All information presented within this article relating to Olvana, other nations, and force structures is fictional and for training purposes only.
Leaked documents from Olvana: final release and challenge!
Following the leaks of both the letter from the Commander of the Olvanan First Marine Division to the OPN Southern Fleet commander, and the 1st Mar Div Implementation Brief, The Cove has received new information showing the proposed changes to the Olvanan marine division. These leaks provide insight into the new capabilities suggested by senior Olvanan leaders to respond to lesson drawn from the war in Ukraine. See our latest new update below for more.
Today’s leaked documents reveal diagrams for proposed changes to the Olvanan First Marine Division Order of Battle (ORBAT). The proposed changes include both force structure changes and new platforms, enabling the 1st Mar Div OPN-MC with capabilities not previously employed.
The source of these leaked documents can be found at the OlvanaLeaks entry on the DATE website.
A copy of these leaked diagrams can also be downloaded here.
Join the PME discussion – we want to hear from you! | Selected responses will earn DATE challenge coins!
Understanding potential adversary capabilities is essential to be ready for the future operating environment. Join the PME discussion on The Cove and share your thoughts and insights on the impact of the war in Ukraine on the evolution of threat capabilities.
Remember, interpretations differ depending on political worldview, so we can’t expect Australia and Olvana to interpret events or documents in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, there will be some lessons that Australia can learn by looking at the way its adversaries are adapting.
As a reminder, here are some of the changes that Olvana has implemented based on their observation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:
- enhancing indirect fire control systems and increasing decentralisation of brigade artillery
- adding new divisional chemical smoke capabilities to obscure their movements
- new measures to counter unmanned aerial systems
- increase in dismounted security of armoured vehicles in close terrain
- addition of a Deception Engineering Coy to the INFOWAR Battalion
- enhancements to logistics capabilities, including new elements within the Material Support Battalion
To start the discussion, we would like to pose some questions for consideration; you can choose a question to answer, or offer your thoughts on something else.
- In his letter, the COMD 1st Mar Div, OPN-MC discussed validation of conducting INFOWAR via social media for propaganda and strategic psychological operations (two of the 'three warfares). What might this imply for future threats in competition short of conflict and Grey Zone activities?
- What does the addition of a Deception Engineeing Coy to the INFOWAR Battalion suggest regarding the Olvanan approach to the integration of INFOWAR with manoeuvre?
- What insights do these leaks offer into the Olvanan adaptation cycle?
- What might the enhancements to Olvanan Marine brigade artillery, such a platoon-level FDC, personal device artillery planning software, enhancements to CSS Forward Ammunition Sections, and emphasis on decentralising artillery mean for the Olvanan targeting cycle? What could this change regarding their ability to coordinate offensive support in the littoral battlespace?
Colonel Ben Alward will offer some reflections on entries from the perspective of an experienced subject matter expert in Information Warfare. We also encourage you to read and respond to other comments. Reminder: all comments are manually moderated prior to publication.
What do you think? Join the discussion in the comments below!
We would like to award you a challenge coin for this contribution to the discussion - please contact us at the.cove@defence.gov.au to claim!
The real question here is: are we adapting as fast as Olvana, and if we aren't, what do we need to do to keep pace or accelerate beyond their rate of adaptation? There are also many other nations that we must keep pace with in preparation for our next war.
My thoughts are:
1. Our military needs to be rapidly scalable in the event of mobilisation. We need to have structures in place to be able to grow very large, very quickly. The reserve force needs to be trained and equipped to support this mobilisation as the first division would presumably be made up of mostly regular officers and soldiers as is currently the case. The second division would largely be made up of reserve officers and soldiers supplemented with regulars from non-deployable units. After that, the third division relies largely on civilians signing up either through conscription or under their own free will and leadership from the last remaining full time and reserve workforce.
2. We won't be able to deploy with a 100% solution or 100% fitout. To scale the force to this size we will need to accept that not all equipment will be the perfect equipment for the job. Just like the above mobilisation example lays out three very different skilled, trained and experienced Divisions, the equipment they use will also need to vary. We should focus on equipping the 'less likely to be required' organisations with older, or less capable equipment. As equipping them with such is better than not equipping them at all.
3. We need to train our reserve force to be used as such. Thinking that reservists will merely supplement the full time force is amateurish and short-sighted. WW1 and WW2 showed there when there is a need to employ all available resources the integration of those resources is extremely difficult due to cultural differences. We need to construct our fighting force with an understanding that we may need to employ the entire complement in one go. To do so they must be structured appropriately and understand how to operate together.
4. Supporting a war effort like this would be incredibly difficult and will require vast amounts of war stocks. Sovereign logistics is vitally important, but perhaps more so is the ability to store and maintain it, as production capacity and raw resources may limit our ability to do so in a time of war.
Much of the above is currently underway but needs to be sped up. The easiest way to do so is by immediately implementing point two to enable the other points to be worked on simultaneously.
Let me know if you think otherwise.
We would like to award this response a challenge coin, please contact us at the.cove@defence.gov.au to claim!