British Military Current Events

[GR66]

I doubt it's helpful to think of the 20-40-40 in too literal a sense as in "2 x heavy vehicles, 4 x expendable units and 4 x autonomous units" grouped together. It's much more likely a rough ratio of forces.

The "Heavy 20" might still be a Combined Arms Battalion with an Artillery battery in support with the "Autonomous 40" might be a combination of optionally manned breaching vehicles and UGV recce vehicles in the CAB as well as artillery spotting UAVs from the Artillery Regiment. The "Expendable 40" could range from anything like micro-UAV's at the Section level, FPV recce drones for the platoon, loitering munitions with the artillery battery and larger Shahed-type UAVs from the supporting division.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I doubt it's helpful to think of the 20-40-40 in too literal a sense as in "2 x heavy vehicles, 4 x expendable units and 4 x autonomous units" grouped together. It's much more likely a rough ratio of forces.

The "Heavy 20" might still be a Combined Arms Battalion with an Artillery battery in support with the "Autonomous 40" might be a combination of optionally manned breaching vehicles and UGV recce vehicles in the CAB as well as artillery spotting UAVs from the Artillery Regiment. The "Expendable 40" could range from anything like micro-UAV's at the Section level, FPV recce drones for the platoon, loitering munitions with the artillery battery and larger Shahed-type UAVs from the supporting division.

Sadly, I only see 'political spin doctoring' when I see slogans like '20-40-40' pop up in news feeds about any military program as this usually indicates the whole thing will turn out to be some kind of ill thought out, too far down in the weeds operational, micromanaging shit show....

<cough> 10-90 <cough>

 

[Kirkhill]

We're getting to longer and longer posts. A thought on cost ratios. tube artillery rounds are very hard to intercept still and fly in all weather and also provide mass neutralizing effects. That has to be taken into consideration in the cost equation. That's why both systems are mandatory but finding the right ratio will continue to be challenging.

I don't know what the right ratio is but I like your thinking. For me this is only something that rigorous battlefield examination and experimentation will solve while never forgetting that we need to scale the process up to the divisional level.

It's an interesting time to be a soldier. For the last century we've been trying to predict what the next war will look like and how best to prepare for it and fight it. We've mostly gotten it wrong and needed quite some time during combat to tweak the systems we had. Even if you look at WW2, the advances that took place over 5 years (including weapons production) were astounding. Technology has shrunk that timeframe. Our challenge isn't so much in deciding the right systems before the next war as building processes from the factory to the front line that allow us to adapt on the fly. I'm much more concerned about identifying and building those processes than anything else.

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Somewhere in this mess.

 

[FJAG]

Just quickly, the 20-40-40 comes up in the UK 2025 Strategic Defence Review for the British Army as:

Autonomous and uncrewed (land and aerial) systems are now an essential component of land warfare, integrated with core armoured platforms in a dynamic ‘high-low’ mix of capability. A ‘20-40-40’ mix is likely to be necessary: 20% crewed platforms to control 40% ‘reusable’ platforms (such as drones that survive repeated missions), and 40% ‘consumables’ such as rockets, shells, missiles, and ‘one-way effector’ drones. Investment in attack and surveillance drones should be prioritised, along with counter-drone systems. The Army must be able to keep pace with high-tempo innovation in drones and associated capabilities such as electromagnetic warfare (Chapter 7.6), supported by ‘always on’ manufacturing.

A Parliamentary summary adds:

The army has subsequently explained this mix as “three rings of lethality”.17 The core ring is made up of the crewed, armoured ‘survivable’ systems. The next ring is a layer of reusable or ‘attritable’ platforms, which provide combat mass but as they are uncrewed they can be lost, and finally a third layer of single-use, disposable ‘consumable’ platforms.

The footnote 17 is from the British Army Review "SDR: Sp what for the army?" Issue 194, pg 6 which provides a broad overview of the army's strategy to increase its lethality by a factor of x10 by 2035 using roughly the same core units and crewed platforms.

