converted to cobalt-60 by neutron capture. Initially, gamma radiation of the nuclear fission products from an equivalent sized "clean" fission-fusion-fission bomb (assuming the amount of radioactive dust particles generated are equal) are much more intense than cobalt-60: 15,000 times more intense at 1 hour; 35 times more intense at 1 week; 5 times more intense at 1 month; and about equal at 6 months. Thereafter fission drops off rapidly so that cobalt-60 fallout is 8 times more intense than fission at 1 year and 150 times more intense at 5 years. The very long-lived isotopes produced by fission would overtake the cobalt-60 again after about 75 years.
Other salted bomb variants that do not use cobalt have also been theorized. For example, salting with sodium-23, that transmutes to sodium-24, which because of its 15-hour half-life results in intense radiation.
Surface-burst nuclear weapons: An air burst is preferred if the effects of thermal radiation and blast wave is to be maximized for an area (i.e. area covered by direct line of sight and sufficient luminosity to cause burning, and formation of mach stem respectively). Both fission and fusion weapons will irradiate the detonation site with neutron radiation, causing neutron activation of the material there. Fission bombs will also contribute with the bomb-material residue. Air will not form isotopes useful for radiological warfare when neutron-activated. By detonating them at or near the surface instead, the ground will be vaporized, become radioactive, and when it cools down and condenses into particles cause significant fallout.
Dirty bombs: A far lower-tech radiological weapon than those discussed above is a "dirty bomb" or radiological dispersal device, whose purpose is to disperse radioactive dust over an area. The release of radioactive material may involve no special "weapon" or side forces like a blast explosion and include no direct killing of people from its radiation source, but rather could make whole areas or structures unusable or unfavorable for the support of human life. The radioactive material may be dispersed slowly over a large area, and it can be difficult for the victims to initially know that such a radiological attack is being carried out, especially if detectors for radioactivity are not installed beforehand.
Radiological warfare with dirty bombs could be used for nuclear terrorism, spreading or intensifying fear. In relation to these weapons, nation states can also spread rumor, disinformation and fear.
In July 2023, both Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for preparing to bomb the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, in order to use the nuclear reactors as dirty bombs.
See also: Acute radiation syndrome
Area denial weapons
Depleted uranium
Neutron bomb
Nuclear detection
Nuclear warfare
Operation Peppermint
Scorched earth and "Salting the earth"
Yasser Arafat § Theories about the cause of death
Further reading: Kirby, R. (2020) Radiological Weapons: America's Cold War Experience.
References:
External links: Radiological Weapons as Means of Attack. Anthony H. Cordesman
Radiological-weapons threats: case studies from the extreme right. BreAnne K. Fleer, 2020; The Nonproliferation Review |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Raid (military) | Land:
Tribal societies: Among many tribal societies, raiding was the most common and lethal form of warfare. Taking place at night, the goal was to catch the enemy sleeping to avoid casualties to the raiding party.
Iron Age Ireland: Cattle raiding was a major feature of Irish society in the Iron Age and forms the central plot of the historical epic Táin Bó Cúailnge (English: Cattle Raid of Cooley).
Bedouin ghazzu: The traditional habit of Bedouin tribes of raiding other tribes, caravans, or settlements is known in Arabic as ghazzu. Such activity was still noticed by J. S. Buckingham in 1820s Palestine not only among nomadic Bedouin, but also among the nominally sedentary villagers of er-Riha (Jericho), who left the little land cultivation he observed to women and children, while men spent most of their time riding through the plains and engaging in "robbery and plunder", their main and most profitable activity.
Arabia during Muhammad's era: The Islamic prophet Muhammad made frequent use of raiding tactics. His first use of raids was during the caravan raids, and his first successful raid was the Nakhla raid. In January 624 Muhammad ordered this raid to attack a Quraysh caravan and gather information.
During the Invasion of Thi Amr he ordered a raid on the Banu Muharib and Banu Talabah tribes after he received intelligence that they were allegedly going to raid the outskirts of Medina. One person was captured by Muslims during this raid.
In August 627 he ordered the First Raid on Banu Thalabah, a tribe already aware of the impending attack. So they lay in wait for the Muslims, and when Muhammad ibn Maslamah arrived at the site, 100 men of the Banu Thalabah ambushed them, while the Muslims were making preparation to sleep, and after a brief resistance killed all of Muhammad ibn Maslamah's men. Muhammad ibn Maslamah pretended to be dead. A Muslim who happened to pass that way found him and assisted him to return to Medina. The raid was unsuccessful.
Medieval Europe: Small scale raiding warfare was common in Western European warfare of the Middle Ages. Much of a professional soldiers' time could be spent in "little war", carrying out raids or defending against them. Typical of this style of warfare was the mounted raid or chevauchée, popular during the Hundred Years War. Chevauchées varied in size from a few hundred men to armies of thousands, and could range in scope from attacks on nearby enemy areas to the devastation of whole regions, such as that carried out by the Black Prince in Southern France in 1355. This last is notable not just for its success and scope but the fact that the raiders deliberately captured records in order to carry out a post-operational analysis of the impact of the raid on the enemy economy.
Large scale raiding: The largest raids in history were the series undertaken during and following the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. Examples of lesser scale raids include those staged by the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Sich, the Grande Armée, and cavalry raids that took place during the American Civil War such as Morgan's Raid, and numerous examples of small group raids behind enemy lines that have taken place throughout all periods of history.
In the operational level of war, raids were the precursors in the development of the Operational Manoeuvre Groups in the Soviet Army as early as the 1930s.
Seaborne: Raiding by sea was known at the time of the Pharaohs, when the shipborne forces of the Sea Peoples caused serious disruption to the economies of the eastern Mediterranean.
In pre-colonial thalassocracies in the islands of the Philippines, sea raids (mangayaw) and land wars (mangubat), were regular seasonal activities by warring polities, particularly among the Visayans. Participating in or defending against these raids were part of the duties of the noble (maginoo) and warrior castes (like the timawa and maharlika). The main purpose of the raids were to gain prestige in combat, to pillage, and to capture hostages. Participation and prowess in these raids were recorded in the widespread practice of full-body tattooing (batok). Raids were usually seaborne, and coastal communities had sentinels that watch for possible raids. When spotted, it was preferable for the defenders to meet the attackers at sea in ship-to-ship combat (bangga) rather than engage them on land. The raids had strict codes of conduct on the treatment of captives. People who surrendered were spared, to be ransomed or to work under temporary indentured servitude as alipin then set free. Anyone who kills a captive is required to pay their value, or risk becoming an alipin themselves. Higher-ranked captives were treated well and were usually ransomed by relatives.
The practice of seaborne raids also continued among the Austronesian ethnic groups in Island Southeast Asia that converted to Islam shortly before and during the Colonial Era. However, unlike pre-colonial raids, these raids were specifically to acquire slaves. Unlike the pre-colonial practices of indentured servitude (like in alipin) which was more a temporary form of punishment, captives from these more recent raids followed the Islamic practice of chattel slavery. They had little chances of returning to their home settlements, unless ransomed, and were instead sold on the slave markets. These kinds of raids were especially prevalent in the Sulu and Celebes Seas and has continued into modern-day piracy.
In the early Middle Ages, Viking raiders from Scandinavia attacked the British Isles, France and Spain, attacking coastal and riverside targets. Much Viking raiding was carried out as a private initiative with a few ships, usually to gain loot, but much larger fleets were also involved, often as intent on extorting protection money (English: Danegeld) as looting and pillaging. Raiding did not cease with the decline of the Viking threat in the 11th century. It remained a common element of the medieval naval warfare. Extensive naval raiding was carried out by all sides during the Hundred Years War, often involving privateers such as John Hawley of Dartmouth or the Castilian Pero Niño. In the Mediterranean, raiding using oared galleys was common throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance and was particularly a feature of the wars between the Christian powers and the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Raiding formed a major component of English naval strategy in the Elizabethan era, with attacks on the Spanish possessions in the New World. A major raid on Cadiz to destroy shipping being assembled for the Spanish Armada was carried out by Sir Francis Drake in 1587. Similarly the Dutch executed the Raid on the Medway during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Dutch Raid on North America during the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
During the Second World War, the British set up the Combined Operations Headquarters to organise harassing raids against the Germans in Europe. The first operation conducted by a "commando" formation, known as Operation Ambassador, took place in July 1940, but it was a small-scale operation that resulted in negligible success. The next major raid was Operation Claymore, which was launched in March 1941 against the Lofoten Islands. Throughout the war there were many other operations of varied size, ranging from small scale operations like those undertaken by Z Special Unit against the Japanese in the Pacific, such as Project Opossum, to Operation Chariot – a raid on Saint-Nazaire – and the Dieppe Raid, which was a large scale raid employing about 6,000 soldiers, over 200 ships and 74 squadrons of aircraft intended to take and hold Dieppe sufficiently to cause sufficient destruction to the port.
Air:
Air landed: Paratroopers and glider-borne troops have been landed by aircraft on raids, including offensive counter-air missions such as those carried out by the Teishin Shudan and Giretsu Kuteitai commandos. In the modern era, the helicopter, allowing for both insertion and extraction, offers a superior method of raid transportation, although it comes at the cost of noise. During the Second World War, several air-landed raids were undertaken, including the German glider-borne raid on Fort Eben-Emal in Belgium in 1940, and the British Operation Colossus and Operation Biting, which were raids in Italy and France in 1941 and 1942.
Aerial bombardment: The Royal Air Force first used the term "raid" in the Second World War when referring to an air attack. It included those by one aircraft or many squadrons, against all manner of targets on the ground and the targets defending aircraft. "Raid" was different from "battle", which was used for land, sea, or amphibious conflict. An aircraft "raid" was always planned ahead of time. Aircraft patrols (against U-boats) and defensive launches of carrier aircraft (against recently detected enemy ships) are differentiated from raids.
See also: Marine Raiders
Chevauchée
Direct action (military)
Hit-and-run tactics
Infiltration tactics
Slave raiding
Trench raiding
List of expeditions of Muhammad
List of raids
References:
Sources: Black, Robert W. (2004). |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Raid (military) | Aerial bombardment: The Royal Air Force first used the term "raid" in the Second World War when referring to an air attack. It included those by one aircraft or many squadrons, against all manner of targets on the ground and the targets defending aircraft. "Raid" was different from "battle", which was used for land, sea, or amphibious conflict. An aircraft "raid" was always planned ahead of time. Aircraft patrols (against U-boats) and defensive launches of carrier aircraft (against recently detected enemy ships) are differentiated from raids.
See also: Marine Raiders
Chevauchée
Direct action (military)
Hit-and-run tactics
Infiltration tactics
Slave raiding
Trench raiding
List of expeditions of Muhammad
List of raids
References:
Sources: Black, Robert W. (2004). Cavalry Raids of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books.
Chappell, Mike (1996). Army Commandos 1940–45. Elite Series # 64. London: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-85532-579-9.
Crowley, Roger (2008). Empires of the Sea. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-23231-4.
Evans, Martin (2000). The Fall of France: Act With Daring. Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-85532-969-7.
Gat, Azar (2006). War in Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffith, Paddy (1995). The Viking Art of War. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 1-85367-208-4.
Hanson, Neil (2003). The Confident Hope of a Miracle. London: Corgi. ISBN 0-552-14975-6.
Longmate, Norman (1990). Defending the Island. London: Grafton. ISBN 0-586-20845-3.
Rogers, Clifford (2000). War Cruel and Sharp. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-804-8.
Rogers, Clifford (2007). Soldiers Lives Through History: The Middle Ages. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-33350-7.
Simpkin, Richard; Erickson, John (1987). Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers.
Smith, Kevin (2012). "Operation Opossum: The Raiding Party to Rescue the Sultan of Ternate, 1945". Sabretache. 53 (4, Dec): 48–54. ISSN 0048-8933.
Thompson, Leroy (1989). British Paratroops in Action. Combat Troops Number 9. Carrollton, Texas: Squadron/Signal Publications. ISBN 0-89747-233-0.
External links: Media related to Military raids at Wikimedia Commons |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Reconnaissance | Etymology: The word is derived from the Middle French word reconoissance.
Overview: Reconnaissance conducted by ground forces includes special reconnaissance, armored reconnaissance, amphibious reconnaissance and civil reconnaissance.
Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance carried out by aircraft (of all types including balloons and uncrewed aircraft). The purpose is to survey weather conditions, map terrain, and may include military purposes such as observing tangible structures, particular areas, and movement of enemy forces.
Naval forces use aerial and satellite reconnaissance to observe enemy forces. Navies also undertake hydrographic surveys and intelligence gathering.
Reconnaissance satellites provide military commanders with photographs of enemy forces and other intelligence. Military forces also use geographical and meteorological information from Earth observation satellites.
Discipline: Types of reconnaissance:
Terrain-oriented reconnaissance is a survey of the terrain (its features, weather, and other natural observations).
Force-oriented reconnaissance focuses on the enemy forces (number, equipment, activities, disposition etc.) and may include target acquisition.
Civil-oriented reconnaissance focuses on the civil dimension of the battlespace (areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people and events abbreviated ASCOPE).
The techniques and objectives are not mutually exclusive; it is up to the commander whether they are carried out separately or by the same unit.
Reconnaissance-in-force: Reconnaissance-in-force (RIF) is a type of military operation or military tactic used specifically to probe an enemy's combat ability.
While typical reconnaissance forces are small and armed only for self-defense, RIF use considerable (but not decisive) force in order to elicit a strong reaction by the enemy that more accurately reveals its own strength, deployment, preparedness, determination, and other tactical data. The RIF units can then fall back and report this data, or expand the conflict into a full engagement if enemy weaknesses are revealed.
Other methods consist of hit-and-run tactics using rapid mobility, and in some cases light-armored vehicles for added fire superiority, as the need arises.
Maintaining active RIF can be used to limit, or even deny, enemy reconnaissance.
Nazi Germany's reconnaissance during World War II is described in the following way:
The purpose of reconnaissance and the types of units employed to obtain information are similar in the U.S. and the German Armies. German tactical principles of reconnaissance, however, diverge somewhat from those of the U.S. The Germans stress aggressiveness, attempt to obtain superiority in the area to be reconnoitered, and strive for continuous observation of the enemy. They believe in employing reconnaissance units in force as a rule. They expect and are prepared to fight to obtain the desired information. Often they assign supplementary tasks to their reconnaissance units, such as sabotage behind enemy lines, harassment, or counter-reconnaissance.Only enough reconnaissance troops are sent on a mission to assure superiority in the area to be reconnoitred. Reserves are kept on hand to be committed when the reconnaissance must be intensified, when the original force meets strong enemy opposition, or when the direction and area to be reconnoitred are changed. The Germans encourage aggressive action against enemy security forces. When their reconnaissance units meet superior enemy forces, they fight a delaying action while other units attempt to flank the enemy.
Reconnaissance-by-fire: Reconnaissance by fire (or speculative fire) is the act of firing at likely enemy positions to cause the enemy force to reveal their location by moving or by returning fire.
Reconnaissance-pull: Reconnaissance-pull is a tactic that is applied at the regiment to division level and defined as locating and rapidly exploiting enemy weaknesses. It is the ability to determine enemy positions and create exploitable gaps through which friendly forces can pass while avoiding obstacles and strong points.
A textbook example of reconnaissance-pull was documented during the Tinian landings of World War II, utilized by the United States Marine Corps's Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion, from V Amphibious Corps. Aerial photography and the confirmation by the amphibious reconnaissance platoons determined that the Japanese defenders had largely ignored the northern beaches of the island, focusing most of their defensive effort on beaches in the south-west which were more favorable for an amphibious landing. American forces quickly changed their landing location to the northern beaches and planned a small and hasty "deception" operation off the southern beach, which resulted in a complete surprise for the Japanese forces. As a result, American forces were able to fight the Japanese force on land, where they had the advantage, leading to light losses and a relatively short battle that lasted only 9 days.
Types: When referring to reconnaissance, a commander's full intention is to have a vivid picture of his battlespace. The commander organizes the reconnaissance platoon based on:
mission,
enemy,
terrain,
troops and support available,
time available, and
civil considerations.
This analysis determines whether the platoon uses single or multiple elements to conduct the reconnaissance, whether it pertains to area, zone, or route reconnaissance, the following techniques may be used as long as the fundamentals of reconnaissance are applied.
Scouts may also have different tasks to perform for their commanders of higher echelons, for example: the engineer reconnaissance detachments will try to identify difficult terrain in the path of their formation, and attempt to reduce the time it takes to transit the terrain using specialist engineering equipment such as a pontoon bridge for crossing water obstacles. Sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance implies collection and transfer of all data available on sanitary and epidemiological situation of the area of possible deployment and action of armed forces, the same data for the neighboring and enemy armed forces. The aim for the reconnaissance is to clear up the reasons of the specific disease origin- sources of the infection in various extreme situations, including local wars and armed conflicts, the ways of the infection transfer and all factors promoting to the infestation.
After the armed forces have become stationary during wartime and emergency of peacetime the sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance turns into sanitary and epidemiological surveillance and medical control of vital and communal activity of the armed forces.
Area: Area reconnaissance refers to the observation, and information obtained, about a specified location and the area around it; it may be terrain-oriented and/or force-oriented. Ideally, a reconnaissance platoon, or team, would use surveillance or vantage (static) points around the objective to observe, and the surrounding area. This methodology focuses mainly prior to moving forces into or near a specified area; the military commander may utilize his reconnaissance assets to conduct an area reconnaissance to avoid being surprised by unsuitable terrain conditions, or most importantly, unexpected enemy forces. The area could be a town, ridge-line, woods, or another feature that friendly forces intend to occupy, pass through, or avoid.
Within an area of operation (AO), area reconnaissance can focus the reconnaissance on the specific area that is critical to the commander. This technique of focusing the reconnaissance also permits the mission to be accomplished more quickly. Area reconnaissance can thus be a stand-alone mission or a task to a section or the platoon. The commander analyzes the mission to determine whether the platoon will conduct these types of reconnaissance separately or in conjunction with each other.
Civil: Civil reconnaissance is the process of gathering a broad spectrum of civil information about a specific population in support of military operations. It is related to and often performed in conjunction with infrastructure reconnaissance (assessment and survey). Normally the focus of collection in the operational area for civil reconnaissance is collecting civil information relating to the daily interaction between civilians and military forces. Civil information encompasses relational, temporal, geospatial and behavioral information captured in a socio-cultural backdrop. It is information developed from data related to civil areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events, within the civil component of the commander's operational environment that can be processed to increase situational awareness and understanding. The type of civil information that is needed in order to support military operations varies based on the environment and situation.
Route: Route reconnaissance is oriented on a given route (e.g., a road, a railway, a waterway; i.e., a narrow axis or a general direction of attack) to provide information on route conditions or activities along the route. A military commander relies on information about locations along his determined route: which of those that would provide best cover and concealment; bridge by construction type, dimensions, and classification; or for landing zones or pickup zones, if the need arises.
In many cases, the commander may act upon a force-oriented route reconnaissance by which the enemy could influence movement along that route. For the reconnaissance platoons, or squads, stealth and speed—in conjunction with detailed intelligence-reporting—are most important and crucial. The reconnaissance platoon must remain far enough ahead of the maneuver force to assist in early warning and to prevent the force from becoming surprised.
It is paramount to obtain information about the available space in which a force can maneuver without being forced to bunch up due to obstacles. Terrain-oriented route reconnaissance allows the commander to obtain information and capabilities about the adjacent terrain for maneuvering his forces, to include, any obstacles (minefields, barriers, steep ravines, marshy areas, or chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear contamination) that may obstruct vehicle movement—on routes to, and in, his assigned area of operations. This requirement includes the size of trees and the density of forests due to their effects on vehicle movement. Route reconnaissance also allows the observation for fields of fire along the route and adjacent terrain. This information assists planners as a supplement to map information.
Zone: Zone reconnaissance focuses on obtaining detailed information before maneuvering their forces through particular, designated locations. It can be terrain-oriented, force-oriented, or both, as it acquire this information by reconnoitering within—and by maintaining surveillance over—routes, obstacles (to include nuclear-radiological, biological, and chemical contamination), and resources within an assigned location. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Reconnaissance | Terrain-oriented route reconnaissance allows the commander to obtain information and capabilities about the adjacent terrain for maneuvering his forces, to include, any obstacles (minefields, barriers, steep ravines, marshy areas, or chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear contamination) that may obstruct vehicle movement—on routes to, and in, his assigned area of operations. This requirement includes the size of trees and the density of forests due to their effects on vehicle movement. Route reconnaissance also allows the observation for fields of fire along the route and adjacent terrain. This information assists planners as a supplement to map information.
Zone: Zone reconnaissance focuses on obtaining detailed information before maneuvering their forces through particular, designated locations. It can be terrain-oriented, force-oriented, or both, as it acquire this information by reconnoitering within—and by maintaining surveillance over—routes, obstacles (to include nuclear-radiological, biological, and chemical contamination), and resources within an assigned location.
Also, force-oriented zone reconnaissance is assigned to gain detailed information about enemy forces within the zone, or when the enemy situation is vague by which the information concerning cross-country traffic-ability is desired. The reconnaissance provides the commander with a detailed picture of how the enemy has occupied the zone, enabling him to choose the appropriate course-of-action.
As the platoon conducts this type of zone reconnaissance, its emphasis is on determining the enemy's locations, strengths, and weaknesses. This is the most thorough and complete reconnaissance mission and therefore is very time-intensive.
Psychology: A tracker needs to pay close attention to both the environment and the psychology of their enemy. Knowledge of human psychology, sociology, and cultural backgrounds is necessary to know the actions of the enemy and what they will do or where they will go next. Chief of Scouts Frederick Russell Burnham commented on reconnaissance and scouts, saying:
It is imperative that a scout should know the history, tradition, religion, social customs, and superstitions of whatever country or people he is called on to work in or among. This is almost as necessary as to know the physical character of the country, its climate and products. Certain people will do certain things almost without fail. Certain other things, perfectly feasible, they will not do. There is no danger of knowing too much of the mental habits of an enemy. One should neither underestimate the enemy nor credit him with superhuman powers. Fear and courage are latent in every human being, though roused into activity by very diverse means.
Gallery:
See also: Black reconnaissance
Exploration
Espionage
Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance
List of reconnaissance units
Pathfinder (military) – airborne pathfinders
Spatial reconnaissance
Special reconnaissance (recon team)
Surveillance aircraft
U.S. military doctrine for reconnaissance
References:
Further reading:
Halsall, Christine, Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos, The History Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7524-6477-0. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Reconnaissance aircraft | History: Prior to the 20th century, machines for powered and controllable flight were not available to military forces, but some attempts were made to use lighter than air craft. During the Napoleonic Wars and Franco-Prussian War, balloons were used for aerial reconnaissance by the French.
In World War I, aircraft were deployed during early phases of battle in reconnaissance roles as 'eyes of the army' to aid ground forces. Aerial reconnaissance from this time through 1945 was mostly carried out by adapted versions of standard fighters and bombers equipped with film cameras. Photography became the primary and best-known method of intelligence collection for reconnaissance aircraft by the end of World War II.
World War I also saw use of floatplanes to locate enemy warships. After the battle of Jutland demonstrated the limitations of seaplane tenders, provisions were made for capital ships to carry, launch, and recover observation seaplanes. These seaplanes could scout for enemy warships beyond the visual range of the ship's lookouts, and could spot the fall of shot during long range artillery engagements. Observation seaplanes were replaced by helicopters after World War II.
After World War II and during the Cold War the United States developed several dedicated reconnaissance aircraft designs, including the U-2 and SR-71, to monitor the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union. Other types of reconnaissance aircraft were built for specialized roles in signals intelligence and electronic monitoring, such as the RB-47, RB-57, Boeing RC-135 and the Ryan Model 147 drones.
Since the Cold War much of the strategic reconnaissance aircraft role has passed over to satellites, and the tactical role to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This has been proven in successful uses by the United States in Desert Storm operations.
See also: Aerial reconnaissance
Surveillance aircraft
List of United States Air Force reconnaissance aircraft
Maritime patrol aircraft
Observation seaplane
References:
External links: Media related to Reconnaissance aircraft at Wikimedia Commons
spyflight
"A Tale of Two Airplanes" by Kingdon R. "King" Hawes, Lt Col, USAF (Ret.)
Bonnier Corporation (January 1919). "Popular Science". The Popular Science Monthly. Bonnier Corporation: 18–. ISSN 0161-7370.
Army-Lockheed YO-3A "Quiet Star" - Official History |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | Major characteristics: Initial military training is an intensive residential programme commonly lasting several weeks or months, which aims to induct newly recruited military personnel into the social norms and essential tasks of the armed forces. Common features include foot drill, inspections, physical training, weapons training, and a graduation parade.
The training process resocializes recruits to the demands made of them by military life. Psychological conditioning techniques are used to shape attitudes and behaviours, so that recruits will obey all orders, face mortal danger, and kill their opponents in battle. According to an expert in United States military training methods, Dave Grossman, recruit training makes extensive use of four types of conditioning techniques: role modeling, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and brutalization.
Inductees are required to partially submerge their individuality for the sake of their military unit, which enhances obedience to orders to perform actions normally absent from civilian life, including killing and prolonged exposure to danger.
The resocialization of recruit training operates in several ways, as follows:
Confinement and suppression: Once their training has begun, the right of recruits to leave the military estate (or to quit the armed forces) is denied or tightly restricted. By shaving the head, issuing uniforms, denying privacy, and prohibiting the use of first names, individuality is suppressed.
Control and conformity: Recruits' daily routine is highly controlled, in the manner of the 'total institution' described by the Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman. For example, the training regime determines how recruits must make their beds, polish boots, and stack their clothes; mistakes are punished.
Throughout their training, recruits are conditioned to conform to military norms and to work as a team. In particular, recruits are repeatedly instructed to stand, march, and respond to orders in a ritual known as foot drill, which is derived from 18th-century military practices and trains recruits to obey orders without hesitation or question. According to Finnish Army regulations, for example, foot drill is essential for the esprit de corps and cohesion, accustoms recruits to instinctive obedience, enables large units to be marched and moved in an orderly manner, and creates the basis for action in the battlefield.
Stress and punishment: The training process applies stressors continuously. Instructors may deprive recruits of sleep, food, or shelter; shout personal insults; use physical aggression; or give orders intended to humiliate. According to specialists in U.S. recruit training, the conditions of continuous stress deplete recruits' resistance to the demands made of them.
The intense workload and sleep restriction experienced by military recruits leaves them little attention capacity for processing the messages they receive about new norms… Therefore, recruits should be less likely to devote their remaining cognitive effort to judging the quality of persuasive messages and will be more likely to be persuaded by the messages…
Evidence from Canada, the UK, the U.S. and elsewhere shows that punishments are used routinely to condition group conformity and discourage poor performance. The role of group punishment in Canadian Army training, for example, has been described as follows:
Coming from civilian society that elevates the individual, recruits are now in a world where the institutional value of the group is supreme. One has to be a team player or risk ostracism. The military does things quite deliberately to intensify the power of group pressure within its ranks. The group is made responsible for each member... even though it may seem manifestly unfair to make the group suffer for the individual.
Bonding and the hierarchy of esteem: As a buffer against the stressful conditions of their training, the trainee group normally forms a strong bond of mutual loyalty. Researchers in the U.S. have described it as an intense "we-feeling", which can feel more powerful than the civilian bonds that recruits are familiar with. In 2006, an official report on Australian Defence Force training explained the importance of the group bond:
Willingness to apply lethal force requires… sufficient bonding within the team to override each individual’s natural human resistance to kill. The toughness and bonding required increases the closer the contact with the enemy.
Recruits are taught to be proud of their identity as professional military personnel, and of their unit in particular. Heroic regimental stories and symbols are used to ennoble the recruits' own unit above others, and above other branches of the armed forces (an aspect of Interservice rivalry), thereby establishing a hierarchy of esteem (also known as a hierarchy of respect); the same stories are used to draw a contrast with the purported inferior norms associated with civilian life. (Cf. Unit cohesion)
Aggression and objectification: Evidence from Australia, the UK and the U.S. shows that recruit training systematically stimulates aggression, particularly in those enlisted for ground close combat roles. Bayonet practice is an example, as the strong language of this instruction from a British army corporal illustrates:
I wanna see it in your eyes that you wanna kill these fuckers. Imagine these dummies are the fucking Taliban and they’ve just killed some of your mates. You wanna fuckin’ kill them. Show me your war face! [Recruits yell] You need some fucking more aggression, show me your war face.
Another example is milling, an exercise used for infantry training in which pairs of recruits wearing boxing gloves punch each other in the head as aggressively as possible.
To further enable recruits to kill on demand, they are taught to objectify (dehumanize) their opponent in battle as an ‘enemy target’ to ‘be engaged’, which will ‘fall when hit’.
Fieldcraft and fitness: Recruits are taught the basic skills of their profession, such as military tactics, first aid, managing their affairs in the field, and the use of weaponry and other equipment.
Throughout, the physical fitness of recruits is tested and developed, although evidence from Israel, Norway, South Africa, the UK and the U.S. has found that the heavy strain on the body also leads to a high rate of injury.
Graduation and drop-out: Recruits who complete their initial training normally take part in a graduation parade (also called passing-out or marching-out). The parade is observed by their family and friends, and senior military personnel. Recruits then pass to the next stage of their training, if applicable.
A large percentage of recruits drop out of training. For example, attrition among British infantry recruits has been found to be above 30% during the first 12 weeks. Reasons for this include dismissal for behavioural problems, poor performance, or injury, and furthermore, recruits who choose to leave if and when they have a legal right to do so. In the UK and U.S., recruits under the age of 20 are most likely to drop out in these ways.
Variations in recruit training: Recruit training varies by nation according to the national requirement and can be voluntary (volunteer military) or mandatory (conscription). Some nations operate both volunteer and conscription systems simultaneously.
Recruit training differs according to military branch:
Army and Marine Corps recruits are normally trained in basic marksmanship with individually assigned weapons, field maintenance of weapons, physical fitness training, first aid, and basic survival and infantry techniques.
Navy and Coast Guard training usually focuses on water survival training, physical fitness, basic seamanship, and such skills as shipboard firefighting, basic engineering, and signals.
Air Force and Space Force training usually includes physical fitness training, military and classroom instructions, basic airmanship/guardianship and field training in basic marksmanship and first aid.
Australia: Most of the recruit training in the Australian Army is currently held at Army Recruit Training Centre (ARTC) at Kapooka, near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. Recruit training lasts 80 days for members of the Australian Regular Army and 35 days for members of the Australian Army Reserve. In basic training recruits are taught drill, weapons and workplace safety, basic equipment maintenance, marksmanship, fieldcraft, radio use and defensive/offensive operations.
Regional Force Surveillance Units: Training for recruits in the Regional Force Surveillance Units usually differs greatly from training in the rest of the Army. For instance, NORFORCE recruits attend a 2-week course at the Kangaroo Flats. Recruits from areas covered by the RFSUs often come from indigenous cultures radically different from that of the general Australian population, and as such many regular standards and methods of training are not as applicable in their case.
Royal Military College Duntroon: Recruit Training for officers in the Australian Army (known as ICT—Initial Cadet Training) takes place at Royal Military College, Duntroon (RMC). The ICT is conducted for approximately seven weeks after which staff cadets continue military instruction in skills such as weapons training, military history, leadership, strategic studies and other such skills at section, platoon and company levels. Trainees at RMC hold the rank of Staff Cadet and, if successful in completing the course are commissioned as Lieutenants (pronounced Left-tenant). The overall full-time officer training course at RMC is 18 months long.
Canada: Centralized recruit training in the Canadian Army did not exist until 1940, and until the creation of Basic Training Centres across Canada, recruit training had been done by individual units or depots.
In 1968 the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force were unified into one service, the Canadian Forces. The Canadian Forces Training System, a unified system for all the services, was devised and remains in place today.
Most non-commissioned CF recruits in the Regular Force (full-time) participate in the 8-week Basic Military Qualification (BMQ) at Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | Trainees at RMC hold the rank of Staff Cadet and, if successful in completing the course are commissioned as Lieutenants (pronounced Left-tenant). The overall full-time officer training course at RMC is 18 months long.
Canada: Centralized recruit training in the Canadian Army did not exist until 1940, and until the creation of Basic Training Centres across Canada, recruit training had been done by individual units or depots.
In 1968 the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force were unified into one service, the Canadian Forces. The Canadian Forces Training System, a unified system for all the services, was devised and remains in place today.
Most non-commissioned CF recruits in the Regular Force (full-time) participate in the 8-week Basic Military Qualification (BMQ) at Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Regular Force officers complete their 12-week Basic Military Officer Qualification (BMOQ) at CFLRS as well, before moving on to Second Language Training or their occupational training.
After basic training, personnel are trained in the specialty of their "environment". Members of the Royal Canadian Navy undergo a five-week sea environment training course; with members of the Canadian Army undergo a 20-day Soldier Qualification course, while officers go through a 12-week Common Army Phase (now renamed to Basic Military Officer Qualification-Army); while members from the Royal Canadian Air Force move on directly to their trade training, with the exception of Construction Engineer Officers, who also do BMOQ-A
Reservists, particularly the Army Reserve, may conduct basic and trades training part-time, generally alternating weekends with their own units. Due to increased integration of the Regular and Reserve Force, many reservists attend courses hosted by the Regular Force. Members of the Army Reserves complete an 8-week BMQ/SQ combined course (Basic Military Qualification and Soldier Qualification) during the summer. Formerly the Naval and Air Reserve jointly conduct BMQ for its recruits at the Naval Reserve Training Division Borden, Ontario equivalent to Regular Force BMQ, at Canadian Forces Base Borden. Now the Naval Reserve conducts the Basic Military Naval Qualification in CFB Valcartier by the Canadian Forces Fleet School Québec (a combination of recruit training and naval environmental training which leads to savings in the training). The Navy trains its personnel in seamanship, firefighting, damage control and other skills after BMQ, in the Naval Environmental Training Program (NETP) in either Esquimalt, British Columbia or Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Royal Military College of Canada is the military academy of the Canadian Forces, and is a degree-granting university. The Royal Military College Saint-Jean is a Canadian military academy located on the site of Fort Saint-Jean (Quebec),
China:
Denmark: The Danish Army conducts the HBU (Hærens Basisuddannelse, Army Basic Training course) at 8 bases around the country. The course lasts four months, and has its focus on training skills used in connection with the Danish total defence, and on recruiting for the army's international missions, and for the NCO-schools. The recruits are technically conscripts, but during recession years, many young men and woman have volunteered for HBU.
Finland: Training lasts 5.5 to 11.5 months total, depending on an individual specialization. All Finnish conscripts undergo six weeks of basic training (peruskoulutuskausi), which is essentially the same for all servicemen. It includes assault rifle (RK-62/RK-95) marksman training, few other basic weapon training, battle training, short field medic training and camping skills. At the end of this training, all men are promoted to their first military rank. After this, specialized training is given depending on the person (5,5–11,5 months). The NCO trainees go to AUK (NCO school) and become corporals or sergeants, from which some are selected to RUK (Reserve officer school) and become second lieutenants. Leadership training (officer candidates and NCOs) always lasts 11.5 months.
France: In the French army, the "Formation Générale Initiale" (FGI) is a 12 weeks course which occurs in a Centre de Formation Initiale des Militaires du Rang (CFIM). There are 10 CFIM in the country. Prior to this course, new recruits are joining the regiment they are going to serve during 3 to 5 years for reception week where they get issued gear, complete administrative documents and a final medical exam before starting training => in France any enlisted soldier signs not only for a MOS but also a unit to serve.
After completing the 12 week FGI course, recruits are receiving the AFFIM certificate (say BCT graduation) and are considered as private 2nd class. After one week of leave, they go back to their regiment for the Formation de Spécialité Initiale (FSI) => MOS training.
After FGI+FSI, they can start training with their platoon for external deployment. Usually, Private 1st class rank is earned after 6 to 12 month of time in service.
For some units (mountain troops - airborne), there is also during first year a Formation d'Adaptation (FA) for basic mountain training (2 × 2 weeks) or parachute school (3 weeks)
Content of FGI is the following one:
Drills,
First aid and chemical warfare,
PT and obstacle course,
First weapon qualification (FAMAS, pistol and grenade),
Signals,
Basic field and infantry training (even if not MOS11B later on),
Presentation of French army, soldiers duties and reports.
Germany: The Allgemeine Grundausbildung (AGA) (i.e. general basic training) of the Bundeswehr covers the first three months of military service.
The contents of the "Allgemeine Grundausbildung" includes
Formal training (ranks, flags, orders and other fundamentals)
Weapon Drill and Basic Combat training for all soldiers (Rifle, Pistol and machine gun drills are mandatory for every soldier)
Theoretical Courses about Democracy and legal regulations
Sports: the Basic Fitness Test (BFT) and the German Sports Badge (DSA)
Guard duty training (ATB SichSdt)
First Aid
A notable peculiarity of German basic training is rooted in German military tradition that prefers initiative to obedience. Rather than "breaking" the personality of new recruits through intimidation and aggression, German basic training generally tries to "mold" a recruits personality in the hope of producing soldiers with stronger personalities and more own initiative.
Greece: While until 2000 the Greek Army was mainly conscript based, since then a large Professional Enlisted institution has been adopted, which combined with the reduction of conscript service will produce an approximate 1:1 ratio between conscript and professional enlisted. While initially training of the two institutions was shared, it has since then diverged, and conscript training has been reduced in length while professional enlisted training has been increased.
India: The Indian military services have established numerous and distinguished academies and staff colleges across India for the purpose of training professional soldiers in new generation military sciences, warfare command and strategy, and associated technologies.
Israel: The recruit training of the Israel Defense Forces (called tironut in Hebrew) varies depending on the unit: virtually every unusual unit completes a different training course. Recruits are certified as riflemen after the completion of the training, while most non-combat units train in all-army bases for the certification of Rifleman 02. Individuals who want to become officers must apply to be trained at a facility in the Negev desert called "Bahad One" (abbreviation of "Bsis Hadracha", Instruction Base).
Pakistan: The Pakistan Military Academy (or PMA) is a Military Academy of the Pakistan Army. It is located at Kakul in Abbottabad in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Pakistan Military Academy is analogous to Sandhurst, West Point or Tironut and undertakes training of the prospective officers of Pakistan Army. The academy has four training battalions and sixteen companies. A Cadet is trained and passed out as an officer of the Pakistan Army in 2 years.
Enlisted Men undertake training at the Regimental Center of their chosen regiment.
Russia:
Singapore: National Service (NS) in Singapore is obligatory for all able-bodied male citizens and second generation permanent residents who have reached the age of 18. Conscripts enlisted into the Singapore Armed Forces are required to attend Basic Military Training (BMT) at the beginning of their NS. They are known as Full-Time National Servicemen (NSFs).
Based on their Physical Employment Status (PES) grade determined by a pre-enlistment medical examination, NSFs may undergo either a standard, enhanced, modified, or obese BMT programme at the Basic Military Training Centre on the offshore island of Pulau Tekong or at the various military units that directly accept mono-intake PES A and B recruits. A similar 4-week BMT is conducted at Kranji School 5 for enlistees deemed unfit for combat roles.
Throughout their BMT, NSFs will acquire the basic soldiering skills by learning how to execute drills, undergoing physical training activities aimed at developing physical fitness and preparing them for the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT), learning how to handle the SAR 21 assault rifle and SFG 87 hand grenade, completing a Standard Obstacle Course and Battle Inoculation Course, and completing a five-day field camp, among other activities. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | They are known as Full-Time National Servicemen (NSFs).
Based on their Physical Employment Status (PES) grade determined by a pre-enlistment medical examination, NSFs may undergo either a standard, enhanced, modified, or obese BMT programme at the Basic Military Training Centre on the offshore island of Pulau Tekong or at the various military units that directly accept mono-intake PES A and B recruits. A similar 4-week BMT is conducted at Kranji School 5 for enlistees deemed unfit for combat roles.
Throughout their BMT, NSFs will acquire the basic soldiering skills by learning how to execute drills, undergoing physical training activities aimed at developing physical fitness and preparing them for the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT), learning how to handle the SAR 21 assault rifle and SFG 87 hand grenade, completing a Standard Obstacle Course and Battle Inoculation Course, and completing a five-day field camp, among other activities.
Before passing out from BMT, NSFs have to complete a 24 km (14.91 mi) route march in Full Battle Order and attend the Passing Out Parade, which may be held at the Marina Bay Floating Platform.
After completing BMT, NSFs will receive their posting orders to their respective vocations, which are determined by their PES status, suitability for deployment, and manpower requirements, among other conditions. Some NSFs will be directly posted to a military unit while others may undergo vocational training at certain institutes before being posted to units.
NSFs who perform well during BMT may progress to either the Specialist Cadet School or Officer Cadet School for further training to become Specialists (non-commissioned officers) or Officers.
NSFs will serve the remaining part of their NS in their respective units until their Operationally-Ready Date (ORD), whereupon they will be known as Operationally-Ready National Serviceman (NSmen) or reservists. NSmen may still be required to take the IPPT every year and attend In-Camp Training of up to 40 days per year over a period of ten years, or until they are statutorily discharged from NS at the age of 40 (for Warrant Officers, Specialists and Enlistees) or 50 (for Officers).
Sri Lanka: In Sri Lanka, officer training is carried out at the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University and at the respective Military Academies of each respective service.
Recruit training for enlisted personnel of the Sri Lanka Army is organised by the Army Training School and carried out at its premises and at several other locations. Following basic training specialized training would be carried out at Regimental Training Centres.
Basic training for new recruits of the Sri Lanka Navy which is approximately six months are conducted at Advanced Naval Training Center, SLNS 'Nipuna'; Naval Artificer Training Institute, SLNS 'Thakshila', Welisara; and at Naval Recruit Training Centres at several shore establishments . This basic training will be followed by on-the-job training on-board fleet units and at shore establishments. Combat Training School at SLNS 'Pandukabaya' conducts combat training for Naval Patrolmen.
Basic training for airmen of the Sri Lanka Air Force is handled by the Training Wing of the SLAF Diyatalawa. This is followed by secularized training at Advanced & Specialized Trade Training School.
Sweden: Since conscription ended in Sweden in 2010 (reintroduced in 2017), all recruits who seek employment within the Swedish Armed Forces have to go through Grundläggande Militär Utbildning (GMU) (Basic Military Training) for three months.
Since conscription was reintroduced in 2017, all recruits who seek employment in the Swedish Armed Forces have to go through Grundutbildning (GU) (Basic Training), which consists of two parts; Grundläggande Militär Utbildning (GMU) (Basic Military Training) that lasts for 3 months and aims to provide every recruit with the same foundation for continued military service, and Befattningsutbildning (Specialization Education) for between 1–11 months depending on specialization.
There is also a shorter volunteer training program for people who seek service within the Home Guard called GU-F. GU-F training takes only 14 days, but following a completed GU-F, a guardsman may go through additional training in order to specialize within the Home Guard.
Basic training as part of GU as well as GU-F usually takes place at any of the Swedish Army training units.
Switzerland: Switzerland has mandatory military service (German: Militärdienst; French: service militaire; Italian: servizio militare) in the Swiss Army for all able-bodied male citizens, who are conscripted when they reach the age of majority, though women may volunteer for any position. Conscripts make up the majority of the manpower in the Swiss Armed Forces.
At the age of 19, all male Swiss nationals must attend the two-day recruitment process in one of the six recruitment centres spread across Switzerland (Aarau, Payerne, Sumiswald, Monte Ceneri, Rüti, Mels). At the end of those two-days, if fit for service, recruits are assigned to a position in the Swiss Armed Forces.
A few months later, recruits start an 18-week (23-week for special forces) boot camp (German: Rekrutenschulen; French: école de recrues; Italian: scuola reclute) during which they are allowed to go home on week-ends. There are two boot camp start per year : January (Winter) and June (Summer). During the recruitment process, recruits can choose whether they would like to serve during summer or winter.
In the first seven weeks of boot camp, recruits receive "General Basic Instruction" (German: Allgemeine Grundausbildung; French: Instruction de base générale; Italian: Istruzione di base generale). During this period, recruits are instructed by their sergeants to military tactics, the use of weaponry (including SIG SG 550) and other equipment, marksmanship, self-defense skills, buddy- and self- aid, CBRN defense, basic survival skills, etc. Recruits are also educated to military life, including how to speak to their superiors, how to clean their weapons and combat shoes, how to clean the barracks, etc. During this period, recruits practice sport on a daily basis, including foot drill, running, team sports, push-ups, etc., and a few kilometers' march (up to 50 km) for some weeks.
The second phase of six weeks is devoted to function-specific basic instructions (German: Funktionsgrundausbildung; French: Instruction de base spécifique à la fonction; Italian: Istruzione di base alla funzione), where recruits learn skills specific to their job.
In the third phase, called "instruction in formation" (German: Verbandsausbildung; French: Instruction en formation; Italian: Istruzione di reparto), battlegroups and battalions are formed.
United Kingdom: British armed forces recruits train in two phases. The length of Phase 1 recruit training varies according to service and trade. The British Army Phase 1 training, for all enlisted units other than infantry, lasts 14 weeks. Infantry units of the British Army undergo a combined 28 weeks basic training, with the exception of the Parachute Regiment (30 weeks), Guards Regiments (30 weeks) and the Royal Gurkha Rifles (36 weeks).
The Royal Air Force provides 10 weeks of basic training for all enlisted recruits, regardless of trade, and is delivered at RAF Halton.
The Royal Navy provides 10 weeks of basic recruit training for all enlisted recruits, with the exception of the Royal Marines, delivered at HMS Raleigh. The Royal Marines (excluding the Royal Marines band), undertake 32 weeks of basic training, delivered at Commando Training Centre Royal Marines.
Phase One is initial recruit training designed to bring all recruits to a similar standard of basic military ability. Upon completion of Phase 1 training, recruits (with the exception of Army infantry roles, and the Royal Marine Commandos) will progress to their trade specific Phase Two training, which consists of courses of varying duration to prepare recruits for their assigned role.
Officer recruits into the UK Armed Forces undergo the following Basic training:
British Army - 44 weeks, delivered at Royal Military Academy (RMA) in Sandhurst.
Royal Air Force - 24 weeks, delivered at RAF College Cranwell (MIOTC).
Royal Navy - 30 weeks (split into two equal phases of 15 weeks each), delivered at Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) in Dartmouth.
Royal Marines - 15 months, delivered at Commando Training Centre Royal Marines, with 3 weeks towards the end of the course in the United States.
Upon completion of their Officer recruit training, cadets will then progress to their trade specific training of varying length.
The British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force manage their own Phase One and Phase Two training establishments.
United States: In the United States, recruit training in the U.S. Army is called Basic Combat Training (BCT); U.S. Army Combat Arms MOS (11 Series, 19 series, 13 series, 12 series) and Military Police MOS (31 series) undergo One Station Unit Training (OSUT) which involves BCT, Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and Specialized Training (such as Bradley, or Mortar School, or Gunnery) all in one. In the U.S. Air and Space Forces it is called Basic Military Training (BMT). In the U.S. Navy, U.S. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | Upon completion of their Officer recruit training, cadets will then progress to their trade specific training of varying length.
The British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force manage their own Phase One and Phase Two training establishments.
United States: In the United States, recruit training in the U.S. Army is called Basic Combat Training (BCT); U.S. Army Combat Arms MOS (11 Series, 19 series, 13 series, 12 series) and Military Police MOS (31 series) undergo One Station Unit Training (OSUT) which involves BCT, Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and Specialized Training (such as Bradley, or Mortar School, or Gunnery) all in one. In the U.S. Air and Space Forces it is called Basic Military Training (BMT). In the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard it is called "Recruit Training" (commonly known as Boot Camp).
Some services present a badge or other award to denote completion of recruit training. The Army typically issues the Army Service Ribbon (issued after completion of Advanced Individual Training), and the Air Force presents the Air Force Training Ribbon and the Airman's Coin. The Marine Corps issue the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor once initial training is complete to signify that the recruits are now Marines. The Navy replaces the "RECRUIT" ball cap the recruits have worn throughout training with the "NAVY" ball cap upon successful completion of "Battle Stations". The United States Coast Guard's recruit training graduates place a Coast Guard Medallion on their ball cap.
For honor graduates of basic training, the Air Force, Coast Guard, and Navy present a Basic Training Honor Graduate Ribbon. The Navy and Marine Corps often meritoriously advance the top graduates of each division one pay-grade (up to a maximum of E-3).
U.S. Army: In the United States Army, recruits are sent to Basic Combat Training in a location designated according to the military Military Occupational Specialty, or MOS, which is selected upon enlistment.
Initial Entry Training (IET) is divided into two parts, which commonly take place at two different locations, depending on the chosen MOS:
Basic Combat Training, or BCT, is a ten-week training cycle. This period does not include "Reception Week" during which recruits are being slotted to their training companies (troops for cavalry). During reception, trainees get Sexual Harassment/Assault Response & Prevention training during IET, as of 30 July 2021.
Advanced Individual Training, or AIT, is where new soldiers receive specific training in their chosen MOS. The length of AIT training varies depending on the MOS and can last anywhere from four weeks to nearly one year.
Several MOSs (mainly combat arms) combine both basic training and AIT in a single combined course called One Station Unit Training (OSUT), which can last up to 22 weeks. The attitude and environment remain the same throughout the entire training cycle, including drill instructors. Essentially, OSUT is an extended version of Basic Training, especially for Infantry OSUT, which remains on the same basic soldiering tasks for the entire cycle, although in greater detail. Infantry OSUT is conducted at the United States Army Infantry School at Fort Moore, and is 22 weeks long.
The U.S. Army has four sites for BCT:
Fort Moore at Columbus, Georgia
Fort Jackson at Columbia, South Carolina
Fort Leonard Wood at St. Robert, Missouri
Fort Sill at Lawton, Oklahoma
During Basic Combat Training, Army recruits learn a variety of basic combat skills including: Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM), land navigation, patrolling, securing and defending a position, drill and ceremony, fireteam formations and assaults, communications and use of AN/PRC-119 radio, combat lifesaving skills, 9-line medevac, reporting intelligence, hand grenades, Claymore mines, M203/M320 grenade launcher, M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), M240B machine gun, M2 .50 caliber machine gun, MK-19, and AT-4 anti-tank weapon. Training also includes combat conditioning by running an obstacle course, the Confidence Course, conducting marches of varying distances up to 12 miles, physical training, and Modern Army Combatives Program (MACP), a martial arts program based on the combination of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, judo, Muay Thai, boxing, and a number of others. Recruits are trained to adopt the Army "Warrior Ethos", and to memorize and live by the Soldier's Creed.
BCT is divided into three phases. During Phase I, (also known as "Red Phase") recruits are subject to "Total Control," meaning their every action is monitored and constantly corrected by drill sergeants. The first week of training is commonly referred to as "Hell Week," due to the intense period of adjustment required on the part of the new recruits. Marches are common throughout basic training. Recruits are sent to the "gas chamber" during Phase I, as part of training for defensive chemical warfare. They are also introduced to their standard-issue weapon, the M16A2 rifle, the M16A4 rifle, or M4 carbine.
In Phase II (also known as "White Phase") soldiers begin actually firing weapons, starting with the rifle or carbine (M4A1). Other weapons the recruit becomes familiarized with include various grenades (such as the M67 fragmentation grenade) and grenade launchers (such as the M203). Recruits are then familiarized with the bayonet, anti-tank/armor weaponry and other heavy weapons. The course also includes an obstacle course which the soldiers are expected to negotiate in a certain amount of time. Additionally, Phase II includes continual, intense PT, along with drill and ceremony training. At the conclusion of Phase II, Soldiers are to demonstrate proficiency with the various weaponry with which they trained.
Phase III or "Blue Phase," is the culmination and the most challenging of all the training phases. A final PT test is administered during the first week. Recruits who fail are frequently retested, often up until the morning of their cycle's graduation. If they do not pass, then they are recycled to another platoon that is in an earlier phase of the training cycle until they meet the fitness standards. The final PT Test is the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). Usually, a soldier needs to score at least 60 points in each APFT category (pushups, planks, and 2 mile run) to pass, but in Basic Combat Training, only 50 points are required; the soldier will nevertheless take another APFT with a 60-point requirement at AIT. During Blue Phase, the recruits move on to such longer and more intensive "bivouac" and FTX (Field Training Exercises) as nighttime combat operations. Drill sergeants will make much of this an adversarial process by working against the recruits in many of the night operations and trying to foil plans, etc.
Upon completion of Basic Combat Training, a recruit is now a soldier, and has developed skills to operate in a combat environment, as a basic rifleman and to perform his or her MOS-specific duties under fire.
U.S. Marine Corps: The United States Marine Corps Recruit Depots are located at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, and Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California. Men and women go to either, depending on whether they were recruited east or west of the Mississippi River. Until 2021, women only trained at Parris Island. Marine Corps boot camp is the longest basic training, excluding Army One Station Unit Training (OSUT), in-processing & out-processing is included unlike the other branches as the other branches do not contain this in their Basic Training duration length. Formerly, recruits were referred to as either "(the) private(s)" or "(the) recruit(s)" from day one of Recruit Training. Since the 1990s, they are referred to as "(the) recruit(s)" alone until they earn the title of Marine.
Marine Corps Recruit Training (MCRT) is a 13-week program that is divided up into three four-week phases and further broken down into individual training days. While there are 69 individual training days, recruits also go through pre- and post-training processing where recruits are afforded relatively little freedom. Phase one mainly consists of learning recruit life protocol, physical training, MCMAP training, academic classes, initial drill, a series inspection, and the confidence course. West coast recruits also do swim qualification during this phase. Phase two is completely in the field at Camp Pendleton for west coast recruits, with the first two weeks being spent on marksmanship training and qualification with the M16A4 service rifle, and the last week in the field learning skills such as fireteam formations, land navigation, and hikes. For east coast recruits, phase two is swim qualification, rifle qualification, and Team Week, a week of maintenance duties for the island as a show of how to perform base support tasks while still keeping military bearing and attention to detail. Phase three brings the San Diego recruits back to the recruit depot where they finish up with final drill, final inspection, more PT and confidence courses, and graduation. During third phase, west coast recruits also go back into the field one last time to do the Crucible event. Parris Island recruits finish with field training, final drill and inspection, the Crucible, and graduation. Note that recruits going to either depot receive exactly the same training, if in a different order. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | For east coast recruits, phase two is swim qualification, rifle qualification, and Team Week, a week of maintenance duties for the island as a show of how to perform base support tasks while still keeping military bearing and attention to detail. Phase three brings the San Diego recruits back to the recruit depot where they finish up with final drill, final inspection, more PT and confidence courses, and graduation. During third phase, west coast recruits also go back into the field one last time to do the Crucible event. Parris Island recruits finish with field training, final drill and inspection, the Crucible, and graduation. Note that recruits going to either depot receive exactly the same training, if in a different order. An important part of this process is training recruits to adopt and live by the motto, "Every Marine a rifleman".
Upon completion, recruits proceed to receive further training at the School of Infantry (SOI). All non-infantry MOS Marines are trained at the Marine Combat Training Battalion (MCT), while infantry MOS Marines are trained at the Infantry Training Battalion (ITB).
MCT and ITB training is conducted at one of two locations, SOI-East at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina (for Parris Island graduates) and SOI-West at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California (for San Diego graduates).
Marine Combat Training Battalion (MCT) is a 29-day course. Marines learn the basics of combat marksmanship, counter-improvised explosive device techniques, how to conduct the defense of a position, convoy operations, combat formations, fireteam assaults, patrolling, urban warfare, use of the AN/PRC-119 radio, reporting military intelligence, land navigation, and the use of hand grenades, the M203 grenade launcher, M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and M240 machine gun. Training also includes combat conditioning by running an obstacle course, conducting marches, physical training, and Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. Upon completion of Marine Combat Training, the Marine is to have gained the knowledge and ability to operate in a combat environment as a basic rifleman and to perform his or her primary duties under fire. (The main contrast with Army recruit training is that nearly identical training is integrated into Basic Combat Training, so there is no follow-on school.) Upon completion, Marines proceed to their MOS-specific school.
In Infantry Training Battalion (ITB), infantry MOS (03XX) Marines receive 59 days of training in infantry skills, including advanced marksmanship, combat patrolling, land navigation, and a wide array of other infantry skills. Upon completion of ITB, newly qualified Marine infantrymen proceed to their assigned units.
U.S. Navy: The United States Navy currently operates boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, located at Naval Station Great Lakes, near North Chicago, Illinois. Instead of having Drill Sergeants or Drill Instructors like other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, the U.S. Navy has RDCs (Recruit Division Commanders) that are assigned to each division. Training lasts approximately eight weeks (although some recruits will spend as many as nine weeks in training due to the somewhat complicated processing cycle). Days are counted by a system that lists the week and day that they are on, for example, 7-3 for week 7 day 3. The first approximate week is counted P-1, P-2, etc. which denotes that it is a processing day and does not count as part of their 8-week training period. Recruits are instructed on military drill, watchstanding, basic seamanship, water survival skills, first aid, basic shipboard damage control, firefighting, shipboard communication, familiarization with the M9 pistol and Mossberg 500 shotgun (the Navy no longer gives instruction on the M16 in boot camp), pass the confidence chamber (tear-gas-filled chamber), PT, and the basic essentials on Navy life. Recruits also attend many classes throughout boot camp on subjects such as Equal Opportunity, Sexual Assault Victim Intervention, Uniform Code of Military Justice, recognition of naval aircraft and vessels, U.S. naval history, and more. In order for recruits to pass boot camp, they are physically and mentally tested on a 12-hour exercise called Battle Stations which consists of 12 different scenarios involving firefighting, navigating smoke filled compartments, first-aid knowledge, survival at sea, mass casualties, shipboard flood control, bomb detection, and many other skills that they have been learning in the previous 7 weeks. After completion of boot camp, freshly minted sailors are sent either to various "A" Schools located across the United States—where they begin training to receive their ratings (jobs)—or to apprenticeship training, where they then enter the fleet without a designation.
