Means of armed struggle. The damaging factors of modern types of weapons. Modern means of armed struggle and their damaging factors, measures to protect the population Forms and methods of armed struggle
Weapons appeared in the history of mankind in primitive society. Prehistoric warriors were armed with clubs, wooden spears with tips made of bone or stone, bows, stone axes. Then came bronze and iron swords, spears with metal tips. With the discovery of gunpowder, firearms were invented. One of the first examples of such a weapon is considered to be a modfa (a metal tube) attached to a shaft. It fired round metal cannonballs and was used by the Arabs as early as the 12th-13th centuries. In the XIV century. firearms appeared in Western Europe and in Russia. Since its inception, firearms have been constantly improved as the most effective means of defeating the enemy. In the XVI century. the first samples of rifled weapons (pischal, fitting) were created. In the second half of the XIX century. rapid-fire, and then automatic weapons and mortars appeared. During the First World War, aviation and depth charges began to be used. During the Second World War, rocket launchers, guided projectiles (V-1) and ballistic missiles (V-2) were used for the first time.
The era of great discoveries in nuclear physics (late 19th - early 20th century) caused the emergence of a new weapon of enormous destructive power, based on the use of intranuclear energy released during chain reactions of fission of heavy nuclei of some uranium and plutonium isotopes. The first test of the new weapon was made by the United States of America on July 16, 1945 in the state of New Mexico at a special training ground. This weapon was used by the United States at the end of World War II against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima was atomically bombed on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. As a result of these bombings, a significant part of Hiroshima was destroyed, more than 140 thousand people died and were injured, almost a third of buildings and structures were destroyed in Nagasaki, and people were killed and wounded about 75 thousand inhabitants.
At present, weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological) and conventional weapons are distinguished from all existing means of destruction according to the degree of their impact on the enemy's manpower, equipment, and weapons.
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is a weapon whose destructive effect is based on the use of intranuclear energy released during a chain reaction of fission of heavy nuclei of some uranium and plutonium isotopes or during thermonuclear fusion reactions of nuclei of light hydrogen isotopes.
It includes various nuclear weapons, means of their delivery to the target (carriers) and controls. Nuclear munitions include warheads of missiles and torpedoes, bombs, artillery shells, depth charges, mines (land mines). Carriers of nuclear weapons are aircraft, surface ships and submarines equipped with nuclear weapons and delivering them to the launch (firing) site. There are also nuclear charge carriers (rockets, torpedoes, shells, air and depth bombs), delivering them directly to targets. The power of a nuclear weapon is characterized TNT equivalent, which is equal to the mass of TNT, the explosion energy of which is equal to the energy of the explosion of a given nuclear weapon. According to the TNT equivalent, nuclear munitions are divided into 5 groups: ultra-small (up to 1 kt), small (1-10 kt), medium (10-100 kt), large (100 kt - 1 Mt), extra-large (over 1 Mt).
The damaging factors of nuclearexplosion are shock wave, light radiation, penetrating radiation, radioactive contamination and electromagnetic pulse.
shock wave- the main damaging factor of a nuclear explosion, since most of the destruction and damage to structures and buildings, as well as the defeat of people, are usually due to its impact. It is an area of sharp compression of the medium, propagating in all directions from the explosion site at supersonic speed. The front boundary of the compressed air layer is called front shock wave. The damaging effect of a shock wave is characterized by the magnitude of excess pressure - the difference between the maximum pressure in the front of the shock wave and the normal atmospheric pressure in front of it. With an overpressure of 20-40 kPa, unprotected people can get light injuries (bruises and contusions). Exposure to a shock wave with an overpressure of 40-60 kPa leads to moderate injuries (loss of consciousness, damage to the hearing organs, severe dislocations of the limbs, bleeding from the nose and ears). Severe injuries occur when excess pressure exceeds 60 kPa. Extremely severe lesions are observed at excess pressure over 100 kPa.
light emission- a stream of radiant energy, including ultraviolet and infrared rays. Its source is a luminous area formed by hot explosion products and air. This radiation propagates almost instantly and lasts, depending on the power of the nuclear explosion, up to 20 s. Its strength is such that it can cause burns to the skin and damage (permanent or temporary) to the organs of vision of people, as well as ignition of combustible materials and objects. Light radiation does not penetrate through opaque materials, so any obstruction that can create a shadow protects against the direct action of light radiation and eliminates damage. Dusty (smoky) air, fog, rain, snowfall significantly weaken light radiation.
penetrating radiation is a stream of gamma rays and neutrons. It lasts 10–15 s. Passing through living tissue, this radiation ionizes the molecules that make up the cells. Under the influence of ionization, biological processes occur in the body, leading to a violation of the vital functions of individual organs and the development of radiation sickness. As a result of the passage of ionizing radiation through environmental materials, their intensity decreases. The weakening effect of materials is usually characterized by a layer of half attenuation, i.e., such a thickness, passing through which the radiation intensity decreases by 2 times. For example, a layer of steel 2.8 cm thick, concrete - 10 cm, soil - 14 cm, wood - 30 cm weaken the intensity of gamma rays by 2 times. fully protected from it.
radioactive contamination terrain, the surface layer of the atmosphere, airspace, water and other objects occurs as a result of the fallout of radioactive substances from the cloud of a nuclear explosion. At the same time, a high level of radiation can be observed not only in the area adjacent to the explosion site, but also at a distance of tens and even hundreds of kilometers from it. Radioactive contamination of the area can be dangerous for several weeks after the explosion.
electromagnetic pulse- this is a short-term electromagnetic field that occurs during the explosion of a nuclear weapon as a result of the interaction of gamma rays and neutrons emitted in this case with the atoms of the environment. The consequence of its impact can be burnout and breakdowns of individual elements of radio-electronic and electrical equipment.
The most reliable means of protection against all damaging factors of a nuclear explosion are protective structures. In open areas and in the field, you can use durable local objects, reverse slopes of heights and terrain folds for shelter.
When operating in contaminated areas, special protective equipment should be used to protect the respiratory organs, eyes and open areas of the body from radioactive substances.
Chemical weapon
The action of these weapons is based on the toxic properties of certain chemicals. The main components of these weapons are chemical warfare agents and their means of application, including the carriers used to deliver chemical munitions to targets.
According to the action on the body, combat toxic chemicals (BTCS) are divided into nerve-paralytic, blistering, asphyxiating, general poisonous, irritating and psychochemical.
BTXV nerve agent(Vi-X, sarin) affect the nervous system, acting on the body through the respiratory system, penetrating in a vaporous and drop-liquid state through the skin, and also getting into the gastrointestinal tract along with food and water. Their resistance in summer is more than a day, and in winter for several weeks and even months.
Signs of damage by these substances are salivation, constriction of the pupils, difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, paralysis.
Used as personal protective equipment mask and protective clothing. To provide first aid to the affected person, they put on a gas mask and inject him with an antidote. If substances come into contact with the skin or clothing, the affected areas are treated with a liquid from an individual anti-chemical package (IPP).
BTXV blister action(mustard gas) have a multilateral damaging effect. In the drop-liquid and vapor state, they affect the skin and eyes, when inhaled vapors - the respiratory tract and lungs, when ingested with food and water - the digestive organs. A characteristic feature of mustard gas is the presence of a period of latent action (the lesion is not detected immediately, but after a while - 2 hours or more). Signs of damage are reddening of the skin, the formation of small blisters, which then merge into large ones and burst after two or three days, turning into ulcers that are difficult to heal. With any local damage, these substances cause a general poisoning of the body, which manifests itself in fever, malaise. To protect against blistering BTXV, a gas mask and protective clothing must be used. If drops of a toxic substance come into contact with the skin or clothing, the affected areas are immediately treated with liquid from the PPI.
BTXV choke action(phosgene) affect the body through the respiratory system. Signs of defeat are a sweetish, unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth, cough, dizziness, general weakness. After leaving the focus of infection, these phenomena disappear, and the victim feels normal for 4-6 hours, unaware of the lesion. During this period of latent action, pulmonary edema develops, which leads to a sharp deterioration in breathing, the appearance of a cough with copious sputum, headache, fever, shortness of breath, and palpitations. When providing assistance, a gas mask is put on the victim, they take him out of the infected area, cover him warmly and provide him with peace. In no case should artificial respiration be given to the affected person!
BTXV of general toxic action(hydrocyanic acid and cyanogen chloride) affect only when inhaled air contaminated with their vapors (they do not act through the skin). Signs of damage are a metallic taste in the mouth, throat irritation, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, severe convulsions, paralysis. To protect against these substances, it is enough to use a gas mask. To help the victim, it is necessary to crush the ampoule with an antidote, introduce it under the helmet-mask of his gas mask. In severe cases, the victim is given artificial respiration, warmed up and sent to a medical center.
BTXV irritant(SI-ES, SI-Ar, adamsite) cause acute burning and pain in the mouth, throat and eyes, severe lacrimation, cough, difficulty breathing.
BTXV psychochemical action(B-Z) have a specific effect on the central nervous system and cause mental (hallucinations, fear, depression) or physical (blindness, deafness) disorders. In case of damage by toxic substances of irritating and psychochemical action, it is necessary to treat the infected areas of the body with soapy water, thoroughly rinse the eyes and nasopharynx with clean water, and shake out the clothes or clean them with a brush.
bacteriological weapon
Biological weapons are intended for mass destruction of manpower, farm animals and crops. The damaging effect of these weapons is based on the use of the pathogenic properties of microorganisms - the causative agents of diseases in humans, animals and agricultural plants. As bacterial agents, pathogens of various infectious diseases can be used: plague, anthrax, brucellosis, glanders, tularemia, cholera, yellow and other types of fever, spring-summer encephalitis, typhus and typhoid fever, influenza, malaria, dysentery, smallpox and etc. In addition, botulinum toxin can be used, which causes severe poisoning of the human body. Along with the pathogens of anthrax and glanders, foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest and fowl viruses can be used to infect animals, and pathogens of cereal rust, late blight of potatoes and some other viruses can be used to infect agricultural plants. The disease of people and animals occurs as a result of inhalation of contaminated air, contact with microbes or toxins on the mucous membrane and damaged skin, consumption of contaminated food and water, bites of infected insects and ticks, contact with contaminated objects, injury by fragments of ammunition filled with bacterial agents, as well as as a result of direct contact with sick people or animals. A number of diseases are quickly transmitted from sick people to healthy people and cause epidemics (plague, cholera, influenza, etc.).
Most characteristic features of bacteriological (biological) weapons are:
The ability to cause massive infectious diseases in humans and animals when ingested in negligible amounts;
The ability of many infectious diseases to quickly be transmitted from the sick to the healthy;
Long duration of action (for example, spore forms of anthrax microbes retain their damaging properties for several years);
The presence of a latent (incubation) period of the disease;
The ability of contaminated air to penetrate into various non-pressurized rooms and infect people and animals in them.
