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I think this also means we can't avoid including China in our discussions of the Ukraine war.

@FlemFire I agree with you, fire superiority is what an attacker needs to be successful, and a major contributor to the attacker's ability to restore mobility, the whole 'fire and movement' thing. With respect to your point on achieving air superiority, you should check out the two articles above. @The_Capt summarizes them well. Yet another domain in which the defense is ascendant, kinda takes the 'air' out of 'air-land battle.' Another domain demanding a rethink to restore offensive primacy. The WWI analogies are very appropriate if we look at the western front. What can we conclude if we look at the eastern front?

Thank you and congratulations @poesel. I think you just self nominated yourself to be our resident forum Drone EMP/counter EMP expert. And congratulations, you explained this in a way I think I can understand it. Not everyone can do that. On the flip side of your info above, if you have thoughts on use of non-nuclear EMP weapons to establish, and maintain, local 'drone supremacy,' please share. My sense is we've collectively concluded dominating the 'drone battle space,' or the 'air littoral' as they called it in one of interesting Air Power articles @The_Capt shared earlier today, will be required either right before or right at the start of the attack and it will need to be maintained locally throughout attack, breakthrough and exploitation.

@kimbosbread as you and everyone else can probably tell, I very much appreciate this communities collective personal experience, historical knowledge, imagination and occasional sense of humor. Now I am just asking, for the sake of argument, what assumptions go into 'drone-carrier attack needs to be backed up with a regular breach?' I don't have the answers to any of this, but am starting to get more interested in the question of why we, myself included, are assuming breaching operations need to be part of the attack that defeats the defense as we see it in Ukraine.

Surprise, concentration, speed, assuming we have local drone supremacy before launching, I think we need to go deeper on the initial lift to get the disruptive effect we want on the defenders ability to successfully counter, in my mind particularly decision making ability/cycle time. I am not sure what a ground component looks like, although I really do like 's @dan/california idea of drones dropping MICLIC to speed up mine clearance. @The_Capt to your point, if the initial lifted force is primarily infantry or SOF JTA(G)C teams, with ISR support to identify and neutralize previously undetected defenses in depth, we still need someway to out tempo the defense's ability to recover/restore their front, some form of superior maneuver speed, so the offensive force breaks out leaving the defender with only the choices of staying and get cut off or withdrawing. A number of folks have posited networked human/UGV units. If the combined UGV/human unit has the maneuver speed needed to break the defense, great. Once a grunt is on the ground his sustained unopposed maneuver speed is about 3/mph. The risk I see so far in our discussions is we achieve partial penetration (yes I hear all the innuendo comments), but not fast enough to breakout, and end up with an expensive salient it's probably not worth holding. We're solving breaching the minefield not breaking the defense.

This is an equipment solution that gets us beyond the depth of prepared defenses in a single lift, which I think is what we want. To restore tactical offensive primacy the offensive op-tempo will need to exceed the defenders ability to react in time other than to withdraw. I am not sure a series of 500m hops through the minefields is going to do that. "Though at first glance it looks like the sort of quadcopter drones used to make videos, the T-600 is about the size of a compact car. It's an electric-powered demonstrator craft that is easily broken down for transport, has a payload of 200 kg (441 lb), top speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) and a range of 80 km (50 miles)." https://newatlas.com/military/t-600-heavy-lift-drone-anti-sub-torpedo/#:~:text=Though at first glance it,80 km (50 miles). @The_Capt I am still trying to find/understand EMP anti-drone capabilities and both 'cheap' commercial and military drone EMP resistance. As mentioned a couple pages ago understandable military interest in countering drones, EMP being a serious candidate.

I don't think we in this forum should give up. As many have pointed out primacy cycles from offense to defense. I am pretty sure the world's militaries all get this, and are all working on solutions to restore offensive primacy, doctrinal, technical, organizational. Our question is how to restore tactical offensive primacy.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/six-ways-to-disable-a-drone/ My favorites are 5 and 6.