The Navy formerly operated Recruit Training Centers in San Diego, California; Orlando, Florida; Meridian, Mississippi; and Port Deposit (Bainbridge), Maryland. From 1942 to 1946—during and immediately following World War II—the Navy had two additional training sites: Naval Training Station (USNTS) Sampson (renamed Sampson Air Force Base in 1950), near Seneca Lake, New York, where over 400,000 recruits were trained, and Farragut Naval Training Station in Bayview, Idaho.
U.S. Air and Space Forces: The U.S. Air and Space Forces' Basic Military Training (BMT) is seven and a half weeks long, as they do not count the first week ("Week 0"). BMT is 63 calendar days long. It is conducted at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Formerly, trainees were referred to as "airman" from day one of BMT. This has been changed; now, personnel are referred to as trainees until the Airman's Coin Ceremony in the eighth week of training, when they receive their Airman's Coin. Trainees receive military instruction (including the Air Force core values, flight and individual drill, and living area inspections), academic classes (covering topics such as Air Force history, dress and appearance, military customs and courtesies, ethics, security, and alcohol/drug abuse prevention and treatment), and field training (including protection against biological and chemical attack, basic marksmanship on the M4 carbine as well as self-aid buddy care). Following BMT, airmen/guardians go to a technical school (or 'tech school') where they learn the specifics of their Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC), which is equivalent to the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) in the Army and Marines, the Navy's NEC (Naval Enlisted Classification) code, or the Coast Guard's ratings.
All non-prior-service enlistees are required to complete BMT, including those enlisting in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command. Reserve component enlistees receive the same training as their active-duty counterparts. Credit can be given on a case-by-case basis for enlistees with college credit. Eagle Scouts and service in the Civil Air Patrol qualify for promotion to E-2 (airman) or E-3 (airman first class) upon graduation from BMT. The stripes are not worn until graduation, though trainees are paid at the higher pay grade.
Lackland AFB has been associated with BMT for almost the Air Force's entire history. From 1950 to 1956, 300,000 airmen received BMT at Sampson Air Force Base in New York. In 1951, Parks Air Force Base in Dublin, California, became a BMT center, with training beginning in March 1952. BMT at Parks AFB ceased later in the decade and the installation was transferred to the U.S. Army in 1959. For a brief time between 1966 and 1968, the Air Force operated a second BMT at Amarillo Air Force Base in Amarillo, Texas.
Unlike the Army and Navy, but like the Marine Corps (throughout boot camp) and Coast Guard (during the first section of boot camp), trainees are required to refer to all airmen and guardians of all ranks as "sir" or "ma'am". Trainees are required to preface speaking to military training instructors with their reporting statement: "Sir/Ma'am, Trainee (the recruit's surname) reports as ordered".
An additional two weeks of BMT was added to the program on November 1, 2008, extending the duration of BMT from six and a half weeks to eight and a half weeks. BMT has been tailored to incorporate some of the additional warfighting skills to coincide with increased Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) rotations and more frequent support of its sister services during those rotations. In 2015, BMT was shortened once again to seven and a half weeks. Trainees still stay at Lackland for eight and half weeks, however, the eighth week following graduation they are moved to a more relaxed environment under a program called Airman's Week, which is designed to transition trainees to technical training.
U.S. Coast Guard: Recruit training for the U.S. Coast Guard is held at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May in Cape May, New Jersey. The Coast Guard base on Government Island (now known as Coast Guard Island) Alameda, California was also used as a second major recruit training center until it was closed in 1982. The official standard recruit training cycle lasts eight weeks. A limited number of recruits may face reversion to earlier weeks of training should they exhibit egregious deficiencies in attitude and/or aptitude. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Recruit training | In 2015, BMT was shortened once again to seven and a half weeks. Trainees still stay at Lackland for eight and half weeks, however, the eighth week following graduation they are moved to a more relaxed environment under a program called Airman's Week, which is designed to transition trainees to technical training.
U.S. Coast Guard: Recruit training for the U.S. Coast Guard is held at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May in Cape May, New Jersey. The Coast Guard base on Government Island (now known as Coast Guard Island) Alameda, California was also used as a second major recruit training center until it was closed in 1982. The official standard recruit training cycle lasts eight weeks. A limited number of recruits may face reversion to earlier weeks of training should they exhibit egregious deficiencies in attitude and/or aptitude.
As an alternate for those recruits possessing prior military service or civilian job skills, Coast Guard recruit basic training offers an abbreviated route to completion of basic training with the Direct Entry Petty Officer Training program (DEPOT) "The goal of the Direct Entry Petty Officer Training Course is to produce petty officers who on the basis of their civilian professions, prior military experience, or a combination of both" are otherwise duly qualified.
Coast Guard boot camp covers basic seamanship, drill, military bearing, and firefighting. The U.S. Coast Guard is unique among the armed services in that it fires the SIG Sauer P229R pistol as well as the M16 rifle during the training.
Although the Coast Guard is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, rather than the Department of Defense, it is by law and tradition a branch of the United States Armed Forces. As with all military personnel, coast guardsmen are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Due to the Coast Guard's unique mission set – including CONUS and OCONUS defense operations, search and rescue and maritime law enforcement – there are added requirements to maintain high physical fitness standards and military bearing. Due to its unusual, diverse and difficult mission, the U.S. Coast Guard is the most selective in recruiting and training standards. As an example, the Coast Guard Academy is the only service academy that uses competitive admissions for prospective officer candidates rather than congressional appointment.
During their time at Cape May, recruits are subjected to the usual "boot camp" atmosphere of direct instruction and intense motivation. Recruits must adhere to strict rules such as hygiene and uniform regulations and obey all lawful orders. The recruits are designated as seaman recruits (SR; E-1). Unique to the Coast Guard among the armed services, recruits successfully completing basic recruit training are advanced to the rank of seaman apprentice/fireman apprentice (SA/FA; E-2) or seaman/fireman (SN/FN; E-3) upon graduation—the difference generally based on the level of higher education the graduate possesses. Coast Guard drill instructors are called "company commanders" and hold a rank ranging from petty officer 2nd class (E-5) up to senior chief petty officer (E-8). Coast Guard companies have approximately two or three company commanders and anywhere from 20 to over 100 recruits.
After completing boot camp, recruits can select their rating and then attend an "A" school. Few graduates go straight to "A" school; most spend up to a year in the fleet as "non-rates". "A" school is a long-term technical school providing specific instruction about a rating. The "A" schools last two to six months and usually occur at TRACEN Yorktown, Yorktown, Virginia or TRACEN Petaluma, Petaluma, California. Aviation related ratings train at the Aviation Technical Training Center at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Some ratings have an available on-the-job apprenticeship training option known as "striking" instead of attending an "A" school.
See also: Military education and training
Milling - military training exercise
Military Academy
Officer Candidate School
Resocialization
Psychological conditioning
Military recruitment
Military service
References:
External links: USAREC (2003). U.S. Army DEP Guide: Army Terminology Archived 2003-12-27 at the Wayback Machine. United States Army Recruiting Command. Fort Knox, KY (USA).
USMC Recruit Depot San Diego. Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego Archived 2007-04-13 at the Wayback Machine Headquarters Western Recruiting Region. MCRD San Diego, CA (USA)
Media:The Ultimate Basic Training Guidebook: Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Surviving Boot Camp, by Sgt. Michael Volkin. Savas Beatie, 2005. ISBN 1-932714-11-1 |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Refused flank | Detail: In the oblique order attack, the commander of the army would intentionally weaken one portion of the line to concentrate their troops elsewhere. They would then create an angled or oblique formation, refuse the weakened flank and attack the strongest flank of the enemy with a concentration of force. Once the critical flank was secure, the commander would wheel the troops 90 degrees to roll up the enemy line, and the angled formation would continue to advance. The echelons not involved in the assault served the important function of holding the rival army in check by remaining defensive and threatening, thus offering protection to the attacking echelons by keeping the enemy force occupied. On occasion both commanders would attempt the same tactic (e.g.the Diadochi trying to replicate Alexander's tactics). The oblique order was a tactic particularly favored by King Frederick II of Prussia.
Requirements and disadvantages: Proper execution of Frederick's oblique order involved three main requirements. First, each officer needed to know exactly how to form a battalion from "line to column, maintain its place in the column, and then redeploy either normally, or en echelon for the final attack." The next two necessities were that the soldiers marched in close formation, and in step.: 109 Cadenced marching had not been used since the days of the Roman Empire; however, uncadenced marching, or 'route step', required loose marching order to ensure that the soldiers did not bump into each other, and the oblique order could not have been implemented in such unstructured formations.: 110 Lastly, for the oblique order to be successful the leaders of the opposing forces had to be unaware of the Frederician technique, which could be countered by a quick response from them; the attack required a confused enemy army incapable of a rapid change in their deployment.: 109 Frederick's oblique order was born of the desire to overwhelm a weak point in the enemy line, thus allowing a smaller Prussian force superiority on the battlefield.: 310
There were some dangers with attempting an oblique order in battle, namely the chance of opening up a fatal gap between the two wings, or that the two forces may completely lose contact.: 108 Moreover, the Frederician oblique order called for a long march, either through the night, or in the early hours of the morning of the assault, which meant that the advancing Prussian forces were almost always fatigued by the time they engaged their enemy.: 312 Another risky aspect of the oblique order was that it required total determination, as, once it was executed, the assaulting echelons would be deployed with no chance of being recalled.: 311
History:
Antiquity: The first recorded use of a tactic similar to the oblique order was in 371 BC at the Battle of Leuctra, when the Thebans under Epaminondas defeated the Spartans by reinforcing their left flank to fifty rows deep, rather than spreading their troops evenly across the front. This move might have had its origin in the previous Battle of Tegyra, where the Thebans under Pelopidas, a political ally to Epaminondas, placed their best troops in close array on the left flank. Philip of Macedon learned Epaminondas' technique while held prisoner at Thebes, and his successors, including Alexander the Great, used it in their campaigns.
Asclepiodotus mentions the so called oblique phalanx (Greek: λοξὴ φάλαγξ loxē phalanx) in his Tactica. Vegetius is known to have written about the tactic that became the oblique order of battle.: 107
Medieval: A variation of the formation known as the hammer and anvil was used with devastating effect by Khalid ibn al-Walid in the Battle of Yarmouk AD 636. He massed all his cavalry behind his right flank, and led a combined cavalry-infantry assault on the Byzantine left, while simultaneously ordering his centre and left to make minor holding attacks to tie down the enemy center and right. Thus the Byzantine left was completely destroyed and with Byzantine cavalry driven off the battlefield, the center was enveloped, leading to a resounding Arab victory.
Early modern era: Subsequent military commanders in the early modern world again employed such tactics once they rediscovered the writings of antiquity.: 309 In the Battle of Pavia, Imperial commander in chief Fernando d'Avalos advanced in oblique order. In the Battle of Breitenfeld, fellow Imperial general Johann Tserclaes von Tilly also made an oblique advance against the Swedish and Saxon forces of Gustavus Adolphus and was repulsed only due to the Swedes' superior combined arms tactics. Simon Goodenough wrote of Tilly's manoeuvre: "It was a manoeuvre worthy of Alexander the Great and Epaminondas and one that was to be repeated with startling success by Frederick the Great." Yet another imperial general, Raimondo Montecuccoli, who maintained that the best forces should always be positioned on the flanks with the more powerful wing initiating the attack, was the first of the more modern generals to employ tactics similar to the oblique order of battle, and Frederick II of Prussia was well aware of the texts of Montecuccoli.: 107
The Battle of Rossbach in 1757 shows the oblique order at its worst and at its best. The large marginally trained and poorly disciplined Allied army attempted an ill-conceived and badly executed oblique attack on the Prussian left. The far smaller but highly trained and superbly disciplined Prussian army countered with a well-conceived and perfectly executed oblique attack of their own on the advancing Allied right. The apparent Prussian retreat goaded the Allies on, further disorganizing their dense columns already in disarray from the march. Using intense musket and cannon fire from the front and a charge from hidden cavalry in the flank and rear, the Prussians quickly destroyed the Allied right and routed their Army.
Prussian generals under Frederick the Great used the tactic in their own manner. The Prussian attacking army sent a strong advance force of infantry directly towards the enemy. The frontline troops occupied the attention of the enemy and the rest of the troops would maneuver behind it. They could also exploit any locally available obstacle, using hindering terrain or the smoke of cannon and musket fire to mask maneuvers. The Prussian cavalry would be stationed so as to cover the flank of the main body. Frederick even instructed his senior officers that numerical inferiority was indeed an advantage when it came to implementing 'his oblique order', as they could merely weaken one wing while reinforcing the other.: 108
The main body of the army would then spread their forces to one side and deploy in an echelon (or the "oblique order"), spreading their firepower and attacking the stronger enemy flank with increasing pressure. The protective cavalry would then exploit any enemy collapse. Frederick first implemented his oblique order at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, in 1745,: 83 with a subsequent major victory, despite numerical inferiority, at the Battle of Leuthen in 1757.: 128 It was in this decade, between the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years' War, that Frederick had his army perfect all the manoeuvres of the oblique order of battle.: 121
The theoretical seeds of Frederick's oblique order can be seen in two of the Seelowitz Instructions' ('Instruction für die Cavalleire', 17 March, Oeuvres, XXX, 33; 'Disposition für die sämmtlichen Regimenter Infanterie', 25 March Oeuvres, XXX, 75) in March 1742.: 309 Members of the German General Staff maintained that Frederick was only dedicated to the oblique order after the Second Silesian War, with full-hearted application of the tactic in the Seven Years' War; however, Otto Herrman disputed the Staff Historians' insubstantial definitions of oblique order and claimed that Frederick had sought to utilize oblique at Mollwitz and Chotusitz. The most likely and poignant arguments for the advent of Fredrician oblique order came from Rudolf Keibel, who held that Frederick had indeed been implementing it since Hohenfriedberg.: 309
Since the Austrians had been taught valuable lessons in the Wars for Silesia, Frederician tactics were, as Frederick knew from his informants, a subject of discussion in the Viennese cabinet, where Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, remarked that 'Old Fritz' preferred a one-winged-attack style of warfare that burdened his troops heavily.: 312 Then, in 1760, official documents obtained in the capture of Major-General Gzettritz offered direct insight into Frederick's oblique tactics, meaning that Frederick could henceforth be engaged with a well-informed army capable of countering his tactics.: 312 Furthermore, the Prussian forces, being heavily fatigued by the time they reached their target, lacked the ability to repel a well-situated enemy, such as at Kunersdorf, or an enemy that made a sudden about-turn, such as at the Battle of Zorndorf or the Battle of Torgau.: 313
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Regular army | Bibliography: Woodward, David. Armies of the world, 1854–1914. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, cop. 1978. ISBN 0-283-98243-8 |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | Definitions: Konrad Repgen (1987) pointed out that belligerents may have multiple intentions to wage a war, may have had ulterior motives that historians can no longer discover, and therefore, calling something a 'religious war' (or 'war of succession') based merely on a motive that a belligerent may have had, does not necessarily make it one. Although ulterior motives may never be known, war proclamations do provide evidence for a belligerent's legitimisation of the war to the public. Repgen therefore concluded:
...wars should only be termed [religious wars], in so far as at least one of the belligerents lays claim to 'religion', a religious law, in order to justify his warfare and to substantiate publicly why his use of military force against a political authority should be a bellum iustum.
Philip Benedict (2006) argued that Repgen's definition of 'religious war' was too narrow, because sometimes both legitimisation and motivation can be established. David Onnekink (2013) added that a 'religious war' is not necessarily the same as a 'holy war' (bellum sacrum): "After all, it is perfectly acceptable to suggest that a worldly prince, say, a Lutheran prince in Reformation Germany, engages in religious warfare using mercenary armies." While a holy war needs to be authorised by a religious leader and fought by pious soldiers, a religious war does not, he reasoned. His definition of 'war of religion' thus became:
a war legitimised by religion and/or for religious ends (but possibly fought by secular leaders and soldiers).
Applicability of religion to war: Some commentators have questioned the applicability of religion to war, in part because the word "religion" itself is difficult to define, particularly posing challenges when one tries to apply it to non-Western cultures. Secondly, it has been argued that religion is difficult to isolate as a factor, and is often just one of many factors driving a war. For example, many armed conflicts may be simultaneously wars of succession as well as wars of religion when two rival claimants to a throne also represent opposing religions. Examples include the War of the Three Henrys and the Succession of Henry IV of France during the French Wars of Religion, the Hessian War and the War of the Jülich Succession during the Reformation in Germany, and the Jacobite risings (including the Williamite–Jacobite wars) during the Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland.
John Morreall and Tamara Sonn (2013) have argued that since there is no consensus on definitions of "religion" among scholars and no way to isolate "religion" from the rest of the more likely motivational dimensions (social, political, and economic); it is incorrect to label any violent event as "religious".
Theologian William T. Cavanaugh in his Myth of Religious Violence (2009) argues that the very concept of "religion" is a modern Western concept that was invented recently in history. As such, he argues that the concept of "religious violence" or "religious wars" are incorrectly used to anachronistically label people and conflicts as participants in religious ideologies that never existed in the first place. The concept of "religion" as an abstraction which entails distinct sets of beliefs or doctrines is a recently invented concept in the English language since such usage began with texts from the 17th century due to the splitting of Christendom during the Protestant Reformation and more prevalent colonization or globalization in the age of exploration which involved contact with numerous foreign and indigenous cultures with non-European languages. It was in the 17th century that the concept of "religion" received its modern shape despite the fact that the Bible, the Quran, and other ancient sacred texts did not have a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written. The modern word religion comes from the Latin word religio which, in the ancient and medieval world, was understood as an individual virtue of worship, never as doctrine, practice, or actual source of knowledge. Cavanaugh argued that all wars that are classed as "religious" have secular (economic or political) ramifications. Similar opinions were expressed as early as the 1760s, during the Seven Years' War, widely recognized to be "religious" in motivation, noting that the warring factions were not necessarily split along confessional lines as much as along secular interests.
There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and there is no clear definition of jewishness, it could be defined by religion, roots of national origin and ethnic. Jewishness could have been multi-racial. In the Quran, the Arabic word deen is often translated as "religion" in modern translations, but up to the mid-17th century, translators expressed deen as "law".
It was in the 19th century that the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", and "Confucianism" first emerged. Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of "religion" since there was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. According to the philologist Max Müller, what is called ancient religion today, would have only been understood as "law" by the people in the ancient world. In Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as "religion", also means law. Throughout the classical Indian subcontinent, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of power.
According to McGarry & O'Leary (1995), it is evident that religion as one aspect of a people's cultural heritage may serve as a cultural marker or ideological rationalization for a conflict that has deeper ethnic and cultural differences. They argued this specifically in the case of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, often portrayed as a religious conflict of a Catholic vs. a Protestant faction, while the more fundamental cause of the conflict was supposedly ethnic or nationalistic rather than religious in nature. Since the native Irish were mostly Catholic and the later British-sponsored immigrants were mainly Protestant, the terms become shorthand for the two cultures, but McGarry & O'Leary argued that it would be inaccurate to describe the conflict as a religious one.
In their 2015 review of violence and peacemaking in world religions, Irfan Omar and Michael Duffey stated: "This book does not ignore violence committed in the name of religion. Analyses of case studies of seeming religious violence often conclude that ethnic animosities strongly drive violence."
Prevalence: The definition of 'religious war' and the applicability of religion to war have a strong influence on how many wars may be properly labelled 'religious wars', and thus how prevalent religious wars have been as opposed to other wars.
According to Kalevi Holsti (1991, p. 308, Table 12.2), who catalogued and categorised wars from 1648 to 1989 into 24 categories of 'issues that generated wars', 'protect[ion of] religious confrères' (co-religionists) was (one of) the primary cause(s) of 14% of all wars during 1648–1714, 11% during 1715–1814, 10% during 1815–1914, and 0% during 1918–1941 and 1945–1989. Additionally, he found 'ethnic/religious unification/irredenta' to be (one of) the primary cause(s) of 0% of all wars during 1648–1714 and 1715–1814, 6% during 1815–1914, 17% during 1918–1941, and 12% during 1945–1989.
In their 1997 Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod documented 1763 notable wars in world history, out of which 121 wars were in the "religious wars" category in the index. They note that before the 17th century, much of the "reasons" for conflicts were explained through the lens of religion and that after that time wars were explained through the lens of wars as a way to further sovereign interests. Some commentators have concluded that only 123 wars (7%) out of these 1763 wars were fundamentally originated by religious motivations. Andrew Holt (2018) traced the origin of the "only 123 religious wars" claim back to the 2008 book The Irrational Atheist of far-right activist Vox Day, which he notes is slightly adjusted compared to the 121 that is indeed found in the Encyclopedia of Wars itself.
The Encyclopedia of War, edited by Gordon Martel, using the criteria that the armed conflict must involve some overt religious action, concludes that 6% of the wars listed in their encyclopedia can be labelled religious wars.
Holy war concepts in religious traditions: While early empires could be described as henotheistic, i.e. dominated by a single god of the ruling elite (as Marduk in the Babylonian empire, Assur in the Assyrian empire, etc. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | Some commentators have concluded that only 123 wars (7%) out of these 1763 wars were fundamentally originated by religious motivations. Andrew Holt (2018) traced the origin of the "only 123 religious wars" claim back to the 2008 book The Irrational Atheist of far-right activist Vox Day, which he notes is slightly adjusted compared to the 121 that is indeed found in the Encyclopedia of Wars itself.
The Encyclopedia of War, edited by Gordon Martel, using the criteria that the armed conflict must involve some overt religious action, concludes that 6% of the wars listed in their encyclopedia can be labelled religious wars.
Holy war concepts in religious traditions: While early empires could be described as henotheistic, i.e. dominated by a single god of the ruling elite (as Marduk in the Babylonian empire, Assur in the Assyrian empire, etc.), or more directly by deifying the ruler in an imperial cult, the concept of "holy war" enters a new phase with the development of monotheism.
Ancient warfare and polytheism: During classical antiquity, the Greco-Roman world had a pantheon with particular attributes and interest areas. Ares personified war. While he received occasional sacrifice from armies going to war, there was only a very limited "cult of Ares". In Sparta, however, each company of youths sacrificed to Enyalios before engaging in ritual fighting at the Phoebaeum.
Hans M. Barstad (2008) claimed that this ancient Greek attitude to war and religion differed from that of ancient Israel and Judah: "Quite unlike what we find with the Greeks, holy war permeated ancient Israelite society." Moreover, ever since the pioneering study of Manfred Weippert, "»Heiliger Krieg« in Israel und Assyrien" (1972), scholars have been comparing the holy war concept in the (monotheistic) Hebrew Bible with other (polytheistic) ancient Near Eastern war traditions, and found "many [striking] similarities in phraseology and ideology".
Christianity: According to historian Edward Peters, before the 11th century, Christians had not developed a concept of holy war (bellum sacrum), whereby fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually meritorious act. During the ninth and tenth centuries, multiple invasions occurred which led some regions to make their own armies to defend themselves and this slowly lead to the emergence of the Crusades, the concept of "holy war", and terminology such as "enemies of God" in the 11th century. In early Christianity, St. Augustine's concept of just war (bellum iustum) was widely accepted, but warfare was not regarded as a virtuous activity and expressions of concern for the salvation of those who killed enemies in battle, regardless of the cause for which they fought, was common.
During the era of the Crusades, some of the Crusaders who fought in the name of God were recognized as the Milites Christi, the soldiers or the knights of Christ.
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns against the Muslim Conquests that were waged from the end of the 11th century through the 13th century. Originally, the goal of the Crusaders was the recapture of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims, and the provision of support to the besieged Christian Byzantine Empire which was waging a war against Muslim Seljuq expansion into Asia Minor and Europe proper. Later, Crusades were launched against other targets, either for religious reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Northern Crusades, or because of political conflicts, such as the Aragonese Crusade. In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II raised the level of the war from a bellum iustum (a "just war"), to a bellum sacrum (a "holy war").
Hinduism: This does not refer to religious conflict. Dharma-yuddha in Hindu texts, refers to the protocol to be followed by both parties at war. It sets the rules for both sides to conduct the war fairly (jus in bello). It is important in Vedic and epic literature such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The word Dharma may be interpreted variously as righteousness or responsibility or duty based on the context.
Neither the Mahabharata nor the Ramayana were religious conflicts. The Mahabharata was fought over the inheritance of the kingdom of Hastinapura. Ramayana was fought over the abduction of Rama's wife Sita by Ravana. The two epics are of great importance in Hindu tradition.
However, according to Torkel Berkke, the Mahabharata does not provide a clear discussion on who has the authority to initiate a war (jus ad bellum), nor on what makes a war just (bellum justum).
Islam: The Muslim conquests were a military expansion on an unprecedented scale, beginning in the lifetime of Muhammad and spanning the centuries, down to the Ottoman wars in Europe. Until the 13th century, the Muslim conquests were those of a more or less coherent empire, the Caliphate, but after the Mongol invasions, expansion continued on all fronts (other than Iberia which was lost in the Reconquista) for another half millennium until the final collapse of the Mughal Empire in the east and the Ottoman Empire in the west with the onset of the modern period.
There were also a number of periods of infighting among Muslims; these are known by the term Fitna and mostly concern the early period of Islam, from the 7th to 11th centuries, i.e. before the collapse of the Caliphate and the emergence of the various later Islamic empires.
While technically, the millennium of Muslim conquests could be classified as "religious war", the applicability of the term has been questioned.
The reason is that the very notion of a "religious war" as opposed to a "secular war" is the result of the Western concept of the separation of Church and State. No such division has ever existed in the Islamic world, and consequently, there cannot be a real division between wars that are "religious" from such that are "non-religious". Islam does not have any normative tradition of pacifism, and warfare has been integral part of Islamic history both for the defense and the spread of the faith since the time of Muhammad. This was formalised in the juristic definition of war in Islam, which continues to hold normative power in contemporary Islam, inextricably linking political and religious justification of war. This normative concept is known as Jihad, an Arabic word with the meaning "to strive; to struggle" (viz. "in the way of God"), which includes the aspect of struggle "by the sword".
The first forms of military jihad occurred after the migration (hijra) of Muhammad and his small group of followers to Medina from Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam. The first revelation concerning the struggle against the Meccans was Quran 22:39-40:
Permission ˹to fight back˺ is ˹hereby˺ granted to those being fought, for they have been wronged. And Allah is truly Most Capable of helping them ˹prevail˺. ˹They are˺ those who have been expelled from their homes for no reason other than proclaiming: "Our Lord is Allah." Had Allah not repelled ˹the aggression of˺ some people by means of others, destruction would have surely claimed monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which Allah's Name is often mentioned. Allah will certainly help those who stand up for Him. Allah is truly All-Powerful, Almighty.
This happened many times throughout history, beginning with Muhammad's battles against the polytheist Arabs including the Battle of Badr (624), and battles in Uhud (625), Khandaq (627), Mecca (630) and Hunayn (630).
Judaism: Reuven Firestone (2012) stated "that holy war is a common theme in the Hebrew Bible. Divinely legitimized through the authority of biblical scripture and its interpretation, holy war became a historical reality for the Jews of antiquity. Among at least some of the Jewish groups of the late Second Temple period until the middle of the second century, C.E., holy war was an operative institution. That is, Jews engaged in what is defined here as holy war." He mentioned the Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE), the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) as three examples of a "holy war" or "Commanded War" (Hebrew: מלחמת מצווה Milkhemet Mitzvah) in the eyes of Rabbinic Judaism at the time. He asserted that this concept may have re-emerged in modern times within some factions of the Zionist movement, particularly Revisionist Zionism.
In 2016, however, Firestone made a distinction between what he regarded as the Hebrew Bible's concept and the 'Western' concept of holy war:"Holy war" is a Western concept referring to war that is fought for religion, against adherents of other religions, often in order to promote religion through conversion, and with no specific geographic limitation. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | He mentioned the Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE), the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) as three examples of a "holy war" or "Commanded War" (Hebrew: מלחמת מצווה Milkhemet Mitzvah) in the eyes of Rabbinic Judaism at the time. He asserted that this concept may have re-emerged in modern times within some factions of the Zionist movement, particularly Revisionist Zionism.
In 2016, however, Firestone made a distinction between what he regarded as the Hebrew Bible's concept and the 'Western' concept of holy war:"Holy war" is a Western concept referring to war that is fought for religion, against adherents of other religions, often in order to promote religion through conversion, and with no specific geographic limitation. This concept does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, whose wars are not fought for religion or in order to promote it but, rather, in order to preserve religion and a religiously unique people in relation to a specific and limited geography.Several scholars regard war narratives in the Hebrew Bible, such as the war against the Midianites in Numbers 31, to be a holy war, with Niditch (1995) asserting the presence of a "priestly ideology of war in Numbers 31". Hamilton (2005) argued that the two major concerns of Number 31 are the idea that war is a defiling activity, but Israelite soldiers need to be ritually pure, so they may only fight wars for a holy cause, and are required to cleanse themselves afterwards to restore their ritual purity. The Israelite campaign against Midian was blessed by the Israelite god Yahweh, and could therefore be considered a holy war. Olson (2012), who believed the war narrative to be a fictional story with a theological purpose, noted that the Israelite soldiers' actions in Numbers 31 closely followed the holy war regulations set out in Deuteronomy 20:14, although Moses' commandment to also kill the captive male children and non-virgin women was a marked departure from these regulations. He concluded: "Many aspects of this holy war text may be troublesome to a contemporary reader. But understood within the symbolic world of the ancient writers of Numbers, the story of the war against the Midianites is a kind of dress rehearsal that builds confidence and hope in anticipation of the actual conquest of Canaan that lay ahead."
Dawn (2016, translating Rad 1958) stated: "From the earliest days of Israel's existence as a people, holy war was a sacred institution, undertaken as a cultic act of a religious community".
Other wars known to Judaism include a mandatory war and a voluntary war.
Shinto:
Sikhism:
Antiquity: In Greek antiquity, four (or five) wars were fought in and around the Panhellenic sanctuary at Delphi (the Pythia (Oracle) residing in the Temple of Apollo) against persons or states who allegedly committed sacrilegious acts before the god Apollo. The following are distinguished:
The First Sacred War (595–585 BCE)
The Second Sacred War (449–448 BCE)
The Third Sacred War (356–346 BCE)
The Fourth Sacred War (339–338 BCE)
The Fifth Sacred War (281–280 BCE)
Firestone (2012) stated that in the eyes of ancient Rabbinic Judaism, the Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE), the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) were "holy wars" or "Commanded Wars" (Hebrew: מלחמת מצווה Milkhemet Mitzvah).
Middle Ages:
Christianisation of Europe: According to Gregory of Tours' writings, King Clovis I of the Franks waged wars against other European nations who followed Arian Christianity, which was seen by Catholics as heretical. During his war with the Arian Visigoths, Clovis reportedly said: "I take it very hard that these Arians hold part of the Gauls. Let us go with God's help and conquer them and bring the land under our control."
The Saxon Wars (772–804) of Frankish king Charlemagne against the Saxons under Widukind were described by Jim Bradbury (2004) as "in essence a frontier struggle and a religious war against pagans – devil-worshippers according to Einhard." He noted that Charlemagne ordered the destruction of the Irminsul, an object sacred to the Saxons. Per Ullidtz (2014) stated that previous Frankish–Saxon conflicts spanning almost a century "had been mostly a border war", "but under Charles it changed character": because of "Charles' idea of unity, of a king over all German tribes, and of universal Christianity in all of his kingdom, it changed into a mission from heaven." Similarly, a successful Carolingian campaign against the Pannonian Avars in the 790s led to their forced conversion to Christianity. The earlier Merovingian conquests of Thuringia, Allemannia and Bavaria had also resulted in their Christianisation by 555, although the Frisians resisted with similar determinacy as the Saxons during the Frisian–Frankish wars (7th and 8th century), with both tribes killing several Christian missionaries in defence of their Germanic paganism, to the horror of Christian hagiographers.
Crusades: The Crusades are a prime example of wars whose religious elements have been extensively debated for centuries, with some groups of people in some periods emphasising, restoring or overstating the religious aspects, and other groups of people in some periods denying, nuancing or downplaying the religious aspects of the Crusades in favour of other factors. Winkler Prins/Encarta (2002) concluded: "The traditional explanation for the Crusades (a religious enthusiasm that found an outlet in a Holy War) has also retained its value in modern historical scholarship, keeping in mind the fact that it has been pointed out that a complex set of socio-economic and political factors allowed this enthusiasm to manifest itself."
The Crusades against Muslim expansion in the 11th century were recognized as a "holy war" or a bellum sacrum by later writers in the 17th century. The early modern wars against the Ottoman Empire were seen as a seamless continuation of this conflict by contemporaries.
Reconquista: Jim Bradbury (2004) noted that the belligerents in the Reconquista were not all equally motivated by religion, and that a distinction should be made between 'secular rulers' on the one hand, and on the other hand Christian military orders which came from elsewhere (including the three main orders of Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights), or were established inside Iberia (such as those of Santiago, Alcántara and Calatrava). "[The Knights] were more committed to religious war than some of their secular counterparts, were opposed to treating with Muslims and carried out raids and even atrocities, such as decapitating Muslim prisoners."
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Arab history as the Battle of Al-Uqab (معركة العقاب), was fought on 16 July 1212 and it was an important turning point in both the Reconquista and the medieval history of Spain. The forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his Christian rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre, Pedro II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal in battle against the Berber Muslim Almohad conquerors of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula.
Hussite Wars: The relative importance of the various factors that caused the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) is debated. Kokkonen & Sundell (2017) claimed that the death of king Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia on 19 August 1419 is the event that sparked the Hussite rebellion against his nominal heir Sigismund (then king of Germany, Hungary and Croatia), making it essentially a war of succession. Nolan (2006) named religion as one of several significant causes, summarising the Hussites' motives as "doctrinal as well as 'nationalistic' and constitutional", and providing a series of issues that led to war: the trial and execution of Jan Hus (1415) "provoked the conflict", the Defenestration of Prague (30 July 1419) "began the conflict", while "fighting began after King Wenceslaus died, shortly after the defenestration" (that is, after 19 August 1419). Nolan described the wars' goals and character as follows: "The main aim of the Hussites was to prevent the hated Sigismund mounting the throne of Bohemia, but fighting between Bohemian Hussites and Catholics spread into Moravia. (...) cross-class support gave the Hussite Wars a tripartite and even 'national' character unusual for the age, and a religious and social unity of purpose, faith, and hate". Winkler Prins/Encarta (2002) described the Hussites as a "movement which developed from a religious denomination to a nationalist faction, opposed to German and Papal influence; in the bloody Hussite Wars (1419–1438), they managed to resist." |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | Nolan described the wars' goals and character as follows: "The main aim of the Hussites was to prevent the hated Sigismund mounting the throne of Bohemia, but fighting between Bohemian Hussites and Catholics spread into Moravia. (...) cross-class support gave the Hussite Wars a tripartite and even 'national' character unusual for the age, and a religious and social unity of purpose, faith, and hate". Winkler Prins/Encarta (2002) described the Hussites as a "movement which developed from a religious denomination to a nationalist faction, opposed to German and Papal influence; in the bloody Hussite Wars (1419–1438), they managed to resist." It did not mention the succession of Wenceslaus by Sigismund, but noted elsewhere that it was Sigismund's policy of Catholic Church unity which prompted him to urge Antipope John XXIII to convene the Council of Constance in 1414, which ultimately condemned Jan Hus.
Soga–Mononobe conflict: Buddhism was formally introduced into Japan by missionaries from the kingdom of Baekje in 552. Adherents of the native Shinto religion resisted the spread of Buddhism, and several military conflicts broke out, starting with the Soga–Mononobe conflict (552–587) between the pro-Shinto Mononobe clan (and Nakatomi clan) and the pro-Buddhist Soga clan. Although the political power each of the clans could wield over the royal family was also an important factor, and was arguably a strategic reason for the Soga to adopt and promote Buddhism as a means to increase their authority, the religious beliefs from both doctrines, as well as religious explanations from events that happened after the arrival of Buddhism, were also causes of the conflict that escalated to war. Whereas the Soga argued that Buddhism was a better religion because it had come from China and Korea, whose civilisations were widely regarded as superior and to be emulated in Yamato (the central kingdom of Japan), the Mononobe and Nakatomi maintained that there should be continuity of tradition and that worshipping the native gods (kami) was in the best interest of the Japanese. Unable to reach a decision, Emperor Kinmei (r. 539–571) maintained Shinto as the royal religion, but allowed the Soga to erect a temple for the statue of Buddha. Afterwards, an epidemic broke out, which Shintoists attributed to the anger of the native gods to the intrusion of Buddhism; in reaction, some burnt down the Buddhist temple and threw the Buddha statue into a canal. However, the epidemic worsened, which Buddhists in turn interpreted as the anger of Buddha to the sacrilege committed against his temple and statue. Both during the 585 and 587 wars of succession, the opposing camps were drawn along the Shinto–Buddhist divide, and the Soga clan's victory resulted in the imposition of Buddhism as the Yamato court religion under the regency of Prince Shotoku.
Toltec religious wars: There have been several religious wars in the Toltec Empire of Mesoamerica (c. 980–1110) between devotees of Tezcatlipoca and followers of Quetzalcoatl; the latter lost and were driven to flee to the Yucatán Peninsula.
Early modern period:
European wars of religion: The term "religious war" was used to describe, controversially at the time, what are now known as the European wars of religion, and especially the then-ongoing Seven Years' War, from at least the mid 18th century. The Encyclopædia Britannica maintains that "[the] wars of religion of this period [were] fought mainly for confessional security and political gain".
In 16th-century France, there was a series of wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots primarily), known as the French Wars of Religion. In the first half of the 17th century, the German states, Scandinavia (Sweden, primarily) and Poland were beset by religious warfare during the Thirty Years War. Catholicism and Protestantism figured on the opposing sides of this conflict, though Catholic France took the side of the Protestants, but it did so for purely political reasons.
In the late 20th century, a number of revisionist historians such as William M. Lamont regarded the English Civil War (1642–1651) as a religious war, with John Morrill (1993) stating: "The English Civil War was not the first European revolution: it was the last of the Wars of Religion." This view has been criticised by various pre-, post- and anti-revisionist historians. Glen Burgess (1998) examined political propaganda written by the Parliamentarian politicians and clerics at the time, noting that many were or may have been motivated by their Puritan religious beliefs to support the war against the 'Catholic' king Charles I of England, but tried to express and legitimise their opposition and rebellion in terms of a legal revolt against a monarch who had violated crucial constitutional principles and thus had to be overthrown. They even warned their Parliamentarian allies to not make overt use of religious arguments in making their case for war against the king. However, in some cases it may be argued that they hid their pro-Anglican and anti-Catholic motives behind legal parlance, for example by emphasising that the Church of England was the legally established religion: "Seen in this light, the defenses of Parliament's war, with their apparent legal-constitutional thrust, are not at all ways of saying that the struggle was not religious. On the contrary, they are ways of saying that it was." Burgess concluded: "[T]he Civil War left behind it just the sort of evidence that we could reasonably expect a war of religion to leave."
Ethiopian–Adal War: The Ethiopian–Adal War (1529–1543) was a military conflict between the Abyssinians and the Adal Sultanate. The Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi came close to extinguishing the ancient realm of Abyssinia, and forcibly converting all of its surviving subjects to Islam. The intervention of the European Cristóvão da Gama attempted to help to prevent this outcome, but he was killed by al-Ghazi. However, both polities exhausted their resources and manpower in this conflict, allowing the northward migration of the Oromo into their present homelands to the north and west of Addis Ababa. Many historians trace the origins of hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia to this war.
Modern period:
Greek War of Independence: The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) has sometimes been considered a religious war between Christians and Muslims, especially in its early phase. The Greek Declaration of Independence (issued on 15 January 1822) legitimised the armed rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in a mix of religious and nationalist terms: "The war we are waging against the Turks, far from being founded in demagoguery, seditiousness or the selfish interests of any one part of the Greek nation, is a national and holy war (...). It is from these principles of natural rights and desiring to assimilate ourselves with our European Christian brethren, that we have embarked upon our war against the Turks." Scottish writer Felicia Skene remarked in 1877: "The Greek war of independence has never been called a religious war, and yet it had a better claim to that appellation than many a conflict which has been so named by the chroniclers of the past. It is a significant fact that the standard of revolt was raised by no mere patriot, but by Germanus, the aged Archbishop of Patras, who came forward, strong in his spiritual dignity (...) to be the first champion in the cause of Hellenic liberty." Ian Morris (1994) stated that "the uprising in 1821 was mainly a religious war", but that philhellene Western volunteers joined the war for quite different reasons, namely to 'regenerate' Greece and thereby Europe, motivated by Romantic ideas about European history and civilisation, and Orientalist views of Ottoman culture. The Filiki Eteria, the main organisation driving the rebellion, was split between two groups: one advocated the restoration of the Byzantine Empire on religious grounds, and to encourage all Christians within Ottoman territory to join the Greek revolutionaries; the other advocated the Megali Idea, a large Greek nation-state based on shared language rather than religion. Both of these grand objectives failed, but a smaller version of the latter goal was accepted by most members of the Eteria by 1823, and this goal was generally compatible with the motives of philhellenes who travelled to Greece to enter the war in 1821–1823.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The Israeli–Palestinian conflict can primarily be viewed as an ethnic conflict between two parties where one party is most often portrayed as a singular ethno-religious group which only consists of the Jewish majority and ignores non-Jewish minority Israeli citizens who support the existence of a State of Israel to varying degrees, especially the Druze and the Circassians who, for example, volunteer to serve in the IDF, participate in combat and are represented in the Israeli parliament in greater percentages than Israeli Jews are as well as Israeli Arabs, Samaritans, various other Christians, and Negev Bedouin; the other party is sometimes presented as an ethnic group which is multi-religious (although most numerously consisting of Muslims, then Christians, then other religious groups up to and including Samaritans and even Jews). |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The Israeli–Palestinian conflict can primarily be viewed as an ethnic conflict between two parties where one party is most often portrayed as a singular ethno-religious group which only consists of the Jewish majority and ignores non-Jewish minority Israeli citizens who support the existence of a State of Israel to varying degrees, especially the Druze and the Circassians who, for example, volunteer to serve in the IDF, participate in combat and are represented in the Israeli parliament in greater percentages than Israeli Jews are as well as Israeli Arabs, Samaritans, various other Christians, and Negev Bedouin; the other party is sometimes presented as an ethnic group which is multi-religious (although most numerously consisting of Muslims, then Christians, then other religious groups up to and including Samaritans and even Jews). Yet despite the multi-religious composition of both of the parties in the conflict, elements on both sides often view it as a religious war between Jews and Muslims. In 1929, religious tensions between Muslim and Jewish Palestinians over the latter praying at the Wailing Wall led to the 1929 Palestine riots, including the Hebron and Safed massacres.
In 1947, the UN's decision to partition the Mandate of Palestine, led to the creation of the state of Israel and Jordan, which annexed the West Bank portion of the mandate, since then, the region has been plagued with conflict. The 1948 Palestinian exodus also known as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة), occurred when approximately 711,000 to 726,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the Civil War that preceded it. The exact number of refugees is a matter of dispute, though the number of Palestine refugees and their unsettled descendants registered with UNRWA is more than 4.3 million. The causes remain the subject of fundamental disagreement between Palestinians and Israelis. Both Jews and Palestinians make ethnic and historical claims to the land, and Jews make religious claims as well.
According to historian Benny Morris, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, from the Arab perspective, was "a war of religion as much as, if not more than, a nationalist war over territory." This assertion has been challenged by other scholars.
Pakistan and India: The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. This was fuelled by the British policy of "Divide and Rule", which they tried to bring upon every political situation. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent.
After the dissolution of the British Raj in 1947, British India was partitioned into two new sovereign states—the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. In the resulting Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, up to 12.5 million people were displaced, with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million. India emerged as a secular nation with a Hindu majority, while Pakistan was established as an Islamic republic with Muslim majority population.
Nigerian conflict: Inter-ethnic conflict in Nigeria has generally had a religious element. Riots against Igbo in 1953 and in the 1960s in the north were said to have been sparked by religious conflict. The riots against Igbo in the north in 1966 were said to have been inspired by radio reports of mistreatment of Muslims in the south. A military coup d'état led by lower and middle-ranking officers, some of them Igbo, overthrew the NPC-NCNC dominated government. Prime Minister Balewa along with other northern and western government officials were assassinated during the coup. The coup was considered an Igbo plot to overthrow the northern dominated government. A counter-coup was launched by mostly northern troops. Between June and July there was a mass exodus of Ibo from the north and west. Over 1.3 million Ibo fled the neighboring regions in order to escape persecution as anti-Ibo riots increased. The aftermath of the anti-Ibo riots led many to believe that security could only be gained by separating from the North.
In the 1980s, serious outbreaks between Christians and Muslims occurred in Kafanchan in southern Kaduna State in a border area between the two religions.
The 2010 Jos riots saw clashes between Muslim herders against Christian farmers near the volatile city of Jos, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Officials estimated that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by rampaging Muslim gangs.
Buddhist uprising: During the rule of the Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, the discrimination against the majority Buddhist population generated the growth of Buddhist institutions as they sought to participate in national politics and gain better treatment. The Buddhist Uprising of 1966 was a period of civil and military unrest in South Vietnam, largely focused in the I Corps area in the north of the country in central Vietnam.
In a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to be between 70 and 90 percent, Diem ruled with a strong religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese minority, he pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists.
Chinese conflict: The Dungan revolt (1862–1877) and Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873) by the Hui were also set off by racial antagonism and class warfare, rather than the mistaken assumption that it was all due to Islam that the rebellions broke out. During the Dungan revolt fighting broke out between Uyghurs and Hui.
In 1936, after Sheng Shicai expelled 20,000 Kazakhs from Xinjiang to Qinghai, the Hui led by General Ma Bufang massacred their fellow Muslims, the Kazakhs, until there were only 135 of them left.
Tensions with Uyghurs and Hui arose because Qing and Republican Chinese authorities used Hui troops and officials to dominate the Uyghurs and crush Uyghur revolts. Xinjiang's Hui population increased by over 520 percent between 1940 and 1982, an average annual growth rate of 4.4 percent, while the Uyghur population only grew by 1.7 percent. This dramatic increase in the Hui population led inevitably to significant tensions between the Hui and Uyghur Muslim populations. Some old Uyghurs in Kashgar remember that the Hui army at the Battle of Kashgar (1934) massacred 2,000 to 8,000 Uyghurs, which caused tension as more Hui moved into Kashgar from other parts of China. Some Hui criticize Uyghur separatism, and generally do not want to get involved in conflicts in other countries over Islam for fear of being perceived as radical. Hui and Uyghur live apart from each other, praying separately and attending different mosques.
Lebanese Civil War: There is no consensus among scholars on what triggered the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). However, the militarization of the Palestinian refugee population, along with the arrival of the PLO guerrilla forces, sparked an arms race for the different Lebanese political factions. However, the conflict played out along three religious lines: Sunni Muslim, Christian Lebanese and Shiite Muslim, Druze are considered among Shiite Muslims.
It has been argued that the antecedents of the war can be traced back to the conflicts and political compromises reached after the end of Lebanon's administration by the Ottoman Empire. The Cold War had a powerful disintegrative effect on Lebanon, which was closely linked to the polarization that preceded the 1958 political crisis. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, an exodus of Palestinian refugees, who fled the fighting or were expelled from their homes, arrived in Lebanon. Palestinians came to play a very important role in future Lebanese civil conflicts, and the establishment of Israel radically changed the local environment in which Lebanon found itself.
Lebanon was promised independence, which was achieved on 22 November 1943. Free French troops, who had invaded Lebanon in 1941 to rid Beirut of the Vichy French forces, left the country in 1946. The Christians assumed power over the country and its economy. A confessional Parliament was created in which Muslims and Christians were given quotas of seats. As well, the president was to be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim.
In March 1991, Parliament passed an amnesty law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its enactment. The amnesty was not extended to crimes perpetrated against foreign diplomats or certain crimes referred by the cabinet to the Higher Judicial Council. In May 1991, the militias (with the important exception of Hezbollah) were dissolved, and the Lebanese Armed Forces began slowly to rebuild themselves as Lebanon's only major non-sectarian institution.
Some violence still occurred. In late December 1991 a car bomb (estimated to carry 220 pounds of TNT) exploded in the Muslim neighborhood of Basta. At least 30 people were killed, and 120 wounded, including former Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan, who was riding in a bulletproof car. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | A confessional Parliament was created in which Muslims and Christians were given quotas of seats. As well, the president was to be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim.
In March 1991, Parliament passed an amnesty law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its enactment. The amnesty was not extended to crimes perpetrated against foreign diplomats or certain crimes referred by the cabinet to the Higher Judicial Council. In May 1991, the militias (with the important exception of Hezbollah) were dissolved, and the Lebanese Armed Forces began slowly to rebuild themselves as Lebanon's only major non-sectarian institution.
Some violence still occurred. In late December 1991 a car bomb (estimated to carry 220 pounds of TNT) exploded in the Muslim neighborhood of Basta. At least 30 people were killed, and 120 wounded, including former Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan, who was riding in a bulletproof car.
Iran–Iraq War: In the case of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), the new revolutionary government of the Islamic Republic of Iran generally described the conflict as a religious war, and used the narrative of jihad to recruit, mobilise and motivate its troops.: 9:24, 16:05 On the other hand, justifications from the Saddam Hussein-led Ba'athist Iraq were mostly framed in terms of a supposed Persian–Arab historical enmity, and Iraq-centred Arab nationalism (including support for Arab separatism in Khuzestan). Some of the underlying motives of Saddam appear to have been controlling the Shatt al-Arab waterway and region (previously settled by the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which had ended Imperial Iranian support for the 1974–75 Kurdish rebellion against the Iraqi government: 3:27 ), obtaining access to the oil reserves in Khuzestan, and exploiting the instability of post-Revolution Iran, including the failed 1979 Khuzestan insurgency.: 3:06 Peyman Asadzade (2019) stated: "Although the evidence suggests that religious motivations by no means contributed to Saddam's decision to launch the war, an overview of the Iranian leaders' speeches and martyrs' statements reveals that religion significantly motivated people to take part in the war. (...) The Iranian leadership painted the war as a battle between believers and unbelievers, Muslims and infidels, and the true and the false." Iran cited religious reasons to justify continuing combat operations, for example in the face of Saddam's offer of peace in mid-1982, rejected by Ayatollah Khomeini's declaration that the war would not end until Iran had defeated the Ba'athist regime and replaced it with an Islamic republic.: 8:16
While Ba'athist Iraq has sometimes been described as a "secular dictatorship" before the war, and therefore in ideological conflict with the Shia Islamic 'theocracy' which seized control of Iran in 1979,: 3:40 Iraq also launched the so-called Tawakalna ala Allah ("Trust in God") Operations (April–July 1988) in the final stages of the war.: 16:05 Moreover, the Anfal campaign (1986–1989; in strict sense February–September 1988) was code-named after Al-Anfal, the eighth sura of the Qur'an which narrates the triumph of 313 followers of the new Muslim faith over almost 900 pagans at the Battle of Badr in the year 624. "Al Anfal" literally means the spoils (of war) and was used to describe the military campaign of extermination and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid (also known as "Chemical Ali"). His orders informed jash (Kurdish collaborators with the Baathists, literally "donkey's foal" in Kurdish) units that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even women as spoils of war was halal (religiously permitted or legal). Randal (1998, 2019) argued that 'Al Anfal' was "a curious nod to Islam" by the Ba'athist government, because it had originally been known as a "militantly secular regime". Some commentators have concluded that the code name was meant to serve as "a religious justification" for the campaign against the Kurds.
Yugoslav Wars: The Croatian War (1991–1995) and the Bosnian War (1992–1995) have been viewed as religious wars between the Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim populations of former Yugoslavia: respectively called "Serbs", "Croats" and "Bosniaks" (or "Bosnian Muslims"). Traditional religious symbols were used during the wars. Notably, foreign Muslim volunteers came to Bosnia to wage jihad and were thus known as "Bosnian mujahideen". Although some news media and some scholars at the time and in the aftermath often described the conflicts as nationalist or ethnic in nature, others such as the literary critic Christopher Hitchens (2007) have argued that they were religious wars (Catholic versus Orthodox versus Islamic), and that terms such as "Serb" and "Croat" were employed as mere euphemisms to conceal the religious core of the armed conflicts, even though the term "Muslims" was frequently used. Some scholars have stated that they "were not religious wars", but acknowledged that "religion played an important role in the wars" and "did often serve as the motivating and integrating factor for justifying military attacks".
Sudanese Civil War: The Second Sudanese Civil War from 1983 to 2005 has been described as an ethnoreligious conflict where the Muslim central government's pursuits to impose sharia law on non-Muslim southerners led to violence, and eventually to the civil war. The war resulted in the independence of South Sudan six years after the war ended. Sudan is majority-Muslim and South Sudan is majority-Christian.
Timeline:
Africa:
Americas:
Asia:
Europe:
See also: Odium theologicum
War of ideas
Notes:
References:
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Burgess, Glenn (1998). "Was the English Civil War a War of Religion? The Evidence of Political Propaganda". Huntington Library Quarterly. 61 (2). University of California Press: 173–201. doi:10.2307/3817797. JSTOR 3817797. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
Cliff, Nigel (2011). Holy War: How Vasco da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations, HarperCollins, ISBN 9780062097101.
Crowley, Roger (2013). 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West, Hyperion, ISBN 9781401305581.
Firestone, Reuven (2012). Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199860302.001.0001. ISBN 9780199860302. S2CID 160968766.
Hashmi, Sohail H. (2012). Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199755035.
Holsti, Kalevi (1991). Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 379. ISBN 9780521399296.
Johnson, James Turner (1997).The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions, Pennsylvania State University Press, ISBN 9780271042145.
Kirby, Dianne Religion and the Cold War, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 9781137339430 (2013 reprint)
Kokkonen, Andrej; Sundell, Anders (September 2017). Online supplementary appendix for "The King is Dead: Political Succession and War in Europe, 1000–1799" (PDF). Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg. p. 40. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006). A Concise History of India (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68225-1.
Miner, Steven Merritt (2003). Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941-1945, Univ of North Carolina Press, ISBN 9780807862124.
Mühling, Christian (2018). Die europäische Debatte über den Religionskrieg (1679-1714). Konfessionelle Memoria und internationale Politik im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Religious war | Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg. p. 40. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006). A Concise History of India (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68225-1.
Miner, Steven Merritt (2003). Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941-1945, Univ of North Carolina Press, ISBN 9780807862124.
Mühling, Christian (2018). Die europäische Debatte über den Religionskrieg (1679-1714). Konfessionelle Memoria und internationale Politik im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV. (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, 250) Göttingen, Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, ISBN 9783525310540.
New, David S. (2013). Holy War: The Rise of Militant Christian, Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalism, McFarland, ISBN 9781476603919.
Nolan, Cathal J. (2006). The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000–1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization, Volume 2. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 1076. ISBN 978-0313337345.
Sharma, Vivek Swaroop (March/April 2018) "What Makes a Conflict 'Religious'? in The National Interest 154, 46–55. Full text available at: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-makes-conflict-religious-24576.
Further reading: Smith, Lisa Deeley (27 July 1982). "Religion: The idea of holy war". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
External links: Wars of Religion
Maps of War, History of Religion
Counting Religious Wars in the Encyclopedia of Wars
Religion and the 100 Worst Atrocities in History |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Resource war | History:
Chincha Islands War: One of the most prolific examples of resource war in history is the conflict over Chincha Island guano in the late 19th century. The Chincha Islands of Peru are situated off of the southern coast of Peru, where many seabirds were known to roost and prey on fish brought there by the currents of the Pacific Ocean. The guano of these seabirds is incredibly dense in nutrients and became a sought-after resource as a fertilizer. Soil that was nutrient rich allowed for higher crop yields, which subsequently translated to better sustenance of the population and overall improved economic performance. Known colloquially as "white gold", guano from the Chincha Islands began to catch the interest of Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other industrial powers at the time.
The international interest for that resource resulting in a number of conflicts including the Chincha Islands War between Spain and Peru and the War of the Pacific between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Although the primary inciting force of the conflict originated over possession of the nutrient-rich guano, Spain also attempted to exercise prior colonial control over Peru during its aggressions during this conflict. The Chincha Islands guano became a resource of imperialism with foreign nations inciting conflict and establishing dominion over it. In 1856, United States President Franklin Pierce passed the Guano Islands Act with the exclusive purpose of addressing American scarcity over guano. Under the Guano Islands Act, any piece of uninhabited land that harbors a guano deposit could be claimed as a territory of the United States to extract the resource. The legislation acted as a workaround for the United States to access Peruvian seabird guano since direct trade was not an option because of a treaty between Peru and the United Kingdom.
Perspectives:
Geopolitical: Under the geopolitical lens for interpreting resource wars, the main rationale behind resource conflict is strategic. It assumes that control over the resource provides a particular advantage to that nation and interprets hostile attempts to take over the resource as a means to acquire that advantage for themselves. Resources that are deemed strategic shift over time and pertain to what is required for economic expansion or success at the time. Examples of this include timber during the seventeenth century for naval development or oil during the twentieth century onward for enabling military technology and transportation.
Environmental security: Also known as the environmental scarcity or political economy, the environmental security perspective interprets resource conflict as a response to resource scarcity. A notable proponent of the environmental security perspective is Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, a Canadian political scientist and professor at the University of Waterloo. The work of Homer-Dixon focuses on two different phenomena regarding the effect of resources on violent conflict: resource scarcity and resource abundance. Under the environmental security perspective, resource scarcity perpetuates conflict by inciting pressures on a society that is dealing with resource deprivation. According to Homer-Dixon, populations struggling with resource scarcity are also impacted by overpopulation and inequitable resource allocation. Overpopulation and inequitable resource allocation can make resource scarcity even more pronounced, creating a cyclical instability in the society.
