The sparse battlefield – a contribution to the debate

Recently, two very interesting articles have been published about the sparse battlefield. Robert Dalsjö (@MansRAD), FOI, has in issue 3/2019 of KKrVA Documents and Journal described how today's limited availability of units, both for us and for an attacker, can lead to, or rather has already led to, a completely new operational and tactical environment. There will be no fixed fronts. Instead, we can expect freely operating, "roaming", battle groups that appear over large, mainly troop-free, areas. An attacker will have good opportunities to penetrate deep and threaten our vital infrastructure such as maintenance areas, airfields, ports, etc. In addition, the risk is imminent that, if the enemy is allowed to "run wild", it will lead to us losing control of what is happening. Something that, from experience, leads to paralysis of action, resignation and ultimately capitulation.

The Finnish defense debater Robin Häggblom (@CorporalFrisk) has followed up Dalsjö's reasoning on the KKrVA blog, on January 7, 2019, where he partly downplays the sparseness, but then from a Finnish perspective with the, relatively to Sweden, considerably greater availability of units. He also points out that the phenomenon itself is not new. It was only in connection with the First World War that fixed fronts became the rule. In addition, the sparse battlefield was a not infrequent phenomenon during the Second World War, for example in northern Finland. Sometimes it will be more frequent, sometimes less. This depends on geography, balance of power and the goals of the attacker's activities.

Both authors call for a broader debate on the subject. A difficult temptation to resist as former head of the Tactical Department in the Army Staff. What can and should be done to deal with the phenomenon? A discussion that is especially urgent in Sweden, a very large country with limited access to troops. Both yesterday and even more so today.

Not even during the Cold War, when we had on the order of two hundred ground combat battalions, not counting the Home Guard, was there the possibility of meeting an attacker over the entire surface, for example after he had achieved a breakthrough or had landed in undefended areas, by simply placing troops in his way, delaying, defending, and thereby trying to stop him. The attacker could quite easily circumvent such attempts on our part. Or if the resistance was weak, move on.

Just to illustrate the problem somewhat. Sweden has a land area of ​​407 square kilometers. If we exclude areas that are probably completely uninteresting for attackers to operate in, large parts of the mountains, a number of islands, etc., we can perhaps assume that slightly less than half of Sweden's area, say 340 square kilometers, could be interesting from a military point of view. To advance through or to occupy. Assuming that a Swedish battalion at that time could delay or defend within an area of ​​about 200 x 000 km, we would have had the ability to handle about 5 square kilometers - if we had chosen to act passively, and just "get in the way" of the attacker's units. An impossible tactic linked to the areas that were, and are, relevant. The answer was that we prioritized the counterattack – to prevent such a growth of force that in the next step would lead to the enemy being able to appear deep in our territory or where he threatened to break through in areas where we were engaged in delaying warfare or had organized a firm defense.

The important thing here is not the exact count of square kilometers, but rather the observation that even with the two hundred ground combat battalions of the time, and just as many functional battalions such as artillery, engineers, etc., the sparse battlefield was largely a problem that we had to take into account even then. However, as Dalsjö points out, the problem has taken on completely different dimensions today. Thanks to modern transport technology, at sea and in the air, the attacker has considerably greater opportunities to choose the time and place to reach Swedish territory. The opponent is more mobile and the individual units have greater firepower and can also be supported by weapons systems that are at a great distance from the location where the unit is operating. At the same time, we no longer have the same opportunities to limit his movements through delaying combat or defense.

The sparse battlefield of today could perhaps be compared to naval combat. Units that operate over large areas, without fixed lines of support and that have good opportunities to decide for themselves when, and under what circumstances, they choose to take action. What we will see are battle groups of one or a few battalions advancing a few kilometers wide and deep, where the advance, flank and rear patrols consist of drones that scan the terrain for several miles in all directions to try to see the opponent's activities and identify alternative routes of advance. The connections to the rear will not be specifically tied to certain roads or routes. However, there is a big difference, compared to naval combat, the battle groups are geographically on their way somewhere. Take and hold terrain or destroy something. The attacker must therefore, sooner or later, be stopped.

Robert Dalsjö gives some suggestions on how he believes the Army should develop as a consequence of the sparse battlefield. The most important components there would be:

• an expansion of maneuver units and then with good capabilities for encounter combat,
• long-range combat systems for both combat and for delaying an attacker with remotely placed mines, and specially organized airborne and ground-based target designation systems,
• hunter units, home guards and local defense units with a focus on being able to delay an attacker,
• helicopter-borne ground combat units to be able to quickly place them in the path of an attacker's flanking units,
• good ability to utilize foreign aircraft systems to combat ground targets.