 

[GR66]

Just quickly, the 20-40-40 comes up in the UK 2025 Strategic Defence Review for the British Army as:



A Parliamentary summary adds:


The footnote 17 is from the British Army Review "SDR: Sp what for the army?" Issue 194, pg 6 which provides a broad overview of the army's strategy to increase its lethality by a factor of x10 by 2035 using roughly the same core units and crewed platforms.

The more I think about this 20-40-40 formula the less it makes sense to me. How does designing your force by the count of the platforms which are crewed vs uncrewed make sense? Should you not rather determine the effects you want your force to be able to produce under what conditions and then determine which roles are best served by crewed vs uncrewed platforms?

And as for the 40% "Consumables" how does it make sense to calculate what is essentially ammunition as ratio to your crewed/uncrewed platforms? You plan for the type and quantity of ammunition required to achieve your objective, not plan it as a ratio of the number of crewed platforms you have.

I agree that the general concept of increasing lethality of your crewed systems by leveraging uncrewed and expendable systems but I think it needs to be approached in a different way.

I envision it more as a "bubble" that defines the requirements. The area 12km either side of the front line is where the small FPV drones and UGV's are concentrated. That 24km range band is where you need to focus your uncrewed systems to operate due to the risk. ISR, breaching and combat systems to take out enemy uncrewed systems. Your light crewed systems are dispersed 12km from the front to control the light UXVs that cover the 24km grey zone. The heavier crewed systems are 24km from the front and utilize heavier UAVs/LM/Artillery/Rockets to strike the intermediate 24-50km zone (the grey zone and the enemy's intermediate/heavy crewed zone). Divisional assets provide heavy strike within the grey/intermediate zones as well as depth fires in the 50-100km zone.

Within that construct you identify what roles and platforms are best served by crewed/uncrewed systems and what types of munitions they require to carry out those roles. I don't know how you can really define that with a pre-determined 20-40-40 ratio.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The more I think about this 20-40-40 formula the less it makes sense to me. How does designing your force by the count of the platforms which are crewed vs uncrewed make sense? Should you not rather determine the effects you want your force to be able to produce under what conditions and then determine which roles are best served by crewed vs uncrewed platforms?

Exactly. It's more of a politically oriented gambit focused on how much spending is required by 'cool new kit' line item, IMHO.

You can have all the best toys but still get your asses kicked on the battlefield.

What the British military really needs is about 50,000 more troops but that's much more difficult to do, apparently, than buying some drones.

 

[Kirkhill]

70 million Brits
30 million Christians
25 million non-religious
3.9 million Muslims
1.03 million Hindus
0.54 million Sikhs
0.28 million Jews

25 million Brits fit for military service (healthy males and females)

0.18 million Brits in the armed forces
0.17 million Brits in the police

Of the 180,000 in the Forces

37% are non-religious


1000 Hindu
690 Buddhists
150 Sikhs
450-700 Muslims.

2500 of 180,000 is 1.4% of the forces
5.85 of 70 is 8.2% of the population

50% of all Brits, 16-40 would never fight for Britain
38% would fight

39-47% of men would fight
19-24% of women would fight

In the event of invasion 11% would join voluntarily and 23% would allow themselvers to be conscripted.

Darwin

 

[tomydoom]

Can we do Northern Ireland at the same time ?

That was Paul McCartneys only good song.

Please no, I live here and want no part of the chaos that the north would cause the republic. Most of my Irish neighbours, friends, and colleagues feel similarly.

 

[RangerRay]

Please no, I live here and want no part of the chaos that the north would cause the republic. Most of my Irish neighbours, friends, and colleagues feel similarly.

In my travels there, that what I mostly heard. The people in the south want nothing to do with the north.

 

[daftandbarmy]

In my travels there, that what I mostly heard. The people in the south want nothing to do with the north.

Nor the East with the West, or the people over there with the people over here.

Think about the Quebec/TROC divide in Canada and replicate that in a few hundred places in a very small place, including different languages and accents, and you might be getting closer to the truth