As a result of the use of biological weapons and the spread of pathogenic bacteria on the ground, zones of biological contamination and foci of biological damage can form. If at least one of the signs of the use of biological weapons is detected, it is necessary to immediately put on a gas mask (respirator, anti-dust fabric mask) and skin protection. After that, you should take cover in a protective structure. To ensure protection against biological weapons, it is of great importance to carry out anti-epidemic and sanitary-hygienic measures in advance, as well as strict adherence to personal hygiene rules.
Conventional means of destruction
Conventional weapons are based on the use of the energy of explosives and incendiary mixtures. It includes artillery, rocket and aviation ammunition, small arms, land mines, mines and other means. The most common munitions that can be used to bombard cities and towns are fragmentation, high-explosive and ball bombs, volume explosion munitions, incendiary mixtures and compositions.
fragmentation bombs used to kill people and animals. When such a bomb explodes, a large number of fragments are formed, which scatter in different directions at a distance of up to 300 m from the explosion site. Fragments do not break through brick and wooden walls.
high-explosive aerial bombs designed to destroy all kinds of structures. Compared to nuclear weapons, their destructive power is small. Unexploded bombs pose a great danger. Most often, they have delayed fuses that fire automatically some time after the bomb is dropped.
ball bombs they are equipped with a huge number (from several hundred to several thousand) of lethal elements (balls, needles, arrows, etc.) weighing up to several grams. Ball bombs ranging in size from tennis to soccer ball can contain up to 300 metal or plastic balls with a diameter of 5–6 mm. The destructive radius of such a bomb is up to 15 m.
Volumetric explosion ammunition dropped from the aircraft in the form of cassettes. The cassette contains three ammunition containing about 35 kg of liquid ethylene oxide each. Ammunition is separated in the air. When they hit the ground, a fuse is triggered, which ensures the dispersion of liquid and the formation of a gas cloud with a diameter of about 15 m and a height of about 2.5 m. This cloud is undermined by a special delayed-action device. The main damaging factor of such ammunition is a shock wave propagating at supersonic speed, the power of which is 4-6 times higher than the explosion energy of a conventional explosive.
incendiary weapons It is subdivided into incendiary mixtures based on petroleum products (napalm), metallized incendiary mixtures, thermite compositions, white porcelain. The means of using incendiary weapons may be aerial bombs, cassettes, artillery incendiary ammunition, flamethrowers. These mixtures and compounds, getting on exposed skin, clothes, cause very severe burns and burnouts. In the process of burning these products, the air quickly heats up, which leads to burns of the respiratory tract. In addition, the use of incendiaries causes massive fires.
precision weapons the most modern form of conventional weapons. It includes fire and strike weapons that use guided and homing ammunition and missiles capable of hitting targets from the first shot or launch. High accuracy of destruction is achieved by pointing ammunition and missiles at a visually observed target, homing by reflection from the radar surface of the target, and combined guidance.
Concluding the consideration of the issue of modern means of destruction, it should be noted that, despite the positive changes taking place in the world to reduce the likelihood of a large-scale war against Russia, the threat to the national security of the country in the military sphere remains. The most real threat is posed by hotbeds of local wars and armed conflicts near the state borders of the Russian Federation.
A serious threat is posed by the proliferation of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction, their production technologies and means of delivery to countries adjacent to Russia or regions close to it.
At the same time, the range of threats associated with international terrorism is expanding, including the possible use by terrorists of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, the task of ensuring the security of the rear of the country and the population from the dangers arising from the conduct of hostilities or as a result of these actions remains relevant.
MILITARY THOUGHT No. 12/2003, pp. 45-54
ColonelL.I. CALYSTRATOV ,
candidate of military sciences
KALISTRATOV Alexander Ivanovich was born in 1946 in Ukraine. In the Armed Forces from 1964 to 1996. He graduated from the Kiev VOKU, the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze and postgraduate studies with her. Passed: command positions - from platoon commander to deputy battalion commander; staff - from an officer of the operational department to a senior officer of the operational directorate of the headquarters of the military district; teaching - from the teacher to the professor of the department. Since 1996 - a member of the Russian Army, professor of the Department of Operational Art of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
FIRST of all, it is necessary to clarify the key term of this article - "armed struggle". This concept is often interpreted in different ways. In the 1950s, armed struggle was identified with war: "war is a social armed struggle" or "war is an armed struggle in a class society." At the end of the 1960s, there was no longer a unified point of view in our military science regarding this term. A number of major military experts continued to consider it synonymous with the concept of "war". Published in 1968 under the editorship of Marshal V.D. Sokolovsky's work "Military Strategy" proclaimed that "war is armed violence, organized armed struggle ... in the name of achieving certain political goals." Many military scientists, especially philosophers, did not agree with this, who argued that "armed struggle is a fundamental attribute of war, its decisive specific process, a way to achieve political goals." Thus, in the Soviet Military Encyclopedia (1976), the concept of "armed struggle" is interpreted as "the specific content of war, which consists in the organized use of armed forces to achieve political and military goals." It follows from the definition that armed struggle is a category of strategy.
Ten years later, in the Military Encyclopedic Dictionary, armed struggle is already interpreted as “the main form of struggle in war, its specific content lies in the organized use of armed forces to achieve certain political and military goals. It is a combination of military operations of various scales.
A very significant change, especially since in the same dictionary the very concept of "military operations" has a much broader meaning than in the 1976 Military Encyclopedia. This is "the organized use of forces and means for the performance of assigned combat missions by units, formations, and associations of all types of armed forces," and not just the actions of troops on a strategic scale. Thus, the concept of "armed struggle" has already extended to all three components of military art: strategy, operational art, and a significant part of tactics.
The modern general scientific interpretation of this concept is as follows: “Armed struggle is the main type of confrontation in wars, military conflicts, armed uprisings, rebellions, putschs, etc. with the use of forces and means of conducting military operations on various scales.
This definition, perhaps, most closely reflects the essence of the phenomenon, but contains a significant inaccuracy: both wars and armed conflicts (which, by the way, are not mentioned in it), as well as uprisings, rebellions and putsches (which are actually the same thing) are a component part of such a generalizing concept as a military conflict.
In addition, based on the current understanding of the term "military operations" as "the confrontation of the parties in the war; organized use of forces and means of the branch of the armed forces, strategic and operational-strategic groupings in the theater of operations”, we can conclude that armed struggle is an exclusively operational-strategic concept and it is not conducted at the tactical level.
A number of other modern sources also note a certain return to the views of the 70s of the XX century and armed struggle is defined as a set of military operations of various scales carried out in all physical environments (on land, in air, on water, under water and in space). At the same time, it is emphasized that, together with the political, economic, ideological struggle and informational confrontation, it forms the basis of the content of the war, which links this concept even more closely with strategy.
In this regard, the question arises about the attitude to the term "combat operations", which is now interpreted as "armed clashes between the opposing sides." The assertion that this term has nothing to do with armed struggle raises a clear protest of logic.
So what is armed struggle? Is it a specific content or form of struggle in a war? Is it a combination of hostilities of various scales or the main type of confrontation in military conflicts? Or maybe it's just a synonym for the concept of "fighting"? Or maybe it's all put together?
Let's try to figure it out. Any term should carry both semantic, so philosophical load, clearly expressing the essence and structure of the phenomenon. Let's start with semantics. The key word of the concept is the word "struggle". Its most accurate definition, in our opinion, is given in the Explanatory Dictionary of V. Dahl: "Fight - an effort to overcome the enemy; competition of two forces; single combat without weapons ... ". Adjective armed refers primarily to a subject equipped with improvised or specially created means of struggle, and also, as in the SI dictionary. Ozhegov, in general, to the fight with weapons in their hands.
In other words, from the point of view of semantics, armed struggle is the effort to overcome the enemy, the competition of two forces, single combat with the use of weapons. From a philosophical point of view, struggle is the interaction of two mutually exclusive opposites. In armed struggle, this interaction appears in the form of defensive-offensive actions of armed subjects, and the struggle itself is a special form of the movement of spiritualized matter, characterized by the desire of the opposing sides to subjugate the enemy to their will by force of arms, to win time, forces and space.
It is essential that the goal of the struggle is achieved by forcing the enemy to surrender by exhausting him or by inflicting unacceptable physical damage, up to and including destruction. At the same time, both two armed individuals and several huge organized social groups of people - carriers of object-practical activity (that is, also subjects) can participate in the armed struggle as subjects. As a result, the struggle itself can be both simple and extended confrontation. It is no coincidence that K. Clausewitz defined war as "extended martial arts."
It is quite natural that the confrontation in question can take place in all physical environments accessible to human activity and will inevitably be accompanied by other forms of struggle designed to provide favorable conditions for the beginning, conduct and completion of the actual armed struggle as a decisive way to achieve the goals set, to complicate the conditions for its conduct by the enemy, and also cause him direct moral and physical damage.
Thus, we can conclude that armed struggle is essentially a simple or extended confrontation between armed subjects realizing opposite goals with the use of weapons in all physical environments accessible to a person.
The content of the armed struggle, obviously, is the mutual defeat of the opposing sides, up to their complete destruction (i.e., liquidation as a subject) by inflicting direct physical and moral damage on the enemy through the use of weapons; violation of his ability to adequately perceive the environment and deprivation of sources of replenishment of moral and physical strength. Naturally, the destructive effect of weapons will be accompanied by the constant movement of opponents in space in order to occupy a more advantageous position in relation to the enemy and capture (hold) vital areas.
It should be especially emphasized that the most powerful factor determining the content of armed struggle and the trends in its change is the quantitative and qualitative state of the weapons and military equipment used. It is the dynamics of the development of the means of armed struggle that determines the permanent expansion of the scale, the increase in the intensity, complexity, bitterness and destructiveness of its conduct.
Initially, the spatial scope of the armed struggle was determined by several tens (a little later - hundreds) of square meters of the battlefield of individual tribes. Subsequently, it began to be measured in kilometers, constantly expanding as the number of participants increased, the range of weapons and the use of various physical media.
The 20th century is especially indicative in this respect. At its beginning, armed confrontation was conducted within the border territories and water areas of the warring countries, gradually moving to the vital centers of the losing states, deploying, as a rule, on land and at sea. Subsequently, it began to cover a significant part of the territory of the continents and vast ocean areas, decisively moving into the air and underwater space.
Since the second half of the century, after the creation of effective strategic means of destruction, armed struggle has taken on a global character, since missile forces, long-range aviation and naval forces have been able to solve strategic tasks independently or jointly practically anywhere in the world. In the last decade, there has been a gradual shift in the center of gravity of the struggle in aerospace and information area, the dependence of its course and the outcome of the confrontation on actions in these areas has sharply increased. In the foreseeable future, armed struggle will inevitably go into near and then into outer space, and may cover geophysical, ecological, ethnic, psycho-emotional and other spheres.
