Developing engineer munitions and equipment: problems and methods.

The chief aim in further development of engineer munitions and equipment (EME) is keeping these at a technical level enabling efficient engineer support of combat activities of the services and combat arms (special troops) of the Armed Forces during peace and in wartime. The important thing in this context is not to let the Russian Federation fall behind the advanced countries in EME development and production. It is of equal importance not to allow a decline in the competitiveness of EME in the world weapons markets.

The following are the factors that shape any would-be EME system: contemporary views on the nature of potential wars and armed conflicts; contemporary requirements for engineer support of combat operations; experience of employment of engineer assets in recent armed conflicts; the existing EME strength level, the technical state and reserves of engineer munitions and equipment; ratio of engineer capabilities (of one's own and other armies), and international restrictions on weapons and military equipment. In addition, new EME development is strongly influenced by contemporary and forecasted state of the national economy, which has a direct bearing on defense budgets, including spending on development and production of EME. National scientific and production potential is also a factor with considerable impacts.

Admittedly, the advanced foreign nations have somewhat outstripped us in recent years, both technically and technologically, in EME development and production. We lag behind four or five years, for example, in mine laying and clearing equipment, protective equipment, camouflage and concealment, and particularly engineer robots. Yet, the excruciatingly difficult last decade notwithstanding, we on the whole managed to keep the R & D and production infrastructure for new EME. Though the Defense Ministry is currently unable to purchase newly developed models in sufficient amounts, it is crucial to go on with the work, since an R & D reserve, if available, will provide for a rapid advance in EME as a reaction to putative increases in defense allocations.

With insufficient financing, it makes sense to use on a broader scale, apart from specialized engineer munitions and equipment intended to address purely military tasks, double-purpose assets, which are created for the troops but with regard for a possibility of their civilian application. Some cases in point are bridge-building equipment, equipment helping to mechanize earth-moving work, field water supply and power equipment, and general-purpose equipment. With a class of double-purpose EME in existence, batch production is likely to grow and so is quality, while wholesale prices and R & D costs will go down. That will also create favorable conditions for better-quality training of cadre and reserve specialists.

Currently, a number of priorities have been outlined in the military affairs, which have a direct bearing on engineer support of combat operations. These are the following: to increase the speed and maneuverability of troop movements, to provide for mobility of forces and their mine security; to enhance effectiveness of explosive and other obstacles so as to reduce the enemy's mobility and cause him losses; to cut the time involved in organizing defense lines and positions; to strengthen protection of forces from enemy weapons (primarily precision weapons); to achieve efficiency in information countermeasures in order to conceal combat activities of friendly troops (forces) and mislead the enemy. Let us consider some most urgent lines in EME development associated with the above assignments.

Antimine protection (AMP) has emerged as a particularly acute problem lately, as is confirmed by the experience of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, where troops have to perform missions against the background of a "mine war" kept going by the illegal armed groups, which means a mass-scale and imaginative mining of routes and facilities used by the friendly forces. The opposition employ a broad spectrum of mines and explosive devices (from regular mines to homemade wire- or radio-controlled fougasses) in combination with nonstandard techniques and methods of mine-laying. In this connection, the TOE reconnaissance and minefield negotiation assets, ones intended for use in a large-scale war, proved insufficiently effective.

High-intensity armed conflicts are likely to face forces with an even greater mine danger. Currently armies of advanced countries possess highly effective mines, including ones with proximity fuses and a broad kill zone (up to 100 meters), as well as mobile equipment enabling their rapid laying, like mechanized and remote mining systems. The improvement of mine weapons is a highly intensive, continuing process. NATO armies are planning to have, before long, assets capable of organizing automated obstacles, which can seal off and engage both land and air targets over considerable areas.

Both domestic and foreign experience of combat operations indicates that engineer troops will be increasingly engaged in clearing "time mines" of sorts, or unexploded munitions of different types. The reason is that in the modern environment the extent of battlefield employment of munitions has increased by more than an order of magnitude on what it was during World War II, while their reliability remains at the level of 80-90%. Foreign military experts estimate, for example, that the U.S. and allied operations in the territory of former Yugoslavia left behind several million unexploded munitions.

Considering the extent of the mine threat, it makes sense to regard AMP as a subsystem of the general troop protection system with all its inherent information and material-technical connections, which is adequately oriented not only to forces and assets it supports, but also to techniques and methods of their combat employment. Moreover, AMP system must not be restricted by the narrow departmental framework (that of the engineer troops alone); rather, it should function at the combined-arms level, for decision-making on using forces and assets of different combat arms will, under certain circumstances, be largely determined by the mine situation in an area of combat operations, because its influence will be comparable to that of mass destruction weapons.

