Scorpion Force: The Future Fighters of the Army Are Here

The fight of the future of the French army is already happening today with the Scorpion program.© MinArm

photo credit: MinArm The fight of the future of the French army is already happening today with the Scorpion program.© MinArm

In this medium-sized city, the streets are deserted. There is a cold atmosphere of terror. Groups of hostile fighters have occupied a strategic neighborhood for several hours. A high-pitched purr is heard in the sky. It's a drone. From the top of the roof of an apartment building, we hear the crackle of automatic weapons trying to shoot him down. Too late ! A few seconds later, a Tiger combat helicopter slices through the air and arrives noisily. The positions of the fighters hidden in the neighborhood and spotted by the drone are confirmed by the Tiger crew. Thick smoke bombs flood the streets.…

Jaguar, Serval, with their evocative feline names, these armed armored vehicles drive at high speed through the streets. More mythological in the name, Griffon troop transports also rush to the foot of buildings located opposite those where enemy combatants are entrenched. Soldiers spring from the Griffons to enter buildings and position themselves.

Connected soldiers

Still in the lexicon of animals from the African continent, these are feline soldiers (infantrymen with integrated equipment and connections) who point out the enemy. Their particularity: they wear a vest stuffed with electronic accessories. Thanks to this equipment, they are all connected to a computer network. With this equipment, they can strengthen their individual protection and their combat capacity day and night.

Thus, each fighter is equipped with a screen allowing him to know his position and that of his group. Soldiers organize themselves and communicate with an osteophone, a system that picks up voices via bone resonance and can retransmit sounds using the same process. Convenient for continuing to “talk” and “hear” in the middle of gunshots. On the HK-416 assault rifle or the Famas, buttons fall under the fingers to use the radio and above all to make off-target shots. In other words, the fighter can remain sheltered and adjust a shot without putting himself in danger thanks to a special telescope which retransmits the images of the target on a screen. This scope also has infrared or night vision options.

French soldiers are now equipped with Feline equipment. An electronics-clad vest is added under the tactical vest.©

photo credit: Army French soldiers are now equipped with Feline equipment. An electronics-clad vest is added under the tactical vest.

High speed combat

All the data collected by everyone is transmitted in real time to armored vehicles, drones and other aircraft and especially to the mobile PC which is located behind. In this the command is equipped with the SICS information system. Officers have tactical tablets displaying maps incremented by obstacles detected by vehicles and information from satellites and drones. In real time, they also display the position of men, machines and also that of enemies.

With this process, the information collected by the equipment of a simple infantryman makes it possible to instantly guide artillery or aircraft fire. And precisely! Having identified the threat of a tank, the commander of the operation decided to send a Leclerc XLR. The modernized tank bursts into a street and performs a tense shot while braking suddenly. The enemy armor is immediately neutralized.

The French troops move very quickly from one building to another. For the command PC, speed of combat is the objective. There's nothing worse than being stuck. Soldiers tire quickly and the risks increase over time. Thanks to this “infovalued” collaborative combat system, in military jargon, after just an hour the enemy is beaten and the survivors have fled. On the French side, only one fighter was injured thanks to Feline equipment and Scorpion connectivity.

SICS is the information system integrated into Scorpion. It allows command to have a global view of the situation on a map to facilitate its tactical decisions.© EMA

“Info-valued” collaborative combat

This fight is the future imagined by the French army since 2010 with the Scorpion program and it has been being deployed with the Army for years. It was even used in operations in Mali in 2021 with the use of Griffon, the SICS information system and the new CONTACT radio links.

For the soldier, since their initial design, Félin equipment has been regularly updated and even used in combat missions. On the vehicle side, KNDS (Nexter), Thales and Arquus have joined forces to regularly deliver the new Jaguar and Griffon armored vehicles specific to this Scorpion program.

The latter replaces the old troop transport VABs. Fast, it can carry 8 fighters, plus a pilot and the gunner of the remotely operated 12.7 mm gunner. It can also operate a 7.62 machine gun or a grenade launcher. The machine is modular. It can serve as a command PC, with very long distance communication equipment. Since 2019, 1872 Griffons have been delivered.

Developed since 2014, the Jaguar has been delivered to the Army since 2022. It replaces the AMX-10 RC now found in Ukraine in the hands of Ukrainian forces. It is a light wheeled tank weighing around twenty tonnes equipped with a 40 mm rapid-firing cannon. It is also equipped with four anti-tank missiles and a 7.62 machine gun as well as decoy or ammunition launcher tubes. The purpose of this tank is reconnaissance and combat. So it has to be fast, and it is.

Presentation of the Jaguar light armored reconnaissance and combat vehicle. The machine is one of the components of the Scorpion collaborative combat system.© Armée de Terre

For its part, the Serval is a real Swiss army knife. Designed by Nexter and Texelis, it is modular and vaguely reminiscent of the famous American Humwee with its four-wheel drive. It is also designed to replace the VAB. It can also be used as a mobile command vehicle, and for medical evacuation. Operational since 2022, like the other vehicles, it is also being delivered. The army should eventually have nearly 980 of them.

Was the future yesterday?

The Scorpion program is therefore a reality today and integrates two divisions (1era and 3th). They constitute the Scorpio Force. By 2027, this should make it possible to project a division of 27,000 men with 7,000 vehicles within 30 days.

But there is a catch…, the components of this force were developed well before the Ukrainian conflict. This is particularly the case for new vehicles. Their configuration is not necessarily suited to high-intensity warfare, but rather to anti-guerrilla missions with operations such as Barkhane or Serval. The Jaguar, for example, seems hardly compatible with modern urban combat in European-style cities with tall buildings. Its barrel travel is not long enough to hit high targets on narrow streets.

Furthermore, the very principle of a fast light armored vehicle calls into question a use of the type in the Ukrainian conflict. The ongoing fighting shows that the terrain is riddled with mines and that movement in the ravaged towns is rather slow.

But this is not the first time that the reality on the ground has brought changes to the Scorpion program. This is why it is regularly updated. On the other hand, the choice of vehicles such as the Jaguar is likely to persist and remains difficult to radically transform.

In any case, from 2040, the Scorpion program will give way to TITAN. In the same spirit, it will allow collaborative combat to be extended to all armies and allies. With him, exit the Leclerc tank. It will be replaced by the tank of the future MGCS.

In the end, even if it is based on past wars, the principle of collaborative combat remains resolutely the future; the key is knowing how to adapt it to future conflicts.

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