The First War Won Primarily with Unmanned Systems

Ten Lessons from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
By John Antal
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was fought between Armenia and Azerbaijan from September 24 to November 10, 2020. This 44-day war resulted in a decisive military victory for Azerbaijan. Armenia was out-fought, out-numbered, and out-spent and lost even though they controlled the high-ground in a mountainous region that favored traditional defense. Azerbaijan’s alliance with Turkey, and close technological support from Israel, strategically isolated Armenia. In addition, Turkey’s posturing influenced the Russians not to intervene to support Armenia. That Azerbaijan attacked Armenia during the pandemic was an additional factor. The fact that Azerbaijan won the war is not extraordinary, considering the correlation of forces arrayed against Armenia. What is exceptional is that this was the first modern war primarily decided by unmanned weapons. In this war the Turkish-made BAYRAKTAR TB2 Unmanned Air Combat Vehicle (UCAV) and the Israeli-made HAROP Loitering Munition (LM) dominated the fighting and provided Azerbaijan with a war-winning advantage. Here are ten lessons derived from a deep study of the open-source information about the conflict.
1. KNOW YOURSELF AND KNOW YOUR ENEMY: The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was a protracted conflict fought between1988 to 1994. The war ended in Armenian victory and the occupation by Armenia of most of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijanis didn’t want a repeat of that disaster. They researched their opponent, studied recent changes in the methods of war, adopted the latest weapons and proven tactics from Turkey!s experience in Syria and Libya, and trained their forces. Azerbaijan foresaw a niche advantage over their enemy and outspent Armenia six-to-one, investing more than $24 billion in the decade before the war to purchase the latest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), UCAV, and LM technology from Turkey and Israel. One of the primary lessons of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War is to “know yourself and know your enemy,” and act on that knowledge.
2. MAINTAIN THE INITIATIVE: Buying the best kit does not alone guarantee success in war. Training, organization, and leadership are key. Turkey helped train Azerbaijani operators for their newly acquired Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) prior to the conflict. Armenia knew of this, but did not react in time. Importantly, Azerbaijan had an effective plan, mobilized first, struck first, and then maintained the initiative throughout the war. The first to move in the threedimensional game of chess that is modern war, and to integrate and synchronize fires and maneuver into a unifying concept, gains a tremendous advantage, and this is what Azerbaijan did. Armenia reacted to Azerbaijani moves from the first day of the war and never recovered.
3. DOMINATE AS MANY DOMAINS AS POSSIBLE: Azerbaijan fought in all five domains (land, sea, air, cyber, and space), while Armenia fought in the land, air, and cyber domains. Azerbaijan used Turkish satellites and accessed commercial satellites for data transmission and information. Azerbaijan commanded the land, air, space, and cyber domains for decisive moments during the first two weeks of the fighting to devastate Armenian air defenses and this gave Azerbaijan air supremacy over Nagorno-Karabakh. From that moment on, the Azerbaijanis continued to fight in all domains to their advantage. The ability to see, decide, and engage in multiple domains, and dominate the ones that matter during decisive periods, is the essence of war in the 21st century.