Due to the fact that any struggle is a process of resolving a dialectical contradiction, it makes sense to find out what those mutually exclusive opposites are, the interaction between which gives rise to the process of armed struggle. These opposites, in our opinion, are types of armed struggle- attack and defense (if the essence of these phenomena is perceived philosophically). In other words, offensive means an initiative form of realization of combat potential one of the warring parties, under the defense - reactive(i.e. reaction to the opponent's initiative). The essence of this reaction does not matter: both inflicting deep fire strikes, and holding the occupied lines "to death", and retreat, and even an offensive with a decisive transfer of efforts to the enemy's territory with the first data on his aggressive actions - all this will be defense. It is no coincidence that Clausewitz argued that the main sign of defense is waiting (a defensive battle is waiting for an attack), a battle is the appearance of the enemy within the reach of his means of destruction, a campaign is his invasion of a theater of operations, and also that in a defensive campaign you can fight offensively.
Neither type of armed struggle can exist independently, but only in dialectical interaction with each other. That is why armed struggle exists only where one of the parties is advancing and the other is defending, i.e. one side takes the initiative and the other reacts accordingly. Otherwise, it will be just a solemn march or "tea in the trenches". Offensive and defense are two components of a single process called "armed struggle", the interaction between which generates the energy of the latter.
The question may arise: what if the opposing sides go on the offensive at the same time? Then one of the sides will be forced to react to the actions of the enemy who has preempted it by several minutes or hours in the implementation of the initiative, correcting its plans, since synchronous actions of opposing groupings of forces of any scale are practically impossible. At the same time, the level of intensity of the armed struggle will be in direct proportion to the degree of preemption of the more active side, which generates a defensive reaction of the late adversary.
At the same time, combat experience shows that in any case, the clash of two initiatives forms a certain period of relative equilibrium. During this period, the process of armed struggle is fueled by the inevitable defensive and offensive actions parts of the forces and means of both sides. We are talking about troops that ensure the maneuvering of the main forces in the interests of occupying a more advantageous position in relation to the enemy. The period of equilibrium will continue until one of the parties deliberately or forcedly gives up the initiative, or both give it up, and then the armed struggle will temporarily stop. However, this is a special case. That is why this kind of armed struggle has a very specific name - "oncoming battle (battle)".
All of the above allows us to conclude that armed struggle is indeed the main type of confrontation in military conflicts and their specific content.
Having understood what the essence of the term "armed struggle" is and what its place is in the general system of concepts of military art, we can talk about forms and methods of warfare.
Under the form it is customary to understand the way of organization and existence of processes, objects, phenomena, as well as a set of features that express the external manifestation of their essence. Since the very concept of "armed struggle" is very broad and covers all the constituent parts of military art, the forms of its conduct should also be manifested in the tactical, operational and strategic actions of military formations.
On the tactical level armed struggle can act in the form of: a duel - an armed confrontation between two individuals, including those who are in aircraft, underwater, space vehicles, etc.; combat - an organized armed clash of formations, units, subunits, ships, individual crews and combat crews of weapons and military equipment of various types of armed forces of the warring parties; strike - a short and powerful impact on the enemy in a local area with weapons and troops, carried out both within the framework of the battle and outside them; military operations - as a series of sequentially conducted tactical formations and not connected by a single plan and plan of battles. The latter form of struggle is characteristic of the period of preparation for operations or the interval of time between successive operations of formations of the Armed Forces in the interests of improving the operational position of troops and creating favorable conditions for their training.
Under special conditions, for example, in the course of anti-partisan (partisan) struggle, tactical formations can also conduct armed struggle in a specific form of special actions, i.e. actions with the use of weapons that do not fall under the signs of offensive or defensive (ambushes, sabotage, terrorist acts, combing the area, sniper and anti-sniper actions, isolation-restrictive, security, etc.).
On the operational and operational-tactical levels the main form of armed struggle is the operation of uniting the type of armed forces as a set of battles, battles, strikes and maneuvers, coordinated in terms of tasks, place and time, carried out according to a single plan and plan of tactical formations and units of various types of troops and types of armed forces in the interests of achieve a common operational goal.
A very important form of armed struggle at the operational level is the battle. It may be part of an operation. and act as a separate battle of an operational (operational-tactical) formation of the Armed Forces type. At its core, it is a combination of battles, strikes and maneuvers carried out by several formations and units of the formation (sometimes by the formation as a whole) in the interests of solving one or two operational tasks. The battle has a rigid temporal (1-3 days) and spatial (as a rule, part of the union's action zone) framework. A battle as part of an operation covers the period of conducting the most active and decisive combat operations of an association in order to fulfill the most important operational tasks that determine the outcome of the operation.
A separate battle is a form of armed struggle that exceeds the tactical level in scale, but "does not reach" the level of an operation. One of the most characteristic examples is the Bain-Tsagan defensive battle of the 57th Separate Corps on the Khalkhin-Gol River on July 3-5, 1939, during which two operational tasks were successfully solved: retention western bank of the river and a bridgehead on its eastern bank and liquidation(carrying out a counterattack) of the bridgehead captured by the main strike group of the enemy on our coast in the area of Mount Bain-Tsagan.
Absolutely special forms - fire, electronic and anti-aircraft battles. What they have in common is that they can be carried out on the scale of the entire association, in the interests of solving one, but very important operational task - gaining fire superiority and air superiority (the first two types of battles), as well as in order to reduce this superiority and air superiority the enemy (all three types). They can be a series of massive fire, electronic strikes, air and anti-air battles, with the participation of all relevant forces and means of association, as well as their systematic combat operations in the intervals between strikes.
In addition, at the level under consideration, armed struggle can be conducted in the form of strikes with weapons and troops (of course, on an operational scale), as well as in the form of combat actions of associations. The latter will be set of fights carried out outside the scope of the operation or in the interval between successive operations, as well as connection actions and parts military branches of the association during the entire operation.
In the event that an association of ground forces is involved in the resolution of an internal armed conflict, it may conduct armed struggle in a special form - a joint special operation. Why joint? Because the formations of other law enforcement agencies, in particular the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, are inevitably included in the combat strength of the association. Why special? Because the lion's share of the content of the operation is not traditional battles and battles, but special actions of anti-partisan struggle, isolation-restrictive and security actions.
At the same time, combat experience shows that in operations of this kind, associations are often forced to conduct fierce combined-arms battles to defeat large, compactly operating groups of illegal armed formations.
Operations can also be carried out by operational-strategic formations of the Armed Forces. In this case, in addition to the listed elements, their content must also include operations carried out by lower-level associations that are part of them. Thus, a front-line operation is a set of operations carried out according to a single plan and plan of operations of the armies and corps that make up the front, strikes, as well as battles, battles and maneuvers of subordinate tactical formations and units of various types of troops and types of the Armed Forces.
Recently, grounds have appeared to talk about the emergence of a new, special form of armed struggle - a strike-fire operation of an operational and operational-strategic formation. It can be carried out for the purpose of remotely defeating enemy force groupings, gaining air supremacy and fire superiority, reducing the firepower of enemy formations, forcing him to abandon offensive operations, and also creating favorable conditions for ground groupings of friendly troops to go on the offensive. The operation may include a number fire battles and massive fire strikes powerful radio-electronic and diversionary influence on the troops and the most important infrastructure facilities of the enemy. The very emergence of such operations became possible as a result of the mass equipping of troops with high-precision weapons, the massive use of which is comparable in effectiveness to nuclear weapons, which make it possible to “remotely” defeat enemy groupings and destroy its most important objects of operational and strategic importance.
In addition, in recent decades, the role of special operations carried out by special forces has sharply increased in armed struggle. The high vulnerability and potential danger of many objects of the Armed Forces, objects of state and economic infrastructure, the use of the latest means of sabotage, control and navigation can lead to the fact that their destruction or destruction will inevitably give an operational, and even strategic effect.
All this, as well as the need to "highlight" for the WTO numerous important targets located deep behind enemy lines, led to a significant increase in the number of special forces in the armies of many countries of the world, and their massive use in the interests of achieving a single and very important goal is quite possible and in the form of a special operation of an operational-strategic scale.
This operation can be a set of special actions, interconnected in terms of tasks, place and time, carried out according to a single concept and plan by special forces behind enemy lines. Their goal will be to disrupt the organized work of the rear, block communications, impede the operation of command and control systems, the basing of aircraft of the opposing enemy formation, etc.
On the strategic level The main form of armed struggle is obviously a strategic operation of an armed force grouping deployed in a continental or ocean theater (strategic direction). Other forms include a joint strategic operation of associations of several types and branches of the Armed Forces to defeat the most important objects of the Armed Forces, economic and state infrastructure of the enemy with weapons (nuclear, WTO, on new physical principles, etc.) in order to disrupt his operation conducted with these the same targets, as well as a massive strategic strike with weapons. In addition, in wars, especially large-scale ones, such a form of struggle as a campaign is also possible, which is a set of interrelated strategic operations, strikes and maneuvers of armed forces groupings operating in the theater of war (theater of war) carried out simultaneously and sequentially according to a single plan and plan in a certain time period.
Of all the forms of armed struggle, the operation is the most diverse. AT In connection with this, it becomes necessary to combine all types of operations into a certain system, guided by certain criteria.
If we analyze the many definitions of the concept of “system” that currently exist, we can conclude that a system is a set of interacting, hierarchically structured elements integrated in space and time, either connected by functional relationships (static system) or functioning according to a single ideology (dynamic system).
Thus, in order to form a system, elements are needed, as well as a hierarchical structuring of these elements in accordance with the functional links that unite them. In our opinion, the elements of the system of operations can be types, subtypes, ranks, types and subspecies operations. These elements can be structured according to the time they were carried out, according to the spatial scale of the armed struggle, the composition of its participants, as well as the types and subtypes of its conduct (Fig.).
Now oh methods of warfare. AT In a broad sense, a method refers to actions or a system of actions used to solve a problem in practice. In the military field, the method of conducting an armed struggle should be understood as the chosen subject of the struggle. order and tricks the use of available forces and means in the interests of solving the tasks at hand. In this case, the basis of the content of the method, obviously, will be: determining the place and order of concentration of efforts; establishing the sequence of actions and the nature of the maneuver by forces and means; determination of the procedure and methods for hitting the enemy with weapons, using the results of the hit, as well as measures to deceive the enemy and protect against his means of destruction.
The methods of struggle used directly depend on its goal, the content of the tasks set, and the forces and means available at the disposal.
As already mentioned, the goal of armed struggle is to subjugate the enemy to one's will through the use of armed violence. To achieve this goal, it will inevitably be necessary to solve the problem of forcibly coercing the enemy to renounce his intentions or to capitulate. In what way can this problem be solved?
The history of military art knows two main methods: exhaustion - the forceful suppression of the enemy's ability to resist while maintaining (mostly) his physical integrity, and crushing - physical defeat, the elimination of it as an organized functioning system.
