Action by the army extends into the air, where it uses its own means of firepower and movement. There is an increasing need for manned or remotely-controlled aircraft to support military operations and ensure their effectiveness.
Air, Space and Ground Action
The Army is a major player in the third dimension: it has its own light aviation section (Avitation légère de l’Armée de terre—ALAT) whose 300 aircraft cover the whole range of aérocombat—air combat in support of ground operations. It is a European reference in this field, capable of conducting long, high-order operations in either French national or coalition formats, following national or international modes of operation.
It also has for a considerable number of years been recognised for its expertise in the world of airborne drones and was a pioneer with its use of the CL89 and 289. Today, it operates some thirty of the Sperwer interim tactical drone system (SDTI) (1) and just under a hundred Tracker intelligence-gathering drones (DRAC) (2). It will soon have the Patroller, more than a hundred Spy Ranger intelligence mini-drones (SMDR) (3) and a host of contact mini-drones. The Chief of the Army Staff will then become the employing authority for more than 1,000 airborne drones in addition to the helicopters and other aircraft of the ALAT, with all that implies in terms of training, management of airspace and, of course, aeronautical security.
The artillery should also be mentioned since it too uses a lot of airspace, with firing trajectories that occupy impressive volumes. The trajectory of the 120 mm mortar, with a range of some 10 km (6 miles), exceeds 4 km (13,000 feet) in altitude; that of Caesar(4), whose range is up to 40 km (25 miles), can have a trajectory close to 20 km (65,000 feet) in height. The LRU,(5) with its 80 km (50 mile) range, requires clearance of a mush larger airspace. Furthermore, the Army regularly uses the third dimension tactically, for its parachute units for example, and logistically for the positioning and support of deployed forces. It is not obsessed by action on the ground: its eyes are constantly looking upwards, be that for establishing communications, obtaining images from different sensors or for action within the electromagnetic spectrum.
The future of the Army is therefore intimately linked to space and aeronautics from the point of view of capability as well as in its manner of conducting operations.
A modern army, actor in an air-ground environment
Anything relating to the air and to space immediately inspires in the collective imagination an impression of modernity and high technology. It reduces ground combat to rustic simplicity: a form of warfare that has developed little since the era of trenches and puttees. It is as if the vigour in the army comes from its speed of movement alone. That impression could not be more wrong!
The French Army today develops the warrior spirit so essential to the fighting soldier by drawing on the traditions of his or her arm, mastery of high technology and an unfailing will to dominate the adversary. Moreover, it is fully engaged in the twenty-first century notably with the Scorpion programme. Scorpion is a good example of collaborative combat, the system bringing together captors and effectors in a theatre intranet, which in real time allows the instantaneous transmission of alerts and the reticulation of units. It opens the way for even better exploitation of opportunity through use of artificial intelligence. Scorpion puts the Army firmly in the world of high technology.
The army’s zone of action extends from the ground to the lower layer of air-space, which is quite naturally an extension of ground manoeuvres, and which is why we speak today of air-ground action. The Army has the right assets for optimum management and organisation of this space, such as surveillance radars and coordination systems. It is also able to defend it by sharing its air defence with the Air Force. The subject becomes even more complex given that with few fixed and mobile assets we have to protect moving force concentrations whose very movement increases their need for protection as they advance. This supporting defence manoeuvre requires close coordination between assets operating in the third dimension (CI3D), including where necessary those of Air Force, such as the medium range ground to air system SAMP (6) and the Crotale new generation short range anti-air system SACP NG (7). CI3D is for the Army a field of strategic competence that is shared with the other armed forces.
An army that depends on space
All modern combat depends to a great degree on satellite data with its accuracy, high information rate and security. It is essential to highly precise positioning of units, particularly for Blue Force Tracking (8) and for firing certain munitions. It also adds value to information that combines positional data with digitised terrain data derived from satellite imagery. The Army makes great use of long-distance satellite communications, which are both secure and resilient. With Syracuse IV, a high data rate system, it can instantly share images, video and alerts. Additionally, the element of intelligence that comes from space or transits through it should not be forgotten.
Future command systems, in the air and on the ground, will need to make the very best use of informational superiority. The Army would therefore count on the Air Force to fight the battle in space to protect our satellites and if necessary disable others. At the same time, the Army intends to develop its capabilities to benefit fully from equal shares of the services supplied by space assets such as Comsat (communication by satellite), which should be fitted to its aircraft and larger drones.
Mastery of air-ground combat
Following this look at capabilities, we come to the way combat is perceived. The synergy between ground and low-flying airborne assets has led to formalising the concept of aérocombat, air combat in support of ground operations, which is the ALAT’s preferred mode of operation. By combining the advantages of each component committed to an action (the agility of helicopters, power of ground-ground artillery, infantry and the engineers’ ability to hold, clear and service ground, for example) the Army possesses agile and powerful units capable of conducting decisive action. Following Admiral Labouerie’s principles of warfare (uncertainty and striking force), aérocombat units can operate more than 500 km (300 miles) from their bases. They dominate the enemy by their ability to seize, defend and hold individual points, particularly during the final shock of the last 50 metres of contact across which everything is played out.