How to breakthrough 'now'...tactical EMP, various aspects of which this group discussed as early as Mar 22. I think/hope the information at the links is new...ish Problem 1. How to degrade the defender's drone force during the period of the assault/obstacle clearing and breakthrough to preclude enemy ISR for direct attack, fire direction and counter maneuver Assumption 1. Any drone designated as 'cheap' is not EMP hardened, enough Assumption 2. Most of RA direct attack/ISR drones are 'cheap' Assumption 3: Western support holds, UA/RA stalemate persists through 2024, West arms UA with tactical EMP weapons in time for offensive operations in 2025 (e.g. near future = 'now') The technology maybe is closer than we think, just still classified. Simple google: 1. MIT proposal (team in India), claim to have a working proto-type, critical missing data is effective range https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/solv-ed-youth-innovation-challenge-2/solutions/68517 2. US Air Force RFI, what does industry already have to counter enemy drone swarms, is there a COTS solution https://www.militaryaerospace.com/power/article/14302521/air-force-surveys-industry-for-technologies-in-emp-electromagnetic-weapons-to-counter-unmanned-aircraft 3. Successful Boeing EMP missile test against electronic systems in buildings, presumably modifiable for tactical use in enemy drone operating areas https://militaryembedded.com/radar-ew/sensors/raytheon-emp-missile-tested-by-boeing-usaf-research-lab 4. bottom of page 3, EMP bombs chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/Pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf

I agree with you, @kohlenklau Just a personal opinion piece, but I think the Israeli military and society's reaction to 7 Oct is much more like US reaction to 7 Dec than 9/11. My impression of the US Post Pearl Harbor 1941 reaction was one of national military humiliation and irrational national societal panic. In both cases, current Hamas and 1931-1941 Japanese, I think, the adversary's military barbarism made it very easy for the surprised side to dehumanize both the enemy military and civilians.

Wow, Stan Lee, Super wow LLF, and... Micronauts? oooooh, now I get it , Sorry, took me a while

Thanks @Tux This clearly will take a lot of collaborative high caliber intellect, way out of my league, still you gotta luv a 'Good Airborne Solution' Maybe most of the penetration force is not manned, but drones, semi-autonomous and networked with small groups of humans, broken down into task oriented sub-groups within the friendly 'Death Swarm,' all flying at whatever drone NOE altitude is. After pre-attack 'shaping the battle field' operations, at the leading edge of the swarm are drone/human groups tasked with recon, EW, and decoy ops, followed and supported by drone/human hunter killer groups, tasked to take out enemy drones, enemy ADA, enemy EW and C4, enemy artillery, enemy infantry bunkers. The 'Death Swarm' carries it's own version of 5 days supply, whatever that is, human rations, drone battery packs, drone munitions, and whatever etc is. The Death Swarm establishes and maintains 'drone supremacy' over the breakthrough breadth and depth, and then does what? Do more drone/human forces go on to exploit the breakthrough supported by yet more drone/human support drones, dropping off drone/human units along the way to hold the shoulders? Or is the force a combination of drone and more traditional ground forces, drone/human units creating the defense suppression/breach conditions for more traditional ground forces to clear lanes, exploit and support? Is it possible tying a flying drone/human assault force to a ground clearing and exploitation force is the equivalent of determining the proper use of the tank is in infantry support. Separately, 'Mines with a light-sensor on top' 'S-mine+,' that, is a scary idea, like everything that's cheap, simple, reliable and deadly. Ukraine-specific, like your list, think we need to avoid corollary of assuming because there were western and eastern fronts in WWI the experience was the same on both.

Good one

Agree with everyone else, very interesting paper and discussion of conventional warfare concentration in space and time. Anything from Liddell Hart gets my attention. I was not aware of it either. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks @Centurian52 You are right, statistics was not in my discussion and I thank you for bringing it in. To the best of my knowledge the idea of historical cycles of violence on a global scale is still in the realm of the purely theoretical. That said I have a personal bias towards enjoying history and modern day prognostications to try to make my own sense of the likely future. Any discernable pattern where data related to special causes can be separated from verifiable random variation of outcomes in a complex process attracts my interest. More than anything else what got my attention in this article was, 'The cyclical nature of violence and conflict is a complex phenomenon that can be attributed to a variety of causes, including economic and political troubles, generational shifts in social psychology, and theories of social cohesion and natural life cycles. While there is no fateful date that can be directly blamed for the outbreak of violence, the similarities between past and present cycles can provide insight into the potential duration and disintegration of civilizations. Through the study of these cycles, we can better understand the history of human conflict and even think about future trends.' Speaking only for myself I see a growing number of parallels between our present time and the 1920s and 30s across all the contributing factors listed, the rise of dictators being only one. As my wife, my children and myself, along with about ~9.8 billion other souls, are all likely to be alive in 2050, I fervently hope the theories are wrong.

Ukraine’s Military Chief Says One of His Offices Was Bugged and Other Devices Were Detected https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/12/18/ukraines-military-chief-says-one-of-his-offices-was-bugged-and-other-devices-were-detected.html

I agree @dan/california, 'drone supremacy' is likely to be a prerequisite to operational level offensive success.