The AMP in turn should include the following elements (subsystems): regulatory legal and methodological support; technical assets; training to prepare troops for operations in the mine environment; troop protection directly in areas of combat operations.

The current state of regulatory legal and methodological support of AMP is such as to require, along with specifying the majority of guideline documents, a specialized manual that would embrace the operational-tactical, engineer-tactical and engineer-technical aspects of its organization and execution at all command-and-control levels (troop echelons) and different types of combat operations. With this aim in view, engineer specialists have drafted a number of documents (regulations, manuals, instructions), which are currently considered and tested by military units, staffs and research institutions of the Engineer Troops.

In the material sense, the basis of AMP is formed by a system of technical assets, which is a totality of various devices, instruments and appliances, designed to reconnoiter, search for, discover, identify, fix, mark out, extract, disable, and destroy (neutralize) different explosive objects (EO) in terrain or facilities to be cleared, as well as to protect personnel, combat and other equipment from the mine weapons. AMP technical assets are developed under the state weapons program, which, with regard for military-technical aspects and financial capabilities, determines the procedure and timeframes for R & D (modernization), testing, adoption, and delivery to line units of reconnaissance and minefield (MF) negotiating equipment models to be used for protection against mine weapons.

Russian military and political leaders pay much attention to the AMP problem. Currently in effect is the Interdepartmental Comprehensive Target Program of Organizational and Technical Measures for EO Discovery and Destruction, which was drawn up on orders from the RF President and Chairman of the RF Government. The Program is aimed to substantiate, draw up and coordinate organizational, scientific-technical, financial and other measures to be employed by the Russian "power" agencies to deal with the mine threat, including to prevent the use and reduce the damage from terrorist and criminal EO, with the RF AF Engineer Troops as the chief coordinator.

Despite well-known economic problems, there has been active R & D, in recent years, for a new generation of assets for engineer reconnaissance and the passage of explosive obstacles. Already now the technical level of the Engineer Troops and its capability to deal with a number of complex tasks can be considerably enhanced through the delivery of a number of sophisticated assets, such as selective induction-type mine detector, IMPS; modernized gear designed to hunt mines with proximity fuses, INM-M; modernized mine-clearing armored vehicle, BMR-3M; and combat engineer's protective kit, ZKS-1.

Antimine warfare in the Chechen Republic suggested the necessity of developing some specialized equipment adapted to operational conditions, such as road mine-clearing vehicle capable of effective mine and fougasse sweeping in populated localities, and mine-clearing support vehicle ensuring the needed security level as EO are extracted and transported to be disposed. These models are being developed within the framework of the state defense order.

Considered as promising lines in mine and kindred reconnaissance are air- and land-based mobile complexes combining optical-electronic, heat-vision and radar reconnaissance equipment, which are capable of processing and transmitting mine situation data in real time mode. Discovery of mines and fougasses with electronic components, controlled ones included, can be best helped by selective non-linear radars, as confirmed by the testing of their prototype, the commercial radar NR 9000, in the course of the counter-terrorist operation.

Traditional induction-type mine detectors are dramatically less efficient on the modern battlefield where the level of anthropogenic and technogenic interferences in the soil is very high. This being so, georadars using subsoil radar technique are a more preferable solution. Some encouraging results have been obtained in this area, so much so that a new device will hopefully be brought forth within the next few years, capable of detecting EO encased in any type of material at up to one meter below the surface.

Using direct explosives detection methods gives the hope for a more considerable breakthrough in mine reconnaissance under different conditions. A case in point is a mobile wide lock-on complex using the photonuclear method to detect explosives. Preliminary investigations indicate that it is possible to develop and adopt this type of gear that can detect and identify EO direct at great distances and carrier speeds with sufficient width of detection zone.

High potential of mine detection service crews can be better realized in practice if these are provided with technical assets for EO follow-up reconnaissance and with remote dog control assets. Prospectively, developing biotechnical EO search systems will do the trick.

Radio-activated explosive devices, a widely used terrorist weapon, can be neutralized by assets--yet to be developed--capable of disabling their executive instruments through powerful electromagnetic impact. The problem in this sense is these assets' electromagnetic compatibility with other radio-electronic systems and people's safety in an area of application. Jamming is a no less promising line in combating radio explosive devices, as confirmed by its efficient use in the counter-terrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus.

