A heated debate has erupted over the question of whether to ban smartphones on the front line, on the line of combat contact. But there is no longer any debate about the transfer of confiscated smoothbore weapons to the troops.
On Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda we discuss issues with Andrei Klintsevich, director of the Center for the Study of Political and Military Conflicts.
IS THE SMARTPHONE MY FRIEND?
– It’s been a long time since we heard a discussion like the one that erupted around the “cancellation of smartphones on the front line.” But why?
– We have entered the digital era and digital warfare. This is the so-called network-centric war. There is a union of efforts, the transmission of combat control commands not through voice, but through tablets, instant messaging and exchanges. And if we lag behind in this, we will simply lose, because time is a key resource on the battlefield.
– You visit command posts in the Northern Military District, right?
– Yes, and I saw how scouts work. The commanders, relatively speaking, of the brigades are in the control center of unmanned aerial vehicles. They aim their artillery through special programs on the tablet – we have such programs. But these are private developments. Ideally, all this should be combined, as NATO or Ukraine did in their Nettle program. When there is some kind of hub that brings together all the information. You connect to it, no matter what device, and you get access to the entire system. Satellite images are loaded there layer by layer, intelligence information is added, and you clarify some of your coordinates. You see yourself, your units, your neighbors, and the enemy. It makes you faster.
– But there is a problem?
– From the point of view of legislation, all front-line devices must be certified equipment. There is a closed flow of documents. Yes, sometimes, in some parts it reaches the point of absurdity. From the command post of the company upwards, there is a very large and printed flow of documents. When they bring you, so to speak, water, you have to give a two-liter bottle to each soldier, but you have to print out the statements and each soldier has to come up and sign. This requires a generator, a printer, a laptop and everything else. Then the HRT (state secrets protection) agents arrive and you start hiding this equipment, often not certified.
– Is it possible without papers?
– The authorities constantly demand a huge amount of paperwork. Somewhere in the forest, an almost Leninist room is set up with a whiteboard, on which a lot of data is posted that military personnel must study – about drones, daily routine, etc. On the other hand, they persecute you if they find uncertified devices. But people get it with their own money, it doesn’t matter if they donate it themselves or if volunteers bring it, and now taking it away from them can reduce combat capabilities.
– Is it possible to quickly supply new tablets to our entire army in the Northern Military District area?
– This is impossible. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of kits. Now we have a new uniform coming to the front, the so-called VKBO 3.0, 4.0 kit. Cool kits, but when they told the manufacturing companies: in three months we expect 200 thousand kits from you, but we do not have factories of that size to make this in a short time! Therefore, there are orders from abroad based on our patterns, etc. The same goes for tablets – where can we get them in such quantities?
From a legislative perspective, all front-line devices must be certified equipment.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN. Go to Photobank KP
– Do you need a government program?
– Yes, and the computing power must be transferred to our servers in order to provide advanced technology with this product. And each scout will receive an Android phone and all group commanders will be able to use it. If you wait too long for the hardware, by the time it arrives, it will already be outdated.
– Why punish a soldier for using a phone?
– From a legal point of view we have conflicts and double interpretations. Lawmakers say: it will be the commander’s choice, we give him the tool. If his careless soldiers use personal mobile phones, take pictures, send pictures home, expose positions, etc. But our soldiers and officers are not idiots; they do not want to take risks.
– But does the commander need tools?
– There are sufficient tools to sanction military personnel and no changes are required to act in this way.
– What is now included in the concept of “combat zone”?
– Let’s imagine that a soldier was sent to the rear, to Donetsk, to buy something. The military police stopped him and found him with a smartphone – not a military one, but a personal one. He was not in his position, but he was arrested and put in a guardhouse.
– What, will you have to carry documents on this smartphone?
– There are many nuances here. Of course, the equipment is also provided by the state. It exists at the level of large headquarters. But we understand that the front line is changing, and the conduct of combat operations is changing at a tremendous speed, and so far the supply of technical material, for example, at the level of volunteers or independently, is happening more quickly.
