The Army in the Air: Developing Land–Air Operations for a Seamless Force

The land force’s development towards the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Seamless Force of 2020 embraces the Hardening and Networking the Army (HNA) initiative. The HNA scheme is designed to deliver land power through the use of combined arms teams of infantry, armour, artillery and engineers to a battlespace defined by networks and interdependence. Yet, as the ADF moves towards the Seamless Force, there are several HNA capabilities that will increasingly enable the Army to begin thinking about its role as a force that operates not simply on the ground but also as a force that operates from the air.

The capabilities that enhance the Army’s potential in the air include the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH), additional troop-lift helicopters (the arrival of which is imminent) and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) (the acquisition of which is nearing finalisation). Collectively, the introduction of these capabilities opens a new era for the Australian Army—the era of ‘the Army in the air’—in which the land force’s combined arms potential will be transformed by a growing ability to fight in, and from, the air. Indeed, it is entirely feasible that in 2030 the Australian Army will be constituted as a force that operates largely from the air.

This article seeks to describe my vision as Chief of Army for how the land force will deploy combat power from air and space. It does so in two ways. First, the article outlines what the Army considers to be the essential requirements that govern the contemporary battlespace in order to highlight the imperative for increased land–air operations in the future. Having established these requirements, the article goes on to consider the type of partnership, cooperation and support that the land force will seek from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in the years ahead.

Essential Requirements of the Contemporary Battlespace

Most authoritative assessments of Australia’s likely threat environment indicate that a traditional state-on-state conventional attack on Australia is a remote possibility. While the land force will maintain capabilities that are focused on the defence of territorial Australia, it is far more likely that soldiers will be deployed either in the Asia-Pacific region or further afield to uphold Australia’s interests.

What kind of battlespace are Australian soldiers likely to encounter when deployed offshore? The Army believes that the framework of the contemporary battlespace is bounded by the reality of exponentially increased lethality in modern weapons systems and the pervasiveness of communications technologies. Unfortunately the availability of these systems is not confined to conventional military forces, but has become globally diffused, thereby empowering non-state and trans-state forces. As a result, we are witnessing what one political scientist has aptly called ‘the globalisation of informal violence’.¹

Increasingly, non-state and insurgent movements have access to an array of sophisticated weapons systems, including anti-armoured and anti-aircraft missiles. Moreover, the enemies that advanced militaries are likely to encounter in the future no longer seek to fight conventional forces on a tidy or linear battlefield. Rather, they are far more likely to operate in complex terrain—particularly cities—in failed or weak states.

Urban terrain is a leveller of military power in that it dissects the battlespace, creating separate segments that must each be taken and secured. In order to fight and win in this complex environment, conventional land forces must become harder to hit and yet be able to hit the enemy harder.

Land forces must be capable of two basic skills: the first is bringing precision firepower to bear and the second is to practise the art of discrimination when applying military force.

As recent military operations in Iraq have demonstrated, the 21st-century adversary is comfortable when exploiting complex terrain in order to negate Western advantages in information technologies and precision munitions. Much of the warfare that the Australian Army is likely to encounter in the early 21st century is likely to consist of scrambling miniature battles of the type fought in Mogadsihu in 1993. US Marine Corps Commandant, General Charles C. Kulak, was correct when he stated in the mid-1990s that the future of war was not the son of Desert Storm but rather the stepchild of Chechnya and Bosnia. For the Army, there are seven important requirements for success in future warfare. These requirements are outlined below.

Requirement One: 'Fire Where And Where You Need It'

In future operations, Australian troops on the ground will require immediate and guaranteed indirect fire in order to bring tactical and operational effects to bear rapidly and decisively. What is meant by rapidly is deliverable fire in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. The need for rapid response is one of the principal lessons learnt from the current insurgency in Iraq. In operations in Iraq, insurgents momentarily dart out of crowds of noncombatants in order to attack Coalition forces with rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices or simply to engage in sniper fire.

Requirement Two: 'There Is A Need To Hold Ground'

The Army must be capable of holding ground. In the final analysis, there is no substitute for a soldier on the ground who is capable of influencing the behaviour of adversaries and noncombatants alike. It is professional soldiers who must execute multidimensional operations, ranging from the use of lethal force in warfighting through humanitarian relief to stabilisation operations. The strength of an effective and modern 21st-century Army lies in its ability to protect, support and influence the populations among which it is likely to operate.