Conversely, countries with natural resource abundance are impacted in a different way. Countries that are wealthy in resources have been shown to have disproportionate economic growth, less democracy, and overall insufficient development outcomes. This permeates from an overdependence on their resource from an economic standpoint, where authoritarian traits may begin to take effect. This creates pressure on the citizens as a whole due to undermined governance of the nation and volatile economic state if the resource fluctuates heavily in price. This phenomenon is known as the resource curse.
Conflict resources: Conflict resources are natural resources extracted in a conflict zone and sold to perpetuate the fighting. There is both statistical and anecdotal evidence that the presence of precious commodities can prolong conflicts (a "resource curse"). An unfortunate irony is that many countries rich in minerals are impoverished in terms of their capacity for governance. Conflict, corruption and bribery may be seen as the typical costs of doing business. The extraction and sale of blood diamonds, also known as "conflict diamonds", is a better-known phenomenon which occurs under virtually identical conditions. Petroleum can also be a conflict resource. Other commodities are also involved in financing conflict.
History: The concept of "conflict resource", or "conflict commodity" emerged in the late 1990s, initially in relation to the "blood diamonds" that were financing rebellions in Angola and Sierra Leone. Then "conflict timber" financed hostilities in Cambodia and Liberia.
Conventions: The concept was first officially discussed by the UN General Assembly in the context of 'conflict diamonds': The UN Security Council has since referred to conflict resources in several resolutions, particularly resolutions 1533 and I698.97.
Since 1996 the Bonn International Center for Conversion has tracked resource governance and conflict intensity by country. Aside from fossil fuels, metals, diamonds, and timber it tracks the governance of other primary goods that might fund conflicts, including: poppy seeds and talc (Afghanistan), rubber (Côte d'Ivoire), cotton (Zambia), and cocoa (Indonesia).
Legal frameworks: Several countries and organizations, including the United States, European Union, and OECD have designated tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold connected to conflict in the DRC as conflict minerals and legally require companies to report trade or use of conflict minerals as a way to reduce incentives for armed groups to extract and fight over the minerals.
Supporting external conflicts: In the 2020s, the concept of conflict minerals was extended to those mined to support conflicts in parts of the world other than where the mining takes place. The Wagner Group has been granted mining rights in the Central African Republic in return for securing the continuity of the government. This "blood gold" is then sold to support Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Wagner also has gold-related operations in Mali and Sudan.
See also: Oil war
Petro-aggression
Resource curse
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea
Water conflict
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Retreat (military) | Tactical withdrawal: A withdrawal may be anticipated, as when a defending force is outmatched or on disadvantageous ground, but it must cause as much damage to an enemy as possible. In such a case, the retreating force may use a number of tactics and strategies to further impede the enemy's progress. That could include setting mines or booby traps during or before the withdrawal, leading the enemy into prepared artillery barrages, or using of scorched-earth tactics.
Rout: In warfare, the long-term objective is the defeat of the enemy. An effective tactical method is the demoralisation of the enemy by defeating its army and routing it from the battlefield. Once a force has become disorganized and has lost its ability to fight, the victors can chase down the enemy's remnants and attempt to cause as many casualties or to take as many prisoners as possible.
However, a commander must weigh the advantages of pursuit of a disorganised enemy against the possibility that the enemy may rally and leave the pursuing force vulnerable, with longer lines of communications that are vulnerable to a counterattack. That causes the value of a feigned retreat.
Feigned retreat: The act of feigning a withdrawal or rout to lure an enemy away from a defended position or into a prepared ambush is an ancient tactic, which has been used throughout the history of warfare.
Three famous examples are:
William the Conqueror used a feigned retreat at the Battle of Hastings to lure much of Harold's infantry from their advantageous defenses on higher ground, leading to its annihilation by a charge of William's Norman cavalry.
Medieval Mongols were famed for, among other things, their extensive use of feigned retreats during their conquests, as their fast light cavalry made successful pursuit by an enemy almost impossible. In the heat and muddle of a battle, the Mongol Army would pretend to be defeated, exhausted and confused, and would suddenly retreat from the battlefield. The opposing force, thinking that it had routed the Mongols, would give chase. The Mongol cavalry would, while retreating, fire upon its pursuers and dishearten them (see Parthian shot). When the pursuing forces stopped chasing the (significantly faster) Mongol cavalry, the Mongols would then turn and charge the pursuers and generally succeed. That was used partly as a defeat in detail tactic to allow the Mongols to defeat larger armies by breaking them into smaller groups.
Early on during the Battle of Kasserine Pass in 1943, tanks of the US 1st Armored Division followed what appeared to be a headlong retreat by elements of the 21st Panzer Division. The advancing US forces then met a screen of German anti-tank guns, who opened fire and destroyed nearly all the American tanks. A US forward artillery observer, whose radio and landlines had been cut by shellfire, recalled:
"It was murder. They rolled right into the muzzles of the concealed eighty-eights and all I could do was stand by and watch tank after tank blown to bits or burst into flames or just stop, wrecked. Those in the rear tried to turn back but the eighty-eights seemed to be everywhere."
References:
External links: Barton, James. "Tactical Reasons for Retreat". Retrieved 2021-05-06. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Right of conquest | History and arguments: Proponents state that the right of conquest acknowledges the status quo, and that denial of the right is meaningless unless one is able and willing to use military force to deny it. Further, the right was traditionally accepted because the conquering force, being by definition stronger than any lawfully entitled governance which it may have replaced, was, therefore, more likely to secure peace and stability for the people, and so the right of conquest legitimizes the conqueror towards that end.
The completion of colonial conquest of much of the world (see the Scramble for Africa), the devastation of World War I and World War II, and the alignment of both the United States and the Soviet Union with the principle of self-determination led to the abandonment of the right of conquest in formal international law. The 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact, the post-1945 Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, the UN Charter, and the UN role in decolonization saw the progressive dismantling of this principle. The UN Charter's guarantees the "territorial integrity" of member states, but enforcement difficulties in the 21st century lead to a contentious debate on possible re-emergence of the right of conquest as international law.
Conquest and military occupation: Until 1945, the disposition of territory acquired under the principle of conquest had to be conducted according to the existing laws of war. This meant that there had to be military occupation followed by a peace settlement, and there was no reasonable chance of the defeated sovereign regaining the land. While a formal peace treaty "makes good any defects in title", it was not required. Recognition by the losing party was not a requirement: "the right of acquisition vested by conquest did not depend on the consent of the dispossessed state". However, the alternative was annexation (part or in whole) which if protested as unlawful, a peace treaty was the only means to legitimize conquest in a time of war. Essentially, conquest itself was a legal act of extinguishing the legal rights of other states without their consent. Under this framework, it is notable that conquest and subsequent occupation outside of war were illegal.
In the post-World War II era, not all wars involving territorial acquisitions ended in a peace treaty. For example, the fighting in the Korean War paused with an armistice, without any peace treaty covering it. North Korea is still technically at war with South Korea and the United States as of 2024.
See also: Colonialism
Conquest
Debellatio
Discovery doctrine
Fait accompli
Franz Oppenheimer's "conquest theory" of the State
Imperialism
Invasion
Jungle justice
Just war theory
Mandate of Heaven
Manifest destiny
Might makes right
Prize (law)
Prize of war
Realism (international relations)
Revanchism
Responsibility to protect
Roerich Pact
Status quo ante bellum
Survival of the fittest
Uti possidetis
Vae victis
War of aggression
War trophy
References:
Works cited: Korman, Sharon (1996). The Right of Conquest: The Acquisition of Territory by Force in International Law and Practice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-828007-6. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Rules of engagement | Authoritative sources: While many countries have their own rules of engagement documents, many others do not. There are two primary international rules of engagement manuals that are internationally available: NATO ROE Manual MC 362-1 (restricted to NATO and Partnership for Peace countries); and the San Remo Rules of Engagement Handbook, which is freely available to all on the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL) website. Created for the IIHL by Commander Alan Cole, Major Phillip Drew, Captain Rob McLaughlin and Professor Dennis Mandsager, the San Remo ROE Handbook has been translated from its English original into French, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Hungarian, Russian, Bosnian, and Thai and several other languages. Several countries, such as the UK, have used the San Remo Manual as a model for creating their own ROE systems.
Training: The International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy conducts rules of engagement training course at least once per year, usually in September. Taught by some of the world's foremost authorities on ROE, the course attracts students from around the globe. Similar training by the San Remo ROE drafting team is conducted for the United Nations, staff colleges and other organizations as requested.
See also: Law of War
IDF Code of Ethics
References:
External links: San Remo Handbook on Rules of Engagement |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Salaries | History:
First paid salary: While there is no first pay-stub for the first work-for-pay exchange, the first salaried work would have required a society advanced enough to have a barter system which allowed for the even exchange of goods or services between tradesmen. More significantly, it presupposes the existence of organized employers—perhaps a government or a religious body—that would facilitate work-for-hire exchanges on a regular enough basis to constitute salaried work. From this, most infer that the first salary would have been paid in a village or city during the Neolithic Revolution, sometime between 10,000 BCE and 6000 BCE.
A cuneiform inscribed clay tablet dated about 3100 BCE provides a record of the daily beer rations for workers in Mesopotamia. The beer is represented by an upright jar with a pointed base. The symbol for rations is a human head eating from a bowl. Round and semicircular impressions represent the measurements.
By the time of the Hebrew Book of Ezra (550 to 450 BCE), receiving salt from a person was synonymous with drawing sustenance, taking pay, or being in that person's service. At that time, salt production was strictly controlled by the monarchy or ruling elite. Depending on the translation of Ezra 4:14, the servants of King Artaxerxes I of Persia explain their loyalty variously as "because we are salted with the salt of the palace" or "because we have maintenance from the king" or "because we are responsible to the king".
Salarium: The Latin word salarium linked employment, salt, and soldiers, but the exact link is not clear. Modern sources maintain that although Roman soldiers were typically paid in coin, the word salarium is derived from the word sal (salt) because at some point a soldier's salary may have been an allowance for the purchase of salt or the price of having soldiers conquer salt supplies and guard the Salt Roads (Via Salaria) that led to Rome. However, there is no ancient evidence for either of these hypotheses.
Roman empire and medieval and pre-industrial Europe: Regardless of the exact connection, the salarium paid to Roman soldiers has defined a form of work-for-hire ever since in the Western world, and gave rise to such expressions as "being worth one's salt".
Within the Roman Empire or (later) medieval and pre-industrial Europe and its mercantile colonies, salaried employment appears to have been relatively rare and mostly limited to servants and higher status roles, especially in government service. Such roles were largely remunerated by the provision of lodging, sex, and livery clothes (i.e., "food, clothing, and shelter" in modern idiom). Many courtiers, such as valets de chambre, in late medieval courts were paid annual amounts, sometimes supplemented by large if unpredictable extra payments. At the other end of the social scale, those in many forms of employment either received no pay, as with slavery (although many slaves were paid some money at least), serfdom, and indentured servitude, or received only a fraction of what was produced, as with sharecropping. Other common alternative models of work included self- or co-operative employment, as with masters in artisan guilds, who often had salaried assistants, or corporate work and ownership, as with medieval universities and monasteries.
Commercial Revolution: Even many of the jobs initially created by the Commercial Revolution in the years from 1520 to 1650 and later during Industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries would not have been salaried, but, to the extent they were paid as employees, probably paid an hourly or daily wage or paid per unit produced (also called piece work).
Share in earnings: In corporations of this time, such as the several East India Companies, many managers would have been remunerated as owner-shareholders. Such a remuneration scheme is still common today in accounting, investment, and law firm partnerships where the leading professionals are equity partners, and do not technically receive a salary, but rather make a periodic "draw" against their share of annual earnings.
Second Industrial Revolution: From 1870 to 1930, the Second Industrial Revolution gave rise to the modern business corporation powered by railroads, electricity and the telegraph and telephone. This era saw the widespread emergence of a class of salaried executives and administrators who served the new, large-scale enterprises being created.
New managerial jobs lent themselves to salaried employment, in part because the effort and output of "office work" were hard to measure hourly or piecewise, and in part because they did not necessarily draw remuneration from share ownership.
As Japan rapidly industrialized in the 20th century, the idea of office work was novel enough that a new Japanese word (salaryman) was coined to describe those who performed it, as well as referencing their remuneration.
20th century: In the 20th century, the rise of the service economy made salaried employment even more common in developed countries, where the relative share of industrial production jobs declined, and the share of executive, administrative, computer, marketing, and creative jobs—all of which tended to be salaried—increased.
Salary and other forms of payment today: Today, the concept of a salary continues to evolve as part of a system of the total compensation that employers offer to employees. Salary (also now known as fixed pay) is coming to be seen as part of a "total rewards" system which includes bonuses, incentive pay, commissions, benefits and perquisites (or perks), and various other tools which help employers link rewards to an employee's measured performance.
Compensation has evolved considerably. Consider the change from the days of and before the industrial evolution, when a job was held for a lifetime, to the fact that, from 1978 to 2008, individuals who aged from 18 to 44, held an average number of 11 jobs. Compensation has evolved gradually moving away from fixed short-term immediate compensation towards fixed + variable outcomes-based compensation. An increase in knowledge-based work has also led to pursuit of partner (as opposed to employee) like engagement.
Salary surveys provide data on salaries for specific jobs throughout the market. Organizations may use salary survey data to develop and update their compensation packages. Individuals may use salary survey data in salary negotiations.
By country:
Botswana: In Botswana, salaries are almost entirely paid on a monthly basis with pay dates falling on different dates of the second half of the month. Pay day usually ranges from the 15th of the month to the last day. The date of disbursement of the salary is usually determined by the company and in some cases in conjunction with the recognized Workers Union.
The Botswana Employment Act Cap 47:01 Chapter VII regulates the aspect of protection of wages in the contracts of employment. The minimum and maximum wage payment period with the exception of casual employees should not be less than one week or more than a month, and where not expressly stipulated a month is the default wage period per section 75 of the Act payable before the third working day after the wage period. The wages are to be paid during working hours at the place of employment, or in any other way, such as through a bank account with the consent of the employee. Salaries should be made in legal tender, however, part payment in kind is not prohibited provided it is appropriate for the personal use and benefit of employee and his family, and the value attributable to such payment in kind is fair and reasonable. The payment in kind should not exceed forty per cent of the total amount paid out to the employee.
The minimum wage is set, adjusted and can even be abolished by the Minister on the advice of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board for specified trade categories. The stipulated categories include building, construction, hotel, catering, wholesale, watchmen, the domestic service sector, the agricultural sector etc. The current minimum wages set for these sectors are set out in the Subsidiary legislation in the Act.
Women on maternity leave are entitled to 25% of their salaries as stipulated by the Employment Act but the majority of the companies pay out at about 50% for the period.
Denmark: Trilateral negotiations (Danish: "trepartsforhandlinger") between employers', employees' & state organizations determine a collective remuneration agreement for most Danish privately employed blue-collar employees for a period of typically 3 or 4 years. Such an agreement is known as an "overenskomst" or just OK and covers an agreement between a specific employee union ("fagforening"/"fagforbund") and a specific employer organization ("arbejdsgiverforening"/"arbejdsgiverorganisation").
Political agreements made in 1997, known as "Ny Løn" (English: "new remuneration"), instigated a formal remuneration system that almost all employees in the Danish Government are employed under. An individual's remuneration consist of five components;
grundløn (lit. "base salary"): base salary derived from education level & seniority
kvalifikationsløn (lit. "qualification salary"): additional salary based on qualifications (additional formal or non-formal education, language or social skills etc.)
funktionstillæg (functional supplement): additional salary paid for responsibilities of the specific role not covered by the above
resultatillæg (achievement supplement): additional salary paid for specific predetermined achievements, typically used for long-term motivation of leadership
engangstillæg (one-time supplement): additional salary paid to honor an outstanding effort, typically paid yearly
There is no minimum salary determined by law. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Salaries | Political agreements made in 1997, known as "Ny Løn" (English: "new remuneration"), instigated a formal remuneration system that almost all employees in the Danish Government are employed under. An individual's remuneration consist of five components;
grundløn (lit. "base salary"): base salary derived from education level & seniority
kvalifikationsløn (lit. "qualification salary"): additional salary based on qualifications (additional formal or non-formal education, language or social skills etc.)
funktionstillæg (functional supplement): additional salary paid for responsibilities of the specific role not covered by the above
resultatillæg (achievement supplement): additional salary paid for specific predetermined achievements, typically used for long-term motivation of leadership
engangstillæg (one-time supplement): additional salary paid to honor an outstanding effort, typically paid yearly
There is no minimum salary determined by law. A salary is often discussed or given as a gross monthly salary ("månedlig bruttoløn") which is pre-tax but including any pension benefits required by collective agreements ("overenskomst") to be deposited by the employer. This typically amounts to 8-12% of the monthly net salary ("månedlig nettoløn"), of which the employee is also obligated to deposit a part, typically another 4-6%.
European Union: According to European law, the movement of capital, services and (human) resources is unlimited between member states. Salary determination, such as minimum wage, is still the prerogative of each member state. Other social benefits, associated with salaries are also determined on member-state level.
India: In India, salaries are generally paid on the last working day of the month (Government, Public sector departments, Multi-national organisations as well as majority of other private sector companies). According to the Payment of Wages Act, if a company has less than 1,000 Employees, salary is paid by the 7th of every month. If a company has more than 1,000 Employees, salary is paid by the 10th of every month.
Minimum wages in India are governed by the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Employees in India are notified of their salary being increased through a hard copy letter given to them.
Italy: In Italy, the Constitution guarantees a minimum wage, as stated in Article 36, Paragraph 1
"Workers have the right to a remuneration commensurate to the quantity and quality of their work and in any case such as to ensure them and their families a free and dignified existence."
This constitutional guarantee is implemented not through a specific legislation, but rather through collective bargaining which sets minimum wage standards in a sector by sector basis. Collective bargaining is protected by trade unions, which have constitutional rights such as legal personality.
The Constitution also guarantees equal pay for women, as stated in Article 37, Paragraph 1
"Working women are entitled to equal rights and, for comparable jobs, equal pay as men."
A salary is often discussed or given in terms of "Retribuzione Annuale Lorda" (RAL), similar to gross annual salary. Also a severance pay, "Trattamento di Fine Rapporto" (TFR), is required to be deposited by the employer to be paid to the employee on termination.
Japan: In Japan, owners would notify employees of salary increases through "jirei". The concept still exists and has been replaced with an electronic form, or E-mail in larger companies.
The position and world of "salarymen" is open to only one third of Japanese men. From school age these young potentials are groomed and pre-selected to one day join a company as a "salaryman". The selection process is rigorous and thereafter the process initiation speaks of total dedication to the company.
Poland: Article 65 section 4 of Polish Constitution states that "the minimum amount of salary for work or the method of determining this amount will be specified by separate act". In consequence, Polish Parliament (Sejm) has enacted an Act of 10 October 2002 on the minimum salary for work, which determines the rules and the procedure of establishing minimum salary for each year. The amount of the minimum salary (for employment contracts) and the amount of minimum hourly rate (for service contacts) is announced by the Council of Ministers by September 15 each year in the Official Journal of the Republic of Poland "Monitor Polski". As a result, full-time employees cannot be offered monthly salary lower than the statutory minimum, part-time employees are also covered by the statutory minimum calculated proportionally.
South Africa: Minimum wages are used widely in developing countries to protect vulnerable workers, reduce wage inequality, and lift the working poor out of poverty. The political popularity of minimum wages stems in part from the fact that the policy offers a means for redistributing income without having to increase government spending or establish formal transfer mechanisms. The challenge to policymakers is to find that wage level that is considered fair given workers' needs and the cost of living, but does not harm employment or a country's global competitiveness.
South African median employee earning is R2800 a month (USD 189.45) and the average earning is around R8500. These figures are found in SA statistics. Indeed, they reflect the huge gap in the South African society with a large proportion of the population under poverty line that does not have the same opportunities for employment.
Median monthly earnings of white (R9500) and Indian/Asian (R6000) population were substantially higher
than the median monthly earnings of their coloured (R2652) and black African (R2167) counterparts. Black
Africans earned 22,% of what the white population earned; 36,1% of what Indians/Asians earned; and
81,7% of what the coloured population earned. In the bottom 5%, black Africans earned R500 or less per month while the white population earned R2 000 or less, while in the top 5% they earned R12 567 or more compared to the white population who earned R34000 or more per month.
The Netherlands: In the Netherlands the salary which occurs most frequently is referred to as Jan Modaal. The term "modaal" is derived from the statistical term Modus. If the government's macro economic policy negatively affects this "Modaal" income or salary-group often the policy is adjusted in order to protect this group of income earners. The Dutch word "soldij" can be directly linked to the word "soldaat" or soldier, which finds its origin in the word for the gold coin solidus, with which soldiers were paid during the Roman Empire.
The Netherlands is in the top 5 of the highest salary-paying countries in the EU. The focus has been on the salary levels and accompanying bonuses whereas secondary benefits, though present, has been downplayed yet that is changing. The Netherlands claims a 36th position when it comes to secondary benefits when compared to other countries in Europe.
The minimum wage is determined through collective labor negotiations (CAOs). The minimum wage is age dependent; the legal minimum wage for a 16-year-old is lower than, for instance, a 23-year-old (full minimum wage). Adjustments to the minimum wage are made twice a year; on January 1 and on July 1. The minimum wage for a 21-year-old on January 1, 2013, is 1,065.30 Euro netto per month and on July 1, 2013, this minimum wage is 1,071.40 Euro netto per month.
For a 23 year old on 1 January 2014 is 1485,60 Euro gross salary / month plus 8% holiday subsidy so 1604,45 Euro gross salary / month
United States: In the United States, the distinction between periodic salaries (which are normally paid regardless of hours worked) and hourly wages (meeting a minimum wage test and providing for overtime) was first codified by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. At that time, five categories were identified as being "exempt" from minimum wage and overtime protections, and therefore salariable. In 1991, some computer workers were added as a sixth category but effective August 23, 2004 the categories were revised and reduced back down to five (executive, administrative, professional, computer, and outside sales employees).
In June 2015 the Department of Labor proposed raising "the salary threshold from $455 a week (the equivalent of $23,660 a year) to about $970 a week ($50,440 a year) in 2016" On May 18, 2016, the Final rule updating the overtime regulations was announced. Effective December 1, 2016 it says:
The Final Rule sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South ($913 per week, equivalent to $47,476 per year for a full-year worker).
The Final Rule sets the HCE total annual compensation level equal to the 90th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers nationally ($134,004 annually). To be exempt as an HCE, an employee must also receive at least the new standard salary amount of $913 per week on a salary or fee basis and pass a minimal duties test.
Although the FLSA ensures minimum wage and overtime pay protections for most employees covered by the Act, some workers, including bona fide EAP employees, are exempt from those protections. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Salaries | Effective December 1, 2016 it says:
The Final Rule sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South ($913 per week, equivalent to $47,476 per year for a full-year worker).
The Final Rule sets the HCE total annual compensation level equal to the 90th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers nationally ($134,004 annually). To be exempt as an HCE, an employee must also receive at least the new standard salary amount of $913 per week on a salary or fee basis and pass a minimal duties test.
Although the FLSA ensures minimum wage and overtime pay protections for most employees covered by the Act, some workers, including bona fide EAP employees, are exempt from those protections. Since 1940, the Department's regulations have generally required each of three tests to be met for the FLSA's EAP exemption to apply:
the employee must be paid a predetermined and fixed salary that is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of work performed ("salary basis test");
the amount of salary paid must meet a minimum specified amount ("salary level test"); and
the employee's job duties must primarily involve executive, administrative, or professional duties as defined by the regulations ("duties test"). "
The Final Rule includes a mechanism to automatically update the standard salary level requirement every three years to ensure that it remains a meaningful test for distinguishing between overtime-protected white collar workers and bona fide EAP workers who may not be entitled to overtime pay and to provide predictability and more graduated salary changes for employers. Specifically, the standard salary level will be updated to maintain a threshold equal to the 40th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region.
For the first time, employers will be able to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the standard salary level. Such payments may include, for example, nondiscretionary incentive bonuses tied to productivity and profitability.
A general rule for comparing periodic salaries to hourly wages is based on a standard 40-hour work week with 50 weeks per year (minus two weeks for vacation). (Example: $40,000/year periodic salary divided by 50 weeks equals $800/week. Divide $800/week by 40 standard hours equals $20/hour).
Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe operates on a two tier system being wages and salaries. Wages are managed by the National Employment Council (NEC). Each sector has its own NEC; i.e. agriculture, communications, mining, catering, educational institutions, etc. On the council are representatives from the unions and the employers. The public sector is under the Public Service Commission and wages and salaries are negotiated there.
Wages are negotiated annually or biennially for minimum wages, basic working conditions and remunerations. If there is a stalemate it goes for arbitration with the Ministry of labour. The ruling will become binding on all companies in that industry. Industries often then use their associations to negotiate and air their views. For example, the mining industry nominates an employee within the chamber of mines to attend all meetings and subcommittee with industry players is a forum for discussions.
Salaries are negotiated by the respective employees. However, NEC obviously affects the relativity and almost acts as a barometer for salaried staff. Salaries and wages in Zimbabwe are normally paid monthly. Most companies' pay around the 20th does allow various statutory payments and processing for the month end. Government employees are also staggered to ease the cash flow though teachers are paid around mid-month being 16th. Agricultural workers are normally paid on the very last day of the month as they are contract employees.
Zimbabwe is a highly banked society with most salaries being banked. All government employees are paid through the bank. Since "dollarisation" (movement from the Zimbabwean dollar to USD) Zimbabwe has been moving toward a more informal sector and these are paid in 'brown envelopes'.
PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is a significant contributor to tax being 45%. Given the high unemployment rate the tax is quite heavy. This of course captures those that pay and keep records properly. The average salary is probably $250. This is skewed downwards by the large number of government employees whose average salary is around there. At the top end salaries are quite competitive and this is to be able to attract the right skills though the cost of living is high so it balances this out. A top-earning Zimbabwean spends a lot more money on necessities than say a South African top earner. This is more evident when a comparison with USA or England is done. The need to have a generator, borehole or buy water or take care of the extended family since there is no welfare given the government's financial position.
In the hyperinflation days salaries was the cheapest factor of production given that it was paid so irregularly though it went to twice monthly. As workers could not withdraw their money, remuneration was often in the following forms:
Fuel coupons were most popular and individuals were paid in liters of fuel
The product that the company is selling; e.g. pork/meat for the abattoirs
Foreign currency payment was illegal and one had to seek special dispensation or had to show that their revenue/funding was received in foreign currency like NGOs or exporters
Shares for the listed companies on the stock market (not in the traditional option scheme but just getting shares)
Prices were price controlled. By remunerating in the product it basically allowed the employees to side sell for real value.
Zimbabwe traditionally had a competitive advantage in its cost of labor. With "dollarisation" and higher cost of living this is slowly being eroded. For example, an average farm employee probably earned the equivalent of $20 but could buy a basket of goods currently worth $500. Now, the average farm worker earns $80 and that basket of goods is, as mentioned, $500, the basket being soap, meal, school fees, protein foods, etc.
Negotiation of salary: Prior to the acceptance of an employment offer, the prospective employee usually has the opportunity to negotiate the terms of the offer. This primarily focuses on salary, but extends to benefits, work arrangements, and other amenities as well. Negotiating salary can potentially lead the prospective employee to a higher salary. In fact, a 2009 study of employees indicated that those who negotiated salary saw an average increase of $4,913 from their original salary offer. In addition, the employer is able to feel more confident that they have hired an employee with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to deal with conflict. Negotiating salary will thus likely yield an overall positive outcome for both sides of the bargaining table.
Perhaps the most important aspect of salary negotiation is the level of preparation put in by the prospective employee. Background research on comparable salaries will help the prospective employee understand the appropriate range for that position. Assessment of alternative offers that the prospective employee has already received can help in the negotiation process. Research on the actual company itself will help identify where concessions can be made by the company and what may potentially be considered off-limits. These items, and more, can be organized into a
negotiations planning document that can be used in the evaluation of the offers received from the employer.
Effects of perspective: The same 2009 study highlighted the personality differences and negotiation mind-sets that contributed to successful outcomes. Overall, individuals who are risk-averse (e.g., worried about appearing ungrateful for the job offer) tended to avoid salary negotiations or use very weak approaches to the negotiation process. On the contrary, those who were more risk-tolerant engaged in negotiations more frequently and demonstrated superior outcomes. Individuals who approached the negotiation as a distributive problem (i.e. viewing the a higher salary as a win for him/her and a loss to the employer) ended up with an increased salary, but lower rate of satisfaction upon completion. Those who approached the negotiation as an integrative problem (i.e. viewing the negotiation process an opportunity to expand the realm of possibilities and help both parties achieve a “win” outcome) were able to both secure an increased salary and an outcome they were truly satisfied with.
Gender differences: Salary disparities between men and women may partially be explained by differences in negotiation tactics used by men and women. Although men and women are equally likely to initiate in a salary negotiation with employers, men will achieve higher outcomes than women by about 2% of starting salary Studies have indicated that men tend to use active negotiation tactics of directly asking for a higher salary, while women tend to use more of an indirect approach by emphasizing self-promotion tactics (e.g. explaining the motivation to be a good employee). Other research indicates that early-childhood play patterns may influence the way men and women negotiate. Men and women tend to view salary differently in terms of relative importance. Overall level of confidence in a negotiation may also be a determinant of why men tend to achieve higher outcomes in salary negotiations. Finally, the awareness of this stereotype alone may directly cause women to achieve lower outcomes as one study indicates. Regardless of the cause, the outcome yields a disparity between men and women that contributes to the overall wage gap observed in many nations. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Salaries | Although men and women are equally likely to initiate in a salary negotiation with employers, men will achieve higher outcomes than women by about 2% of starting salary Studies have indicated that men tend to use active negotiation tactics of directly asking for a higher salary, while women tend to use more of an indirect approach by emphasizing self-promotion tactics (e.g. explaining the motivation to be a good employee). Other research indicates that early-childhood play patterns may influence the way men and women negotiate. Men and women tend to view salary differently in terms of relative importance. Overall level of confidence in a negotiation may also be a determinant of why men tend to achieve higher outcomes in salary negotiations. Finally, the awareness of this stereotype alone may directly cause women to achieve lower outcomes as one study indicates. Regardless of the cause, the outcome yields a disparity between men and women that contributes to the overall wage gap observed in many nations.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 239 provides for the right to fair labour practices in terms of article 23. article 9 of the Constitution makes provision for equality in the Bill of Rights, which an employee may raise in the event of an equal pay dispute. In terms of article 9(1) “everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law'” Furthermore, “the state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, and birth.”
South African employees who were in paid employment had median monthly earnings of R2 800. The median monthly earnings for men (R3 033) were higher than that for women (R2 340) - women in paid employment earned 77,1% of what men did.
Role of weight: Research done in 2011 showed that the “weight double standard” may be more complex that what past research has suggested. This is not only relevant to women, but also to men. The smallest income gap differences occur at thin weights (where men are penalized and women are rewarded) and the opposite happens at heavier weights, where the women are affected more negatively.
See also: Executive compensation
List of countries by average wage
List of countries in Europe by average wage
List of largest sports contracts
List of salaries of heads of state and government
List of single-digit salary earners
Peak earning years
Salaryman (Japan)
Stipend
References:
External links:
Media related to Wages at Wikimedia Commons |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Saturation attack | Theoretical calculations: Taking the design of an anti-ship missile as a theoretical example, one can begin with the goal of creating a missile which will get through and destroy its target 100% of the time. It is also understood, however, that an opponent will develop counter measures if given enough time, meaning that the missile will, at some later date, no longer be 100% effective. Therefore, given that even the best designed missile will only ever be less than 100% effective, it is more practical and cost-effective to instead develop a missile that will get through to the target 70% or even 50% of time, for example.
Launched individually, a missile with a 50% chance of getting through to its target will only get to its target 50% of the time, but with a salvo two such missiles the chance of at least one missile getting through is 75%, with three missiles 87.5% etc., with the probability that at least one missile will get through to its target becoming closer to certainty with each missile fired. If each missile has a warhead capable of destroying the target, then no individual missile can be ignored by the target warship and counter-measures. Thus, SAMs and CIW resources will have to be expended to defend the target. To further overload a target's ability to defend itself, an attacker can attempt to launch multiple missiles from multiple directions using different guidance options.
The main subscribers to the concept of the saturation missile attack were the Soviet Union and its client states. The Komar class missile boat for example being designed and operated around the calculations that it would take 12 P-15 Termit missiles to destroy a single NATO destroyer. At a time when British destroyers were equipped with just four anti-ship missiles, Soviet ships were going to sea with anything up to 20 anti-ship missiles, with even destroyers fielding 8 large missiles. With the NATO allies having followed the route of individually smaller and lighter missiles, NATO warships had the appearance of being underarmed when compared to Soviet ships with their multiple missiles in large container/launch tube housings.
Bomber stream: The bomber stream was a tactic pioneered by the RAF to overwhelm German air defences during the Second World War. The tactic relied on routing a greater number of bombers through a defensive sector than the amount which Germans could generate interception sorties. Although it was certain that bombers would be lost, it was impossible for the defending fighters to destroy every bomber and stop the bombers gaining their objective.
During the Cold War British and American air defences aimed to stop massed Soviet bomber streams, leading to the US fielding nuclear tipped Nike missiles, and at a later date the British equipping trainers as interceptors in order to have enough fighters.
Countering: During the Cold War, United States Navy aircraft carriers were the primary target of saturation attacks from Soviet Naval Aviation. In response the United States adopted the doctrine of attempting to destroy Soviet missile aircraft before they could launch their missiles. This led to the Douglas F6D Missileer, which gave rise to the Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye and Grumman F-14 Tomcat/AIM-54 Phoenix pairing.
In naval warfare, the incorporation of stealth technology in surface combatants, the general adoption of vertical launching systems, modern radar systems which can simultaneously scan, track, and engage multiple targets, and fire and forget close in defense missiles has decreased the utility of saturation attacks by unsophisticated anti-ship missiles.
See also: Human wave attack
Force concentration
Swarming (military)
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Scorched earth | Origin of the term: The term was found in English in a 1937 report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure including cities to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces.
Military theory: Clausewitz wrote in Principles of War:
In defensive just as in offensive warfare, it is necessary to pursue a great aim: the destruction of the enemy army, either by battle or by rendering its subsistence extremely difficult. Thus we shall disorganize it and force it into a retreat, during which it will necessarily suffer great losses. Wellington's campaign in 1810 and 1811 is a good example.
Clausewitz wrote in On War:
All that the country yields will be taken for the benefit of the retreating army first, and will be mostly consumed. Nothing remains but wasted villages and towns, fields from which the crops have been gathered, or which are trampled down, empty wells, and muddy brooks.The pursuing army, therefore, from the very first day, has frequently to contend with the most pressing wants.
Historic examples: Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the failed Swedish, French and German invasion of Russia, Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War, Kit Carson's campaign during the Navajo Wars in 1863 and Lord Kitchener's methods in the Anglo-Boer War.
6th century BCE:
European Scythian campaign: The Scythians used scorched-earth methods against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, led by King Darius the Great, during his European Scythian campaign. The Scythians, who were nomadic herders, evaded the Persian invaders and retreated into the depths of the steppes after they had destroyed food supplies and poisoned wells.
4th century BCE:
March of the Ten Thousand: The Greek general Xenophon recorded in his Anabasis that the withdrawing enemy burnt up the grass and everything else that was good for use in front of the Ten Thousand.
3rd century BCE:
Second Punic War: During the Second Punic War in 218–202 BCE, both Carthaginians and Romans used the method selectively during Hannibal's invasion of Italy. After the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, Quintus Fabius Maximus instructed those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians to burn their houses and grain.
2nd century BCE:
Third Punic War: After the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE, the Roman Senate also elected to use this method to permanently destroy the Carthaginian capital city, Carthage (near modern-day Tunis). The buildings were torn down, their stones scattered so not even rubble remained, and the fields were burned. However, the story that they salted the earth is apocryphal.
1st century BCE:
Gallic Wars: The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio. Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland because of incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes: to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring.
The second case shows actual military value: during the Great Gallic War the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to lure the Roman armies into Gaul and then trap and obliterate them. They thus ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This caused immense problems for the Romans, but the Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that the ravaging alone was not to be enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome.
4th century CE:
Roman invasion of Persia: In the year CE 363, the Emperor Julian's invasion of Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy:
The extensive region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media ...was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved ... the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice.
7th century CE:
First Fitna: During the First Fitna (656–661), Muawiyah I sent Busr ibn Abi Artat to a campaign in the Hejaz and Yemen to ravage territory loyal to Muawiyah's opponent Ali ibn Abi Talib. According to Tabari, 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during that campaign of the civil war. Muawiyah also sent Sufyan ibn Awf to Iraq to burn the crops and homes of Ali's supporters.
9th century CE:
Viking invasion of England: During the Viking invasion of England, the Viking chieftain Hastein tried to occupy the ruined Roman fortress of Chester in late summer 893, planning to raid northern Mercia from the refortified fortress. But the Mercians destroyed all crops and livestock in the surrounding countryside and expelled the Vikings successfully.
11th century:
Harrying of the North: In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's solution to stop a rebellion in 1069 was the brutal conquest and subjugation of northern England. William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over the winter. The destruction is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. The survivors were reduced to cannibalism, with one report stating that the skulls of the dead were cracked open so that their brains could be eaten. Between 100,000 and 150,000 perished, and the area took centuries to recover from the damage.
14th century:
Hundred Years' War: During the Hundred Years' War, both the English and the French conducted chevauchée raids over the enemy territory to damage its infrastructure.
Robert the Bruce counselled using scorched earth to frustrate the invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England, according to an anonymous 14th-century poem:
Wars of Scottish Independence: A slighting is the deliberate destruction, whether partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition. Sometimes, such as during the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, it was done to render the structure unusable as a fortress. In England, adulterine (unauthorised) castles would usually be slighted if captured by a king. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Robert the Bruce adopted a strategy of slighting Scottish castles to prevent them from being occupied by the invading English.
Crusades: A strategy of slighting castles in Palestine was also adopted by the Mamlukes during their wars with the Crusaders.
15th century:
Moldavian–Ottoman Wars: Stephen the Great used scorched earth in the Carpathians against the Ottoman Army in 1475 and 1476.
Wallachian–Ottoman Wars: In 1462, a massive Ottoman army, led by Sultan Mehmed II, marched into Wallachia. Vlad the Impaler retreated to Transylvania. During his departure, he conducted scorched-earth tactics to ward off Mehmed's approach. When the Ottoman forces approached Tirgoviste, they encountered over 20,000 people impaled by the forces of Vlad the Impaler, creating a "forest" of dead or dying bodies on stakes. The atrocious, gut-wrenching sight caused Mehmed to withdraw from battle and send instead Radu, Vlad's brother, to fight Vlad the Impaler.
16th century:
Anglicisation of the Irish: Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland, where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham.
The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it:
In those late wars in Munster; for not withstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Scorched earth | The atrocious, gut-wrenching sight caused Mehmed to withdraw from battle and send instead Radu, Vlad's brother, to fight Vlad the Impaler.
16th century:
Anglicisation of the Irish: Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland, where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham.
The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it:
In those late wars in Munster; for not withstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they did eat of the carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.
Great Siege of Malta: In early 1565, Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Valette ordered the harvesting of all the crops in Malta, including unripened grain, to deprive the Ottomans of any local food supplies since spies had warned of an imminent Ottoman attack. Furthermore, the Knights poisoned all of the wells with bitter herbs and dead animals. The Ottomans arrived on 18 May, and the Great Siege of Malta began. The Ottomans managed to capture one fort but were eventually defeated by the Knights, the Maltese militia and a Spanish relief force.
17th century:
Thirty Years' War: In 1630, Field-Marshal General Torquato Conti was in command of the Holy Roman Empire's forces during the Thirty Years' War. Forced to retreat from the advancing Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus, Conti ordered his troops to burn houses, destroy villages and cause as much harm generally to property and people as possible.:
To revenge himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but too severely from his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often, when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins.
Nine Years' War: In 1688, France attacked the German Electoral Palatinate. The German states responded by forming an alliance and assembling a sizeable armed force to push the French out of Germany. The French had not prepared for such an eventuality. Realising that the war in Germany was not going to end quickly and that the war would not be a brief and decisive parade of French glory, Louis XIV and War Minister Marquis de Louvois resolved upon a scorched-earth policy in the Palatinate, Baden and Württemberg. The French were intent on denying enemy troops local resources and on preventing the Germans from invading France. By 20 December 1688, Louvois had selected all the cities, towns, villages and châteaux intended for destruction. On 2 March 1689, the Count of Tessé torched Heidelberg, and on 8 March, Montclar levelled Mannheim. Oppenheim and Worms were finally destroyed on 31 May, followed by Speyer on 1 June, and Bingen on 4 June. In all, French troops burnt over 20 substantial towns as well as numerous villages.
Mughal–Maratha Wars: In the Maratha Empire, Shivaji Maharaj had introduced scorched-earth tactics, known as Ganimi Kava. His forces looted traders and businessmen from Aurangzeb's Mughal Empire and burnt down his cities, but they were strictly ordered not to rape or hurt the innocent civilians and not to cause any sort of disrespect to any of the religious institutes.
Shivaji's son, Sambhaji Maharaj, was detested throughout the Mughal Empire for his scorched-earth tactics until he and his men were captured by Muqarrab Khan and his Mughal Army contingent of 25,000. On 11 March 1689, a panel of Mughal qadis indicted and sentenced Sambhaji to death on accusations of casual torture, arson, looting and massacres but most prominently for giving shelter to Sultan Muhammad Akbar, the fourth son of Aurangzeb, who had sought Sambhaji's aid in winning the Mughal throne from the emperor, his father. Sambhaji was particularly condemned for the three days of ravaging committed after the Battle of Burhanpur.
18th century:
Great Northern War: During the Great Northern War, Russian Emperor Peter the Great's forces used scorched-earth tactics to hold back Swedish King Charles XII's campaign towards Moscow in 1707-1708.
Sullivan–Clinton genocide: In 1779 Congress decided to defeat the four British allied nations of the Iroquois decisively during the American Revolutionary War with the Sullivan Expedition. General John Sullivan used a scorched earth campaign by destroying more than 40 Iroquois villages and their stores of winter crops resulting in many deaths by starvation and cold in the following winter.
Haitian Revolution against Napoleon: In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture outlined his plans for defeating the French in the Haitian Revolution starting in 1791 using scorched-earth: "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve".
19th century:
Napoleonic Wars: During the third Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese population retreated towards Lisbon and was ordered to destroy all the food supplies the French might capture as well as forage and shelter in a wide belt across the country. (Although effective food-preserving techniques had recently been invented, they were still not fit for military use because a suitably-rugged container had not yet been invented.) The command was obeyed as a result of French plundering and general ill-treatment of civilians in the previous invasions. The civilians would rather destroy anything that had to be left behind, rather than leave it to the French. When the French armies reached the Lines of Torres Vedras on the way to Lisbon, French soldiers reported that the country "seemed to empty ahead of them". Low morale, hunger, disease and indiscipline greatly weakened the French army and compelled the forces to retreat, see also Attrition warfare against Napoleon.
In 1812, Emperor Alexander I was able to render Napoleon's invasion of Russia useless by using a scorched-earth policy. As Russians withdrew from the advancing French army, they burned the countryside over which they passed (and allegedly Moscow), leaving nothing of value for the pursuing French army. Encountering only desolate and useless land Napoleon's Grande Armée was prevented from using its usual doctrine of living off the lands that it conquered. Pushing relentlessly on despite dwindling numbers, the Grand Army met with disaster as the invasion progressed. Napoleon's army arrived in a virtually-abandoned Moscow, which was a tattered starving shell of its former self, largely because of scorched-earth tactics by the retreating Russians. Having conquered essentially nothing, Napoleon's troops retreated, but the scorched-earth policy came into effect again because even though some large supply dumps had been established on the advance, the route between them had both been scorched and marched over once already. Thus, the French army starved as it marched along the resource-depleted invasion route.
South American War of Independence: In August 1812, Argentine General Manuel Belgrano led the Jujuy Exodus, a massive forced displacement of people from what is now Jujuy and Salta Provinces to the south. The Jujuy Exodus was conducted by the patriot forces of the Army of the North, which was battling a Royalist army.
Belgrano, faced with the prospect of total defeat and territorial loss, ordered all people to pack their necessities, including food and furniture, and to follow him in carriages or on foot together with whatever cattle and beasts of burden that could endure the journey. The rest (houses, crops, food stocks and any objects made of iron) was to be burned to deprive the Royalists of resources. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Scorched earth | Thus, the French army starved as it marched along the resource-depleted invasion route.
South American War of Independence: In August 1812, Argentine General Manuel Belgrano led the Jujuy Exodus, a massive forced displacement of people from what is now Jujuy and Salta Provinces to the south. The Jujuy Exodus was conducted by the patriot forces of the Army of the North, which was battling a Royalist army.
Belgrano, faced with the prospect of total defeat and territorial loss, ordered all people to pack their necessities, including food and furniture, and to follow him in carriages or on foot together with whatever cattle and beasts of burden that could endure the journey. The rest (houses, crops, food stocks and any objects made of iron) was to be burned to deprive the Royalists of resources. The strict scorched-earth policy made him ask on 29 July 1812 the people of Jujuy to "show their heroism" and to join the march of the army under his command "if, as you assure, you want to be free". The punishment for ignoring the order was execution, with the destruction of the defector's properties. Belgrano labored to win the support of the populace and later reported that most of the people had willingly followed him without the need for force.
The exodus started on 23 August and gathered people from Jujuy and Salta. People travelled south about 250 km and finally arrived at the banks of the Pasaje River, in Tucumán Province in the early hours of 29 August. They applied a scorched-earth policy and so the Spaniards advanced into a wasteland. Belgrano's army destroyed everything that could provide shelter or be useful to the Royalists.
Greek War of Independence: In 1827, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt led an Ottoman-Egyptian combined force in a campaign to crush Greek revolutionaries in the Peloponnese. In response to Greek guerrilla attacks on his forces in the Peloponnese, Ibrahim launched a scorched earth campaign that threatened the population with starvation and deported many civilians into slavery in Egypt. The fires of burning villages and fields were clearly visible from Allied ships standing offshore. A British landing party reported that the population of Messinia was close to mass starvation. Ibrahim's scorched-earth policy caused much outrage in Europe, which was one factor for the Great Powers (United Kingdom, the Kingdom of France and the Russian Empire) decisively intervening against him in the Battle of Navarino.
American Civil War: In the American Civil War, Union forces under Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman used the policy widely:
supplies within the reach of Confederate armies I regarded as much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction was accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war. Promiscuous pillaging, however, was discouraged and punished. Instructions were always given to take provisions and forage under the direction of commissioned officers who should give receipts to owners, if at home, and turn the property over to officers of the quartermaster or commissary departments to be issued as if furnished from our Northern depots. But much was destroyed without receipts to owners when it could not be brought within our lines and would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end.
General Sherman used that policy during his March to the Sea.
Another event, in response to William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas and the many civilian casualties, including the killing of 150 men, Brigadier General Thomas Ewing Jr., Sherman's brother-in-law, issued US Army General Order No. 11 (1863) to order the near-total evacuation of three-and-a-half counties in western Missouri, south of Kansas City, which were subsequently looted and burned by US Army troops. Under Sherman's overall direction, General Philip Sheridan followed that policy in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and then in the Indian Wars of the Great Plains.
When General Ulysses Grant's forces broke through the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the destruction of Richmond's military supplies. The resulting fires quickly spread to other buildings, as well as to the Confederate warships docked on the James River. Civilians in panic were forced to escape the city as it quickly burned.
Native American Wars: During the wars with Native American tribes of the American West, Kit Carson, under James Henry Carleton's direction, instituted a scorched-earth policy, burning fields and homes destroying any livestock. He was aided by other Indian tribes with long-standing enmity toward the Navajos, chiefly the Ute tribe. The Navajo were forced to surrender because of the destruction of their livestock and food supplies. In the spring of 1864, 8000 Navajo men, women, and children were forced to march 300 miles to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Navajos call it "The Long Walk."
Second Boer War: During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), British forces applied a scorched-earth policy in the occupied Boer republics under the direction of General Lord Kitchener. Numerous Boers, refusing to accept military defeat, adopted guerrilla warfare despite the capture of both of their capital cities. As a result, under Lord Kitchener's command British forces initiated a policy of the destruction of the farms and the homes of civilians in the republics to prevent the Boers who were still fighting from obtaining food and supplies. Boer noncombatants inhabiting the republics (mostly women and children) were interned in concentration camps to prevent them from supplying guerillas still in the field.
The existence of the concentration camps was exposed by English activist Emily Hobhouse, who toured the camps and began petitioning the British government to change its policy. In an attempt to counter Hobhouse's activism, the British government commissioned the Fawcett Commission, but it confirmed Hobhouse's findings. The British government then claimed that it perceived the concentration camps to be humanitarian measure and were established to care for displaced noncombatants until the war's end, in response to mounting criticism of the camps in Britain. A number of factors, including outbreaks of infectious diseases, a lack of planning and supplies for the camps, and overcrowding led to numerous internees dying in the camps. A decade after the war, historian P. L. A. Goldman estimated that 27,927 Boers died in the concentration camps, 26,251 women and children (of whom more than 22,000 were under the age of 16) and 1,676 men over the age of 16, with 1,421 being above the age of 16.
The number of Black Africans who also suffered the same is unknown.
New Zealand Wars: In 1868, the Tūhoe, who had sheltered the Māori leader Te Kooti, were thus subjected to a scorched-earth policy in which their crops and buildings were destroyed and the people of fighting age were captured.
20th century:
World War I: On the Eastern Front of World War I, the Imperial Russian Army created a zone of destruction by using a massive scorched-earth strategy during their retreat from the Imperial German Army in the summer and the autumn of 1915. The Russian troops, retreating along a front of more than 600 miles, destroyed anything that might be of use to their enemy, including crops, houses, railways and entire cities. They also forcibly removed huge numbers of people. In pushing the Russian troops back into Russia's interior, the German army gained a large area of territory from the Russian Empire that is now Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania.
In late 1916 the British army set fire to the Romanian oil fields in order to prevent the central powers from capturing them. 800 million litres of oil were burned.
On the Western Front on 24 February 1917, the German army made a strategic scorched-earth withdrawal (Operation Alberich) from the Somme battlefield to the prepared fortifications of the Hindenburg Line to shorten the line that had to be occupied. Since a scorched-earth campaign requires a war of movement, the Western Front provided little opportunity for the policy as the war was mostly a stalemate and was fought mostly in the same concentrated area for its entire duration.
Greco-Turkish War: During the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22), the retreating Greek Army carried out a scorched-earth policy while it was fleeing from Anatolia in the final phase of the war. The historian Sydney Nettleton Fisher wrote, "The Greek army in retreat pursued a burned-earth policy and committed every known outrage against defenceless Turkish villagers in its path".
Norman Naimark noted that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation".
Second Sino-Japanese War: During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army had a scorched-earth policy, known as "Three Alls Policy", which caused immense environmental and infrastructure damage to be recorded. It contributed to the complete destruction of entire villages and partial destruction of entire cities.
The Chinese National Revolutionary Army destroyed dams and levees in an attempt to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers, which further added to the environmental impact and resulted in the 1938 Yellow River flood. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Scorched earth | The historian Sydney Nettleton Fisher wrote, "The Greek army in retreat pursued a burned-earth policy and committed every known outrage against defenceless Turkish villagers in its path".
Norman Naimark noted that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation".
Second Sino-Japanese War: During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army had a scorched-earth policy, known as "Three Alls Policy", which caused immense environmental and infrastructure damage to be recorded. It contributed to the complete destruction of entire villages and partial destruction of entire cities.
The Chinese National Revolutionary Army destroyed dams and levees in an attempt to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers, which further added to the environmental impact and resulted in the 1938 Yellow River flood. In the 1938 Changsha fire, the city of Changsha was put on fire by the Kuomintang to prevent any wealth from falling into enemy hands.
World War II: At the start of the Winter War in 1939, the Finns used the tactic in the vicinity of the border in order to deprive the invading Soviet Red Army's provisions and shelter for the forthcoming cold winter. In some cases, fighting took place in areas that were familiar to the Finnish soldiers who were fighting it. There were accounts of soldiers burning down their very own homes and parishes. One of the burned parishes was Suomussalmi.
When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, many district governments took the initiative to begin a partial scorched-earth policy to deny the invaders access to electrical, telecommunications, rail, and industrial resources. Parts of the telegraph network were destroyed, some rail and road bridges were blown up, most electrical generators were sabotaged through the removal of key components, and many mineshafts were collapsed.
The process was repeated later in the war by the German forces of Army Group North and Erich von Manstein's Army Group Don, which stole crops, destroyed farms, and razed cities and smaller settlements during several military operations. The rationale for the policy was that it would slow pursuing Soviet forces by forcing them to save their own civilians. The best-known victims of the German scorched-earth policy were the people of the historic city of Novgorod, which was razed during the winter of 1944 to cover Army Group North's retreat from Leningrad.
Near the end of the summer of 1944, Finland, which had made a separate peace with the Allies, was required to evict the German forces, which had been fighting against the Soviets alongside Finnish troops in northern Finland. The Finnish forces, under the leadership of General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, struck aggressively in late September 1944 by making a landfall at Tornio. That accelerated the German retreat, and by November 1944, the Germans had left most of northern Finland. The German forces, forced to retreat because of an overall strategic situation, covered their retreat towards Norway by devastating large areas of northern Finland by using a scorched-earth strategy. More than a third of the area's dwellings were destroyed, and the provincial capital Rovaniemi was burned to the ground. All but two bridges in Lapland Province were blown up, and all roads were mined.
In northern Norway, which was also being invaded by Soviet forces in pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched-earth policy of destroying every building that could offer shelter and thus interposing a belt of "scorched earth" between themselves and the allies.
In 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered his minister of armaments, Albert Speer, to carry out a nationwide scorched-earth policy, in what became known as the Nero Decree. Speer, who was looking to the future, actively resisted the order, just as he had earlier refused Hitler's command to destroy French industry when the Wehrmacht was being driven out of France. Speer managed to continue doing so even after Hitler became aware of his actions.
During the Second World War, the railroad plough was used during retreats in Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries to deny enemy use of railways by partially destroying them.
Malayan Liberation War: Britain was the first nation to employ herbicides and defoliants (chiefly Agent Orange) to destroy the crops and the bushes of Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) insurgents in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. The intent was to prevent MNLA insurgents from utilizing rice fields to resupply their rations and using them as a cover to ambush passing convoys of Commonwealth troops.
Goa War: In response to India's invasion of Portuguese Goa in December 1961 during the annexation of Portuguese India, orders delivered from Portuguese President Américo Tomás called for a scorched-earth policy for Goa to be destroyed before its surrender to India.
However, despite his orders from Lisbon, Governor General Manuel António Vassalo e Silva took stock of the superiority of the Indian troops and of his forces' supplies of food and ammunition and took the decision to surrender. He later described his orders to destroy Goa as "a useless sacrifice" (um sacrifício inútil)".
Vietnam War: The United States used Agent Orange as a part of its herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand to destroy crops and foliage to expose possible enemy hideouts during the Vietnam War. Agent Blue was used on rice fields to deny food to the Viet Cong.
Persian Gulf War: During the 1990 Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait, they set more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells on fire. That was done as part of a scorched-earth policy during the retreat from Kuwait in 1991 after Iraqi forces had been driven out by Coalition military forces. The fires were started in January and February 1991, and the last one was extinguished by November 1991.
Guatemalan Civil War: Efraín Ríos Montt used the policy in Guatemala's highlands in 1981 and 1982, but it had been used under the previous president, Fernando Romeo Lucas García. Upon entering office, Ríos Montt implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy that called for the use of scorched earth to combat the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity rebels. Plan Victoria 82 was more commonly known by the nickname of the rural pacification elements of the strategy, Fusiles y Frijoles (Bullets and Beans). Ríos Montt's policies resulted in the death of thousands, most of them indigenous Mayans.
Indonesia: The Indonesian military used the method during Indonesian National Revolution when the British forces in Bandung gave an ultimatum for Indonesian fighters to leave the city. In response, the southern part of Bandung was deliberately burned down in an act of defiance as they left the city on 24 March 1946. This event is known as the Bandung Sea of Fire (Bandung Lautan Api).
The Indonesian military and pro-Indonesia militias also used the method in the 1999 East Timorese crisis. The Timor-Leste scorched-earth campaign was around the time of East Timor's referendum for independence in 1999.
Yugoslav Wars: The method was used during the Yugoslav Wars that started in 1991, such as against the Serbs in Krajina by the Croatian Army, and by Serbian paramilitary groups.
Soviet–Afghan War: The Soviet army used scorched-earth tactics against towns and villages in 1983 to 1984 in the Soviet–Afghan War to prevent the return of the Mujahideen by a migratory genocide. The Soviet army used mines extensively in the bordering provinces to Pakistan to cut off weapon supply.
21st century:
Darfur War: The government of Sudan used scorched earth as a military strategy in the Darfur War that started in 2003.
Sri Lankan Civil War: During the 2009 Sri Lankan Civil War, the United Nations Regional Information Centre accused the government of Sri Lanka of using scorched-earth tactics.
Myanmar civil war: In March 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the Burmese military's use of a scorched earth strategy, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced 1.3 million people and destroyed 39,000 houses throughout the country since the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, as the military has denied humanitarian access to survivors, razed entire villages, and used indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery shelling.
In business world: The concept of scorched-earth defense is sometimes applied figuratively to the business world in which a firm facing a takeover attempts to make itself less valuable by selling off its assets.
See also:
Explanatory notes:
Notes:
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Billows, Richard A (2008). Julius Caesar: The Colossus of Rome. Routledge. ISBN 9781134318322.
