Military Tactics Under Fire

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The Ukraine conflict demonstrates it impressively: large-scale operations are now rarely successful, trench warfare has returned.

Whether ground combat aircraft, (combat) helicopters, individual drones of various types and missions, more or less intelligently deployed swarms of drones, electronic countermeasures, cruise missiles or (rocket) artillery: a large, sometimes interacting arsenal of sensors and effectors is present in the airspace close to the ground. This arsenal causes massive difficulties for both armies.

The ubiquitous presence of sensors and effectors has the potential to deprive both the reconnaissance means and the weapon systems of the parties involved of their effectiveness. At least, they restrict the mobility of armed forces, disrupt logistics or eliminate moments of surprise, such as the operational instrument forming a centre of gravity. The paralysing effect is particularly great when neuralgic and central points in the command/communication structure (C4) are affected.

The threat is all the greater if an army lacks the means, integrated systems and operational principles to counter the dangers of the battlefield in the 21st century. The army, as the events in Ukraine indicate, will remain the mainstay of combat for the time being. It needs a key to reduce the threat and, conversely, to impose its own initiative on the enemy and immobilise it with the aforementioned means.

This insight applies in particular to Germany's Army Concepts and Capabilities Development Centre, represented by its commander Major General Frauenhoff, with whom Dr Christian Brandlhuber, CTO at 21strategies, and Michael Protzmann, Vice President Land at IABG, held a lively discussion on a panel at the ILA on 6 June 2024. The panel was moderated by Dr Heiko Borchert, BCR AG. As the number one demand carrier, General Frauenhoff is one of the most prominent promoters of artificial intelligence (AI) at the German Armed Forces in order to manage the complexity above the heads of the army.

AI, as it is used today by a large number of civilian organisations to evaluate large amounts of data, also contributes to classification and identification (ISR | intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) in the armed forces. Such second-wave AI systems were and are useful and also offer advantages, but do not yet represent a quantum leap or a game changer for users.

21strategies opens up a new dimension of AI for the armed forces. The company has made it its mission to provide organisations with tactical superiority. To this end, 21strategies trains and operates Third Wave AI. Unlike conventional AI-procedures it is context- and consequence-aware and capable of calculating and executing optimal (mission) plans that can hardly be beaten - exploitable - by the adversary. This is new for the defense sector. Tactics are considered a core competence of the armed forces. Now human skill and experience is being challenged by machine-trained tactics - comparable to the progress made in social or strategy games such as chess, backgammon, Go or Starcraft, which are played by machines at the level of human champions. The fact that the battlefield is many times more complex than a game makes Third Wave AI a challenge for every AI researcher. Poor data, incomplete information and the non-stationarity of the environment are just three of the hurdles that need to be mastered.

To demonstrate the tactical behaviour of AI-integrated platforms, 21strategies nevertheless uses a game-like virtual environment and has created the core of the Defense Metaverse. Within the virtual twin of the battlefield, AI-based tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) can be developed, tested and visualised in a resource-efficient and safe manner, where technical autonomy is potentially at stake. Which TTPs increase the chances of success of a particular mission? Christian Brandlhuber demonstrated this at the ILA panel using "Wild Hornets", an example of combatting air defense systems using AI-controlled swarms of drones. "Software-defined tactics," was one of his key statements, "will be an increasingly important aspect of defense systems in the future."

21strategies' Defense Metaverse is an excellent starting point for quickly gaining insights into the tactical value, validity and reliability of new weapon systems, for example, without the need for lengthy studies. The data obtained from the analysis in turn results in (new) requirements for the defense industry, for the (training of) military leaders, operations command, equipment and logistics. To complete the picture in the words of General Frauenhoff: "In any case, you must not stand still, but must anticipate the second and third steps of the enemy and get ahead of the wave." Such an advantage is gained by those whose AI systems offer a tactical advantage. This applies not only to the airspace close to the ground. Hopefully this will also be an advantage from an ethical point of view, if the conflicts become less wars of attrition than brain-on-brain conflicts.

21strategies was founded by Prof. Yvonne Hofstetter, Dr. Christian Brandlhuber and Dr. Scott Muller in 2020 and is based in Hallbergmoos, Bavaria, Germany. The company transforms how organizations make strategic and tactical decisions under uncertainty. To aim at their mission, 21strategies provides Third Wave AI. Solutions for the civilian sector include hedge21® for hedging foreign exchange exposure and commodity price risk, and the Defense Metaverse for the defense sector. Both solutions are based on 21strategies’ proprietary AI technology tactics21.