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  #1  
Old May 13th, 2011, 08:56 PM

daferg daferg is offline
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Default Observations of a Radar Soldier

Wait a minute.....This is the same guy that had a post about the Infantry and now he is talking Radar? Thats right folks. After 19.5 years in the Army I have picked up a job or two. I was a Counter Battery Radar Operator in the Regular Army during the late 90's and very early 2000's. I became an Infantry Soldier shortly after 9/11 and have been it since.

I will discuss the non-classified information regarding the radars I worked on. All of this information can be found on the net somewhere and the technology is so old that little is classified.

I operated the AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-37 radars. The 36 is the smaller of the two and is primarily for mortars and tube artillery. The 37 was the big brother and was primarily used for tube artillery and rockets. The range of the two was anywhere between less than a kilometer to 50km. Radar beams do not just stop at 50km. At 50km the detection was accurate enough to fire-for-effect.

Radars see everything but only report what they are told to report. Will a counter battery radar see an aircraft? Yup. But it will not report it as a target because it does not have a ballistic arc of an artillery shell. The same goes for anti aircraft radars. They will see artillery shells but will not report them as aircraft because they do not meet the criteria.

If you are fighting in an area that you control the skies and is low intensity, you can get away with running the radars all of the time. If you are fighting the Soviet Army in the late 80's and ran the radar all of the time you would be a very big target. Anti-Radiation missiles(HARMs) do as they are advertised: They kill radars.

Normally the Q-36 would support each brigade and the Q-37 would be used for a division front. The Q-36 can advance with the brigade and the Q-37 would overwatch while it moved. This type of thinking is from the old days of the Russian horde pouring through the Fulda Gap. Not much Fulda Gap action is taking place anymore except on my favorite game of all time: SPMBT.

The radars can track and produce a grid(location) of the firing weapon within a few seconds. Very, very fast. It is accurate and I have seen grids that were dead center mass of a firing battery. So why don't we kill everything that is fired if this radar is so darn good? Good question. The target is sent up through the channels and everybody from cooks to pilots look at the grid and try to decide if it is really a target. By the time some over paid officer shoots on the grids, the gunners are several kilometers down the road. Shoot and scoot is the name of survival in counter battery.

Ideally, a part of your artillery assets are reserved for counter battery. Realistically, there is never enough artillery to satisfy all the request. If your attack is going well and you will punch a hole in their lines and run over their artillery, do you fire in support of the advance? Or do you lift your fire and switch to counter battery? Do you continue to fire smoke to cover movement or do you fire counter battery? Do you fire that FASCAM mission or swithch? Ideally, there would be several MLRS's just sitting and waiting for a mission. If they are on a firing point, they can let loose hell and destroy a grid square.

During the "Great War Games" of the late 90's, we fought against an enemy with set doctrine and very defined sectors. We could guess where the bad guy artillery was and plan for it. Today, the battle field is wide open and we fight against an enemy that changes doctrine often. Read about the counter battery fight during the first Gulf War in 1991. "Steel Rain" refered to the MLRS strikes against artillery targets. Which country has the best counter battery radars? I think the better question is: Who has the best plan in place to execute those fires. A really good radar but it takes four hours to fire on targets is no good. A poor radar backed up by several rocket batteries will win the fight every time.

Sooooooo.. How do I think SPMBT models the counter battery(CB) fight? I think it is good. The only units that can fire CB are units with no active fire missions planned. This goes along with what I said above. The size and number of tubes firing decide the effects. Buy an off map MLRS battery and keep it just for CB fires and see what happens. Now, the percentage of times that enemy rounds are detected in the game is above me. I do not know what the magic formula is.

The only draw back in the game is the on map artillery is not detected. You have to use your MK 1 eyeball to look for smoke where there should be no smoke. Those little clouds in the enemy rear area are tell-tale signs of bad guys.

I am done boring you. Hope you got something out of it.
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  #2  
Old May 14th, 2011, 02:10 AM
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Fallout Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

Well not that this is a surprise to anyone out there but, I do enjoy a good "ARTY" story or two!?! It might not be MLRS but those are good words to live by especially in the AI game world, the AI tends to exponentially increase it's artillery as a long campaign develops. Seeing this now in the 4th game of a 21 game campaign, just managed a decisive victory and destroyed the Chinese HQ unit in the last "time now" game. My Thai forces are defending now and have seen heavy 122mm & 130mm ordnance dropped behind the lines while my one platoon of off map 155mm is in counter battery mode. Always set the AI to Tank Heavy and game hard and Arty at 90%. Good info and good advice. Oh, and yes the AI will do the same to you if not careful.

Regards,
Pat
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Old May 14th, 2011, 06:32 PM

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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

It was so easy to determine the locations of Russian (Warsaw Pact) artillery. A strict following of doctrine makes the locations of Divisional Artillery Groups (DAGS) and Regimental Artillery Groups (RAGS) an easy task. A set distance from the Forward Line of Own Troops (FLOT) in the attack or defense. Terrain restrictions for set artillery types and accessibility (road networks). During the first Gulf War, the Iraq forces followed the bad guy book to the letter.

I often wonder.....I see todays Army and the enemy forces change doctrine and techniques sometimes several times a day. I wonder if the Russian Horde ever poured through the Fulda Gap in 1985 if the same would have happened. Would the Warsaw Pact be able to adapt and change its doctrine mid-fight? The US Army has proven time and time again we seldom follow the Field Manual. I would like to think we are an adaptive force. I wonder what type of Army we would have today if the "Big War" happened in the mid 80's.
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Old May 14th, 2011, 07:30 PM
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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

defrag, your above comment reminds me of something I heard back in the 70's...

