I am a former US Army 98G (now 35P) and SIGINT/EW history is one of my subject areas as a mlitary historian. Radio communications, "hybrid war," artillery, and the struggle to restore movement are indeed the definitive modern military revolution. I've written seminar papers about examples from 1914 to the present. I appreciate that you appreciate the vital importance of the 4th dimension to the modern battlefield.
All of which is to say that taking a single-channel radio into combat is like taking your musket in the 21st century. Looks nice, just using it will probably get you killed.
As a lapsed military and diplomatic historian you have echoed here the lessons that I took away from my studies and research: technology always precedes tactics and strategy. Meshed sensor networks are the latest “technology” along with advanced communications and computing power. But going back to the US Civil War, technology advanced (breech loading rifles, Gatling guns, and total war as waged by Sherman and Grant) tactics and strategy. This came to pass in WW I. But it is also about seeing the potential in new methods and technology before your enemy does. Prior to WW II, nobody really thought much about aircraft carriers as offensive weapons and this were not restricted under the limitations agreed to in the 1920s. Then the advent of EW with radar development came.
So with IT advances, the advantage not only goes those who develop new tech, but deploy it faster and react to it faster than their enemy. It changes the nature of “surprise” given signatures are hard to hide anymore. It is now all about speed and reaction times.
I am a former US Army 98G (now 35P) and SIGINT/EW history is one of my subject areas as a mlitary historian. Radio communications, "hybrid war," artillery, and the struggle to restore movement are indeed the definitive modern military revolution. I've written seminar papers about examples from 1914 to the present. I appreciate that you appreciate the vital importance of the 4th dimension to the modern battlefield.
All of which is to say that taking a single-channel radio into combat is like taking your musket in the 21st century. Looks nice, just using it will probably get you killed.
Thank you for this, sir. Took a lot of books from this - excited for the follow up, and analysis of impacts.
As a lapsed military and diplomatic historian you have echoed here the lessons that I took away from my studies and research: technology always precedes tactics and strategy. Meshed sensor networks are the latest “technology” along with advanced communications and computing power. But going back to the US Civil War, technology advanced (breech loading rifles, Gatling guns, and total war as waged by Sherman and Grant) tactics and strategy. This came to pass in WW I. But it is also about seeing the potential in new methods and technology before your enemy does. Prior to WW II, nobody really thought much about aircraft carriers as offensive weapons and this were not restricted under the limitations agreed to in the 1920s. Then the advent of EW with radar development came.
So with IT advances, the advantage not only goes those who develop new tech, but deploy it faster and react to it faster than their enemy. It changes the nature of “surprise” given signatures are hard to hide anymore. It is now all about speed and reaction times.