Blackmore, David S.T. (2014). |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Scorched earth | See also:
Explanatory notes:
Notes:
References: Ambler, Sophie; Bailey, Mark; Seel, Graham E. (2018). British Depth Studies c. 500–1100 (Anglo-Saxon and Norman Britain). London: Anthem Press. ISBN 978-1-78308-808-9. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
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mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Screening (tactical) | Screening force: Screening is often done by reconnaissance units such as cavalry, which operate within range of supporting artillery. In contrast to a guard force, a screening force may consist of a scout platoon rather than a task force or squadron; and its mission is less ambitious, focusing on early warning to the main body rather than preventing enemy observation and direct fire on the main body. Also, unlike a guard force, a screening force is deployed over an extended area, to the rear and flanks of the main force, rather than to the front. The screening force's minimal tasks enable it to have a wide frontage. The screen line describes the trace along which the protecting unit is providing security. Aerial assets are used when ground assets cannot keep pace with the main body.
A screening force normally uses direct fire only for self-defense and does not seek to become decisively engaged with enemy forces.
Examples: During the American Civil War, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Maj. Gen. John Buford set the conditions for Maj. Gen. George Meade's success by ensuring the Army of the Potomac occupied the high ground, which destroyed General Robert E. Lee's army when it attacked.
See also: Covering force
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sea denial | Methods: Sea denial is achieved in many different ways. The method depends on factors such as geography, ambition, and capabilities. Geographically it is easier to conduct sea denial operations in choke points such as narrow waters, straights, or congested waters.
Example techniques include naval mines, anti-ship missiles, drones, and submarines.
Barrier operations seek to hinder access to certain areas. Commerce raiding requires the enemy to put resources into escorting merchant ships. Asymmetrical warfare can involve attacking expensive ships with low cost uncrewed vessels. A fleet in being can threaten offensive operations without actually conducting them.
History: During World War I and World War II, Germany pursued sea denial using U-boats. Owing to the substantial superiority of the Royal Navy's surface forces, Germany's Imperial Navy (in World War I) and Kriegsmarine (in World War II) had little hope of sea control, but with submarines, the Germans hoped to choke off their access to seaborne commerce. In both wars, the United Kingdom successfully resisted the German strategy with a combination of strict rationing and anti-submarine weapons and techniques.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union invested heavily in submarines and would likely have pursued a similar strategy of sea denial had tensions with NATO escalated to open warfare.
Since World War II, the most notable example of a sea denial involved the so-called 'Tanker War,' wherein Iran and Iraq sought to close the Persian Gulf.
Today the term A2/AD has gained traction, and refers to a sort of sea denial strategy where a state aspires to challenge access to certain areas while hindering freedom of movement in an adjacent area. It can include a combined effort of navy, air force, and army. The army deploys missiles and sensors. The air force deploys assets to gather intelligence, conduct surveillance and reconnaissance and target ships with airborne weaponry. The navy deploys sea mines, surface ships, and submarines in a layered defence and distributed lethality.
Modern sea denial addresses area denial weapons, for example in the context of a land power using land-based missiles to strike sea targets. Such missiles can follow cruise missile (terrain-skimming) or ballistic missile trajectories.
See also: Fleet in being
Sea control or command of the sea ( same article )
Commerce raiding
References:
Bibliography: Corbett, Julian S. 2018. Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Bd. 1911. Adansonia Press.
Speller, Ian. 2019. Understanding Naval Warfare. 2. edition. Routledge.
Till, Geoffrey. 2018. Seapower. A Guide for the Twenty-First Century. 4th edition. Cass Series: Naval Policy and History. 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abdingdon Oxon, OX14 4RN: Routledge. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Seabed warfare | Overview: Seabed warfare is defined as “operations to, from and across the ocean floor.”
In general the target of seabed warfare is infrastructure in place on the seabed such as power cables, telecom cables, or natural resource extraction systems. Seabed warfare capabilities are expensive and because of that significant capabilities are only possessed by major powers.
Conflicts on the seabed can be both conventional and unconventional, the latter encompassing non-kinetic approaches such as lawfare.
France has integrated seabed warfare into their military strategy with the concept of Seabed Control Operations which involves expanding their existing mine warfare and hydro-oceanography capabilities to deal with a more comprehensive spectrum of threats.
Platforms: The American Block VI Virginia-class submarines will include the organic ability to employ seabed warfare equipment.
The Russian submarine Losharik is thought to be capable of seabed warfare.
The Chinese HSU-001 is a small UUV, speculated to be optimized for seabed warfare.
See also: Naval mine
SOSUS
Anti-submarine warfare
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Security dilemma | Basic components: Tang identified the following core components between interpretations of the security dilemma by Herbert Butterfield, John H. Herz, and Robert Jervis:
Butterfield viewed the security dilemma as the root cause of all war, but he did not view anarchy as being the ultimate source of the security dilemma. Instead he attributed the source to fear and the "universal sin" of humanity — that humanity can commit evil. Herz and Jervis did not view the security dilemma as being the root cause of all war. A counterexample frequently given is the Second World War, where there was no dilemma over war with a malign Nazi Germany.
Defensive realism: The security dilemma is the core assumption of defensive realism. According to Kenneth Waltz, because the world does not have a common government and is "anarchic", survival is the main motivation of states. States are distrustful of other states' intentions and as a consequence always try to maximize their own security. The security dilemma explains why security-seeking (as opposed to non-security seeking) states could end up in conflict, even though they have benign intentions.
The offense-defense balance accounts for why the security dilemma is more intense in certain circumstances. Defensive realists argue that in situations where offensive actions have the advantage (for example, due to geography or military technology), the security dilemma will be particularly intensive because states will be more distrustful of each other and be more encouraged to take preemptive offensive actions. In situations where the defense has the advantage, security-seeking states can afford to focus strictly on their defense without as much fear of being attacked. Security-seeking states can also signal benign intentions without adversely affecting their own security.
Defensive realists often regard the success of the United States in World War I as being a result of the defensive approach taken by the United States. Had the United States taken an offensive stance, defensive realists argue that the United States would not have been secure. The conclusion from defensive realism is that in some circumstances states can escape the security dilemma.
Offensive realism: Offensive realism and defensive realism are variants of structural realism. They share the basic beliefs of survivalism, statism (state as the primary unit), self-help and anarchy. (See international relations theory.) However, contrary to defensive realism, offensive realism regards states as aggressive power maximizers and not as security maximizers. According to John Mearsheimer, "Uncertainty about the intentions of other states is unavoidable, which means that states can never be sure that other states do not have offensive intentions to go along with their offensive capabilities". According to Mearsheimer, though achieving hegemony by any state is not likely in today's international system, there is no such thing as a status quo and "the world is condemned to perpetual great power competition".
Supporting the belief that the international system is anarchic and that each state must independently seek its own survival, Waltz argues that weaker states try to find a balance with their rivals and to form an alliance with a stronger state to obtain a guarantee of security against offensive action by an enemy state. On the other hand, Mearsheimer and other offensive realists argue that anarchy encourages all states to always increase their own power because one state can never be sure of other states' intentions. In other words, defensive realism contends that security can be balanced in some cases and that the security dilemma is escapable. While offensive realists do not disagree, they do not agree fully with the defensive view instead contending that if states can gain an advantage over other states then they will do so. In short, since states want to maximize their power in this anarchic system and since states cannot trust one another, the security dilemma is inescapable.
Offensive realists dispute that the offense-defense is a major determinant of state behavior, arguing the concept is vague, that offense and defense cannot be distinguished, that the offense-defense balance does not vary significantly over time, perceptions among leaders of the offense-defense balance varies even within the same time periods, and attackers and defender can use most types of weapons to achieve their goals.
Offense–defense theory: The offense–defense theory of Robert Jervis helps decide the intensity of the security dilemma. Jervis uses four scenarios to describe the intensity of the security dilemma:
When offensive and defensive behaviour are not distinguishable but offense has an advantage, the security dilemma is "very intense" and environment is "doubly dangerous". Status quo states will behave in an aggressive manner and they will arise the possibility of an arms race. Chances of cooperation between states are low.
Where offensive and defensive behavior are not distinguishable but defense has an advantage, the security dilemma is "intense" in explaining states' behaviour but not as intense as in the first case. In such situation, a state might be able to increase its security without being a threat to other states and without endangering the security of other states.
Where offensive and defensive behavior are distinguishable but offense has an advantage, the security dilemma is "not intense" but security issues exist. The environment is safe, but offensive behaviour has an advantage that might result in aggression at some future time.
Where offensive and defensive behavior are distinguishable and defense has advantage, the security dilemma has little or no intensity, and the environment is "doubly safe". Since there is little danger of offensive action by other states, a state would be able to expend some of its defense budget and other resources on useful development within the state.
According to Jervis, the technical capabilities of a state and its geographical position are two essential factors in deciding whether offensive or defensive action is advantageous. He argues that at a strategic level, technical and geographical factors are of greater favor to the defender. For example, in the 19th century railway and roads construction were rapidly changing the composition of capabilities of states to attack or defend themselves from other states. Thus, considerable effort in diplomatic relations and intelligence were specifically focused on this issue.
The spiral model identifies the next step in reasoning about states' behavior after identifying the intensity of the security dilemma. In particular, under given circumstances of the security dilemma, what steps might a threatened state take to derive advantage by attacking first. In other words, the spiral model seeks to explain war. In the spiral model of Jervis, there are two reasons why a state might end up in war. "Preventive war" might take place as one state might decide to attack first when it perceives the balance of power shifting to the other side creating an advantage in attacking sooner rather than later as conditions may not be as favorable in the future as in the present. "Preemptive war" might take place as a state might decide to attack another state first to prevent the other state from attacking or to obstruct the other state's attack because it fears the other state is preparing to attack.
The deterrence model is contrary to the spiral model, but also purports to explain war. While the spiral model presumes that states are fearful of each other, the deterrence model is based on the belief that states are greedy. Paul K. Huth divides deterrence into three main types:
Preventing armed attack against a country's own territory ("direct deterrence")
Preventing armed attack against the territory of another country ("extended deterrence")
Using deterrence against a short-term threat of attack ("immediate deterrence")
Under some circumstances attempts at deterrence can "backfire" when a potential attacker misinterprets the state's deterrence measures as a "prelude to offensive measures". In such cases the security dilemma can arise generating perceptions of a "first strike advantage". According to Huth "most effective deterrence policies are those that decrease the expected utility of using force while not reducing the expected utility of the status quo; optimally deterrent policies would even increase the utility of not using the force." It is more likely that deterrence will succeed if the attacker finds deterrence threat "credible" and a credible deterrence threat might not necessarily be a military threat.
Jervis claims that the security dilemma can lead to arms races and alliance formation.
Arms race: According to Robert Jervis, since the world is anarchic, a state might, for defensive purposes, build its military capability. However, since states are not aware of each other's intentions, other states might interpret a defensive buildup as offensive; if so and if offensive action against the state that is only building its defenses is advantageous, the other states might prefer to take an aggressive stance, which will "make the situation unstable". In such situation, an arms race may become a strong possibility. Robert Jervis gives the example of Germany and Britain before World War I. "Much of the behaviour in this period was the product of technology and beliefs that magnified the security dilemma". In that example, strategists believed that offense would be more advantageous than defense, but that ultimately turned out to not be the case. Competition on nuclear weapons construction between the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, is a well-known example of an arms race.
Alliance formation: The security dilemma might force states to form new alliances or to strengthen existing alliances. "If offense has less advantage, stability and cooperation are likely". According to Glenn H. Snyder, under a security dilemma there are two reasons that alliances will form. First, a state that is dissatisfied with the amount of security it has forms alliances in order to bolster its security. Second, a state is in doubt about the reliability of existing allies in coming to its aid, and thus decides to court another ally or allies. According to Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, in a multipolar world two types of alliance dilemma exist which are contrary in nature. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Security dilemma | In that example, strategists believed that offense would be more advantageous than defense, but that ultimately turned out to not be the case. Competition on nuclear weapons construction between the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, is a well-known example of an arms race.
Alliance formation: The security dilemma might force states to form new alliances or to strengthen existing alliances. "If offense has less advantage, stability and cooperation are likely". According to Glenn H. Snyder, under a security dilemma there are two reasons that alliances will form. First, a state that is dissatisfied with the amount of security it has forms alliances in order to bolster its security. Second, a state is in doubt about the reliability of existing allies in coming to its aid, and thus decides to court another ally or allies. According to Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, in a multipolar world two types of alliance dilemma exist which are contrary in nature. These alliance dilemmas are known as chain ganging and buck passing.
Chain ganging: In a multipolar world, alliance security is interconnected. When one ally decides to participate in war, it pulls its alliance partners into the war too, which is referred to as chain ganging. If the partner does not participate in the war fully, it will endanger the security of its ally. For example, in World War I, to the alliance between Austria-Hungary and Germany, according to Waltz, did this: "If Austria-Hungary marched, Germany had to follow: the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have left Germany alone in the middle of Europe". On the other side, if "France marched, Russia had to follow; a German victory over France would be a defeat for Russia. And so it was all around the vicious circle, because the defeat or defection of a major alliance would have shaken the balance, each alliance partner would have shaken the balance, each state was constrained to adjust its strategy".
Buck passing: In the face of a rising threat, balancing alignments fail to form in a timely fashion as states try to freeride on other states. States might do so to avoid the expense of war for themselves. For example, to use Waltz's example, in World War II, the French Foreign Minister told the British Prime Minister that Britain was justified in taking "the lead in opposing Germany" when the Nazis had taken over the Rhineland, but as "the German threat grew", France and Britain hoped that Germany and the Soviet Union "would balance each other off or fight to the finish. Uncertainties about... who will gain or lose from the action of other states accelerate as number of states increases".
Criticisms and responses: According to Alexander Wendt, "Security dilemmas are not given by anarchy or nature" but, rather, are "a social structure composed of intersubjective understandings in which states are so distrustful that they make worst-case assumptions about each other's intentions". Jennifer Mitzen mirrors Wendt's critique, arguing that the security dilemma can be caused and maintained by the pursuit for ontological security rather than rationalist security-seeking.
Glaser argues that Wendt mischaracterised the security dilemma. "Wendt is using the security dilemma to describe the result of states' interaction whereas Jervis and the literature he has spawned use the security dilemma to refer to a situation created by the material conditions facing states, such as geography and prevailing technology". According to Wendt because the security dilemma is the result of one state's interaction with another, a state can adopt policies which hinder the security dilemma. Glaser blames Wendt for "exaggerating the extent to which structural realism calls for competitive policies and, therefore, the extent to which it leads to security dilemmas". Glaser argues that though offensive realists presume that in an international system a state has to compete for power, the security dilemma is a concept mainly used by defensive realists and according to defensive realists it is beneficial for nations to cooperate under certain circumstances.
Another mode of criticism of the security dilemma concept is to question the validity of the offence-defense balance. Since weapons of offense and of defense are the same, how can the distinction between the two be connected with a state's intentions? As a result, critics have questioned whether the offense-defense balance can be used as a variable in explaining international conflicts.
According to Charles Glaser, criticisms of the offense-defense balance are based on two misunderstandings. First, the sameness or difference of offensive weapons compared with defensive weapons does not impact the offense-defense balance itself. Offense-defense theory assumes that both parties in conflict will use those weapons that suit their strategy and goals. Second, whether both states involved in the conflict have some common weapons between them is the wrong question to ask in seeking to understand the offense-defense balance. Instead, critics should focus on the influence or net effect of weapons used in the conflict. According to Glaser, "Distinguishability should be defined by comparative net assessment" or the comparison of the balance of offense-defense when both sides use weapons versus when neither side is using weapons.
See also: Balance of power in international relations
Escalation of commitment
Hobbesian trap
Red Queen's race
Prisoner's dilemma
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sexual harassment in the military | Definitions: Sexual harassment is unwanted sexual behaviour experienced as threatening or otherwise upsetting. Definitions in use by state armed forces include:
Australian Defence Forces: Unwanted sexual advances or sexual requests towards to another person
British Army: Unwanted sexually based conduct or other conduct affecting the dignity of women and men at work.
Canadian Armed Forces: Improper conduct directed at and offensive to others, which the perpetrator ought reasonably know would be so.
United States Armed Forces: Unwanted sexual advances and other behaviour of a sexual nature.
Behaviour: Sexual harassment in the military includes a broad spectrum of behaviour.
Undirected behaviours are those not personally targeted but which affect the working environment, such as sexist and sexual jokes and the prominent display of pornographic material.
Directed behaviours target one or more individuals, such as hazing rituals, unwanted sexual advances, and sexual assault.
Research in Canada has found that a military culture of undirected sexual harassment increases the risk of directed sexual harassment and assault.
Case examples: A woman in the British army told researchers in 2006:A friend was out on an exercise when a group of men ducked her head in a bucket of water and each time she came up for breath she had to repeat "I am useless and I am a female". She told the story and said it was a joke but I could see she was upset.The Deschamps Review of 2015 found pervasive demeaning attitudes to women in the Canadian armed forces:Interviewees reported regularly being told of orders to "stop being pussies" and to "leave your purses at home" [...] The use of the word "cunt", for example, is commonplace, and rape jokes are tolerated. [...] A commonly held attitude is that, rather than be a soldier, a sailor or an aviator, a woman will be labeled an "ice princess", a "bitch", or a "slut". Another saying is that women enter the CAF "to find a man, to leave a man, or to become a man".A woman in the French army was raped by her commanding officer:It was months before I could pronounce the word "rape"... I blamed myself. I said: "We are trained in hand to hand combat. Why didn't I stop him?" But when that happens you are terrorised.Many incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the US armed forces have been documented. For example:
When a woman in the US army attended a sexual harassment awareness training, the senior officer teaching the class asked participants whether they would hit on "a naked, drunk girl on the bench outside your barracks", adding, "you're not supposed to but I probably would".
US Senator Martha McSally, formerly of the US Air Force and the first female pilot to fly combat operations, testified to a Senate meeting that she was raped by a superior officer. McSally explained that she never reported the incident for lack of trust in the military justice system. She added that she blamed herself, and that although she had thought herself strong, she felt powerless.
The US Navy Tailhook Association scandal exposed multiple acts of sexual violence during the organisation's annual convention of aviators in Las Vegas. Lieutenant Paula Puopolo (then Coughlin) blew the whistle on a run-the-gauntlet ritual, in which male officers lined the third-floor corridor of the convention hotel to harass and assault women passing through. In 1991, the men sexually assaulted 83 women, including Puopolo, and seven men. As reported in the Wall Street Journal:Puopolo says up to 200 disheveled airmen set upon her. She was fondled and passed along from one groping, pinching set of hands to another before being dropped to the ground. At breakfast, Puopolo reported the incident to [Rear Admiral] Snyder, himself a former president of the association. "He said that's what you get when you go down a hallway full of drunken aviators," she recalls.
Principal targets:
Female personnel: While some male personnel are sexually harassed, women are much more likely to be targeted.
Younger women and girls face a greater risk, according to American, British, Canadian, and French research. For example, girls aged under 18 in the British armed forces were ten times as likely as adult female personnel to be the victim of a sexual offence in 2021.
Intimate partners: In 2022, research in the UK armed forces found that experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), a category that includes sexual abuse, was three times more prevalent among partners of military personnel than among partners of civilians. 10% of male and 7% of female personnel told the researchers they had abused their partner in the previous 12 months. The study found that physical and sexual abuse of partners was particularly common where personnel had traumatic experiences of war.
In the US armed forces, estimates of the sexual abuse of military partners indicate a similarly high rate of annual incidence, ranging from 12% to 40%.
Child cadets: Cadet forces, common worldwide, are military youth organisations in communities and schools. Some evidence from the UK, where hundreds of complaints of the sexual abuse of cadets have been recorded since 2012, and from Canada, where one in ten complaints of sexual assault in the military are from the cadet organisations, indicate that these institutions are susceptible to a culture of sexual harassment.
Detainees: Individuals detained by militaries are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. During the Iraq War, for example, personnel of the U.S. Army and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) committed multiple human rights violations against detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, including rape, sodomy, and other forms of sexual abuse. Similarly, two Iraqi men detained on a Coalition warship at the start of the war were made to strip naked and were sexually humiliated.
Prevalence: While prevalence varies by country, military branch, and other factors, official statistics and peer-reviewed research from Canada, France, the UK, and the US indicate that between a quarter and a third of military women in these countries are sexually harassed at work at least once each year.
Military training settings are characterised by a particularly high level of sexual harassment and assault relative to both the civilian population and other military settings.
Research further shows an increase in perpetration during and after deployment on military operations.
Studies of sexual harassment have found that it is markedly more common in military than civilian settings For example, between 2015 and 2020, girls aged 16 or 17 in the British armed forces were twice as likely as their same-age civilian peers to report rape or other sexual assault.
Risk factors: Several reasons for a high prevalence of sexual harassment in the military have been suggested.
A Canadian study has found that key risk factors associated with military settings are the typically young age of personnel, the isolated locations of bases, the minority status of women, and the disproportionate number of men in senior positions.
An emphasis in military organisations on conformity, obedience, and hierarchical power relations, combine to increase the risk, particularly to personnel of low rank, who are less able than others to resist inappropriate expectations made of them.
Traditionally masculine values and behaviours that are rewarded and reinforced in military settings are also thought to play a role.
In the UK, the 2019 Wigston Review into inappropriate sexual behaviours in the armed forces reported that several military factors contributed to risk: "tight-knit units that perceive themselves as 'elite'; masculine cultures with low gender diversity; rank gradients; age gradients; weak or absent controls, especially after extensive operational periods; and alcohol."
Effects: Women affected by sexual harassment are more likely than other women to suffer stress-related mental illness afterwards.
Research in the US found that when sexual abuse of female military personnel was psychiatrically traumatic, the odds of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment on operations increased by a factor of nine, and the odds of suicide more than doubled.
Research in the US has found that personnel affected by sexual harassment are somewhat less likely to develop depression or PTSD if a formal report leads to effective action to address the issue.
Institutional responses: The military leadership in some countries has begun to acknowledge a culture of sexual misconduct among personnel. For example:
The British armed forces co-commissioned their first formal study of the problem in 2006. In 2016, the head of the British army noted that soldier culture remained "overly sexualised" and committed to reducing the extent of sexual misconduct.
In 2016, after a major study uncovered widespread sexual harassment and assault in the Canadian armed forces, General Jonathan Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff, acknowledged: "Harmful sexual behaviour is a real problem in our institution."
The US established the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office in 2005, which reports annually. In 2019, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remarked nonetheless that prevention efforts remained "far short of what is required to make lasting change".
Since the number of official complaints represents only a fraction of sexual harassment incidence, armed forces committed to reducing prevalence produce periodic estimates of its true extent by means of anonymised surveys.
Other prevention initiatives, varying by country, include bystander and diversity training, and helplines. Despite these steps, official statistics in Canada, the UK, and the US over the last decade show high and increasing rates of harassment.
Barriers to redress: Military personnel are frequently reluctant to report incidents of sexual misconduct:
An official report of the Australian Defence Force concluded that women affected by harassment were less likely to make a complaint because they do not expect a serious response.
Leila Minano, the co-author of a book documenting sexual abuse in the French armed forces, has commented that women are systematically discouraged from complaining, and often moved out of their unit if they do. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sexual harassment in the military | In 2019, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remarked nonetheless that prevention efforts remained "far short of what is required to make lasting change".
Since the number of official complaints represents only a fraction of sexual harassment incidence, armed forces committed to reducing prevalence produce periodic estimates of its true extent by means of anonymised surveys.
Other prevention initiatives, varying by country, include bystander and diversity training, and helplines. Despite these steps, official statistics in Canada, the UK, and the US over the last decade show high and increasing rates of harassment.
Barriers to redress: Military personnel are frequently reluctant to report incidents of sexual misconduct:
An official report of the Australian Defence Force concluded that women affected by harassment were less likely to make a complaint because they do not expect a serious response.
Leila Minano, the co-author of a book documenting sexual abuse in the French armed forces, has commented that women are systematically discouraged from complaining, and often moved out of their unit if they do.
The ombudsperson of the Canadian armed forces confirmed that women fear the consequences if they report a sexual offence to their chain of command: "The fear of repercussions is blatant", he said in 2014. In 2015, the Deschamps Review reported that one of the main reasons why personnel do not lodge a complaint is a fear of the consequences for their career and that many complainants had indeed faced reprisals.
An official report on sexual harassment in the British army in 2015 found that almost half of personnel who had an 'upsetting' experience of sexual harassment did not complain to their chain of command for fear of damaging their career. A major report by the House of Commons Defence Committee in 2021 called on the Ministry of Defence to "remove the chain of command entirely from complaints of a sexual nature".
In the US armed forces, a study in 2016 found that 58% of women who reported sexual misconduct by peers said that they had met with retaliation. The Department of Defense estimated in 2017 that two in three victims of sexual assault do not report it.
Sexual harassment in the military: country examples:
Australia: Widespread reports of sexual harassment in the Australian armed forces led to the establishment of the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce to investigate complaints from women between 1991 and 2011. It received 2,439 complaints, of which it deemed 1,751 to be plausible.
A Royal Commission into institutional child sexual abuse was established in 2012, which investigated widespread allegations of historical abuse in the navy. The Commission took evidence from 8,000 individuals and reported in 2017 that many recruits of both sexes and from the age of 15 had been repeatedly sexually abused by older recruits between 1967 and 1971, including by anal gang rape, and in some cases young recruits had been forced to rape each other. The practice was "tolerated" by senior staff, according to the Commission.
Canada: In 2014, the ombudsman of the Canadian armed forces described sexual harassment in the institution as "'a huge proble"'.
In 2015, after widespread allegations of sexual misconduct in the military, a major official report, the External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces (the Deschamps Review), was published. It found that sexual harassment was commonplace and embedded in military culture, and that pervasive degrading attitudes to women and LGBTQ+ personnel were jeopardising their safety. The Deschamps Review also criticised the armed forces for a culture of dismissiveness; one male interviewee told the Review, for example: "Girls that come to the Army know what to expect." The Review stated that senior NCOs are frequently seen as tolerating sexual harassment and discouraging the individuals affected from making a complaint.
The Canadian Armed Forces have since conducted major surveys of personnel in 2016 and 2018. In each instance, the following proportions of female personnel reported being personally targeted by sexualised or discriminatory behaviour in the previous 12 months:
2016: 31%.
2018: 28%.
In 2022, a further major report, the Arbour Review, concluded that female armed forces personnel were more likely to be attacked by their peers than the enemy.
Higher rates of harassment have been identified in military training centres. The rate of sexual harassment of women at military colleges in Canada was found in 2019 to be approximately twice (28%) that found in civilian colleges (15%). According to the Arbour Review, training centres are characterised by a "hostile environment and mistreatment of many female cadets", including the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean which trains new recruits from age 16.
A notable case of a perpetrator is that of Russell Williams, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, who was charged with the sexual assault of two women in connection with two home invasions near Tweed, Ontario in September 2009. Williams was also charged in the death of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old military traffic technician, who had been found dead at home in late November 2009. He was sentenced in 2010 to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment.
France: The extent of sexual harassment in the French armed forces first came to prominence in 2014 when 35 cases of harassment and assault were detailed in La Guerre Invisible, a book by Leila Minano and Julia Pascual. According to the Independent newspaper, the armed forces had not been required to report incidents or to keep statistics, and an official report acknowledged that awareness of the problem had been institutionally suppressed.
A study in 2021 found that 37% of women and 18% of men in a representative sample from the French military had experienced verbal or physical sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, and that 13% of women and 4% of men had been sexually assaulted. The incidence rates of sexual harassment and sexual assault experienced by women aged under 25 were particularly high, at 41% and 21% respectively. 22% of women of the lowest rank, who are typically those who have recently enlisted, said they had been sexually assaulted.
Germany: In 2014, the German armed forces reported that 55% of female and 12% of male personnel had experienced sexual harassment during their career, and that 3% of women said they had been sexually assaulted or raped.
Japan: There have been several reports of sexual assaults in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).
Norway: In 2021, the Armed Forces Research Institute found that 46% of all military women, 63% of women under 30, and 73% of new female recruits had experienced sexual harassment at least once in the previous 12 months.
United Kingdom:
UK armed forces: Following concerns expressed in 2004 by the UK Equal Opportunities Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights Commission) about persistent sexual harassment in the British armed forces, a number of anonymised, official surveys have been undertaken. The first, in 2006, found that a male-dominated culture sexualised women and diminished their military competence. Among the comments made to researchers by male personnel about their female counterparts were: "Ok there are a few exceptions but on the whole they [women] shouldn't be here"; "They're all lesbians or sluts"; and "They are emotionally unstable." The report found that 15% of women had had a 'particularly upsetting' experience of sexual harassment in the previous 12 months; the proportion rose to 20% in the youngest age group.
Since 2009, official surveys asking the same question have found steadily rising rates of women in the army reporting particularly upsetting experiences, as follows:
2009: 8%
2015: 13%
2018: 15%
2021: 35%
In 2021, the same question asked of women in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force found rates of 43% and 35%, respectively.
In 2021, 37 girls aged under 18 across the British armed forces (from a total population at the time of 290) were victims of a sexual offence. 22 were new recruits at the training centre for the army's youngest recruits (aged from 16 years), the Army Foundation College; three of the accused in these cases were members of staff.
Military youth organisations: In 2017, a BBC Panorama documentary found multiple cases of the sexual abuse of cadets from age 11 during the 1980s. It reported that the victims and their parents were discouraged from making a formal complaint or contacting the police. In 2012 and 2013, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) paid £2 million to settle the allegations out of court. Between 2012 and 2017, the MOD recorded a further 363 allegations, of which 282 were referred to the police.
United States: Since 2014, surveys of US military personnel have found a high prevalence of sexual harassment. The following rates refer to the proportion of women reporting that they had experienced harassment in the previous 12 months.
2014: 21.5%
2016: 21.4%
2018: 24.2%
In the same years, 5–6% of servicewomen said they had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months; rates at initial training centres were found to be substantially higher.
In 2017, the Department of Defense reported that an estimated 14,900 military personnel were sexually assaulted in 2016, of whom 6,172 made an official complaint. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sexual harassment in the military | Between 2012 and 2017, the MOD recorded a further 363 allegations, of which 282 were referred to the police.
United States: Since 2014, surveys of US military personnel have found a high prevalence of sexual harassment. The following rates refer to the proportion of women reporting that they had experienced harassment in the previous 12 months.
2014: 21.5%
2016: 21.4%
2018: 24.2%
In the same years, 5–6% of servicewomen said they had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months; rates at initial training centres were found to be substantially higher.
In 2017, the Department of Defense reported that an estimated 14,900 military personnel were sexually assaulted in 2016, of whom 6,172 made an official complaint.
In the same year, the Department reported that an active duty military woman who reported sexual harassment to a superior was 16% more likely to be sexually assaulted than one who did not report, while a man who reported increased his chance of sexual assault thereafter by 50%.
See also: Sexual harassment
Wartime sexual violence
Military sexual trauma
Sexual misconduct in the British military
Sexual assault in the Canadian forces
Sexual assault in the United States military
Sexual assault in the Japan Self-Defense Forces
2022 JSDF sexual assault incident
Misconduct in the military
Suicide in the military
Women in the military
Children in the military
Dedovshchina (hazing ritual in the Russian military)
References:
Further reading: Crowley, Kacy; Sandhoff, Michelle (2017). "Just a Girl in the Army". Armed Forces & Society. 43 (2): 221–237. doi:10.1177/0095327X16682045. S2CID 151623237.
External links:
Research: British armed forces: Rutherford Report, 2006; Army sexual harassment reports: 2015, 2018, 2021; David Gee, The First Ambush? Effects of military training and employment, 2017 Archived 12 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Canadian armed forces: Dechamps Review, 2016; Arbour Review, 2022.
French armed forces: La Guerre Invisible, 2014
US armed forces: Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office
Testimony and recent reportage: Rachel Thompson (British army), 2017 [video]
Lara Whyte for The Times: "I was sexually assaulted in uniform. I can't get over it", 2021.
Lara Whyte for The Times: 'Tenfold rise in rapes and sexual assaults on girls in military', 2021.
Lara Whyte for Vice World News: 'Teenage girls serving in British army report record levels of assault', 2022. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | History of analogue fire control systems: Naval fire control resembles that of ground-based guns, but with no sharp distinction between direct and indirect fire. It is possible to control several same-type guns on a single platform simultaneously, while both the firing guns and the target are moving.
Though a ship rolls and pitches at a slower rate than a tank does, gyroscopic stabilization is extremely desirable. Naval gun fire control potentially involves three levels of complexity:
Local control originated with primitive gun installations aimed by the individual gun crews.
The director system of fire control was incorporated first into battleship designs by the Royal Navy in 1912. All guns on a single ship were laid from a central position placed as high as possible above the bridge. The director became a design feature of battleships, with Japanese "Pagoda-style" masts designed to maximize the view of the director over long ranges. A fire control officer who ranged the salvos transmitted elevations and angles to individual guns.
Coordinated gunfire from a formation of ships at a single target was a focus of battleship fleet operations. An officer on the flagship would signal target information to other ships in the formation. This was necessary to exploit the tactical advantage when one fleet succeeded in crossing the T of the enemy fleet, but the difficulty of distinguishing the splashes made walking the rounds in on the target more difficult.
Corrections can be made for surface wind velocity, roll and pitch of the firing ship, powder magazine temperature, drift of rifled projectiles, individual gun bore diameter adjusted for shot-to-shot enlargement, and rate-of-change of range with additional modifications to the firing solution based upon the observation of preceding shots. More sophisticated fire control systems consider more of these factors rather than relying on simple correction of observed fall of shot. Differently colored dye markers were sometimes included with large shells so individual guns, or individual ships in formation, could distinguish their shell splashes during daylight. Early "computers" were people using numerical tables.
Pre-dreadnought control system: The Royal Navy was aware of the fall of shot observation advantage of salvo firing through several experiments as early as 1870 when Commander John A. Fisher installed an electric system enabling a simultaneous firing of all the guns to HMS Ocean, the flagship of the China Station as the second in command. However, the Station or Royal Navy had not yet implemented the system fleet-wide in 1904. The Royal Navy considered Russia a potential adversary through The Great Game, and sent Lieutenant Walter Lake of the Navy Gunnery Division and Commander Walter Hugh Thring of the Coastguard and Reserves, the latter with an early example of Dumaresq, to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. Their mission was to guide and train the Japanese naval gunnery personnel in the latest technological developments, but more importantly for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), they were well aware of the experiments.
During the 10 August 1904 Battle of the Yellow Sea against the Russian Pacific Fleet, the British-built IJN battleship Asahi and her sister ship, the fleet flagship Mikasa, were equipped with the latest Barr and Stroud range finders on the bridge, but the ships were not designed for coordinated aiming and firing. Asahi's chief gunnery officer, Hiroharu Kato (later Commander of Combined Fleet), experimented with the first director system of fire control, using speaking tube (voicepipe) and telephone communication from the spotters high on the mast to his position on the bridge where he performed the range and deflection calculations, and from his position to the 12-inch (305 mm) gun turrets forward and astern.
With the semi-synchronized salvo firing upon his voice command from the bridge, the spotters using stopwatches on the mast could identify the distant salvo of splashes created by the shells from their own ship more effectively than trying to identify a single splash among the many. Kato gave the firing order consistently at a particular moment in the rolling and pitching cycles of the ship, simplifying firing and correction duties formerly performed independently with varying accuracy using artificial horizon gauges in each turret. Moreover, unlike in the gun turrets, he was steps away from the ship commander giving orders to change the course and the speed in response to the incoming reports on target movements.
Kato was transferred to the fleet flagship Mikasa as the Chief Gunnery Officer, and his primitive control system was in fleet-wide operation by the time the Combined Fleet destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet (renamed the 2nd and 3rd Pacific Fleet) in the Battle of Tsushima during 27–28 May 1905.
Central fire control and World War I: Centralized naval fire control systems were first developed around the time of World War I. Local control had been used up until that time, and remained in use on smaller warships and auxiliaries through World War II. Specifications of HMS Dreadnought were finalized after the report on the Battle of Tsushima was submitted by the official observer to IJN onboard Asahi, Captain Pakenham (later Admiral), who observed how Kato's system worked first hand. From this design on, large warships had a main armament of one size of gun across a number of turrets (which made corrections simpler still), facilitating central fire control via electric triggering.
The UK built their first central system before the Great War. At the heart was an analogue computer designed by Commander (later Admiral Sir) Frederic Charles Dreyer that calculated range rate, the rate of change of range due to the relative motion between the firing and target ships. The Dreyer Table was to be improved and served into the interwar period at which point it was superseded in new and reconstructed ships by the Admiralty Fire Control Table.
The use of Director-controlled firing together with the fire control computer moved the control of the gun laying from the individual turrets to a central position (usually in a plotting room protected below armor), although individual gun mounts and multi-gun turrets could retain a local control option for use when battle damage prevented the director setting the guns. Guns could then be fired in planned salvos, with each gun giving a slightly different trajectory. Dispersion of shot caused by differences in individual guns, individual projectiles, powder ignition sequences, and transient distortion of ship structure was undesirably large at typical naval engagement ranges. Directors high on the superstructure had a better view of the enemy than a turret mounted sight, and the crew operating it were distant from the sound and shock of the guns.
Analogue computed fire control: Unmeasured and uncontrollable ballistic factors like high altitude temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind direction and velocity required final adjustment through observation of fall of shot. Visual range measurement (of both target and shell splashes) was difficult prior to availability of radar. The British favoured coincidence rangefinders while the Germans and the US Navy, stereoscopic type. The former were less able to range on an indistinct target but easier on the operator over a long period of use, the latter the reverse.
During the Battle of Jutland, while the British were thought by some to have the finest fire control system in the world at that time, only three percent of their shots actually struck their targets. At that time, the British primarily used a manual fire control system. This experience contributed to computing rangekeepers becoming standard issue.
The US Navy's first deployment of a rangekeeper was on USS Texas in 1916. Because of the limitations of the technology at that time, the initial rangekeepers were crude. For example, during World War I the rangekeepers would generate the necessary angles automatically but sailors had to manually follow the directions of the rangekeepers. This task was called "pointer following" but the crews tended to make inadvertent errors when they became fatigued during extended battles. During World War II, servomechanisms (called "power drives" in the US Navy) were developed that allowed the guns to automatically steer to the rangekeeper's commands with no manual intervention, though pointers still worked even if automatic control was lost. The Mark 1 and Mark 1A computers contained approximately 20 servomechanisms, mostly position servos, to minimize torque load on the computing mechanisms.
Radar and World War II: During their long service life, rangekeepers were updated often as technology advanced and by World War II they were a critical part of an integrated fire control system. The incorporation of radar into the fire control system early in World War II provided ships with the ability to conduct effective gunfire operations at long range in poor weather and at night.
In a typical World War II British ship the fire control system connected the individual gun turrets to the director tower (where the sighting instruments were) and the analogue computer in the heart of the ship. In the director tower, operators trained their telescopes on the target; one telescope measured elevation and the other bearing. Rangefinder telescopes on a separate mounting measured the distance to the target. These measurements were converted by the Fire Control Table into bearings and elevations for the guns to fire on. In the turrets, the gunlayers adjusted the elevation of their guns to match an indicator which was the elevation transmitted from the Fire Control Table—a turret layer did the same for bearing. When the guns were on target they were centrally fired.
The Aichi Clock Company first produced the Type 92 Shagekiban low angle analog computer in 1932. The US Navy Rangekeeper and the Mark 38 GFCS had an edge over Imperial Japanese Navy systems in operability and flexibility. The US system allowing the plotting room team to quickly identify target motion changes and apply appropriate corrections. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | In the director tower, operators trained their telescopes on the target; one telescope measured elevation and the other bearing. Rangefinder telescopes on a separate mounting measured the distance to the target. These measurements were converted by the Fire Control Table into bearings and elevations for the guns to fire on. In the turrets, the gunlayers adjusted the elevation of their guns to match an indicator which was the elevation transmitted from the Fire Control Table—a turret layer did the same for bearing. When the guns were on target they were centrally fired.
The Aichi Clock Company first produced the Type 92 Shagekiban low angle analog computer in 1932. The US Navy Rangekeeper and the Mark 38 GFCS had an edge over Imperial Japanese Navy systems in operability and flexibility. The US system allowing the plotting room team to quickly identify target motion changes and apply appropriate corrections. The newer Japanese systems such as the Type 98 Hoiban and Shagekiban on the Yamato class were more up to date, which eliminated the Sokutekiban, but it still relied on seven operators.
In contrast to US radar aided system, the Japanese relied on averaging optical rangefinders, lacked gyros to sense the horizon, and required manual handling of follow-ups on the Sokutekiban, Shagekiban, Hoiban as well as guns themselves. This could have played a role in Center Force's battleships' dismal performance in the Battle off Samar in October 1944.
In that action, American destroyers pitted against the world's largest armored battleships and cruisers dodged shells for long enough to close to within torpedo firing range, while lobbing hundreds of accurate automatically aimed 5-inch (127 mm) rounds on target. Cruisers did not land hits on splash-chasing escort carriers until after an hour of pursuit had reduced the range to 5 miles (8.0 km). Although the Japanese pursued a doctrine of achieving superiority at long gun ranges, one cruiser fell victim to secondary explosions caused by hits from the carriers' single 5-inch guns. Eventually with the aid of hundreds of carrier based aircraft, a battered Center Force was turned back just before it could have finished off survivors of the lightly armed task force of screening escorts and escort carriers of Taffy 3. The earlier Battle of Surigao Strait had established the clear superiority of US radar-assisted systems at night.
The rangekeeper's target position prediction characteristics could be used to defeat the rangekeeper. For example, many captains under long range gun attack would make violent maneuvers to "chase salvos." A ship that is chasing salvos is maneuvering to the position of the last salvo splashes. Because the rangekeepers are constantly predicting new positions for the target, it is unlikely that subsequent salvos will strike the position of the previous salvo. The direction of the turn is unimportant, as long as it is not predicted by the enemy system. Since the aim of the next salvo depends on observation of the position and speed at the time the previous salvo hits, that is the optimal time to change direction. Practical rangekeepers had to assume that targets were moving in a straight-line path at a constant speed, to keep complexity to acceptable limits. A sonar rangekeeper was built to include a target circling at a constant radius of turn, but that function had been disabled.
Only the RN and USN achieved 'blindfire' radar fire-control, with no need to visually acquire the opposing vessel. The Axis powers all lacked this capability. Classes such as Iowa and South Dakota battleships could lob shells over visual horizon, in darkness, through smoke or weather. American systems, in common with many contemporary major navies, had gyroscopic stable vertical elements, so they could keep a solution on a target even during maneuvers. By the start of World War II British, German and American warships could both shoot and maneuver using sophisticated analog fire-control computers that incorporated gyro compass and gyro Level inputs. In the Battle of Cape Matapan the British Mediterranean Fleet using radar ambushed and mauled an Italian fleet, although actual fire was under optical control using starshell illumination. At the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal USS Washington, in complete darkness, inflicted fatal damage at close range on the battleship Kirishima using a combination of optical and radar fire-control; comparisons between optical and radar tracking, during the battle, showed that radar tracking matched optical tracking in accuracy, while radar ranges were used throughout the battle.
The last combat action for the analog rangekeepers, at least for the US Navy, was in the 1991 Persian Gulf War when the rangekeepers on the Iowa-class battleships directed their last rounds in combat.
British Royal Navy systems: Dreyer Table
Arthur Pollen's Argo Clock
Admiralty Fire Control Table – from 1920s
HACS – A/A system from 1931
Fuze Keeping Clock – simplified HACS A/A system for destroyers from 1938
Pom-Pom Director – pioneered use of gyroscopic tachymetric fire-control for short range weapons – From 1940
Gyro Rate Unit – pioneered use of gyroscopic Tachymetric fire-control for medium calibre weapons – From 1940
Royal Navy radar – pioneered the use of radar for A/A fire-control and centimetric radar for surface fire-control – from 1939
Ferranti Computer Systems developed the GSA4 digital computerised gunnery fire control system that was deployed on HMS Amazon (Type 21 frigate commissioned in 1974) as part of the WAS4 (Weapon Systems Automation - 4) system.
BAE Systems' Sea Archer – computerised gunnery system. Royal Navy designation GSA.7 from 1980 and GSA.8 from 1985. Production was completed for Royal Navy Type 23 frigates in 1999. Remains in active service as of 2022 on Type 23 (Duke class). Replaced in 2012 on Type 45 destroyers by Ultra Electronics Series 2500 Electro-Optical Gun Control System.
US Navy analogue Gun Fire Control Systems (GFCS):
Mark 33 GFCS: The Mark 33 GFCS was a power-driven fire control director, less advanced than the Mark 37. The Mark 33 GFCS used a Mark 10 Rangekeeper, analog fire-control computer. The entire rangekeeper was mounted in an open director rather than in a separate plotting room as in the RN HACS, or the later Mark 37 GFCS, and this made it difficult to upgrade the Mark 33 GFCS. It could compute firing solutions for targets moving at up to 320 knots, or 400 knots in a dive. Its installations started in the late 1930s on destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers with two Mark 33 directors mounted fore and aft of the island. They had no fire-control radar initially, and were aimed only by sight. After 1942, some of these directors were enclosed and had a Mark 4 fire-control radar added to the roof of the director, while others had a Mark 4 radar added over the open director. With the Mark 4 large aircraft at up to 40,000 yards could be targeted. It had less range against low-flying aircraft, and large surface ships had to be within 30,000 yards. With radar, targets could be seen and hit accurately at night, and through weather. The Mark 33 and 37 systems used tachymetric target motion prediction. The USN never considered the Mark 33 to be a satisfactory system, but wartime production problems, and the added weight and space requirements of the Mark 37 precluded phasing out the Mark 33:
Although superior to older equipment, the computing mechanisms within the range keeper ([Mark 10]) were too slow, both in reaching initial solutions on first picking up a target and in accommodating frequent changes in solution caused by target maneuvers. The [Mark 33] was thus distinctly inadequate, as indicated to some observers in simulated air attack exercises prior to hostilities. However, final recognition of the seriousness of the deficiency and initiation of replacement plans were delayed by the below decks space difficulty, mentioned in connection with the [Mark 28] replacement. Furthermore, priorities of replacements of older and less effective director systems in the crowded wartime production program were responsible for the fact the [Mark 33's] service was lengthened to the cessation of hostilities.
The Mark 33 was used as the main director on some destroyers and as secondary battery / anti-aircraft director on larger ships (i.e. in the same role as the later Mark 37). The guns controlled by it were typically 5 inch weapons: the 5-inch/25 or 5-inch/38.
Deployment: destroyers (1 per vessel, total 48)
8 Farragut-class(launched ca. 1934)
18 Mahan-class(ca. 1935) (Cassin, Downes later rebuilt with Mk37)
4 Gridley-class(ca. 1937)
8 Bagley-class(ca. 1937)
10 Benham-class(ca. 1938)
heavy cruisers
7 New Orleans-class(launched ca. 1933): for the 5"/25 secondary battery
Wichita(1937): for the 5"/38 secondary battery
light cruisers
9 Brooklyn-class(launched ca. 1937): for the 5"/25 and 5"/38 secondary batteries
Mark 34 GFCS: The Mark 34 was used to control the main batteries of large gun ships. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | The guns controlled by it were typically 5 inch weapons: the 5-inch/25 or 5-inch/38.
Deployment: destroyers (1 per vessel, total 48)
8 Farragut-class(launched ca. 1934)
18 Mahan-class(ca. 1935) (Cassin, Downes later rebuilt with Mk37)
4 Gridley-class(ca. 1937)
8 Bagley-class(ca. 1937)
10 Benham-class(ca. 1938)
heavy cruisers
7 New Orleans-class(launched ca. 1933): for the 5"/25 secondary battery
Wichita(1937): for the 5"/38 secondary battery
light cruisers
9 Brooklyn-class(launched ca. 1937): for the 5"/25 and 5"/38 secondary batteries
Mark 34 GFCS: The Mark 34 was used to control the main batteries of large gun ships. Its predecessors include Mk18 (Pensacola class), Mk24 (Northampton class), Mk27 (Portland class) and Mk31 (New Orleans class)
Deployment: 2 Alaska-class large cruisers (2 per vessel)
heavy cruisers
Wichita (2x)
14 Baltimore-class (2 per vessel, 28 total)
several Northampton-class (as upgrade)
Portland-class (as upgrade)
light cruisers
9 Brooklyn-class
27 Cleveland-class
Mark 37 GFCS: According to the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance,
While the defects were not prohibitive and the Mark 33 remained in production until fairly late in World War II, the Bureau started the development of an improved director in 1936, only 2 years after the first installation of a Mark 33. The objective of weight reduction was not met, since the resulting director system actually weighed about 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) more than the equipment it was slated to replace, but the Gun Director Mark 37 that emerged from the program possessed virtues that more than compensated for its extra weight. Though the gun orders it provided were the same as those of the Mark 33, it supplied them with greater reliability and gave generally improved performance with 5-inch (13 cm) gun batteries, whether they were used for surface or antiaircraft use. Moreover, the stable element and computer, instead of being contained in the director housing were installed below deck where they were less vulnerable to attack and less of a jeopardy to a ship's stability. The design provided for the ultimate addition of radar, which later permitted blind firing with the director. In fact, the Mark 37 system was almost continually improved. By the end of 1945 the equipment had run through 92 modifications—almost twice the total number of directors of that type which were in the fleet on December 7, 1941. Procurement ultimately totalled 841 units, representing an investment of well over $148,000,000. Destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, and many auxiliaries used the directors, with individual installations varying from one aboard destroyers to four on each battleship. The development of the Gun Directors Mark 33 and 37 provided the United States Fleet with good long range fire control against attacking planes. But while that had seemed the most pressing problem at the time the equipments were placed under development, it was but one part of the total problem of air defense. At close-in ranges the accuracy of the directors fell off sharply; even at intermediate ranges they left much to be desired. The weight and size of the equipments militated against rapid movement, making them difficult to shift from one target to another.Their efficiency was thus in inverse proportion to the proximity of danger.
The computer was completed as the Ford Mark 1 computer by 1935. Rate information for height changes enabled complete solution for aircraft targets moving over 400 miles per hour (640 km/h). Destroyers starting with the Sims class employed one of these computers, battleships up to four. The system's effectiveness against aircraft diminished as planes became faster, but toward the end of World War II upgrades were made to the Mark 37 System, and it was made compatible with the development of the VT (Variable Time) proximity fuze which exploded when it was near a target, rather than by timer or altitude, greatly increasing the probability that any one shell would destroy a target.
Mark 37 Director: The function of the Mark 37 Director, which resembles a gun mount with "ears" rather than guns, was to track the present position of the target in bearing, elevation, and range. To do this, it had optical sights (the rectangular windows or hatches on the front), an optical rangefinder (the tubes or ears sticking out each side), and later models, fire control radar antennas. The rectangular antenna is for the Mark 12 FC radar, and the parabolic antenna on the left ("orange peel") is for the Mark 22 FC radar. They were part of an upgrade to improve tracking of aircraft.
The director was manned by a crew of 6: Director Officer, Assistant Control Officer, Pointer, Trainer, Range Finder Operator and Radar Operator.
The Director Officer also had a slew sight used to quickly point the director towards a new target. Up to four Mark 37 Gun Fire Control Systems were installed on battleships. On a battleship, the director was protected by 1+1⁄2 inches (38 mm) of armor, and weighs 21 tons. The Mark 37 director aboard USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. is protected with one-half inch (13 mm) of armor plate and weighs 16 tons.
Stabilizing signals from the Stable Element kept the optical sight telescopes, rangefinder, and radar antenna free from the effects of deck tilt. The signal that kept the rangefinder's axis horizontal was called "crosslevel"; elevation stabilization was called simply "level". Although the stable element was below decks in Plot, next to the Mark 1/1A computer, its internal gimbals followed director motion in bearing and elevation so that it provided level and crosslevel data directly. To do so, accurately, when the fire control system was initially installed, a surveyor, working in several stages, transferred the position of the gun director into Plot so the stable element's own internal mechanism was properly aligned to the director.
Although the rangefinder had significant mass and inertia, the crosslevel servo normally was only lightly loaded, because the rangefinder's own inertia kept it essentially horizontal; the servo's task was usually simply to ensure that the rangefinder and sight telescopes remained horizontal.
Mark 37 director train (bearing) and elevation drives were by D.C. motors fed from Amplidyne rotary power-amplifying generators. Although the train Amplidyne was rated at several kilowatts maximum output, its input signal came from a pair of 6L6 audio beam tetrode vacuum tubes (valves, in the U.K.).
Plotting room: In battleships, the Secondary Battery Plotting Rooms were down below the waterline and inside the armor belt. They contained four complete sets of the fire control equipment needed to aim and shoot at four targets. Each set included a Mark 1A computer, a Mark 6 Stable Element, FC radar controls and displays, parallax correctors, a switchboard, and people to operate it all.
(In the early 20th century, successive range and/or bearing readings were probably plotted either by hand or by the fire control devices (or both). Humans were very good data filters, able to plot a useful trend line given somewhat-inconsistent readings. As well, the Mark 8 Rangekeeper included a plotter. The distinctive name for the fire-control equipment room took root, and persisted even when there were no plotters.)
Ford Mark 1A Fire Control Computer: The Mark 1A Fire Control Computer was an electro-mechanical analog ballistic computer. Originally designated the Mark 1, design modifications were extensive enough to change it to "Mark 1A". The Mark 1A appeared post World War II and may have incorporated technology developed for the Bell Labs Mark 8, Fire Control Computer. Sailors would stand around a box measuring 62 by 38 by 45 inches (1.57 by 0.97 by 1.14 m). Even though built with extensive use of an aluminum alloy framework (including thick internal mechanism support plates) and computing mechanisms mostly made of aluminum alloy, it weighed as much as a car, about 3,125 pounds (1,417 kg), with the Star Shell Computer Mark 1 adding another 215 pounds (98 kg). It used 115 volts AC, 60 Hz, single phase, and typically a few amperes or even less. Under worst-case fault conditions, its synchros apparently could draw as much as 140 amperes, or 15,000 watts (about the same as 3 houses while using ovens). Almost all of the computer's inputs and outputs were by synchro torque transmitters and receivers.
Its function was to automatically aim the guns so that a fired projectile would collide with the target. This is the same function as the main battery's Mark 8 Rangekeeper used in the Mark 38 GFCS except that some of the targets the Mark 1A had to deal with also moved in elevation—and much faster. For a surface target, the Secondary Battery's Fire Control problem is the same as the Main Battery's with the same type inputs and outputs. The major difference between the two computers is their ballistics calculations. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | It used 115 volts AC, 60 Hz, single phase, and typically a few amperes or even less. Under worst-case fault conditions, its synchros apparently could draw as much as 140 amperes, or 15,000 watts (about the same as 3 houses while using ovens). Almost all of the computer's inputs and outputs were by synchro torque transmitters and receivers.
Its function was to automatically aim the guns so that a fired projectile would collide with the target. This is the same function as the main battery's Mark 8 Rangekeeper used in the Mark 38 GFCS except that some of the targets the Mark 1A had to deal with also moved in elevation—and much faster. For a surface target, the Secondary Battery's Fire Control problem is the same as the Main Battery's with the same type inputs and outputs. The major difference between the two computers is their ballistics calculations. The amount of gun elevation needed to project a 5-inch (130 mm) shell 9 nautical miles (17 km) is very different from the elevation needed to project a 16-inch (41 cm) shell the same distance.
In operation, this computer received target range, bearing, and elevation from the gun director. As long as the director was on target, clutches in the computer were closed, and movement of the gun director (along with changes in range) made the computer converge its internal values of target motion to values matching those of the target. While converging, the computer fed aided-tracking ("generated") range, bearing, and elevation to the gun director. If the target remained on a straight-line course at a constant speed (and in the case of aircraft, constant rate of change of altitude ("rate of climb"), the predictions became accurate and, with further computation, gave correct values for the gun lead angles and fuze setting.
The target's movement was a vector, and if that didn't change, the generated range, bearing, and elevation were accurate for up to 30 seconds. Once the target's motion vector became stable, the computer operators told the gun director officer ("Solution Plot!"), who usually gave the command to commence firing. Unfortunately, this process of inferring the target motion vector required a few seconds, typically, which might take too long.
The process of determining the target's motion vector was done primarily with an accurate constant-speed motor, disk-ball-roller integrators, nonlinear cams, mechanical resolvers, and differentials. Four special coordinate converters, each with a mechanism in part like that of a traditional computer mouse, converted the received corrections into target motion vector values. The Mark 1 computer attempted to do the coordinate conversion (in part) with a rectangular-to polar converter, but that didn't work as well as desired (sometimes trying to make target speed negative!). Part of the design changes that defined the Mark 1A were a re-thinking of how to best use these special coordinate converters; the coordinate converter ("vector solver") was eliminated.
The Stable Element, which in contemporary terminology would be called a vertical gyro, stabilized the sights in the director, and provided data to compute stabilizing corrections to the gun orders. Gun lead angles meant that gun-stabilizing commands differed from those needed to keep the director's sights stable. Ideal computation of gun stabilizing angles required an impractical number of terms in the mathematical expression, so the computation was approximate.
To compute lead angles and time fuze setting, the target motion vector's components as well as its range and altitude, wind direction and speed, and own ship's motion combined to predict the target's location when the shell reached it. This computation was done primarily with mechanical resolvers ("component solvers"), multipliers, and differentials, but also with one of four three-dimensional cams.
Based on the predictions, the other three of the three-dimensional cams provided data on ballistics of the gun and ammunition that the computer was designed for; it could not be used for a different size or type of gun except by rebuilding that could take weeks.
Servos in the computer boosted torque accurately to minimize loading on the outputs of computing mechanisms, thereby reducing errors, and also positioned the large synchros that transmitted gun orders (bearing and elevation, sight lead angles, and time fuze setting).These were electromechanical "bang-bang", yet had excellent performance.
