What could make a good equivalent to late 1700s/early 1800s riflemen in a near future setting? The The important qualities are that they're elite, use long range man portable weapons, & have it make sense to have them employed on the scale of battalions/companies primarily built around them & are used in combat as such. The weapons technology available is near future. They can't just outright replace regular infantry. It can't have something to do with drones beyond having them help with observation.
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1$\begingroup$ i don't think the concept of 18th-century riflemen batallions translates well to even the present. warfare drastically changed even in the 20th century alone $\endgroup$– Franz GleichmannCommented Dec 14, 2021 at 9:29
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$\begingroup$ @FranzGleichmann Quite the opposite. The last few decades have taught us that warfare hasn't changed drastically. You still need "boots on the ground". AIr superiority is a fairy tale, men with rifles is how you conquer, occupy, and subdue; your only real alternative is genocidal (something most people are unsurprisingly squeamish about). $\endgroup$– John OCommented Dec 14, 2021 at 16:55
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$\begingroup$ @JohnO The big difference is camouflage. 18th century riflemen stood in open fields in tight groups in brightly colored uniforms when shooting at each other. Modern infantry fighting is mostly hide and seek. $\endgroup$– quaragueCommented Dec 14, 2021 at 21:03
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$\begingroup$ @JohnO What are you talking about? Of course warfare has changed, otherwise our military would look much like it did back then. Weapons have completely different capabilities, training and tactics are totally different, how we deal with scenarios and what knowledge we have access to is totally different. Yeah, we need "boots on the ground" still, but those are totally different boots with totally different training going into a totally different type of war. The bottom line is that we don't use 1700-1800s formations and tactics because modern technologies have made them irrelevant. $\endgroup$– TitaniumTurtleCommented Dec 15, 2021 at 5:21
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$\begingroup$ @TitaniumTurtle Yes, everyone says that warfare is changed. "We don't have to do drafts and send 500,000 troops because we have whizbang jets and air superiority!" Then when they do it, they find out that the jets didn't matter and they needed the 500,000 troops. With your attitude, you could be a 4-star or even a federal politician, what are you doing slumming here on SE? $\endgroup$– John OCommented Dec 15, 2021 at 15:00
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4 Answers
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Horse cavalry.
However:
The horses are a near-future version of the Legged Squad Support System that can actually move quickly.
Their uniform is a lighter and more mass-efficient version of modern powered exoskeleton technology.
Their weapon is the infamous M82/M107 Barrett .50-caliber anti-material rifle.
answered Dec 14, 2021 at 9:33
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$\begingroup$ I like this answer, but do they need the LSSS if they have powered armor? I'm not seeing the advantage to that. $\endgroup$– John OCommented Dec 14, 2021 at 16:56
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$\begingroup$ @JohnO They can move a lot faster on it, and it can carry more weight besides them. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 14, 2021 at 21:57
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Two thoughts here:
"Heavy" infantry with a powered exoskeleton.
- They can carry heavier body armor, heavier weapons, and more ammunition, so they are more effective.
- The expense of the gear (and to a lesser degree the required training) might slow the general issue at first.
- While it would make some sense to issue exoskeletons at one per squad or a few per platoon, for the dedicated machine gunners, having a whole company allows everybody to carry more armor and gear -- the exoskeleton troopers won't leave the "unpowered" grunts behind. So somebody it your setting makes the comparison with early WWII tank doctrine, "concentrate them and strike hard, don't spread them out in penny packets."
Sniper Battalions or general-purpose commandos.
- Snipers have distinctive training and gear. So do commandos. The expense and personnel selection criteria make it impossible to have an all-commando force.
- Organizing them in battalions, regiments, brigades helps with their peacetime training.
- The problem is, they are probably not effective as a maneuver unit. They can only augment the regular infantry. A sniper battalion might be assigned to a corps, which farms out companies to some or all divisions.
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Laser guided drone pilot.
It is easy to jam radio frequencies on the battlefield. Drones controlled via signals from satellites or planes are easy to block or even commandeer. It is less easy to block an invisible laser directed by a thinking pilot.
Your drone pilots are on the battlefield and each controls a drone directly using a laser. Just as laser guided munitions can orient themselves to hit the laser lit target, the drone will keep itself oriented on the beam. The beam itself carries information to (and from) the drone. The drone becomes a flying avatar of the pilot. It can do reconnaissance and can attack; attacks are especially valuable against other drones and dogfights can ensue.
Laser guided drones are limited to line of sight. The drone can return to the pilot for new batteries and armaments.
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In order to not replace regular infantry will be a difficult proposition, since most modern infantry consists of combined arms groups with multiple weapons platforms deployed across the platoon and squad level (approximately 8 - 50 personnel). Any new technology will likely get integrated into general infantry groups.
What you are asking for is battalion / company based unit, which is going to be around 4+ platoons. So the new technology needs a lot of people to operate effectively (anywhere from 32 to 200) and must operate in some manner that cannot be distributed throughout existing infantry companies. These would likely be similar to modern weapons companies utilizing machine guns, mortars, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and reconnaissance squads, which operate to support infantry rifle companies.
So basically you want some near future upgraded weapons companies, some ideas:
The most like what you ask for would be a long range rifle squad. Based on the very accurate local recon data and in flight guided bullets, you could have computer assisted aiming for ultra long range sniper groups, probably in a 50 caliber range of weapon for anti-infantry/light armor vehicles. They could in theory do some interesting things with guided munitions; like firing over and around obstacles Combined with electronic tracking of all friendly units in the area one of these squads could maintain a wider perimeter than traditional rifle companies while being more effective at area denial than existing small sniper groups. They would however be less effective at short range or in territory with limited site lines requiring existing rifle companies to still exist.
Drone reconnaissance is an obvious one, given increased enemy electronic warfare abilities (jamming, GPS spoofing, other general hacking) infantry could come to depend on local recon using drones operated within line of sight with laser communications. Combined with better drone technology with advanced sensors this would make a dedicated recon squad very useful.
Despite your objection to drones, a near future combination of mortar and missile groups could be a short to medium range explosive drone swarm. These squads would need to transport and deploy the drones as well as have targeting and recon support as well.
These new types of weapons squads could still be combined with more traditional weapons squads; machine guns, mortars, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and reconnaissance squads, and would function well combined with normal infantry rifle squads in a larger infantry battalion.