Exhaustion can be achieved by using the following techniques: temporary incapacitation of the enemy by inflicting a series of strong blows on vital centers as a demonstration of overwhelming superiority (Yugoslavia, 1999); moral, psychological and physical exhaustion of the enemy through long-term, permanent strikes of small force against numerous targets with the simultaneous elimination of the enemy’s ability to replenish forces (classic active siege); destruction of sources and blocking of ways to replenish the enemy's physical and moral forces - encirclement or blockade (including informational) with subsequent waiting.
Crushing can be achieved by simultaneously defeating the enemy to the entire depth of his formation with weapons (nuclear, WTO, etc.) with the immediate use of the results of defeat by mobile elements of one’s forces, as well as the sequential defeat of the enemy in parts as he approaches or our troops advance into his depth .
Methods of armed struggle can be used either individually or in combination at various stages of the conduct of the struggle.
In conclusion, it must be emphasized that the thoughts presented in the article do not in any way claim to be the ultimate truth. In the author's opinion, they can only be considered as a basis for a discussion that needs to be developed in order to clarify the essence and content of the most important terms of military art.
Razin B.A. History of military art. M.: Military Publishing House, 1956. S. 8.
There. S. 30.
military strategy. M.: Military Publishing House, 1968. S. 209.
Methodological problems of military theory and practice. M.: Military Publishing House, 1969. S. 78.
WES. M.: Military Publishing House, 1986. S. 145.
VE. T. 2. M.: Military Publishing House, 1994. S. 268.
WES. M.: Military Publishing House, 1986. S. 193.
There. T. 1.S. 524.
Dal V. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. T. 1. M .: State. foreign publishing house and national Words, 1955. S. 117.
Ozhegov SI. Dictionary of the Russian language. M: Russian language, 1985. S. 83.
Clausewitz K. About the war. T. 1. M .: Military Publishing House, 1941. S. 25.
Ozhegov S.I. Dictionary of the Russian language. S. 658.
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MEANS AND METHODS OF ARMED COMBAT IN A MILITARY CONFLICT
I.A. GRIGURKO, V.L. Kalmanovich
International humanitarian law (IHL) contains rules that establish restrictions on the conduct of hostilities, the purpose of which is to prevent or reduce the destructive effect of armed struggle. These rules limiting violence in time of war must be fully applied in all situations governed by international humanitarian law. The law does not allow any derogation from it under the pretext of military necessity.
On December 19, 1968, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2444 entitled "Respect for Human Rights in Times of Armed Conflict", which reaffirmed the three essential principles of international humanitarian law, which, as stated in the text, must be respected by all governments and other groups taking part in armed conflict. These three principles can be formulated as follows: the right of the parties to the conflict to choose the means to inflict damage on the enemy is not unlimited; it is forbidden to attack the civilian population as such; a distinction should always be made between persons taking part in hostilities and civilians in order to endanger the latter as little as possible.
The means of conducting an armed struggle are weapons and other military equipment used by the armed forces of the belligerents to destroy the enemy's manpower and materiel, to suppress his forces and ability to resist. The methods of conducting armed struggle are the order, all kinds of ways to use the means of conducting armed conflicts for the indicated purposes.
According to Art. 35 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 prohibits the use of weapons, projectiles, substances and methods of warfare capable of causing unnecessary injury or unnecessary suffering or making the death of the combatants inevitable, as well as leading to mass destruction and wanton destruction of property.
This rule prohibits the use of weapons and ammunition that cause damage that is not necessary to achieve the stated military goal, i.e. superfluous, since the task can be accomplished by other - less cruel - methods, such damage is disproportionate to the goals. It is in this sense that the St. Petersburg Declaration (1868) forbade the use of explosive or incendiary ammunition, and the first Hague Peace Conference (1899) outlawed the use of dum-dum bullets, poisons and poisoned weapons. (Even in antiquity, Roman jurists proclaimed the rule that war is waged with weapons and not with poison.) A specially adopted declaration stated that the contracting powers undertook not to use projectiles whose sole purpose was to spread asphyxiating or harmful gases. The provisions of this declaration subsequently received their further development and consolidation in the IV Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1907, as well as in the Geneva Protocol on the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Similar Gases and Bacteriological Means of 1925.
Provisions prohibiting the use of chemical weapons in war conditions (which were not violated during the Second World War and became a customary norm) are also contained in a number of other international legal instruments (in particular, in the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use chemical weapons and their destruction, January 13, 1993).
Prohibited means of warfare are bacteriological (biological) weapons, the action of which is based on the use of the pathogenic properties of microorganisms capable of causing epidemics of such dangerous diseases as plague, cholera, typhoid, etc.
Protocol I contains a special rule prohibiting the illegal use of the distinctive emblems of the Red Cross, the United Nations, as well as flags, emblems, uniforms of neutral countries or states not participating in the conflict (Article 38). The use of emblems for other purposes is reprehensible not only because it can have adverse consequences for a particular enemy soldier, but also because such actions generally undermine the credibility of the emblem. There is a danger that after that the emblem will not be respected even when it is used legally. For this reason, the perfidious use of the distinctive emblem may, under certain circumstances, be considered a serious breach of Protocol I, i.e. as a war crime (Section 85.3(f)). The same provisions prohibit the misuse of the UN emblem, the perfidious use of which is also punishable.
Thus, it can be stated that:
1. International humanitarian law contains rules establishing restrictions on the conduct of hostilities, the purpose of which is to prevent or reduce the destructive effect of armed struggle.
2. All governments and other groups taking part in an armed conflict must respect the three essential principles of international humanitarian law: the right of parties to a conflict to choose means to harm the enemy is not unlimited; it is forbidden to attack the civilian population as such; a distinction should always be made between persons taking part in hostilities and civilians in order to endanger the latter as little as possible.
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16. Modern means of armed struggle. The damaging factors of modern types of weapons.
CLASSIFICATION OF MODERN WEAPONS
According to the scale and nature of the damaging effect, modern weapons are divided into:
1.Weapon of mass destruction:
Chemical
Bacteriological (biological)
2. Conventional weapons,
including:
cluster munitions
precision weapons
Volumetric explosion ammunition
incendiary mixtures
3. Weapons based on new physical principles:
laser weapons
Beam weapon
microwave weapons
4.Non-lethal weapons.
5. Genetic weapon.
6.Ethnic weapons.
7. Information weapons, etc.
Nuclear weapons A weapon whose destructive effect is based on the use of intranuclear energy released during a nuclear explosion is called.
Nuclear weapons are based on the use of intranuclear energy released during chain reactions of fission of heavy nuclei of isotopes of uranium-235, plutonium-239 or during thermonuclear reactions of fusion of light hydrogen isotope nuclei (deuterium and tritium) into heavier ones.
These weapons include various nuclear munitions (warheads of missiles and torpedoes, aircraft and depth charges, artillery shells and mines) equipped with nuclear chargers, means of controlling them and delivering them to the target.
The main part of a nuclear weapon is a nuclear charge containing a nuclear explosive (NAE) - uranium-235 or plutonium-239.
Damaging factors of a nuclear explosion
During the explosion of a nuclear weapon, a huge amount of energy is released in millionths of a second. The temperature rises to several million degrees, and the pressure reaches billions of atmospheres.
The main damaging factors of a nuclear explosion are:
1. shock wave - 50% of the energy of the explosion;
2. light radiation - 30-35% of the energy of the explosion;
3. penetrating radiation - 8-10% of the energy of the explosion;
4. radioactive contamination - 3-5% of the energy of the explosion;
5. electromagnetic pulse - 0.5-1% of the energy of the explosion.
Chemical weapon These are poisonous substances and the means of delivering them to the target.
Poisonous substances are toxic (poisonous) chemical compounds that affect people and animals, infect the air, terrain, water bodies and various objects on the ground. Some toxins are designed to kill plants. The means of delivery include artillery chemical projectiles and mines (VAP), warheads of missiles in chemical equipment, chemical land mines, checkers, grenades and cartridges.
Poisonous substances can have various states of aggregation (vapor, aerosol, liquid) and affect people through the respiratory system, the gastrointestinal tract, or when they come into contact with the skin.
According to the physiological action, agents are divided into groups :
1) Nerve agents - tabun, sarin, soman, VX. They cause disorders of the functions of the nervous system, muscle cramps, paralysis and death;
2) Agent of blistering action - mustard gas, lewisite.
3) OS of general toxic action – hydrocyanic acid and cyanogen chloride. The defeat through the respiratory system and when it enters the gastrointestinal tract with water and food.
4) OV suffocating action– phosgene. It affects the body through the respiratory system. In the period of latent action, pulmonary edema develops.
5) OV psychochemical action - BZ. It strikes through the respiratory system. Violates coordination of movements, causes hallucinations and mental disorders;
6) Irritant agents - chloroacetophenone, adamsite, CS (Ci-Es), CR (Ci-Ar). Causes respiratory and eye irritation;
Biological weapons (BW)- These are special ammunition and combat devices with delivery vehicles, equipped with biological means.
BW is a weapon of mass destruction of people, farm animals and plants, the action of which is based on the use of the pathogenic properties of microorganisms and their metabolic products - toxins.
The causative agents of plague, cholera, anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, glanders and smallpox, psittacosis, yellow fever, foot and mouth disease, Venezuelan, western and eastern American encephalomyelitis, epidemic typhus, KU fever, rocky spotted fever can be used as BOs. mountains and fever tsutsugamushi, coccidioidomycosis, nocardiosis, histoplasmosis, etc.
The main uses of BO are as follows:
a) aerosol - contamination of surface air by spraying liquid or dry biological formulations;
b) transmissible - dispersion in the target area of artificially infected blood-sucking vectors;
c) sabotage method - contamination of air, water, food with the help of sabotage equipment.
Conventional means of attack, precision weapons.
The main role of the carrier of conventional weapons is played by aviation as the most mobile component of the entire NATO military machine. Their aircraft are equipped with high-precision guided weapons - air-to-ground missiles, guided aerial bombs (conventional aerial bombs, high-explosive, armor-piercing, cumulative, concrete-piercing, incendiary, volumetric explosions, etc.).
The usual types of modern weapons also include volume explosion ammunition. The damaging factors of volumetric explosion ammunition are the shock wave, thermal and toxic effects. Buildings, structures, buried objects can be destroyed as a result of the action of a shock wave, as well as the leakage of a gas-air mixture (DHW) into the inlets, air supply channels, communications, followed by detonation of the DHW.
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At present, several large civilizations coexist on Earth, which have a number of fundamental differences in their views on the goals and basic values of the further development of mankind. Today, the front of global contradictions, in our opinion, has moved from the ideological level to the civilizational one. The last decades have convincingly shown that violence still remains in the arsenals of modern world civilization. In this regard, it can be stated with complete certainty that the development, production and constant improvement of means of armed struggle will remain one of the most important attributes of modern mankind.
Qualitative analysis shows that the share of modern weapons and military equipment in the Russian army was 20-30% three years ago, while in the armies of the world this figure is more than 70%. Scientific and technological progress in the field of creating new and more effective weapons and military equipment does not stand still. Historical analysis shows that the development of weapons, military equipment, ammunition took place in close connection with the general progress of civilization.