Requirement Three: 'Achieve Superior Situational Awareness'

The need for situational awareness remains vital in contemporary military operations. Land forces must be able to locate small enemy groups and defeat them before they can launch attacks of their own choosing. If a joint force does not achieve superior situational awareness quickly, it will almost certainly face problems in applying rapid and accurate suppressive and supporting fires for troops on the ground. At all times, the application of military force must be aimed at facilitating tactical and operational effects that culminate in a strategic end-state.

Requirement Four: 'Harness The Power Of Networking'

In the future, devolving mission execution to small combat teams under the leadership of junior non-commissioned officers and even private soldiers will only be possible through mastery of network-enabled rather than network-centric operations. The distinction is an important one. Networking is not a centric element in operational activity but rather an enabling one. Enabling, or empowering, the soldier on the ground permits devolved operations to occur. In such operations small teams act in a semi-autonomous manner. The small combined-arms team must, however, possess the networked ability to be able to reach back to a military headquarters in order to request fire and combat support from joint forces.

Networking should aim to permit higher commanders to maintain an ‘eyes on’ function across the battlespace. Higher commanders need to direct and realign small teams in order to ensure that their activities continue to meet defined mission requirements. Essential to military success in operations across a battlespace is the provision of a shared, or common, operational picture. The availability of such a picture permits all elements of a joint team to provide information to those units that are best positioned to engage the enemy most effectively.

It is through an understanding of the workings of a common operational picture that the envisaged Seamless Force will be built. Once a comprehensive array of communications and weapons systems is successfully networked into a grid, ‘sensor and shooter’ connectivity becomes practical. It is important to note, however, that the term sensor does not always imply sophisticated technology attached to a UAV. The term has a direct human dimension since the ultimate sensor in warfare remains the soldier on the ground.

Requirement Five: 'Balance Command And Control'

As the land force moves towards the Seamless Force, soldiers will increasingly be required to deal with a series of complex command-and-control issues. The key to winning the type of fleeting engagements that characterise much of contemporary warfare is, and will continue to be, devolved command-and-control arrangements. Local commanders must be empowered to make snap decisions and to apply effects from weapons and tactical actions that conform to a particular mission’s aims. The problem of balancing high-level control with the need for low-level command presents a pressing cultural challenge for all professional armies. It is entirely possible that the lower-level commander of the future will be a junior non-commissioned officer or even an individual soldier rather than a commissioned officer.

In the future, if enhanced networking fulfils its great promise, then every soldier will ultimately become a human node in a vast ‘sensor to shooter’ network. Despite the science fiction imagery and jargon that often surrounds connectivity, the latter is not a futuristic scenario. After all, Australian Special Forces mastered exactly this mode of ‘sensor to shooter’ warfare in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and again in Iraq in 2003. What the ADF needs to do in the future is to develop networking skills widely throughout the entire combat force. Indeed, the ADF may find that mastering the technology is, in fact, the easier part involved in this complex transition. By 2020, it is likely that cuing an air strike will be

the equivalent of making a mobile phone call today. The difficult component in a general transition towards a networked force will be human; it will be the challenge of preparing soldiers and junior commanders for operations in a transparent battlespace.

Requirement Six: 'Understand Both Precision And Discrimination In The Use Of Force'

Improved professional judgment, the exercise of discrimination in the use of force and knowledge of precision warfare will all be key areas of warfighting that will require close attention in military training in the future. Precision warfare must be matched by discrimination in the use of lethal force. The decision to unleash a smart munition is ultimately a human, not a technological, decision—and such decisions must reflect the morality and ethics of warfare. As the recent battle for Fallujah in Iraq demonstrated, there is ultimately no substitute for human decision-making in the employment of military force. This is particularly the case in insurgency conflicts where combatants and civilians intermingle with media cameras and television crews. Only professional training and military experience can hope to prevent the possibility of an incident involving innocent civilians ending up on the screens of CNN or Al-Jazeera television.

Requirement Seven: 'Develop Trust In Joint Warfare'

The devolution of warfare and the extraordinary technological capabilities available to small units highlight the question of responsibility or, to put it more colloquially, ‘who owns the bomb?’ Is it the land force element that calls in strikes or the air forces that deliver precision attack? The answer to this question is important because we are on the cusp of an era in which specific air-delivered munitions may be able to loiter in-theatre while awaiting a deliberate targeting directive.

