The Red Diamond newsletter presents professional information but the views expressed herein are those of the authors, not the Department of Defense or its elements. The content does not necessarily reflect the official US Army position and does not change or superseded any information in other official US Army publications. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and source documentation of the material that they reference. The Red Diamond staff reserves the right to edit material. Appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the US Army for information contained therein.
This issue of Red Diamond opens with an article on an ambitious military transformation program being conducted by China to professionalize its military forces. Transformation at the tactical level is wide-ranging. The Chinese army has moved away from combat divisions to combat brigades organized in three primary variations: heavy, medium, and light. This article reviews these basic brigade types and their associated weapons platforms.
The Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE) ground forces, air forces, and associated insurgent groups’ orders of battle (OBs) are now available on the Joint Training Data Service (JTDS) and Exercise Design Tool (EDT). While the OBs in DATE reach down to the brigade level, those on JTDS and EDT reach down to the entity level (individual soldier, system, weapon, or vehicle). A brief article discusses the advantages of using these OBs and how to potential users can gain access.
Camps and settlements for refugees have become a more common condition in crisis zones as conflicts increase in scope. The increasing size of camp populations is creating an environment in which threat actors seek opportunities to militarize these vulnerable populations. While refugee camps are often waved away as only a humanitarian issue, their intentional militarization by a range of threat actors could boil over and require a larger commitment of forces. An article discusses the similarities between these camps and traditional megacities, as well as potential methods of militarizing camp populations.
The next article is the second segment of a two-part series examining opposing force (OPFOR) tactical tasks with the technique of using antitank guided missiles, as seen through the lens of an irregular force videotape of an ambush. Generally, this tactic uses the terrain to the attacker’s advantage and employs obstacles to halt the enemy, with the goal of keeping him in the kill zone throughout the action. This tactical vignette focuses on the OPFOR tactical task of ambush, with functions and subtasks compared to a real-world incident in the ongoing conflict between Yemeni rebels and Saudi Arabian forces.
Russian military doctrine has long centered on its artillery. As early as the 14th century, the Russians began placing a greater emphasis on larger artillery formations in proportion to their infantry in order to repel Mongol invaders. The first installment of a two-part series reviews Russian thought regarding use of artillery, changes in the country’s military over recent decades, and the military’s extensive use of deception.
A dispersed attack is a threat tactic that adapts to an operational environment and an enemy that is typically superior in relative combat power comparison to threat forces. The primary actions of a dispersed attack create conditions to mass selective threat combat power on key systems of an enemy force and combat system. The final Red Diamond article this month examines this tactics in detail, including types of forces used and associated tasks, and provides an example vignette.