The anti-aircraft fire control problem was more complicated because it had the additional requirement of tracking the target in elevation and making target predictions in three dimensions. The outputs of the Mark 1A were the same (gun bearing and elevation), except fuze time was added. The fuze time was needed because the ideal of directly hitting the fast moving aircraft with the projectile was impractical. With fuze time set into the shell, it was hoped that it would explode near enough to the target to destroy it with the shock wave and shrapnel. Towards the end of World War II, the invention of the VT proximity fuze eliminated the need to use the fuze time calculation and its possible error. This greatly increased the odds of destroying an air target. Digital fire control computers were not introduced into service until the mid-1970s.
Central aiming from a gun director has a minor complication in that the guns are often far enough away from the director to require parallax correction so they aim correctly. In the Mark 37 GFCS, the Mark 1/1A sent parallax data to all gun mounts; each mount had its own scale factor (and "polarity") set inside the train (bearing) power drive (servo) receiver-regulator (controller).
Twice in its history, internal scale factors were changed, presumably by changing gear ratios. Target speed had a hard upper limit, set by a mechanical stop. It was originally 300 knots (350 mph; 560 km/h), and subsequently doubled in each rebuild.
These computers were built by Ford Instrument Company, Long Island City, Queens, New York. The company was named after Hannibal C. Ford, a genius designer, and principal in the company. Special machine tools machined face cam grooves and accurately duplicated 3-D ballistic cams.
Generally speaking, these computers were very well designed and built, very rugged, and almost trouble-free, frequent tests included entering values via the handcranks and reading results on the dials, with the time motor stopped. These were static tests. Dynamic tests were done similarly, but used gentle manual acceleration of the "time line" (integrators) to prevent possible slippage errors when the time motor was switched on; the time motor was switched off before the run was complete, and the computer was allowed to coast down. Easy manual cranking of the time line brought the dynamic test to its desired end point, when dials were read.
As was typical of such computers, flipping a lever on the handcrank's support casting enabled automatic reception of data and disengaged the handcrank gear. Flipped the other way, the gear engaged, and power was cut to the receiver's servo motor.
The mechanisms (including servos) in this computer are described superbly, with many excellent illustrations, in the Navy publication OP 1140.
There are photographs of the computer's interior in the National Archives; some are on Web pages, and some of those have been rotated a quarter turn.
Stable Element: The function of the Mark 6 Stable Element (pictured) in this fire control system is the same as the function of the Mark 41 Stable Vertical in the main battery system. It is a vertical seeking gyroscope ("vertical gyro", in today's terms) that supplies the system with a stable up direction on a rolling and pitching ship. In surface mode, it replaces the director's elevation signal. It also has the surface mode firing keys.
It is based on a gyroscope that erects so its spin axis is vertical. The housing for the gyro rotor rotates at a low speed, on the order of 18 rpm. On opposite sides of the housing are two small tanks, partially filled with mercury, and connected by a capillary tube. Mercury flows to the lower tank, but slowly (several seconds) because of the tube's restriction. If the gyro's spin axis is not vertical, the added weight in the lower tank would pull the housing over if it were not for the gyro and the housing's rotation. That rotational speed and rate of mercury flow combine to put the heavier tank in the best position to make the gyro precess toward the vertical.
When the ship changes course rapidly at speed, the acceleration due to the turn can be enough to confuse the gyro and make it deviate from true vertical. In such cases, the ship's gyrocompass sends a disabling signal that closes a solenoid valve to block mercury flow between the tanks. The gyro's drift is low enough not to matter for short periods of time; when the ship resumes more typical cruising, the erecting system corrects for any error.
The Earth's rotation is fast enough to need correcting. A small adjustable weight on a threaded rod, and a latitude scale makes the gyro precess at the Earth's equivalent angular rate at the given latitude. The weight, its scale, and frame are mounted on the shaft of a synchro torque receiver fed with ship's course data from the gyro compass, and compensated by a differential synchro driven by the housing-rotator motor. The little compensator in operation is geographically oriented, so the support rod for the weight points east and west.
At the top of the gyro assembly, above the compensator, right on center, is an exciter coil fed with low-voltage AC. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | The gyro's drift is low enough not to matter for short periods of time; when the ship resumes more typical cruising, the erecting system corrects for any error.
The Earth's rotation is fast enough to need correcting. A small adjustable weight on a threaded rod, and a latitude scale makes the gyro precess at the Earth's equivalent angular rate at the given latitude. The weight, its scale, and frame are mounted on the shaft of a synchro torque receiver fed with ship's course data from the gyro compass, and compensated by a differential synchro driven by the housing-rotator motor. The little compensator in operation is geographically oriented, so the support rod for the weight points east and west.
At the top of the gyro assembly, above the compensator, right on center, is an exciter coil fed with low-voltage AC. Above that is a shallow black-painted wooden bowl, inverted. Inlaid in its surface, in grooves, are two coils essentially like two figure 8s, but shaped more like a letter D and its mirror image, forming a circle with a diametral crossover. One coil is displaced by 90 degrees. If the bowl (called an "umbrella") is not centered above the exciter coil, either or both coils have an output that represents the offset. This voltage is phase-detected and amplified to drive two DC servo motors to position the umbrella in line with the coil.
The umbrella support gimbals rotate in bearing with the gun director, and the servo motors generate level and crosslevel stabilizing signals.
The Mark 1A's director bearing receiver servo drives the pickoff gimbal frame in the stable element through a shaft between the two devices, and the Stable Element's level and crosslevel servos feed those signals back to the computer via two more shafts.
(The sonar fire-control computer aboard some destroyers of the late 1950s required roll and pitch signals for stabilizing, so a coordinate converter containing synchros, resolvers, and servos calculated the latter from gun director bearing, level, and crosslevel.)
Fire Control Radar: The fire-control radar used on the Mark 37 GFCS has evolved. In the 1930s, the Mark 33 Director did not have a radar antenna. The Tizard Mission to the United States provided the USN with crucial data on UK and Royal Navy radar technology and fire-control radar systems. In September 1941, the first rectangular Mark 4 Fire-control radar antenna was mounted on a Mark 37 Director, and became a common feature on USN Directors by mid 1942. Soon aircraft flew faster, and in c1944 to increase speed and accuracy the Mark 4 was replaced by a combination of the Mark 12 (rectangular antenna) and Mark 22 (parabolic antenna) "orange peel" radars. (pictured) in the late 1950s, Mark 37 directors had Western Electric Mark 25 X-band conical-scan radars with round, perforated dishes. Finally, the circular SPG 25 antenna was mounted on top.
Deployment: destroyers (1 per vessel, 456 total)
2 rebuilt Mahan-class: Downes, Cassin
several modernized Porter-class: Phelps, Selfridge, Winslow
12 Sims-class (launched ca. 1939)
30 Benson-class (1939 - 1942)
66 Gleaves-class (1940 - 1942)
175 Fletcher-class (1942 - 1944)
58 Allen M. Sumner-class (ca. 1944)
12 Robert H. Smith-class (ca. 1944)
98 Gearing-class (ca. 1945)
possibly on USS Castle (DD-720) and USS Seaman (DD-791) which were launched incomplete and never commissioned
light cruisers (63 total)
TBD: Atlanta, Fargo classes
3 Juneau-class(ca. 1945) (2 per vessel, 6 total)
27 Cleveland-class(launched ca. 1942 - 1945) (2 per vessel, 54 total)
one Mk37 removed on Oklahoma City during CLG conversion
2 Worcester-class(ca. 1947) (4 per vessel, 8 total)
1 Brooklyn-class ( Savannah, refitted as upgrade in 1944)
heavy cruisers (46 total)
14 Baltimore-class(ca. 1942 - 1945) (2 per vessel, 28 total)
3 Oregon City-class(ca. 1945) (2 per vessel, 6 total)
3 Des Moines-class(ca. 1947) (4 per vessel, 12 total)
2 Alaska-class large cruisers (ca. 1943) (2 per vessel, 4 total)
aircraft carriers (2 total)
TBD: Yorktown, Essex classes, Midway(?)
Saratoga: 2xMk37 refitted by May 1942
battleships (16 total)
TBD: North Carolina, South Dakota classes, all the old ones that were upgraded with 5in/38(?)
4 Iowa-class(launched ca. 1942 - 1943) (4 per vessel)
Mark 38 GFCS: The Mark 38 Gun Fire Control System (GFCS) controlled the large main battery guns of Iowa-class battleships. The radar systems used by the Mark 38 GFCS were far more advanced than the primitive radar sets used by the Japanese in World War II. The major components were the director, plotting room, and interconnecting data transmission equipment. The two systems, forward and aft, were complete and independent. Their plotting rooms were isolated to protect against battle damage propagating from one to the other.
Director: The forward Mark 38 Director (pictured) was situated on top of the fire control tower. The director was equipped with optical sights, optical Mark 48 Rangefinder (the long thin boxes sticking out each side), and a Mark 13 Fire Control Radar antenna (the rectangular shape sitting on top). The purpose of the director was to track the target's present bearing and range. This could be done optically with the men inside using the sights and Rangefinder, or electronically with the radar. (The fire control radar was the preferred method.) The present position of the target was called the Line-Of-Sight (LOS), and it was continuously sent down to the plotting room by synchro motors. When not using the radar's display to determine Spots, the director was the optical spotting station.
Plotting room: The Forward Main Battery Plotting Room was located below the waterline and inside the armored belt. It housed the forward system's Mark 8 Rangekeeper, Mark 41 Stable Vertical, Mark 13 FC Radar controls and displays, Parallax Correctors, Fire Control Switchboard, battle telephone switchboard, battery status indicators, assistant Gunnery Officers, and Fire Controlmen (FC's)(between 1954 and 1982, FC's were designated as Fire Control Technicians (FT's)).
The Mark 8 Rangekeeper was an electromechanical analog computer whose function was to continuously calculate the gun's bearing and elevation, Line-Of-Fire (LOF), to hit a future position of the target. It did this by automatically receiving information from the director (LOS), the FC Radar (range), the ship's gyrocompass (true ship's course), the ships Pitometer log (ship's speed), the Stable Vertical (ship's deck tilt, sensed as level and crosslevel), and the ship's anemometer (relative wind speed and direction). Also, before the surface action started, the FT's made manual inputs for the average initial velocity of the projectiles fired out of the battery's gun barrels, and air density. With all this information, the rangekeeper calculated the relative motion between its ship and the target. It then could calculate an offset angle and change of range between the target's present position (LOS) and future position at the end of the projectile's time of flight. To this bearing and range offset, it added corrections for gravity, wind, Magnus Effect of the spinning projectile, stabilizing signals originating in the Stable Vertical, Earth's curvature, and Coriolis effect. The result was the turret's bearing and elevation orders (LOF). During the surface action, range and deflection Spots and target altitude (not zero during Gun Fire Support) were manually entered.
The Mark 41 Stable Vertical was a vertical seeking gyroscope, and its function was to tell the rest of the system which-way-is-up on a rolling and pitching ship. It also held the battery's firing keys.
The Mark 13 FC Radar supplied present target range, and it showed the fall of shot around the target so the Gunnery Officer could correct the system's aim with range and deflection spots put into the rangekeeper. It could also automatically track the target by controlling the director's bearing power drive. Because of radar, Fire Control systems are able to track and fire at targets at a greater range and with increased accuracy during the day, night, or inclement weather. This was demonstrated in November 1942 when the battleship USS Washington engaged the Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser Kirishima at a range of 18,500 yards (16,900 m) at night. The engagement left Kirishima in flames, and she was ultimately scuttled by her crew. This gave the United States Navy a major advantage in World War II, as the Japanese did not develop radar or automated fire control to the level of the US Navy and were at a significant disadvantage. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | It could also automatically track the target by controlling the director's bearing power drive. Because of radar, Fire Control systems are able to track and fire at targets at a greater range and with increased accuracy during the day, night, or inclement weather. This was demonstrated in November 1942 when the battleship USS Washington engaged the Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser Kirishima at a range of 18,500 yards (16,900 m) at night. The engagement left Kirishima in flames, and she was ultimately scuttled by her crew. This gave the United States Navy a major advantage in World War II, as the Japanese did not develop radar or automated fire control to the level of the US Navy and were at a significant disadvantage.
The parallax correctors are needed because the turrets are located hundreds of feet from the director. There is one for each turret, and each has the turret and director distance manually set in. They automatically received relative target bearing (bearing from own ship's bow), and target range. They corrected the bearing order for each turret so that all rounds fired in a salvo converged on the same point.
The fire control switchboard configured the battery. With it, the Gunnery Officer could mix and match the three turrets to the two GFCSs. He could have the turrets all controlled by the forward system, all controlled by the aft system, or split the battery to shoot at two targets.
The assistant Gunnery Officers and Fire Control Technicians operated the equipment, talked to the turrets and ship's command by sound-powered telephone, and watched the Rangekeeper's dials and system status indicators for problems. If a problem arose, they could correct the problem, or reconfigure the system to mitigate its effect.
Mark 51 Fire Control System: The Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns were arguably the best light anti-aircraft weapon of World War II., employed on almost every major warship in the U.S. and UK fleet during World War II from about 1943 to 1945. They were most effective on ships as large as destroyer escorts or larger when coupled with electric-hydraulic drives for greater speed and the Mark 51 Director (pictured) for improved accuracy, the Bofors 40 mm gun became a fearsome adversary, accounting for roughly half of all Japanese aircraft shot down between 1 October 1944 and 1 February 1945.
Mark 56 GFCS: This GFCS was an intermediate-range, anti-aircraft gun fire-control system. It was designed for use against high-speed subsonic aircraft. It could also be used against surface targets. It was a dual ballistic system. This means that it was capable of simultaneously producing gun orders for two different gun types (e.g.: 5"/38cal and 3"/50cal) against the same target. Its Mark 35 Radar was capable of automatic tracking in bearing, elevation, and range that was as accurate as any optical tracking. The whole system could be controlled from the below decks Plotting Room with or without the director being manned. This allowed for rapid target acquisition when a target was first detected and designated by the ship's air-search radar, and not yet visible from on deck. Its target solution time was less than 2 seconds after Mark 35 radar "Lock on". It was designed toward the end of World War II, apparently in response to Japanese kamikaze aircraft attacks. It was conceived by Ivan Getting, mentioned near the end of his Oral history, and its linkage computer was designed by Antonín Svoboda. Its gun director was not shaped like a box, and it had no optical rangefinder. The system was manned by crew of four. On the left side of the director, was the Cockpit where the Control Officer stood behind the sitting Director Operator (Also called Director Pointer). Below decks in Plot, was the Mark 4 Radar Console where the Radar Operator and Radar Tracker sat. The director's movement in bearing was unlimited because it had slip-rings in its pedestal. (The Mark 37 gun director had a cable connection to the hull, and occasionally had to be "unwound".) Fig. 26E8 on this Web page shows the director in considerable detail.
The explanatory drawings of the system show how it works, but are wildly different in physical appearance from the actual internal mechanisms, perhaps intentionally so. However, it omits any significant description of the mechanism of the linkage computer. That chapter is an excellent detailed reference that explains much of the system's design, which is quite ingenious and forward-thinking in several respects.
In the 1968 upgrade to USS New Jersey for service off Vietnam, three Mark 56 Gun Fire Control Systems were installed. Two on either side just forward of the aft stack, and one between the aft mast and the aft Mark 38 Director tower. This increased New Jersey's anti-aircraft capability, because the Mark 56 system could track and shoot at faster planes.
Mark 63 GFCS: The Mark 63 was introduced in 1953 for the twin QF 4-inch naval gun Mk XVI and Mk.33 twin 3"/50 cal guns. The GFCS consists of an AN/SPG-34 radar tracker and a Mark 29 gun sight.
Mark 68 GFCS: Introduced in the early 1950s, the Mark 68 was an upgrade from the Mark 37 effective against air and surface targets. It combined a manned topside director, a conical scan acquisition and tracking radar, an analog computer to compute ballistics solutions, and a gyro stabilization unit.
The gun director was mounted in a large yoke, and the whole director was stabilized in crosslevel (the yoke's pivot axis). That axis was in a vertical plane that included the line of sight.
At least in 1958, the computer was the Mark 47, an hybrid electronic/electromechanical system. Somewhat akin to the Mark 1A, it had electrical high-precision resolvers instead of the mechanical one of earlier machines, and multiplied with precision linear potentiometers. However, it still had disc/roller integrators as well as shafting to interconnect the mechanical elements. Whereas access to much of the Mark 1A required time-consuming and careful disassembly (think days in some instances, and possibly a week to gain access to deeply buried mechanisms), the Mark 47 was built on thick support plates mounted behind the front panels on slides that permitted its six major sections to be pulled out of its housing for easy access to any of its parts. (The sections, when pulled out, moved fore and aft; they were heavy, not counterbalanced. Typically, a ship rolls through a much larger angle than it pitches.) The Mark 47 probably had 3-D cams for ballistics, but information on it appears very difficult to obtain.
Mechanical connections between major sections were via shafts in the extreme rear, with couplings permitting disconnection without any attention, and probably relief springs to aid re-engagement. One might think that rotating an output shaft by hand in a pulled-out section would misalign the computer, but the type of data transmission of all such shafts did not represent magnitude; only the incremental rotation of such shafts conveyed data, and it was summed by differentials at the receiving end. One such kind of quantity is the output from the roller of a mechanical integrator; the position of the roller at any given time is immaterial; it is only the incrementing and decrementing that counts.
Whereas the Mark 1/1A computations for the stabilizing component of gun orders had to be approximations, they were theoretically exact in the Mark 47 computer, computed by an electrical resolver chain.
The design of the computer was based on a re-thinking of the fire control problem; it was regarded quite differently.
Production of this system lasted for over 25 years. A digital upgrade was available from 1975 to 1985, and it was in service into the 2000s. The digital upgrade was evolved for use in the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
The AN/SPG-53 was a United States Navy gun fire-control radar used in conjunction with the Mark 68 gun fire-control system. It was used with the 5"/54 caliber Mark 42 gun system aboard Belknap-class cruisers, Mitscher-class destroyers, Forrest Sherman-class destroyers, Farragut-class destroyers, Charles F. Adams-class destroyers, Knox-class frigates as well as others.
US Navy computerized fire control systems:
Mark 86 GFCS: The US Navy desired a digital computerized gun fire-control system in 1961 for more accurate shore bombardment. Lockheed Electronics produced a prototype with AN/SPQ-9 radar fire control in 1965. An air defense requirement delayed production with the AN/SPG-60 until 1971. The Mark 86 did not enter service until when the nuclear-powered missile cruiser was commissioned in February 1974, and subsequently installed on US cruisers and amphibious assault ships. The last US ship to receive the system, USS Port Royal was commissioned in July 1994.
The Mark 86 on Aegis-class ships controls the ship's 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun mounts, and can engage up to two targets at a time. It also uses a Remote Optical Sighting system which uses a TV camera with a telephoto zoom lens mounted on the mast and each of the illuminating radars.
Mark 34 Gun Weapon System (GWS): The Mark 34 Gun Weapon System comes in various versions. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Ship gun fire-control system | Lockheed Electronics produced a prototype with AN/SPQ-9 radar fire control in 1965. An air defense requirement delayed production with the AN/SPG-60 until 1971. The Mark 86 did not enter service until when the nuclear-powered missile cruiser was commissioned in February 1974, and subsequently installed on US cruisers and amphibious assault ships. The last US ship to receive the system, USS Port Royal was commissioned in July 1994.
The Mark 86 on Aegis-class ships controls the ship's 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun mounts, and can engage up to two targets at a time. It also uses a Remote Optical Sighting system which uses a TV camera with a telephoto zoom lens mounted on the mast and each of the illuminating radars.
Mark 34 Gun Weapon System (GWS): The Mark 34 Gun Weapon System comes in various versions. It is an integral part of the Aegis combat weapon system on Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and modified Ticonderoga-class cruisers. It combines the Mark 45 5"/54 or 5"/62 Caliber Gun Mount, Mark 46 Optical Sight System or Mark 20 Electro-Optical Sight System and the Mark 160 Mod 4–11 Gunfire Control System / Gun Computer System. Other versions of the Mark 34 GWS are used by foreign navies as well as the US Coast Guard, with each configuration having its own unique camera and/or gun system. It can be used against surface ship and close hostile aircraft, and as in Naval Gunfire Support (NGFS) against shore targets.
Mark 92 Fire Control System (FCS): The Mark 92 fire control system, an Americanized version of the WM-25 system designed in The Netherlands, was approved for service use in 1975. It is deployed on board the relatively small and austere Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate to control the Mark 75 Naval Gun and the Mark 13 Guided Missile Launching System (missiles have since been removed since retirement of its version of the Standard missile). The Mod 1 system used in PHMs (retired) and the US Coast Guard's WMEC and WHEC ships can track one air or surface target using the monopulse tracker and two surface or shore targets. Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates with the Mod 2 system can track an additional air or surface target using the Separate Track Illuminating Radar (STIR).
Mark 160 Gun Computing System: Used in the Mark 34 Gun Weapon System, the Mark 160 Gun Computing System (GCS) contains a gun console computer (GCC), a computer display console (CDC), a magnetic tape recorder-reproducer, a watertight cabinet housing the signal data converter and gun mount microprocessor, a gun mount control panel (GMCP), and a velocimeter.
See also: Close-in weapon system
Director (military)
Fire-control system Ground, sea and air based systems
Mathematical discussion of rangekeeping
Rangekeeper shipboard analog fire-control computer
Notes:
Citations:
Bibliography: Campbell, John (1985). Naval Weapons of World War Two. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-459-4.
Fairfield, A.P. (1921). Naval Ordnance. The Lord Baltimore Press.
Fischer, Brad D. & Jurens, W. J. (2006). "Fast Battleship Gunnery During World War II: A Gunnery Revolution, Part II". Warship International. XLIII (1): 55–97. ISSN 0043-0374.
Frieden, David R. (1985). Principles of Naval Weapons Systems. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-537-X.
Friedman, Norman (2008). Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84415-701-3.
Jurens, W. J. (1991). "The Evolution of Battleship Gunnery in the U. S. Navy, 1920–1945". Warship International. XXVIII (3): 240–271. ISSN 0043-0374.
Pollen, Antony (1980). The Great Gunnery Scandal – The Mystery of Jutland. Collins. ISBN 0-00-216298-9.
Schleihauf, William (2001). "The Dumaresq and the Dreyer". Warship International. XXXVIII (1). International Naval Research Organization: 6–29. ISSN 0043-0374.
Schleihauf, William (2001). "The Dumaresq and the Dreyer, Part II". Warship International. XXXVIII (2). International Naval Research Organization: 164–201. ISSN 0043-0374.
Schleihauf, William (2001). "The Dumaresq and the Dreyer, Part III". Warship International. XXXVIII (3). International Naval Research Organization: 221–233. ISSN 0043-0374.
Friedman, Norman (2004). US Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History (Revised ed.). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-442-3.
Friedman, Norman (1986). U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870217151. OCLC 12214729.
Friedman, Norman (1984). U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9780870217180.
Stille, Mark (2014). Us Heavy Cruisers 1941-45: Pre-War Classes. OSPREY PUB INC. ISBN 9781782006299.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Navy.
External links: The British High Angle Control System (HACS)
Best Battleship Fire control – Comparison of World War II battleship systems
Appendix one, Classification of Director Instruments
HACS III Operating manual Part 1
HACS III Operating manual Part 2
USS Enterprise Action Log
The RN Pocket Gunnery Book
Fire Control Fundamentals
Manual for the Mark 1 and Mark 1a Computer
Maintenance Manual for the Mark 1 Computer
Manual for the Mark 6 Stable Element
Gun Fire Control System Mark 37 Operating Instructions at ibiblio.org
Director section of Mark 1 Mod 1 computer operations at NavSource.org
Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, Vol. 2, Chapter 25, AA Fire Control Systems |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Shock and awe | Doctrine of rapid dominance: Rapid dominance is defined by its authors, Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, as attempting
to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe.
Further, rapid dominance will, according to Ullman and Wade,
impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on ... [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels.
Introducing the doctrine in a report to the United States' National Defense University in 1996, Ullman and Wade describe it as an attempt to develop a post-Cold War military doctrine for the United States. Rapid dominance and shock and awe, they write, may become a "revolutionary change" as the United States military is reduced in size and information technology is increasingly integrated into warfare. Subsequent U.S. military authors have written that rapid dominance exploits the "superior technology, precision engagement, and information dominance" of the United States.
Ullman and Wade identify four vital characteristics of rapid dominance:
near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, adversary, and environment;
rapidity and timeliness in application;
operational brilliance in execution; and
(near) total control and signature management of the entire operational environment.
The term "shock and awe" is most consistently used by Ullman and Wade as the effect that rapid dominance seeks to impose upon an adversary. It is the desired state of helplessness and lack of will. It can be induced, they write, by direct force applied to command and control centers, selective denial of information and dissemination of disinformation, overwhelming combat force, and rapidity of action.
The doctrine of rapid dominance has evolved from the concept of "decisive force". Ulman and Wade contrast the two concepts in terms of objective, use of force, force size, scope, speed, casualties, and technique.
Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure: Although Ullman and Wade claim that the need to "[m]inimize civilian casualties, loss of life, and collateral damage" is a "political sensitivity [which needs] to be understood up front", their doctrine of rapid dominance requires the capability to disrupt "means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure", and, in practice, "the appropriate balance of Shock and Awe must cause ... the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless short of complete physical destruction."
Using as an example a theoretical invasion of Iraq 20 years after Operation Desert Storm, the authors claimed, "Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese."
Reiterating the example in an interview with CBS News several months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ullman stated, "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."
Historical applications: Ullman and Wade argue that there have been military applications that fall within some of the concepts of shock and awe. They enumerate nine examples:
Overwhelming force: The "application of massive or overwhelming force" to "disarm, incapacitate, or render the enemy militarily impotent with as few casualties to ourselves and to noncombatants as possible."
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The establishment of shock and awe through "instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large, meaning its leadership and public, rather than targeting directly against military or strategic objectives even with relatively few numbers or systems."
Massive bombardment: Described as "precise destructive power largely against military targets and related sectors over time."
Blitzkrieg: The "intent was to apply precise, surgical amounts of tightly focused force to achieve maximum leverage but with total economies of scale."
Sun Tzu: The "selective, instant beheading of military or societal targets to achieve shock and awe."
Haitian example: This example (occasionally referred to as the Potemkin village example) refers to a martial parade staged in Haiti on behalf of the (then) colonial power France in the early 1800s in which the native Haitians marched a small number of battalions in a cyclical manner. This led the colonial power into the belief that the size of the native forces was large enough so as to make any military action infeasible.
The Roman legions: "Achieving shock and awe rests in the ability to deter and overpower an adversary through the adversary's perception and fear of his vulnerability and our own invincibility."
Decay and default: "The imposition of societal breakdown over a lengthy period, but without the application of massive destruction."
First Chechen War: Russia's military strategy in the First Chechen War, and particularly the Battle of Grozny, was described as "shock and awe."
Iraq War:
Buildup: Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, United States armed forces officials described their plan as employing shock and awe. But, Tommy Franks, commanding general of the invading forces, "had never cared for the use of the term 'shock and awe' " and "had not seen that effect as the point of the air offensive."
Conflicting pre-war assessments: Before its implementation, there was dissent within the Bush administration as to whether the shock and awe plan would work. According to a CBS News report, "One senior official called it a bunch of bull, but confirmed it is the concept on which the war plan is based." CBS Correspondent David Martin noted that during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in the prior year, the U.S. forces were "badly surprised by the willingness of al Qaeda to fight to the death. If the Iraqis fight, the U.S. would have to throw in reinforcements and win the old fashioned way by crushing the Republican Guards, and that would mean more casualties on both sides."
Campaign: Continuous bombing began on March 19, 2003, as United States forces unsuccessfully attempted to kill Saddam Hussein with decapitation strikes. Attacks continued against a small number of targets until March 21, 2003, when, at 1700 UTC, the main bombing campaign of the US and their allies began. Its forces launched approximately 1,700 air sorties (504 using cruise missiles). Coalition ground forces had begun a "running start" offensive towards Baghdad on the previous day. Coalition ground forces seized Baghdad on April 5, and the United States declared victory on April 15. The term "shock and awe" is typically used to describe only the very beginning of the invasion of Iraq, not the larger war, nor the ensuing insurgency.
Conflicting post-war assessments: To what extent the United States fought a campaign of shock and awe is unclear as post-war assessments are contradictory. Within two weeks of the United States' victory declaration, on April 27, The Washington Post published an interview with Iraqi military personnel detailing demoralization and lack of command. According to the soldiers, Coalition bombing was surprisingly widespread and had a severely demoralizing effect. When United States tanks passed through the Iraqi military's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units outside Baghdad to Saddam's presidential palaces, it caused a shock to troops inside Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers said there was no organization intact by the time the United States entered Baghdad and that resistance crumbled under the presumption that "it wasn't a war, it was suicide."
In contrast, in an October 2003 presentation to the United States House Committee on Armed Services, staff of the United States Army War College did not attribute their performance to rapid dominance. Rather, they cited technological superiority and "Iraqi ineptitude". The speed of the coalition's actions ("rapidity"), they said, did not affect Iraqi morale. Further, they said that Iraqi armed forces ceased resistance only after direct force-on-force combat within cities.
According to National Geographic researcher Bijal Trivedi, "Even after several days of bombing the Iraqis showed remarkable resilience. Many continued with their daily lives, working and shopping, as bombs continued to fall around them. According to some analysts, the military's attack was perhaps too precise. It did not trigger shock and awe in the Iraqis and, in the end, the city was only captured after close combat on the outskirts of Baghdad."
Criticism of execution: According to The Guardian correspondent Brian Whitaker in 2003, "To some in the Arab and Muslim countries, Shock and Awe is terrorism by another name; to others, a crime that compares unfavourably with September 11." Anti-war protesters in 2003 also claimed that "the shock and awe pummeling of Baghdad [was] a kind of terrorism."
Casualties: A dossier released by Iraq Body Count, a project of the U.K. non-governmental non-violent and disarmament organization Oxford Research Group, attributed approximately 6,616 civilian deaths to the actions of U.S.-led forces during the "invasion phase", including the shock-and-awe bombing campaign on Baghdad. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Shock and awe | According to some analysts, the military's attack was perhaps too precise. It did not trigger shock and awe in the Iraqis and, in the end, the city was only captured after close combat on the outskirts of Baghdad."
Criticism of execution: According to The Guardian correspondent Brian Whitaker in 2003, "To some in the Arab and Muslim countries, Shock and Awe is terrorism by another name; to others, a crime that compares unfavourably with September 11." Anti-war protesters in 2003 also claimed that "the shock and awe pummeling of Baghdad [was] a kind of terrorism."
Casualties: A dossier released by Iraq Body Count, a project of the U.K. non-governmental non-violent and disarmament organization Oxford Research Group, attributed approximately 6,616 civilian deaths to the actions of U.S.-led forces during the "invasion phase", including the shock-and-awe bombing campaign on Baghdad.
These findings were disputed by both the U.S. military and the Iraqi government. Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, stated, "I don't know how they are doing their methodology and can't talk to how they calculate their numbers," as well as "we do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties in all of our operations." National Geographic researcher Bijal Trivedi stated, "Civilian casualties did occur, but the strikes, for the most part, were surgical."
In popular culture: Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US, the term "shock and awe" has been used for commercial purposes. The United States Patent and Trademark Office received at least 29 trademark applications in 2003 for exclusive use of the term. The first came from a fireworks company on the day the US started bombing Baghdad. Sony registered the trademark the day after the beginning of the operation for use in a video game title but later withdrew the application and described it as "an exercise of regrettable bad judgment."
In an interview, Harlan Ullman stated that he believed that using the term to try to sell products was "probably a mistake", and that "the marketing value will be somewhere between slim and none".
Shock and awe is the job of Jane Doe, most commonly known as The Soldier from Valve's 2007 multi-player FPS game Team Fortress 2.
In the 2009 theatrical movie Avatar, the genocide attack on the Na'vi is described as a "Shock and Awe" campaign by doctor Max Patel.
In the 2011 theatrical film Battle: Los Angeles, the invasion by the alien force is described as using "rapid dominance" along the world's coastlines, including indiscriminate use of heavy ordnance.
A mission entitled "Shock and Awe" in the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare concludes with the detonation of a nuclear warhead.
In the 2008 video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, one of the songs in the soundtrack of the game is titled "Shock and Awe".
In the 2016 video game Hearts of Iron IV, one doctrine the player can select is named “Shock and Awe”, focussing on overwhelming Artillery- and Air support. However, the game is set before Ullman and Wade’s explanation of the terminology.
See also: Demoralization (military)
Hearts and minds (Iraq)
Powell Doctrine
Psychological warfare
Rumsfeld Doctrine
Terror (politics)
London Blitz
Blitzkrieg
Notes:
Further reading: Blakesley, Paul J. "Shock and Awe: A Widely Misunderstood Effect". United States Army Command and General Staff College, June 17, 2004.
Branigin, William. "A Brief, Bitter War for Iraq's Military Officers". Washington Post, October 27, 2003.
Peterson, Scott. "US mulls air strategies in Iraq". Christian Science Monitor, January 30, 2003.
Ullman, Harlan K. and Wade, James P. Rapid Dominance: A Force for All Seasons. Royal United Services Institute in Defense Studies, 1998.
External links:
Shock and awe Archived 2007-03-12 at the Wayback Machine, from SourceWatch
Command and Control Research Program |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Show of force | Function: Shows of force have historically been undertaken mostly by a military actor unwilling to engage in all-out hostilities, but fearing to 'lose face' (to appear weak). By performing a carefully calculated provocation, the opponent is to be shown that violent confrontation remains an option, and there will be no backing off on the principle that the show of force is to defend.
Shows of force may be actual military operations, but in times of official peace, they may also be limited to military exercises.
Shows of force also work on a smaller scale: military forces on a tactical level using mock attacks to deter potential opponents, especially when a real attack on suspected (but unconfirmed) enemies might harm civilians. As an example, most air "attacks" during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom have been simple shows of force with jet aircraft dropping flares only while making loud, low-level passes. A 2009 12-month report for Afghanistan noted 18,019 strike sorties by US military aircraft, with weapons use for only 3,330 of the missions.
Notable examples: Operation Paul Bunyan, a dawn-period military raid on August 21, 1976 by US and UNC forces into the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a reaction to the unprovoked slaying of two US Army officers by North Korean troops following the infamous "Axe Murder Incident."
Operation Poomalai, on 4 June 1987, the Indian Air Force mounted a mercy mission to airdrop humanitarian relief supplies over the besieged town of Jaffna in Sri Lanka during the Sri Lankan Civil War. The mission was undertaken as a symbolic act of support for the Tamil Tigers two days after a previous unarmed effort which was mounted in the form of a small naval flotilla and was thwarted by the Sri Lankan Navy.
Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, was the effect of a series of missile tests conducted by the People's Republic of China in the waters surrounding Taiwan including the Taiwan Strait from 21 July 1995 to 23 March 1996. The first set of missiles fired in mid to late 1995 were allegedly intended to send a strong signal to the Republic of China government under Lee Teng-hui, who had been seen as moving ROC foreign policy away from the One-China policy. The second set of missiles were fired in early 1996, allegedly intending to intimidate the Taiwanese electorate in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election.
Operation Restore Democracy in Gambia to remove the former president Yahya Jammeh. Nigerian jets flew over Banjul and ECOWAS forces surrounded Gambia's borders to deter resistance from the smaller Gambian army.
See also: Demoralization (warfare)
Deterrence theory
Gunboat diplomacy
Peace through strength
Shock and awe
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Ancient period:
The necessity of city walls: The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus River floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets.
The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji were clustered behind massive stone flood dikes and defensive walls, for neighbouring communities quarrelled constantly about the control of prime agricultural land. Mundigak (c. 2500 BC) in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun-dried bricks.
City walls and fortifications were essential for the defence of the first cities in the ancient Near East. The walls were built of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials, depending on local availability. They may also have served the dual purpose of showing potential enemies the might of the kingdom. The great walls surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained a widespread reputation. The walls were 9.5 km (5.9 mi) in length, and up to 12 m (39 ft) in height.
Later, the walls of Babylon, reinforced by towers, moats, and ditches, gained a similar reputation. In Anatolia, the Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities atop hillsides, taking advantage of the terrain. In Shang dynasty China, at the site of Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had dimensions of 20 m (66 ft) in width at the base and enclosed an area of some 1,900 m (2,100 yd) squared. The ancient Chinese capital for the State of Zhao, Handan, founded in 386 BC, also had walls that were 20 m (66 ft) wide at the base; they were 15 m (49 ft) tall, with two separate sides of its rectangular enclosure at a length of 1,400 m (1,530 yd).
The cities of the Indus Valley Civilization showed less effort in constructing defences, as did the Minoan civilization on Crete. These civilizations probably relied more on the defence of their outer borders or sea shores. Unlike the ancient Minoan civilization, the Mycenaean Greeks emphasized the need for fortifications alongside natural defences of mountainous terrain, such as the massive Cyclopean walls built at Mycenae and other adjacent Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC) centers of central and southern Greece.
Archaeological evidence: Although there are depictions of sieges from the ancient Near East in historical sources and in art, there are very few examples of siege systems that have been found archaeologically. Of the few examples, several are noteworthy:
The late 9th-century BC siege system surrounding Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, consists of a 2.5 km (1.6 mi) long siege trench, towers, and other elements, and is the earliest evidence of a circumvallation system known in the world. It was apparently built by Hazael of Aram Damascus, as part of his siege and conquest of Philistine Gath in the late 9th century BC (mentioned in II Kings 12:18).
The late 8th-century BC siege system surrounding the site of Lachish (Tell el-Duweir) in Israel, built by Sennacherib of Assyria in 701 BC, is not only evident in the archaeological remains, but is described in Assyrian and biblical sources and in the reliefs of Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh.
The Siege of Alt-Paphos, Cyprus by the Persian army in the 4th century BC.
Depictions: The earliest representations of siege warfare have been dated to the Protodynastic Period of Egypt, c. 3000 BC. These show the symbolic destruction of city walls by divine animals using hoes.
The first siege equipment is known from Egyptian tomb reliefs of the 24th century BC, showing Egyptian soldiers storming Canaanite town walls on wheeled siege ladders. Later Egyptian temple reliefs of the 13th century BC portray the violent Siege of Dapur, a Syrian city, with soldiers climbing scale ladders supported by archers.
Assyrian palace reliefs of the 9th to 7th centuries BC display sieges of several Near Eastern cities. Though a simple battering ram had come into use in the previous millennium, the Assyrians improved siege warfare and used huge wooden tower-shaped battering rams with archers positioned on top.
In ancient China, sieges of city walls (along with naval battles) were portrayed on bronze 'hu' vessels, like those found in Chengdu, Sichuan in 1965, which have been dated to the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BC).
Tactics:
Offensive: An attacker's first act in a siege might be a surprise attack, attempting to overwhelm the defenders before they were ready or were even aware there was a threat. This was how William de Forz captured Fotheringhay Castle in 1221.
The most common practice of siege warfare was to lay siege and just wait for the surrender of the enemies inside or, quite commonly, to coerce someone inside to betray the fortification. During the medieval period, negotiations would frequently take place during the early part of the siege. An attacker – aware of a prolonged siege's great cost in time, money, and lives – might offer generous terms to a defender who surrendered quickly. The defending troops would be allowed to march away unharmed, often retaining their weapons. However, a garrison commander who was thought to have surrendered too quickly might face execution by his own side for treason.
As a siege progressed, the surrounding army would build earthworks (a line of circumvallation) to completely encircle their target, preventing food, water, and other supplies from reaching the besieged city. If sufficiently desperate as the siege progressed, defenders and civilians might have been reduced to eating anything vaguely edible – horses, family pets, the leather from shoes, and even each other.
The Hittite siege of a rebellious Anatolian vassal in the 14th century BC ended when the queen mother came out of the city and begged for mercy on behalf of her people. The Hittite campaign against the kingdom of Mitanni in the 14th century BC bypassed the fortified city of Carchemish. If the main objective of a campaign was not the conquest of a particular city, it could simply be passed by. When the main objective of the campaign had been fulfilled, the Hittite army returned to Carchemish and the city fell after an eight-day siege.
Disease was another effective siege weapon, although the attackers were often as vulnerable as the defenders. In some instances, catapults or similar weapons were used to fling diseased animals over city walls in an early example of biological warfare. If all else failed, a besieger could claim the booty of his conquest undamaged, and retain his men and equipment intact, for the price of a well-placed bribe to a disgruntled gatekeeper. The Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in the 8th century BC came to an end when the Israelites bought them off with gifts and tribute, according to the Assyrian account, or when the Assyrian camp was struck by mass death, according to the Biblical account. Due to logistics, long-lasting sieges involving a minor force could seldom be maintained. A besieging army, encamped in possibly squalid field conditions and dependent on the countryside and its own supply lines for food, could very well be threatened with the disease and starvation intended for the besieged.
To end a siege more rapidly, various methods were developed in ancient and medieval times to counter fortifications, and a large variety of siege engines was developed for use by besieging armies. Ladders could be used to escalade over the defenses. Battering rams and siege hooks could also be used to force through gates or walls, while catapults, ballistae, trebuchets, mangonels, and onagers could be used to launch projectiles to break down a city's fortifications and kill its defenders. A siege tower, a substantial structure built to equal or greater height than the fortification's walls, could allow the attackers to fire down upon the defenders and also advance troops to the wall with less danger than using ladders.
In addition to launching projectiles at the fortifications or defenders, it was also quite common to attempt to undermine the fortifications, causing them to collapse. This could be accomplished by digging a tunnel beneath the foundations of the walls, and then deliberately collapsing or exploding the tunnel. This process is known as mining. The defenders could dig counter-tunnels to cut into the attackers' works and collapse them prematurely.
Fire was often used as a weapon when dealing with wooden fortifications. The Roman Empire used Greek fire, which contained additives that made it hard to extinguish. Combined with a primitive flamethrower, it proved an effective offensive and defensive weapon. A sallying out might also occur with such weapons, or if the siege was of a location on a coastline, from ships launched from the harbor of the location.
Defensive: The universal method for defending against siege is the use of fortifications, principally walls and ditches, to supplement natural features. A sufficient supply of food and water was also important to defeat the simplest method of siege warfare: starvation. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | This could be accomplished by digging a tunnel beneath the foundations of the walls, and then deliberately collapsing or exploding the tunnel. This process is known as mining. The defenders could dig counter-tunnels to cut into the attackers' works and collapse them prematurely.
Fire was often used as a weapon when dealing with wooden fortifications. The Roman Empire used Greek fire, which contained additives that made it hard to extinguish. Combined with a primitive flamethrower, it proved an effective offensive and defensive weapon. A sallying out might also occur with such weapons, or if the siege was of a location on a coastline, from ships launched from the harbor of the location.
Defensive: The universal method for defending against siege is the use of fortifications, principally walls and ditches, to supplement natural features. A sufficient supply of food and water was also important to defeat the simplest method of siege warfare: starvation. On occasion, the defenders would drive 'surplus' civilians out to reduce the demands on stored food and water.
During the Warring States period in China (481–221 BC), warfare lost its honorable, gentlemen's duty that was found in the previous era of the Spring and Autumn period, and became more practical, competitive, cut-throat, and efficient for gaining victory. The Chinese invention of the hand-held, trigger-mechanism crossbow during this period revolutionized warfare, giving greater emphasis to infantry and cavalry and less to traditional chariot warfare.
The philosophically pacifist Mohists (followers of the philosopher Mozi) of the 5th century BC believed in aiding the defensive warfare of smaller Chinese states against the hostile offensive warfare of larger domineering states. The Mohists were renowned in the smaller states (and the enemies of the larger states) for the inventions of siege machinery to scale or destroy walls. These included traction trebuchet catapults, 8-foot (2.4 m) high ballistas, a wheeled siege ramp with grappling hooks known as the Cloud Bridge (the protractible, folded ramp slinging forward by means of a counterweight with rope and pulley), and wheeled 'hook-carts' used to latch large iron hooks onto the tops of walls to pull them down.
When enemies attempted to dig tunnels under walls for mining or entry into the city, the defenders used large bellows (the type the Chinese commonly used in heating up a blast furnace for smelting cast iron) to pump smoke into the tunnels in order to suffocate the intruders.
Advances in the prosecution of sieges in ancient and medieval times naturally encouraged the development of a variety of defensive countermeasures. In particular, medieval fortifications became progressively stronger—for example, the advent of the concentric castle from the period of the Crusades—and more dangerous to attackers—witness the increasing use of machicolations and murder-holes, as well the preparation of hot or incendiary substances. Arrowslits (also called arrow loops or loopholes), sally ports (airlock-like doors) for sallies and deep water wells were also integral means of resisting siege at this time. Particular attention would be paid to defending entrances, with gates protected by drawbridges, portcullises, and barbicans. Moats and other water defenses, whether natural or augmented, were also vital to defenders.
In the European Middle Ages, virtually all large cities had city walls—Dubrovnik in Dalmatia is a well-preserved example—and more important cities had citadels, forts, or castles. Great effort was expended to ensure a good water supply inside the city in case of siege. In some cases, long tunnels were constructed to carry water into the city. Complex systems of tunnels were used for storage and communications in medieval cities like Tábor in Bohemia, similar to those used much later in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Until the invention of gunpowder-based weapons (and the resulting higher-velocity projectiles), the balance of power and logistics definitely favored the defender. With the invention of gunpowder, cannon and mortars and howitzers (in modern times), the traditional methods of defense became less effective against a determined siege.
Siege accounts: Although there are numerous ancient accounts of cities being sacked, few contain any clues to how this was achieved. Some popular tales existed on how the cunning heroes succeeded in their sieges. The best-known is the Trojan Horse of the Trojan War, and a similar story tells how the Canaanite city of Joppa was conquered by the Egyptians in the 15th century BC. The Biblical Book of Joshua contains the story of the miraculous Battle of Jericho.
A more detailed historical account from the 8th century BC, called the Piankhi stela, records how the Nubians laid siege to and conquered several Egyptian cities by using battering rams, archers, and slingers and building causeways across moats.
Classical antiquity: During the Peloponnesian War, one hundred sieges were attempted and fifty-eight ended with the surrender of the besieged area.
Alexander the Great's army successfully besieged many powerful cities during his conquests. Two of his most impressive achievements in siegecraft took place in the Siege of Tyre and the Siege of the Sogdian Rock. His engineers built a causeway that was originally 60 m (200 ft) wide and reached the range of his torsion-powered artillery, while his soldiers pushed siege towers housing stone throwers and light catapults to bombard the city walls.
Most conquerors before him had found Tyre, a Phoenician island-city about 1 km (1,100 yd) from the mainland, impregnable. The Macedonians built a mole, a raised spit of earth across the water, by piling stones up on a natural land bridge that extended underwater to the island, and although the Tyrians rallied by sending a fire ship to destroy the towers, and captured the mole in a swarming frenzy, the city eventually fell to the Macedonians after a seven-month siege. In complete contrast to Tyre, Sogdian Rock was captured by stealthy attack. Alexander used commando-like tactics to scale the cliffs and capture the high ground, and the demoralized defenders surrendered.
The importance of siege warfare in the ancient period should not be underestimated. One of the contributing causes of Hannibal's inability to defeat Rome was his lack of siege engines, thus, while he was able to defeat Roman armies in the field, he was unable to capture Rome itself. The legionary armies of the Roman Republic and Empire are noted as being particularly skilled and determined in siege warfare. An astonishing number and variety of sieges, for example, formed the core of Julius Caesar's mid-1st-century BC conquest of Gaul (modern France).
In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), Caesar describes how, at the Battle of Alesia, the Roman legions created two huge fortified walls around the city. The inner circumvallation, 16 km (10 mi), held in Vercingetorix's forces, while the outer contravallation kept relief from reaching them. The Romans held the ground in between the two walls. The besieged Gauls, facing starvation, eventually surrendered after their relief force met defeat against Caesar's auxiliary cavalry.
The Sicarii Zealots who defended Masada in AD 73 were defeated by the Roman legions, who built a ramp 100 metres (330 ft) high up to the fortress's west wall.
During the Roman–Persian Wars, siege warfare was extensively being used by both sides.
Medieval period:
Mongols and Chinese: In the Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire's campaign against China (then comprising the Western Xia dynasty, Jin dynasty, and Southern Song dynasty) by Genghis Khan until Kublai Khan, who eventually established the Yuan dynasty in 1271, was very effective, allowing the Mongols to sweep through large areas. Even if they could not enter some of the more well-fortified cities, they used innovative battle tactics to grab hold of the land and the people:
By concentrating on the field armies, the strongholds had to wait. Of course, smaller fortresses, or ones easily surprised, were taken as they came along. This had two effects. First, it cut off the principal city from communicating with other cities where they might expect aid. Secondly, refugees from these smaller cities would flee to the last stronghold. The reports from these cities and the streaming hordes of refugees not only reduced the morale of the inhabitants and garrison of the principal city, it also strained their resources. Food and water reserves were taxed by the sudden influx of refugees. Soon, what was once a formidable undertaking became easy. The Mongols were then free to lay siege without interference of the field army, as it had been destroyed. At the siege of Aleppo, Hulagu used twenty catapults against the Bab al-Iraq (Gate of Iraq) alone.
In Jûzjânî, there are several episodes in which the Mongols constructed hundreds of siege machines in order to surpass the number which the defending city possessed. While Jûzjânî surely exaggerated, the improbably high numbers which he used for both the Mongols and the defenders do give one a sense of the large numbers of machines used at a single siege.
Another Mongol tactic was to use catapults to launch corpses of plague victims into besieged cities. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Food and water reserves were taxed by the sudden influx of refugees. Soon, what was once a formidable undertaking became easy. The Mongols were then free to lay siege without interference of the field army, as it had been destroyed. At the siege of Aleppo, Hulagu used twenty catapults against the Bab al-Iraq (Gate of Iraq) alone.
In Jûzjânî, there are several episodes in which the Mongols constructed hundreds of siege machines in order to surpass the number which the defending city possessed. While Jûzjânî surely exaggerated, the improbably high numbers which he used for both the Mongols and the defenders do give one a sense of the large numbers of machines used at a single siege.
Another Mongol tactic was to use catapults to launch corpses of plague victims into besieged cities. The disease-carrying fleas from the bodies would then infest the city, and the plague would spread, allowing the city to be easily captured, although this transmission mechanism was not known at the time. In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the Crimean city of Kaffa (now Feodosiya) during the Siege of Caffa. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30%–60% of Europe's population.
On the first night while laying siege to a city, the leader of the Mongol forces would lead from a white tent: if the city surrendered, all would be spared. On the second day, he would use a red tent: if the city surrendered, the men would all be killed, but the rest would be spared. On the third day, he would use a black tent: no quarter would be given.
However, the Chinese were not completely defenseless, and from AD 1234 until 1279, the Southern Song Chinese held out against the enormous barrage of Mongol attacks. Much of this success in defense lay in the world's first use of gunpowder (i.e. with early flamethrowers, grenades, firearms, cannons, and land mines) to fight back against the Khitans, the Tanguts, the Jurchens, and then the Mongols.
The Chinese of the Song period also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed cannonball shells with gunpowder. Written later c. 1350 in the Huo Long Jing, this manuscript of Jiao Yu recorded an earlier Song-era cast-iron cannon known as the 'flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor' (fei yun pi-li pao). The manuscript stated that (Wade–Giles spelling):
The shells (phao) are made of cast iron, as large as a bowl and shaped like a ball. Inside they contain half a pound of 'magic' gunpowder (shen huo). They are sent flying towards the enemy camp from an eruptor (mu phao); and when they get there a sound like a thunder-clap is heard, and flashes of light appear. If ten of these shells are fired successfully into the enemy camp, the whole place will be set ablaze...
During the Ming dynasty (AD 1368–1644), the Chinese were very concerned with city planning in regards to gunpowder warfare. The site for constructing the walls and the thickness of the walls in Beijing's Forbidden City were favoured by the Chinese Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) because they were in pristine position to resist cannon volley and were built thick enough to withstand attacks from cannon fire.
For more, see Technology of the Song dynasty.
Age of gunpowder: The introduction of gunpowder and the use of cannons brought about a new age in siege warfare. Cannons were first used in Song dynasty China during the early 13th century, but did not become significant weapons for another 150 years or so. In early decades, cannons could do little against strong castles and fortresses, providing little more than smoke and fire. By the 16th century, however, they were an essential and regularized part of any campaigning army, or castle's defences.
The greatest advantage of cannons over other siege weapons was the ability to fire a heavier projectile, farther, faster, and more often than previous weapons. They could also fire projectiles in a straight line, so that they could destroy the bases of high walls. Thus, 'old fashioned' walls – that is, high and, relatively, thin – were excellent targets, and, over time, easily demolished. In 1453, the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, were broken through in just six weeks by the 62 cannons of Mehmed II's army, although in the end the conquest was a long and extremely difficult siege with heavy Ottoman casualties due to the repeated attempts at taking the city by assault.
However, new fortifications, designed to withstand gunpowder weapons, were soon constructed throughout Europe. During the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare continued to dominate the conduct of the European wars.
Once siege guns were developed, the techniques for assaulting a town or fortress became well known and ritualized. The attacking army would surround a town. Then the town would be asked to surrender. If they did not comply, the besieging army would surround the town with temporary fortifications to stop sallies from the stronghold or relief getting in. The attackers would next build a length of trenches parallel to the defenses (these are known as the "first parallel") and just out of range of the defending artillery. They would dig a trench (known as a forward) towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire. Once they were within artillery range, they would dig another parallel (the Second Parallel) trench and fortify it with gun emplacements. This technique is commonly called entrenchment.
If necessary, using the first artillery fire for cover, the forces conducting the siege would repeat the process until they placed their guns close enough to be laid (aimed) accurately to make a breach in the fortifications. In order to allow the forlorn hope and support troops to get close enough to exploit the breach, more zigzag trenches could be dug even closer to the walls, with more parallel trenches to protect and conceal the attacking troops. After each step in the process, the besiegers would ask the besieged to surrender. If the forlorn hope stormed the breach successfully, the defenders could expect no mercy.
Emerging theories: The castles that in earlier years had been formidable obstacles were easily breached by the new weapons. For example, in Spain, the newly equipped army of Ferdinand and Isabella was able to conquer Moorish strongholds in Granada in 1482–1492 that had held out for centuries before the invention of cannons.
In the early 15th century, Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti wrote a treatise entitled De Re aedificatoria, which theorized methods of building fortifications capable of withstanding the new guns. He proposed that walls be "built in uneven lines, like the teeth of a saw". He proposed star-shaped fortresses with low, thick walls.
However, few rulers paid any attention to his theories. A few towns in Italy began building in the new style late in the 1480s, but it was only with the French invasion of the Italian peninsula in 1494–1495 that the new fortifications were built on a large scale. Charles VIII invaded Italy with an army of 18,000 men and a horse-drawn siege-train. As a result, he could defeat virtually any city or state, no matter how well defended. In a panic, military strategy was completely rethought throughout the Italian states of the time, with a strong emphasis on the new fortifications that could withstand a modern siege.
New fortresses: The most effective way to protect walls against cannon fire proved to be depth (increasing the width of the defenses) and angles (ensuring that attackers could only fire on walls at an oblique angle, not square on). Initially, walls were lowered and backed, in front and behind, with earth. Towers were reformed into triangular bastions. This design matured into the trace italienne. Star-shaped fortresses surrounding towns and even cities with outlying defenses proved very difficult to capture, even for a well-equipped army. Fortresses built in this style throughout the 16th century did not become fully obsolete until the 19th century, and were still in use throughout World War I (though modified for 20th-century warfare). During World War II, trace italienne fortresses could still present a formidable challenge, for example, in the last days of World War II, during the Battle in Berlin, that saw some of the heaviest urban fighting of the war, the Soviets did not attempt to storm the Spandau Citadel (built between 1559 and 1594), but chose to invest it and negotiate its surrender.
However, the cost of building such vast modern fortifications was incredibly high, and was often too much for individual cities to undertake. Many were bankrupted in the process of building them; others, such as Siena, spent so much money on fortifications that they were unable to maintain their armies properly, and so lost their wars anyway. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Fortresses built in this style throughout the 16th century did not become fully obsolete until the 19th century, and were still in use throughout World War I (though modified for 20th-century warfare). During World War II, trace italienne fortresses could still present a formidable challenge, for example, in the last days of World War II, during the Battle in Berlin, that saw some of the heaviest urban fighting of the war, the Soviets did not attempt to storm the Spandau Citadel (built between 1559 and 1594), but chose to invest it and negotiate its surrender.
However, the cost of building such vast modern fortifications was incredibly high, and was often too much for individual cities to undertake. Many were bankrupted in the process of building them; others, such as Siena, spent so much money on fortifications that they were unable to maintain their armies properly, and so lost their wars anyway. Nonetheless, innumerable large and impressive fortresses were built throughout northern Italy in the first decades of the 16th century to resist repeated French invasions that became known as the Italian Wars. Many stand to this day.
In the 1530s and 1540s, the new style of fortification began to spread out of Italy into the rest of Europe, particularly to France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Italian engineers were in enormous demand throughout Europe, especially in war-torn areas such as the Netherlands, which became dotted by towns encircled in modern fortifications. The densely populated areas of Northern Italy and the United Provinces (the Netherlands) were infamous for their high degree of fortification of cities. It made campaigns in these areas very hard to successfully conduct, considering even minor cities had to be captured by siege within the span of the campaigning season. In the Dutch case, the possibility of flooding large parts of the land provided an additional obstacle to besiegers, for example at the Siege of Leiden. For many years, defensive and offensive tactics were well balanced, leading to protracted and costly wars such as Europe had never known, involving more and more planning and government involvement. The new fortresses ensured that war rarely extended beyond a series of sieges. Because the new fortresses could easily hold 10,000 men, an attacking army could not ignore a powerfully fortified position without serious risk of counterattack. As a result, virtually all towns had to be taken, and that was usually a long, drawn-out affair, potentially lasting from several months to years, while the members of the town were starved to death. Most battles in this period were between besieging armies and relief columns sent to rescue the besieged.
