Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.

Captain Blackadder:

Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?

Captain Darling:

How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!

Captain Blackadder:

It's the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.

General Melchett:

Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! There is, however, one small problem.

Captain Blackadder:

That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds?

Apologies to Rowan Atkinson, Tim McInnerny and Stephen Fry

Introduction

Why is it that the Australian Army utilises Image Intensification (II) and Thermal Imaging (TI) sights at the tactical level, and multi-spectral sensors at the operational level, but seems to operate as if our adversaries will not have the same, better or more of the same capabilities? Why is our tactical signature management essentially the same as it was in the 1980s despite the transformational advances in sensor technology in the intervening 40 years?

Signature Suppression for Small Arms

In 2009 I wrote a paper on 'Signature Management for Conventional Force Small Arms' that proposed signature suppression of all small arms for close combatants. There were four imperatives for this:

1. The reduction to the weapon’s audible, visual and IR signature assists in masking the firer’s direction, location and range from observer to firer, particularly at night, in urban operations and close country;
2. A supplementary effect of suppression is the reduction in muzzle rise and recoil which provides an improvement in shot placement;
3. The suppression of the muzzle blast increases the tactical or local ability to command and control through reduction in localised noise; and
4. The use of small arms signature suppression significantly decreases the peak noise impulses which lead to neuro-sensory loss and tinnitus, leading causes of injury to combatants in the long term.

Australian Special Forces have used signature suppression on their M4s for over two decades. In 2010, they introduced suppressors for the Para-Minimi Light Support Weapons (LSW) in response to a requirement identified for close combat in Afghanistan. In 2013, the Australian Army also purchased suppressors for the F89 fleet. In 2019, the Australian Army went ahead with the limited introduction of suppressors for the EF88.

At the present time neither the EF88 nor F89 suppressors have seen widespread roll out, nor does there appear to be an appetite to suppress the MAG58, possibly due to the fact that Australian Infantry have not had the actual sustained engagements in close combat, particularly at night, that Special Forces experienced in Afghanistan, with the hard lessons that these engagements taught.

Tactical Multispectral Signature Management

Tactical multispectral signature management in the Australian Army similarly does not account for the hard lessons learnt in Ukraine and Georgia resulting from rapid advances in multispectral sensors that the Australian Army uses, let alone a sophisticated adversary.

Near Infrared (NIR) combat uniforms; mini ghillie upper body suits that offer visual camouflage; 'shaggy dog' ensembles draped over Bushmaster vehicles; and static camouflage nets that are primarily used for shade and visual signature are the standard practice in the Australian Army of 2020.

In 21st Century combat, if the combatant is ahead of the adversary’s observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) loop, the combatant can take additional protective measures, whether offensive or defensive. Ballistic measures are only one aspect of protection but in the modern warfare context signature management is the primary driving factor for protection, ahead of ballistic measures, due to the extreme lethality of adversary platforms.

The current Australian Army's approach to signature management for close combatants and ground forces assumes that there is no air threat, or at least air superiority. The last time Australian forces suffered an air attack was the Korean War in the early 1950s. To expect this to remain the case in the next conflict would be to drastically underestimate our potential adversaries.

Australia’s current suite of static camouflage nets are ageing, heavy and the technology obsolete for a multispectral sensor/shooter environment. In addition, the various vehicle acquisition projects (Land 121, Land 116, Land 400 etc.) have not included comprehensive requirements for signature management. Land 125 Phase 3, responsible for close combatant capability improvement, did not include personal signature management systems, and Land 125 Phase 4 is not scheduled to consider 'Passive Signature Management' until Tranche 3, currently FY 2027/2028 to FY 2031/2032.

Accelerated Warfare

BRIG Ian Langford, Director General Future Land Warfare (DGFLW), outlined in his recent Accelerated Warfare presentation some of the Australian Army’s shortcomings (relative to peers) in consideration of electronic warfare (EW) and electronic attack (EA). BRIG Langford also discussed Project Maven and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify adversaries by mining data that might be derived from UAV, satellite sensors etc.

The US Military is fielding advanced computer algorithms onto platforms to extract objects from massive amounts of moving or still imagery. Personnel and computers will work symbiotically to increase the ability of weapon systems to detect objects, with an immediate focus on 38 classes of objects that represent the kinds of things the US Military needs to detect, initially focused on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Project Maven focuses on computer vision, which is an aspect of machine learning and deep learning that autonomously extracts objects of interest from moving or still imagery, using biologically inspired neural networks and deep learning, defined as applying such neural networks to learning tasks. Technologies like Project Maven are designed to identify personnel (facial characteristics, weapons, uniforms, equipment), vehicles and facilities for targeting.

Signature management requires comprehensive application, including personnel, weapons, vehicles and facilities. It is of little use having masked vehicles and C3I nodes if unmasked personnel provide a pattern of life (POL) or activity-based intelligence (ABI) in and around the masked items. ABI is the analysis methodology for rapidly integrating data from multiple sources to discover relevant patterns, determine and identify change, and characterize those patterns to drive collection and create decision advantage. Unlike the traditional intelligence cycle, which decomposes multidisciplinary collection requirements from a description of the target signature or behaviour, ABI practitioners have advanced the concept of large-scale data filtering of events, entities, and transactions to develop understanding through spatial and temporal correlation across multiple data sets.

When considering the tactical option of infiltrating dismounted close combatants through rough terrain to gain a tactical advantage, one should also consider the thermal signal of a line of unmasked (limited or no signature management) combatants within the enemy’s area of operation. Thus detected, by a thermal imager on a UAV, the swift application of fires would surely result in catastrophic casualties. Approach marches by night through rough terrain are therefore no different to approaching by day down a highway or 'hopping the bags' on the Western Front in 1917.