Since I have a different view from Dalsjö in some respects about what different systems and units can be expected to accomplish, and perhaps also when it comes to the overall principle of how the battle on the sparse battlefield should be fought, I begin by commenting on his proposal. I then present my view of how the battle should be fought. I have also tried to consider how the ground battle must create conditions for the Navy and Air Force to operate over time, as well as to prepare the ground for receiving foreign assistance.

When it comes to the possibilities of using different systems and units to delay an attacker's advance, I have a considerably more pessimistic view than Dalsjö. It will be almost impossible to delay an attacker's advance over larger areas through operations with different types of "shooting units" if these are not given the opportunity to make good preparations. Masking, laying mines, clearing firing fields, etc., something that takes time. Here there may be reason to recall the previous illustration regarding the relationship between the current areas where an opponent may possibly appear and the possibilities of being on site in advance and then preparing, before the opponent is there, if he gets there at all.

The road network in southern Sweden (south of the Dalälven) is so widely branched and extensive that virtually every static position, minefield or destroyed connection can be fairly easily bypassed with a few kilometers, or in the worst case a few miles of extra driving. Something that might take an hour or two. The question is whether it is even always a question of bypassing, but perhaps more of choosing another route, based on today's very good map data or information from the airborne reconnaissance systems, drones, which will function as a pre-patrol for the advancing battle group.

Upper Norrland offers better opportunities for delaying operations due to the sparser road network, but it is not quite as sparse as it is often portrayed. Forest roads, for example, are also excellent for mechanized units. In addition, the terrain between the roads is often passable for armored tracked vehicles. The previously stated need for an attacker to create reasonably safe maintenance roads with good capacity to supply large, resource-consuming units will also have largely disappeared. As Dalsjö points out, if the units do not end up in combat to any great extent, the resource consumption is small. Probably no greater than the need for replenishment can be met, for example, by helicopter transport. Trying to cut off the attacker's maintenance roads may therefore be a blow in the air.

To delay by using rifle units, of whatever kind, to attack a highly mobile mechanized opponent is absurd in itself. Lack of firepower, mobility and protection will then lead to devastating consequences for the units. This is especially true on a sparse battlefield where the mechanized units will have good room to maneuver. The question is also to what extent the opponent will be vulnerable to attacks by units other than those with the same, or better, mobility than himself.

Long-range indirect fire systems, such as MLRS, are exceptionally potent, but also have weaknesses. A battery of three launchers could cover most airports or ports with a volley of sub-warheads that work on soft targets (a form of action that we have, however, renounced by signing the Convention against Cluster Munitions). Ordinary fragmentation warheads are less effective and cover smaller areas, but still provide good effect. The systems can also deliver homing warheads. There are also warheads with which it is possible to spread mines over large areas. With ranges of approximately 40-90 kilometers depending on the rocket type (there are variants with even longer ranges), it would be a very valuable system for inflicting losses on an attacker in the early stages of an attack, unloading or air landing. He is then still catchable in one place and has not had time to take protected groups in buildings or covered terrain. However, the system is less suitable for combating units that are moving. After all, it takes a number of minutes before one can expect fire on the target, even under the most favorable circumstances. A unit moving at 30 km/h moves five kilometers in ten minutes. In addition, against units grouped in forests, or in buildings, e.g. when resting, the effectiveness decreases considerably. The conclusion is that our tactics should force an attacker's unit to gather large parts of its units in a limited area for a certain period of time. We can achieve this by, among other things, forcing him to carry out attacks in order to advance, or if the attacker has to protect himself against our attacks. By natural necessity, as they operate at long distances, they are also strongly dependent on functioning information transmission systems. They can be disrupted. This also applies to our long-range systems, when we acquire such. But it should not be forgotten that those who fight on their own soil have greater opportunities to prepare alternative, and thus more redundant, solutions for information transmission. But such a system must be prepared and can therefore hardly be a backup system that covers the entire country. Certain areas and locations must be prioritized.

Regarding the possibilities of receiving support from allied aviation, it is not only a question of the ability to designate targets that is important, but also that other countries have weapons, especially area-covering weapons, which we have thoughtlessly renounced. However, here there are the same problems as with the use of long-range ground-based fire systems, although even more pronounced. This concerns both the time between detection/combat capability and effect on the target, but above all in terms of availability over time, fire readiness. Here too, it is therefore a question of making the attacker's mobile units arrestable by forcing them to stop and gather in smaller areas.

However, the sparse battlefield is nothing new, as Robin Häggblom points out in his article. Perhaps there is reason to look to history. Even if most of it can be proven with examples from military history, it would be unwise to ignore the fact that many have already been confronted with similar problems before.