Marshal Vauban and Van Coehoorn: At the end of the 17th century, two influential military engineers, the French Marshal Vauban and the Dutch military engineer Menno van Coehoorn, developed modern fortification to its pinnacle, refining siege warfare without fundamentally altering it: ditches would be dug; walls would be protected by glacis; and bastions would enfilade an attacker. Both engineers developed their ideas independently, but came to similar general rules regarding defensive construction and offensive action against fortifications. Both were skilled in conducting sieges and defenses themselves. Before Vauban and Van Coehoorn, sieges had been somewhat slapdash operations. Vauban and Van Coehoorn refined besieging to a science with a methodical process that, if uninterrupted, would break even the strongest fortifications. Examples of their styles of fortifications are Arras (Vauban) and the no-longer-existent fortress of Bergen op Zoom (Van Coehoorn). The main differences between the two lay in the difference in terrain on which Vauban and Van Coehoorn constructed their defenses: Vauban in the sometimes more hilly and mountainous terrain of France, Van Coehoorn in the flat and floodable lowlands of the Netherlands.
Planning and maintaining a siege is just as difficult as fending one off. A besieging army must be prepared to repel both sorties from the besieged area and also any attack that may try to relieve the defenders. It was thus usual to construct lines of trenches and defenses facing in both directions. The outermost lines, known as the lines of contravallation, would surround the entire besieging army and protect it from attackers.
This would be the first construction effort of a besieging army, built soon after a fortress or city had been invested. A line of circumvallation would also be constructed, facing in towards the besieged area, to protect against sorties by the defenders and to prevent the besieged from escaping. The next line, which Vauban usually placed at about 600 metres (2,000 ft) from the target, would contain the main batteries of heavy cannons so that they could hit the target without being vulnerable themselves. Once this line was established, work crews would move forward, creating another line at 250 metres (1,000 ft). This line contained smaller guns. The final line would be constructed only 30 to 60 metres (100 to 200 ft) from the fortress. This line would contain the mortars and would act as a staging area for attack parties once the walls were breached. Van Coehoorn developed a small and easily movable mortar named the coehorn, variations of which were used in sieges until the 19th century. It would also be from this line that miners working to undermine the fortress would operate.
The trenches connecting the various lines of the besiegers could not be built perpendicular to the walls of the fortress, as the defenders would have a clear line of fire along the whole trench. Thus, these lines (known as saps) needed to be sharply jagged.
Another element of a fortress was the citadel. Usually, a citadel was a "mini fortress" within the larger fortress, sometimes designed as a reduit, but more often as a means of protecting the garrison from potential revolt in the city. The citadel was used in wartime and peacetime to keep the residents of the city in line.
As in ages past, most sieges were decided with very little fighting between the opposing armies. An attacker's army was poorly served, incurring the high casualties that a direct assault on a fortress would entail. Usually, they would wait until supplies inside the fortifications were exhausted or disease had weakened the defenders to the point that they were willing to surrender. At the same time, diseases, especially typhus, were a constant danger to the encamped armies outside the fortress, and often forced a premature retreat. Sieges were often won by the army that lasted the longest.
An important element of strategy for the besieging army was whether or not to allow the encamped city to surrender. Usually, it was preferable to graciously allow a surrender, both to save on casualties, and to set an example for future defending cities. A city that was allowed to surrender with minimal loss of life was much better off than a city that held out for a long time and was brutally butchered at the end. Moreover, if an attacking army had a reputation of killing and pillaging regardless of a surrender, then other cities' defensive efforts would be redoubled. Usually, a city would surrender (with no honour lost) when its inner lines of defense were reached by the attacker. In case of refusal, however, the inner lines would have to be stormed by the attacker and the attacking troops would be seen to be justified in sacking the city.
Siege warfare: Siege warfare dominated in Western Europe for most of the 17th and 18th centuries. An entire campaign, or longer, could be used in a single siege (for example, Ostend in 1601–1604; La Rochelle in 1627–1628). This resulted in extremely prolonged conflicts. The balance was that, while siege warfare was extremely expensive and very slow, it was very successful—or, at least, more so than encounters in the field. Battles arose through clashes between besiegers and relieving armies, but the principle was a slow, grinding victory by the greater economic power. The relatively rare attempts at forcing pitched battles (Gustavus Adolphus in 1630; the French against the Dutch in 1672 or 1688) were almost always expensive failures.
The exception to this rule were the English. During the English Civil War, anything which tended to prolong the struggle, or seemed like want of energy and avoidance of a decision, was bitterly resented by the men of both sides. In France and Germany, the prolongation of a war meant continued employment for the soldiers, but in England, both sides were looking to end the war quickly. Even when in the end the New Model Army—a regular professional army—developed the original decision-compelling spirit permeated the whole organisation, as was seen when pitched against regular professional continental troops the Battle of the Dunes during the Interregnum.
Experienced commanders on both sides in the English Civil War recommended the abandonment of garrisoned fortifications for two primary reasons. The first, as for example proposed by the Royalist Sir Richard Willis to King Charles, was that by abandoning the garrisoning of all but the most strategic locations in one's own territory, far more troops would be available for the field armies, and it was the field armies which would decide the conflict. The other argument was that by slighting potential strong points in one's own territory, an enemy expeditionary force, or local enemy rising, would find it more difficult to consolidate territorial gains against an inevitable counterattack. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Even when in the end the New Model Army—a regular professional army—developed the original decision-compelling spirit permeated the whole organisation, as was seen when pitched against regular professional continental troops the Battle of the Dunes during the Interregnum.
Experienced commanders on both sides in the English Civil War recommended the abandonment of garrisoned fortifications for two primary reasons. The first, as for example proposed by the Royalist Sir Richard Willis to King Charles, was that by abandoning the garrisoning of all but the most strategic locations in one's own territory, far more troops would be available for the field armies, and it was the field armies which would decide the conflict. The other argument was that by slighting potential strong points in one's own territory, an enemy expeditionary force, or local enemy rising, would find it more difficult to consolidate territorial gains against an inevitable counterattack. Sir John Meldrum put forward just such an argument to the Parliamentary Committee of Both Kingdoms, to justify his slighting of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire.
Sixty years later, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Duke of Marlborough preferred to engage the enemy in pitched battles, rather than engage in siege warfare, although he was very proficient in both types of warfare.
On 15 April 1746, the day before the Battle of Culloden, at Dunrobin Castle, a party of William Sutherland's militia conducted the last siege fought on the mainland of Great Britain against Jacobite members of Clan MacLeod.
Strategic concepts: In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, new techniques stressed the division of armies into all-arms corps that would march separately and only come together on the battlefield. The less-concentrated army could now live off the country and move more rapidly over a larger number of roads.
Fortresses commanding lines of communication could be bypassed and would no longer stop an invasion. Since armies could not live off the land indefinitely, Napoleon Bonaparte always sought a quick end to any conflict by pitched battle. This military revolution was described and codified by Clausewitz.
Industrial advances: Advances in artillery made previously impregnable defenses useless. For example, the walls of Vienna that had held off the Turks in the mid-17th century were no obstacle to Napoleon in the early 19th.
Where sieges occurred (such as the Siege of Delhi and the Siege of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857), the attackers were usually able to defeat the defenses within a matter of days or weeks, rather than weeks or months as previously. The great Swedish white-elephant fortress of Karlsborg was built in the tradition of Vauban and intended as a reserve capital for Sweden, but it was obsolete before it was completed in 1869.
Railways, when they were introduced, made possible the movement and supply of larger armies than those that fought in the Napoleonic Wars. It also reintroduced siege warfare, as armies seeking to use railway lines in enemy territory were forced to capture fortresses which blocked these lines.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the battlefield front-lines moved rapidly through France. However, the Prussian and other German armies were delayed for months at the Siege of Metz and the Siege of Paris, due to the greatly increased firepower of the defending infantry, and the principle of detached or semi-detached forts with heavy-caliber artillery. This resulted in the later construction of fortress works across Europe, such as the massive fortifications at Verdun. It also led to the introduction of tactics which sought to induce surrender by bombarding the civilian population within a fortress, rather than the defending works themselves.
The Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War and the siege of Petersburg (1864–1865) during the American Civil War showed that modern citadels, when improved by improvised defences, could still resist an enemy for many months. The Siege of Plevna during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) proved that hastily constructed field defenses could resist attacks prepared without proper resources, and were a portent of the trench warfare of World War I.
Advances in firearms technology without the necessary advances in battlefield communications gradually led to the defense again gaining the ascendancy. An example of siege during this time, prolonged during 337 days due to the isolation of the surrounded troops, was the Siege of Baler, in which a reduced group of Spanish soldiers was besieged in a small church by the Philippine rebels in the course of the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish–American War, until months after the Treaty of Paris, the end of the conflict.
Furthermore, the development of steamships availed greater speed to blockade runners, ships with the purpose of bringing cargo, e.g. food, to cities under blockade, as with Charleston, South Carolina during the American Civil War.
Modern warfare:
World War I: Mainly as a result of the increasing firepower (such as machine guns) available to defensive forces, First World War trench warfare briefly revived a form of siege warfare. Although siege warfare had moved out from an urban setting because city walls had become ineffective against modern weapons, trench warfare was nonetheless able to use many of the techniques of siege warfare in its prosecution (sapping, mining, barrage and, of course, attrition), but on a much larger scale and on a greatly extended front.
More traditional sieges of fortifications took place in addition to trench sieges. The Siege of Tsingtao was one of the first major sieges of the war, but the inability for significant resupply of the German garrison made it a relatively one-sided battle. The Germans and the crew of an Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser put up a hopeless defense and, after holding out for more than a week, surrendered to the Japanese, forcing the German East Asia Squadron to steam towards South America for a new coal source.
The other major siege outside Europe during the First World War was in Mesopotamia, at the Siege of Kut. After a failed attempt to move on Baghdad, stopped by the Ottomans at the bloody Battle of Ctesiphon, the British and their large contingent of Indian sepoy soldiers were forced to retreat to Kut, where the Ottomans under German General Baron Colmar von der Goltz laid siege. The British attempts to resupply the force via the Tigris river failed, and rationing was complicated by the refusal of many Indian troops to eat cattle products. By the time the garrison fell on 29 April 1916, starvation was rampant. Conditions did not improve greatly under Turkish imprisonment. Along with the battles of Tanga, Sandfontein, Gallipoli, and Namacurra, it would be one of Britain's numerous embarrassing colonial defeats of the war.
The largest sieges of the war, however, took place in Europe. The initial German advance into Belgium produced four major sieges: the Battle of Liège, the Siege of Namur, the Siege of Maubeuge, and the Siege of Antwerp. All four would prove crushing German victories, at Liège and Namur against the Belgians, at Maubeuge against the French and at Antwerp against a combined Anglo-Belgian force. The weapon that made these victories possible were the German Big Berthas and the Skoda 305 mm Model 1911 siege mortars, one of the best siege mortars of the war, on loan from Austria-Hungary. These huge guns were the decisive weapon of siege warfare in the 20th century, taking part at Przemyśl, the Belgian sieges, on the Italian Front and Serbian Front, and even being reused in World War II.
At the Siege of Przemyśl, the Austro-Hungarian garrison showed an excellent knowledge of siege warfare, not only waiting for relief, but sending sorties into Russian lines and employing an active defense that resulted in the capture of the Russian General Lavr Kornilov. Despite its excellent performance, the garrison's food supply had been requisitioned for earlier offensives, a relief expedition was stalled by the weather, ethnic rivalries flared up between the defending soldiers, and a breakout attempt failed. When the commander of the garrison Hermann Kusmanek finally surrendered, his troops were eating their horses and the first attempt of large-scale air supply had failed. It was one of the few great victories obtained by either side during the war; 110,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners were marched back to Russia. Use of aircraft for siege running, bringing supplies to areas under siege, would nevertheless prove useful in many sieges to come.
The largest siege of the war, and arguably the roughest, most gruesome battle in history, was the Battle of Verdun. Whether the battle can be considered true siege warfare is debatable. Under the theories of Erich von Falkenhayn, it is more distinguishable as purely attrition with a coincidental presence of fortifications on the battlefield. When considering the plans of Crown Prince Wilhelm, purely concerned with taking the citadel and not with French casualty figures, it can be considered a true siege. The main fortifications were Fort Douaumont, Fort Vaux, and the fortified city of Verdun itself. The Germans, through the use of huge artillery bombardments, flamethrowers, and infiltration tactics, were able to capture both Vaux and Douaumont, but were never able to take the city, and eventually lost most of their gains. It was a battle that, despite the French ability to fend off the Germans, neither side won. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Whether the battle can be considered true siege warfare is debatable. Under the theories of Erich von Falkenhayn, it is more distinguishable as purely attrition with a coincidental presence of fortifications on the battlefield. When considering the plans of Crown Prince Wilhelm, purely concerned with taking the citadel and not with French casualty figures, it can be considered a true siege. The main fortifications were Fort Douaumont, Fort Vaux, and the fortified city of Verdun itself. The Germans, through the use of huge artillery bombardments, flamethrowers, and infiltration tactics, were able to capture both Vaux and Douaumont, but were never able to take the city, and eventually lost most of their gains. It was a battle that, despite the French ability to fend off the Germans, neither side won. The German losses were not worth the potential capture of the city, and the French casualties were not worth holding the symbol of her defense.
The development of the armored tank and improved infantry tactics at the end of World War I swung the pendulum back in favor of maneuver, and with the advent of Blitzkrieg in 1939, the end of traditional siege warfare was at hand. The Maginot Line would be the prime example of the failure of immobile, post–World War I fortifications. Although sieges would continue, it would be in a totally different style and on a reduced scale.
World War II: The Blitzkrieg of the Second World War truly showed that fixed fortifications are easily defeated by manoeuvre instead of frontal assault or long sieges. The great Maginot Line was bypassed, and battles that would have taken weeks of siege could now be avoided with the careful application of air power (such as the German paratrooper capture of Fort Eben-Emael, Belgium, early in World War II).
The most important siege was the Siege of Leningrad, that lasted over 29 months, about half of the duration of the entire Second World War. The siege of Leningrad resulted in the deaths of some one million of the city's inhabitants. Along with the Battle of Stalingrad, the siege of Leningrad on the Eastern Front was the deadliest siege of a city in history. In the west, apart from the Battle of the Atlantic, the sieges were not on the same scale as those on the European Eastern front; however, there were several notable or critical sieges: the island of Malta, for which the population won the George Cross and Tobruk. In the South-East Asian theatre, there was the siege of Singapore, and in the Burma campaign, sieges of Myitkyina, the Admin Box, Imphal, and Kohima, which was the high-water mark for the Japanese advance into India.
The Siege of Sevastopol saw the use of the heaviest and most powerful individual siege engines ever to be used: the German 800 mm railway gun and the 600 mm siege mortar. Though a single shell could have disastrous local effect, the guns were susceptible to air attack in addition to being slow to move.
Airbridge: Throughout the war both the Western Allies and the Germans tried to supply forces besieged behind enemy lines with ad-hoc airbridges. Sometimes these attempts failed, as happened to the besieged German Sixth Army the Battle of Stalingrad, and sometimes they succeeded as happened during the Battle of the Admin Box (5 – 23 February 1944) and the short Siege of Bastogne (December 1944).
The logistics of strategic airbridge operations were developed by the Americans flying military transport aircraft from India to China over the Hump (1942–1945), to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek, and to the USAAF XX Bomber Command (during Operation Matterhorn).
Tactical airbridge methods were developed and, as planned, used extensively for supplying the Chindits during Operation Thursday (February – May 1944). The Chindits, a specially trained division of the British and Indian armies, were flown deep behind Japanese front lines in the South-East Asian theatre to jungle clearings in Burma where they set up fortified airheads from which they sailed out to attack Japanese lines of communications, while defending the bases from Japanese counterattacks. The bases were re-supplied by air with casualties flown out by returning aircraft. When the Japanese attacked in strength the Chindits abandoned the bases and either moved to new bases, or back to Allied lines.
Post-World War II: Several times during the Cold War the western powers had to use their airbridge expertise.
The Berlin Blockade from June 1948 to September 1949, the Western Powers flew over 200,000 flights, providing to West Berlin up to 8,893 tons of necessities each day.
Airbridge was used extensively during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War, but failed to prevent its fall to the Việt Minh in 1954.
In the next Vietnam War, airbridge proved crucial during the siege of the American base at Khe Sanh in 1968. The resupply it provided kept the North Vietnamese Army from capturing the base.
In both Vietnamese cases, the Viet Minh and NLF were able to cut off the opposing army by capturing the surrounding rugged terrain. At Dien Bien Phu, the French were unable to use air power to overcome the siege and were defeated. However, at Khe Sanh, a mere 14 years later, advances in air power—and a reduction in Vietnamese anti-aircraft capability—allowed the United States to withstand the siege. The resistance of US forces was assisted by the PAVN and PLAF forces' decision to use the Khe Sanh siege as a strategic distraction to allow their mobile warfare offensive, the first Tet Offensive, to unfold securely.
The Battle of Khe Sanh displays typical features of modern sieges, as the defender has greater capacity to withstand the siege, the attacker's main aim is to bottle operational forces or create a strategic distraction, rather than take the siege to a conclusion.
In neighboring Cambodia, at that time known as the Khmer Republic, the Khmer Rouge used siege tactics to cut off supplies from Phnom Penh to other government-held enclaves in an attempt to break the will of the government to continue fighting.
In 1972, during the Easter offensive, the siege of An Lộc Vietnam occurred. ARVN troops and U.S. advisers and air power successfully defeated communist forces. The Battle of An Lộc pitted some 6,350 ARVN men against a force three times that size. During the peak of the battle, ARVN had access to only one 105 mm howitzer to provide close support, while the enemy attack was backed by an entire artillery division. ARVN had no tanks, the NVA communist forces had two armoured regiments. ARVN prevailed after over two months of continuous fighting. As General Paul Vanuxem, a French veteran of the Indochina War, wrote in 1972 after visiting the liberated city of An Lộc: "An Lộc was the Verdun of Vietnam, where Vietnam received as in baptism the supreme consecration of her will."
During the 1982 Lebanon War, the Israel Defence Forces besieged Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, to quickly realize their goals including the eviction of the Palestine Liberation Organization from the country.
During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, Republika Srpska forces besieged Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The siege lasted from 1992 until 1996.
Numerous sieges haven taken place during the Syrian Civil War, such as the Siege of Homs, Siege of Kobanî, Siege of Deir ez-Zor (2014–2017), Siege of Nubl and al-Zahraa, and Siege of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya.
Multiple sieges took place in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, most notably the Siege of Mariupol.
The Israel–Hamas war in 2023-2024 contained multiple sieges, including the Siege of Gaza City and the Siege of Khan Yunis.
Police sieges: Siege tactics continue to be employed in police contexts; such a siege is typically called a standoff or, in law enforcement jargon, a barricade situation. Standoffs may result from crimes and incidents such as robberies, raids, search and arrest warrants, prison riots, or terrorist attacks. Standoffs occur due to a variety of factors, most prominently the safety of police (against whom the besieged may have the upper hand), the besieged suspects (who police generally intend to arrest), bystanders (who may be in the crossfire), and hostages (who may be injured or killed by the suspects).
The optimal result of most standoffs is a peaceful resolution: the safe extraction of hostages and bystanders, and the peaceful surrender and arrest of the hostage-takers. To ensure this, police make use of trained negotiators and psychologists to learn the hostage-takers' demands (and meet said demands if feasible or permissible), gain the hostage-takers' trust, clarify that police do not intend to kill them or will even let them go (regardless of whether such claims are true), and coax the hostage-takers into surrendering or at least releasing hostages. In the event a peaceful resolution is impossible—negotiations fail or do not proceed, hostages are released but the hostage-takers refuse to surrender, the hostage-takers resist violently, or hostages are killed—police may respond in force, generally being able to rely on police tactical units or even military support if possible and required. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | The optimal result of most standoffs is a peaceful resolution: the safe extraction of hostages and bystanders, and the peaceful surrender and arrest of the hostage-takers. To ensure this, police make use of trained negotiators and psychologists to learn the hostage-takers' demands (and meet said demands if feasible or permissible), gain the hostage-takers' trust, clarify that police do not intend to kill them or will even let them go (regardless of whether such claims are true), and coax the hostage-takers into surrendering or at least releasing hostages. In the event a peaceful resolution is impossible—negotiations fail or do not proceed, hostages are released but the hostage-takers refuse to surrender, the hostage-takers resist violently, or hostages are killed—police may respond in force, generally being able to rely on police tactical units or even military support if possible and required.
Most standoffs are much shorter than military sieges, often lasting hours or days at most. Lengthy sieges may still occur, albeit rarely, such as the 51-day-long 1993 Waco siege. Most standoffs end in a peaceful resolution (i.e. 1973 Brooklyn hostage crisis), though some may end in a police or military assault (i.e. 1994 Air France Flight 8969 hijacking, 1980 Iranian Embassy siege) or, in the worst-case scenarios, the deaths of authorities, hostage-takers, or hostages (i.e. 1985 MOVE bombing, 1985 EgyptAir Flight 648 hijacking, 2004 Beslan school siege, 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting). The aforementioned worst-case scenarios often result from poor planning, tactics, or negotiations on the part of the authorities (e.g. accidental killings of hostages by Unit 777 during the EgyptAir Flight 648 hijacking), or from violent acts committed by the hostage-takers (e.g. suicide bombings and executions during the Beslan school siege).
In some jurisdictions, depending on certain circumstances, standoffs that would usually be handled by police may be transferred to the military. For example, in the United Kingdom, standoffs with terrorists may be transferred to military responsibility for a military assault on the besieged. The threat of such an action ended the 1975 Balcombe Street siege, but the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege ended in a military assault and the deaths of all but one of the hostage-takers.
See also: Battleplan (documentary TV series)
Blitzkrieg
Breastwork (fortification)
Infiltration
Last stand
Maneuver warfare
Medieval warfare
Sangar (fortification)
Siege engines
Siege equipment
Tunnel warfare
Lists
List of established military terms
List of sieges
Notes:
References: Alchon, Suzanne Austin (2003). A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective. University of New Mexico Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-8263-2871-7.
Baldock, Thomas Stanford (1809). Cromwell as a Soldier. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company. pp. 515–520.
Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-88695-5.
Firth, C. H. (1902). Cromwell's Army: A History of the English Soldier During the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. Sussex: Methurn & Company. p. 29.
Ebrey; Walthall; Palais (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Fletcher, Banister; Cruickshank, Dan (1996). Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture (20th ed.). Architectural Press. p. 20. ISBN 0-7506-2267-9.
Funderburk, Jordan (2021). Siege Operations for 21st Century Warfare. U.S. Army. Archived from the original on 6 May 2022.
Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. p. 362. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9.
Hoskin, John; Howland, Carol (2006). Vietnam. New Holland Publishers. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-84537-551-5.
Stewart, William (1998). Dictionary of images and symbols in counselling (1st ed.). Jessica Kingsley. p. 105. ISBN 1-85302-351-5.
Morocco, John (1984). Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. Boston: Boston Publishing Company.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 4. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 5. Taiepi: Caves Books Ltd.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 5. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
Reynolds, Francis Joseph; Churchill, Allen Leon; Miller, Francis Trevelyan (1916). The story of the great war: history of the European War from official sources; complete historical records of events to date. P.F. Collier & Son. p. 406.
Roland, Alex (1992). "Secrecy, Technology, and War: Greek Fire and the Defense of Byzantium, Technology and Culture". Technology and Culture. 33 (4): 655–679. doi:10.2307/3106585. JSTOR 3106585. S2CID 113017993.
Sellman, R. R. (1954). Castles and Fortresses. Methuen.
Stearns, Peter N. (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History: ancient, medieval, and modern (6th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Books. p. 17. ISBN 0-395-65237-5.
Symonds, Richard (1859). Long, Charles Edward (ed.). Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army During the Great Civil War. Works of the Camden Society. Vol. 74. The Camden Society. p. 270.
Townshend, Charles (2000). The Oxford History of Modern War. Oxford University Press. pp. 211, 212. ISBN 0-19-285373-2.
Turnbull, Stephen R. (2002). Siege Weapons of the Far East. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd.
Wheelis, M. (2002). "Biological warfare at the 1346 siege of Caffa". Emerg Infect Dis. 8 (9). Center for Disease Control: 971–975. doi:10.3201/eid0809.010536. PMC 2732530. PMID 12194776.
Windrow, Martin (2005). The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French defeat in Vietnam. London: Cassell.
Further reading: Duffy, Christopher (1996) [1975]. Fire & Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare (1660–1860) (2nd ed.). New York: Stackpole Books.
Duffy, Christopher (1996). Siege Warfare: Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–1660. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Duffy, Christopher (1985). Siege Warfare, Volume II: The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Garlan, Yvon (1974). Recherches de poliorcétique grecque (in French). Paris: De Boccard.
Lynn, John A. (1999). The Wars of Louis XIV. Pearson. ISBN 0582056292.
May, Timothy. (2004). "Mongol Arms". Explorations in Empire, Pre-Modern Imperialism Tutorial: the Mongols. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008.
Ostwald, Jamel (2007). Vauban Under Siege: Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession. History of Warfare. Vol. 41 (illustrated ed.). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-15489-6.
Warner, Philip (1968). Sieges of the Middle Ages. G. Bell & Sons.
Historiography
Bachrach, Bernard S (1994). "Medieval siege warfare: a reconnaissance". Journal of Military History. 58 (1): 119–133. doi:10.2307/2944182. JSTOR 2944182.
External links:
Native American Siege Warfare. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Siege | Explorations in Empire, Pre-Modern Imperialism Tutorial: the Mongols. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008.
Ostwald, Jamel (2007). Vauban Under Siege: Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession. History of Warfare. Vol. 41 (illustrated ed.). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-15489-6.
Warner, Philip (1968). Sieges of the Middle Ages. G. Bell & Sons.
Historiography
Bachrach, Bernard S (1994). "Medieval siege warfare: a reconnaissance". Journal of Military History. 58 (1): 119–133. doi:10.2307/2944182. JSTOR 2944182.
External links:
Native American Siege Warfare.
Siege Kits
Scenes of Siege Warfare
Three ancient Egyptian Sieges: Megiddo, Dapur, Hermopolis
The Siege Of The City Archived 30 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine Biblical perspectives.
Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege (PBS) Informative and interactive webpages about medieval siege tactics. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Signal corps | Asia: Rejimen Semboyan Diraja, Malaysian Royal Signals Regiment
Indian Army Corps of Signals, raised in 1911.
Pakistan Army Corps of Signals, raised in 1947.
Singapore Armed Forces Signals Formation
Sri Lanka Signals Corps
Israeli C4I Corps
Korps Perhubungan TNI AD (Indonesian Army Signal Corps)
Armed Forces of the Philippines Signal Corps
Signal Department, Royal Thai Army
Australia: Royal Australian Corps of Signals
Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals
Europe: Arma delle Trasmissioni, corps of Italian Army founded in 1953, see List of units of the Italian Army.
Royal Corps of Signals, founded in the United Kingdom (under the name Telegraph Battalion Royal Engineers) in 1884.
Communications and Information Services Corps (CIS), the signals corps of Ireland's Defence Forces.
Communication and Information Systems Groups (CIS) of the Belgian Armed Forces, before: Transmission Troops
Signal Brigade, a unit of the Serbian Armed Forces.
Telegrafregimentet, Royal Danish Signal Regiment.
Sambandsbataljonen in the Brigade Nord of the Norwegian Army
Regiment Verbindingstroepen, a regiment of the Royal Netherlands Army.
Fernmeldetruppe of Bundeswehr, before: Signal Corps of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS.
Signal Communications Troops of Russia.
Signal Corps (French Army).
Viestirykmentti, Signal Regiment of the Finnish Army.
Swedish Army Signal Troops.
North America: Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, formed in 1903 as the Canadian Signalling Corps
United States Army Signal Corps, founded in 1860 by Major Albert J. Myer
See also: Military communications
Telegraph troops |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Soldier | Etymology: The word soldier derives from the Middle English word soudeour, from Old French soudeer or soudeour, meaning mercenary, from soudee, meaning shilling's worth or wage, from sou or soud, shilling. The word is also related to the Medieval Latin soldarius, meaning soldier (literally, "one having pay"). These words ultimately derive from the Late Latin word solidus, referring to an ancient Roman coin used in the Byzantine Empire.
Occupational and other designations: In most armies, the word "soldier" has a general meaning that refers to all members of any army, distinct from more specialized military occupations that require different areas of knowledge and skill sets. "Soldiers" may be referred to by titles, names, nicknames, or acronyms that reflect an individual's military occupation specialty arm, service, or branch of military employment, their type of unit, or operational employment or technical use such as: trooper, tanker (a member of tank crew), commando, dragoon, infantryman, guardsman, artilleryman, paratrooper, grenadier, ranger, sniper, engineer, sapper, craftsman, signaller, medic, rifleman, or gunner, among other terms. Some of these designations or their etymological origins have existed in the English language for centuries, while others are relatively recent, reflecting changes in technology, increased division of labor, or other factors. In the United States Army, a soldier's military job is designated as a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), which includes a very wide array of MOS Branches and sub-specialties. One example of a nickname for a soldier in a specific occupation is the term "red caps" to refer to military policemen personnel in the British Army because of the colour of their headgear.
Infantry are sometimes called "grunts" in the United States Army (as the well as in the U.S. Marine Corps) or "squaddies" (in the British Army). U.S. Army artillery crews, or "gunners," are sometimes referred to as "redlegs", from the service branch colour for artillery. U.S. soldiers are often called "G.I.s" (short for the term "Government Issue"). Such terms may be associated with particular wars or historical eras. "G.I." came into common use during World War II and after, but prior to and during World War I especially, American soldiers were called "Doughboys," while British infantry troops were often referred to as "Tommies" (short for the archetypal soldier "Tommy Atkins") and French infantry were called "Poilus" ("hairy ones").
Some formal or informal designations may reflect the status or changes in status of soldiers for reasons of gender, race, or other social factors. With certain exceptions, service as a soldier, especially in the infantry, had generally been restricted to males throughout world history. By World War II, women were actively deployed in Allied forces in different ways. Some notable female soldiers in the Soviet Union were honored as "Heroes of the Soviet Union" for their actions in the army or as partisan fighters. In the United Kingdom, women served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and later in the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC). Soon after its entry into the war, the U.S. formed the Women's Army Corps, whose female soldiers were often referred to as "WACs." These sex-segregated branches were disbanded in the last decades of the twentieth century and women soldiers were integrated into the standing branches of the military, although their ability to serve in armed combat was often restricted.
Race has historically been an issue restricting the ability of some people to serve in the U.S. Army. Until the American Civil War, Black soldiers fought in integrated and sometimes separate units, but at other times were not allowed to serve, largely due to fears about the possible effects of such service on the institution of legal slavery. Some Black soldiers, both freemen and men who had escaped from slavery, served in Union forces, until 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for the formation of Black units. After the war, Black soldiers continued to serve, but in segregated units, often subjected to physical and verbal racist abuse. The term "Buffalo Soldiers" was applied to some units fighting in the 19th century Indian Wars in the American West. Eventually, the phrase was applied more generally to segregated Black units, who often distinguished themselves in armed conflict and other service. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order for the end of segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
Service:
Conscription: Throughout history, individuals have often been compelled by force or law to serve in armies and other armed forces in times of war or other times. Modern forms of such compulsion are generally referred to as "conscription" or a "draft". Currently, many countries require registration for some form of mandatory service, although that requirement may be selectively enforced or exist only in law and not in practice. Usually the requirement applies to younger male citizens, though it may extend to women and non-citizen residents as well. In times of war, the requirements, such as age, may be broadened when additional troops are thought to be needed.
At different times and places, some individuals have been able to avoid conscription by having another person take their place. Modern draft laws may provide temporary or permanent exemptions from service or allow some other non-combatant service, as in the case of conscientious objectors.
In the United States, males aged 18-25 are required to register with the Selective Service System, which has responsibility for overseeing the draft. However, no draft has occurred since 1973, and the U.S. military has been able to maintain staffing through voluntary enlistment.
Enlistment: Soldiers in war may have various motivations for voluntarily enlisting and remaining in an army or other armed forces branch. In a study of 18th century soldiers' written records about their time in service, historian Ilya Berkovich suggests "three primary 'levers' of motivation ... 'coercive', 'remunerative', and 'normative' incentives." Berkovich argues that historians' assumptions that fear of coercive force kept unwilling conscripts in check and controlled rates of desertion have been overstated and that any pay or other remuneration for service as provided then would have been an insufficient incentive. Instead, "old-regime common soldiers should be viewed primarily as willing participants who saw themselves as engaged in a distinct and honourable activity." In modern times, soldiers have volunteered for armed service, especially in time of war, out of a sense of patriotic duty to their homeland or to advance a social, political, or ideological cause, while improved levels of remuneration or training might be more of an incentive in times of economic hardship. Soldiers might also enlist for personal reasons, such as following family or social expectations, or for the order and discipline provided by military training, as well as for the friendship and connection with their fellow soldiers afforded by close contact in a common enterprise.
In 2018, the RAND Corporation published the results of a study of contemporary American soldiers in Life as a Private: A Study of the Motivations and Experiences of Junior Enlisted Personnel in the U.S. Army. The study found that "soldiers join the Army for family, institutional, and occupational reasons, and many value the opportunity to become a military professional. They value their relationships with other soldiers, enjoy their social lives, and are satisfied with Army life." However, the authors cautioned that the survey sample consisted of only 81 soldiers and that "the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the U.S. Army as a whole or to any rank."
Length of service: The length of time that an individual is required to serve as a soldier has varied with country and historical period, whether that individual has been drafted or has voluntarily enlisted. Such service, depending on the army's need for staffing or the individual's fitness and eligibility, may involve fulfillment of a contractual obligation. That obligation might extend for the duration of an armed conflict or may be limited to a set number of years in active duty and/or inactive duty.
As of 2023, service in the U.S. Army is for a Military Service Obligation of 2 to 6 years of active duty with a remaining term in the Individual Ready Reserve. Individuals may also enlist for part-time duty in the Army Reserve or National Guard. Depending on need or fitness to serve, soldiers usually may reenlist for another term, possibly receiving monetary or other incentives.
In the U.S. Army, career soldiers who have served for at least 20 years are eligible to draw on a retirement pension. The size of the pension as a percentage of the soldier's salary usually increases with the length of time served on active duty.
In media and popular culture: Since the earliest recorded history, soldiers and warfare have been depicted in countless works, including songs, folk tales, stories, memoirs, biographies, novels and other narrative fiction, drama, films, and more recently television and video, comic books, graphic novels, and games. Often these portrayals have emphasized the heroic qualities of soldiers in war, but at times have emphasized war's inherent dangers, confusions, and trauma and their effect on individual soldiers and others. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Soldier | Individuals may also enlist for part-time duty in the Army Reserve or National Guard. Depending on need or fitness to serve, soldiers usually may reenlist for another term, possibly receiving monetary or other incentives.
In the U.S. Army, career soldiers who have served for at least 20 years are eligible to draw on a retirement pension. The size of the pension as a percentage of the soldier's salary usually increases with the length of time served on active duty.
In media and popular culture: Since the earliest recorded history, soldiers and warfare have been depicted in countless works, including songs, folk tales, stories, memoirs, biographies, novels and other narrative fiction, drama, films, and more recently television and video, comic books, graphic novels, and games. Often these portrayals have emphasized the heroic qualities of soldiers in war, but at times have emphasized war's inherent dangers, confusions, and trauma and their effect on individual soldiers and others.
See also: Airman
Combatant
Marine
Mercenary
Military compensation
Military ranks
Paratrooper
Prisoner of war
Sailor
Veteran
Women in the military by country
References:
External links: Media related to Soldier at Wikimedia Commons
Catherine Calloway, "War in Literature and Drama," Oxford Bibliographies: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0004.xml |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | History: Although some animals (dolphins, bats, some shrews, and others) have used sound for communication and object detection for millions of years, use by humans in the water was initially recorded by Leonardo da Vinci in 1490: a tube inserted into the water was said to be used to detect vessels by placing an ear to the tube.
In the late 19th century, an underwater bell was used as an ancillary to lighthouses or lightships to provide warning of hazards.
The use of sound to "echo-locate" underwater in the same way as bats use sound for aerial navigation seems to have been prompted by the Titanic disaster of 1912. The world's first patent for an underwater echo-ranging device was filed at the British Patent Office by English meteorologist Lewis Fry Richardson a month after the sinking of Titanic, and a German physicist Alexander Behm obtained a patent for an echo sounder in 1913.
The Canadian engineer Reginald Fessenden, while working for the Submarine Signal Company in Boston, Massachusetts, built an experimental system beginning in 1912, a system later tested in Boston Harbor, and finally in 1914 from the U.S. Revenue Cutter Miami on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. In that test, Fessenden demonstrated depth sounding, underwater communications (Morse code) and echo ranging (detecting an iceberg at a 2-mile (3.2 km) range). The "Fessenden oscillator", operated at about 500 Hz frequency, was unable to determine the bearing of the iceberg due to the 3-metre wavelength and the small dimension of the transducer's radiating face (less than 1⁄3 wavelength in diameter). The ten Montreal-built British H-class submarines launched in 1915 were equipped with Fessenden oscillators.
During World War I the need to detect submarines prompted more research into the use of sound. The British made early use of underwater listening devices called hydrophones, while the French physicist Paul Langevin, working with a Russian immigrant electrical engineer Constantin Chilowsky, worked on the development of active sound devices for detecting submarines in 1915. Although piezoelectric and magnetostrictive transducers later superseded the electrostatic transducers they used, this work influenced future designs. Lightweight sound-sensitive plastic film and fibre optics have been used for hydrophones, while Terfenol-D and lead magnesium niobate (PMN) have been developed for projectors.
ASDIC: In 1916, under the British Board of Invention and Research, Canadian physicist Robert William Boyle took on the active sound detection project with A. B. Wood, producing a prototype for testing in mid-1917. This work for the Anti-Submarine Division of the British Naval Staff was undertaken in utmost secrecy, and used quartz piezoelectric crystals to produce the world's first practical underwater active sound detection apparatus. To maintain secrecy, no mention of sound experimentation or quartz was made – the word used to describe the early work ("supersonics") was changed to "ASD"ics, and the quartz material to "ASD"ivite: "ASD" for "Anti-Submarine Division", hence the British acronym ASDIC. In 1939, in response to a question from the Oxford English Dictionary, the Admiralty made up the story that it stood for "Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee", and this is still widely believed, though no committee bearing this name has been found in the Admiralty archives.
By 1918, Britain and France had built prototype active systems. The British tested their ASDIC on HMS Antrim in 1920 and started production in 1922. The 6th Destroyer Flotilla had ASDIC-equipped vessels in 1923. An anti-submarine school HMS Osprey and a training flotilla of four vessels were established on Portland in 1924.
By the outbreak of World War II, the Royal Navy had five sets for different surface ship classes, and others for submarines, incorporated into a complete anti-submarine system. The effectiveness of early ASDIC was hampered by the use of the depth charge as an anti-submarine weapon. This required an attacking vessel to pass over a submerged contact before dropping charges over the stern, resulting in a loss of ASDIC contact in the moments leading up to attack. The hunter was effectively firing blind, during which time a submarine commander could take evasive action. This situation was remedied with new tactics and new weapons.
The tactical improvements developed by Frederic John Walker included the creeping attack. Two anti-submarine ships were needed for this (usually sloops or corvettes). The "directing ship" tracked the target submarine on ASDIC from a position about 1500 to 2000 yards behind the submarine. The second ship, with her ASDIC turned off and running at 5 knots, started an attack from a position between the directing ship and the target. This attack was controlled by radio telephone from the directing ship, based on their ASDIC and the range (by rangefinder) and bearing of the attacking ship. As soon as the depth charges had been released, the attacking ship left the immediate area at full speed. The directing ship then entered the target area and also released a pattern of depth charges. The low speed of the approach meant the submarine could not predict when depth charges were going to be released. Any evasive action was detected by the directing ship and steering orders to the attacking ship given accordingly. The low speed of the attack had the advantage that the German acoustic torpedo was not effective against a warship travelling so slowly. A variation of the creeping attack was the "plaster" attack, in which three attacking ships working in a close line abreast were directed over the target by the directing ship.
The new weapons to deal with the ASDIC blind spot were "ahead-throwing weapons", such as Hedgehogs and later Squids, which projected warheads at a target ahead of the attacker and still in ASDIC contact. These allowed a single escort to make better aimed attacks on submarines. Developments during the war resulted in British ASDIC sets that used several different shapes of beam, continuously covering blind spots. Later, acoustic torpedoes were used.
Early in World War II (September 1940), British ASDIC technology was transferred for free to the United States. Research on ASDIC and underwater sound was expanded in the UK and in the US. Many new types of military sound detection were developed. These included sonobuoys, first developed by the British in 1944 under the codename High Tea, dipping/dunking sonar and mine-detection sonar. This work formed the basis for post-war developments related to countering the nuclear submarine.
SONAR: During the 1930s American engineers developed their own underwater sound-detection technology, and important discoveries were made, such as the existence of thermoclines and their effects on sound waves. Americans began to use the term SONAR for their systems, coined by Frederick Hunt to be the equivalent of RADAR.
US Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory: In 1917, the US Navy acquired J. Warren Horton's services for the first time. On leave from Bell Labs, he served the government as a technical expert, first at the experimental station at Nahant, Massachusetts, and later at US Naval Headquarters, in London, England. At Nahant he applied the newly developed vacuum tube, then associated with the formative stages of the field of applied science now known as electronics, to the detection of underwater signals. As a result, the carbon button microphone, which had been used in earlier detection equipment, was replaced by the precursor of the modern hydrophone. Also during this period, he experimented with methods for towing detection. This was due to the increased sensitivity of his device. The principles are still used in modern towed sonar systems.
To meet the defense needs of Great Britain, he was sent to England to install in the Irish Sea bottom-mounted hydrophones connected to a shore listening post by submarine cable. While this equipment was being loaded on the cable-laying vessel, World War I ended and Horton returned home.
During World War II, he continued to develop sonar systems that could detect submarines, mines, and torpedoes. He published Fundamentals of Sonar in 1957 as chief research consultant at the US Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory. He held this position until 1959 when he became technical director, a position he held until mandatory retirement in 1963.
Materials and designs in the US and Japan: There was little progress in US sonar from 1915 to 1940. In 1940, US sonars typically consisted of a magnetostrictive transducer and an array of nickel tubes connected to a 1-foot-diameter steel plate attached back-to-back to a Rochelle salt crystal in a spherical housing. This assembly penetrated the ship hull and was manually rotated to the desired angle. The piezoelectric Rochelle salt crystal had better parameters, but the magnetostrictive unit was much more reliable. High losses to US merchant supply shipping early in World War II led to large scale high priority US research in the field, pursuing both improvements in magnetostrictive transducer parameters and Rochelle salt reliability. Ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP), a superior alternative, was found as a replacement for Rochelle salt; the first application was a replacement of the 24 kHz Rochelle-salt transducers. Within nine months, Rochelle salt was obsolete. The ADP manufacturing facility grew from few dozen personnel in early 1940 to several thousands in 1942. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | This assembly penetrated the ship hull and was manually rotated to the desired angle. The piezoelectric Rochelle salt crystal had better parameters, but the magnetostrictive unit was much more reliable. High losses to US merchant supply shipping early in World War II led to large scale high priority US research in the field, pursuing both improvements in magnetostrictive transducer parameters and Rochelle salt reliability. Ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP), a superior alternative, was found as a replacement for Rochelle salt; the first application was a replacement of the 24 kHz Rochelle-salt transducers. Within nine months, Rochelle salt was obsolete. The ADP manufacturing facility grew from few dozen personnel in early 1940 to several thousands in 1942.
One of the earliest application of ADP crystals were hydrophones for acoustic mines; the crystals were specified for low-frequency cutoff at 5 Hz, withstanding mechanical shock for deployment from aircraft from 3,000 m (10,000 ft), and ability to survive neighbouring mine explosions. One of key features of ADP reliability is its zero aging characteristics; the crystal keeps its parameters even over prolonged storage.
Another application was for acoustic homing torpedoes. Two pairs of directional hydrophones were mounted on the torpedo nose, in the horizontal and vertical plane; the difference signals from the pairs were used to steer the torpedo left-right and up-down. A countermeasure was developed: the targeted submarine discharged an effervescent chemical, and the torpedo went after the noisier fizzy decoy. The counter-countermeasure was a torpedo with active sonar – a transducer was added to the torpedo nose, and the microphones were listening for its reflected periodic tone bursts. The transducers comprised identical rectangular crystal plates arranged to diamond-shaped areas in staggered rows.
Passive sonar arrays for submarines were developed from ADP crystals. Several crystal assemblies were arranged in a steel tube, vacuum-filled with castor oil, and sealed. The tubes then were mounted in parallel arrays.
The standard US Navy scanning sonar at the end of World War II operated at 18 kHz, using an array of ADP crystals. Desired longer range, however, required use of lower frequencies. The required dimensions were too big for ADP crystals, so in the early 1950s magnetostrictive and barium titanate piezoelectric systems were developed, but these had problems achieving uniform impedance characteristics, and the beam pattern suffered. Barium titanate was then replaced with more stable lead zirconate titanate (PZT), and the frequency was lowered to 5 kHz. The US fleet used this material in the AN/SQS-23 sonar for several decades. The SQS-23 sonar first used magnetostrictive nickel transducers, but these weighed several tons, and nickel was expensive and considered a critical material; piezoelectric transducers were therefore substituted. The sonar was a large array of 432 individual transducers. At first, the transducers were unreliable, showing mechanical and electrical failures and deteriorating soon after installation; they were also produced by several vendors, had different designs, and their characteristics were different enough to impair the array's performance. The policy to allow repair of individual transducers was then sacrificed, and "expendable modular design", sealed non-repairable modules, was chosen instead, eliminating the problem with seals and other extraneous mechanical parts.
The Imperial Japanese Navy at the onset of World War II used projectors based on quartz. These were big and heavy, especially if designed for lower frequencies; the one for Type 91 set, operating at 9 kHz, had a diameter of 30 inches (760 mm) and was driven by an oscillator with 5 kW power and 7 kV of output amplitude. The Type 93 projectors consisted of solid sandwiches of quartz, assembled into spherical cast iron bodies. The Type 93 sonars were later replaced with Type 3, which followed German design and used magnetostrictive projectors; the projectors consisted of two rectangular identical independent units in a cast-iron rectangular body about 16 by 9 inches (410 mm × 230 mm). The exposed area was half the wavelength wide and three wavelengths high. The magnetostrictive cores were made from 4 mm stampings of nickel, and later of an iron-aluminium alloy with aluminium content between 12.7% and 12.9%. The power was provided from a 2 kW at 3.8 kV, with polarization from a 20 V, 8 A DC source.
The passive hydrophones of the Imperial Japanese Navy were based on moving-coil design, Rochelle salt piezo transducers, and carbon microphones.
Later developments in transducers: Magnetostrictive transducers were pursued after World War II as an alternative to piezoelectric ones. Nickel scroll-wound ring transducers were used for high-power low-frequency operations, with size up to 13 feet (4.0 m) in diameter, probably the largest individual sonar transducers ever. The advantage of metals is their high tensile strength and low input electrical impedance, but they have electrical losses and lower coupling coefficient than PZT, whose tensile strength can be increased by prestressing. Other materials were also tried; nonmetallic ferrites were promising for their low electrical conductivity resulting in low eddy current losses, Metglas offered high coupling coefficient, but they were inferior to PZT overall. In the 1970s, compounds of rare earths and iron were discovered with superior magnetomechanic properties, namely the Terfenol-D alloy. This made possible new designs, e.g. a hybrid magnetostrictive-piezoelectric transducer. The most recent of these improved magnetostrictive materials is Galfenol.
Other types of transducers include variable-reluctance (or moving-armature, or electromagnetic) transducers, where magnetic force acts on the surfaces of gaps, and moving coil (or electrodynamic) transducers, similar to conventional speakers; the latter are used in underwater sound calibration, due to their very low resonance frequencies and flat broadband characteristics above them.
Active sonar: Active sonar uses a sound transmitter (or projector) and a receiver. When the two are in the same place it is monostatic operation. When the transmitter and receiver are separated it is bistatic operation. When more transmitters (or more receivers) are used, again spatially separated, it is multistatic operation. Most sonars are used monostatically with the same array often being used for transmission and reception. Active sonobuoy fields may be operated multistatically.
Active sonar creates a pulse of sound, often called a "ping", and then listens for reflections (echo) of the pulse. This pulse of sound is generally created electronically using a sonar projector consisting of a signal generator, power amplifier and electro-acoustic transducer/array. A transducer is a device that can transmit and receive acoustic signals ("pings"). A beamformer is usually employed to concentrate the acoustic power into a beam, which may be swept to cover the required search angles. Generally, the electro-acoustic transducers are of the Tonpilz type and their design may be optimised to achieve maximum efficiency over the widest bandwidth, in order to optimise performance of the overall system. Occasionally, the acoustic pulse may be created by other means, e.g. chemically using explosives, airguns or plasma sound sources.
To measure the distance to an object, the time from transmission of a pulse to reception is measured and converted into a range using the known speed of sound. To measure the bearing, several hydrophones are used, and the set measures the relative arrival time to each, or with an array of hydrophones, by measuring the relative amplitude in beams formed through a process called beamforming. Use of an array reduces the spatial response so that to provide wide cover multibeam systems are used. The target signal (if present) together with noise is then passed through various forms of signal processing, which for simple sonars may be just energy measurement. It is then presented to some form of decision device that calls the output either the required signal or noise. This decision device may be an operator with headphones or a display, or in more sophisticated sonars this function may be carried out by software. Further processes may be carried out to classify the target and localise it, as well as measuring its velocity.
The pulse may be at constant frequency or a chirp of changing frequency (to allow pulse compression on reception). Simple sonars generally use the former with a filter wide enough to cover possible Doppler changes due to target movement, while more complex ones generally include the latter technique. Since digital processing became available pulse compression has usually been implemented using digital correlation techniques. Military sonars often have multiple beams to provide all-round cover while simple ones only cover a narrow arc, although the beam may be rotated, relatively slowly, by mechanical scanning.
Particularly when single frequency transmissions are used, the Doppler effect can be used to measure the radial speed of a target. The difference in frequency between the transmitted and received signal is measured and converted into a velocity. Since Doppler shifts can be introduced by either receiver or target motion, allowance has to be made for the radial speed of the searching platform.
One useful small sonar is similar in appearance to a waterproof flashlight. The head is pointed into the water, a button is pressed, and the device displays the distance to the target. Another variant is a "fishfinder" that shows a small display with shoals of fish. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | Since digital processing became available pulse compression has usually been implemented using digital correlation techniques. Military sonars often have multiple beams to provide all-round cover while simple ones only cover a narrow arc, although the beam may be rotated, relatively slowly, by mechanical scanning.
Particularly when single frequency transmissions are used, the Doppler effect can be used to measure the radial speed of a target. The difference in frequency between the transmitted and received signal is measured and converted into a velocity. Since Doppler shifts can be introduced by either receiver or target motion, allowance has to be made for the radial speed of the searching platform.
One useful small sonar is similar in appearance to a waterproof flashlight. The head is pointed into the water, a button is pressed, and the device displays the distance to the target. Another variant is a "fishfinder" that shows a small display with shoals of fish. Some civilian sonars (which are not designed for stealth) approach active military sonars in capability, with three-dimensional displays of the area near the boat.
When active sonar is used to measure the distance from the transducer to the bottom, it is known as echo sounding. Similar methods may be used looking upward for wave measurement.
Active sonar is also used to measure distance through water between two sonar transducers or a combination of a hydrophone (underwater acoustic microphone) and projector (underwater acoustic speaker). When a hydrophone/transducer receives a specific interrogation signal it responds by transmitting a specific reply signal. To measure distance, one transducer/projector transmits an interrogation signal and measures the time between this transmission and the receipt of the other transducer/hydrophone reply. The time difference, scaled by the speed of sound through water and divided by two, is the distance between the two platforms. This technique, when used with multiple transducers/hydrophones/projectors, can calculate the relative positions of static and moving objects in water.
In combat situations, an active pulse can be detected by an enemy and will reveal a submarine's position at twice the maximum distance that the submarine can itself detect a contact and give clues as to the submarine's identity based on the characteristics of the outgoing ping. For these reasons, active sonar is not frequently used by military submarines.
A very directional, but low-efficiency, type of sonar (used by fisheries, military, and for port security) makes use of a complex nonlinear feature of water known as non-linear sonar, the virtual transducer being known as a parametric array.
Project Artemis: Project Artemis was an experimental research and development project in the late 1950s to mid 1960s to examine acoustic propagation and signal processing for a low-frequency active sonar system that might be used for ocean surveillance. A secondary objective was examination of engineering problems of fixed active bottom systems. The receiving array was located on the slope of Plantagnet Bank off Bermuda. The active source array was deployed from the converted World War II tanker USNS Mission Capistrano. Elements of Artemis were used experimentally after the main experiment was terminated.
Transponder: This is an active sonar device that receives a specific stimulus and immediately (or with a delay) retransmits the received signal or a predetermined one. Transponders can be used to remotely activate or recover subsea equipment.
Performance prediction: A sonar target is small relative to the sphere, centred around the emitter, on which it is located. Therefore, the power of the reflected signal is very low, several orders of magnitude less than the original signal. Even if the reflected signal was of the same power, the following example (using hypothetical values) shows the problem: Suppose a sonar system is capable of emitting a 10,000 W/m2 signal at 1 m, and detecting a 0.001 W/m2 signal. At 100 m the signal will be 1 W/m2 (due to the inverse-square law). If the entire signal is reflected from a 10 m2 target, it will be at 0.001 W/m2 when it reaches the emitter, i.e. just detectable. However, the original signal will remain above 0.001 W/m2 until 3000 m. Any 10 m2 target between 100 and 3000 m using a similar or better system would be able to detect the pulse, but would not be detected by the emitter. The detectors must be very sensitive to pick up the echoes. Since the original signal is much more powerful, it can be detected many times further than twice the range of the sonar (as in the example).
Active sonar have two performance limitations: due to noise and reverberation. In general, one or other of these will dominate, so that the two effects can be initially considered separately.
In noise-limited conditions at initial detection:
SL − 2PL + TS − (NL − AG) = DT,
where SL is the source level, PL is the propagation loss (sometimes referred to as transmission loss), TS is the target strength, NL is the noise level, AG is the array gain of the receiving array (sometimes approximated by its directivity index) and DT is the detection threshold.
In reverberation-limited conditions at initial detection (neglecting array gain):
SL − 2PL + TS = RL + DT,
where RL is the reverberation level, and the other factors are as before.
Hand-held sonar for use by a diver: The LIMIS (limpet mine imaging sonar) is a hand-held or ROV-mounted imaging sonar for use by a diver. Its name is because it was designed for patrol divers (combat frogmen or clearance divers) to look for limpet mines in low visibility water.
The LUIS (lensing underwater imaging system) is another imaging sonar for use by a diver.
There is or was a small flashlight-shaped handheld sonar for divers, that merely displays range.
For the INSS (integrated navigation sonar system)
Upward looking sonar: An upward looking sonar (ULS) is a sonar device pointed upwards looking towards the surface of the sea. It is used for similar purposes as downward looking sonar, but has some unique applications such as measuring sea ice thickness, roughness and concentration, or measuring air entrainment from bubble plumes during rough seas. Often it is moored on the bottom of the ocean or floats on a taut line mooring at a constant depth of perhaps 100 m. They may also be used by submarines, AUVs, and floats such as the Argo float.
Passive sonar: Passive sonar listens without transmitting. It is often employed in military settings, although it is also used in science applications, e.g., detecting fish for presence/absence studies in various aquatic environments – see also passive acoustics and passive radar. In the very broadest usage, this term can encompass virtually any analytical technique involving remotely generated sound, though it is usually restricted to techniques applied in an aquatic environment.
Identifying sound sources: Passive sonar has a wide variety of techniques for identifying the source of a detected sound. For example, U.S. vessels usually operate 60 Hertz (Hz) alternating current power systems. If transformers or generators are mounted without proper vibration insulation from the hull or become flooded, the 60 Hz sound from the windings can be emitted from the submarine or ship. This can help to identify its nationality, as all European submarines and nearly every other nation's submarine have 50 Hz power systems. Intermittent sound sources (such as a wrench being dropped), called "transients," may also be detectable to passive sonar. Until fairly recently, an experienced, trained operator identified signals, but now computers may do this.
Passive sonar systems may have large sonic databases, but the sonar operator usually finally classifies the signals manually. A computer system frequently uses these databases to identify classes of ships, actions (i.e. the speed of a ship, or the type of weapon released and the most effective countermeasures to employ), and even particular ships.
Noise limitations: Passive sonar on vehicles is usually severely limited because of noise generated by the vehicle. For this reason, many submarines operate nuclear reactors that can be cooled without pumps, using silent convection, or fuel cells or batteries, which can also run silently. Vehicles' propellers are also designed and precisely machined to emit minimal noise. High-speed propellers often create tiny bubbles in the water, and this cavitation has a distinct sound.
The sonar hydrophones may be towed behind the ship or submarine in order to reduce the effect of noise generated by the watercraft itself. Towed units also combat the thermocline, as the unit may be towed above or below the thermocline.
The display of most passive sonars used to be a two-dimensional waterfall display. The horizontal direction of the display is bearing. The vertical is frequency, or sometimes time. Another display technique is to color-code frequency-time information for bearing. More recent displays are generated by the computers, and mimic radar-type plan position indicator displays.