Really like your thinking @kimbosbread, great questions, what aspects of the defense have to be overcome to allow a breakthrough/restore mobility. Using the WWI/WWII armor analogy our 'Death Swarm' will need to break through the entirety of the defender's forward positions to then overrun the defenders artillery, logistics, and C3, if not C4, to cripple the defender's ability to sustain a cohesive defense. So let me extend to discussion, play devil's advocate to maybe see how the offensive might reach at least parity with the defensive (defensive as we think we are seeing now in Ukraine) 1. How do we sustain the 'Death Swarm,' once we breakout and are exploiting 2. How do we hold ground once the Death Swarm has broken through to prevent the defender from reoccupying it? 3. What do our 'Anti-Death Swarm' units look like to counter the enemies Death Swarms?

No idea, 'how do we,' Break the Stalemate. From my limited understanding of historical precedent relative to WWI western front defensive primacy: 1. 1918 Germans developed a doctrinal solution, Stosstruppen, infiltration tactics 2. 1916 British developed a technical solution, the tank 3. The Germans then combined both in WWII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtroopers_(Imperial_Germany)#:~:text=Under a creeping barrage%2C Stoßtruppen,enemy headquarters and artillery strongpoints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiltration_tactics#:~:text=Hutier favoured brief but intense,%2C artillery%2C and command centres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_World_War_I#:~:text=In Great Britain%2C an initial,Army on 2 February 1916. So maybe flying over the minefields just needs a combination of doctrine and technology to work. Still not sure how the sustainment logistics would work, maybe they fly over too. At some point I think we also need to account for what is unique in Ukraine, and might not be applicable in all sectors of a wider war.

And there is this, to the issue of clearing minefields to a depth of 20km, 02Nov23 article, UA CINC, Valerii Zaluzhnyway. As always apologies if this is a duplicate. Apparently amount and capability of equipment UA had was insufficient given depths of mine fields and RU ability to quickly reseed cleared lanes/areas with FASCAM. He does offer ideas on what they do need, new kinds of technology, "We need radar-like sensors that use invisible pulses of light to detect mines in the ground and smoke-projection systems to conceal the activities of our de-mining units," "We can use jet engines from decommissioned aircraft, water cannons or cluster munitions to breach mine barriers without digging into the ground. New types of tunnel excavators, such as a robot which uses plasma torches to bore tunnels, can also help.' I don't have the knowledge needed to know if these systems exist or are in development, or what stage if the latter. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-iron-general-west-mine-clearing-equipment-insufficient-russia-war-2023-11 Per the article, "In July, Ukrainian military officials told The Washington Post that Western-supplied de-mining equipment was slow, noisy, and could easily be destroyed by Russian forces."

Sorry, just trying to synthesize/wrap my head around what everyone has said above in the last ~6 hours, through Zeleban at 07:50 EST, about the UA counter offensive and why it failed. I think I hear everyone saying what follows. I am confident all of you will point out what I missed or got wrong: 1. UA early war experience and successful practices were either not applicable or not applied to the UA 2023 offensive. 2. The UA pause in late 2022 offensive operations to receive and train on a piddling hodgepodge of different complex western mechanized systems gave RU time to consolidate and prepare defenses in depth. 3. When UA did attack, they did not concentrate their effort according to western doctrine, quickly took losses UA judged to be unsustainable, transitioned to trying to find ways to breakthrough with most emphasis on how to breach very high density RU minefields, and to date have not found operational practices that would allow them to penetrate to the depth of the RU defenses 4. Both sides have leveraged the ubiquitous presence of cheap drones to reveal maneuver to enable effective counters. 5. The ubiquitous presence both ISR and attack drones, given the length of the front and density of forces, has resulted in stalemate significantly favoring the defender. 6. RU defensive practices have included low manpower density coverage, 'waves' of defenders being sent forward to replenish losses and high casualty local counter attacks. 7. UA has been able to convert RU tactics into high RU losses. 8. RU has much greater manpower resources than UA and given RU social and military cultures will win a protracted war of attrition. Put all this together I get an uneasy feeling it's appearing more likely RU maybe left in place to consolidate what they have taken, reconstitute their forces, and resume their aggression in the next year, or two, or three, with the loss of Western political will being a, if not the, deciding factor.

In a day of pretty serious discourse on very serious subjects, it was great to get a little humor in. Thank you @TheVulture, I got a good chuckle out of this.

Thanks @NamEndedAllen I added both Nagata and FX Holden's as authors for me check out. So many books, so many CM scenarios, so little time.

Would that be standing looking down drain or up?

So, with great trepidation, he asked, 'which way is the 'right way' for a toilet to spin CTM