Defense White Paper of 642AB

PURPOSE:

The Purpose of this report is to identify areas of immediate concern that have developed in the past 12 years since the last review of the military.

SCOPE:

The scope of this paper is to be all encompassing regarding the Armed Forces.   Equipment, training, education, and philosophy. Refer to Defense White Paper of 630 for references to older reporting.

OVERALL:

The Kodiak Armed Forces capabilities remain in general decline.   The Army is unlikely to be fully capable of defensive operations.   The Navy is limited to littoral operations in support of coast guard duties, and the Air Force lacks sufficient flexibility to respond to a sustained air conflict. The Ministry of Defense assess the Combined Military of the Kodiak Republic (hereafter referred to as the Joint Force) to be capable of only limited defensive warfare, border patrol augmentation, and support to civil defense missions such as disaster relief and police actions.

STRATEGY:

Urgent reforms are needed across the Joint Force to reverse the trends of decline. The Ministry of Defense must secure additional funding for procurement to replace aging systems, increase recruiting to address manpower shortages, redefine training models to improve readiness and build force capabilities for self improvement, and institute a performance evaluation of all senior leaders across the General Staff and service components.

ARMY OVERVIEW

GENERAL TRENDS

The Kodiak Army is authorized approximately 100,000 active-duty soldiers, but a recent study found less than 40% of Battalions were fully staffed, with most units reporting only 70% manning of all ranks. The Army is centered on the combined arms task force known as the Brigade Tactical Group (BTG). Most ground-based equipment is produced by a robust Kodiak military industrial complex, however a number of sophisticated systems are imports from a number of nations. Due to budget concerns, the Army has not purchased new system from overseas since 609.  The stockpile of replacement parts for many of these systems has dropped into the black. In order to maintain as many systems as possible, the Army has reduced the total number of systems per unit and used any excess to cannibalize for parts.  This is most noticeable within the Field Artillery Brigade (FAB) which has reduced the number of batteries within its battalions from three units to two units. This can also be seen in the Divisional Artillery units which no longer have access to Tier 2 fire control systems and have instead been reduced to older systems produced domestically or to using analog methods only.

STRUCTURE

The largest change to the Joint Force is the reorganization of the reserves. Soldier contracts are now fundamentally for a term 10 years, four Active Duty (AD), four Organized Reserve (OR), and two Ready Reserve (RR) in succession.   This has enabled the Army to retain important skill sets of many trades within the army.   This is especially noticeable in the maintenance fields where active units lack fully manned support sections.   Using the monthly battle assembly and annual summer training of the OR, maintenance services have increased in most formation due to surges of additional manpower.   However, the OR short comings are most apparent in the inability of the OR to increase its skill levels beyond the baseline of the soldier at transition to Reserve status. Additionally, the OR still suffers from a lack of equipment to fully man its formation.   The three divisions of the OR remain light infantry and motorized recon units despite plans to upgrade to mechanized formations.   Finally, the OR does provide for an increased capability for the General Staff to prioritize the deployment of Active formations to select theaters and activate the Reserve divisions to take on duties that are lower priorities.

The BTG continues to serve as Kodiak's basic combined arms unit in a tactical combat situation. In the Army Force Structure (AFS), brigades are constituent, or organic, to the division. The National Command Authority (NCA) labels them divisional brigades. Additionally, the designation of Separate (Sep) Brigades is also a key part of the task organization of the Regional Operational Commands (ROCs). Sep Brigades are direct reporting units to the ROC and are task organized to perform specific missions that may include independent operations.   A key example is the Long Range Recon Brigades.   These units are task organized with their organic recon battalions and augmented with additional support elements to enable operations away from the Operational Support Area (OSA).

DOCTRINE AND TACTICS

Since the arrival of World Assembly advisers, most junior officers have trained with foreign partner forces or in some cases, attended foreign military academies as exchange students, this influence is seen throughout the military from the use of more focus on mission command. The most senior officers, however, were trained in domestically, and sometimes this diverse experience creates a rift between the General Officers and the senior Field Grade officers.

TRAINING AND DOCTRINE

Each ROC, ARSOF, and the Rykkburgh District maintains their own training areas and each conduct an annual Certifying Exercise (CERTEX).  These are focused on a range of scenarios from Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), Counter Terrorism (CT), Stability Operations (StabOps), and Low Intensity Conflict (LIC).  However, the quality of training across all training centers is not standardized and usually limited by the inability to mass the whole of a unit due to competing requirements due to the ongoing border mission.   Since the last report, all CERTEXs have been limited to brigade size.   This has been accomplished by designating one Brigade HQ to form a BTG that is formed of battalions from each of the Division’s brigades.  While showcasing the ability of army’s resilience for ad-hoc formations. The lack of regular CERTEX leaves little room to analyze the core competencies of a division and its leaders.

Separately there is at least some allegations the 5th Infantry Division (Mech) is rotating the same battalions to the BTG for CERTEX, showcasing the same unit’s performance while claiming it to be another battalion of the Brigade. This further drops the ability of the Division to perform its core mission and highlights a lack of integrity within the Senior leadership.

Kodiak maintains a small, but competent, special-operations force (SOF) of one Regiment that cross-trains with World Assembly units. Army SOF (ARSOF) reports directly to the NCA in pursuit of strategic objectives.  ARSOF is the one area of the Joint Force where there are noticeable increases in the capability of the Army.

