Weather And Warfare : A Book Review
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get”——Mark Twain
“ You can have money piled to the ceiling, but the size of your funeral is still going to depend on the weather.” —————-Chuck Turner.
Not discounting biting truth in Chuck Turner’s wise-crack, size of the defeated modern-day military commander’s funeral will definitely depend on his inability to take advantage of the prevailing weather conditions over the battle front. Nobody is going to listen to his pleadings on the age-old adage of the weather being as fickle as a woman; and that it is hardly rocket science to count on it any meaningful manner whist planning campaigns and battles, yet, it is not for nothing that weather per se has always been regarded as unpredictable. And, not withstanding the hi-tech weather forecasting satellites and systems, the weathermen keep their fingers crossed, in context of its accuracy. In the sphere of warfare, accurate prediction of prevalent weather conditions is almost akin to having a force multiplier capability. In the military; more often than not, the subject is, generally, dealt in the stand-alone mode by mostly forecasters and operators only, with commanders only paying incidental attention to it. Fully understanding this failing, this book is written from the point of view of their being a greater requirement of synergy amongst the both. It appears to be deeply researched , if the endnotes are any thing to go by, but over-reliance on the internet searches is obvious.
‘W&W” has well thought out chapters on weather as a very important dimension in the general context of warfare; its strategic relevance to terrain as it affects war-waging in many ways; the specific impact of weather on the army, navy, air force and space-base forces; weather-affecting technologies related to delivery platforms and weapons themselves; and more importantly its close effect on combat, which could be the difference between defeat and victory. The RMA scenario, impact on WMDs, weather as a force multiplier, & weather warfare etc are dealt with in separate chapters. The inclusion of the case study of storms in the desert as experienced in the Iraq War of 1993 is very apt. Examples from air operations being affected by weather conditions range from the D-Day landings, in June 1944, in Normandy to the NATO air ops in Kosovo, in 1999, to illustrate his discourse. Hannibal’s crossing the Alps in winter, Napoleon’s disrespect for General Winter, Eisenhower’s regard for his weatherman in Normandy & later whilst planning air drop operations on the Rhine in Europe, the uncanny cunning with which the World Trade Centre Twin Towers bombers of 9/11 studied and took advantage of the congruence of fortuitous fair weather media forecasts over Washington, New York and Boston, are a few examples of the fleshing of a dreary subject by the author. A few chapters are thematic in nature and study the consequences of weather on war-fighting and that of warfare on the environment.
Dwelling extensively on exotic details of weather-warfare, the book is some what weighed down by the author’s languorous prose, which is vivid but not enticing and thus lacks in lucidity as it is marred by insipid idiom and strange syntax. He less than adequate command over the language results in hazy ideas regarding the general military strategic and tactical philosophy appearing in black and white. Sweeping statements have been made at places, & concepts, especially with respect to the employment of infantry and its invulnerability to weather under-played. The author even talks of ‘light infantry’ in our context! This is erroneous, as it is an American concept, which denotes normal foot infantry like we have, the Americans having advanced in referring to mechanized infantry as the norm! These type of statements lead one to believe that over dependence has been placed on published material from the West.
Ajey Lele has been able to achieve the aim of his writing “Weather & Warfare”, to wit, “ to analyze the positive and negative importance of weather, climate, and terrain on modern-day war-fighting and emphasize that existing conventional military thinking and technology for weather assessment is inadequate to address the future threats from state as well as non-state actors”; and therefore; all in all, though this book may not be a page turner; it is nevertheless a good treat for the enthusiasts interested in exotica relating to meteorology and weather.
“Weather And Warfare”, by Ajey Lele
(Published in 2006 for The Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis),
by Lancer Publishers & Distributors
K-36A (FF) Green Park Main, New Delhi-110016
Pp 206 Price Rs 595.00 ISBN 81 7062 145 3
(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)
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