The war in Ukraine has brought industrialized
warfare back to Europe for the first time since World War II. While this isn’t the
only recent conflict in eastern europe, those were small skirmishes in comparison to the
titanic amount of resources and manpower being levied by both Russia and Ukraine. This is more
than just a clash between two nations though, as a significant amount of the NATO
alliance has thrown its weight into the mix. This is a clash between two
major powers- Russia, and the West. To date, NATO has not formally joined the war but
it has done a lot to support Ukraine's ability to fight off the Russian invasion, and even reversing
the tide of the war. When the war started, Ukrainian troops were moderately armed and
equipped, and the nation had no hope of properly equipping the hundreds of thousands
of conscripts and volunteers that were drawn up after full mobilization. NATO quickly began
to ship badly needed personal equipment such as helmets, body armor, and even uniforms.
Today, the average Ukrainian infantryman is far better equipped than his Russian
counterpart all thanks to western support. The United States specifically has done
practically everything to fight off the Russian invasion except pull the trigger itself
on the weapons it supplies to Ukraine. The vast arsenal of American reconnaissance and
surveillance assets as well as its huge intelligence apparatus has been brought to bear on
Russian forces with titanic consequences. Russian generals and senior officers are dying at an
alarming rate thanks to US intelligence and recon, provided directly to Ukrainian forces on the
ground via intelligence sharing networks. American generals even famously rejected the
original Ukrainian September offensive plans and reshaped them in collaboration
with their Ukrainian counterparts, leading to one of the most stunning defeats of
Russian forces since the Russo-Japanese War. But the war in Ukraine has shown the world just
how poorly prepared countries are for the return of industrial warfare, and France- along
with other nations- are quickly taking note. The most striking lesson from the war in Ukraine
is that Russia is nowhere near the military power it pretended to be. The second most striking
lesson is that modern war against a near-peer adversary eats up resources at truly astonishing
rates. Russian artillery is using up on average 20,000 rounds of artillery a day, with
a monthly average of 600,000. While most western powers keep reserve ammunition in the
millions of units, this still means that with current stockpiles even a power like the United
States could only undertake a couple months of high intensity combat operations before
they have to start being very judicious on their usage of artillery- and that's exactly the
opposite of how artillery is meant to be used. To date Russia has lost over a thousand tanks
in the fighting, with that number spiking dramatically during the current counteroffensive
by Ukraine. During this ongoing counteroffensive, Russia is estimated to be losing 10 tanks
a day- an astonishing figure only made more astonishing by the fact that half
these tanks are being abandoned. Ukraine on the other hand is losing 2 a day, still a
very worrying figure for any military power, as losing 60 tanks in one month would be
a significant number of losses for most armies. France for instance has just over 500
tanks, so this rate of loss would equal to 12% of its tank forces every month, a completely
unsustainable figure without some form of rapid replenishment. If France was losing tanks
at the rate Russia is losing them, they'd be losing 20% of their force every month, going
from unsustainable levels to catastrophic levels. For Ukraine it helps that most former Russian
tanks are now current Ukrainian tanks, as it's estimated that half of the
losses inflicted on Russia are being either captured or repaired by Ukrainians and
put back into service on their side. When you become your enemy's primary supplier of heavy
equipment, you're not enroute to win a war, but you are at least making it very
sustainable for them to continue fighting. That's unlikely to be the case for nations
like France if they were to return to a state of industrialized warfare, which is
why nations like France, the United States, and Germany are taking long hard looks at
their plans for high intensity conflict, and making preparations for the sustainment of high
technology fighting forces over the long-term. Preparing for high-intensity war means fielding
forces that are capable of achieving victory in a high-tech future, and that's why France
is currently in the middle of a 20 year modernization program named “Scorpion”.
The program is meant to last through 2040, bringing France's military- already one of
the most capable, if not the most capable in Europe- up to the cutting edge with modern forces
fighting with modern weapons and using modern doctrine. For this initiative, France has taken
a page out of the US playbook- no surprise seeing as there is heavy collaboration between the two
nations in this and most other military matters. Currently France's focus is on upgrading its
light and medium tank forces to bring them up to a modern standard of battlefield connectivity.
In the 1990s the US delivered a shocking defeat to Iraq with absurdly low losses on its behalf
thanks to a slew of modern technologies, but the most important of these technologies
was the ability for US forces to communicate and share data amongst themselves. In
the modern battlefield, data is king, and the US has since then expended vast
amounts of resources on what it calls joint all-domain command and control. This is a web
of systems that networks US forces together, so that sensors and shooters
can freely talk to each other. The best example of this doctrine came during
the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On the push to Baghdad a single platoon of US Marines performing
recon ahead of an armored advance ran into a significant Iraqi tank force. The Marines were
equipped with heavy machine guns and a few TOW missiles fired from unarmored Humvees. In theory,
the Americans were utter and complete toast. Unknown to the Iraqi commander who
eagerly ordered his forces to attack, the Marines were in direct communication with
loitering aircraft, and within moments of spotting the Iraqi force advancing on them, they placed a
call for fire support. A B-52 answered the call, and using targeting data from the Marines, was
able to locate the rapidly advancing Iraqi armor. The B-52 dropped six CBU-105 cluster bombs, a
smart weapon capable of dispensing submunitions over hundreds of meters, with each submunition
then being capable of identifying and targeting its own enemy vehicle. In one bombing run
the bulk of the Iraqi force was decimated, causing the rest to quickly retreat.