In turn, the development of means of armed struggle ultimately leads to changes in tactics and operational art. Methods and methods of warfare throughout the history of mankind have undergone strong changes. Systems for remote destruction of the enemy, such as ballistic missiles, systems and complexes of the WTO, are gaining more and more development. The range of destruction is increasing more and more, forcing also to improve the means of protection. In addition, the current geopolitical situation in the world does not allow wars to be waged exclusively by military means. Modern warfare is a complex that includes methods and means of non-military suppression, such as the "fifth column", information warfare, economic suppression, the war of intelligence and counterintelligence, etc. The beginning of hostilities unfolds when all other non-military methods of weakening the enemy state have been exhausted.
Relevance of the topic research lies in the fact that in modern conditions there is a huge need to improve not only weapons, but also the forms and methods of warfare. task work is to search for modern trends in the development and use of the armed forces by the enemy, taking into account the experience of past wars and conflicts.
The main trends in the changing nature of armed struggle indicate that there is a spatial expansion of the scope of military operations, the scale of the impact of combat systems, as well as a shift in the center of hostilities to the aerospace and information spheres (Fig. 1).
1. Historical lessons and conclusions from the experience of past wars
The critically comprehended experience of any wars (including the Great Patriotic War) is of unique importance, since the forms and methods of armed struggle do not appear from scratch, but include the developments of the past.
A military leader who is preparing troops for combat operations must have a very clear idea of the nature of the upcoming war. Often, unfortunately, the troops are preparing for the last war, and the experience of the last war, to the detriment of the cause, is presented as a kind of standard in everything:
- and in the organizational and staffing structure of the troops, and in their armament,
- and in the forms and methods of warfare. But none of the wars is completely repeatable.
The desire to give a predictive analysis of the war and the armed struggle of the future is not an easy task. This is due to the need to understand the cardinal changes not only in interstate relations, but also in the development of science and technology, armaments, the activities of special services, as well as in military construction, planning, and the art of war. Knowledge expressed by a scientist is always relative and carries the burden of subjectivity.
History teaches, and the experience of war confirms that the enemy attacks at the most inopportune moment, therefore the state of the military power of the state and the combat capability of its army must be maintained in an adequate state.
It must be understood that war is not only armed struggle on the battlefield. Before the start of a war, the enemy uses every opportunity (political, economic, informational, etc.) to weaken the enemy. Armed methods of struggle are used only when it is not possible to achieve the goal by non-military means.. War is provoked not by strength, but by the weakness of the object of attack.
At the same time, there are general trends and patterns in the training of the armed forces that cannot be discounted.
- A clear distinction should be made between the political and military levels of a state's entry into the war. The political level (the creation of political alliances, the breakdown of enemy alliances and coalitions, the creation of a favorable political environment for waging war) is the responsibility of the political leadership of the state, and the military level (including the issues of strategic deployment of troops, the preparation of the Armed Forces for war, the optimal OShS, the command and control system) is directly responsible for the military the leadership of the country. The desire to mix these levels is an attempt to shift responsibility for the poor preparation of certain areas of the state for war (according to the experience of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, attempts to place all responsibility for the unsuccessful entry of the army into the war on Stalin).
- It is necessary to think over the system of governing the country in special legal regimes of functioning (regimes of martial law and state of emergency with appropriate legal support). At present, Russia lacks what was called “wartime laws” during the Great Patriotic War. In addition, the inability of the pre-war structure of governing the country in the conditions of the outbreak of war led to the creation of the State Defense Committee and the Supreme High Command, which ruled the country in real time (meetings were held daily), and their orders had the force of wartime laws. The established National Center for Defense Control in modern Russia is effective in peacetime (in war conditions, its functions will be violated), therefore, a country management system based on a network of protected (hidden) command posts, etc. is needed.
- In the context of the demographic crisis and the threat of a large-scale war, it is necessary to switch to a system of accumulation of mobilization resources based on reservists who have signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense to serve in the reserve (deploy as much as possible in accordance with the concept approved by the President of the Russian Federation of 04.05.2007 No. Pr-735 - experiment on service in the reserve). In addition, it is necessary to restore the system of frame parts, on the basis of which to complete future parts and connections, if necessary.
- It is necessary to create a comprehensive system of information protection of the public consciousness of the Russian society, which, in the conditions of the information war unleashed against the Russian Federation, seems to be a top-priority measure.
- The last war showed that they are fighting not with armies, but with economies.
Only a powerful economy of the mobilization type is capable of providing the army and society with everything necessary in a war. It is necessary to restructure the structure of the Russian economy and remove representatives of foreign capital from the shareholders (and management bodies) of strategic enterprises and critically important industries. In wars of a new generation, the dependence of the armed forces of the belligerent states on their economic capabilities is growing more significantly than on their defeat by the enemy. Consequently, the scale of the armed impact on the economy will take on such significant proportions that it will be necessary to carry out appropriate measures in advance not only for their defense, but also for the protection and restoration
In addition, one should think about creating well-protected material reserves and their optimal placement on the territory of the country (hence it is necessary to revise the structure and location of organizations of the Federal Reserve), recreate a system of industrial enterprises - understudies in the country (in order to avoid their destruction during a massive first strike). (It should be remembered about the sad experience of placing district, army and divisional warehouses in the immediate vicinity of the state border in the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War).
- Improving the quality of weapons in principle implies a reduction in the number of their types, universalization, and the achievement of a rational ratio of offensive and defensive means in accordance with the real threat. This ratio should be adjusted depending on changes in the external arena. The main indicator here should be the preservation of such parameters that are capable of repelling external aggression and organizing a retaliatory strike. The experience of the Great Patriotic War testifies that it was not possible to achieve an actual increase in the combat capability of military formations and formations by equipping them with new types of weapons.
- Even then, there was a tendency towards the rapid moral and physical aging of weapons and military equipment and, as a result, the rearmament of the army with new means. Important are the timing of the development, production and implementation of weapons. At the same time, one should not get carried away with innovations in armaments (these samples are expensive and the state is not able to organize the mass production of such samples). In the event of large-scale hostilities, you will have to fight with those samples that have already stood and are now in service (and whose stocks are available). So one should not get carried away with supernova models of high-tech weapons, one should improve the methods and forms of combat using existing models(which was shown by the experience of maintaining a database in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Chechnya, Eastern Ukraine and Syria). Weapons are the consumables of war. It should not be exclusive
and effectively and maximally meet the quality-cost ratio. - The principle remains important: "Teach the troops what is needed in the war, and only in the way that is done in the war." Incorrect pre-war forecasting can set back the development of the armed forces by 10 or more years, and in the conditions of an unfolding war, erroneous military planning can lead to grave consequences, up to defeat in the war. There may not be time to change the mistakes made, as it was in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War.
- The principle of military art remains unshakable, that the means of armed struggle determine tactics. In other words, new advanced means of combat lead to dramatic changes on the battlefield. And historical experience shows this convincingly. The most developed states that are taking the necessary measures to reconstruct their armed forces will most likely be able to wage sixth-generation wars already in the 1920s. These wars will start, go and end in a completely different way than all the previous ones.
- Unity in society, the absence of a fifth column, a strong rear are the key to a successful armed struggle of the army in the theater of operations.
- The experience of the Great Patriotic War and local wars convincingly shows that with the outbreak of war, the Air Force should be aimed at fulfilling the main task of gaining air supremacy by conducting air operations to defeat enemy air groupings. At the same time, the expediency of their centralized control by the Air Force Commander-in-Chief was proved. The decentralization of the Air Force complicated, and sometimes excluded maneuver. An aviation reserve should be created in peacetime to make up for losses.
- The specifics of preparing the enemy to maintain troops in a state of constant readiness must be taken into account in the combat training of military air defense. During threatened periods, combat training should be organized in such a way that they could provide maximum cover for objects (according to the experience of the past war, air defense systems of border military districts at the beginning of the war, for various reasons, ended up at training grounds far from their formations, which led to a violation of the integrity of formations and decrease in their combat capability).
In general, summing up the analysis of the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War and the search for the reasons for the unsuccessful entry of the country and the army into the war, I would like to draw attention (not only to the analysis of the monograph, but also to the comparison of its provisions with other authors who have studied this problem). The tragedy of June 22, 1941, in reality, consisted of the interweaving of a huge variety of factors, rigidly intertwined. First of all, historical conditions, economic interests, strategic plans, selfish calculations, clan interests, illegal, and often simply criminal actions, national and unprofessional ambitions, courage and cowardice, heroism and betrayal, selflessness and selfishness, honest performance of military and civic duty and meanness, etc.
2 New trends emerging at the turn of theXX- XXIcenturies
- Military conflicts and local wars carried out already in the 21st century, initiated by the United States, clearly demonstrated and confirmed not only American military and economic power, but also the desire of many countries to support their actions, to enter the orbit of those participating in the division of the world pie (such as , Poland and Ukraine in the Iraqi events in early 2003) and resolve their various interests. So it was in military actions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq.
- Without a doubt, the prevailing influence on the definition reasons to unleash conflicts and end military-political goals All military campaigns of the last decade have been and are being provided by American economic and political interests. The limited nature of the world's raw materials forces the American leadership to take this into account and declare those regions that have significant oil reserves and energy resources a zone of their national interests.
- The experience of local wars and armed conflicts of recent decades testifies to the established tradition of their unleashing. As a rule, an interstate conflict arose when its armed component was carried out in conditions of a sharp difference in the economic development of the aggressor states and the country under attack.
- Comprehensive informatization of military affairs can be considered a new objective factor, which makes it possible to automate the processes of collecting and processing data about the enemy and friendly troops, to respond almost in real time to changes in the situation, to determine and bring tasks to the troops (forces), to aim ammunition at targets with high accuracy and control the effectiveness of fire strikes. Information confrontation becomes the most important component of armed and other types of struggle between states (coalitions of states).
- Analyzing the experience of wars, military and armed conflicts that have taken place only in the last 60 years, one can detect a change in the pattern in the development of weapons: a smooth, gradual evolutionary process of developing and modernizing known types of weapons began to give way to their abrupt renewal. This was especially expressed in the fact that during this period not just new weapons appeared, but entire combat systems capable of performing
those tasks that were previously assigned mainly to manpower. For example, in the Korean War (1950-1953), nine previously unknown types of weapons were used. In the Vietnam War (1964-1975) there were already 25 such types. In wars and conflicts in the Middle East (1967, 1973, 1982, 1986) - about 30. And in the war in the Persian Gulf zone (1991) ) - more than 100. However, it should be specially noted that the emergence of new, more advanced types of weapons only led to a change in the forms and methods of armed struggle.
Thus, the use of jet aircraft in the Korean War led to a change in the struggle for air supremacy, but this did not change the strategy of the war as a whole. In the Vietnam War, for the first time, helicopters were used in large numbers, which led to a change in combined arms combat - it acquired an air-ground character, but again, the nature of the war did not change. In the wars in the Middle East, experimental launches of high-precision weapons were carried out, but here the nature of the war also did not change. But in the war in the Persian Gulf for the first time the nature of the war as a whole changed, there was a real revolution in military affairs, although there are those who, for various reasons, would not want to notice this.
