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Generating Combat Mass by Doing More with What You Have

5 days ago
2 min read

“Combat mass doesn’t always require buying more. Sometimes it requires thinking differently about what you have.” By Robbin Laird.


At the Williams Foundation seminar on October 1, Air Commodore (Retd) Phil Gordon, a former RAAF Joint Force Air Component Commander who now works at Lockheed Martin Australia, was expected to make the case for more platforms. He set that aside.


His argument was that combat mass can come from having more things to call on, or from doing more with the things you already have. He spoke about the second.


It is a simple idea.


It is also a direct challenge to how defence forces buy capability.


Our latest analysis examines what Gordon calls multi-mission force multiplication.

His formula: maximize speed, reach and flexibility, and minimize dependency and fragility. Speed here is measured in the time it takes to detect, understand, decide and communicate, not in knots. As Admiral Brad Cooper observed of Operation Epic Fury, time is now measured in seconds, rarely hours.


Three ideas stand out:

  • Mission apps. Air battle management, integrated air and missile defence, counter-UAS, space, fires coordination and ISR exploitation are versions of the same OODA loop. They are still bought as separate projects, each with its own funding line and its own fragile, bespoke solution.

  • Common operating data, not just a common operating picture. The data is shared, and each operator sees it through a mission context interface tuned to the fight.

  • PACE applied to roles, not just radios. If every node and unit has a primary, alternate, contingency and emergency role, a battle management node can become a strike cell, a counter-air cell or a space contributor when the force needs it.


This is the kill web argument expressed as acquisition. A force built from single-purpose nodes is brittle. A force built from multi-mission nodes can lose pieces and keep fighting.


Gordon extended the logic to effectors. He pointed to reusable high-power microwave systems against Shahed-class drones, a lead-in fighter with a contingency counter-drone role, and Apaches and armed Black Hawks working the inner air defence layer.


The obstacle is not technology. It is how requirements are written, scoped and funded. Open ecosystems also depend on governments holding the integration standards and on primes letting competitors’ products in.


The question is not whether the force needs more mass.


It is how much latent mass it already owns, and why the acquisition system keeps it from being used.





 
 
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