Finally, the development of a professional non-commissioned officer corp remains under-realized. Officers continue to manage the burden of all tasks of a unit with only very minor supervisor roles being delegated to the most experienced soldiers. This continues to be a liability for the long term as officers are too focused on day-day tasks instead of future planning for operations and following through on commitments. Due to the traditional minded senior officers and doctrine writers, the conflict within leadership will likely hamper future efforts of the taking these responsibilities from the officers and developing soldiers into leadership roles.

EQUIPMENT AND WEAPONS

Tier 3 equipment remains the standard across the force. The service rifle for the Army was first fielded in 609 and has seen little alteration or experimentation since. Tier 2 tanks are in service in only one battalion of the (Sep) Tank Brigade in Rykkburgh. There is no spare inventory of tier 2 tanks in reserve. Artillery systems lack computerized fire controls due to a budget concerns, with a focus on analog fire controls by necessity. Air Defense Artillery (ADA) battalions lack sophisticated radar to alert and inform commanders of the air threat in the area of operations. Surface to Air missiles are in low supply, most ADA units are focused on gun employment limiting their effectiveness to enemy helicopters.

NAVAL OVERVIEW

MAJOR BASES AND REPAIR YARDS

The two major fleet bases for the Navy are San Chico and Robingrad.  The Navy’s major shipyards and drydocks are in these two locations.   Duckburg is the only additional deep-water port with capacity for naval ships, at present it is the location of the site of the naval fuel reserves. The Shipyards of both bases are underfunded and are not capable of launching or constructing any large warships. Foreign designs and produced ships will continue to be main course of action for the next ten years unless a massive effort is undertaken to redevelop the slipways and infastructure.

SIZE AND STRUCTURE

The Kodiak navy contains approximately 14,000 sailors of all ranks. The country divides control of its navy between the Northern and Southern Naval Territories, with the overall headquarters in Rykkburgh. The former operates out of San Chico and the latter out of Robingrad.

No additional ships were commissioned into Navy, but two were decommissioned.  Currently 18 major ships are in active service, but nothing larger than a corvette or a frigate. In addition to multiple patrol vessels, the navy possess some amphibious landing craft, auxiliaries, and training craft. Operations remain exclusively in littoral waters.

DOCTRINE

Kodiak's maritime forces primarily protect coastal borders and patrol the rivers for illegal activities. The security of the Northern and Southern coasts is paramount to the security of the country. As secondary missions, Kodiak maritime forces conduct search and rescue (SAR) and port security operations. The Southern Naval forces has a combination of blue water and brown water units that operate in the southern Seas and in the adjacent rivers. The Northern Naval forces are exclusively brown water and patrol the interior rivers of the country. The navy operate three submarines from its port in Robingrad.

TRAINING AND READINESS

The Kodiak navy conducts most of its training on the southern sea and continues to look to international navies and the WA to conduct joint naval operations.  However, the lack of funding and readiness for most vessels precludes this possibility. The two frigates of the surface group have not undertaken operations since 638.

EQUIPMENT AND WEAPONS

The Kodiak navy operates weapons and equipment with primarily tier 3 capabilities.  Kodiak's naval forces can operate in most waters in and around the country, with the ability to conduct both day and limited night operations. Most Kodiak ships serve as patrol boats, but the country does possess some limited fast attack and landing craft capability. The navy lacks any modern ship based missile systems. Both submarine and surface ships lack TLAM and TSAM capability to influence ground operations. A small number of Anti-ship missiles are in stock with the surface fleet and the Naval Air-Group.

AIR FORCE OVERVIEW

MAJOR BASES

Due to budgetary concerns beginning in 618AB, the Air Force restructured and aligned its forces with the Army to collocate and cut cost to facility maintenance. The Air Force operates from all five major Army bases, San Chico, Rykkburgh, Mengtian, Taiping, and Astroberg.

SIZE AND STRUCTURE

Kodiak operates a robust air force of 45,000 personnel that consists of a headquarters in Rykkburgh, three air commands covering the same ground territory as the army commands (North, East, and South, located at Taiping, Mentian, and Astroberg respectively), five fighter squadrons, one ground attack squadron, one bomber squadron, one reconnaissance squadron, three transport squadrons, and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) squadron. Assets that the Kodiak air force can use on the battlefield to provide close air support (CAS) to ground forces include the one ground attack squadron. In addition to its maintenance units, the Kodiak air force fields an aviation transport squadron.

DOCTRINE

Despite the change in doctrinal influences, the Air Force is impacted by a lack of ready aircraft and insufficient support.  A number of tactical innovations were written into doctrine in 630 however, the lack of training has slowed mass adoption and skill refinement.

TRAINING AND READINESS

The Air Force recent training records indicate a 45% operational readiness rate, a steep decline since the last review of 630.  It is assessed that the higher reported stats were falsified by officers for reasons of promotion or praise.  Among pilots, the Air Force’s training budget does not allow for required flight time to achieve “Master” certification of their airframes.  

EQUIPMENT AND WEAPONS

Kodiak air force equipment and weapons continues to come primarily from existing stockpiles.  The country was looking to purchase new aircraft from modern manufacturers but has been unable to secure both funding and trainers. Spare parts are in short supply and cannibalization to make operational planes does occur in all commands. The most recent reports suggest the operational readiness equipment rate is now below 40%.

Most combat aircraft have between four-eight hardpoints on the airframe.  However, the Air Ordinance office has struggled to maintain a stockpile of munitions to equip all Operational Air Commands with the minimum ordinance for both training and possible contingency operations.