The war in the Persian Gulf and precision-guided missile strikes by NATO aircraft on the combat positions of Serbian troops in the war in Yugoslavia quite convincingly demonstrated the capabilities of precision-guided weapons and have already given a powerful impetus to their development, which leads to significant changes in the forms and methods of armed struggle and a practical transition to a new generation of war.
- The massing of forces and means, including aviation, in the interests of achieving the goals of the operation. If the war in Vietnam (1960-1970) required the use of 15%, the operation in Iraq "Desert Storm" (1991) - up to 30%, then the events in Yugoslavia - already up to 65% of the forces and means of the US Air Force.
- In view of the fact that there were no conventional means of massive impact simultaneously throughout the enemy’s territory, his military and civilian facilities, in order to achieve strategic results in the war, it was necessary to conduct long-term offensive operations of an operational-strategic scale on his occupied territory, mainly by numerous ground groupings, which in in turn led to huge losses on both sides. Everything has changed radically with the advent of high-precision weapons. Its development may ultimately lead to the fact that the outcome of the war can be decided without a land phase (so many military experts believe!). A massive global strike by the WTO on critical facilities will lead to chaos in the military-political situation, man-made disasters in a single country and allow it to dictate terms without the use of ground forces.
This weapon has been seriously tested in local wars and armed conflicts of the last fifteen years and is already becoming a very scarce commodity on the arms market.
It is known that in the war in the Persian Gulf, these high-precision cruise missiles, launched at a range of 1200-1500 km, successfully hit about 80% of all the most important military and civilian targets in Iraq. This gave a powerful impetus to the development of completely new missiles of this class - the Fasthawk, which will have a higher accuracy of hitting the target than the Tomahawk missiles and it is possible that they will subsequently be in service.
At a time when almost many countries are constantly developing or creating armed forces, when long-term programs are being adopted to develop new types of weapons and military equipment, a predictive vision of the war of the future, say, in 15-20 years or more, becomes especially valuable. It is necessary to know this already today, because it is today that future weapons should be developed and put into production and armed forces should be created that will be able to conduct armed struggle and wars of the future.
High-precision weapons will require serious navigation support. Radio navigation systems based on artificial Earth satellites will be created. It can be argued that such systems have already been tested in recent military conflicts.
- The wars of the future generation, most likely, will not be of a protracted nature, and the whole process of armed struggle will proceed more rapidly according to the laws and rules that will be imposed on the strongest - on those who are most prepared for such wars.
First of all, we should expect a massive strike on the information sphere in order to suppress command and control centers and communication centers to ensure the absence of coordination of all forces and means of armed struggle.
Based on the strategy of conducting armed struggle by the NATO bloc (in particular, the United States), one should expect the use of WTO weapons by the enemy as a first strike. fall apart. The side not ready for such a new war will be forced to act in the old way and will have no choice but to go on the defensive with its numerous ground forces, although in this case it may not be opposed by a land enemy.
As a result of the revolution in military affairs, a colossal new leap is expected in the development of armaments, and as a result, in the forms and methods of armed struggle. A new era of high-tech weapon wars is coming, an era of significant release of man and manpower in general from participation in armed struggle.
- Despite the increase in the spatial scope of armed struggle in a new generation war, navigation support will make it possible to significantly improve the accuracy of firing conventional non-nuclear missiles of various ranges. Increasing the accuracy of shooting is the most economical way to increase the efficiency of their use. If, by increasing the power of a charge of a conventional type, say, by doubling the destructive power of a missile, it will increase by 40%, then the increase in accuracy will also double its destructive power by 400%, i.e., 10 times. All short-, medium- and long-range missiles with conventional warheads will also become precision-guided. In general, the firing accuracy of all high-precision weapons in the next 10-15 years will increase by at least five times. This will be achieved mainly due to the precise navigation of each flying missile, as well as due to the correction of their flight to the target with the help of special devices placed on artificial Earth satellites.
Existing and being developed in the leading countries of the world, high-precision cruise missiles, missiles, UABs and UAKs of a conventional type of land, air and sea-based can only be used in conditions of information superiority. With the help of information processing, intelligence (both electronic and special forces) and communications, it will be necessary to quickly obtain accurate, timely and secure information that allows you to correctly respond to any conflict in order to immediately master the situation and make the necessary decisions. To do this, apparently, it will be necessary to develop completely different global military command, control, intelligence and communications systems than they are now. It will be necessary to have communication of information networks covering all spheres of armed struggle practically all over the globe. At the same time, it will be necessary to prevent the enemy from obtaining information to control his troops and weapons. Information superiority must be realized through superiority in mobility, in speed of reaction, in precise action against the enemy, and in the least possible risk to one's own forces and means. Information superiority must be realized through: dominance in maneuver by forces, means and fire; massive and long-term use of high-precision weapons; targeted comprehensive logistical support; reliable protection of forces and means at all levels.
During this transitional period, strategic non-nuclear weapons, air, sea and land forces and delivery vehicles for high-precision weapons and weapons based on new physical principles will operate jointly. To a large extent, this will also be facilitated by the ongoing development, in addition to high-precision means and other types of weapons, and primarily weapons of directed energy transfer, automatic and automated guidance systems for precision weapons, new explosives with increased power, ultra-high-speed data processing tools, as well as electronic warfare. .
3 Development of the nature, forms and methods of armed struggle
in the 21st century
Changing the armed struggle involves not only the production of new high-tech weapons, but also a change in the way of thinking and, as a result, the emergence of new methods of warfare.
The development of military art is a process of expanding development of the spatial continuum, conducting armed struggle, from the strategy of a general battle at one point in the era of the Napoleonic wars and linear strategy in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, to a deep operation on the continental theater on the eve and in the years World War II and further to volumetric (aerospace, air-land and land-sea) operations at the end of the 20th century. Today
to the increase in the spatial indicators of the conduct of armed struggle is added the active and ever-increasing use of the information continuum. This is one of the main trends in modern warfare.
Changes in the nature of hostilities occur not only due to the emergence of new weapons, but also due to new structures of military formations using these weapons. The sphere of active combat operations is increasingly involving traditional types of supporting operations, such as reconnaissance, electronic warfare, protective and camouflage measures. By changing the nature of combat operations is meant a change in the fundamental relationship between offensive and defensive, space and time, the nature of the defeat and the methods of maneuvering.
The German armed forces, in 1940, not prevailing either in quantity or in the quality of tanks, nevertheless, defeated the French and British armed forces. The Wehrmacht gained an advantage and won a victory thanks to the developed holistic concept of warfare, which included the following elements:
- change in the organization of departments;
- change in tactics of command and control;
- equipping tanks with radio communications.
The structure of the tank division created by the Wehrmacht, basically, did not contradict the military doctrine that existed before the advent of armored vehicles.
The military-technical revolution at the new modern stage will require a radical restructuring of the armed forces. In recent years, American military experts predict imminent revolutionary changes in the nature of hostilities. Describing these changes, they speak of them as a military-technical revolution. The military-technical revolution will be the beginning of a fundamental restructuring of the American defense system, which will entail a revision of the existing structure of the army, as a result of a sharp reduction in the armed forces, and in scientific research
and design development will be invested unprecedentedly large funds. With the change in the armed forces, new requirements for the education of military specialists will be put forward. The new elite of the armed forces - the specialists of the "information front" - will come to the fore,
and will become the basis of new personnel for the highest levels of the military command.
In the early 1980s, Soviet military experts led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ogarkov, then Chief of the General Staff, put forward a promising theory that the coming technological revolution would make conventional weapons as effective as low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. Time has confirmed that armored vehicles can be detected on the march and attacked with conventional missiles carrying a huge number of homing anti-tank projectiles - and all this from a distance of several hundred kilometers. It will be possible to strike within thirty minutes after the discovery of the column. In the new military doctrine N.V. Ogarkov suggested:
- turn from defensive actions to offensive preventive actions;
- turn from no first use of nuclear weapons to nuclear escalation;
- development of the concept of summing up C4I efforts (command, control, communications, intelligence, computerization);
- development of high-precision weapons and troop mobility;
- directing the main efforts to the strategic non-nuclear deterrence forces.
Based on the Soviet concept - and then during the 1991 Iraq war - American military analysts formulated a different understanding of this important problem. With the advent of modern powerful aviation, the Americans decided to put into practice the Douai air warfare doctrine. In his doctrine, the idea of victory in a future war was put forward only by the air force. The country that managed to destroy enemy aircraft and bomb his cities will be the winner. The Gulf War showed the Air Force in a very favorable light, but at the same time it was a favorable environment for them. The United States had powerful, well-trained troops ready to face the Soviet Union in a world war, enjoyed the military and financial support of almost every developed country, and the time and theater of operations were ideal for air operations.
So sophisticated experts were skeptical about claims that there had been a revolution in the way war was waged. US Admiral William Owens, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote of the imminent emergence of a "system of systems." He wrote about a worldwide network that would bring together various types of sensors from satellites and shipborne radars, drones and long-range acoustic instruments, and provide information to any interested military user. Thus, using information received from a satellite or an onboard aircraft radar, it is possible to deliver a missile attack on a tank, and the helicopter delivering this attack will be located
ten miles from the target. The revolutionary breakthrough, according to this concept, will be the unprecedented ability of the US military to collect, evaluate and immediately use huge amounts of information about any theater of war (Owens spoke of a square measuring 200 by 200 miles).
All three concepts - "Soviet", "aviation" and "Owens" - only partially reflect the changes taking place in the army. Meanwhile, the revolution had really begun. But its course will be influenced by powerful forces that are outside the military sphere. More precisely, this revolution, which is changing the structure of the armed forces, will be the result of a variety of processes, among which there are those that began a long time ago, decades ago.
Combat operations within the framework of such a paradigm are most likely capable of taking the form of information warfare, which means a conflict related to information at a strategic level between states or societies. The conduct of hostilities in the new conditions also requires a completely new paradigm. Its main provisions can be summarized as follows:
- each component of the system plays a role in determining the outcome;
- predictable and unpredictable phenomena exist and interact, leading to the creation of complex networks with a huge number of variables, making it impossible to predict the outcome;
- a small change in the entry system can lead to a disproportionately large change in results;
- systems - individuals, armies, bureaucracies - tend to evolve towards their own complexity; complex systems can reorganize themselves when faced with challenges.
Fighting under such a paradigm is most likely to take the form of information warfare, which means a conflict related to information at a strategic level between states or societies.
One of the new forms of conflict is the concept of network warfare. Network warfare is a new concept of warfare (emerging theory of war), developed by the head of the Office of Force Transformation, led by Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski. The developers of this theory are convinced that in the near future this theory, "if it does not replace the traditional theory of war, then it will significantly and irreversibly change it qualitatively." Network warfare is related to information technology, at a deeper level they are forms of war for knowledge - who knows what, when, where and why, and how safe a society or military is in relation to knowledge about itself and about the enemy.