Seems a young Soviet officer (or officer cadet) complained that the biggest problem with countering American doctrine was the Americans didn't even follow their own doctrine
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Old May 14th, 2011, 07:56 PM

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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

You are very correct. I think, I say again....I think the Germans in WW2 said the same thing.

The Warsaw Pacts way of thinking on artillery was very different than the American or Ally way of thinking. It was told to me this way: You are a Warsaw Pact commander and you have three separate attacks under way and all three are asking for artillery. One attack has come to a standstill and another is retreating. The third is gaining ground but is suffering murderous losses. Who do you give artillery support to? The Warsaw Pact way of thinking is only the attack that is gaining ground will get artillery support. It is the only one that is achieving its objectives. The Allied way of thinking may be to provide support to each of the three attacks. The Warsaw Pact seldom rewarded failure.
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Old May 17th, 2011, 07:29 PM
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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

Quote:
Originally Posted by daferg View Post
Would the Warsaw Pact be able to adapt and change its doctrine mid-fight? The US Army has proven time and time again we seldom follow the Field Manual. I would like to think we are an adaptive force. I wonder what type of Army we would have today if the "Big War" happened in the mid 80's.
I believe so. (At least for the Soviets, and definitely not all Soviet troops and commanders) I spoke with my history prof a few months back, who was a 2nd Lt in Germany back in the late '80s. He said that he and most of the US Army expected to face the stereotyped Soviet Army; that is the one that follows regulations to the letter, rigid, slow and predictable to be defeated decisively by our "superior free-thinking troops".

Most of our (Western) guides to the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War like the 1984 edition of the FM 100-2 series painted the stereotyped picture that you and I have described. That was dispelled to a degree when the Gorbachev era allowed Soviet military journals to produce more useful bits for organizations like the Soviet Army Studies Office to exploit, but due to the end of the Cold War a more sophisticated understanding of Soviet military art didn't get through to the US Army at large. However, that understanding did live on in the form of the NTC and BCTP OPFOR of the 1990s.

Now, I'm definitely not a subscriber to the 1970s "10 feet tall Russians" crowd, but the best Soviet units which were tasked with operating as a forward detachment or part of an operational maneuver group were expected to show a higher level of flexibility and creativity than that of "regular" motorized rifle or tank regiments. The doctrine was all there to follow, but there were some units and commanders who were able to undertake complicated missions than others.

I also found this monograph an interesting read:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...f&AD=ADA208043

Last edited by Breakerchase; May 17th, 2011 at 07:39 PM..
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Old May 17th, 2011, 08:21 PM

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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

From what I have read and from what I have heard from the old vets I agree with you. When some think of the Russian Horde in the 80's they were 10 feet tall and mindless. The old story of Russian tanks only having West on their compasses.

The units of the old Russian Army that I think were given a bit more flexibility than the average unit were: Recon, Airborne/Air Assault, Spentzat (spelling?)and of course sub commanders.

I wish I had a reading list of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan that was not weighed down with propaganda. I know they changed their tactics, techniques and procedures throughout the war but have not read much about it myself.
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Old May 17th, 2011, 08:54 PM
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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

Quote:
Originally Posted by daferg View Post
From what I have read and from what I have heard from the old vets I agree with you. When some think of the Russian Horde in the 80's they were 10 feet tall and mindless. The old story of Russian tanks only having West on their compasses.

The units of the old Russian Army that I think were given a bit more flexibility than the average unit were: Recon, Airborne/Air Assault, Spentzat (spelling?)and of course sub commanders.
Yeah, I would agree due to their specialized tasks, they would have more flexibility than average in addition to the "good few" among the regular ground forces, but the Soviet beast is the mysterious thing to study.

Quote:
I wish I had a reading list of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan that was not weighed down with propaganda. I know they changed their tactics, techniques and procedures throughout the war but have not read much about it myself.
Have you read Lester Grau's "The Bear went over the Mountain"? It's a good read on exactly what you're looking for. There's also another Grau book "The Soviet-Afghan War" which is good too.

The Soviet Army changed their TTP due to Marshal Ogarkov's theory of a "revolution" in military affairs characterized by precision weapons, non-linear battlespace, reconnaissance-strike complexes and other pieces of digital technology. Afghanistan provided a testing bed for some of these new concepts like the "bronegruppa" where BMPs fight away from their infantry dismounts, and the 1991 Gulf War was their grim confirmation. There's a number of 1980s Soviet works which underlined the destructive potential of today's precision-guided weapons, even equating them to "small tactical nukes without the fallout".

This is a good read on what I said if you're looking for more info:
http://webharvest.gov/peth04/2004101....HTML#GENFORCE

Last edited by Breakerchase; May 17th, 2011 at 09:04 PM..
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Old May 18th, 2011, 06:08 PM

daferg daferg is offline
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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

QUOTE]

Have you read Lester Grau's "The Bear went over the Mountain"? It's a good read on exactly what you're looking for. There's also another Grau book "The Soviet-Afghan War" which is good too.

Th[/quote]

I could not remember the name of that book! Thank you very much.
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Old May 20th, 2011, 09:23 PM
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Default Re: Observations of a Radar Soldier

During the period from the end of Vietnam to the fall of the Iron Curtain the USMC view of the Soviet military was :

They will follow their orders regardless of consequences or common sense, because if they don't they'll get a bullet in the head from the closest zampolit/KGB officer.

Destroy the command structure or communications links and you're left with essentially a mindless horde to fight, they'll carry out the last orders they received then sit on their arse waiting for new ones.

You can pretty much count on then to follow set piece battle plans, disrupt even one part of the "plan" and watch the whole thing fall apart.

Russians are NOT stupid, but Soviet Doctrine is mindless.

Soviet junior NCO's (corporals and sergeants) have basically zero experience and initiative, officers do ALL the thinking.
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