4. PRECISION FIRES ENABLE MANEUVER AND MANEUVER EXPLOITS THE EFFECTS OF FIRE: Fires have enabled maneuver in many wars, but the use of precision fires in this war was telling. The war was won by Azerbaijan with precision stand-off weapons, primarily UAS and artillery. Most of the casualties inflicted upon the Armenians were from TB2 UCAVs (approximate cost is $3.5 million) that launched smart micro-munitions, the HAROP “kamikaze” LMs (at a cost about $70K each), and other UAVs that designated targets for UCAVs, LMs, and long-range artillery. Once Azerbaijan won air supremacy by destroying Armenian air defenses using UCAVs and LMs, the Azerbaijanis then maneuvered ground forces to occupy key terrain and critical objectives. The ground maneuver was often contested, and the Armenians inflicted casualties on the Azerbaijani ground forces, but most engagements were won by UCAVs, LMs, and UAVs spotting for artillery, before close-combat engagements occurred. Electronic Warfare (EW) “fires” also played an important role, to set the conditions for the UCAV and LM assaults, and there are reports that the Turkish KORAL EW system was used to prepare the battlespace prior to these attacks, as the Turks have demonstrated in combat operations in Syria and Libya. The Azerbaijani ground forces took several weeks to secure about 70 kilometers in the southern lowlands of Nagorno Karabakh, before turning north to take key terrain along the Lachin Corridor and the strategic town of Shusha. Throughout this effort, the Azerbaijanis method was to employ precision fires to enable ground force maneuver.
5. THE BATTLESPACE IS TRANSPARENT: Azerbaijani sensors, mostly mounted on UAVs, gave the Azerbaijani military a clear, 24-hour, unblinking view of the battlespace. Armenian positions that were camouflaged in the traditional way, were still identified by electro optical and thermal cameras. Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms were merged with strike capability in the forms of the TB2 and HAROP. High-definition, full-motion-realtime videos from these platforms provided ISR, destroyed systems and personnel, and provided accurate battle damage assessments (BDA). Although both sides had plenty of tanks, it appears that tanks seldom got within shooting range and most engagements were fought at stand-off distances. Combined arms can still be decisive, as air platforms cannot take and hold ground, but only if ground forces survive long enough to move within direct fire range. During the war, there were more standoff engagements, than close combat fights.
6. MASKING: During the war the Armenians could not hide. Physical camouflage was ineffective. One Armenian soldier said: “We cannot hide, and we cannot fight back.” Unable to mask from enemy sensors and precision strikes, the Armenians were demoralized. If camouflage is no longer enough, then a new concept of “masking” is required. Masking is the ability to become hard to detect and difficult to target. Masking involves a full spectrum effort to employ all active and passive means to confuse, disaggregate, disrupt, jam, and deceive the enemy’s sensors and targeting network. Masking will require new systems that minimize thermal and electronic signatures. Masking will also require new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP). In the modern battlespace you either mask or die.
7. TOP ATTACK IS THE DECISIVE METHOD OF ENGAGEMENT: The proliferation of affordable and effective top attack systems, as exemplified by the TB2 and HAROP, is a significant trend. It is no longer necessary to have a big cannon to penetrate the front glacis of a tank’s armor if you can destroy the tank with great accuracy from the top. Videos confirm that Azerbaijani top-attack UAS strikes destroyed as many as 185 Armenian tanks, 89 armored fighting vehicles, 182 artillery guns, 73 multiple rocket launchers, 45 air defense systems, and 450 other vehicles. These video records, that were analyzed in detail by defense analyst Stijn Mitzer, publishing on the ORYX blog, claim 1,020 total Armenian vehicles destroyed by unmanned systems or with the use of artillery enabled by unmanned systems. The scale of these strikes by unmanned systems is stunning and unprecedented. In the long counterinsurgency wars of the past 20 years, insurgents attacked vehicles from the bottom with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The IEDs now fly, and the top of an armored vehicle is the Achilles heel of modern war.