Network warfare means information-related conflict between states and societies. It means attempts to disrupt, damage or modify what the population knows or thinks about themselves and the world around them. Network warfare can target elite or public opinion, or both. The meaning of the network principle is that the main element of the entire model is "information exchange" - the maximum expansion of the forms of production of this information, access to it, its distribution, feedback. The network is a new space - information, in which the main strategic operations are deployed - both intelligence and military, as well as their media, diplomatic, economic and technical support. Combat units, communication system, information support of the operation, public opinion formation, diplomatic steps, social processes, intelligence and counterintelligence, ethnopsychology, religious and collective psychology, economic support, etc. - all this is now seen as interconnected elements of a single network, between which must be constantly exchanged. The main goal of conducting a network war is: "A set of actions aimed at forming a model of behavior of friends, neutral forces and enemies in a situation of peace, crisis and war." To achieve this goal, it is necessary in advance:
- the establishment of full and absolute control over all participants in actual or possible hostilities;
- deliberate and total manipulation of them in all situations - in peacetime, in preparation for war and in the course of waging war.
In the implementation of this goal, all countries, peoples, armies and governments of the world are deprived of any independence, sovereignty and subjectivity, turning into rigidly controlled and programmed mechanisms, which means direct planetary control - world domination of a new type. As a result, the enemies and the forces occupying a neutral position, in fact, knowingly obey the imposed scenario, act against their will. This is winning the war before it starts.
The goal of network wars is absolute control over all participants in the historical process on a global scale. And it's optional here:
- direct occupation;
- massive entry of troops or seizure of territories.
Army actions and huge military spending are superfluous. The network is a more flexible weapon, it manipulates violence and military force only in extreme cases, and the main results are achieved by influencing a wide range of factors - informational, social, etc. Mass media massively irradiate readers and viewers with streams of visual and semantic information built according to the patterns of the country concerned.
One of the varieties of network warfare is conscientious warfare. This war is connected with dominance over the personality and over the change of identity, that is, over the consciousness and over the personality. As a result of a conscientious war, certain types of consciousnesses simply have to be destroyed, cease to exist, they should not exist. And the carriers of these consciousnesses, on the contrary, can be preserved if they refuse the forms of consciousness - the objects of destruction and defeat. The destruction of certain types of consciousness implies the destruction and reorganization of the communities that constitute this type of consciousness. The ultimate goal of using conscientious weapons is to remove people from the established forms of mega communities. The destruction of the people and its transformation into a population occurs due to the fact that no one wants to associate and relate themselves to the polyethnos to which they previously belonged. In recent years, network wars have become increasingly apparent. They were and are being conducted by the United States in Iraq. Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Iran, are preparing against Russia
and Belarus.
Speaking about the military-technical revolution, it should be noted that it is a set of complex processes that involve fundamental changes:
- in the system of war management at all levels of command;
- in the construction of the armed forces and the training of personnel;
- the creation and adoption into service of new types of weapons, the use of which is capable of qualitatively changing the nature of military operations.
The decision-making and war management system should include all levels of command:
- supreme political;
- senior military;
- strategic;
- operational;
- tactical.
Progressive technization leads to the development of template forms for issuing orders. The order determines the activities of the troops. An order can be calculated for an action limited in time and space, for an unlimited action in time and space,
and can also establish actions, the boundaries of which are established only in general terms in terms of space and are not defined in terms of time. Combat creates a new and new environment, which every time requires decisions, and often very fast ones. In such conditions, in most cases, it is impossible for the boss to expect instructions for action. Since, without independence and without receiving instructions, the subordinate quickly loses confidence and shows indecision. He should be given a chance to prove himself. Leadership ability and determination
and the subordinate, each in his own sector, should form a single whole, and only with the help of total efforts can the most complete impact on the troops be achieved.
In the new armed forces, the traditional division into types of armed forces - land, naval and air forces (in some countries there is still a marine corps) will increasingly lose its significance. The era of the mass army, two centuries after its beginning, is coming to an end. There are many ways to respond to the growing variety of conflicts and wars and to transform the military organization of a state.
An analysis of the practice of military construction shows that two ways are possible here:
- First- the constant formation of independent military structures created to solve specific tasks, the number of which is constantly increasing due to the growing diversity of conflicts.
- Second- to give preference to the choice in favor of the multifunctionality and multi-profile of the armed forces, this choice is more promising and adequate to the challenges of our time.
In Germany, the possibility of incorporating the border police into the Bundeswehr as an army corps was seriously discussed.
In the era of globalization, a soldier as a specialist in the use of violence, along with the traditional functions of a fighter, often has to combine the qualities of a policeman, diplomat and social worker in one person. Today it is quite difficult to predict with absolute accuracy what other tasks the personnel of the armed forces will have to solve in the very near future.
With the arrival of new types of weapons in the armies of all countries, such as AWACS surveillance systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, it will be impossible to hide the movement of armored units
and formations, create defensive lines unnoticed in the rear, hide the location of ammunition depots and car parks. In the modern world, high-precision, “smart” long-range weapons have become the main type of weapons, so the first strike can decide everything. The high-precision missiles and projectiles in service are able to hit a target at a great distance. An army with such high-tech weapons can inflict great damage on any armored grouping, both on the march and at a permanent deployment point. Fixed objects also become more vulnerable. Fighting in the future will turn into a fire combat using very complex artillery and rockets.
With the emergence of a new type of hostilities - information warfare, which also includes disabling enemy computer systems, the nature of a preventive strike may change. Under these conditions, the first strike can be covert, anticipating military operations using conventional weapons. Surprise is one of the means to success. Sudden actions by the attacking side can paralyze or undermine moral strength, prevent calm or sober assessment of the situation, and finally weaken the strength of the decision. The principles of surprise and measures to prevent it come to the fore. It is extremely difficult to foresee exactly how a war started by disabling the enemy's computing systems will unfold.
Changing the methods of warfare does not exclude the use of those that existed before. The creation of nuclear weapons did not make conventional weapons unnecessary. In the same way, the technological revolution of our time will not lead to the abandonment of the use of guerrilla tactics, terrorist operations or weapons of mass destruction. With a certain tactical flexibility, it is possible to use old weapons systems even after more advanced ones have appeared. Ways of warfare change not only due to continuous technological progress, but also depending on how states use the army to achieve political goals.
The course of the military-technical revolution will also be influenced by world politics. If during the Cold War there was a danger of global conflict, such as World Wars 1 and 2, which determined the direction of military thought of that time, then in the coming years global conflicts are likely to give way to local conflicts (although to a certain extent the possibility remains the escalation of any local conflict into a regional and global one). Local conflicts, which began after the 2nd World War, do not stop today.
In the future, military technology may allow the smallest countries to successfully counter the big ones. Large states, trying to use military force to solve local problems, while trying to avoid large human and material losses, may experience difficulties in the new situation. The enemy, wishing to prevent intervention, can inflict destructive blows on the aggressor. To neutralize the superiority of the aggressor at the level of expensive
and efficient mega systems (such as satellites or aircraft carriers) it will be sufficient to have micro systems, such as cruise missiles. History shows that new means and methods of warfare are constantly emerging. Once Napoleon reproached Kutuzov that the Russians were not fighting according to the rules, unacceptable (asymmetric - they would say today) means for the French.
One of the most common types of armed conflicts of our time is the so-called asymmetric conflict. Its classic example is the clash of regular armed forces with irregular (guerrilla, insurgent) forces.
Under the influence of fundamentally new operational-strategic factors, the content of armed struggle is changing. Among these factors, a special place belongs to the development of high-precision weapons (WTO), the emergence of new means of electronic warfare and space reconnaissance and navigation systems.
Under the influence of these factors in local wars of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century, a new form of armed struggle was born - precision combat. This battle includes not only a short-term exchange of air strikes, but also an intense struggle of the parties in all areas of the use of armed forces: on land, in the ocean (sea), in the air and in space. Combat operations on the ground will take the form of defensive-offensive operations, oncoming clashes, rapid raids with mutual, deep penetration of the groups of troops of the parties, pursuing the goal of maximizing the use of fire strikes and consolidating the success achieved. In this case, close combat is also possible.
The development of the trend of the maximum possible preservation of manpower in the conduct of hostilities, by replacing a person with combat high-tech means, involves the use by the enemy, in the event of unleashing hostilities in the absence of direct contact between the ground groupings of the warring parties, by using a long-range WTO from the Aerospace Forces with increased destructive power.
The following tendencies and characteristic features of armed struggle in modern conditions and future operations should be borne in mind:
- about the main tasks of defeating the enemy are solved by fire and electronic defeat, the importance of the range of fire combat increases;
- aviation, high-precision weapons and well-protected anti-jamming air defense will play a decisive role in hostilities;
- in the operational formation (combat order) of groupings of troops, intelligence and information centers operating in real time must be present.
Modern armed struggle is a pinpoint, super-intensive, sabotage struggle, waged with all-round technological support. When conducting a brief character analysis
and the peculiarities of the armed struggle, it is clear that the basis of the potential for aggression began to be the forces and means of aerospace attack, without the use of which not a single conflict can do. At the same time, countries that were unable to repel an aerospace attack were forced to abandon further struggle and admit defeat. The regularity of the dependence of the outcome of hostilities on the results of confrontation in the aerospace sphere has become an objective reality. Therefore, it is likely that the purpose of missile defense systems will most likely be not to intercept enemy missiles, but to destroy satellites.
The wars of the future can begin and practically end with a long-term aerospace offensive operation in conjunction with the operation (actions) of the strike forces and assets of the naval forces and electronic warfare operations. They can start with a global strike. The duration of such a joint operation can be 60-90 or more days. Combat operations will be conducted primarily by robotic vehicles controlled by operators hundreds of kilometers away. Features of the military operations of future wars:
the constant threat of a sudden infliction by the enemy of the first preemptive electronic fire strike with a decisive influence on the course and outcome of the first operations, as well as the threat of the enemy using new types of weapons;
- the especially "destructive" nature of military operations from the very beginning of their unleashing and conducting;
- the transience of air-ground battles in the absence of a continuous front and with open flanks;
- the intensity of the struggle to seize and hold the initiative, to gain dominance in the aerospace and information space;
- abrupt changes in the situation and methods of action, due to the high mobility of troops and the effectiveness of fire damage;
- an increase in the spatial scope of simultaneously ongoing hostilities with the use of all means of destruction;
- an increase in the role of protecting troops, the population and objects of the rear of the country from existing and prospective weapons.