Mechanical mine clearing devices are currently streamlined on the basis of standardized working equipment elements. Explosive mine clearing equipment is represented by a mobile trailer-type mine clearing mount, now in course of development, and the modernized mine clearing mount adaptable to combat mission requirements, including the necessary range of charge delivery, the power of its mine clearing effect, and the depth of a lane to be cleared.

Along with AMP of troops, boosting effectiveness of combat use of minefield installation equipment is of particular importance in modern conditions. Notice that minefields are crucial to success in defensive combat operations and effective in sealing off and defeating enemy land forces in large-scale wars. In counter-terrorist and other specialized operations, these protect important military and civilian facilities and seal off areas where groups of terrorists operate. But the present-day state of the stocks of mine weapons owned by the RF Armed Forces gives rise to some concern. First, it is necessary to radically reduce the nomenclature of mines that mostly took shape in the 1960s--1980s, the period of rapid growth of the Soviet military-industrial complex (there are several hundred types of models). Second, storage periods of a number of models exceed the warranty, whereas their qualitative state does not guarantee an effective and safe employment. Third, rates of upgrading and replacement of mines have slowed down dramatically over the recent years, with currently stored models failing to meet all modern requirements. In this connection, proposals are being drawn up on how to modernize mines and improve (restore) their qualitative state while in storage.

The mine weapons, particularly antipersonnel mines, are recently under much impact from international agreements urging a restriction of or a ban on their use, specifically the supplemented "mine" Protocol II to the Geneva Convention and the Ottawa Convention. Work is under way to develop (modernize) a number of mines and their fuses as a response to the requirements regarding self-elimination and self-deactivation of the antipersonnel mines, as contained in the former. In future, it is planned to develop engineer munitions with inbuilt remote control devices to watch their state. That will make it possible not only to comply with the said international documents but also to increase combat effectiveness of minefields of this type.

Developing alternatives to the traditional antipersonnel mines that would obviate lethal impacts on civilians is a fundamentally new trend in engineer munitions, conforming to the general world tendencies to humanize weapons, which is of particular importance in counter-terrorist, peacekeeping and other specialized operations. Currently we are aware of how to develop some of these and of their technical aspect. However, the following calls for specification and better study: regulation of the casualty effect parameters that secure, on the one hand, disablement, for a specified time span, of appropriately trained and equipped enemy personnel, and, on the other, an assured exclusion of lethal impacts on the civilian population, with regard for the broad spectrum of health states characterizing its different groups and other features; evaluation of possible influences that local conditions, including meteorological and physical-geographical, may have on the casualty effect; development of techniques and methods of their combat use with account taken of the broad spectrum of objectives to be tackled; spelling out of legal responsibilities consequential upon inappropriate use of these weapon models.

Pursuant to the obligation to dispose of the stocks of banned (like PMN, PMN-2), low-quality, or hazardous mines, the latter both in use and storage, and in a bid to reduce the excessive nomenclature (by striking off physically and morally obsolescent models), the Engineer Troops is working to salvage them. Engineer Troops specialists lent a hand in developing a fundamentally new technology of mine demilitarization by the cement grouting method, turning mines into industrial explosives that can be used for peaceful purposes and are totally inapplicable in their former capacity. In addition, the Engineer Troops command, with an active backing from the General Staff, is taking steps to obtain financial aid for this work from NATO and other international organizations. It is also working to establish cooperation with Belarus and Ukraine.

Further outlook for mine weapons is connected with efforts to develop fundamentally new assets enabling installation of automatic obstacles capable of effectively sealing off and destroying not only the adversary's single and multiple targets on the ground and in the air, but also his separate force groupings. In this context, pressure being brought to bear on the adversary may involve both attack weapons (to engage single targets) and barrage jamming (to seal off his separate force groupings). The possibility of remote installation, a considerable intellectual component and numerous target sensors will enable the systems to render information support during combat operations, which means that friendly forces will have at their disposal reconnaissance-defensive systems.

Analysis of modern combat operations points to the considerably grown importance of servicemen's individual gear for success in missions. Given that the personnel of all combat arms have to perform a majority of engineer support tasks on their own, individual engineer kit has been developed in addition to the general military kit. The former secures "engineer support" of servicemen along with greater self-sufficiency during combat operations. Testing in line units yielded some positive results: engineer reconnaissance rates and speed of passage of explosive obstacles increased 35%, while time needed to prepare demolition operations decreased 15-20%. On top of that a surge in mobility and self-reliance was achieved, specifically the time servicemen needed to board and disembark from combat vehicles was reduced 33.4%. According to calculations, mass-scale distribution of individual engineer kits will enhance efficiency of combat missions approximately 15-20%.

