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{{Short description|Battlefield tactic to saturate defences}}
{{War}}
'''
▲'''Military swarming''' is a [[military tactics|battlefield tactic]] designed to maximize [[Saturation attack|target saturation]], and thereby overwhelm or saturate the defenses of the principal target or objective. On the other-hand, defenders can overcome attempts at swarming, by launching counter-swarming measures that are designed to neutralize or otherwise repel such attacks.
Military swarming is often encountered in [[asymmetric warfare]] where opposing forces are not of the same size, or capacity. In such situations, swarming involves the use of a decentralized force against an opponent, in a manner that emphasizes mobility, communication, unit autonomy and coordination or synchronization.<ref name=Edwards-2000>{{cite book
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| series=Rand Monograph MR-1100
| url=http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100
}}</ref> Historically military forces have used the principles of swarming without really examining them explicitly, but there is now active research in consciously examining [[military doctrine]]s that draw ideas from swarming. In nature and nonmilitary situations, there are other various forms of swarming.
| first = Sean J.A.
| last = Edwards
| date = January 2003
| title = Military History of Swarming
| url = http://www.comdig.de/Conf/C4ISR/Edwards.ppt |
| format = ppt
| conference = Conference on Swarming and Network Enabled Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) (January 13–14, 2003)
| location = McLean, Virginia
|
|
| edition = May 2005
}}</ref>
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| author = Splinter Group C
| date=January 2003
| url=http://www.comdig.de/Conf/C4ISR/GroupC.ppt |
| format=PPT
| conference=Conference on Swarming and Network Enabled Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (January 13–14, 2003)
| location = McLean, Virginia
|
|
==Swarming in history==
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=== Siege of Samarkand===
At the
===Mongols Horde===
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Swarming was present in the operations of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, but were generally replaced by melee and mass in the pre-industrial era. More synchronized manoeuvre was paced by the availability of mobile communications. [[Blitzkrieg]] was certainly a use of manoeuvre, but it was less flexible than later operations in which every tank and aircraft had radios, and far less flexible than forces that have effective networked information systems.<ref name=Arquilla-2000>
{{cite
| title = Swarming and the Future of Conflict
| author = Arquilla, John
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| publisher = Command and Control Research Program
| url = http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/journal_v1n1_01.html
|
}}</ref> This paper suggests abandoning the term '''command and control''' in favor of
:*agility: "... the critical capability that organizations need to meet the challenges of complexity and uncertainty"
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Agility is a characteristic of an organization or unit capable of swarming. Focus can be designation of a goal by a higher-level commander, by a peer unit detecting a target, or by intelligence systems that feed information to the swarming units. Convergence is the key feature, which, while it can be distributed, causes swarming units to coordinate their actions, apply force, and know when to stop applying force.
Edwards holds that several axioms of military doctrine<ref name=FM3-0>{{cite book |author=Headquarters, Department of the Army |
| url = http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD189/
| title = Swarming and the Future of War
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|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927012543/http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/swarm_war.html
|archive-date=2006-09-27
}}</ref>
Howard Rheingold cites mobile communications technology as a key enabler: The bees sense each other's buzzing and instinctually move in concert in real time. Text messaging on mobile devices and instantaneous file sharing off the internet via PDAs allows groups of people to receive their instructions, move in unison, nearly instantaneously, without prior planning or forethought. And, the technology allows groups to do so without a central leader. One modern example is the protesters at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, in 1999, who were able to orchestrate their movement effectively in this way.
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| publisher = Pegasus Associates }}</ref> Large numbers would be needed and 5,000 was suggested as sufficient to ensure that swarming would be successful against a force as large as an OMG. Once it was recognized that success could be claimed with a significant deceleration, other novelties were introduced, among which was Synthetic Density which required the SMAs to distribute pneumatic models (fitted with radar reflectors) of tanks and artillery along the OMG's MLA, these requiring the room to be put down and time to be lost before progress could be resumed.
The proposal was published in the Journal of the Royal United
| url = http://web.mac.com/banneret/iWeb/Defence/Papers_files/Crocodile%20or%20Piranha-1.pdf
| title = Crocodile or Piranha
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These are a realization of Boyd's theories. A swarming case is any historical example in which the scheme of manoeuvre involves the convergent attack of five (or more) semiautonomous (or autonomous) units on a targeted force in some particular place. "Convergent" implies an attack from most of the points on the compass."<ref name=Edwards-2000/>
===Saturation of air defenses===
[[File:AFRL concept- Airdropped Mass Launcher of Minature decoy swarm 2019-04.jpg|thumb|300px|Mass launch of a swarm of miniature decoys from an airdropped canister. (Air Force Research Laboratory concept illustration)]]
Due to the vulnerability of sophisticated air defense systems such as [[S-300 missile system|S-300]] and [[S-400]] to mass attacks from low flying cruise missiles, it is thought that swarm tactics are well suited for [[Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses]] (SEAD) missions using swarms of networked miniature spoofing decoy drones accompanying large numbers of [[AGM-158|JASSM-ER]] cruise missiles launched from mass fire platforms such as [[Rapid Dragon]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Hollings |first1=Alex |date=July 21, 2022 |title=The S-400 myth: Why Russia's air defense prowess is exaggerated |magazine=Sandboxx News |publisher= 19fortyfive Corp. |url=https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-s-400-myth-why-russias-air-defense-prowess-is-exaggerated/ |access-date=2022-07-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|date=April 2019 |title=U.S. Air Force 2030 Science and Technology Strategy |magazine=Air Force Science and Technology |publisher= [[Air Force Research Laboratory]] |url=https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/2019%20SAF%20story%20attachments/Air%20Force%20Science%20and%20Technology%20Strategy.pdf |access-date=2022-07-30}}</ref>
===Swarming avoids fratricide===
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|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120224225003/http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-06/winning-and-losing-first-wired-war
|archive-date = 2012-02-24
}}</ref> also operating in helicopters.<ref name=Watanabe-2004>{{cite journal
|title=Blue Force Tracker and Army Aviation Operations in Afghanistan
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|url=http://www.quad-a.org/chapters/Drum/blue_force_tracker_and_army_avia.htm
|access-date=2007-11-23
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009130330/http://www.quad-a.org/chapters/Drum/blue_force_tracker_and_army_avia.htm
|archive-date=2007-10-09
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> These systems are still new and undergoing considerable improvement. One
▲}}</ref> These systems are still new and undergoing considerable improvement. One [[Special reconnaissance#Offset GOLIS|fratricide incident in Afghanistan]] came from the users not understanding that their target designation device reinitialized, after battery replacement, to the position of their designator, not of the target. If the bomber had a [[Special reconnaissance#Reducing friendly fire incidents|beacon]] that gave the crew the precise location of the friendly troops, that would have been another way of avoiding attacking one's own troops.