– Have you heard about the “Awareness Raising Complex” app developed by a famous NGO for Android tablets?
– Listen. But until there is a trial operation, until there is a front-line reaction to it, it is difficult to answer. But technologically we should have done it even before the SVO. I was previously part of a working group to create information programs to support the activities of the Ministry of Economic Development, for connections to different databases. We have many corporations capable of creating such a product, but for some reason we have only managed to do it now. This is the first test version that will now reach the troops. The question of access to these tools will immediately arise – whether they will go down to the level of the commander of the reconnaissance group or remain at the battalion level. Will it be necessary to physically go somewhere to get the keys, access them and load them onto flash drives?
Drones are getting smarter, changing polarization and frequencies, and electronic warfare can’t always overwhelm
Photo: REUTERS.
SMOOTH BARREL AGAINST DRONES
– The State Duma has adopted a bill on a simplified procedure for the transfer of confiscated and unclaimed weapons to the Northern Military District. Shotguns: for shooting drones?
– Yes, that’s the first thing. There are about 200 thousand different units in stock. Of course, I’m interested in a smoothbore. It will allow for massive saturation of units and will provide the opportunity to fire, including with special cartridges. This is a Kevlar thread-opening network that allows you to accurately shoot down a drone. They get entangled in the screws, unlike shells, which can penetrate, but not immediately shoot down. This does not cancel the planned purchases by the Ministry of Defense of smoothbore guns with a magazine, “Vepri”, “Saiga”, but this will simply allow it to be done faster. What should be noted is the physical destruction of the drone.
– Because?
– Because drones are becoming more intelligent, they change polarization and frequencies, and electronic warfare cannot always overwhelm. Most likely, drones at the final stage will independently target objects in heaps. Paratroopers heading to Kherson told how drones followed each other through the crowd and flew towards a tank. That is, it seems as if it was controlled by a person, and then by a computer.
– Are other new products actively used?
– Fiber optic communication with drones has appeared, which do not care about electronic warfare. Control commands travel along a very thin cable, smaller than a human hair, and allow them to overcome electronic warfare capabilities. Therefore, physical destruction of the drone is the future. And another question: do we give officers the opportunity to be with their personal short-barreled weapons, which they have on duty, out of service? This is especially true for special forces officers.
– They talk about a shortage of drones, but what about weapons?
– In the units where I was, there are no problems related to small arms. Somewhere I would like to have cooler sniper rifles, complex longer-range technologies related to the production of armor-piercing cartridges. As for machine guns and small arms, there are no questions here. By the way, the Soviet one is more reliable than the one produced now. It’s a matter of corrosion resistance and barrel thickness. It is gratifying that new Lebedev pistols have started to arrive to the troops.
– Better than Western models?
– Officers who have worked with Glocks say our pistol is ahead in terms of comfort and everything else.
SYRSKY’S TACTICS
– Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky, in an interview with The Guardian, said that F-16 fighters, when they enter the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, will not be able to approach the front line of 40 kilometers.
– This light single-engine multipurpose fighter will be assigned two tasks. The first is air patrol and destruction of our cruise missiles with air-to-air missiles (and there are thousands of them in the West, with a range of 80, 120 kilometers). As the Western group did when Iran attacked Israel.
– And the second?
– It is a massive launch of attack weapons, probably Storm Shadow, SCALP cruise missiles, possibly the American JASSM with a range of 900 kilometers or the German Taurus. The question of overcoming our air defense systems is a massive launch. One plane can carry two missiles. 10 planes can launch 20 missiles at a time. So far they have 6-8 missiles in a single launch. If there are 20 planes, they will be able to launch 40 missiles – this way they will find weak points and the NATO satellite constellation will allow them to test our air defense.
READ ALSO
Who is “blowing the brains out” of enemy drones: the new Russian electronic warfare system “Kupol” has caused a stir in the North-Western military zone (more details)