Just over a hundred years ago, roving armies, which moved fairly freely over large areas, were the norm. But a prerequisite for them to be able to operate was usually that there were fortified cities, or fortresses, which limited an opponent's freedom of movement and helped to secure the armies' supplies. An example could be Gustav II Adolf's, during the Thirty Years' War, dependence on the coastal cities in northern Germany to maintain relations with Sweden. Mainly then for the supply of ammunition, weapons and soldiers. Otherwise, the armies of that time lived in the countryside, buying on the spot or plundering. As Dalsjö points out, this could later again become a new feature on the sparse battlefield. At least for a ruthless attacker, to a lesser extent for us.

The problems that Field Marshal Erich von Manstein faced in the winter of 1943 are partly similar to the sparse battlefield that Dalsjö describes. In the final stages of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Russians tried to cut off the entire Army Group A consisting of about 1943 men in southeastern Ukraine with a new, large-scale offensive in January-February 500. An even larger Stalingrad was under way. After a number of breakthroughs in the weak German front, several Russian battle groups moved almost freely over an area of ​​about 000 x 200 km. Manstein then chose the solution of concentrating his meager attack resources and hitting one Russian stronghold at a time, while allowing the others to advance largely undisturbed. The small number (relatively speaking) of units that Manstein had at his disposal would not have been enough to try to stop the various Russian strongholds at the same time – the few German units would have been beaten individually if they had been split up into “small packages”. Admittedly, the chosen tactics led to losses and crisis situations on the German side, including the destruction of a large and important air base and the threat of Russian units to the very important Zaporozhe maintenance center, which was located about 400 km behind the former front line, but the end result was that the Russian offensive was halted, and Army Group A was given the opportunity to escape the trap. Manstein may have had in mind Frederick II of Prussia's dictum "Whoever wants to defend everything, defends nothing". A conclusion the king based on his experiences from the many campaigns he led during the late 200th century.

The battles in North Africa during the Second World War also have great similarities to what Dalsjö describes. There we may also come closest to the parallel with naval warfare. Uninhabited desert, few decisive terrain areas and great distances. The one who did not "plot away" their resources was usually the one who won success. But there too there were certain places that had to be defended so that the maneuver units could operate, even if they were few: including Tobruk and Tripolis for maintenance and the channeling Halfaya Pass.

Further ideas can perhaps also be drawn from the Vietnam War. The Americans were forced to establish protected fire support bases and maintenance areas such as Khe San and Da Nang as they could not prevent the Vietnamese from moving fairly freely over large parts of the country.

To what extent the war on the ground will look like Dalsjö sketches, and which historical experiences may have the greatest value, cannot be predicted precisely. But the fact that the battles will often cover large geographical areas where there will be sparse separation between the units, both our own and the attacker's, is a problem we must be able to handle. The fact that we will also not have enough resources to be in every place where the attacker appears is not only likely, it must be considered a fundamental value for how the Army should develop.

Based on the reasoning above, I would suggest a number of tactical principles, tactical abilities, for how to handle the sparse battlefield, we must be able to:

• Influence an attacker in the very early stages of his arrival in Swedish territory with the aim of inflicting losses on him.
• Locate and track battle groups moving across the surface.
• Reduce the advance speed of battle groups to make them susceptible to attack and combat with long-range systems.
• Beat the battle groups gradually (and thus accept that some will be able to act fairly freely for quite a long time).
• Prevent warring groups from supporting each other.
• Make it difficult for battle groups to receive support from long-range combat systems during combat deep within Swedish territory.
• Limit an attacker's freedom of movement in a number of areas that are crucial to the overall capability of the Armed Forces, and where preparations have been made to receive foreign assistance.

At first glance, most of the points can be seen as obvious: “this is how we have always done it”. Yes, tactical principles are in many ways timeless. But the methods vary. The benefit of listing and highlighting them is that they form the basis for developing the organization so that what is being sought can also be implemented. It is equally important to sort out principles that are not applicable, such as “breakthroughs should be immediately met with counterattacks to restore the front line” or “the battle should be based on strong defensive positions against which the enemy should destroy his attack power”. In and of themselves conceivable principles in some other context, but not here. It is moderately talented to acquire weapons systems or conduct exercises if you are not clear about what you want to achieve and how different capabilities complement each other. There is no reason to create the ability to beat the attacker's battle groups if they cannot be located, just as there is no reason to locate them if we cannot beat them.

Linked to the sparse battlefield, there are also some specific factors that we can exploit, or must take into account.

