Reconnaissance Fires Complex Part 1: “A Revolution in Military Affairs”

(20 Minute Read)

A phrase rarely talked about and little known, Reconnaissance Fires Complex* is a concept that truly needs to be understood not only for its ramifications for modern warfare, but especially to understand what has and is happening in the Russo-Ukraine War.

*In this context, the word Complex is interchangeable with System, meaning a collection of multiple parts.

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Courtesy of Pentagon hacks in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many are familiar with the term “Revolution of Military Affairs,” but I bet most don’t know this phrase was borrowed from the Russian vernacular of 1970s-era Soviet Armed Forces operational art.

It seems the Soviet military officer corps, no slouches when it comes to musing on operational art, had become very enamored with the US Army-Air Force’s Assault Breaker Program, designed to interdict Warsaw Pact Follow-On-Forces using sensors and long-range weapons to attrit field army-sized formations moving in the Soviet operational rear that were the second and third echelons necessary for their Deep Battle Operations doctrine. The Soviet thinkers saw promise in Assault Breaker and created an entire doctrine of their own based on it.

Reconnaissance Strike Complex is the fancy Soviet-Russian-Ukrainian name for an integrated fires system using sensors to find targets deep into the enemy’s operational level depth (as far back as 100 kilometers or more), with secure communication nets they can direct long-range fires such as ballistic and cruise missiles to strike high-value targets using a smoothly functioning sensor-shooter kill chain with maximum responsiveness and accuracy. The tactical-level version of it is called Reconnaissance Fires Complex and envisioned the same tactics, techniques, and procedures to find targets within the enemy’s tactical area and engage them using an assortment of tactical-level weapon systems.

Funny enough, in Western defense communities, despite having created the concept ourselves and using it numerous times in past conflicts, we don’t have an exact name similar to Recon Strike or Recon Fires Complex, so I’m sticking with the Russian term.

A New Look for an Old Concept

Despite conceptualizing Recon Strike and Recon Fires so long ago, the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation in the 1990s and 2000s didn’t have the funding, technology, or capabilities to pull it off.

But the US military did, it had invested massively in Air Power and drones too, as well as satellites and other forms of intelligence sensors to detect targets. The key to making a Recon Strike and Recon Fires system work requires rapid and secure communication, which the US possessed using digital communications, including satellite transmissions that worked well over long distances. Additionally, the US had a vast stockpile of assorted PGMs and effective area weapons such as cluster munitions, which were designed for deep strikes on massed formations.

Despite not possessing a name for it, the US had created its own high-functioning Reconnaissance Strike and Fires Complexes, which validated the concept during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, OP Allied Force against Serbia, OP Enduring Freedom against the Taliban, OP Iraqi Freedom again against Iraq, and every subsequent military operation in the last decades. Whatever it was called, it seemed to work, and the world was watching and taking notes.

After the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 despite their successes, the Russian Armed Forces embarrassed itself enough with a plodding poorly formed offensive with an antiquated army, which provided enough backlash within their system for reformers to take over top MOD positions to launch what became known as the New Look Reforms. Funded by energy sector revenue flooding Russian coffers in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the Russian Armed Forces worked to fix its many problems, and that included finally gaining the capabilities to perform Recon Strike and Fires.

Among the New Look Reforms, the Russians invested heavily into Intelligence, Surveillance, Target acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) type drones, which would provide day-night flight capabilities with thermal imaging, secure live feeds hardened against electronic warfare (EW) jamming, which reported directly to brigade level commands and above, providing them direct live feed to direct fires and perform command and control functions. They also invested heavily in PGMs, increased EW systems, and created dedicated fire control systems with automated software including Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities. These sorts of newly acquired assets were directly attached to much smaller-sized combined arms battlegroups called a Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG), based around a three-company tank-mechanized infantry force supported by two full battalions of cannon artillery and an MLRS rocket artillery battalion. Quite the formidable opponent, at least on paper.

There was much talk in the 2010s in the West debating the real capabilities of Russia’s Recon Fires Complex. In general, it’s good practice not to underestimate an opponent, and so it wasn’t hard to overestimate Russian fires dominance when they had so much organic artillery firepower with dedicated drones, digital comms, specialized fires software, and doctrine to pull it all together. Scary indeed.