8. ACTIVE PROTECTION SYSTEMS AND AIR DEFENSE: The war highlighted the requirement to defeat top-attack munitions. Most active protection systems, like the Israeli-made TROPHY system, do not protect armored vehicles from topattack munitions. To survive in this new environment a layered, multi-capable, full-spectrum, air defense against top attack munitions, missiles, aircraft, and low-speed and high-speed threats, is vital. The lesson learned here is that future wars require a “spherical defensive system,” a mobile protective bubble. Active defense, to protect vehicles and personnel from underneath, lateral and top attack, will require new systems and will represent a significant investment by military forces. To survive, key platforms must be capable of disrupting, deflecting, or confusing incoming direct-fire and top attack munitions with either on-board systems or complimentary systems that accompany them. Many legacy systems, such as the M1 Tank, are already reaching their maximum weight and available surface area capacities. Additional systems, preferably unmanned systems, could provide this capability to legacy platforms to enhance survivability in the new multi-domain battlespace.
9. WIN THE INFORMATION WAR: Both sides waged an information campaign against the other, but the Azerbaijanis prevailed through their use of full-motion video footage from UAS and precision guided munitions. The images of Armenian air defense platforms, artillery, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and troops being decimated in these videos played on all available social media outlets. Many of Armenia’s Russian-made air defense systems were videoed with their radars spinning just before a HAROP or smart-micro munition blew the system to pieces. These videos showed how Armenia was losing the war and could do nothing to stop the Azerbaijani attacks, even when they were attempting to fight back. This footage influenced Armenia to surrender to Azerbaijan’s cease-fire terms, and helped to deliver a decisive victory to Azerbaijan. These videos also became a successful marketing message and the TB2 UCAV and HAROP LM are now the hottest items on the international weapons market.
10. WAR NOW MOVES AT HYPER-SPEED AND IS MORE CONNECTED THAN EVER BEFORE: The pace of battle is now extremely fast. Engagements in the war were executed in real-time by multi-domain effects and battles were decided very quickly. Wars may still be long, as they are a test of human will, but a continuous chain of catastrophic engagements as experienced by the Armenians is demoralizing and can destroy the will to fight. Using unmanned systems, the kill-chain accelerated. A kill-chain represents how an attack is structured and consists of target identification, dispatching a force to engage the target, deciding to attack the target, and then engaging the target. Most kill-chains today have a human performing the “decide to attack” function. As the human in the loop (HITL) kill-chain transforms to an AI-leveraged human-on-the-loop (HOTL), or human-out-of-the-loop (HOOTL) kill-web, the speed of combat will quicken beyond human cognition and AI assistance will be required to control the fight and win.
The lessons of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War represent a significant change in the methods of war. The use of UASs in this conflict, however, should be considered in context. Bad weather, effective air defense, and Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS) could have worked against the Azerbaijanis. As it turned out, the weather was good up until the last week of the war, the Armenian air defense was not effective against the Azerbaijani UAS onslaught, and the few Russian-made CUAS systems that the Armenian’s possessed proved ineffective. Nevertheless, the synchronization of new weapons makes the modern battlefield more lethal and offers opportunities for a skilled opponent to use them to advantage. Most important for today’s military, this war has significance similar to the impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The lessons of the 1973 War influenced the development of tactics and weaponry during the Cold War and beyond. For example, the US military conducted a thorough study of the Yom Kippur War, derived a new doctrine called AirLand Battle, and developed new systems, the “Big 5” — the M1 Main Battle Tank, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, Apache Helicopter, Black Hawk Helicopter, and Patriot Air Defense System. These warfighting platforms, although significantly upgraded, remain the mainstay of the US Army’s striking power today. The methods of war, however, are changing and the recent fighting in the Caucasus provides insights for wars to come. As the first war won primarily with unmanned systems, we neglect the study of the Second NagornoKarabakh War at our own peril.