==Modern militaries and lower-intensity conflict==
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Foreign internal defense includes the economic stabilization of host countries. In Thomas Barnett's paradigm,<ref name=Barnett-2005>{{cite book
| author = Barnett, Thomas P.M.
|
| title = The Pentagon's New Map: The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century
| publisher = Berkley Trade
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| title = US Army in WWII. European Theater of Operations. The Supreme Command. Chapter V: Planning Before SHAEF
| author = Pogue, Forrest C.
|
| year = 1954
| id = Pogue-1954-Chapter 5
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Swarming is advantageous to less powerful countries and groups, because it allows them to balance their disadvantage in firepower and numbers. Despite being less technically advanced, Communist forces made good use of swarming in Asia during the Cold War. The Chinese were able to make up for their lack of firepower by attacking from all sides and then quickly advancing to the rear. The Vietcong were famous from attacking from all directions out of nowhere and then quickly disappearing. When they did come into close contact, they used a technique called "hugging the belt", which meant they were too close for the US to employ air and artillery support.<ref>{{cite book
| author = Hackworth, David
|
| title = Hazardous Duty
| publisher = HarperCollins
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|title = The Importance of Building Local Capabilities: Lessons from the Counterinsurgency in Iraq
|author = Cordesman, Anthony H.
|
|url = http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3411/type,1/
|publisher = Center for Strategic and International Studies
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|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080410035736/http://www.csis.org/component/option%2Ccom_csis_pubs/task%2Cview/id%2C3411/type%2C1/
|archive-date = April 10, 2008
}}</ref>
[[Al-Qaeda]], for example, uses a different form of swarming than those of advanced militaries, in which the general objectives of operational cells are agreed in a manner coordinated, but not continuously controlled by the core organization. Once the decision has been made on the general targets, the operational cells cut positive control links from the core, although they may still receive financial and other support. A signature of al-Qaeda operations has been multiple, near-simultaneous attacks, such as the several hijacked airliners in the [[9/11 attacks]], the closely spaced bombings aimed at US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and attacks on buses and trains in London. The attacks on trains in Spain had an additional dimension: not all the swarms were associated with al-Qaeda.
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|access-date=2007-11-17
|url=http://www.metatempo.com/huntingthesleepers.pdf
|title=Hunting the Sleepers: Tracking al-Qaida's Covert Operatives
|date=31 December 2001
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|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071128125328/http://www.metatempo.com/huntingthesleepers.pdf
|archive-date=2007-11-28
}}</ref> See [[Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques]].
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|date = September 2003
|url = http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/complexity/Conference/FellmanWright.pdf
|access-date = 2007-11-02
|
|conference = Complexity, Ethics and Creativity Conference September 2003
|
|url-status = dead
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070708062550/http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/complexity/Conference/FellmanWright.pdf
|archive-date = 2007-07-08
}}</ref>
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|author = Kristoff, John
|title = Botnets
|
|conference = 2004 NANOG Meeting – Third Joint Meeting With ARIN! (October 2004)
|
|location = Reston, Virginia
|date = October 17, 2004
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|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071218232327/http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0410/kristoff.html
|archive-date = 2007-12-18
}}</ref> some of the units may try to overpower and control one another, as well as the target.<ref name=USNPGS-2000>{{cite web
|url=http://www.nps.navy.mil/ctiw/files/substate_conflict_dynamics.pdf
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|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070713210655/http://www.nps.navy.mil/ctiw/files/substate_conflict_dynamics.pdf
|archive-date=2007-07-13
}}</ref> One of the observations of the Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare was that unfocused mass disruption was not a useful terrorist, and by extension general military, tactic.<ref name=USNPGS-2000/> The 9/11 attacks had symbolism. A [[cyberattack]] on a stock market would have symbolism. For the political purposes of the swarm, there has to be a symbol to which observers need to connect the purpose of the attack.
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* [[Battle of annihilation]]
* [[Three-Dimensional (3D) Tactics Analysis]]
* [[Cabbage tactics]]
==References==
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==External links==
*[
{{collective animal behaviour}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swarming (Military)}}
[[Category:Military strategy]]
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