In a war against a strong enemy, achieving victory by conducting only an aerospace operation is not realistic. The results of such an operation must still be used to complete the defeat of the enemy. It is practically impossible to solve this problem without the use of ground forces. This is well understood by the military leadership of the leading countries of the world. The ground forces will retain their importance, which is currently being actively equipped in many states with high-precision and other new types of weapons. In the theory and practice of armed struggle, such objective phenomena and concepts as operation, strategic deployment, maneuver, regrouping, offensive and defense, and much more, will continue to exist. At the same time, the conditions, forms and methods of their implementation will change significantly. The future lies in more flexible and diverse forms of formation of combat formations, the readiness of subunits and military units for independent highly maneuverable raid operations, the development of tactics for operational maneuver groups, etc. The following trends are predicted in the development of forms and methods of conducting offensive operations in the future:
- with bringing closer the results of conducting operations and methods of defeating enemy groupings with the use of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction;
- shifting the center of gravity in armed struggle from destroying opposing groupings of troops (forces) from a position of direct contact to defeating them by inflicting long-range fire strikes, depriving the enemy in advance of the ability to conduct combat operations;
- preservation of the necessary effectiveness of troops (forces) with a general decrease in the combat strength of associations of branches of the Armed Forces as a whole; groupings of troops (forces) in operational areas by increasing the proportion of rapid deployment forces;
- increasing the mobility of hostilities, which will develop rapidly, without the presence of continuous fronts, and be of a highly maneuverable nature - when mobile groupings are introduced into battle, they will avoid frontal frontal operations when overcoming fortified defensive lines and strive to penetrate precisely suppressed centers of resistance;
- increasing the depth of simultaneous and successive fire (energy) engagement of the enemy and the coverage of active combat operations throughout the entire depth of the operational formation of his groupings; increase in the spatial scope of the air-ground-space maneuver; the dominance of "non-contact", remote actions over close combat;
- a variety of tactical methods - pinpoint, selective, deep strikes of the ATO, raid operations on the rear of the enemy by airmobile detachments and groups, the mass commissioning of helicopters and fighters, helicopters for radio interference;
- increasing the role of air combat by a mixed composition of aircraft and helicopter units, the complex impact of heterogeneous forces and means of aerospace attack on objects of the control system, intelligence, and electronic warfare of the enemy;
- dominance of zonal-object, focal struggle;
- the growing influence of sabotage and terrorist subversive actions on the outcome of armed confrontation;
- a sharp increase in the role of high-speed integrated reconnaissance and space weapon systems capable of reconnaissance of objects and delivering strikes on them in real time.
In the course of a strategic offensive operation, the main component will be a strategic strike. Depending on the purpose of the operation (war) and the balance of forces, one or more such strikes are planned. Strikes are made to destroy the military and economic potential of the enemy and suppress his will to continue the war. The parties will strive to achieve the goals of the war with one or more strikes in the course of a strategic aerospace operation, so a future war may turn out to be fleeting. The armed struggle in it will proceed according to the scenario imposed by the strongest side, the one that is better prepared for war and will start the fight at an advantageous moment with sudden actions.
The process of technical re-equipment of armies is not one-sided. Therefore, despite the fact that the nature of modern armed struggle is not comparable with the armed struggle in the wars of the XIX
and XX centuries, the defense will be able to find an effective way to counter the offensive. The talented Russian military leader A.A. Brusilov, analyzing his rich combat practice, came to the conclusion that the potential of defense lies in its ability to impose its will on the enemy, in its activity. In his memoirs, he wrote: The best way to defend is, with the slightest opportunity, going on the offensive, i.e., one must defend not passively, which inevitably leads to defeat, but perhaps more actively, inflicting strong blows on the enemy in sensitive places". Defense in terms of methods of action will be integrated with the offensive. In the conditions of the ground-air-space "expanded battlefield" in the presence of an acute shortage of forces and means, a dispersed defense along the front and in depth will be a forced form of action. It can be used on an operational and tactical scale.
At the operational level, such defense is based on the autonomous retention by the army (corps) or part of their forces and means of vital areas and facilities in certain operational areas in combination with the actions of mobile cover units, the creation of fire barriers
and fire bags in unoccupied gaps.
Such a defense is characterized by an uneven distribution of forces and means across sectors. The formation of a dispersed defense may be different, but most often the main forces of the formation (connection) will be concentrated in depth in order to carry out wide maneuvers with second echelons and reserves in threatened directions during a defensive battle.
At the tactical level, the defense is based on a system of defensive regions, units, and strong points of combat groups (platoon, company). The basis of such combat groups can be tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, as well as minefields. With such a defense against superior enemy forces, it is necessary to reliably secure the flanks and joints between resistance centers using small arms and anti-tank weapons, create fire bags, use ambushes, as well as controlled minefields. Mobile defense demands from formations at least the same operational mobility as the enemy, excellent training and strict discipline of the troops, as well as exceptional controllability.
The traditional division of military operations into two types - offensive and defense no longer fully reflects the changes that have taken place in the nature of the armed struggle - typical are defensive and offensive actions. The remote method of confrontation will become dominant in the course of defensive-offensive operations, which, as it were, "balances" the capabilities of the parties in delivering preemptive, retaliatory-oncoming and retaliatory strikes. The importance of conducting aviation and rocket-artillery training is increasing, which, in combination with the conduct of an aerospace operation using weapons based on new physical principles, is able, under certain conditions, to thwart the enemy’s offensive, or significantly reduce his fire superiority and seize the initiative.
The previously dominating close fire fight is receding into the background on a number of issues. At the same time, it is necessary to form non-standard tactical thinking among commanders of various levels, rejection of schematism, stereotyped approaches. Tactics, as a true art of combat, must be continuously improved, based on the historical combat experience of the Russian (Soviet military school), foreign armies, taking into account the experience of wars of past centuries. When conducting operations, electronic-fire, aerospace, ground-offensive-defensive, it is impossible to do without tactical actions, which may, perhaps, at the initial stage will be of an auxiliary nature, but later (when the use of positional forms of struggle is not ruled out) they will take their proper place.
Combined arms combat will be different in scale and content and will be conducted not only in the tactical zone, but also in operational depth, as evidenced by the experience of modern wars and armed conflicts.
In the tactical zone, fire engagement of troops is carried out by means of field artillery and air strikes.
For air strikes, the enemy can use a large arsenal of fire weapons: tactical aircraft; army aviation helicopters; cruise and ballistic missiles; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); guided airborne (high-precision) weapons, which include guided missiles (UR), guided aerial bombs and cassettes (UAB, UAK), anti-radar (and anti-tank) guided missiles (PRR, ATGM).
The list of means of destruction of an air enemy is quite extensive, and it is based on high-precision weapons, which make it possible to selectively hit any ground targets. In addition to the WTO, army aviation should be especially singled out from the means of destruction, the operations of which in the tactical zone are assigned an extremely important role.
Anti-aircraft combat is the most important component of combined-arms combat, since the combat effectiveness of troops and the fulfillment of assigned tasks directly depend on its results. At present, all combined-arms formations and units have air defense forces and means in their composition, which implement their capabilities in the fight against an air enemy in the form of air defense battles, repelling raids on covered troops while in their combat formations.
In modern combined arms combat and operations, this most important task can be successfully solved only in a comprehensive manner, by joint efforts of all forces and means capable of fighting them, both in the air and on the ground, as well as by counteracting his intentions. As a result, the battle of combined-arms formations and units acquires the features of ground-air combat.
Modern tactical actions, in addition to combat, which still remains the core basis, include a system of providing, special and auxiliary actions. With the change in the conditions for conducting combat operations, planning operations will have to prepare and conduct combat operations in a shorter and even extremely short time frame. Combat planning and organization require:
a) definitions:
- the specific purpose of the battle;
- directions of concentration of the main efforts;
- the most appropriate to the situation methods of action leading to the successful solution of the task;
b) creating the necessary grouping of forces and means in the strategic and operational levels;
c) building an expedient battle order at the tactical level;
d) organization of interaction between military branches and elements of battle order;
e) ensuring the invulnerability of this battle formation for the entire course of the battle, providing for all its necessary rebuilding;
g) organizing an uninterrupted supply of troops with everything necessary;
h) conducting the entire battle in accordance with the decision made.
This means, in particular, while respecting the principle of centralization and unity of command as a whole, the importance of expanding the front of work in every possible way, granting greater rights to headquarters, chiefs of military branches and services. They must resolve many issues independently, coordinating them with the combined arms headquarters and among themselves, since with extremely limited time and the rapid development of events, the commander is no longer able to personally consider and resolve all the most important issues of preparing and conducting an operation, as was the case in the past. We need a much greater initiative and independence at all levels, manageability. At the same time, the organizational abilities of commanders at all levels acquire a special role.
Conclusion
Modern war is a whole complex of political, economic, informational and social impact on the defense capability of the state.
Scientific and technological progress does not stand still and presents new ways of warfare. The transition of the leading states from the strategy of the mass use of manpower to the use of more advanced, requiring less human resources and guaranteeing a more effective defeat of the enemy (complexes and systems of the WTO) weapons has been completed.
Thus, the main feature of the content of armed struggle in wars and armed conflicts of the 21st century is that new forms of military operations can be characterized as voluminous, covering all spheres of armed struggle (land, sea, air, space), where electronic, economic, psychological , information and force impacts will be carried out with increasing intensity in time and space, which will make it possible to achieve decisive results in the shortest possible time to deprive the enemy of initiative and freedom of maneuver.
Based on this, it is necessary to develop new forms and methods of conducting combat operations that ensure greater survivability of personnel and weapons and military equipment in case of conflicts using all possible means of destruction from nuclear weapons to weapons based on new physical principles.
It must be stated that the content of the armed struggle of the future will change significantly, military operations in possible wars and armed conflicts will be conducted according to the laws and rules of the country that is most prepared to put into practice the most advanced achievements in the military and technological fields.
List of used literature
- Andrievsky I.A. Some aspects of modern forms and methods of hostile confrontation and armed confrontation // Economics and management of innovative technologies. 2012. No. 2. [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ekonomika.snauka.ru/2012/02/420 .
- Balabin V.I. Types of forms and methods of military operations in wars and armed conflicts // Information Bulletin of the Smolensk Regional Branch of the Academy of Military Sciences. Issue No. 34. 2015. P. 7-18. Inv. No. 22146.
- Bruntalsky P. Clausewitz is already resting // VPK. 2007. January 10. No. 1 (167).
- 1941-lessons and conclusions / Hand. author. Collective Nelasov P. Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1992.
- Slipchenko V. War of the future (prognostic analysis). [Electronic resource] Access mode: URL: http://voxdocx.com/?p=562 .
- Shcherba A., Chagrin A., Losik A. Means of armed struggle as a civilizational phenomenon. Perfect and effective violence shapes the world order // Military-industrial courier. 2012. July 25. No. 29. [Electronic resource]. URL: http://vpk-news.ru/articles/9077
For example, the new Russian ships of the 11-43, 11-44, 11-64 series, and Project 949A nuclear submarines have already been adapted for receiving and transmitting signals from the space intelligence system, which is carried out in the interests of the Navy by the Lotos station launched into orbit in 2012. All subsequent ships of the Russian Navy must be equipped with similar systems.
Orlov Andrey