In the Donbas War in 2014, a Russian artillery strike on the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) assembled at the village of Zelenopillya terrified many within Western defense establishments. Drone-directed artillery had massed and annihilated those AFU units. Then in 2017, one of the top generals of the Russian Army even boasted to the world that their Recon Fires Complex kill chain was down to only 10 seconds between detection and engagement. Very scary indeed.

But talk is cheap. The big question was whether they could really pull that off when it counted. And in the Russo-Ukraine War proved to be the ultimate test ground.

A Fitful Start

Like everything else involving the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russians fucked up their Recon Fires Complex as they did everything else.

It’s pretty safe to say the collective senior officer corps of NATO militaries blew a sigh of relief upon watching the Russians in 2022, with performances so bad that many in the West gleefully claimed that prewar Russian boasts about pretty much every aspect of their military were maskirovka, classic Russian military deception, or lies that they themselves believed. But like the saying goes, “The Russians weren’t twelve feet tall, but they aren’t four feet tall either.”

Reality was less controversial, it took a bit of time to work out the kinks, but when it did the Russian Armed Forces got their Recon Fires Complex to function as designed. Well, mostly. As far back as mid-2022, the British defense think-tank RUSI was reporting that the drone-directed counterbattery kill chains were 2-5 minutes long from detection to weapons splash. And it’s safe to say that their Recon Fires Complex was smoothly functioning at the very least by at least Spring-Summer 2023, when it played a big part in defeating the Ukrainian’s 2023 Counteroffensive.

The Other Soviet Successor

If Russia alone possessed a functioning Recon Fires Complex they’d have won the Russo-Ukraine War already. But they are not the only army fighting in this war whose history, traditions, and doctrine descended directly from the Soviet Armed Forces, including its doctrine. In fact, the chief reason Russia has been taking massive losses from the earliest days of the war, where hundreds of meter advances are qualified as successes worth bragging about, is due entirely to the extremely well-performing Ukrainian Armed Forces Recon Fires Complex.

Created in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Ukrainians entered the war with Recon Strike and Recon Fires systems already in place. Relying on their own domestically introduced digital mapping/situational awareness/fire control software apps they had everything needed waiting and ready just in case the Russians attacked.

Since the start of the war in 2022 and throughout 2023, the Ukrainian Recon Fires Complex was a cornerstone of their offensive and defensive doctrine. But as their drone and fires capabilities grew while their organic infantry weakened due to losses, the Ukrainian drone-directed Recon Fires Complex is doing the heavy lifting to defend Ukraine. In some armies, everything exists to support the infantry, but I personally believe that within the Ukrainian Armed Forces everything exists to supports their Recon Fires Complex.

How’s it Work in Ukraine?

Picture a house, apartment, or factory building somewhere quite a ways behind the front lines. Deep inside is a dank, sturdy cellar, chosen specifically because of its stout reinforced concrete construction, making it a premade fires proof command bunker.

It houses a tactical operations center (TOC) used by the company-level and higher for maneuver units as well as their combat support units such as artillery or drone battalions. These TOCs remain hidden from enemy observation, with efforts taken to limit visual evidence and signals emission to give away the position.

Reeking of body odor and cigarette smoke, a command team and their staff monitor a dozen or more laptops and tablets set up everywhere. Some of those will display show digital maps run on custom situational awareness networking software apps, like Russia’s Andromeda-D system or the Ukrainian’s like Kropyva, they combine satellite map footage of the area of operations with GPS-like navigation systems to show live friendly locations, with designated enemy positions, phase lines, obstacles, and any other graphic control measure worth marking. Other computer monitors will display live drone feeds, courtesy of forward deployed drone teams.

Drone teams typically operate in two or three man groups positioned in preplanned hide sites located nearby but not on the forward line of friendly troops (aka the “Zero Line”). Once occupying their deployment site, they set up relays to extend signals for their drones and activate their satellite internet system, be they dedicated defense types or commercial versions like Starlink. And then they launch their drones.

Recon drones, depending on type and role, will be assigned certain routes and sectors to overfly and view, some covering No-Man’s Land or into the enemy rear areas looking for enemy ground forces, and some overwatching friendly forces for situational awareness/command and control. To communicate with other units and their higher headquarters, drone teams will primarily be using personal electronic devices and commercial text messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Google Chat, Telegram, etc. If the drones teams spot a target they report it up the chain and can then relay an internet link of their live drone feeds to their higher headquarter TOCs.

