Dmitry Kuzyakin, Chief Designer of the Central Design Bureau, talks about the revolution in military affairs that is taking place before our eyes
The special military operation in Ukraine will go down in history as a revolution in military affairs. Humanity is currently experiencing a technological singularity in the art of war. Historically, being at the epicenter of such changes, it is difficult to fully assess their scope. Current news and problems hide the scale of the changes taking place. It will take several decades for future researchers to put these changes on a par with the creation of firearms or the advent of aviation.
History does not remember many examples when the usual tools of warfare either disappeared completely or underwent a serious revision. While the world is inertially adhering to outdated paradigms — artillery batteries, tank breakthroughs and rapid assaults — we are creating the image of the armed forces of a new formation. No one has ever passed this way before. We are the first.
The impetus for such transformations was given by the sum of technologies from the software and the available element base of microelectronics. This fusion has hit the battlefields in the form of drones, rangefinders, inexpensive scouts, unmanned boats and new means of communication.
To maintain parity in the new reality, it is necessary to be prepared for challenges not only technologically, but also organizationally. It's one thing to gather experts and get them to follow the classic paths of projects, budgets, and trials. It is quite another thing to change the very structure of adopting new designs. Indeed, in the paradigm of the new technological war, changes at the front can occur literally every month!
We have already come a long way as a whole country. But today it is worth mentioning separately the changes that have affected the interaction of the rear and the front.
Traditional manufacturing develops, tests, purchases, manufactures and delivers to the front. There is a place where weapons are created, and there is a place where they are used. This paradigm has remained unchanged since the time of the ancient wars.
However, due to the increased speed of change, the availability of components, and the relative ease of assembling new warfare tools, keeping production facilities in the rear has become less critical. Moreover, the remoteness of production from the contact line began to interfere due to complex logistics and unacceptably long time delays in receiving feedback for technical improvements.
There is now a clear trend towards combining production, development, and even procurement sites directly with the front. In many ways, this is no longer just a trend, but a fully completed work. The situation resembles computer games in the genre of real-time strategy (RTS), where combat units are produced right on the battlefield.
We have seen many reports about how our soldiers on the front line are mastering the production of grenade launchers or opening entire workshops to equip tanks with drone protection; how the military is setting up mobile firing points or simply assembling drones. So, in one of the sectors of the front, our guys have set up production for the conversion of captured heavy multicopter drones to suit their needs. The enemy regularly supplies us with components, so why not use them for their own purposes? The enemy, by the way, does the same.
Here is a real case. One domestic product is used in our shock ranges for navigation. No country in the world can repeat it. Being mounted on our strike weapon, it flew over the line of contact for the first time, where it was shot down. After a while, the enemy installed it on his long-range helicopter and sent it from one of the waves of UAVs deep into our territory. But either the enemy did not assemble the drone very well, or the device did not want to work for the enemy, but the enemy's rangefinder did not reach the target, fell and was found by our comrades, who brought this particular product to us at the Central Research Institute. The device managed to stay in the museum, because it has already grown into history. However, a little time passed, and the fighters took him back to the front to give the device a second chance aboard the new drone. Silence for now. So, this time it flew to the right place.
It's not that the rear can't handle the volume or can't produce the right products. He just can't keep up with the rapid changes. The current trend is leading to a transition where the rear will retain the role of a resource, infrastructural and economic base, and the front will receive production facilities.
So far, this is only an obvious trend. The lion's share of supplies of ammunition, fuel and lubricants, medicines and transport is unlikely to be carried out directly on the front line. But only because these areas are not so prone to sudden changes, and there is no insane arms race going on in them. If breakthrough solutions appear that require an instant reaction in production, for example, in the field of medicine or in the chemical industry, both production and artisanal refinement will instantly appear near the front.
The conflict in Ukraine is the first where our reaction to technical innovations from the enemy should be measured in weeks. Where a new idea that can surprise an opponent should be implemented in metal tomorrow, not a year from now. There has never been such a pace of technology development on the battlefield in such a short period of time. And we confidently maintain parity not only in technology, but also in the organization of interaction and supply.
The author is the Chief designer of the Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions (CCDB)
The editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion.