Fortification protection assets (FPA) and technical camouflage assets are one of the more effective methods enabling greater survivability of forces and installations. In the meantime, appropriations for their development and production do not exceed 1-3% of the cost of facilities or WME to be protected. Currently FPA include several dozen types of field fortification structures, diverse in designation and design, many of which are morally and physically obsolescent. The trouble with these structures is that they are cumbersome, huge in size and weight, and inadequately mobile during combat operations. They also require a lot of human and material resources to build and afford unsatisfactory living conditions for personnel.

New R & D is pursued under a target FPA program run by the services and combat arms of the Armed Forces. For example, development work is over on light field fortification structures, made of polymer materials, which represent single monoblocks and can shelter and protect from eight (long-term) to twenty (short-term) troops in sufficient comfort.

A new line in FPA is creating structures with variable degree of protection. Developed jointly with the Main Armored Directorate on the basis of detachable container bodies, these will help to cut considerably the time and cost of engineer organization of operational-echelon command and control centers, and also to improve habitability. Aside from that, work is under way to develop block-type fortification modules and framed fabric structures for battalion-level command and observation posts. These structures will cut the fortification period three to four times and transportation costs 25 times by comparison with traditional wood structures.

One should dwell in particular on technical camouflage assets. The importance of this type of EME in the modern situation is confirmed by the lessons of combat operations in the Gulf zone, the Balkans and Afghanistan, which showed that with no or weak camouflage the enemy reconnaissance will rapidly identify the location, tasking designation and function of facilities and provide precise target designation for guided weapons.

As is to be regretted, we pay insufficient attention to technical camouflage assets in this country. The existing camouflage kits, screens and other concealment assets will cover weapons, military equipment and facilities only from photographic reconnaissance, while being incapable of providing comprehensive countermeasures against infrared, radar and microwave reconnaissance and guidance systems. The currently adopted radar-absorbing and radar-dispersing kits are not up to operational requirements, whereas the earlier missile, SAM and aircraft dummies are at odds with modern requirements as to their bulk, employment labor inputs, and other indicators. Line units lack MTI-type concealment from microwave and radar reconnaissance; neither do they have assets to camouflage multiple or sprawling installations, nor practically any dummies of the main types of weapons and military equipment. Another substantial disadvantage is that line units do not have new simulators of physical fields of weapons and military equipment (heat, microwave, radar simulators, etc.).

The key problem in new technical camouflage is how to develop promising concealment and simulation assets that would both hide and protect weapons, military equipment and installations from the modern combined photographic, optical-electronic and radar reconnaissance and precision weapon guidance systems. Currently work is nearing completion on a new generation of camouflage kits designed to conceal weapons and military equipment from combined optical and radar reconnaissance and guidance systems in all types of terrain. R & D is also in progress on a heat reflector coating, a new type of polarization-capable radar reflectors, and a microchip radar simulator of military equipment in motion.

A new line in dummies are pneumatic propped structures capable of imitating large-size missiles, SAM, aircraft and other equipment with the necessary degree of detail. To render the dummies self-revealing to the needed extent, some of their elements are made of new synthetic, electro-conductive and heat resistant materials. Their weight has been reduced by an order of magnitude and their installation takes minutes, not hours as the existing analogues would.

But there are some organizational problems in this area in addition to technical ones. The thing is that the dummies developed on orders from the Directorate of the Chief of Engineer Troops of the RF Armed Forces simulate equipment only in the optical, heat and radar bands, whereas appropriate quarters ordering weapons and equipment often fail to equip the said devices with active simulators (electronic, magnetic measurement, acoustic, and others). This state of affairs complicates coordination and prevents standardization of camouflage assets. It makes sense in this connection to revise the functions of general contractors in camouflage assets and to identify a single contractor in this area.

As we see it, the new camouflage assets will substantially increase the efficacy and reduce the timeframes of engineer operational camouflage, concealment and deception measures.