Performance prediction: Unlike active sonar, only one-way propagation is involved. Because of the different signal processing used, the minimal detectable signal-to-noise ratio will be different. The equation for determining the performance of a passive sonar is
SL − PL = NL − AG + DT,
where SL is the source level, PL is the propagation loss, NL is the noise level, AG is the array gain and DT is the detection threshold. The figure of merit of a passive sonar is
FOM = SL + AG − (NL + DT). |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | The display of most passive sonars used to be a two-dimensional waterfall display. The horizontal direction of the display is bearing. The vertical is frequency, or sometimes time. Another display technique is to color-code frequency-time information for bearing. More recent displays are generated by the computers, and mimic radar-type plan position indicator displays.
Performance prediction: Unlike active sonar, only one-way propagation is involved. Because of the different signal processing used, the minimal detectable signal-to-noise ratio will be different. The equation for determining the performance of a passive sonar is
SL − PL = NL − AG + DT,
where SL is the source level, PL is the propagation loss, NL is the noise level, AG is the array gain and DT is the detection threshold. The figure of merit of a passive sonar is
FOM = SL + AG − (NL + DT).
Performance factors: The detection, classification and localisation performance of a sonar depends on the environment and the receiving equipment, as well as the transmitting equipment in an active sonar or the target radiated noise in a passive sonar.
Sound propagation: Sonar operation is affected by variations in sound speed, particularly in the vertical plane. Sound travels more slowly in fresh water than in sea water, though the difference is small. The speed is determined by the water's bulk modulus and mass density. The bulk modulus is affected by temperature, dissolved impurities (usually salinity), and pressure. The density effect is small. The speed of sound (in feet per second) is approximately:
4388 + (11.25 × temperature (in °F)) + (0.0182 × depth (in feet)) + salinity (in parts-per-thousand ).
This empirically derived approximation equation is reasonably accurate for normal temperatures, concentrations of salinity and the range of most ocean depths. Ocean temperature varies with depth, but at between 30 and 100 meters there is often a marked change, called the thermocline, dividing the warmer surface water from the cold, still waters that make up the rest of the ocean. This can frustrate sonar, because a sound originating on one side of the thermocline tends to be bent, or refracted, through the thermocline. The thermocline may be present in shallower coastal waters. However, wave action will often mix the water column and eliminate the thermocline. Water pressure also affects sound propagation: higher pressure increases the sound speed, which causes the sound waves to refract away from the area of higher sound speed. The mathematical model of refraction is called Snell's law.
If the sound source is deep and the conditions are right, propagation may occur in the 'deep sound channel'. This provides extremely low propagation loss to a receiver in the channel. This is because of sound trapping in the channel with no losses at the boundaries. Similar propagation can occur in the 'surface duct' under suitable conditions. However, in this case there are reflection losses at the surface.
In shallow water propagation is generally by repeated reflection at the surface and bottom, where considerable losses can occur.
Sound propagation is affected by absorption in the water itself as well as at the surface and bottom. This absorption depends upon frequency, with several different mechanisms in sea water. Long-range sonar uses low frequencies to minimise absorption effects.
The sea contains many sources of noise that interfere with the desired target echo or signature. The main noise sources are waves and shipping. The motion of the receiver through the water can also cause speed-dependent low frequency noise.
Scattering: When active sonar is used, scattering occurs from small objects in the sea as well as from the bottom and surface. This can be a major source of interference. This acoustic scattering is analogous to the scattering of the light from a car's headlights in fog: a high-intensity pencil beam will penetrate the fog to some extent, but broader-beam headlights emit much light in unwanted directions, much of which is scattered back to the observer, overwhelming that reflected from the target ("white-out"). For analogous reasons active sonar needs to transmit in a narrow beam to minimize scattering.
The scattering of sonar from objects (mines, pipelines, zooplankton, geological features, fish etc.) is how active sonar detects them, but this ability can be masked by strong scattering from false targets, or 'clutter'. Where they occur (under breaking waves; in ship wakes; in gas emitted from seabed seeps and leaks etc.), gas bubbles are powerful sources of clutter, and can readily hide targets. TWIPS (Twin Inverted Pulse Sonar) is currently the only sonar that can overcome this clutter problem. This is important as many recent conflicts have occurred in coastal waters, and the inability to detect whether mines are present or not present hazards and delays to military vessels, and also to aid convoys and merchant shipping trying to support the region long after the conflict has ceased.
Target characteristics: The sound reflection characteristics of the target of an active sonar, such as a submarine, are known as its target strength. A complication is that echoes are also obtained from other objects in the sea such as whales, wakes, schools of fish and rocks.
Passive sonar detects the target's radiated noise characteristics. The radiated spectrum comprises a continuous spectrum of noise with peaks at certain frequencies which can be used for classification.
Countermeasures: Active (powered) countermeasures may be launched by a vessel under attack to raise the noise level, provide a large false target, and obscure the signature of the vessel itself.
Passive (i.e., non-powered) countermeasures include:
Mounting noise-generating devices on isolating devices.
Sound-absorbent coatings on the hulls of submarines, for example anechoic tiles.
Military applications: Modern naval warfare makes extensive use of both passive and active sonar from water-borne vessels, aircraft and fixed installations. Although active sonar was used by surface craft in World War II, submarines avoided the use of active sonar due to the potential for revealing their presence and position to enemy forces. However, the advent of modern signal-processing enabled the use of passive sonar as a primary means for search and detection operations. In 1987 a division of Japanese company Toshiba reportedly sold machinery to the Soviet Union that allowed their submarine propeller blades to be milled so that they became radically quieter, making the newer generation of submarines more difficult to detect.
The use of active sonar by a submarine to determine bearing is extremely rare and will not necessarily give high quality bearing or range information to the submarines fire control team. However, use of active sonar on surface ships is very common and is used by submarines when the tactical situation dictates that it is more important to determine the position of a hostile submarine than conceal their own position. With surface ships, it might be assumed that the threat is already tracking the ship with satellite data as any vessel around the emitting sonar will detect the emission. Having heard the signal, it is easy to identify the sonar equipment used (usually with its frequency) and its position (with the sound wave's energy). Active sonar is similar to radar in that, while it allows detection of targets at a certain range, it also enables the emitter to be detected at a far greater range, which is undesirable.
Since active sonar reveals the presence and position of the operator, and does not allow exact classification of targets, it is used by fast (planes, helicopters) and by noisy platforms (most surface ships) but rarely by submarines. When active sonar is used by surface ships or submarines, it is typically activated very briefly at intermittent periods to minimize the risk of detection. Consequently, active sonar is normally considered a backup to passive sonar. In aircraft, active sonar is used in the form of disposable sonobuoys that are dropped in the aircraft's patrol area or in the vicinity of possible enemy sonar contacts.
Passive sonar has several advantages, most importantly that it is silent. If the target radiated noise level is high enough, it can have a greater range than active sonar, and allows the target to be identified. Since any motorized object makes some noise, it may in principle be detected, depending on the level of noise emitted and the ambient noise level in the area, as well as the technology used. To simplify, passive sonar "sees" around the ship using it. On a submarine, nose-mounted passive sonar detects in directions of about 270°, centered on the ship's alignment, the hull-mounted array of about 160° on each side, and the towed array of a full 360°. The invisible areas are due to the ship's own interference. Once a signal is detected in a certain direction (which means that something makes sound in that direction, this is called broadband detection) it is possible to zoom in and analyze the signal received (narrowband analysis). This is generally done using a Fourier transform to show the different frequencies making up the sound. Since every engine makes a specific sound, it is straightforward to identify the object. Databases of unique engine sounds are part of what is known as acoustic intelligence or ACINT.
Another use of passive sonar is to determine the target's trajectory. This process is called target motion analysis (TMA), and the resultant "solution" is the target's range, course, and speed. TMA is done by marking from which direction the sound comes at different times, and comparing the motion with that of the operator's own ship. Changes in relative motion are analyzed using standard geometrical techniques along with some assumptions about limiting cases.
Passive sonar is stealthy and very useful. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | This is generally done using a Fourier transform to show the different frequencies making up the sound. Since every engine makes a specific sound, it is straightforward to identify the object. Databases of unique engine sounds are part of what is known as acoustic intelligence or ACINT.
Another use of passive sonar is to determine the target's trajectory. This process is called target motion analysis (TMA), and the resultant "solution" is the target's range, course, and speed. TMA is done by marking from which direction the sound comes at different times, and comparing the motion with that of the operator's own ship. Changes in relative motion are analyzed using standard geometrical techniques along with some assumptions about limiting cases.
Passive sonar is stealthy and very useful. However, it requires high-tech electronic components and is costly. It is generally deployed on expensive ships in the form of arrays to enhance detection. Surface ships use it to good effect; it is even better used by submarines, and it is also used by airplanes and helicopters, mostly to a "surprise effect", since submarines can hide under thermal layers. If a submarine's commander believes he is alone, he may bring his boat closer to the surface and be easier to detect, or go deeper and faster, and thus make more sound.
Examples of sonar applications in military use are given below. Many of the civil uses given in the following section may also be applicable to naval use.
Anti-submarine warfare: Until recently, ship sonars were usually made with hull mounted arrays, either amidships or at the bow. It was soon found after their initial use that a means of reducing flow noise was required. The first were made of canvas on a framework, then steel ones were used. Now domes are usually made of reinforced plastic or pressurized rubber. Such sonars are primarily active in operation. An example of a conventional hull mounted sonar is the SQS-56.
Because of the problems of ship noise, towed sonars are also used. These have the advantage of being able to be placed deeper in the water, but have limitations on their use in shallow water. These are called towed arrays (linear) or variable depth sonars (VDS) with 2/3D arrays. A problem is that the winches required to deploy/recover them are large and expensive. VDS sets are primarily active in operation, while towed arrays are passive.
An example of a modern active-passive ship towed sonar is Sonar 2087 made by Thales Underwater Systems.
Torpedoes: Modern torpedoes are generally fitted with an active/passive sonar. This may be used to home directly on the target, but wake homing torpedoes are also used. An early example of an acoustic homer was the Mark 37 torpedo.
Torpedo countermeasures can be towed or free. An early example was the German Sieglinde device while the Bold was a chemical device. A widely used US device was the towed AN/SLQ-25 Nixie while the mobile submarine simulator (MOSS) was a free device. A modern alternative to the Nixie system is the UK Royal Navy S2170 Surface Ship Torpedo Defence system.
Mines: Mines may be fitted with a sonar to detect, localize and recognize the required target. An example is the CAPTOR mine.
Mine countermeasures: Mine countermeasure (MCM) sonar, sometimes called "mine and obstacle avoidance sonar (MOAS)", is a specialized type of sonar used for detecting small objects. Most MCM sonars are hull mounted but a few types are VDS design. An example of a hull mounted MCM sonar is the Type 2193 while the SQQ-32 mine-hunting sonar and Type 2093 systems are VDS designs.
Submarine navigation: Submarines rely on sonar to a greater extent than surface ships as they cannot use radar in water. The sonar arrays may be hull mounted or towed. Information fitted on typical fits is given in Oyashio-class submarine and Swiftsure-class submarine.
Aircraft: Helicopters can be used for antisubmarine warfare by deploying fields of active-passive sonobuoys or can operate dipping sonar, such as the AQS-13. Fixed wing aircraft can also deploy sonobuoys and have greater endurance and capacity to deploy them. Processing from the sonobuoys or dipping sonar can be on the aircraft or on ship. Dipping sonar has the advantage of being deployable to depths appropriate to daily conditions. Helicopters have also been used for mine countermeasure missions using towed sonars such as the AQS-20A.
Underwater communications: Dedicated sonars can be fitted to ships and submarines for underwater communication.
Ocean surveillance: The United States began a system of passive, fixed ocean surveillance systems in 1950 with the classified name Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) with American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), with its Bell Laboratories research and Western Electric manufacturing entities being contracted for development and installation. The systems exploited the SOFAR channel, also known as the deep sound channel, where a sound speed minimum creates a waveguide in which low frequency sound travels thousands of miles. Analysis was based on an AT&T sound spectrograph, which converted sound into a visual spectrogram representing a time–frequency analysis of sound that was developed for speech analysis and modified to analyze low-frequency underwater sounds. That process was Low Frequency Analysis and Recording and the equipment was termed the Low Frequency Analyzer and Recorder, both with the acronym LOFAR. LOFAR research was termed Jezebel and led to usage in air and surface systems, particularly sonobuoys using the process and sometimes using "Jezebel" in their name. The proposed system offered such promise of long-range submarine detection that the Navy ordered immediate moves for implementation.
Between installation of a test array followed by a full scale, forty element, prototype operational array in 1951 and 1958 systems were installed in the Atlantic and then the Pacific under the unclassified name Project Caesar. The original systems were terminated at classified shore stations designated Naval Facility (NAVFAC) explained as engaging in "ocean research" to cover their classified mission. The system was upgraded multiple times with more advanced cable allowing the arrays to be installed in ocean basins and upgraded processing. The shore stations were eliminated in a process of consolidation and rerouting the arrays to central processing centers into the 1990s. In 1985, with new mobile arrays and other systems becoming operational the collective system name was changed to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS). In 1991 the mission of the system was declassified. The year before IUSS insignia were authorized for wear. Access was granted to some systems for scientific research.
A similar system is believed to have been operated by the Soviet Union.
Underwater security: Sonar can be used to detect frogmen and other scuba divers. This can be applicable around ships or at entrances to ports. Active sonar can also be used as a deterrent and/or disablement mechanism. One such device is the Cerberus system.
Hand-held sonar: Limpet mine imaging sonar (LIMIS) is a hand-held or ROV-mounted imaging sonar designed for patrol divers (combat frogmen or clearance divers) to look for limpet mines in low visibility water.
The LUIS is another imaging sonar for use by a diver.
Integrated navigation sonar system (INSS) is a small flashlight-shaped handheld sonar for divers that displays range.
Intercept sonar: This is a sonar designed to detect and locate the transmissions from hostile active sonars. An example of this is the Type 2082 fitted on the British Vanguard-class submarines.
Civilian applications:
Fisheries: Fishing is an important industry that is seeing growing demand, but world catch tonnage is falling as a result of serious resource problems. The industry faces a future of continuing worldwide consolidation until a point of sustainability can be reached. However, the consolidation of the fishing fleets are driving increased demands for sophisticated fish finding electronics such as sensors, sounders and sonars. Historically, fishermen have used many different techniques to find and harvest fish. However, acoustic technology has been one of the most important driving forces behind the development of the modern commercial fisheries.
Sound waves travel differently through fish than through water because a fish's air-filled swim bladder has a different density than seawater. This density difference allows the detection of schools of fish by using reflected sound. Acoustic technology is especially well suited for underwater applications since sound travels farther and faster underwater than in air. Today, commercial fishing vessels rely almost completely on acoustic sonar and sounders to detect fish. Fishermen also use active sonar and echo sounder technology to determine water depth, bottom contour, and bottom composition.
Companies such as eSonar, Raymarine, Marport Canada, Wesmar, Furuno, Krupp, and Simrad make a variety of sonar and acoustic instruments for the deep sea commercial fishing industry. For example, net sensors take various underwater measurements and transmit the information back to a receiver on board a vessel. Each sensor is equipped with one or more acoustic transducers depending on its specific function. Data is transmitted from the sensors using wireless acoustic telemetry and is received by a hull mounted hydrophone. The analog signals are decoded and converted by a digital acoustic receiver into data which is transmitted to a bridge computer for graphical display on a high resolution monitor. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | Today, commercial fishing vessels rely almost completely on acoustic sonar and sounders to detect fish. Fishermen also use active sonar and echo sounder technology to determine water depth, bottom contour, and bottom composition.
Companies such as eSonar, Raymarine, Marport Canada, Wesmar, Furuno, Krupp, and Simrad make a variety of sonar and acoustic instruments for the deep sea commercial fishing industry. For example, net sensors take various underwater measurements and transmit the information back to a receiver on board a vessel. Each sensor is equipped with one or more acoustic transducers depending on its specific function. Data is transmitted from the sensors using wireless acoustic telemetry and is received by a hull mounted hydrophone. The analog signals are decoded and converted by a digital acoustic receiver into data which is transmitted to a bridge computer for graphical display on a high resolution monitor.
Echo sounding: Echo sounding is a process used to determine the depth of water beneath ships and boats. A type of active sonar, echo sounding is the transmission of an acoustic pulse directly downwards to the seabed, measuring the time between transmission and echo return, after having hit the bottom and bouncing back to its ship of origin. The acoustic pulse is emitted by a transducer which receives the return echo as well. The depth measurement is calculated by multiplying the speed of sound in water (averaging 1,500 meters per second) by the time between emission and echo return.
The value of underwater acoustics to the fishing industry has led to the development of other acoustic instruments that operate in a similar fashion to echo-sounders but, because their function is slightly different from the initial model of the echo-sounder, have been given different terms.
Net location: The net sounder is an echo sounder with a transducer mounted on the headline of the net rather than on the bottom of the vessel. Nevertheless, to accommodate the distance from the transducer to the display unit, which is much greater than in a normal echo-sounder, several refinements have to be made. Two main types are available. The first is the cable type in which the signals are sent along a cable. In this case, there has to be the provision of a cable drum on which to haul, shoot and stow the cable during the different phases of the operation. The second type is the cable-less net-sounder – such as Marport's Trawl Explorer – in which the signals are sent acoustically between the net and hull mounted receiver-hydrophone on the vessel. In this case, no cable drum is required but sophisticated electronics are needed at the transducer and receiver.
The display on a net sounder shows the distance of the net from the bottom (or the surface), rather than the depth of water as with the echo-sounder's hull-mounted transducer. Fixed to the headline of the net, the footrope can usually be seen which gives an indication of the net performance. Any fish passing into the net can also be seen, allowing fine adjustments to be made to catch the most fish possible. In other fisheries, where the amount of fish in the net is important, catch sensor transducers are mounted at various positions on the cod-end of the net. As the cod-end fills up these catch sensor transducers are triggered one by one and this information is transmitted acoustically to display monitors on the bridge of the vessel. The skipper can then decide when to haul the net.
Modern versions of the net sounder, using multiple element transducers, function more like a sonar than an echo sounder and show slices of the area in front of the net and not merely the vertical view that the initial net sounders used.
The sonar is an echo-sounder with a directional capability that can show fish or other objects around the vessel.
ROV and UUV: Small sonars have been fitted to remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to allow their operation in murky conditions. These sonars are used for looking ahead of the vehicle. The Long-Term Mine Reconnaissance System is a UUV for MCM purposes.
Vehicle location: Sonars which act as beacons are fitted to aircraft to allow their location in the event of a crash in the sea. Short and long baseline sonars may be used for caring out the location, such as LBL.
Prosthesis for the visually impaired: In 2013 an inventor in the United States unveiled a "spider-sense" bodysuit, equipped with ultrasonic sensors and haptic feedback systems, which alerts the wearer of incoming threats; allowing them to respond to attackers even when blindfolded.
Scientific applications:
Biomass estimation: Detection of fish, and other marine and aquatic life, and estimation their individual sizes or total biomass using active sonar techniques. Sound pulses reflect off any object that has a different density than the surrounding medium. This includes fish, or more specifically, the air-filled swim bladder on fish. These echoes provide information on fish size, location, abundance and behavior. This is especially effective for fish swim bladders (e.g. herring, cod, and pollock), and less useful for fish without them (e.g. sharks, mackerel, and flounder). Data from the watercolumn is usually processed differently than seafloor or object detection data, this data type can be processed with specialized software.
Wave measurement: An upward looking echo sounder mounted on the bottom or on a platform may be used to make measurements of wave height and period. From this statistics of the surface conditions at a location can be derived.
Water velocity measurement: Special short range sonars have been developed to allow measurements of water velocity.
Bottom type assessment: Sonars have been developed that can be used to characterise the sea bottom into, for example, mud, sand, and gravel. Relatively simple sonars such as echo sounders can be promoted to seafloor classification systems via add-on modules, converting echo parameters into sediment type. Different algorithms exist, but they are all based on changes in the energy or shape of the reflected sounder pings. Advanced substrate classification analysis can be achieved using calibrated (scientific) echosounders and parametric or fuzzy-logic analysis of the acoustic data.
Bathymetric mapping: Side-scan sonars can be used to derive maps of seafloor topography (bathymetry) by moving the sonar across it just above the bottom. Low frequency sonars such as GLORIA have been used for continental shelf wide surveys while high frequency sonars are used for more detailed surveys of smaller areas.
Hull-mounted multibeam echosounders on large surface vessels produce swathes of bathymetric data in near real time. One example, the General Instrument "Seabeam" system, uses a projector array along the keel to ensonify the bottom with a fan beam. Signals from a hydrophone array mounted athwartships are processed to synthesize multiple virtual fan beams crossing the projector beam at right angles.
Sonar imaging: Creating two and three-dimensional images using sonar data.
Sub-bottom profiling: Powerful low frequency echo-sounders have been developed for providing profiles of the upper layers of the ocean bottom. One of the most recent devices is Innomar's SES-2000 quattro multi-transducer parametric SBP, used for example in the Puck Bay for underwater archaeological purposes
Gas leak detection from the seabed: Gas bubbles can leak from the seabed, or close to it, from multiple sources. These can be detected by both passive and active sonar (shown in schematic figure by yellow and red systems respectively).
Natural seeps of methane and carbon dioxide occur. Gas pipelines can leak, and it is important to be able to detect whether leakage occurs from Carbon Capture and Storage Facilities (CCSFs; e.g. depleted oil wells into which extracted atmospheric carbon is stored). Quantification of the amount of gas leaking is difficult, and although estimates can be made use active and passive sonar, it is important to question their accuracy because of the assumptions inherent in making such estimations from sonar data.
Synthetic aperture sonar: Various synthetic aperture sonars have been built in the laboratory and some have entered use in mine-hunting and search systems. An explanation of their operation is given in synthetic aperture sonar.
Parametric sonar: Parametric sources use the non-linearity of water to generate the difference frequency between two high frequencies. A virtual end-fire array is formed. Such a projector has advantages of broad bandwidth, narrow beamwidth, and when fully developed and carefully measured it has no obvious sidelobes: see Parametric array. Its major disadvantage is very low efficiency of only a few percent. P.J. Westervelt summarizes the trends involved.
Sonar in extraterrestrial contexts: The use of both active and passive sonar has been proposed for various extraterrestrial environments. One example is Titan, where active sonar could be used to determine the depth of its hydrocarbon seas, and passive sonar could be used to detect methanefalls.
Proposals that do not take proper account of the difference between terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments could lead to erroneous measurements.
Ecological impact:
Effect on marine mammals: Research has shown that use of active sonar can lead to mass strandings of marine mammals. Beaked whales, the most common casualty of the strandings, have been shown to be highly sensitive to mid-frequency active sonar. Other marine mammals such as the blue whale also flee from the source of the sonar, while naval activity was suggested to be the most probable cause of a mass stranding of dolphins. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Sonar | P.J. Westervelt summarizes the trends involved.
Sonar in extraterrestrial contexts: The use of both active and passive sonar has been proposed for various extraterrestrial environments. One example is Titan, where active sonar could be used to determine the depth of its hydrocarbon seas, and passive sonar could be used to detect methanefalls.
Proposals that do not take proper account of the difference between terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments could lead to erroneous measurements.
Ecological impact:
Effect on marine mammals: Research has shown that use of active sonar can lead to mass strandings of marine mammals. Beaked whales, the most common casualty of the strandings, have been shown to be highly sensitive to mid-frequency active sonar. Other marine mammals such as the blue whale also flee from the source of the sonar, while naval activity was suggested to be the most probable cause of a mass stranding of dolphins. The US Navy, which part-funded some of the studies, said that the findings only showed behavioural responses to sonar, not actual harm, but they "will evaluate the effectiveness of [their] marine mammal protective measures in light of new research findings". A 2008 US Supreme Court ruling on the use of sonar by the US Navy noted that there had been no cases where sonar had been conclusively shown to have harmed or killed a marine mammal.
Some marine animals, such as whales and dolphins, use echolocation systems, sometimes called biosonar to locate predators and prey. Research on the effects of sonar on blue whales in the Southern California Bight shows that mid-frequency sonar use disrupts the whales' feeding behavior. This indicates that sonar-induced disruption of feeding and displacement from high-quality prey patches could have significant and previously undocumented impacts on baleen whale foraging ecology, individual fitness and population health.
A review of evidence on the mass strandings of beaked whale linked to naval exercises where sonar was used was published in 2019. It concluded that the effects of mid-frequency active sonar are strongest on Cuvier's beaked whales but vary among individuals or populations. The review suggested the strength of response of individual animals may depend on whether they had prior exposure to sonar, and that symptoms of decompression sickness have been found in stranded whales that may be a result of such response to sonar. It noted that in the Canary Islands where multiple strandings had been previously reported, no more mass strandings had occurred once naval exercises during which sonar was used were banned in the area, and recommended that the ban be extended to other areas where mass strandings continue to occur.
Effect on fish: Low frequency sonar can create a small temporary shift in the hearing threshold of some fish.
Frequencies and resolutions: The frequencies of sonars range from infrasonic to above a megahertz. Generally, the lower frequencies have longer range, while the higher frequencies offer better resolution, and smaller size for a given directionality.
To achieve reasonable directionality, frequencies below 1 kHz generally require large size, usually achieved as towed arrays.
Low frequency sonars are loosely defined as 1–5 kHz, albeit some navies regard 5–7 kHz also as low frequency. Medium frequency is defined as 5–15 kHz. Another style of division considers low frequency to be under 1 kHz, and medium frequency at between 1–10 kHz.
American World War II era sonars operated at a relatively high frequency of 20–30 kHz, to achieve directionality with reasonably small transducers, with typical maximum operational range of 2500 yd. Postwar sonars used lower frequencies to achieve longer range; e.g. SQS-4 operated at 10 kHz with range up to 5000 yd. SQS-26 and SQS-53 operated at 3 kHz with range up to 20,000 yd; their domes had size of approx. a 60-ft personnel boat, an upper size limit for conventional hull sonars. Achieving larger sizes by conformal sonar array spread over the hull has not been effective so far, for lower frequencies linear or towed arrays are therefore used.
Japanese WW2 sonars operated at a range of frequencies. The Type 91, with 30 inch quartz projector, worked at 9 kHz. The Type 93, with smaller quartz projectors, operated at 17.5 kHz (model 5 at 16 or 19 kHz magnetostrictive) at powers between 1.7 and 2.5 kilowatts, with range of up to 6 km. The later Type 3, with German-design magnetostrictive transducers, operated at 13, 14.5, 16, or 20 kHz (by model), using twin transducers (except model 1 which had three single ones), at 0.2 to 2.5 kilowatts. The simple type used 14.5 kHz magnetostrictive transducers at 0.25 kW, driven by capacitive discharge instead of oscillators, with range up to 2.5 km.
The sonar's resolution is angular; objects further apart are imaged with lower resolutions than nearby ones.
Another source lists ranges and resolutions vs frequencies for sidescan sonars. 30 kHz provides low resolution with range of 1000–6000 m, 100 kHz gives medium resolution at 500–1000 m, 300 kHz gives high resolution at 150–500 m, and 600 kHz gives high resolution at 75–150 m. Longer range sonars are more adversely affected by nonhomogenities of water. Some environments, typically shallow waters near the coasts, have complicated terrain with many features; higher frequencies become necessary there.
See also: Baffles (submarine) – Areas behind a submarine or ship where sonar cannot hear
Gordon Eugene Martin – American physicist (born 1925), sonar physicist
Explanatory notes:
Citations:
General bibliography: Dring, Thomas R. (March 2018). "A Steep Learning Curve: The Impact of Sonar Technology, Training, and Tactics on the Initial Years of U.S. Navy Antisubmarine Warfare in World War II". Warship International. LV (January 2018): 37–57. ISSN 0043-0374.
Hackmann, Willem. Seek & Strike: Sonar, Anti-submarine Warfare and the Royal Navy 1914–54. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1984. ISBN 0-11-290423-8.
Hackmann, Willem D. "Sonar Research and Naval Warfare 1914–1954: A Case Study of a Twentieth-Century Science" (subscription required). Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 16#1 (January 1986) 83–110. doi:10.2307/27757558.
Urick, R. J. (1983). Principles of Underwater Sound (3rd edition). Los Altos: Peninsula Publishing. ISBN 9780932146625. OCLC 1132503817.
Fisheries acoustics references: Fisheries Acoustics Research (FAR) at the University of Washington
NOAA Protocols for Fisheries Acoustics Surveys
Acoustics Unpacked Archived 2017-09-16 at the Wayback Machine—A "how to" great reference for freshwater hydroacoustics for resource assessment
"ACOUSTICS IN FISHERIES AND AQUATIC ECOLOGY"
"Hydroacoustic Protocol – Lakes, Reservoirs and Lowland Rivers" (for fish assessment)
Simmonds, E. John, and D. N. MacLennan. Fisheries Acoustics: Theory and Practice, second edition. Fish and aquatic resources series, 10. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 2003. ISBN 978-0-632-05994-2.
Further reading: "Canada: Stable Sonics", Time, October 28, 1946. An interesting account of the 4,800 ASDIC sonar devices secretly manufactured at Casa Loma, Toronto, during World War II. Retrieved 25 Sept. 2009.
"Radar of the Deep - SONAR", Popular Science, November 1945, pp. 84–87, 246, 250: one of the best general public articles on the subject
External links:
FFI Facts: Sonars and the marine environment by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)
Remote Sensing for Coastal Management: Single Beam Sonar—Coastal Services Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Space force | History: Emblems of space forces
The first artificial object to cross the Kármán line, the boundary between air and space, was MW 18014, an A-4 rocket launched by the German Heer on 20 June 1944 from the Peenemünde Army Research Center. The A4, more commonly known as the V-2, was the world's first ballistic missile, used by the Wehrmacht to launch long-range attacks on the Allied Forces on the Western Front during the Second World War. The designer of the A4, Wernher von Braun, had aspirations to use them as space launch vehicles. In both the United States and the Soviet Union, military space development began immediately after the Second World War concluded, with Wernher von Braun defecting to the Allies and both superpowers gathering V-2 rockets, research materials, and German scientists to jumpstart their own ballistic missile and space programs.
In the United States, there was a fierce interservice rivalry between the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army over which service would gain responsibility for the military space program, with the Air Force, which had started developing its space program while it was the Army Air Forces in 1945, seeing space operations as an extension of their strategic airpower mission, while the Army argued that ballistic missiles were an extension of artillery. The Navy also developed rockets as well, but primarily for Naval Research Laboratory projects, rather than seeking to actively develop an operational space capability. Ultimately, the Air Force's space rivals in the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Naval Research Laboratory, and Advanced Research Projects Agency were absorbed by NASA when it was created in 1958, leaving it as the only major military space organization within the U.S. Department of Defense. In 1954, General Bernard Schriever established the Western Development Division within Air Research and Development Command, becoming the U.S. military's first space organization, which continues to exist in the U.S. Space Force as the Space Systems Command, its research and development center.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Air Force space forces were organized within Aerospace Defense Command for missile defense and space surveillance forces, Strategic Air Command for weather reconnaissance satellites, and Air Force Systems Command for satellite communications, space launch, and space development systems. In 1982, U.S. Air Force space forces were centralized in Air Force Space Command, the first direct predecessor to the U.S. Space Force. U.S. space forces were first employed in the Vietnam War, and continued to provide satellite communications, weather, and navigation support during the 1982 Falklands War, 1983 United States invasion of Grenada, 1986 United States bombing of Libya, and 1989 United States invasion of Panama. The first major employment of space forces culminated in the Gulf War, where they proved so critical to the U.S.-led coalition, that it is sometimes referred to as the first space war. The first discussions of creating a military space service in the United States occurred in 1958, with the idea being floated by President Reagan as well in 1982. The 2001 Space Commission argued for the creation of a Space Corps between 2007 and 2011 and a bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Congress would have created a Space Corps in 2017. Then on 20 December 2019, the United States Space Force Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, was signed, creating an independent space service by renaming and reorganizing Air Force Space Command into the United States Space Force.
In the Soviet Union, the early space program was led by the OKB-1 design bureau, led by Sergei Korolev. Unlike in the United States, where the U.S. Air Force held preeminence in missile and space development, the Soviet Ground Forces, and specifically the Artillery of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK), was responsible for missile and military space programs, with the RVGK responsible for the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite on 4 October 1957. In 1960, Soviet military space forces were reorganized into the 3rd Department of the Main Missile Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, before in 1964 becoming a part of the new Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces Central Directorate of Space Assets. The Strategic Rocket Forces Central Directorate of Space Assets would be renamed the Main Directorate of Space Assets in 1970, being transferred to directly report to the Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1982, and in 1986 became the Chief Directorate of Space Assets. Established in 1967, the Anti-Ballistic Missile and Anti-Space Defense Forces of the Soviet Air Defense Forces were responsible for space surveillance and defense operations.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian Federation gained its space forces, with the Chief Directorate of Space Assets was reorganized into the Military Space Forces, an independent troops (vid) under the Russian Ministry of Defense, but not a military service (vid). The Soviet Air Defense Forces' Anti-Ballistic Missile and Anti-Space Defense Forces were reorganized into the Russian Air Defense Forces' Rocket and Space Defence Troops. In 1997, the Rocket and Space Defence Troops and Military Space Forces were merged into the Strategic Missile Forces; it subordinated the priorities of the space troops to the missile forces, resulting in the establishment of the Russian Space Forces as independent troops in 2001. In 2011, the Russian Space Forces became the Russian Space Command, part of the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces, which merged Russia's space and air defense forces into one service. In 2015, the Russian Air Force and Russian Aerospace Defense Forces were merged to form the Russian Aerospace Forces, which reestablished the Russian Space Forces as one of its three sub-branches, although it is no longer an independent entity.
In 1998, the Chinese People's Liberation Army began creating its space forces under the General Armaments Department, before being reorganized and renamed as the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force Space Systems Department in 2015. The PLASSF itself would eventually dissolve, with the space force element of the SSF becoming the People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force
In 2010, the French Armed Forces created the Joint Space Command, a joint organism under the authority of the Chief of the Defence Staff. In 2019, the French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Joint Space Command would become the Space Command and the newest major command of the Air Force, which would be renamed to reflect an "evolution of its mission" into the area of outer space. The Space Command is effective since 2019 and the Air Force was renamed Air and Space Force on 24 July 2020, with its new logo unveiled on 11 September 2020.
The Spanish Government announced in June 2022, that the Spanish Air Force would be renamed as the Spanish Air and Space Force.
Space forces: The following list outlines the independent space forces currently in operation:
United States Space Force (2019–present)
People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force (2024–present)
Russian Space Forces (2015–present) (independent from 1992 to 1997 and 2001 to 2011)
See also: List of space forces, units, and formations
Ranks and insignia of space forces
Militarisation of space
Politics of outer space
Space Force Association
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Space warfare | History:
1950s: During the early Cold War, a survivable reconnaissance asset was considered highly valuable. In a time before satellites, this meant building an aircraft that could fly higher or faster, or both, compared to any interceptor that would try to bring it down. Notably, the United States would introduce the U-2 spy plane in 1956. It was thought, at the time of its introduction, that the plane’s service ceiling of 24,000 metres (80,000 ft) would render it immune to Soviet aircraft, missiles, and radar. That was the case until the 1960 U-2 incident, where a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces’ S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory.
Three years before the incident, in 1957, a modified R-7 rocket carried the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into an orbit hundreds of kilometers above sea level, notably beyond the reach of any existing weapons system. While Sputnik 1 held no military value, only transmitting radio signals back to Earth for three weeks, its launch sparked the beginning of the Space Race. This spurred the United States to hasten and re-emphasize its space programs, culminating in the Explorer program, which launched the first American satellite into orbit in 1958. In tandem with the effort to achieve superior spaceflight capability over the other, the United States and the Soviet Union began to develop space warfare capabilities.
1960s: Early efforts to conduct space warfare were directed at space-to-space warfare, as ground-to-space systems were considered to be too slow and too isolated by Earth's atmosphere and gravity to be effective at the time. The history of active space warfare development goes back to the 1960s when the Soviet Union began the Almaz project, a project designed to give them the ability to do on-orbit inspections of satellites and destroy them if needed. Similar planning in the United States took the form of the Blue Gemini project, which consisted of modified Gemini capsules that would be able to deploy weapons and perform surveillance.
One early test of electronic space warfare, the so-called Starfish Prime test, took place in 1962 when the United States exploded a ground-launched nuclear weapon in space to test the effects of an electromagnetic pulse. The result was a deactivation of many then-orbiting satellites, both American and Soviet. The deleterious and unfocused effects of the EMP test led to the banning of nuclear weapons in space in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. (See high-altitude nuclear explosion.)
In the early 1960s, the U.S. military produced a film called Space and National Security which depicted space warfare.
1970s–1990s: Through the 1970s, the Soviet Union continued their project and test-fired a cannon to test space station defense. This was considered too dangerous to do with a crew on board, however, so the test was conducted after the crew had returned to Earth.
A 1976 Soviet report suggested that the design of the Space Shuttle had been guided by a requirement to deliver a payload- such as a bomb- over Russia and return to land after a single orbit. This may have been a confusion based on requirements 3A and 3B for the shuttle's design, which required the craft to be able to deploy or retrieve an object from a polar orbit in a single pass.
Both the Soviets and the United States developed anti-satellite weaponry designed to shoot down satellites. While early efforts paralleled other space-to-space warfare concepts, the United States was able in the 1980s to develop ground-to-space laser anti-satellite weapons. None of these systems are known to be active today; however, a less powerful civilian version of the ground-to-space laser system is commonly used in the astronomical technique of adaptive optics.
In 1984, the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) was proposed. It was nicknamed Star Wars after the popular science fiction franchise Star Wars.
In 1985, the United States demonstrated its conventional ASAT capabilities by launching an ASM-135 ASAT from an F-15 to shoot down the Solwind P78-1, an American research satellite, from its 555-kilometre (345 mi) orbit.
Since 2000: The People's Republic of China successfully tested (see 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test) a ballistic missile-launched anti-satellite weapon on January 11, 2007. This resulted in harsh criticism from the United States of America, Britain, and Japan.
The U.S. developed an interceptor missile, the SM-3, testing it by hitting ballistic test targets while they were in space. On February 21, 2008, the U.S. used an SM-3 missile to destroy a spy satellite, USA-193, while it was 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) above the Pacific Ocean.
Japan fields the U.S.-made SM-3 missile, and there have been plans to base the land-based version in Romania and Vietnam.
In March 2019, India shot down a satellite orbiting in a low Earth orbit using an ASAT missile during an operation code named Mission Shakti, thus making its way to the list of space warfare nations, establishing the Defense Space Agency the following month, followed by its first-ever simulated space warfare exercise on July 25 which would inform a joint military space doctrine.
In July 2019, Emmanuel Macron "called for a space high command to protect" France's satellites. This was followed by a plan released by military officials. French Defense Minister, Florence Parly, announced a space weapons program that would move the country's space surveillance strategy towards active protection of its assets in space, e.g., satellites. The projects outlined include: patrolling nano-satellites swarms, ground-based laser systems to blind spying satellites, and machine guns mounted on satellites.
Starlink, SpaceX's large low Earth orbit satellite constellation, was extensively used for warfare following Russia's invasion of Ukraine after the country's previous satcom provider Viasat were cyberattacked in the first few days of the invasion. Starlink was used for defense and attacks on Russian positions, with Starlink terminals being namely strapped on strike drones and sea drones. SpaceX vowed and acted against the use of their Starlink service for active warfare, while Russia launched cyberattacks against Starlink and threatened of striking Starlink satellites directly in retaliation.
On October 31, 2023, as part of the Israel–Hamas War, Israel intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile with its Arrow 2 missile defense system. According to Israeli officials, the interception occurred above Earth's atmosphere above the Negev Desert, making it the first instance of space combat in history.
Theoretical space weaponry:
Ballistic warfare: In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States theorized, designed and in some cases tested a variety of weaponry designed for warfare in outer space. Space warfare was seen primarily as an extension of nuclear warfare, and many theoretical systems were based around the destruction or defense of ground and sea-based missiles. Space-based missiles were not attempted due to the Outer Space Treaty, which banned the use, testing or storage of nuclear weapons outside the Earth's atmosphere. When the U.S. gained "interest in utilizing space-based lasers for ballistic missile defense", two facts emerged. One being that the ballistic missiles are fragile and two, chemical lasers project missile killing energy (3,000 kilometers). This meant that lasers could be put into space to intercept a ballistic missile.
Systems proposed ranged from measures as simple as ground and space-based anti-missiles to railguns, space based lasers, orbital mines and similar weaponry. Deployment of these systems was seriously considered in the mid-1980s under the banner of the Strategic Defense Initiative announced by Ronald Reagan in 1983, using the term "evil empire" to describe the Soviets (hence the popular nickname "Star Wars"). If the Cold War had continued, many of these systems could potentially have seen deployment: the United States developed working railguns, and a laser that could destroy missiles at range, though the power requirements, range, and firing cycles of both were impractical. Weapons like the space-based laser was rejected, not just by the government, but by universities, moral thinkers, and religious people because it would have increased the waging of the arms race and questioned the United States' role in the Cold War.
Electronic warfare: With the end of the Cold War and continued development of satellite and electronics technology, attention was focused on space as a supporting theatre for conventional warfare. Currently, military operations in space primarily concern either the vast tactical advantages of satellite-based surveillance, communications, and positioning systems or mechanisms used to deprive an opponent of said tactical advantages.
Accordingly, most space-borne proposals which would traditionally be considered "weapons" (a communications or reconnaissance satellite may be useful in warfare but isn't generally classified as a weapon) are designed to jam, sabotage, and outright destroy enemy satellites, and conversely to protect friendly satellites against such attacks. To this end, the US (and presumably other countries) is researching groups of small, highly mobile satellites called "microsats" (about the size of a refrigerator) and "picosats" (approximately 1 cubic foot (≈27 litres) in volume) nimble enough to maneuver around and interact with other orbiting objects to repair, sabotage, hijack, or simply collide with them. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Space warfare | Currently, military operations in space primarily concern either the vast tactical advantages of satellite-based surveillance, communications, and positioning systems or mechanisms used to deprive an opponent of said tactical advantages.
Accordingly, most space-borne proposals which would traditionally be considered "weapons" (a communications or reconnaissance satellite may be useful in warfare but isn't generally classified as a weapon) are designed to jam, sabotage, and outright destroy enemy satellites, and conversely to protect friendly satellites against such attacks. To this end, the US (and presumably other countries) is researching groups of small, highly mobile satellites called "microsats" (about the size of a refrigerator) and "picosats" (approximately 1 cubic foot (≈27 litres) in volume) nimble enough to maneuver around and interact with other orbiting objects to repair, sabotage, hijack, or simply collide with them.
Kinetic bombardment: Another theorized use involves the extension of conventional weaponry into orbit for deployment against ground targets. Though international treaties ban the deployment of nuclear missiles outside the atmosphere, other categories of weapons are largely unregulated. Traditional ground-based weapons are generally not useful in orbital environments, and few if any would survive re-entry even if they were, but as early as the 1950s, the United States has toyed with kinetic bombardment, i.e. orbiting magazines of non-explosive projectiles to be dropped onto hardened targets from low Earth orbit.Kinetic weapons have always been widespread in conventional warfare—bullets, arrows, swords, clubs, etc.—but the energy a projectile would gain while falling from orbit would make such a weapon rival all but the most powerful explosives. A direct hit would presumably destroy all but the most hardened targets without the need for nuclear weapons.
Such a system would involve a 'spotter' satellite, which would identify targets from orbit with high-power sensors, and a nearby 'magazine' satellite to de-orbit a long, needle-like tungsten dart onto it with a small rocket motor or just dropping a very big rock from orbit (such as an asteroid, cf. Ivan's hammer). This would be more useful against a larger but less hardened target (such as a city). Though a common device in science fiction, there is no publicly available evidence that any such systems have actually been deployed by any nation.
Directed-energy weapons: Weapon systems that fall under this category include lasers, linear particle accelerators or particle-beam based weaponry, microwaves and plasma-based weaponry. Particle beams involve the acceleration of charged or neutral particles in a stream towards a target at extremely high velocities, the impact of which creates a reaction causing immense damage. Most of these weapons are theoretical or impractical to implement currently, aside from lasers which have been used to blind satellites and are starting to be used in terrestrial warfare. That said, directed-energy weapons are more practical and more effective in a vacuum (i.e. space) than in the Earth's atmosphere, as in the atmosphere the particles of air interfere with and disperse the directed energy. Nazi Germany had a project for such a weapon, considered a wunderwaffe, the sun gun, which would have been an orbital concave mirror able to concentrate the sun's energy on a ground target.
In the context of space-based deployment, directed-energy weapons can be distinguished as either “high-powered” or “dazzler.” High-powered satellite-operated lasers are intended to deal irreversible damage to the sensitive parts, mainly optics, on satellites and have the advantage of being difficult to attribute to an actor. Though, it is difficult to confirm the success of an attack. Dazzlers are not intended to deal irreversible damage but rather disable a target satellite. It maintains the same advantages and disadvantages as the high-powered variant. Though such systems not yet functional, the US Defense Intelligence Agency notes that several actors, including the United States, PRC, Russia, and France, are actively pursuing these capabilities.
Practical considerations: Space warfare is likely to be done at far larger distances and speeds than combat on Earth. The vast distances pose big challenges for targeting and tracking, as even light requires a few seconds to cover hundreds of thousands of kilometers. For example, if trying to fire on a target at the distance of the Moon from the Earth, one sees the position of the target slightly more than a second earlier. Thus even a laser would need ~1.28 seconds, meaning a laser-based weapon system would need to lead a target's apparent position by 1.28×2 = 2.56 seconds. A projectile from a railgun recently tested by the US Navy would take over 18 hours to cross that distance, if it travels in a straight line at a constant velocity of 5.8 km/s along its entire trajectory.
Three factors make engaging targets in space very difficult. First, the vast distances mean that an error of even a fraction of a degree in the firing solution can mean a miss by thousands of kilometers. Second, spaceflight involves tremendous speeds by terrestrial standards—a geostationary satellite moves at 3.07 km/s, and objects in low Earth orbit move at ~8 km/s. Third, though distances are huge, targets remain relatively small. The International Space Station, currently the largest artificial object in Earth orbit, measures slightly over 100m at its largest span. Other satellites can be vastly smaller, e.g., Quickbird measures only 3.04m. External ballistics for stationary terrestrial targets is enormously complicated—some of the earliest analog computers were used to calculate firing solutions for naval artillery, as the problems were already beyond manual solutions in any reasonable time—and targeting objects in space is far harder. And, though not a problem for orbital kinetic weapons, any directed energy weapon would need huge amounts of electricity. So far the most practical batteries are lithium, and the most practical means of generating electricity in space is photovoltaic modules, which are currently only up to 30% efficient, and fuel cells, which have limited fuel. Current technology might not be practical for powering effective lasers, particle beams, and railguns in space. In the context of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States worked on a project for expandable space-based x-ray lasers powered by a nuclear explosion, Project Excalibur, a project canceled in 1992 for lack of results. SDI projects included Zenith Star, using the Alpha chemical laser.
General William L. Shelton has said that in order to protect against attacks, Space Situational Awareness is much more important than additional hardening or armoring of satellites. The Air Force Space Command has indicated that their defensive focus will be on "Disaggregated Space Architectures".
Space debris: Anti-satellite attacks, especially ones with kinetic kill vehicles, can form space debris which can stay in orbit for many years and could interfere with future space activity or in a worst case trigger Kessler syndrome. In January 2007 China did a satellite knock out whose detonation alone caused more than 40,000 new chunks of debris with a diameter > 1 cm and a sudden increase in the total amount of debris in orbit. The PRC is reported to be developing "soft-kill" techniques such as jamming and vision kills that do not generate much debris.
Possible warfare over space: Most of the world's communications systems rely heavily on the presence of satellites in orbit around Earth. Protecting these assets might seriously motivate nations dependent upon them to consider deploying more space-based weaponry, especially in conflicts involving advanced countries with access to space.
Since 2017, the United States Air Force has run an annual military exercise called "Space Flag" at Peterson Space Force Base, which involves a red team simulating attacks on U.S. satellites.
Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and advocate for human exploration of Mars, stated that anti-satellite weapons capabilities of nations increases, space infrastructures must be able to defend itself using other satellites that can destroy such weapons. Or else, he states, satellite-based navigation, communications and reconnaissance capabilities would be severely limited and easily influenced by adversaries.: 63–66
Direct Ascent: The modern incarnations of the ASM-135 ASAT program are the so-called direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons. These weapons are usually either ballistic or anti-ballistic interceptor missiles, which ascend directly from Earth to intercept their target and have been adapted to the anti-satellite role. To date, four countries have demonstrated their ability to launch these weapons, the USA, the PRC, India, and Russia, but so far none have conducted such an attack on another country’s satellites.
Direct-ascent ASATs leverage existing technologies and launch platforms to neutralize both space-based and ground-based targets. This option tends to be highly destructive and indiscriminate as any attack will produce space debris, which can indiscriminately affect other satellites in similar orbits. While this option comes with the benefit of leveraging existing technologies and a certain element of surprise, as an attack cannot be detected until a missile has exited its silo, there are significant downsides. Firstly, there is the cost disparity of using an ICBM or ABM to kill a small and inexpensive satellite. Additionally, these missiles are not designed to send payloads out to geocentric orbit, as such they can only affect targets in low earth orbit and only in a target area centered around the static location of the missile itself.
Co-Orbital: Co-orbital systems come with a few potential kill mechanisms: in guided kinetic vehicles, like the Multiple Kill Vehicle, or in the form of a satellite that can release a kinetic interceptor or a cloud of debris. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Space warfare | This option tends to be highly destructive and indiscriminate as any attack will produce space debris, which can indiscriminately affect other satellites in similar orbits. While this option comes with the benefit of leveraging existing technologies and a certain element of surprise, as an attack cannot be detected until a missile has exited its silo, there are significant downsides. Firstly, there is the cost disparity of using an ICBM or ABM to kill a small and inexpensive satellite. Additionally, these missiles are not designed to send payloads out to geocentric orbit, as such they can only affect targets in low earth orbit and only in a target area centered around the static location of the missile itself.
Co-Orbital: Co-orbital systems come with a few potential kill mechanisms: in guided kinetic vehicles, like the Multiple Kill Vehicle, or in the form of a satellite that can release a kinetic interceptor or a cloud of debris. The first co-orbital system, Istrebitel Sputnikov, was developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and reportedly utilized one of these mechanisms.
There are allegations that Russia continues to test co-orbital ASAT weapons as recently as 2020. In 2020 the U.S. State Department claimed that a Russian satellite, Cosmos-2519, exhibited behavior “inconsistent” with its intended mission. While in orbit, Kosmos-2519 deployed a smaller satellite, which Russian state media claimed: “conducted autonomous flight, a change in orbit, and a satellite inspection before returning to the base station”. Another incident back in 2019 involved two Russian satellites, Kosmos 2542 and 2543, one of which appeared to begin following a U.S. national security satellite. Such “inspector” satellites can be armed with lasers to provide non-destructive interference or deadly kinetic interceptors.
While these co-orbital systems provide more utility when compared to more direct and destructive options, their advantages are contingent on being maneuverable and inconspicuous. Given the increasing paranoia surrounding co-orbital anti-satellite, it is hard to believe that the major players in space will fail to notice the deployment of “research” satellites.
Space warfare in science fiction: Space warfare is a staple of science fiction, where it is shown with a wide range of realism and plausibility. Fictional space warfare includes anticipated future technology and tactics, and fantasy- or history-based scenarios in a scifi setting. Some portray a space military as like an air force; others depict a more naval framework. Still others suggest forces more like space marine: highly mobile forces doing interplanetary and interstellar war but most of the conflict happens in terrestrial environments. The main sub-genres of the Space warfare in science fiction thematic genre are space opera, Military and Space Western. Though sword and planet stories like Finisterre universe by C. J. Cherryh might be considered, they rarely feature such technologies. These three genres often intertwine and have themes that are common to all. Written Space Westerns are often based directly on existing established scifi space opera franchises with expanded universes like Star Wars and Star Trek, including Warhammer 40,000: the most popular space opera military miniature wargame which spawned successful spin-off media: novels, video-games and on-going live adaption based on books by Dan Abnett.
Both kinetic and directed energy weapons are often seen, along with various military space vessels. E. E. Smith's Lensman is an early example, which also inspired the term space opera due to the grandiose scale of the stories. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series is a notable example in that it makes a conjecture as to what sort of tactics and training would be needed for war in outer space. Other scifi authors have also delved into the tactics of space combat, such as David Weber in his Honorverse series, and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in their Mote in God's Eye series. A more recent example is Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, which explores combat at relativistic speed. Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is perhaps one of the best-known and earliest explorations of the "space marine" idea.
Space-based vehicular combat is portrayed in many movies and video games, most notably Star Wars, Stargate, Halo, Descent, Gundam, Macross, Babylon 5, and Star Trek. Games such as the Homeworld series have interesting concepts for space warfare, such as 3D battle formations, plasma-based projectors that get their energy from a ship's propulsion system, and automated uncrewed space combat vehicles. Other series, such as Gundam, prominently show vehicular combat in and among many near future concepts, such as O'Neill cylinders.
Fictional galaxies with space warfare are far too many to list, but popular examples include Star Trek (in all of its forms), Star Wars, Halo, Stargate, Warhammer 40,000, Babylon 5, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect, Freespace and many comic book franchises. Video games often touch the subject; the Wing Commander franchise is a prototypical example. Few games try to simulate realistic distance and speed, though Independence War and Frontier: Elite II both do, as does the board game Attack Vector: Tactical.
Many authors have either used a galaxy-spanning fictional empire as background or written about the growth and/or decline of such an empire. Said empire's capital is often a core world, such as a planet relatively close to a galaxy's supermassive black hole. Characterization can vary wildly from malevolent forces attacking sympathetic victims to apathetic bureaucracies to more reasonable entities focused on social progress, and anywhere in between. Scifi writers generally posit some form of faster-than-light drive in order to facilitate interstellar war. Writers such as Larry Niven have developed plausible interplanetary conflict based on human colonization of the asteroid belt and outer planets via technologies using currently known physics.
See also: Asteroid impact avoidance
Beijing–Washington space hotline
Militarisation of space
Space force
Space weapon
Starlink satellite services in Ukraine, instance of a satellite constellation being used for warfare
Sun outage
Related to specific countries and facilities:
Department of Defense Manned Space Flight Support Office
European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company
Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike (US Strategic Command)
National Missile Defense
Pine Gap (Australia)
United States Air Force Space Command
United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command
References:
Further reading: Hobbes, D (1986): An Illustrated Guide to Space Warfare Salamander Books Ltd. ISBN 0-86101-204-6.
Macvey, John W.: Space Weapons, Space War. New York: 1979 Stein and Day (written by a professional astronomer). ISBN 978-0812861112.
David Jordan: Air and Space Warfare, pp. 178–223, in:Understanding modern warfare. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-87698-8.
John J. Klein: Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy. Routledge, Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-40796-0.
Joan Johnson-Freese: Space Warfare in the 21st Century – Arming the Heavens. Routledge, Oxford 2016, ISBN 978-1-138-69388-3. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Special forces | Capabilities: Special forces capabilities include the following:
Special reconnaissance and surveillance in hostile environments
Foreign internal defense: Training and development of other states' military and security forces
Offensive action
Support to counter-insurgency through population engagement and support
Counter-terrorism operations
Sabotage and demolition
Hostage rescue
Other capabilities can include close personal protection; waterborne operations involving combat diving/combat swimming, maritime boarding and amphibious missions; as well as support of air force operations.
History:
Early period: Special forces have played an important role throughout the history of warfare, whenever the aim was to achieve disruption by "hit and run" and sabotage, rather than more traditional conventional combat. Other significant roles lay in reconnaissance, providing essential intelligence from near or among the enemy and increasingly in combating irregular forces, their infrastructure and activities.
Chinese strategist Jiang Ziya, in his Six Secret Teachings, described recruiting talented and motivated men into specialized elite units with functions such as commanding heights and making rapid long-distance advances. Hamilcar Barca in Sicily (249 BC) had specialized troops trained to launch several offensives per day. In the late Roman or early Byzantine period, Roman fleets used small, fast, camouflaged ships crewed by selected men for scouting and commando missions. In the Middle Ages, special forces trained to conduct special operations were employed in several occasions. An example of this were the special forces of Gerald the Fearless, a Portuguese warrior and folk hero of the Reconquista. Muslim forces also had naval special operations units, including one that used camouflaged ships to gather intelligence and launch raids and another of soldiers who could pass for Crusaders who would use ruses to board enemy ships and then capture and destroy them. In Japan, ninjas were used for reconnaissance, espionage and as assassins, bodyguards or fortress guards, or otherwise fought alongside conventional soldiers. During the Napoleonic wars, rifle regiments and sapper units were formed that held specialised roles in reconnaissance and skirmishing and were not committed to the formal battle lines.
First specialized units: Between the 17th and 18th centuries, there were wars between American colonists and Native American tribes. In Colonial America specialized Rangers formed and first mentioned by Capt. John Smith, in 1622. Learning frontier skills from friendly Native Americans the Rangers helped carry out offensive strikes "frontier combat" against hostile Natives. Thus Ranger companies were formed to provide reconnaissance, intelligence, light infantry, and scouting. Colonel Benjamin Church (c. 1639–1718) was the captain of the first Ranger force in America (1676).
Many Colonial officers would take the philosophies of Benjamin Church's ranging and form their own Ranger units.
Several Ranger companies were established in the American colonies, including Knowlton's Rangers, an elite corps of Rangers who supplied reconnaissance and espionage for George Washington's Continental Army.
Daniel Morgan, was known as leader of The Corps of Rangers for the Continental Army. Rogers' Rangers on Roger's Island, in modern-day Fort Edward, New York, is regarded as the "spiritual home" of the United States Special Operations Forces, specifically the United States Army Rangers. These early American light infantry battalions were trained under Robert Rogers' 28 "Rules of Ranging", which is considered the first known manual of modern asymmetric warfare tactics used in modern special operations.
