Editor’s Note
In Part I, the author discusses the international geopolitical and security environment, with nations engaging in multi-domain strategies and operations. The author underscores the pivotal role of firepower, including artillery and unmanned aerial systems (UAS), in combined arms operations. This firepower serves as a conventional deterrent and a decisive factor for victory in battle. In Part II, the author covers the actual use and integration of firepower in current battles and outlines what India should do to prepare for future confrontations or conflicts.
Ongoing Wars: Integration of Firepower Assets (Artillery), UAS
UASs are increasingly part of a network of collaborative platforms and systems in a contested battlespace. The figure below illustrates a UAS acting as the link to multiple platforms and systems, which could include satellites, multi-role fighters, long-range bombers, aerial refuelling aircraft, destroyers and cruisers, carrier strike groups, expeditionary bases, command-control-communication centres, and long-range fires. To communicate across these platforms and systems (sensor-shooter integration), UASs need to pass information through layered networks, including tactical targeting network technology (TTNT), Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), multiband satellite communications (SATCOM), Link 16, and mesh networks (mainly NATO terms but all nations would need these).
Kill Chains: A new term, “kill chains”, has emerged, which is the process of gaining an understanding of the battlefield, identifying a possible target, determining the target’s location and other pertinent information, deliberating what action to take, and making a decision (such as conducting a strike). The UASs are an important part of the “reconnaissance strike complex”, designed for the coordinated employment of high-precision, long-range weapons linked to real-time intelligence data and accurate targeting. Russian forces have used a variety of UASs and loitering munitions in Ukraine, including the Orlan-10 and 30, Forpost-R, Eleron-3, Granat-1 and 2, Israeli Zastava, mini UAS Takhion-4, Orion, and loitering ammunition ZALA-421.
Integrated Firepower Operations in the Ukraine War
In one operation, Ukrainian ground forces used forward-deployed UASs to identify a Russian infantry unit near Bakhmut in Donetsk, Oblast and fed the information to a command and control centre, which passed it to Ukrainian soldiers that hit the Russian unit with a 122-mm howitzer. Ukrainian forces have utilised Kropyva, an intelligence mapping and artillery software populated by information from UASs and other sources. Forward-deployed tactical units have downloaded and continuously updated the software on handheld tablets and computers. Ukraine has leveraged Starlink, a commercially owned (Elon Musk) satellite internet constellation that provides high-speed, low-latency broadband internet using advanced satellites in low earth orbit for identification.
A Ukrainian military official noted, “We use Starlink equipment and connect the drone team with our artillery team. If we use a drone with thermal vision at night, the drone must connect through Starlink to the artillery guy and create target acquisition.”
Russians have employed Eleron-3 or Orlan-10 UASs to identify potential targets, such as Ukrainian C3 centres, infantry or main battle tanks; pass the information, including the type of target and its coordinates, to command and control facilities; and distribute it to systems that can strike the target, such as 2S19 Msta-S 152-mm self-propelled howitzers or Tornado-S 300-mm multiple launch rocket systems: as fast as within 3 to 5 mins, while with electronic warfare direction finding, acoustic reconnaissance, or counter-battery artillery radar, it might take Russian artillery half an hour for accurate artillery fire. If Russian forces are able to keep a UAS on a target, they can adjust fire in near real-time, even if the target is moving.
Strikes by UAVs/Drones: Russia and Ukraine have utilised UASs for strike missions, including against land, air, and maritime targets. Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 drones have struck numerous Russian targets, such as howitzers, main battle tanks, supply trucks, towed artillery, maritime vessels, command posts, logistics depots, and Buk, Tor, Strela, and ZU-23 air defence systems. Illustrating UAS deployment in a multi-domain environment, between April 26 and May 8, 2022, Ukrainian TB2s targeted several Raptor-class patrol boats, a Sarna-class landing craft, and helicopters in and near the Black Sea.
Russia, too, conducted strikes with UASs, including Orlan-10s armed with freefall high-explosive fragmentation grenades. Russian forces have also utilized Iranian Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 UASs to strike targets deep inside Ukrainian territory. These UASs posed challenges for the Ukrainian military because they can fly at low altitudes, making it difficult for air defences to detect them. Strategically, causing anxiety within the international community, during May/June 2023, Ukraine used UAS to strike wealthy districts of Moscow.
Thoughts Impacting Indian Conflict Zones
The rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape and the concept of multi-domain threats have emerged as a defining feature of our security challenges. Our adversaries’ integration of capabilities across various domains, including land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace, creates complex and interconnected challenges for our armed forces. The terrain conditions in the Himalayas are similar to the Rasputitsa conditions in Ukraine, whereby movement will be restricted to the roads to a large extent. The move of infantry and mechanised forces will be severely limited. Employment of Air will be restricted by fickle Himalayan weather. The battles will be fought mainly by Infantry and Artillery. Hence the value of firepower will increase manifold. A few more aspects are highlighted:
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- Integration of ISR Resources: Transparency of the battlefield to include close combat and at operational and strategic depth has now become a sine quo to dominate the battle space. Commanders at all levels need to know what is happening within their area of influence. Firepower assets must have real-time sensor-shooter links in a fast-paced battlefield. Artillery, hence, requires dedicated, integrated ISR capabilities to bring down accurate, timely and effective fires.
- Integrated and Integral Resources: The fine distinction between integral and integrated needs to be bridged. Just as attack helicopters and mechanised forces must operate hand in glove, providing intimate support, dedicated ISR resources, especially UAS, must be allocated to artillery. The command and control of UAS assets (both recce and combat—under Army Aviation) in the Indian Army needs to be reviewed.
- Conflict Zone: a Paradox: The war zone spaces have paradoxically both expanded and contracted! Transparency, long-range vector contracts, and concurrent battle space have expanded to include operational and strategic depth due to multi-domain kinetic and non-kinetic assets. The Ukraine war has amply demonstrated the destructive capability and potency of both close and deep fires. We need to urgently expand our firepower resources in numbers, quality and range. I must state here that while technology and firepower can substitute manpower to some extent, boots on the ground are ultimately required both to hold and capture ground.
- Whether against Pakistan or China, India’s emerging firepower assets will dominate the battlefield. Against Pakistan, it will be the ‘battle winner’, and against China, it will be a deterring force. The main source of firepower in the mountains is Artillery since the Air Force might not be as effective due to the vagaries of weather and terrain conditions. The increasing density and lethality of air defence systems like S400 will limit the role and effectiveness of offensive Air Power.
- Hypersonic/cruise/guided missiles, rockets, guns, and UAS will deter our adversaries from launching any misadventure; it is imperative to increase capabilities and capacities.
- Employment of Deep Fires: This concept is now essential to dominating the conflict zone. It needs to be fine-tuned, and we must apply it while conducting MDO.
Conclusion
Firepower and artillery have been used to break through/breach enemy defences to enable and generate movement, and conversely, firepower has also been used to fix and restrict the enemy’s manoeuvres during recent wars. Our adversaries will analyse these conflicts minutely. Like Russia, China, too, lays great emphasis on firepower, especially the employment of rockets and missiles. Their concept is to fight under conditions of informatisation, using precision strike capabilities to paralyse enemy operational systems as part of their system destruction warfare.
For us, capacity and capability building and integration of firepower are operational imperatives. The concept of deep fires needs a credible and sufficient arsenal and integration of all sensor-shooter links. Firepower’s predominance is even more applicable along India’s unique contested borders, and it must get the right impetus to modernise and grow. Indian Armed Forces have come a long way, and we continuously strive to train and equip our armed forces to fight an MDW whenever called upon to do so.
Lt Gen PR Kumar (Retd)