The defeat of an entire Iraqi armored column by an infantry platoon may be one
of the most lopsided victories in history. That is the power of data sharing, and it's
the type of capability that France is looking to bring to all of its ground forces. Under
the name of “combined collaborative combat”, France is undertaking a series of upgrades to
help its lighter tank forces be more accurate, nimble, and have greater battlespace
awareness. However, there's a number of equipment upgrades also coming, or
already being deployed by French forces, one of the most significant hardware
upgrades by any modern military power. The first of these is the EBRC Jaguar, a
replacement for the forty year old AMX 10 RC and ERC 90 Sagaie. The Jaguar will look to
take on both the recon and fire support roles for infantry forces from its predecessors,
bringing logistical simplicity and increased capabilities to a modern force. But the upgrades
to armor and its 40mm cannon are only the start, because this vehicle is meant to be cheap yet
capable, and easy to replace in high intensity conflict. The vehicle's manufacturer is
contractually obligated to keep the cost of each vehicle under 1 million Euros, so the
vehicle is based on a 6x6 commercial all-terrain truck chassis which includes using commercial
truck engines. In case of a protracted war, this is a vehicle that's not only capable, cheap,
but also extremely easy to keep building, as it required little specialized tools or knowledge,
and uses widely available commercial parts. By comparison the American Stryker costs
nearly 5 million per unit. While you are getting significantly more capability for the
price, it also means that replacing Strykers lost to wartime attrition is not only more
costly, but more time consuming. The vehicle does use many parts common to US Army trucks,
making logistics easier, but it doesn't enjoy the same commercial availability of parts,
or even basic chassis, as the Jaguar does. French infantry will also be seeing an upgrade
to the VBMR Griffon armored personnel carrier, replacing the VAB its troops have been using
since 1976. Once more the vehicle is based on the same 6x6 commercial truck chassis, making
production and maintenance a easier in times of war. France has plans to buy nearly 2,000
of them to fully replace its fleet of VABs. Already we see two ways France may be better
prepared for a protracted high intensity war than the United States. The Stryker is truly
an impressive vehicle, but it relies on specialized defense contractors to build. French
infantry support vehicles may be less capable, but they are far cheaper and easier to produce
given the wide availability of their commercial parts. Considering that the entire world has
seen a shrinking and consolidation of their defense industry sectors since the end of the Cold
War, being able to source your fighting vehicles from commercial sources is a significant
advantage. Strykers may perform better, but will attrition quickly and the US will be
hard pressed to replace combat losses until years into a war when manufacturing is finally
spun up to its full potential. Meanwhile French forces will enjoy far more rapid replenishment
of forces, despite a sacrifice on capability. Scorpion is only the start though, with the next
phase of French buildup projected to start in 2030. Named 'Titan', this phase of France's
modernization program is aimed at its heavy combat forces, things such as artillery, tanks,
and helicopters. The early focus on lighter weapon systems is understandable as France already
enjoys very capable main battle tanks, attack helicopters, and artillery, but the delay is
also pragmatic. France plans to begin Titan with an in-depth study of projected force needs even
before a single replacement vehicle is procured. The reasoning is simple: nobody has any idea
what the future of war is going to look like. Militaries constantly make very educated
guesses and carefully observe global trends, making adjustments as necessary, but with
technology leading to capability leap-frogs, it's difficult to know what the future
threat environment is going to look like. Add to this the very worrying trend of rapidly
converting off-the-shelf commercial equipment into unconventional weapons of war, and a future
combat environment may look like nothing that any power has currently predicted. Few if any
observers could have guessed that during the opening days of the Ukraine war commercial drones
would become this conflict's defining feature, and one of the keys to Ukraine's victories
over a far numerically superior foe. France and other powers expect that the
future will be one fraught with anti-acess, area-denial systems where no battle domain
will be truly ucontested. This will include traditional A2/AD threats such as kinetic kill
systems involving artillery, suicide drones, and mines, but also threats in the space and cyber
realms. Electromagnetic weapons such as the US's EM missile, capable of shutting down electronics
in a specified area, will require not just one, but a network of solutions to ensure friendly
forces can fight and win the day. As the A2/AD threat environment continues to evolve, forces
will require an onion-like layer of defenses, necessitating connectivity, situational awareness, and the ability to rapidly react to a
variety of threats- often simultaneously. To this end, France's push to network its forces
is a solid step forward. Lessons from Ukraine have also told French observers that infantry
mobility and awareness is crucial to victory, and here too France is well on its way to meeting the
challenges of tomorrow. What remains unknown is the fate of heavy combat systems. In Ukraine we've
seen Russian tanks taken out by cheap commercial drones armed with nothing more than just grenades
or mortars, and man portable air defense systems have made the use of Russian aviation on the
front lines an incredibly risky proposition. Figuring out how to defeat ever smaller,
more portable, and harder to detect threats will shape the way that heavy combat vehicles
are designed, used, and deployed in combat. However, one key deficiency highlighted by French
analysts is that its forces lack serious depth. Geared towards fighting fast, mobile skirmises in
sub-saharan Africa, French forces would struggle in a high intensity conflict such as that in
Ukraine. To that end, France is looking to build up its combat forces, but like many other
western powers, is also taking a serious look at how to ensure its defense industry can stand up
to the challenge of quick and long-term resupply of combat losses. Here it joins the United States
and Germany who have both also identified serious deficiencies in their ability to manufacture
large amounts of heavy equipment. In the US alone, hundreds of factories were shut down at the
end of the Cold War, and US tank production today stands at about 60 vehicles a year. In war,
it's estimated this number could be ramped up to 20 a month, but this would hardly put a dent
in potential losses against a near-peer foe. How France and its friends respond
to these challenges may decide today if the western allies win the wars
of tomorrow, but for the first time in thirty years the western world is once
more preparing itself to wage global wars. Now go check out What If Ukraine Joined NATO
Today, or click this other video instead!