• If we want to make an attacker susceptible, we must have potent systems that have a mobility advantage over an attacker moving on the ground, both to make him susceptible to attack and to make it difficult for different combat groups to unite.
• An inherent weakness of the attacker's battle groups is their relatively low maintenance reliability; if they are forced into battle, they will quickly need to be supplied with supplies, primarily ammunition.
• An attacker's battle groups will be largely dependent on long-range support to be able to engage other qualified units.

Translated to a more concrete level, how to develop the Army, it would mean that:

• There must be long-range combat systems in order to: early on make it difficult for an attacker to bring units into Sweden via otherwise undefended locations, and at long distances be able to inflict losses on an attacker when we have affected their ability to act in a dispersed and mobile manner.
• We must have the ability to, at least in two parts of the country simultaneously, through mobile combat, and gradually, be able to defeat enemy combat groups consisting of several battalions – this requires qualified, versatile, assault units that act in concert and have enough endurance to conduct repeated battles. The fact that it would be possible to move larger units between southern and northern Sweden within a reasonable time has nothing to do with reality.
• There must be a component that makes it possible to conduct "active hunting" over large areas with the aim of inflicting losses on the attacker and thereby forcing him to take various protective measures. Something that reduces both his mobility and freedom of action to optimally utilize his weapon systems. It makes him vulnerable to attack and makes it difficult for different combat groups to support each other. Here we are talking about systems such as attack helicopters and armed drones.
• In connection with attacks against an attacker's battle groups, it is important to be able to continuously, for several days, combat helicopters and transport aircraft that an attacker can use to supply supplies.
• We must select a number of areas that can serve as platforms for our battle and where attackers cannot achieve rapid success by acting only with a single battle group. By defining the areas in advance, in peace, there are good opportunities to make preparations and thus get good effect from other types of units than distinct assault units. Here there is reason to look at the concept that Sebastian Merlöv (@SMerloev) describes in his post on the KKrVA blog, January 14, 2019, although on a larger scale. By talking about smaller areas (relatively speaking), the unit density can become high enough that the attacker no longer has the advantage of being able to maneuver freely – the sparse battlefield becomes less sparse. To avoid misunderstandings, these are not “fortified” areas, but areas where we can limit his freedom of movement to gain time and make the attacker susceptible to combat and attack.
• The areas that appear to be particularly important operationally are Boden/Luleå, Östersund/Trondheim, Stockholm/Södertörn, Blekinge, Västergötland/Gothenburg. They are also relatively favorable terrain-wise from a defense and delaying point of view, where one can get good results from combat with different types of rifle and fighter units. The areas are large enough to constitute platforms for one's own land, sea and air combat operations, while at the same time they are not larger than that occasional attacks by moderately large enemy combat groups into the areas can be hindered, but not prevented, for a certain time with a reasonable troop effort.
• Movement and combat over large areas will make the attacker dependent on well-functioning communications and information systems to ensure support from various long-range weapon systems, to exercise command and control, and to obtain intelligence on our operations. Our ability to conduct qualified electronic warfare in various forms will therefore be an important component in reducing both the offensive and defensive capabilities of battle groups.
• All ground functions in the Armed Forces must have the ability to conduct qualified ground combat, if only for the purpose of self-defense. Artillery, command, transport, base units, etc. will all run the risk of being attacked by a mechanized opponent, which places demands on appropriate weapons equipment, and even more so on the training of soldiers and officers – everyone must be reasonably good infantrymen.

Having said this about the sparse battlefield – it doesn't always have to be that way. It is conceivable that situations could arise where an attacker, if he only has the ambition to control a smaller part of the country in order to be able to use it as a platform for various long-range systems, tries to create a reasonably coherent front to protect these systems, say in southern Skåne as a conceivable example.

The outlined model also provides good opportunities to handle such a situation through the fairly strong attack component it contains, combined with long-range combat systems. In order to protect a sufficiently large area, the attacker will then be forced to deploy, and over time ship over or fly in, large forces. Something that would give our air and naval forces good opportunities to operate, even if the attack was launched by surprise and we thus had limited opportunities to influence his initial supply of ground combat units. In addition, the areas that we have defined as crucial for our operations, which often also coincide with those that attackers would like to exploit, will also not be able to be taken with limited efforts. Within these areas, there will also be pronouncedly good opportunities to meet various "gray zone threats".

Of course, what is sketched above is a larger army than the one proposed by the Defence Committee. Approximately twice as large, and with certain weapons systems that are not currently in the plans. But it is an army designed to meet the threats we may face and not a function of the garrisons that happened to remain after the closures in the early 2000s. This autumn's defence decision, regarding the period 2021-25, can therefore only be a starting point for creating a credible and thus deterrent warfare capability.

The author is a major general and member of the Swedish Armed Forces.