Isn't MW just good leadership?
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Originally Posted by
ericmwalters
Tarawa is actually a terrific case of recon-pull. I could also cite Omaha Beach. When the whole plan went to hell, local leaders took charge and improvised solutions with what they had on hand, finding gaps and exploiting them to establish toe-holds inland. "There are two kinds of people on this beach--those who are dead, and those who are gonna die if they don't get off it."
While Tarawa may be a good example of recon pull, I doubt that it fills the bill as an MW example--pretty tough for me to consider it MW given the size of the available maneuver space,the fact that you outnumber your opponent about 7 to 1, and the opponent really has no place to go to get reinforcements to alter the balance of power.
Omaha might be a better case but I doubt it. In the context of the entire Normandy operation I think it well to remember Utah Beach and the other great quotation by TR Jr from "The Longest Day"; "The reinforcements will have to follow us wherever we are. We're starting the war from right here. Head inland." Had 4ID forces reconned, found the weak spot, and then maneuvered, great. But they didn't--they were landed at a weakly defended area by pure luck. The great thing about it was that TR Jr recognized the opportunity and directed the rest of the division to follow on rather than follow the original landing plan. Adroit follow on actions cleared the beachhead with far fewer causualties than on any other beach IIRC--this, I think, is the essence of what has been categorized as German Style MW. But, I also think that it really is nothing more than good operational level combat leadership About the only other places that I am aware it happened on the scale that warrants calling it anything other than small unit tactics were in the "lead from the front" battles fought by Rommel in the 1940 Blitzkreig and in N. Africa before Alam Halfa. (Alam Halfa could have been another great victory for Rommel except that, unbeknowst to him, Ultra had already stacked the deck against him.)
I think, BTW, that the organization of Rommel's recon units in N. Africa propbably had much to do with the ability to conduct successful MW. As Cavguy laments below, US Cav has been eviscerated to such an extent that it seems hardly likely that it can do the economy of force missions of fix, screen, or guard that MW really seems to require. After Alam Halfa, Rommel no longer had the force structure to do much more than minimal MW to cover the retreat of his foot-borne Italian allies across Cyrenaica and Tripolitana. and that success was possible only because of the methodical plodding (timidity?) of Montgomery's 8th Army.
Perhaps we might be better off by just identifying MW as a flexible state of mind, one that recognizes that the best offensive solution is not always a "3 yards and a cloud of dust fullback smash up the middle." That seems to be the lesson from both Omaha and Utah (and maybe Tarawa as well).
Leadership and MW--there is a difference
wm writes:
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While Tarawa may be a good example of recon pull, I doubt that it fills the bill as an MW example--pretty tough for me to consider it MW given the size of the available maneuver space, the fact that you outnumber your opponent about 7 to 1, and the opponent really has no place to go to get reinforcements to alter the balance of power. Omaha might be a better case but I doubt it.
Whose definition of MW are we using (Leonhard's? USMC? Other?). And at what scale? Tarawa and Omaha can possibly be justified as MW cases at the operational level, even if they are attritional contests at the tactical level, but we'd need to agree on whose definition we want to use.
But this is a theoretical/academic exercise. Tarawa or Omaha battles weren't PLANNED or INTENDED to go the way that they did. U.S. forces weren't DESIGNED to execute recon-pull in those battles, they just did it under the extreme exigencies of combat. Sure, this is why I wouldn't want to use them as MW examples either...especially when compared to other assaults on heavily fortified areas, such as the Michael Offensives against Hough's Fifth Army in March 1918. German stosstrupp units were planned, intended, and designed to use recon-pull, so that makes it a better example to use.
wm also suggests that:
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Perhaps we might be better off by just identifying MW as a flexible state of mind, one that recognizes that the best offensive solution is not always a "3 yards and a cloud of dust fullback smash up the middle."
Well, once you make that association, then what is the difference between MW and "The Art of War?" This gets back to an original complaint of Wilf--and one I am sympathetic to. If MW is nothing more than "common-sense tactics," then what is the Art of War at the tactical level? I think Boyd was right to classify styles of war: MW being one of them and Attrition Warfare and Moral Warfare being the other two.
Thus, if I make the answer to "Isn't MW just good leadership?" an affirmative response, then what do I say to the proposition, "Isn't the Art of War just good leadership?" If I say yes to that, where does this leave me?
We think of leadership in a lot more ways than just tactical and technical proficiency in doing operations/tactics. I'd argue you can have terrific leaders who fall short in the MW department (to say nothing of the Art of War), and there are plenty of MW and/or "Art of War" advocates/fans/ students who aren't terribly capable in the leadership department (I know, I wargame against some of them).
Just my two cents on that.