With a fully functioning Reconnaissance Fires Complex set up, the TOCs double as joint command-fire direction centers, where the plethora of officers following the live drone feeds are using them for command and control and instantly directing a whole plethora of fires onto enemy targets spotted in the drone feeds or plotted in the situational awareness maps by others.

How are they doing that? Those same custom situational awareness networking software apps act as the ultimate modern fire control software.

For the Russians, they use a system called Strelets, whereas the Ukrainians use GIS Arta apps, nicknamed “Uber for Artillery.” Units tasked to perform fires are networked into those systems and the tactical battlefield situational awareness mapping apps, along with essentially every single maneuver element leader issued some sort of electronic device and an internet connection. Everyone with access can plot targets or receive fire missions to provide the fires, with the systems even able to provide firing data to hit the enemy.

Nobody ever was able to achieve the braggatory 10 second kill chains, but Recon Fires Complex kill chains are supposedly down to roughly two minutes from detection to engagement, where a pilot flying a recon drone spots a target, someone in a TOC verifies it and instantly plots the enemy target on the situational awareness fire control app and then clicks a drop-down menu to direct fires on them, at which point a waiting crew operating a mortar, cannon artillery piece, MLRS, GLMRS, FPV strike drone, bomber drone, or even a ballistic missile, are instantly given fire missions and all info needed to effectively use their weapon system. And after firing, the recon drone can provide everyone involved instant battle damage assessment or adjust fires as necessary.

Effective, fast, and lethal. The God of War approves.

Dismantling a Recons Fire Complex

Offensively and defensively, possessing a well supplied and high function Recon Fires Complex is the ultimate force multiplier. But what happens when it doesn’t work?

Like any highly reliant system, whether it be radio comms, GPS, night vision, if any military force becomes over reliant on it and its removed without warning, there are some…adjustment periods afterwards, often painful, before they can adopt and overcome. And that would especially be true when a unit used to experiencing a transparent battlefield becomes deaf, mute, and blind all at once.

But can an effective Recon Fires Complex be targeted by the enemy?

In theory, sure. Since it requires command and control using drones plus fast and secure communications, targeting any of those effectively should dismantle the system. And it is happening too.

For example, we already know from many reports within Ukraine from both sides that weather greatly disrupts drone operations. To the point that winter months typically showcase large-scale brazen mechanized attacks taking advantage of snow storms or heavy rains knowing, as the Germans did when planning the Battle of the Bulge, that poor weather grounds aircraft. Additionally, mist and rain have negative affects for laser targeting systems used by dedicated ISTARS targeting drones.

Blinding drones can be done deliberately too. For example, I’ve read reports from AFU field commanders that have said that they prefer not to use smoke obscurants in conjunction with attacks because they blind their own recon drones used for command and control/fires targeting, so it can be assumed they’re having an equal effect on enemy recon drones.

Outright taking down drones is also a reality. We know electronic warfare is especially effective at it, even dedicated (and expensive) ISTARS fire direction drones using “hardened” frequency hopping signals aren’t immune to powerful and effective EW. Additionally, both gun and missile-based short range air defenses are also noted for taking their toll on drones, especially those operating behind enemy lines. And most recently, the Ukrainians have pioneered FPV drones to perform counter-drone operations, either self-detonating or crashing into enemy recon drones.

And it’s been known since the early days of the way that TOCs can be located and targeted, with not a few command posts all the way up to corps/field army level have been successfully detected and destroyed. It’s a long lesson of warfare, targeting command and control tends to disrupt it.

However, while its possible to disrupt any individual aspect of the Recon Fires Complex, it doesn’t appear that either Russia or Ukraine possess an effective way to reliably counter the recon drones, interrupt their communications, target the dual TOC-Fire Direction cells, or suppress enemy fire assets with counterbattery. At least not well enough to do so regularly and in conjunction with deliberately planned operations, especially large-scale attacks.

Which is a scary situation for any force contemplating offensive operations against an opponent possessing an effective Recon Fires Complex. They cannot stop from being seen, and if they are seen they will be targeted. And that comes with deadly repercussions.

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Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Reconnaissance Fires Complex series, where I’ll discuss in detail and length the ultimate question that I’m sure baffles so many and it did me: What is keeping the seriously weakened Ukrainian Armed Forces from collapsing? Is the Ukrainian Recon Fires Complex responsible for preventing it?