The growing interdependence between fire and manoeuvre in modern military operations makes control of fires an important issue. Within the range of land force organic weapons—usually up to 40 km—ground commanders must have air control in order to integrate direct and indirect fires. Beyond that range, however, an air commander is likely to control air attacks. Nonetheless, both land and air commanders should view their activities in the context of joint warfare since both are likely to work for a common joint force commander. It is clear that, in a future marked by joint operations, there will be a growing need for trust and cooperation between land and air commanders when delivering fires.

Developing Land - Air Operations: What The Army Needs From The RAAF

A recent study by the RAND Corporation has suggested that the future of land–air operations is one of partnership in which either or neither partner may predominate, depending on the operational and tactical situation. The study states:

The most fruitful relationship between air power and land power is not for one to support the other, but rather for both to act in partnership. At any given time in a battle or campaign, air power or land power might predominate. The joint force commander oversees this partnership and determines which partner should play the predominant role at any given time. Geographic lines drawn across the battle space should not be allowed to define these roles.²

In Australia’s strategic circumstances, there is much to recommend this cooperative approach. Such an approach does, however, involve soldiers and airmen developing an intimate knowledge of both land and air capabilities. From the perspective of a land commander, air power is most valuable when it reduces enemy forces by attrition before they can close with friendly forces. From the perspective of an air commander, land power is most effective when it fixes enemy forces that can be targeted from the air. Yet, interestingly, in both scenarios, the common denominator is ultimately that of cooperation. In the future, land–air cooperation must embrace cultural knowledge, support new RAAF capabilities, encourage close air operations, improved fire support, airlift and strategic UAVs. Both the land and air forces must also jointly seek to prevent one of the curses of the modern battlespace: fratricide. Finally, the Army and the RAAF must emphasise long-term land–air interdependence through an improved relationship between precision and discrimination in targeting.

Army Aviation And RAAF Culture

There are many aspects of RAAF culture that the Australian Army’s aviation element can benefit from studying. For example, the RAAF has always possessed a more individualistic, ‘dog-fight’ culture based on the small aerial combat unit, whether fighter or bomber. Given that the Army’s aviation is organic to the combined arms team, military pilots can only benefit from emulating the ‘mongrel’ ethos of fighter pilots. The Army’s aviation culture has traditionally been based on ‘reconnaissance and scouting’. However, in a multidimensional battlespace without front and rear, the ARH may become part of the close as well as the deep battle. Among its pilots, the Army must develop the type of quick reaction skills and aggressive instincts that have long been inculcated in fighter pilots. 

Land Forces, Command Of The Air And New RAAF Capabilities

Like any other advanced force, the Australian Army cannot fight alone in a modern joint battlespace. Land force elements cannot deploy, survive, fight, sustain themselves or redeploy without support from air and naval forces as part of a joint warfighting organisation. In order to be effective, ground troops must be enabled by command of the air, strategic lift and effective aerial fire support. The Army cannot operate in the modern battlespace unless control of the air has been established by either the RAAF or by coalition air forces.

Thus, despite the expansion of the land force’s tactical lift fleet and the introduction of the ARH, the Army will continue to rely on the RAAF for a wide range of support. This support includes counter-air missions, offensive air operations, close air-attack and airlift. Offensive and defensive counterair operations are vital in joint operations. As a result, the Army fully supports the decisions to enhance the RAAF’s counter-air capability through acquisition of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and other force multipliers such as advanced radar systems and airborne early warning and control aircraft. The Army remains supportive of further development of the joint tactical air controller (JTAC) capability as we prepare for the introduction of the JSF.

Integrating Land Force Manoeuvre And Air Attack

The integration of fire with manoeuvre in land–air operations was a feature of the campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In the future, as sensor technology and joint warfare both mature, the role of the soldier in directing air attacks onto targets is likely to increase in importance. In contemporary warfighting, both air attack and land manoeuvre should be seen as interdependent activities. The closer that air attack and ground force manoeuvre can be integrated, the easier it becomes to isolate segments of the battlespace and to sweep them of enemy forces.

As the Army devolves its traditional formations into smaller combined-arms units and teams, it is likely that dispersal will become a major feature of operational deployment.

The ‘emptying’ of the electronic battlespace makes the factor of air operations in support of friendly soldiers on the ground vital. In a dispersed battlespace, precision strike and bombing by air power may be vital in preventing a situation in which a small land-force unit is threatened by swarming enemy ground forces.

