What Modern Militaries Can Learn From Battlestar Galactica 272
An anonymous reader writes "Modern warfare these days is all about a 'networked environment.' But what happens when such things that make a modern military work breakdown? How would America's armed forces fight if their computers crashed, could not communicate, or were hit with massive viruses? What then? 'There's wisdom in science fiction. The conceit behind the reboot of the sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica was that networking military forces exposes them to disaster unless commanders and weapons designers think ahead to the repercussions should an enemy exploit or break the network. The mechanical Cylons, arch foes of humanity, are able to crush the humans' battle fleet and bombard their home worlds with nukes by insinuating viruses into networked computers. They sever contact between capital ships and their fighter forces, and they shut down the fleet's and planets' defenses. Having lost the habit of fighting without networked systems, human crews make easy pickings for Cylon predators.'"
Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.
Re:Never RELY on any one point of failure (Score:4, Informative)
. Soldiers should, of course, know how to still function if it goes down.
. . . and more importantly, commanders. Von Clausewitz wrote the importance of not relying on information and command chain systems. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Clausewitz [wikipedia.org] :
While Clausewitz was intensely aware of the value of intelligence at all levels, he was also very skeptical of the accuracy of much military intelligence: "Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.... In short, most intelligence is false." This circumstance is generally described as the fog of war. Such skeptical comments apply only to intelligence at the tactical and operational levels; at the strategic and political levels he constantly stressed the requirement for the best possible understanding of what today would be called strategic and political intelligence. His conclusions were influenced by his experiences in the Prussian Army, which was often in an intelligence fog due partly to the superior abilities of Napoleon's system but even more to the nature of war. Clausewitz acknowledges that friction creates enormous difficulties for the realization of any plan, and the fog of war hinders commanders from knowing what is happening. It is precisely in the context of this challenge that he develops the concept of military genius, whose capabilities are seen above all in the execution of operations.
So you need an army where units can function independently. Even if you have a great military plan: "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Not really new thinking, at all.
Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
You're looking for USMC Lt. General Paul Van Riper and his unorthodox response to the 2002 Millennium Challenge [wikipedia.org] wargame.
Re: what? (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.
True, the drones and various functions would be disabled. However, the US Military is by design able to function without access to the chain of command - one thing that has been one of our greatest strengths throughout history.
So losing the network will have some issues, but will not cripple the US Military in any fashion.
Re:History also teaches (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? Ever heard of kampfgruppe? Germany probably had the least rigid command system of all WW2 participants, unless you count various partisan groups.
Or did you mean Japan and the Soviets?
Squadron of F-22's Lost Crossing the Date Line (Score:5, Informative)
From wikipedia. [wikipedia.org] The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." [defenseindustrydaily.com] Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". [cnn.com] CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." [af.mil] US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.
Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
A similar thing happened in Operation Millenium in 2002. The US commander, General van Riper, in charge of the "red" team (i.e. middle-eastern nation, i.e. Iran) opted to use non tradiational attacks. In effect he launched every available missle on day one at the "blue" fliceet, overwhelming US missle defense systems, and then proceeded to use skifs and speed boats in suicide attacks to avoid any head on engagements. The "blue" team was overwhelemed on the first day and on the second day US command ordered the war game restarted, with much more tight contraints on egagement and tactics. In effect, General van Riper showed that the US was not ready to engage in asymetric warfare in the middle east, and rather than conceding that, they changed and "rigged" the game to show that the US would achieve an easy an descive vicoty. General van Riper resigned in the middle of the game in protest.
Re: what? (Score:2, Informative)
Or he gamed the game. As an example, he had very heavy automatic weapons (50 BMG or higher I forgot) on said skiffs. Except that in the game, they didn't need to fire, or carry their ammo load. Had they done those two things the skiffs would have been unable to maneuver effectively while fully loaded, and only able to fire while fully loaded because any lighter load would have caused the skiff to tip over from the guns recoil. If your argument is that the US Navy (or US Military in general) has blind spots I agree, but you can't prove it by gaming a simulation. It makes for a great internet general's story though...