These bold operations are not conducted in isolation, of course: they need the support of assets coming from the other services—the air force or the navy—to ensure air superiority, bring extra pressure to bear locally or to halt an enemy seeking to counter-attack.
It serves no purpose to set and compare the services one against the other by awarding some form of certificate of excellence to one or another of them, since in combat all actions have to be complementary in space, time and effect.
Nevertheless combat assets are rare and often over-stretched. We would need to use them massively everywhere in order to have an advantage over an enemy who would understandably seek to disperse them in order to dilute our efforts. The forces therefore need to identify those capabilities that would lead to better effectiveness of key units by developing real force multipliers. These are the capabilities that allow adjustment of force balances, whose mathematical rigour is a basis for tactics. Overall for the attacker, experience shows that a ratio of 3 to 1 is needed to hope for success, but if we are capable to move a section of our troops to where the front line could be breached, we would not hesitate to attack locally at a ratio of 10 to 1! Napoleon did precisely that on his battlefields when he gained great victories although in a position of overall inferiority in numbers—he applied extra power where he had decided to crush his enemy. The key issue here is tactical mobility, which can mean avoiding combat in certain places in order to saturate the enemy in others where he has to be defeated. That is even more true today, when far smaller armies are spread over vastly greater battlefields. With Scorpion the Army is basing its future on tactical agility whilst being sure that air assets, whether from the Air Force or the Army, are excellent force multipliers.
Different services, different constraints and different logic
The differences between these two services nevertheless become sensitive on occasion, especially when they are fighting over budget shares for apparently similar systems and when major political choices have to be made. Before contrasting them, however, it is worth understanding what distinguishes each in order to assess what each offers that is complementary and irreplaceable. The two are linked in victory but each has to operate in a different domain. The army acts in a determined timescale in a space where the outcome of the battle will be decided. In 1940 the Battle of France was lost at Sedan between the 10th and 15th May, when the Wehrmacht broke through the front. It was never possible to recover the campaign after that, since once a combat unit exploits a breakthrough, all powerful means possible will be brought to bear, creating carnage on very weakly defended targets. Command posts and logistic depots are destroyed, their loss meaning the vital supply line to 1st echelon units dries up and chaos and disorganisation are increased. The outcome of war for an army is therefore linked to a particular place and time that cannot be moved. Moreover, it can only with great difficulty dodge its enemy once contact has been made. Back to 1940: several months later, the Battle of Britain serves as an example of a very different success. The Royal Air Force had suffered three months of tactical defeats, being unable to stop the Luftwaffe from bombing London and other parts of England, and yet in the end it was the RAF that enjoyed victory. As in naval warfare, air warfare is a question of fleet work and of maintaining combat potential. Those services are able to avoid combat, to choose their moment and wear down their adversary in a war of attrition. For them, he only ceases to be a threat once his firepower has been destroyed.
Thus there are two very different ways of achieving victory or suffering defeat, and they mould the mentalities of each service. Nevertheless both of these facets of war have to be won. The easiest way is to do them successively, but destruction of enemy fleets before commitment to combat on the ground is a theoretical prerequisite rarely found in history. Most often everything needs to be done at the same time, but there is a risk of losing priorities regarding the manner of conducting operations. That said, opposing the conduct of air and ground operations must be avoided, since they both support the same battle. No war is won without rupture and exploitation on the ground, just as no battle is won on the ground while the enemy air force remains able to counter ground action. The same rationale is valid for the navy, where there can be no victory on land without freedom of action at sea. What is important is that each should do what it is best at: the air battle should be conducted according to the logic of the air whilst that on the ground should follow the logic of the ground. This requirement that each understand the peculiarities of the other led to the creation of joint force command structures, within which each of the different reasoning processes can be expressed.
Complementarity in approach
The way that conduct of operations is viewed depends also on a special culture, shaped by confidence in technology and the manner of grasping reality, putting it into context and deriving from it a succession of actions. In this era of high quality imagery from satellites and aircraft, and capabilities for listening, exploitation and understanding from human and technical networks, there is great temptation to think that we know a large part of reality and to consider that what we know is, in fact, reality. But that is to forget that concealment is part of warfare! Think of the deception operations—stocks of rubber tanks and wooden aircraft—that made the Germans believe that the Normandy landings were only a diversion. Today, big data and artificial intelligence lend themselves perfectly to modern methods of deceiving the enemy by distorting his analyses using false data. Illusion is part of warfare, and that must drive us to confirm again and again, permanently, all the information received via the different methods in order to avoid being misled.
Once what is known is confirmed, it is converted into objectives to be destroyed according to a methodical campaign aimed at breaking down that which allows the enemy to exist and often, unfortunately, which allows the population to live. The planning cycle gets under way and the spiral continues until the required level of attrition has been reached. In a given action we can destroy the known part of the enemy’s combat capability yet are shocked by the collateral damage we wreak at the same time on the civilian population. But what can we do to destroy the unknown part, that hidden by the enemy? What do we do to avoid generations of combatants rising up against us, revolted by the dehumanisation of war? Doesn’t brutality incite resistance and revolt?