Fire Support, Airlift and UAVs

As the American film Black Hawk Down demonstrated so well, every soldier’s nightmare is being isolated in complex terrain without reliable aerial fire support and casualty evacuation. Joint forces must ensure that they successfully exploit improved features in networking and sensor–shooter connectivity in order to empower small teams in combat operations. Airlift too is crucial to ground troops. The airlift support provided to the Army by the work horses of the RAAF—C130 and Caribou aircraft—is fundamental to the execution of successful land operations. Despite tight budgets, an improved capability to move troops and equipment both strategically and tactically needs to be developed even further in the future.

Space Cadets

In the years ahead, the Army will also make increasing use of space through the tactical use of UAVs. As the land force introduces UAVs, it will enhance its situational awareness and targeting capability. Nonetheless, the Army will continue to rely on the ability of the RAAF to improve the land force’s higher-level situational awareness and command-and-control enhancements through the use of strategic UAVs and various space platforms. A useful area of joint exploration in the future is likely to be the use of aircraft and UAVs as retransmission platforms in order to improve joint communications. Improved communications that are enabled by aircraft could be an enormous joint-force multiplier in the years ahead and should not impose a great liability on RAAF aircraft.

Land-Air Operations and the Problem of Fratricide 

Yet another area that Australia’s land and air forces must address urgently is the problem of ‘blue on blue’ or fratricide. In the history of warfare there has never been such a flow of operational information, much of it real-time data, as there is today. Yet, at the same time there have been unacceptable levels of fratricide in coalition operations in Iraq. Just as the Army and the joint force of the future must master precision in striking the enemy, so too must we provide operational security for our own troops by seeking to ‘deconflict’ the battlespace. To date, the ADF has been successful in avoiding fratricide, but we need to remain alert to its devastating potential. Since prevention is better than cure, a joint land–air approach is required in order to deal comprehensively with this problem.

Land-Air Interdependence: Precision Tempered By Discrimination

Just as the RAAF offers the Army some important capabilities, so too the reverse is true. In this sense, both land and air forces must learn to think in terms of interdependence of fire and manoeuvre—in an operational partnership. The land force offers the air force a useful degree of groundbased air defence, protection of close-range airfields through manoeuvre operations and, perhaps, most importantly, through deployed soldiers who may double as human sensors in the battlespace. Moreover, by providing discrimination in the use of force against complex targets, soldiers can complement and, if necessary, temper the excellent precision delivered by air personnel.

In a cluttered battlespace, any incident that involves civilian casualties has a pernicious double effect. First, such incidents tend to fuel bitter feelings against ground troops among civilian populations in any area of operations. Second, the deaths of innocents carried graphically into the living rooms of Australia also works to undermine national will, and to reduce electoral support and legitimacy for military operations. The only solution to battlespace management in an era of networks is a joint one. The ADF must achieve ‘eyes on’ when locating potential targets. Ultimately, the soldier on the ground is not only the military representative of the nation, but, by helping to arbitrate the use of destructive power, effectively a manifestation of its conscience. The responsibility for military decision-making is unalterably human and cannot be delegated to artificial intelligence or to a technology network.

Conclusion

The arrival of the ARH, additional troop-lift helicopters and tactical UAVs are likely to increase dramatically the Army’s ability to fight in, and from, the air over the next two decades. The notion of ‘the Army in the air’ is a long-term transformation that the land force must begin to conceptualise and to prepare for. If the ADF is to develop effective land–air operations concepts and doctrine for joint warfare, then the Army and the RAAF must build an operational partnership that is based on a mutual recognition of the interdependence between fire and manoeuvre. The landforce cannot hope to meet all of its needs for fires, information, networking and strategic lift from within its own capabilities. In all of these areas land power will need significant assistance from air and sea power. Over the next decade and a half, as the ADF moves towards the creation of a Seamless Force, the Army and the RAAF have much to learn from each other. Despite our different cultures and operating environments, our histories are as one, our futures are joint, our destinies are interwoven, and we can be sure that any operations that occur will belong to all of us.

Endnotes

1  Robert O. Keohane, ‘The Globalization of Informal Violence, Theories of World Politics, and “The Liberalism of Fear”’, in Craig Calhoun, Paul Price & Ashley Timmer (eds), Understanding September 11, The New Press, New York, 2002.

2  Bruce R. Pirnie, Alan Vick, Adam Grissom, Karl P. Mueller and David T. Orletsky, Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air–Ground Partnership, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 2005, p. 86.