Page 47 - Military Technology 12/2018

Features MT 12/2018 · 45

Stefan Nitschke

Revival of Old Things

NATO’s Military Engineers Press for Answers on Mobility,
Counter-Mobility

The Military Engineering Centre of Excellence (MILENG COE) con- drills taking place in the Russian Armed Forces, and smaller parallel exer-
ducts its annual Information Exchange Seminar and Industry Day in cises and drills across the country that were also scheduled for that time.
Ingolstadt; Germany, this December, aimed at discussing challenges So, the question is, how NATO can take up the challenges? There is no
of today’s operational environments and identifying gaps in MILENG doubt that the Alliance should follow an “action plan” to field improved
capabilities. NATO has suffered from shortfalls in equipment – chiefly and more modern military engineering capabilities, among them mobile
mobile bridges and counter-mobility assets – for much of the past bridge systems and assets for counter-mobility in particular. Use of am-
three decades. The latest data on this subject makes unhappy reading phibious bridging and ferrying systems, prepared obstacles, pre-planned
for army chiefs. demolitions, and pre-planned anti-tank minefields means that own land
forces can seamlessly manoeuvre in difficult terrain, stay in protected
Russia’s combined strategic exercise in September 2017, Zapad 2017, areas, and counter large-scale enemy manoeuvre operations. Last year’s
offers valuable lessons on the evolution of its conventional land forces, MILENG COE Information Exchange Seminar made one thing clear: NATO
and no less important, a message to NATO: This exercise was simply sig- is lacking “military engineering enabling force packages on division, corps
nificant in terms of what it demonstrated about current Russian capability or component command levels”. In other words: Military engineers are not
and the capacity to deploy forces into the Baltic region. According to a equipped with the sufficient capabilities for mobility and counter- mobility.
summary of the exercise compiled by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Thus, military engineers should be at the forefront of military investment.
which was emailed to The New York Times for release on 1 October 2017, Essential are several fields: mobile bridges; engineering intelligence;
“Russia’s forces are becoming more mobile, more balanced and capable and area denial. The latter was a key element in a potential tense power
of conducting the full range of modern warfare.” struggle between NATO and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Today,
Somewhat surprisingly, the size of Zapad 2017 was perhaps much both NATO and Russia fully appreciate that fact.
smaller than anticipated, and it did not include a simulated counter-attack
against NATO forces. On the whole, perhaps no more than 45,000 troops Shortfalls Need to be Eliminated in Time
(12,700-23,000 based on Russian sources) took part in the exercise, with
half that number in Belarus, as well as in Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast and As to current trends in mobile bridge systems, a “significant propor-
Russia’s other north-western regions. NATO sources remark that the two- tion of the Alliance’s heavy bridging capabilities has become obsolete and
phase exercise was to test Russia’s ability to mobilise for a general war
amidst a high tempo of qualification checks, missile tests, a host of other Dr Stefan Nitschke is Editor-in-Chief WEHRTECHNIK.

Mobile bridge systems
are gaining increasing
momentum in NATO’s
capability to support
manoeurvre forces.
(Photo: Volker Schubert)