An acute present-day problem is how to keep in a combat-ready state the engineer equipment in line units and in long-term storage. One way of dealing with it is to modernize the existing engineer equipment, which in a number of cases is economically the most efficacious method of boosting the Engineer Troops' level of equipment. In the course of modernization of certain engineer equipment models, Russian-made chassis is substituted for the basic chassis, a move explained by the fact that currently engineer equipment uses too many chassis--22 types (ten caterpillar and 12 wheel-mounted)--many of them foreign-produced. This is the reason why the batch-produced and promising engineer models have been converted, since the 1990s, to domestic basic chassis, and why the nomenclature of motor vehicles has been axed. For example, the highly standardized family of chassis of state-of-the-art tanks T-90 and ICV alone, as well as Ural trucks rather than their KrAZ cousins, will make the nomenclature shrink, before 2005, to nine caterpillar and ten wheel-mounted types of chassis, and to five and seven types respectively before 2010.

More than 20 types of engineer equipment have been modernized in recent years. The main models are these: obstacle-clearing engineer vehicle (it can now be manufactured in Russia on the basis of Russian complete plant); a family of towing motor boats (converted to domestically-produced Ural-53236 truck with regard for the RF River Register, to wit, the boat is now a double-purpose craft); power shovel (Russian-made Ural-5557-31 truck has been substituted for the basic chassis, with its range of functions expanded considerably thanks to additional removable implements (hydraulic hammer, concrete breaker); water production installation (its purification unit has been standardized, releasing two crews).

Before 2010, it is planned to modernize another 20 or more assets. One of these is the heavy road construction vehicle Robot-3, the necessity of improving which is attested to by the construction of a route lateral to the front in difficult forested mountainous terrain in the Chechen Republic. Following the collapse of the USSR, plants manufacturing road construction vehicles remained in Ukraine. So, possibilities are being explored at present of building a caterpillar-mounted armored road construction vehicle standardized with IMP-3 vehicle to replace BAT-M and BAT-2.

Combined-arms bridge trains form the basis of the system of river-crossing equipment. A modernized train will include an improved motor element, a universal shore element, and new standardized pontoon truck Ural-53236. If adopted, the train will assure the world parity in this class of assets for the next seven to ten years at the least.

Modernizing bridge-building installation will expand the nomenclature of local materials used in the construction of low-level bridges, increase building rates, and replace foreign-made complete plant by domestically produced one.

Plans to improve the assault river-crossing kit envisage to increase the load-carrying capacity of the amphibious carrier vehicle and to replace its basic chassis by domestically produced gear. It is also planned to develop assault river-crossing ferry to replace PMM-2 (PMM-2M) ferries, which will have a detachable ferry-bridge structure with the load-carrying capacity of 60 tons, its units and plant items standardized to match those of bridge trains, a circumstance that makes it possible for ferries to form a floating bridge.

Overhauling equipment in order to extend its serviceability is a no less important line in the endeavor to keep engineer equipment combat-ready. It is intended to considerably expand service life of engineer equipment, without making serious investments, via the replacement of rubber items that are first to crumble. Sets of such items intended for 15 main models of engineer equipment have been developed and are being manufactured. Development is under way of the same for the rest of the main nomenclature. As is evident from recent investigations, this will extend serviceability of long-stored engineer equipment by five or six years and make it possible to operate overhauled (serviced) equipment till the end of its service life. At the same time, it seems more expedient to overhaul each WME model as a whole rather than its separate units and parts, since this requires much smaller expenditures.

A crucial vector in improving EME is forming their rational nomenclature. Currently it numbers more than 1,700 names of adopted and supplied models. As a consequence, units, plant items and basic chassis of EME models are not standardized; some models have an identical tasking designation. This makes difficult overhauls and delivery of spare parts, as it does personnel training. To deal with these problems, it is planned to curtail the nomenclature step by step by more than 50% before 2010-2015.

One more problem needs to be mentioned in conclusion, which is about EME employment, not development. The recent-year phasing out of the Engineer Troops strength (a more than 75% reduction was made over 12 years) has led to a situation where the ET is facing a point of no return, on crossing which it will no longer be able to render engineer support on the needed scale and within designated timeframes. Some additional efforts are required therefore to optimize the combat and numerical strength of the Engineer Troops, as is a set of programs aimed at developing new, highly efficient engineer equipment and delivering it to line units.

Col. Gen. N.I. SERDTSEV

Chief of Engineer Troops, RF AF, Candidate of Military Sciences

Maj. Gen. A.M. AVERCHENKO

Chief of D.M. Karbyshev 15 Central Research Test Institute, Doctor of Technical Sciences