Various military Ranger units such as the United States Mounted Rangers, United States Rangers, Loudoun Rangers, 43rd Virginia Rangers, and Texas Military Rangers continued throughout the 19th-20th century until the modern formation of the Army Ranger Battalions in WWII.
The British Indian Army deployed two special forces during their border wars: the Corps of Guides formed in 1846 and the Gurkha Scouts (a force that was formed in the 1890s and was first used as a detached unit during the 1897–1898 Tirah Campaign).
During the Second Boer War (1899–1902) the British Army felt the need for more specialised units. Scouting units such as the Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Highland regiment made up of exceptional woodsmen outfitted in ghillie suits and well practised in the arts of marksmanship, field craft, and military tactics filled this role. This unit was formed in 1900 by Lord Lovat and early on reported to an American, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the Chief of Scouts under Lord Roberts. After the war, Lovat's Scouts went on to formally become the British Army's first sniper unit. Additionally, the Bushveldt Carbineers, formed in 1901, can be seen as an early unconventional warfare unit.
The Luna Sharpshooters, also known as the "Marksmen of Death" (Spanish: Tiradores de la Muerte), was an elite unit formed on 1899 by General Antonio Luna to serve under the Philippine Revolutionary Army. They became famous for fighting fiercer than the regular Filipino army soldiers. Most of the members of this unit came from the old Spanish Army filipino members which fought during the Philippine Revolution.
The sharpshooters became famous for their fierce fighting and proved their worth by being the usual spearheading unit in every major battle in the Philippine–American War. In the Battle of Paye on December 19, 1899, Bonifacio Mariano, a sharpshooter under the command of General Licerio Gerónimo, killed General Henry Ware Lawton of the United States Army, making the latter the highest ranking casualty during the course of the war.
World War I: The German Stormtroopers and the Italian Arditi were the first modern shock troops. They were both elite assault units trained to a much higher level than that of average troops and tasked to carry out daring attacks and bold raids against enemy defenses. Unlike Stormtroopers, Arditi were not units within infantry divisions, but were considered a separate combat arm.
Interwar period:
Chaco war: The Macheteros de Jara was an auxiliary cavalry regiment that was organized since August 15, 1932, before the Battle of Boquerón began. The regiment was recruited from former outlaws from Paraguay who fought against Bolivian officers and soldiers.
The 50th Infantry Regiment (Cuchilleros de la Muerte) was a Bolivian infantry regiment that fought in the Chaco War. Nicknamed the Knives of Death (Spanish: Cuchillos de la Muerte), the regiment relied almost exclusively on the use of blade weapons, particularly bayonets.
World War II:
British:
Commandos: Modern special forces emerged during the Second World War. In 1940, the British Commandos were formed following Winston Churchill's call for "specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast." A staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke, had already submitted such a proposal to General Sir John Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Dill, aware of Churchill's intentions, approved Clarke's proposal and on 23 June 1940, the first Commando raid took place.
By the autumn of 1940 more than 2,000 men had volunteered and in November 1940 these new units were organised into a Special Service Brigade consisting of four battalions under the command of Brigadier J. C. Haydon. The Special Service Brigade was quickly expanded to 12 units which became known as Commandos. Each Commando had a lieutenant colonel as the commanding officer and numbered around 450 men (divided into 75 man troops that were further divided into 15 man sections).
In December 1940 a Middle East Commando depot was formed with the responsibility of training and supplying reinforcements for the Commando units in that theatre. In February 1942 the Commando training depot at Achnacarry in the Scottish Highlands was established by Brigadier Charles Haydon. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Vaughan, the Commando depot was responsible for training complete units and individual replacements. The training regime was for the time innovative and physically demanding, and far in advance of normal British Army training. The depot staff were all hand picked, with the ability to outperform any of the volunteers.
Training and assessment started immediately on arrival, with the volunteers having to complete an 8-mile (13 km) march with all their equipment from the Spean Bridge railway station to the commando depot. Exercises were conducted using live ammunition and explosives to make training as realistic as possible. Physical fitness was a prerequisite, with cross country runs and boxing matches to improve fitness. Speed and endurance marches were conducted up and down the nearby mountain ranges and over assault courses that included a zip-line over Loch Arkaig, all while carrying arms and full equipment. Training continued by day and night with river crossings, mountain climbing, weapons training, unarmed combat, map reading, and small boat operations on the syllabus.
Reaching a wartime strength of over 30 individual units and four assault brigades, the Commandos served in all theatres of war from the Arctic Circle to Europe and from the Mediterranean and Middle East to South-East Asia. Their operations ranged from small groups of men landing from the sea or by parachute to a brigade of assault troops spearheading the Allied invasions of Europe and Asia. The first modern special forces units were established by men who had served with the Commandos, including the Parachute Regiment, Special Air Service, and Special Boat Service. The No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando organised by British of volunteers from occupied Europe led to French Commandos Marine, Dutch Korps Commandotroepen, Belgian Paracommando Brigade. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Special forces | Training continued by day and night with river crossings, mountain climbing, weapons training, unarmed combat, map reading, and small boat operations on the syllabus.
Reaching a wartime strength of over 30 individual units and four assault brigades, the Commandos served in all theatres of war from the Arctic Circle to Europe and from the Mediterranean and Middle East to South-East Asia. Their operations ranged from small groups of men landing from the sea or by parachute to a brigade of assault troops spearheading the Allied invasions of Europe and Asia. The first modern special forces units were established by men who had served with the Commandos, including the Parachute Regiment, Special Air Service, and Special Boat Service. The No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando organised by British of volunteers from occupied Europe led to French Commandos Marine, Dutch Korps Commandotroepen, Belgian Paracommando Brigade.
Special Air Service (SAS): The first modern special forces unit was the Special Air Service (SAS), formed in July 1941 from an unorthodox idea and plan by Lieutenant David Stirling. In June 1940 he volunteered for the No. 8 (Guards) Commando (later named "Layforce"). After Layforce was disbanded, Stirling remained convinced that due to the mechanized nature of war a small team of highly trained soldiers with the advantage of surprise could exact greater damage to the enemy's ability to fight than an entire platoon. His idea was for small teams of parachute trained soldiers to operate behind enemy lines to gain intelligence, destroy enemy aircraft, and attack their supply and reinforcement routes. Following a meeting with the C-in-C Middle East, General Claude Auchinleck, his plan was endorsed by the Army High Command.
The force initially consisted of five officers and 60 other ranks. Following extensive training at Kabrit camp, by the River Nile, L Detachment, SAS Brigade, undertook its first operations in the Western Desert. Stirling's vision was eventually vindicated after a series of successful operations. In 1942, the SAS attacked Bouerat. Transported by the Long Range Desert Group (which carried out deep penetration, covert reconnaissance patrols, intelligence missions and attacks behind the enemy lines from 1940), they caused severe damage to the harbour, petrol tanks and storage facilities. This was followed up in March by a raid on Benghazi harbour with limited success but they did damage to 15 aircraft at Al-Berka. The June 1942 Crete airfield raids at Heraklion, Kasteli, Tympaki and Maleme significant damage was caused, and raids at Fuka and Mersa Matruh airfields destroyed 30 aircraft.
Chindits: In the Burma Campaign, the Chindits, whose long-range penetration groups were trained to operate from bases deep behind Japanese lines, contained commandos (King's Regiment (Liverpool), 142 Commando Company) and Gurkhas. Their jungle expertise, which would play an important part in many British special forces operations post-war, was learned at a great cost in lives in the jungles of Burma fighting the Japanese.
The Company of Chosen Immortals: Immediately after the German occupation of Greece in April–May 1941, the Greek government fled to Egypt and started to form military units in exile. Air Force Lt. Colonel G. Alexandris suggested the creation of an Army unit along the lines of the British SAS. In August 1942 the Company of Chosen Immortals (Greek: Λόχος Επιλέκτων Αθανάτων) was formed under Cavalry Major Antonios Stefanakis in Palestine, with 200 men. In 1942, the unit was renamed Sacred Band. In close cooperation with the commander of the British SAS Regiment, Lt. Colonel David Stirling, the company moved to the SAS base at Qabrit in Egypt to begin its training in its new role. The special forces unit fought alongside the SAS in the Western Desert and the Aegean.
Poland: During the start of World War II “September campaign,” the Polish Government did not sign the capitulation, but moved to Paris and then to London. In an attempt to achieve its aims the government in exile gave orders to the Polish resistance and formed a special military unit in Britain with the soldiers called Cichociemni (“silent and unseen”) paratroopers to be deployed into Poland. The Cichociemni were trained similar to the British Special Forces, with the curricula differing according to each soldier's specialization. Their task, on deployment to Poland, was to sustain the structures of the Polish state, training the members of the Resistance in fighting the German occupant. This included taking part in the Warsaw Uprising.
Australian: Following advice from the British, Australia began raising special forces. The first units to be formed were independent companies, which began training at Wilson's Promontory in Victoria in early 1941 under the tutelage of British instructors. With an establishment of 17 officers and 256 men, the independent companies were trained as "stay behind" forces, a role that they were later employed in against the Japanese in the South West Pacific Area during 1942–43, most notably fighting a guerrilla campaign in Timor, as well as actions in New Guinea. In all, a total of eight independent companies were raised before they were re-organised in mid-1943 into commando squadrons and placed under the command of the divisional cavalry regiments that were re-designated as cavalry commando regiments. As a part of this structure, a total of 11 commando squadrons were raised.
They continued to act independently and were often assigned at brigade level during the later stages of the war, taking part in the fighting in New Guinea, Bougainville and Borneo, where they were employed largely in long-range reconnaissance and flank protection roles. In addition to these units, the Australians also raised the Z Special Unit and M Special Unit. M Special Unit was largely employed in an intelligence-gathering role, while Z Special Force undertook direct action missions. One of its most notable actions came as part of Operation Jaywick, in which several Japanese ships were sunk in Singapore Harbour in 1943. A second raid on Singapore in 1944, known as Operation Rimau, was unsuccessful.
United States:
Office of Strategic Services: The United States formed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II under the Medal of Honor recipient William J. Donovan. This organization was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was responsible for both intelligence and special forces missions. The CIA's elite Special Activities Division is the direct descendant of the OSS.
Marine Raiders: On February 16, 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps activated a battalion of Marines with the specific purpose of securing beach heads, and other special operations. The battalion became the first modern special operations force of the U.S. The battalion became known as Marine Raiders due to Admiral Chester Nimitz's request for "raiders" in the Pacific front of the war.
United States Army Rangers: The history of the United States Army Rangers specialist soldier dates back to the 17th through 19th century from military units such as United States Mounted Rangers, United States Rangers and Texas Rangers. In WWII mid-1942, Major-General Lucian Truscott of the U.S. Army, a General Staff submitted a proposal to General George Marshall onceived under the guidance of then Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, that selectively trained Ranger soldiers were recruited for the newly established special operations Army Ranger Battalion.
1st Special Service Force: The United States and Canada formed the 1st Special Service Force as a sabotage ski brigade for operations in Norway. Later known as the "Devil's Brigade" (and called "The Black Devils" by mystified German soldiers), the First Special Service Force was dispatched to the occupied Aleutian Islands, Italy and Southern France.
Merrill's Marauders: Merrill's Marauders were modeled on the Chindits and took part in similar operations in Burma. In late November 1943, the Alamo Scouts (Sixth Army Special Reconnaissance Unit) were formed to conduct reconnaissance and raider work in the Southwest Pacific Theater under the personal command of then Lt. General Walter Krueger, Commanding General, Sixth U.S. Army. Krueger envisioned that the Alamo Scouts, consisting of small teams of highly trained volunteers, would operate deep behind enemy lines to provide intelligence-gathering and tactical reconnaissance in advance of Sixth U.S. Army landing operations.
Special Forces Tab: In 1983, nearly 40 years after the end of World War II, the US Army created the Special Forces Tab. It was later decided that personnel with at least 120 days' wartime service prior to 1955 in certain units, including the Devil's Brigade, the Alamo Scouts and the OSS Operational Groups, would receive the Tab for their services in World War II, placing them all in the lineage of today's U.S. and Canadian (via Devil's Brigade) Special Forces.
Axis powers: The Axis powers did not adopt the use of special forces on the same scale as the British.
German: The German army's Brandenburger Regiment was founded as a special forces unit used by the Abwehr for infiltration and long distance reconnaissance in Fall Weiss of 1939 and the Fall Gelb and Barbarossa campaigns of 1940 and 1941. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Special forces | Army landing operations.
Special Forces Tab: In 1983, nearly 40 years after the end of World War II, the US Army created the Special Forces Tab. It was later decided that personnel with at least 120 days' wartime service prior to 1955 in certain units, including the Devil's Brigade, the Alamo Scouts and the OSS Operational Groups, would receive the Tab for their services in World War II, placing them all in the lineage of today's U.S. and Canadian (via Devil's Brigade) Special Forces.
Axis powers: The Axis powers did not adopt the use of special forces on the same scale as the British.
German: The German army's Brandenburger Regiment was founded as a special forces unit used by the Abwehr for infiltration and long distance reconnaissance in Fall Weiss of 1939 and the Fall Gelb and Barbarossa campaigns of 1940 and 1941.
Later during the war the 502nd SS Jäger Battalion, commanded by Otto Skorzeny, sowed disorder behind the Allied lines by mis-directing convoys away from the front lines. A handful of his men were captured by the Americans and spread a rumor that Skorzeny was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower. Although this was untrue, Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters for several days and Skorzeny was labelled "the most dangerous man in Europe".
Italian: In Italy, the Decima Flottiglia MAS was responsible for the sinking and damage of considerable British tonnage in the Mediterranean. Also there were other Italian special forces like A.D.R.A. (Arditi Distruttori Regia Aeronautica). This regiment was used in raids on Allied airbases and railways in North Africa in 1943. In one mission they destroyed 25 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.
Japanese: The Imperial Japanese Army first deployed army paratroops in combat during the Battle of Palembang, on Sumatra in the Netherlands East Indies, on 14 February 1942. The operation was well-planned, with 425 men of the 1st Parachute Raiding Regiment seizing Palembang airfield, while the paratroopers of the 2nd Parachute Raiding Regiment seized the town and its important oil refinery. Paratroops were subsequently deployed in the Burma campaign. The 1st Glider Tank Troop was formed in 1943, with four Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks. The paratroop brigades were organized into the Teishin Shudan as the first division-level raiding unit, at the main Japanese airborne base, Karasehara Airfield, Kyūshū, Japan.
However, as with similar airborne units created by the Allies and other Axis powers, the Japanese paratroops suffered from a disproportionately high casualty rate, and the loss of men who required such extensive and expensive training limited their operations to only the most critical ones. Two regiments of Teishin Shudan were formed into the 1st Raiding Group, commanded by Major General Rikichi Tsukada under the control of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, during the Philippines campaign. Although structured as a division, its capabilities were much lower, as its six regiments had manpower equivalent to a standard infantry battalion, and it lacked any form of artillery, and had to rely on other units for logistical support. Its men were no longer parachute-trained, but relied on aircraft for transport.
Some 750 men from the 2nd Raiding Brigade, of this group were assigned to attack American air bases on Luzon and Leyte on the night of 6 December 1944. They were flown in Ki-57 transports, but most of the aircraft were shot down. Some 300 commandos managed to land in the Burauen area on Leyte. The force destroyed some planes and inflicted numerous casualties, before they were annihilated.
Finnish: During World War II, the Finnish Army and Border Guard organized sissi forces into a long-range reconnaissance patrol (kaukopartio) units. These were open only to volunteers and operated far behind enemy lines in small teams. They conducted both intelligence-gathering missions and raids on e.g. enemy supply depots or other strategic targets. They were generally highly effective. For example, during the Battle of Ilomantsi, Soviet supply lines were harassed to the point that the Soviet artillery was unable to exploit its massive numerical advantage over Finnish artillery. Their operations were also classified as secret because of the political sensitivity of such operations. Only authorized military historians could publish on their operations; individual soldiers were required to take the secrets to the grave. A famous LRRP commander was Lauri Törni, who later joined the U.S. Army to train U.S. personnel in special operations.
Bangladesh Liberation War (1971): In June 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, the World Bank sent a mission to observe the situation in East Pakistan. The media cell of Pakistan's government was circulating the news that the situation in East Pakistan was stable and normal. Khaled Mosharraf, a sector commander of Mukti Bahini, planned to deploy a special commando team. The task assigned to the team was to carry out commando operations and to terrorize Dhaka. The major objective of this team was to prove that the situation was not actually normal. Moreover, Pakistan, at that time, was expecting economic aid from World Bank, which was assumed to be spent to buy arms. The plan was to make World Bank Mission understand the true situation of East Pakistan and to stop sanctioning the aid. Khaled, along with A. T. M. Haider, another sector commander, formed the Crack Platoon. Initially, the number of commandos in the platoon was 17, trained in Melaghar Camp. From Melaghar, commandos of Crack Platoon headed for Dhaka on 4 June 1971 and launched a guerrilla operation on 5 June. Later, the number of commandos increased, the platoon split and deployed in different areas surrounding Dhaka city. The basic objectives of the Crack Platoon were to demonstrate the strength of Mukti Bahini, terrorising Pakistan Army and their collaborators. Another major objective was proving to the international community that the situation in East Pakistan was not normal. That commando team also aimed at inspiring the people of Dhaka, who were frequently victims of killing and torture. The Crack Platoon successfully fulfilled these objectives. The World Bank mission, in its report, clearly described the hazardous situation prevailing in East Pakistan and urged ending the military regime in East Pakistan. The Crack Platoon carried out several successful and important operations. The power supply in Dhaka was devastated which caused severe problems for the Pakistan Army and the military administration in Dhaka.
Modern special forces: Admiral William H. McRaven, formerly the ninth commanding officer of the U.S. Special Operations Command (2011–2014), described two approaches to special forces operations in the 2012 posture statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services: "the direct approach is characterized by technologically enabled small-unit precision lethality, focused intelligence, and inter-agency cooperation integrated on a digitally-networked battlefield", whereas the "indirect approach includes empowering host nation forces, providing appropriate assistance to humanitarian agencies, and engaging key populations." Elements of national power must be deployed in concert without over-reliance on a single capability, such as special forces, that leaves the entire force unprepared and hollow across the spectrum of military operations.
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, special forces have come to higher prominence, as governments have found objectives can sometimes be better achieved by a small team of anonymous specialists than a larger and much more politically controversial conventional deployment. In both Kosovo and Afghanistan, special forces were used to co-ordinate activities between local guerrilla fighters and air power. Typically, guerrilla fighters would engage enemy soldiers and tanks causing them to move, where they could be seen and attacked from the air.
Special forces have been used in both wartime and peacetime military operations such as the Laotian Civil War, Bangladesh Liberation War-1971, Vietnam War, Portuguese Colonial War, South African Border War, Falklands War, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Jaffna University Helidrop, the first and second Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia, the first and second Chechen Wars, the Iranian Embassy siege (London), the Air France Flight 8969 (Marseille), Operation Defensive Shield, Operation Khukri, the Moscow theater hostage crisis, Operation Orchard, the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis (Lima), in Sri Lanka against the LTTE, the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, the 2016 Indian Line of Control strike the 2015 Indian counter-insurgency operation in Myanmar and the Barisha Raid in Syria of 2019.
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan involved special forces from several coalition nations, who played a major role in removing the Taliban from power in 2001–2002. Special forces have continued to play a role in combating the Taliban in subsequent operations.
As gender restrictions are being removed in parts of the world, females are applying for special forces units selections and in 2014 the Norwegian Special Operation Forces established an all female unit Jegertroppen (English: Hunter Troop).
Tier One units: These are the highest level of military special forces, as in the highest trained and usually the most secretive. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Special forces | The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan involved special forces from several coalition nations, who played a major role in removing the Taliban from power in 2001–2002. Special forces have continued to play a role in combating the Taliban in subsequent operations.
As gender restrictions are being removed in parts of the world, females are applying for special forces units selections and in 2014 the Norwegian Special Operation Forces established an all female unit Jegertroppen (English: Hunter Troop).
Tier One units: These are the highest level of military special forces, as in the highest trained and usually the most secretive. Examples would be the special mission units of the Australian and United States special operations forces.
See also:
Notes:
References:
Bellamy, Chris (2011). The Gurkhas: Special Force. UK: Hachette. p. 115. ISBN 9781848545151.
Breuer, William B. (2001). Daring missions of World War II. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-40419-4.
Clemente Ramos, Julián. 1994. "La Extremadura musulmana (1142–1248): Organización defensiva y sociedad". Anuario de estudios medievales, 24:647–701. Web.
Haskew, Michael E (2007). Encyclopaedia of Elite Forces in the Second World War. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-84415-577-4.
Horner, David (1989). SAS: Phantoms of the Jungle: A History of the Australian Special Air Service (1st ed.). St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-007-9.
Molinari, Andrea (2007). Desert Raiders: Axis and Allied Special Forces 1940–43. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-006-2.
Otway, Lieutenant-Colonel T.B.H. (1990). The Second World War 1939–1945 Army – Airborne Forces. Imperial War Museum. ISBN 0-901627-57-7.
Thomas, David (October 1983). "The Importance of Commando Operations in Modern Warfare 1939–82". Journal of Contemporary History. 18 (4): 689–717. JSTOR 260308. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Staff (military) | Military staff functions:
Information management: One of the key purposes of a military staff is to provide accurate, timely information (which includes the results of contingency planning) on which command decisions are based. A goal is being able to suggest approaches or help produce well-informed decisions that will effectively manage and conserve unit resources.
In addition to generating information, the staff also manages the flow of communication within the unit and around it. While controlled information flow toward the commander is a priority, those useful or contingent in nature are communicated to lower-level units and/or through their respective staffs. If the information is not pertinent to the unit, it is redirected to the command level which can best utilize the condition or information.
Staffs are generally the first to know of issues that affect its group. Issues that require major decisions affecting the unit's operational capability are communicated to the commanding officer. However, not all issues will be handled by the commander. Smaller matters that arise are given to a more appropriate tasker within the unit to be handled and resolved, which would otherwise be an unnecessary distraction for the Commanding Officer who already makes numerous decisions every day.
In addition, a staff aims to carefully craft any useful situations and utilize that information.
Staff structure: In a generic command staff, more seasoned and senior officers oversee staff sections of groups organized by the needs of the unit. Senior Enlisted Personnel task personnel in the maintenance of tactical equipment and vehicles. Senior Analysts are tasked with the finalizing of reports, and their enlisted personnel participate in the acquisition of information from subordinate staffs and units. This hierarchy places decision making and reporting under the auspices of the most experienced personnel and maximizes information flow of pertinent information sent out of the command overall, clarifying matters overall. This frees up the most senior members of the command at each level for decision making and issuing direction for further research or information gathering (perhaps requiring men to put their lives at risk to gather additional intelligence).
Operations staff officers also are tasked with battle planning both for offensive and defensive conditions, and issuing contingency plans for handling situations anticipated during the foreseeable future.
History: Prior to the late 18th century, there was generally no organizational support for staff functions such as military intelligence, logistics, planning or personnel. Unit commanders handled such functions for their units, with informal help from subordinates who were usually not trained for or assigned to a specific task.
Austria: Count Leopold Joseph von Daun, in a letter to Empress Maria Theresa in January 1758, pressed for a more important role for the Generalquartiermeister (Chief of Staff). The failures in the army, especially at the Battle of Leuthen made it clear that Austria had no "great brain" and the command needed to spread the workload to allow the Commander-in-chief the time to consider the strategic picture. The 1757 regulations had created the Grosse Feldgeneralstab and Kleine Generalstab (large and small general staff) and after changes in 1769, a permanent staff of 30 officers was established under the direction of Franz Moritz von Lacy, which would be expanded in wartime with junior officers. The Grosse staff was divided into three: First, the Intrinsecum, which handled internal administration and directing operations; secondly, external activities, including the Pioneers; thirdly, the Inspection Service, which handled the issuing of orders and prisoners of war. Alongside the General Staff was the General Adjutant, who led a group of Adjutant staff selected by the army commanders to handle the details of internal administration and collating intelligence, and answered to the Commander-in-chief. The Chief of Staff became the chief adviser to the Commander-in-chief and, in a fundamental move away from the previous administrative role, the Chief of Staff now undertook operational planning, while delegating the routine work to his senior staff officers. Staff officers were drawn from line units and would later return to them, the intention being that they would prove themselves as leaders during their time with the staff. In a battle or when the army had detached corps, a small number of staff would be allocated to the column commander as a smaller version of headquarters. The senior man, usually a Major, would be the chief of the column staff and his principal task would be to help the commander to understand what was intended.
When Karl Mack von Leiberich became chief of staff of the army under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in the Netherlands, he issued the Instruktionspunkte für gesammte Herren Generals, the last of 19 points setting out the roles of staff officers, dealing with offensive and defensive operations, while helping the Commander-in-chief. In 1796, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen augmented these with his own Observationspunkte, writing of the Chief of Staff: "he is duty bound to consider all possibilities related to operations and not view himself as merely carrying out those instructions".
On 20 March 1801, Feldmarschalleutnant Duka became the world's first peacetime Generalquartiermeister at the head of the staff and the wartime role of the Chief of Staff was now focused on planning and operations to assist the Commander. Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen himself produced a new Dienstvorschrift on 1 September 1805, which divided the staff into three: 1) Political Correspondence; 2) the Operations Directorate, dealing with planning and intelligence; 3) the Service Directorate, dealing with administration, supply and military justice. The Archduke set out the position of a modern Chief of Staff: "The Chief of Staff stands at the side of the Commander-in-Chief and is completely at his disposal. His sphere of work connects him with no specific unit". "The Commander-in-Chief decides what should happen and how; his chief assistant works out these decisions, so that each subordinate understands his allotted task". With the creation of the Korps in 1809, each had a staff, whose chief was responsible for directing operations and executing the overall headquarters plan. The staff on the outbreak of war in 1809 numbered over 170. Finally in 1811, Joseph Radetzky von Radetz produced his Über die bessere Einrichtung des Generalstabs, which prioritised the Chief of Staff's managerial and supervisory role with the departments (Political Correspondence, Operations and Service) under their own directors, effectively merging the Adjutants and General Staff officers. In this system lay the beginnings of a formal staff corps, whose members could specialise in operations, intelligence and logistics.
France: Despite a short lived permanent staff under St-Cyr (1783–90), the French reverted to the old system in 1790, when the Revolutionary Government abolished the staff corps. When General Louis Alexandre Berthier was appointed Chief of Staff to the French Army of Italy in 1795, his was the old administrative role, accurately described by Jomini and Vachee as "the chief clerk" and "of limited competence". His manual is merely a reporting system as a kind of office manual. Staff officers were rotated out of the line on the Austrian model, but received no training and merely became efficient in the administrative tasks, especially the rapid issuance of orders. It suited Napoleon Bonaparte from the moment he took over the army the following year and he would use Berthier's system throughout his wars. Crucially, Napoleon remained his own intelligence chief and operational planner, a workload which, ultimately, not even he could cope with.
Myanmar: Overall staff system structure is generally similar to the pre 1984 British Army system with G Branch, A Branch and Q Branch with slightly different staff officer position names. Unlike the continental system, 1 is higher ranking than 2 followed by 3. Despite being called GSO, ASO and QSO in English, all of them are translated as either စစ်ဦးစီးမှူး for G (or) ဦးစီးအရာရှိ for A and Q in Burmese. You can check the 2010/2011 military command structure of Myanmar in the photo shown below which still uses the same staff system
G Branch (စစ်ဦးစီး): G Branch, called စစ်ဦးစီး or ဦး for short in Burmese, is responsible for Responsible for intelligence, training and every aspect of operations.
General Staff Officer (Grade 1), informally known as G1: Ranked Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel
General Staff Officer (Grade 2), informally known as G2: Ranked Major
General Staff Officer (Grade 3), informally known as G3: Ranked Captain
A Branch (စစ်ရေး): A Branch, called စစ်ရေး or ရေး for short in Burmese, is responsible for every aspect of personnel management such as medical and military. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Staff (military) | General Staff Officer (Grade 1), informally known as G1: Ranked Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel
General Staff Officer (Grade 2), informally known as G2: Ranked Major
General Staff Officer (Grade 3), informally known as G3: Ranked Captain
A Branch (စစ်ရေး): A Branch, called စစ်ရေး or ရေး for short in Burmese, is responsible for every aspect of personnel management such as medical and military.
Adjutant Staff Officer (Grade 1), informally known as A1: Ranked Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel
Adjutant Staff Officer (Grade 2), informally known as A2: Ranked Major
Adjutant Staff Officer (Grade 3), informally known as A3: Ranked Captain
Q Branch (စစ်ထောက်): Q Branch, called စစ်ထောက် or ထောက် for short in Burmese, is responsible for logistical aspects such as supply and transport as well as ordnance service.
Quartermaster Staff Officer (Grade 1), informally known as Q1: Ranked Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel
Quartermaster Staff Officer (Grade 2), informally known as Q2: Ranked Major
Quartermaster Staff Officer (Grade 3), informally known as Q3: Ranked Captain
Prussia: Prussia adopted Austria's approach in the following years, especially when Gerhard von Scharnhorst, who as a Hanoverian staff officer had worked with the Austrian army in the Austrian Netherlands in the early 1790s, took charge. Initially, the Prussian Army assigned a limited number of technical expert officers to support field commanders. Before 1746, however, reforms had added management of intelligence and contingency planning to the staff's duties. Later, the practice was initiated of rotating officers from command to staff assignments and back to familiarize them with both aspects of military operations, a practice that, with the addition of enlisted personnel, continues to be used. After 1806, Prussia's military academies trained mid-level officers in specialist staff skills. In 1814, Prussia formally established by law a central military command—Prussian General Staff—and a separate staff for each division and corps. Despite some professional and political issues with the Prussian system, especially when viewed through the prism of the 20th century World Wars, their General Staff concept has been adopted by many large armies in existence today.
United Kingdom: Before the Crimean War staff work was looked at "with great disdain" in the British Army; the hardships of that war caused by disorganization led to a change in attitude. The General Staff in Britain was formed in 1905, and reorganized again in 1908. Unlike the Prussian staff system, the British Army was thought too small to support separate staff and command career streams. Officers would typically alternate between staff and command. Beevor, Inside the British Army, says instead that the terrible cleavages between staff and line units caused by the enormous losses during the trench warfare of the World War I meant that senior British officers consequently decided that all officers would rotate between staff and line responsibilities, preventing the development of a separate general staff corps.
United States: The National Security Act of 1947 instead created a Joint Staff populated by military service members who, rather than becoming career staff officers on the German general staff model, rotate into (and back out of) joint staff positions. Following the major revision of Title 10 of the United States Code by the Goldwater–Nichols Act in 1986, the Joint Staff of today works directly for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the corporate Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they did from 1947 to 1986. Under this scheme, operational command and control of military forces are not the province of the Joint Staff, but that of combatant commanders, who report through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unless otherwise directed, to the Secretary of Defense.
Continental Staff System: The "Continental Staff System", also known as the "General Staff System" (GSS), is used by most NATO countries in structuring their militaries' staff functions. In this system, which is based on one originally employed by the French Army in the 19th century, each staff position in a headquarters or unit is assigned a letter-prefix corresponding to the formation's element and one or more numbers specifying a role.
The staff numbers are assigned according to custom, not hierarchy, traceable back to French practice; i.e., 1 is not "higher ranking" than 2. This list reflects the SHAPE structure:
1, for manpower or personnel
2, for intelligence and security
3, for operations
4, for logistics
5, for plans
6, for signals (i.e., communications or IT)
7, for military education and training (also the joint engineer)
8, for finance and contracts. Also known as resource management.
9, for Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) or civil affairs.
Since the original continental staff system only covered branches 1 through 6, it is not uncommon to see 7 through 9 omitted or having various meanings. Common variation include merging of 3 and 5 to 3, Operations and Plans; omitting the training branch and utilizing 7 for engineering (as seen in US Military Sealift Command and Multinational Forces-Iraq (MNF-I)) and replacing 9 with a legal branch (making CIMIC a part of another branch, i.e. 2 or 4) as seen with the UK Permanent Joint Headquarters.
Derived from the Prussian Große Generalstab (Great General Staff), traditionally these staff functions were prefixed by the simple G, which is retained in place for modern army usage. But the increasing complexity of modern armies, not to speak of the spread of the staff concept to naval, air and other elements, has demanded the addition of new prefixes. These element prefixes are:
A, for air force headquarters;
C, for combined headquarters (multiple nations) headquarters;
F, for certain forward or deployable headquarters;
G, for army or marine general staff sections within headquarters of organizations commanded by a general officer and having a chief of staff to coordinate the actions of the general staff, such as divisions or equivalent organizations (e.g., USMC Marine Aircraft Wing and Marine Logistics Group) and separate (i.e., non-divisional) brigade level (USMC MEB) and above;
J, for joint (multiple services) headquarters, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff);
N, for navy headquarters;
S, for army or marines executive staff sections within headquarters of organizations commanded by a field grade officer (i.e., major through colonel) and having an executive officer to coordinate the actions of the executive staff (e.g., divisional brigades, regiments, groups, battalions, and squadrons; not used by all countries); S is also used in the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions (SeaBees) and in the Air Force Security Forces Squadron.
U, is used for United Nations military operations mission headquarters.
CG, is unique to the US Coast Guard's Assistant Commandants (Headquarters staff), previously using the G prefix.
On some occasions the letter E can also be observed, though it is not an official term. In that case it is for element and it will be used to identify a small independent element, that is a part of a non-staff organization; i.e., an E3 is an operational element on a logistics site or an E4 is a logistics element on a forward medical support site.
Thus, the personnel officer of a naval headquarters would be referred to as N1. In reality, in large organizations each of these staff functions will require the support of its own large staff, so N1 refers both to the office and the officer in charge of it. The continental staff system can be carried down to the next level: J1.3 (or J13, sometimes the dot-separator is omitted) is thus the operations officer of the personnel office of a joint headquarters, but the exact definition of the roles at this level may vary. Below this, numbers can be attached following a hyphen, but these are usually only positional numbers assigned arbitrarily to identify individuals (G2.3-2 could be the budget officer in the operations section of the intelligence department; A1.1-1-1 might simply be a receptionist).
Manpower or personnel: The manpower or personnel officer supervises personnel and administration systems. This department functions as the essential administrative liaison between the subordinate units and the headquarters, handling personnel actions coming from the bottom up (such as a request for an award to be given to a particular soldier) or from the top down (such as orders being received from the army level directing that a particular soldier be reassigned to a new unit outside the command). In army units, this person is often called the Adjutant. The S-1 also works with the postal mailing office, and deals with awards and ranks as well.
Intelligence, security, and information operations: The intelligence section is responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence information about the enemy to determine what the enemy is doing or might do, to prevent the accomplishment of the enemy's mission. This office may also control maps and geographical information systems and data. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Staff (military) | Manpower or personnel: The manpower or personnel officer supervises personnel and administration systems. This department functions as the essential administrative liaison between the subordinate units and the headquarters, handling personnel actions coming from the bottom up (such as a request for an award to be given to a particular soldier) or from the top down (such as orders being received from the army level directing that a particular soldier be reassigned to a new unit outside the command). In army units, this person is often called the Adjutant. The S-1 also works with the postal mailing office, and deals with awards and ranks as well.
Intelligence, security, and information operations: The intelligence section is responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence information about the enemy to determine what the enemy is doing or might do, to prevent the accomplishment of the enemy's mission. This office may also control maps and geographical information systems and data. At the unit level, the S-2 is the unit's security officer, and the S-2 section manages all security clearance issues for the unit's personnel. Other duties of the S-2 often include intelligence oversight and physical security.
Operations: The operations office may include plans and training. The operations office plans and coordinates operations, and all things necessary to enable the formation to operate and accomplish its mission. In most units, the operations office is the largest of the staff sections and considered the most important. All aspects of sustaining the unit's operations, planning future operations, and additionally planning and executing all unit training, fall under the responsibility of operations. The operations office is also tasked with keeping track of the weekly training schedules. In most military units (i.e., battalion, regiment, and brigade), the operations officer carries the same rank as the executive officer (XO), but ranks third in the unit's chain of command while the other staff officers are one rank lower. For example, in a battalion, the S-3 would hold the rank of major (like the battalion XO), while the remaining staff officers are captains or lieutenants.
Logistics: The logistics office is responsible for managing the wide scope of materiel, transport, facilities, services and medical/health support:
Design, development, acquisition, storage, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel.
Transport of personnel and materiel.
Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities.
Acquisition or furnishing of services.
Medical and health service support.
By NATO doctrine, the logistic staff is tasked with overseeing logistic aspects and principles, where the focus is that "logistic support must be focused towards ensuring the success of the operation" and prescriptions of elements such as responsibility and authority. A logistic staff may be divided into sections based on branch or geographic area. Each section may in turn also be divided into tasks and roles. The size of the logistic staff can vary greatly, depending on the environment and complexity of operations. NATO in example work with a "Multinational Joint Logistic Centre", which exists outside of the force commander's staff, but runs as a separate entity/unit, with only a few logistic personnel in the commander's staff who act as liaisons.
Plans and strategy: The plans and strategy office is responsible for civil military operations (CMO) strategy planning. At the unit level, the S-5 is the primary adviser to the commander on the civilian-to-military and military-to-civilian impact of the mission/operation within the host nation's (HN) area of interest (AOI), area of operations (AO), or the target area of interest (TAOI). The G5 serves as the mission support office (MSO) at the division level and HHC for civil military plans and strategy.
Signal (communications and IT): The signal office directs all communications and is the point of contact for the issue of communications instructions and protocol during operations as well as for communications troubleshooting, issue, and preventative maintenance. Communications at this level is paired with digital as well as voice (radio, computer, etc.). At the unit level, S-6 is also usually responsible for all electronic systems within a unit to include computers, faxes, copy machines, and phone systems.
Training: The training branch will organize and coordinate training activity conducted by a Headquarters and also supervise and support subordinate units.
Finance: The finance branch, not to be confused with Administration from which it has split, sets the finance policy for the operation. Operationally, the Administration and Finance may be interlinked, but have separate reporting chains.
CIMIC: Civil-Military Co-operation: Civil-Military Co-operation or civil affairs are the activities that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between the military forces, the government or non-government civilian organizations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile area of operations in order to facilitate military operations and consolidate and achieve mission objectives.
Commonwealth staff system: The "Commonwealth staff system", used by most Commonwealth nations, is largely based on the British military's staff system with nation-specific variations.
By country:
Australia: Following Australia's Federation in 1901, the Australian Commonwealth Military Forces (now the Australian Army) adopted many of the practices of the British Army, including its staff system. While this approach was modified and adapted over the course of the 20th Century, the British three branch system and nomenclature remained a feature of Australian practice until 1997 when it adopted the Common Joint Staff System, based on the NATO or Continental/General Staff System, across all three services. The primary reasons given for this were the ability to standardise staff organisations across the breadth and depth of the services, and; improve interoperability between America, Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as NATO partners that employed this system. At this time the Australian Defence Force also developed its own Joint Military Appreciation Process (JMAP), itself derived from the US Tactical Decision-Making Process and UK Individual Estimate.
Canada: The head of the Royal Canadian Navy, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, is also titled as Chief of Naval Staff.
The head of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, is also titled as Chief of Air Force Staff.
The head of the Canadian
Army, Commander of the Canadian Army, is also titled as Chief of Army Staff.
United Kingdom:
Army staff: The British Staff System was a product of the Esher Committee Report of 1904, which investigated the conduct of the late Victorian era British Army in the Second Anglo-Boer War and the Haldane Reforms from 1906-1912. This staff system was captured in Field Service Regulations, Part II, Organisation and Administration, released in 1909 and later in the Staff Manual 1912. This system remained in use until 1984, when the United Kingdom began to use the Continental or NATO system. The British Staff System was based on the following:
Three branches:
G branch: The general branch, responsible for operations, intelligence and training.
A branch: The administration branch, responsible for all aspects of personnel management.
Q branch: The quartermaster branch, responsible for logistic and equipment support.
Positions: positions were labelled as follows, may also be styled GSO I, GSO II, GSO III:
GSO1, General Staff Officer (Grade 1): The chief of staff, ranked a lieutenant colonel or colonel. He was in charge of the general staff branch, responsible for training, intelligence, planning operations and directing the battle as it progressed. Most orders from the general officer commanding (GOC) were actually written up and signed by the GSO1.
GSO2, General Staff Officer (Grade 2): Ranked a major.
GSO3, General Staff Officer (Grade 3): Ranked a captain.
In the British system, staff are outranked by command officers. The staff cannot in theory (and largely in practice) say "no" to a subordinate unit; only the commander has that ability. This ensured a clear chain of command, and reinforced the idea that staff do not command, but exercise control on behalf of their commander. By contrast, in the American system, commanders are frequently outranked by staff officers. For example, within a battalion, the S-3 is a major while company commanders are captains. The principal staff officers at any HQ were always outranked by the subordinate commanders:
Lieutenant colonels commanding battalions or units in a brigade outrank the brigade major and the deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general
Brigadiers commanding brigades in a division outrank the colonel GS and colonel AQ
Major generals commanding divisions outrank the brigadier GS and assistant adjutant general and assistant quartermaster general at a corps HQ
Brigade level: Branches as brigade were as follows. A and Q branches might be combined under a deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general, rank major (DAA&QMG).
G branch (operations) plans and executes operations. The senior staff officer in brigade HQ held the appointment of brigade major (BM) with rank of captain or major, who coordinated the HQ. While the BM was responsible for the entire HQ, he concentrated mainly on "G" operational matters. A deputy BM GSO III generally looked after non-operational matters. Under the BM were several GSO III (rank captain) officers:
Operations (the senior captain)
Intelligence
Liaison. The Liaison section often had several lieutenants attached from the brigade's combat units.
Air
A branch: It handled all personnel matters such as awards, postings, promotions, medical, chaplains, military police and so forth. There were usually one or two GSO III officers in A branch. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Staff (military) | A and Q branches might be combined under a deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general, rank major (DAA&QMG).
G branch (operations) plans and executes operations. The senior staff officer in brigade HQ held the appointment of brigade major (BM) with rank of captain or major, who coordinated the HQ. While the BM was responsible for the entire HQ, he concentrated mainly on "G" operational matters. A deputy BM GSO III generally looked after non-operational matters. Under the BM were several GSO III (rank captain) officers:
Operations (the senior captain)
Intelligence
Liaison. The Liaison section often had several lieutenants attached from the brigade's combat units.
Air
A branch: It handled all personnel matters such as awards, postings, promotions, medical, chaplains, military police and so forth. There were usually one or two GSO III officers in A branch.
Q Branch: It handled logistics, supply, transport, clothing, maintenance. There was usually one GSO III officer, with a learner captain or lieutenant, and several advisors, all captains:
Brigade Royal Army Service Corps Officer (BRASCO)
Brigade Ordnance Officer (BOO)
Brigade Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Officer (BEME)
Division level: G branch was under the colonel GS (a lieutenant-colonel).
The combined "A" and "Q" staffs was headed by a colonel AQ, who was assisted by an assistant adjutant and quartermaster general (AA&QMG, rank lieutenant-colonel).
Members of the G staff:
A GSO II, acting as deputy to the GSO I. He was responsible for the preparation of orders and instructions as directed by the GSO I; the general organization and working of the "G" office; detailing of duty officers at the Div HQ; coordinating arrangements for moving the Main HQ; details of movement by road in consultation with the DAAG and DAQMG; and general policy regarding HQ defence and the preparation and promulgation of HQ standing orders. (In an armoured division headquarters, the GSO II was responsible for the division tactical HQ and the above duties were done by the GSO III (Operations).)
The GSO III (Operations) was the understudy to the GSO II; he maintained the situation map; prepared situation reports; supervised the acknowledgement register; maintained the command matrix; prepared orders for the move of the orders group; and prepared orders for the move of the division's main HQ.
The GSO III (Operations)(Chemical Warfare) was responsible for all matters dealing with chemical warfare that affected the division; coordinated courses; was responsible for the camouflage policy; maintained the war diary; prepared and maintained location statements; received and distributed codes, call sign lists and other signals information from the divisional signals; coordinated traffic control and organization of routes in the divisional forward area under the GSO II and APM; was understudy to the GSO III (Operations) on all matters less CW.
The GSO III (Intelligence) coordinated all intelligence training and work in the division; coordinated the collection and collation of information about enemy dispositions, methods and intentions; prepared daily intelligence summaries; coordinated interpretation of air photographs with the Army Photographic Interpretation Section (APIS); effected liaison with the APIS, the field security office and the Intelligence Officer, Royal Artillery (at CRA); and was responsible for briefing and handling of press correspondents.
The GSO III (Liaison) coordinated the work of the liaison officers, was responsible for the division information room and served as an understudy to the GSO III (Operations).
Corps level: G branch was headed by the brigadier general staff (BGS, rank: brigadier). The BGS was usually superior to the AAG and AQMG, despite all three having the same rank.
A branch was headed by the Assistant adjutant general (AAG, rank: brigadier). He was assisted by the deputy assistant adjutant general (DAAG, rank lieutenant-colonel).
Q branch was headed by the assistant quartermaster general (AQMG, rank: brigadier).
The G staff for a corps might appear as below:
Operations and staff duties:
GSO I
GSO II (Ops)
GSO II (Ops)(CW)
GSO II (SD) – Staff Duties
2 × GSO III (SD)
Air:
GSO II (Air)
Intelligence:
GSO II (Int)
2 × GSO III (Int)
Liaison:
GSO II (L)
3 × GSO III (L)
Royal Artillery:
GSO II (RA)
GSO II (AA)
GSO III (RA)
Naval staff: The Admiralty War Staff was a former senior command, operational planning department within the Admiralty during World War I. It was instituted on 8 January 1912 and was in effect a war council whose head reported directly to the First Sea Lord. It existed until 1917. After the war ended, it was replaced by the Admiralty Naval Staff department.
The Admiralty Naval Staff was the senior command, operational planning, policy and strategy department within the British Admiralty. It was established in 1917 and existed until 1964 when the department of the Admiralty was abolished and was replaced by the Naval Staff, Navy Department (Ministry of Defence).
See also: Staff college
References:
Further reading: Bartholomees, J. Boone Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861–1865 (University of South Carolina Press, 1998) ISBN 1-57003-220-3.
Crosswell, D.K.R. The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith (Greenwood Press, 1991) ISBN 0-313-27480-0.
Fremont-Barnes, G. (editor) Armies of the Napoleonic Wars (2011)
Goerlitz, Walter History of the German General Staff 1657–1945 (Praeger 1954).
Hittle, James Donald The Military Staff: Its History and Development (Military Service Publishing, 1944)
Jones, R. Steven J The Right Hand of Command: Use and Disuse of Personal Staffs in the American Civil War (Stackpole Books, 2000) ISBN 0-8117-1451-9.
Koch, Oscar W. G-2: Intelligence for Patton: Intelligence for Patton (Schiffer Aviation History, 1999) ISBN 0-7643-0800-9.
Purdy, Leo and Purdy, Tony. 'Primus inter pares vel primos? The Development of the Military Staff in the Australian Army', Australian Army Journal, Vol. 19, No.1, (2023), https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/australian-army-journal-aaj/volume-19-number-1
Pigman, Robyn. "All Systems Green: A Concise History of Chicken Bak Bak and the S-6 Offensive" (Nelson Ltd) ISBN 978-9948150510.
Regele, O.: Generalstabschefs aus vier Jahrhunderten (Vienna 1966)
Watson, S.J. By Command of the Emperor: A Life of Marshal Berthier (Ken Trotman Ltd) ISBN 0-946879-46-X.
Irvine, D.D. The French and Prussian Staff Systems Before 1870 in The Journal of the American Military Foundation Vol. 2, No. 4 (Winter, 1938), pp. 192–203 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3038792?seq=1#fndtn-page_scan_tab_contents)
External links:
Changes needed in the "General Staff" system, research paper.
History of "General Staff" system |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Standing army | History:
Ancient history:
Mesopotamia: Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, is believed to have formed the first standing professional army. Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria (ruled 745–727 BC) created Assyria's first standing army. Tiglath-Pileser III disbanded militias and instead paid professional soldiers for their services. His army was composed largely of Assyrian soldiers but was supplemented with foreign mercenaries and vassal states. The standing army he created was the most sophisticated administrative and economic institution of its time, and was the engine of Assyrian economy which capitalized on warfare.
Ancient Persia
Cyrus the Great formed the first professional army of Persia. The composition of the army varied and developed in the course of time. The empire's great armies were, like the empire itself, very diverse. Its standing army was composed of Persians (the bravest people of empire according to Herodotus) and Medes. This standing army, which may have been reviewed every year by the king or his representative, is called kāra in the inscriptions. At the heart of this army was its elite guard, The 10,000 Immortals. Herodotus describes that if any of these guardsmen drops out owing to death or disease, a substitute is immediately supplied and the number again filled. Thousands of these 10,000 guardsmen composed the royal bodyguards in the palace, their insignia were golden apples or pomegranates at the butts of their spears (accordingly they are named “apple-bearers” by Heraclides Cumaeus).
Ancient Greece: In ancient Greece, the city-states' (poleis) armies were essentially drafted citizen militias. The exception was in ancient Sparta, which had a standing army that trained year-round (and not only in summertime). Through the 5th century, they comprised the only professional soldiers in ancient Greece, aside from hired mercenaries. However, the Spartan army commonly consisted of helots (serfs), who considerably outnumbered the Spartiates, as well as numerous allies of Sparta.
Philip II of Macedon instituted the first true professional Hellenic army, with soldiers and cavalrymen paid for their service year-round, rather than a militia of men who mostly farmed the land for subsistence and occasionally mustered for campaigns.
Ancient China: The Western Zhou maintained a standing army, enabling them to effectively control other city states and spread their influence. Unlike the Western Zhou, the Eastern Zhou initially did not have a standing army. Instead they drafted militias from around 150 city states. While the Eastern Zhao did not initially maintain a standing army, the state of Jin became the first to do so in 678 BCE. The first professional army in China was established by the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, which ushered Imperial China. Under the Qin dynasty, wars were fought by trained vocational soldiers instead of relying on temporary soldiers.
Ancient India: In Ancient India, warfare was first attested during the Vedic period. However, warfare was primarily waged between various clans and kingdoms solely by the kshatriya class during times of conflict. True standing armies in India developed under the Mahajanapadas, which relied on paid professional soldiers year round. The most prominent of the Mahajanapadas was the Kingdom of Magadha. It is accepted that the first standing army of India was created in Maghada by the ruler Bimbisara.
Ancient Rome: Under the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, a standing professional army of the Roman Empire was gradually instituted, with regularized pay. This professional force of legionaries was expensive to maintain, but supported the authority of the empire, not only as combat troops but also as provincial police forces, engineers, and guards. Legionaries were citizen volunteers entitled to a discharge bounty upon 25 years of honorable service; supplementing the legions were the auxilia, auxiliary forces composed of non-citizens in the provinces who typically earned citizenship as a reward for service.
Post-classical history:
Ottoman Empire: The first modern standing armies on European soil during the Middle Ages were the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, which were formed in the 14th century under Sultan Murad I.
France: The first Christian standing army since the fall of the Western Roman Empire to be paid with regular wages, instead of feudal levies, was established by King Charles VII of France in the 1430s while the Hundred Years' War was still raging. As he realized that France needed professional reliable troops for ongoing and future conflicts, units were raised by issuing "ordonnances" to govern their length of service, composition and payment. These compagnies d'ordonnance formed the core of the French gendarmes that dominated European battlefields in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They were stationed throughout France and summoned into larger armies when needed. Provisions were also made for franc-archers and foot soldiers raised from the non-noble classes, but those units were disbanded at the end of the Hundred Years' War.
The bulk of the infantry for warfare was still provided by urban or provincial militias, raised from an area or city to fight locally and named for their recruiting grounds. Gradually these units became more permanent, and in the 1480s, Swiss instructors were recruited and some of the 'bandes' (militia) were combined to form temporary 'legions' of up to 9,000 men. The men would be paid and contracted and would receive training.
Henry II further regularised the French army by forming standing infantry regiments to replace the militia structure. The first, the Régiments de Picardie, Piémont, Navarre and Champagne, were called Les Vieux Corps (The Old Corps). It was normal policy to disband regiments after a war was over to save costs. The Vieux Corps and the king's own household troops (the Maison militaire du roi de France) were the only survivors.
Hungary: The Black Army, established in 1462 by Hungarian king, Matthias Hunyadi was the first Central/Eastern European standing army. However, while the Black Army was certainly the first standing field army in that part of Europe, Hungary in fact had maintained a permanent army in the form of garrisons of border fortresses since the 1420s.
Matthias recognized the importance and key role of early firearms in the infantry, which greatly contributed to his victories.
Every fourth soldier in the Black Army had an arquebus, which was an unusual ratio at the time. The high price of medieval gunpowder prevented them from raising it any further. The main troops of the army were the infantry, artillery and light and heavy cavalry. The function of the heavy cavalry was to protect the light armoured infantry and artillery, while the other corps delivered sporadic, surprise assaults on the enemy.
Songhai Empire: In West Africa, the Songhai Empire under the Askia Mohammad I (1493–1528) possessed a full-time corps of 40,000 professional warriors. Al-Sa'di, the chronicler who wrote the Tarikh al-Sudan, compared Askia Mohammad I's army to that of his predecessor; "he distinguished between the civilian and the army unlike Sunni Ali [1464–92] when everyone was a soldier." Askia Mohammad I is said to have possessed cynical attitudes towards kingdoms that lacked professional armies like his, notably in reference to the neighboring kingdoms in the land of Borgu.
Majapahit Empire: The Majapahit thalassocracy was recorded by a Chinese observer as having 30,000 full-time professional troops, whose soldiers and commanders were paid in gold. This shows the existence of a standing army, an achievement that only a handful of Southeast Asian empires could hope to achieve.: 185 : 467 In addition to these professional soldiers, Majapahit was strengthened by troops from subordinate countries and regional leaders.: 277 As was common in Southeast Asia, Majapahit also used a levy system, in fact, the majority of the Majapahit troops were a levy.: 111–113
Spain: The Spanish Empire tercios were the first Spanish standing units composed of professional soldiers. Their pike and shot composition assured predominance in the European battlefields from the 16th century to the first half of the 17th century. Although other powers adopted the tercio formation, their armies fell short of the fearsome reputation of the Spanish, whose core of professional soldiers gave them an edge that was hard for other states to match.
England and Great Britain: Prior to the influence of Oliver Cromwell, England lacked a standing army, instead relying on militia organized by local officials, private forces mobilized by the nobility and hired mercenaries from Europe. This changed during the English Civil War, when Cromwell formed his New Model Army of 50,000 men. This professional body of soldiers proved more effective than untrained militia, and enabled him to exert control over the country. The army was disbanded by Parliament following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, and the Cromwellian model was initially considered a failure due to various logistical and political problems with the force.
The Militia Act 1661 prohibited local authorities from assembling militia without the approval of the king, to prevent such a force being used to oppress local opponents. |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Standing army | England and Great Britain: Prior to the influence of Oliver Cromwell, England lacked a standing army, instead relying on militia organized by local officials, private forces mobilized by the nobility and hired mercenaries from Europe. This changed during the English Civil War, when Cromwell formed his New Model Army of 50,000 men. This professional body of soldiers proved more effective than untrained militia, and enabled him to exert control over the country. The army was disbanded by Parliament following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, and the Cromwellian model was initially considered a failure due to various logistical and political problems with the force.
The Militia Act 1661 prohibited local authorities from assembling militia without the approval of the king, to prevent such a force being used to oppress local opponents. This weakened the incentive for local officials to draw up their own fighting forces, and King Charles II subsequently assembled four regiments of infantry and cavalry, calling them his guards, at a cost of £122,000 paid out of his regular budget. This became the foundation of the permanent British Army. By 1685 it had grown to 7,500 soldiers in marching regiments, and 1,400 men permanently stationed in garrisons. The Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 provided James II with a pretext to increase the size of the force to 20,000 men, and there were 37,000 in 1688, when England played a role in the closing stage of the Franco-Dutch War. In 1689, William III expanded the army to 74,000, and then to 94,000 in 1694.
Nervous at the power such a large force afforded the king whilst under his personal command, Parliament reduced the cadre to 7,000 in 1697. Scotland and Ireland had theoretically separate military establishments, but they were de facto merged with the English force. The Bill of Rights 1689 officially reserved authority over a standing army to Parliament, not the king.
In his influential work The Wealth of Nations (1776), economist Adam Smith comments that standing armies are a sign of modernizing society, as modern warfare requires the increased skill and discipline of regularly trained standing armies.
United States: In the British Thirteen Colonies in America, there was a strong distrust of a standing army not under civilian control. The U.S. Constitution in (Article 1, Section 8) limits federal appropriations to two years, and reserves financial control to Congress, instead of to the President. The President, however, retains command of the armed forces when they are raised, as commander-in-chief. The Framers' suspicion of a standing army is reflected in the constitutional requirement that the appointment and promotion of high-ranking military officers (like civil officers) be confirmed by the Senate. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Elbridge Gerry argued against a large standing army, comparing it, mischievously, to a standing penis: "An excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure." After the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814, during the War of 1812, in which the Maryland and Virginia militias were soundly defeated by the British Army, President James Madison commented, "I could never have believed so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I not witnessed the scenes of this day."
See also: Regular army
List of militaries by country
List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel
List of armies by country
== References == |
mil_tactics_continued_pretraining.csv | Strategic defence | See also: Defence in depth
Strategic depth
Notes:
Sources: Dupuy, Trevor N., Understanding War: Military History And The Theory Of Combat, Leo Cooper, New York, 1986
Thompson, Julian, Lifeblood of war: logistics in armed conflict, Brassey's Classics, London, 1991
Recommended reading: The Adelphi Papers, Volume 359, Number 1, August 1, 2003 Stephen J. Lukasik; S.E. Goodman; D.W. Longhurst, Chapter 2: Strategic Defence Options, pp. 15–24(10) |