Robert scales — major-General U.S. army, retired, former head of the Army war College, USA and author of the book “Scales on War”, which will soon be released.
In November during my visit to the headquarters of U.S. forces in Europe, I listened to the message about the achievements of the Russian army in the Ukraine. A young intelligence officer quite casually told the details of the July 2014 during the battle near the village of Zelenopillia single “fire attack” of the Russian artillery in just a few minutes almost completely destroyed two Ukrainian mechanized infantry battalion.
I immediately imagined what would happen if this strike had been a us tank battalion. And then I realized that Ukraine has become for Russia a demonstration of what will happen if we ever encounter her in the fierce battle. “You know,” I said, “this is the first time since the beginning of the cold war, when the army of a foreign country has surpassed the us army, the combat capability”.
This discovery was extremely disturbing, because the firepower of artillery was the basis of the combat potential of the US on land for nearly a century. In Normandy the Germans could not say anything good about the quality of American armored vehicles and infantry. But they were afraid the American artillery. The invention of Americans — coordinated time-raids — was a situation where hundreds of guns struck the only goal, producing thousands of projectiles at the same time. The effect for the Germans was devastating.
During the Gulf war the Iraqis were most afraid of what they called “steel rain”. This “rain” represented the hundreds of thousands of bombs of small calibre size of a flashlight, which was placed in artillery shells and missile warheads. U.S. radar to counter fire weapons mounted on the missile systems of volley fire, destroyed the vaunted artillery of Saddam Hussein in the course of a long massive attacks. Since then, Iraqi artillery posed no threat to our military.
Ukraine’s experience has become a sinister analogue of what might happen with the American artillery, if we get into a fight with the Russians or their agents. The new Russian system of fire power superior to our system by about a third or more. The Russians have perfected our technology, “steel rain”, and developed a small-caliber bombs of a new generation, filled with thermobaric explosives. When you break these bombs produce a powerful shock wave of explosive gases, which cause far greater damage than conventional explosives. Just one volley of steel rain temperature and pressure the Russians, given only one grenade launcher platoon, destroy all on the area of 140 hectares.
Unfortunately, all stocks of American ammunition for steel rain — millions of mines and warheads — has disappeared. They were consciously destroyed by the two previous administrations — given in sacrifice to the gods of political correctness. They agreed to abandon all small caliber guns, after other countries (who did not have technical means for the steel rain) signed a Treaty banning such weapons, because they leave behind too many duds and pose a threat to the civilian population. Russia, China and Israel have considered that they will have to conduct real wars and ignored the Treaty. As a result, Russian grenade launcher platoon, throw the enemy with steel rain, can destroy everything in an area five times the area affected, the usual high-explosive shells fired by an American battalion of jet systems of volley fire.
The achievements of Russian artillery in Ukraine has demonstrated that over the past two decades the Russians have technologically caught up with us. Strategic US drones — the ones that allow to eliminate the terrorists without leaving bases in Nevada are more advanced than Russian. But Russian tactical drones that provide fire of artillery, are much greater than ours in quality and number. In 2014, when the battles for Debaltsevo, Ukrainians reported that over their heads constantly flying at least eight Russian tactical drones.
In addition, the technology of electronic warfare demonstrated by the Russians in the Ukraine are the best in the world, even more advanced than ours. During the 240-day siege of Donetsk airport Russians successfully suppressed GPS signals, radar signals and radio signals. Their potential of electronic intelligence was so high that the Ukrainians were absolutely helpless. Ukrainian commanders have complained that every radio message in just a few seconds was followed by a punitive firing a volley.
Does this mean that the Russian army is beyond our power? Not at all. If we started a war with Russia, we would have won. A well-trained army of half a million people. Two-thirds of the 800-strong army of Vladimir Putin — is conscripts who serve for only one year and whose skills raise serious doubts. The Russian air force also can not compare with ours. However, the experience of Ukraine shows that the price of any collision with the Russians will be very high.
The tragic decline of the American artillery, which not long ago was the Foundation of the American armed forces provides us with a powerful warning. Reducing the combat potential of our armed forces in Europe has occurred in a very unfavorable moment, when the presidential candidate of the Republican party, Donald trump openly questioned the need to protect Europe, and the Obama administration is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a giant high-tech systems that are best suited for conducting sea battles in Asia. However, in modern wars our soldiers have killed far more prosaic weapons — small arms, mines and artillery. Add to that the fact that we lost a powerful means of warfare, and now we can only guess what disastrous consequences can result in our good intentions.