We need to know how to get out of impasses and to give new wind to a campaign by flushing out the enemy from where he is dug in, provoking him and pushing him to make a tactical error. That is what was decided during the war in Libya in 2011 where, after a very effective air campaign, the land battle had stalled and had put the local population in danger. The deadlock was broken by a succession of raids from the sea led by the ALAT. In a cat-and-mouse game, helicopters defeated the forces loyal to Gaddafi, forcing them to make errors and to reveal themselves. We had to get into the mentality of the combatants, and to accept very high risks, in order to destroy almost 400 vehicles, that means two brigades, which led to breakthrough of the front and ultimately the end of the conflict.
The symphony of fires
When the soldier is in contact with his enemy on the ground, he can find himself rapidly pinned down by enemy fire. Incapable of manoeuvre, he must expect relief to come from elsewhere. His salvation might come from another unit forcing the enemy to move: very often that will result from indirect fires from artillery or aircraft. It is all rather on the lines of a musical score—just as each instrument in a orchestra has to play its phrase at the right moment and in the right key, so here each arm is directed to produce something particular in the right place at the right time. The air force delivers particular types of fire—massive, brutal and powerful. The artillery is able to produce various effects, dropping shells in clusters, on a line or perhaps creating a perimeter around a unit we might wish to protect. The shells explode on impact to destroy solid matter or before impact so its splinters break up what is poorly protected. They can be explosive, smoke generating, illuminating or, for greater precision, guided.
Each system can therefore produce a special effect with the common aim of eliminating the enemy’s will to fight. The question remains, though, who is the composer of this symphony and who conducts the orchestra? Those who tend to plan everything to excess would allot these roles to headquarters staffs far removed from those in contact, leaving only a technical role to those on the front line. Others would prefer to leave decisions on fire and manoeuvre to the person in command of the action at the time. The debate continues in the knowledge that the best solution is that which produces the best effect at the chosen moment. During the engagements in Libya, the ALAT had the advantage of ‘cockpit delegation’, which authorised aircraft captains to decide for themselves which targets to engage and when to open fire, whereas other components had to obtain specific authority for each firing, thereby missing the fleeting moment when the enemy imprudently revealed himself. Delegation of firing authority and the concept of fire manoeuvre form an essential element of effectiveness in combat.
Mastering the interface between two environments
Units deployed on the ground hold the terrain, but have only a very limited view of the overall situation, being blinded by topography and by the smoke that rapidly appears during combat. Aircraft have limits, too: they cannot stay too long in these dangerous zones where they are in the enemy’s firing range. The fast-moving craft needs to receive information on his target and the tactical situation to facilitate his attack, and the same goes for indirect fires, which have to be guided constantly onto targets that might move or reveal themselves. Today’s preferred positioning of guidance cells is on the ground, but consequently they suffer the same limitations as the deployed units, so there is an compelling need to create the ability to see from above in order to direct fires. In the war in Indochina it was precisely that problem which led to the development of artillery observation aviation, responsible for holding the sky, as it were, and being for the artillery units and airmen the eyes so essential for the success of their missions. This requirement is today partially satisfied by drones and by the ALAT. The need is sure to increase in the years to come, conferring an essential role on this interface between two environments. The effectiveness of the entire combat outfit will depend upon its quality.
* * *
France is a military nation that counts. It has a comprehensive army, capable of conducting independent operations and of bringing weight to bear in the conduct of coalition operations. A faithful ally and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it upholds its military rank and does not refuse to pay the price in blood.
A deeply humanist nation of human rights, France knows that war is but a temporary disturbance in the life of a society. It knows it has to wage it when necessary, to win it rapidly if possible and to conduct it with humanity in order to try to reconstruct just as rapidly a state of harmonious coexistence. That is why the French Army does not shirk from commitment when necessary to what is difficult, in order to save lives and control the crisis. It does so with the entire support of other components of French forces or of its allies by developing the greatest synergy and complementarity possible, particularly where favoured by programmes developed through multinational cooperation.
A modern army that is totally committed to operations in the third dimension, the French Army is therefore an entirely natural and structural player at the Salon Aéronautique at Le Bourget. ♦
(1) SDTI = Système de drone tactique intérimaire: Sagem Sperwer.
(2) DRAC = Drone de reconnaissance au contact: EADS Tracker.
(3) SMDR = Système de minidrones de renseignement: Thales Spy’Ranger.
(4) Trucks fitted with an artillery system.
(5) LRU = Lance-roquettes unitaire (An MLRS system).
(6) Système sol-air moyenne portée.
(7) Système d’arme anti-aérien à courte portée Nouvelle génération: Thales-MBDA Crotale.
(8) A system for GPS localisation of friendly forces.