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

27 Comments

  1. Luke May 13, 2021 at 05:11

    NCS and Team I know this is a bit off topic but in the grand scheme of things it fits right in IMHO. I have never heard of metallicman before let alone his blog. I am just starting to explore it but came across this 4 part post called “What the Progressive Liberal Socialists have in Store for Conservatives.” Here is a link to Part 1. On page 2 this cat quotes both NCS and Bracken. He goes through a lot of different skirmishes over the years associated with Marxists. Curious to know your thoughts. I assume you probably already know but if not there’s some amazing stuff. One thing I got out of it and is listed on page 4; defense is not a good strategy. I don’t know what that means at the moment but it makes a hell of a lot of sense.
    https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/what-the-progressive-liberals-have-in-store-for-conservatives/

    • spaceman May 13, 2021 at 21:21

      Nice work Luke, explains opposition ideals and tactics pretty well!

      • Luke May 13, 2021 at 21:35

        Haha very funny Spaceman. Thought maybe you were being a smartass lol. I caught some flak from NC. That link I left here and then reading about UAV’s black pilled the shit out of me. I guess I should have emailed it to him. That blog quoted him and MB couple times. Idk we still have one thing on our enemy here; we do all their dirty work for them. They can’t cut our throats until they have that situation straightened out.

        • spaceman May 14, 2021 at 00:13

          It all depends on that which you stand upon…
          ROCK, or sand

    • spaceman May 13, 2021 at 21:24

      The IRA didn’t present a target to defend…they were effective thru taking the initiative
      IMHO

  2. Berglander May 13, 2021 at 08:03

    Dann…what a black pill.
    Lots of great information. Do you know why Israel gave their support to Muslim Azerbaijan and Muslim Turkey against Christian Armenia? What’s the history there?

    • NC Scout May 13, 2021 at 08:07

      Yes they did.
      And Russia stepped in to help Armenia and are working on bolstering their capabilities now.
      LOT of history of Israel doing that.

      • Gray Guerrilla May 13, 2021 at 15:30

        “LOT of history of Israel doing that.” Absolutely and sadly against the U.S. as well for a long time, and as in right now! But that’s a conversation for another article.

        • NC Scout May 13, 2021 at 16:25

          Yup.

  3. Johnny Paratrooper May 13, 2021 at 09:33

    Are their any reports of GPS guided RAP artillery being used? I remember testing those in Iraq and I watched them put a 155(or 105) round through the door of a house we placed in the middle of the desert and hit with the laser. The round went clean through the center of the door, exactly where the laser was. This was 2009.

    • NC Scout May 13, 2021 at 09:57

      Not that I can tell.
      The newer tech is getting away from that due to the spoofing threat.

  4. Mike May 13, 2021 at 12:09

    Excellent summary. 2d Battalion 5th Marines recently did a series of field tests regarding new vulnerabilities against a heavy volume of UAS in the modern battlefield. The results were eye-opening and resulted in a lot of TTP/SOP changes. One was the vastly expanded use of GI casualty blankets to mask thermal signatures of fighting positions. Another was escalating the importance of camouflage to the second highest priority of work in the defense following only 360 degree security. It was previously thought to be sufficient to camouflage fighting positions after entrenchment, and that you could afford to be detected if you hardened your position enough, but this is no longer true with the overhead detection and fires threat.

  5. Encouraging Angels May 13, 2021 at 12:49

    What an eye opening article..especially for a civilian…it immeadiately made me think of thermal blankets (colored on one side and silver/space blankety on the other) as a mainstay in any kind of ruck/get home bag…KUDOS to NCScout and AP as I found this article because http://www.stevequayle.com reposted it today…that should be a big boost to the work of NCScout and the AP team

  6. Simon from Florida May 13, 2021 at 13:16
  7. Zorost May 13, 2021 at 13:50

    A huge black pill to those thinking they are going to stand off the government out in the hills somewhere. Especially since our government won’t have any compunctions about removing support of the local population the old fashioned way. See: Harrowing of the North, Hama rules, Thucydides: “they make a desolation, and call it peace.”

    • Mike May 13, 2021 at 13:56

      I don’t see this as a black pill as much as a red pill. Warfare has evolved, we can evolve with it. You don’t need to be technologically superior to achieve victory. The main take away is that you cannot afford to be detected, and you must place a priority on thermal mitigation.

    • A.B Prosper May 14, 2021 at 19:12

      Berglander this is not a black pill. Its a “Hey man, pay attention.” pill
      It surprises me that anyone thinks that a hypothetical I hope to God we can find a peaceful way out Civil War 2 would be fought Blue and Greys style or like it was the early 90’s
      I mean police departments have IR capabilities galore and NV gear is at Walmart.
      I suppose the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was a good chance to learn without shedding our own blood but still seems to me folks should have figured out at least 2 decades ago. You really can’t fight Leviathan power to power just yet.
      Truth is a lot mischief will be hacking, things like the refinery attack that just shut down the entire South East done for keeps not cash will do more damage than a militia brigade and may become irreparable. Both sides will use Doxx and Destroy , targeted attacks on people with certain skills, attacks on infrastructure and replacements and eventually efforts to ensure that its very difficult to ship food into enemy held cities and that kind of thing.
      Spec Ops not militia here.
      Large scale efforts , infantry ops have value and its good to get fit and train but will probably be defensive think “Klamath vs Antifa” or maybe FreeFor renegade units vs OpFor loyalists until eventually after enough attrition and OP-For simply can’t field high tech gear so much than come the big fights.
      How fast attrition will come is highly debatable. I am armchair strategist and honestly do not know. I’d venture it will take a while but if we go to guns with China, we’ll collapse fast.
      Until than, read up on high tech gear and Ops, train up and if you can and you’ll forgive an expression favored by the Left learn to code.
      Oh and pray we find a way out, separation or something , it never hurts.

  8. boss21 May 13, 2021 at 14:21

    Good article. Practice hiding from thermal and be too small.
    Armenians didn’t help themselves by going Soros/NGO and wanna be ZATO for the last decade. Most of their diaspora is Dem/Lib.
    So they were told the ‘west’ has their back like all the other lapdog countries on Russia’s left flank. No help there and certainly no help from Russia. Christendom will keep shrinking as long as the sheeple rationalize every defeat. Russia can’t save any stragglers who won’t save themselves.I am not mad at the Israelis either- mercenary to the core. Hell , they are getting $1.65 billion to upgrade the Greek Air Force to counter Turkey.
    All our problems are homemade.

    • Johnny Paratrooper May 13, 2021 at 15:13

      Except, they provided Turkey with the tech, who then sold it to Azerbaijian. So the Greeks are likely being paid $1.65 Billion to lose to Turkey…
      The tech is all Israeli built from stolen western tech and in house developed tech. The targeting user interface was designed in Canada.

      • boss21 May 13, 2021 at 16:44

        The Greeks are the ones paying. They lost to Turkey years ago. The Emirates are donating planes because they know their nepotistic Air Force can’t fight and they know the Greeks at least will. All these chess pieces were moved around while the West had a nervous breakdown and is seeing UFOs. Turks are doing what they always did. Grab turf and slaves when they can get away with it.

  9. LawrenceOfAL May 13, 2021 at 15:00

    Interesting reading and hardens my position that as has always been the case – the best defense is a good offense. To wit: nobody can afford to play footsy with the frontline soldiers anymore. When the battle comes, we have to attack the enemies upper upper upper command, ie, the politicians. Cut off the head of the snake as quickly as possible.

  10. Johnny Paratrooper May 13, 2021 at 15:15

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slnTQTZRRpw
    For additional Propaganda video sources. The Azerbaijani’s def won the Propaganda war.

  11. Anonymous May 13, 2021 at 15:16

    5

  12. Mas Casa May 13, 2021 at 21:01

    Lots of good info on this page (click on “Projects”), even though it’s archived: https://dronecenter.bard.edu/. Many of the Loitering Munitions have an EO/IR sensor that the operator can use to conduct ISR in order to find a target to attack.
    Thermal is just one way forces were located. DFing C2 nodes and SAM radars also led to Azerbaijan success.

    • Luke May 13, 2021 at 22:30

      Damn I hate to ask this question but since we have the subject up what kinda drones are we talking about? I see such a huge realm of difference. You have the little ones that you imagine spying on your neighbors wife’s tits, and then the global hawk. I’m assuming the latter but hoping it’s the first one. You know shotgun material. I saw one of those following a subject few weeks ago. I guess the ones that drop hellfires on your lap have to be decent sized and more importantly up in the sky? Which means only camo (thermal) will work?

      • Mas Casa May 14, 2021 at 22:27

        Generally speaking as you go from small to large ISR UAVs the sensors go from electro optical/infrared to EO/IR and SIGINT packages. Loitering munitions may have EO/IR sensors for the operator to find a target to attack or the munitions may just fly to predetermined coordinates on a flight path before reaching the target. Many of these platforms fly higher than a shotgun can reach. What’s tougher than interdicting them is detecting them in the first place.

  13. Anonymous May 13, 2021 at 23:54

    0.5

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