This is not meant as a criticism but....
Wilf you wrote:
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Depends where you start the clock.
A.A. Sveckhin's 1927 paper is for some reason commonly cited, but as concerns someone talking about solving the "problem", but it's Triandafillov's 1929 "The Nature of Operations of Modern Armies," is, IMO the actual starting point.
- but If you believe the PU-36, is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle" then poster child of the "Operational Level," is Tukhachesvsky. Svechkin and Triandifillov never really say anything about "Deep Battle" and it is that which has come to define the idea of Operational Art.
I have to disagree with you. This is taken from my PhD so sorry for the dry tone:
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Soviet staff officers, utilising their experiences during the 1919-1920 Civil War, first espoused the operational level of war in the mid-1920s. The nascent Red Army was involved in fighting on many fronts, and both strategy and tactics did not cover this type of conflict. The concept of the operational art was advanced by Alecsandr A. Svechin, who in 1926 was a member of the Frunze Academy and the Red Army Staff Academy. The concept was developed further by a number of theorists in the 1930s and received its full definition in the Red Army’s Polvei Ustav (Field Regulations) of 1936.
Using the idea of successive operations, Svechin explained operational art thus:
The concept of the operational art was advanced by Alecsandr A. Svechin, who in 1926 was a member of the Frunze Academy and the Red Army Staff Academy. The concept was developed further by a number of theorists in the 1930s and received its full definition in the Red Army’s Polvei Ustav (Field Regulations) of 1936. Using the idea of successive operations, Svechin explained operational art thus:
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. . . tactical creativity is governed by operational art. Combat operations are not self contained, they are only the basic material from which an operation is formed. Only in very infrequent cases can one rely on achieving the ultimate goal of combat operations in a single battle. Normally this path is broken into a series of operations separated by more or less lengthy pauses, which take place in different areas in a theatre and differ significantly from one another due to the differences between the immediate goals one’s forces strive for.
He further wrote:
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An operation is a conglomerate of quite different actions: namely, drawing up the plan of the operation; logistical preparations; concentrating one’s forces at the starting position; building defensive fortifications; marching; fighting battles which lead to the encirclement or destruction of a portion of the hostile forces and the forced withdrawal of other hostile forces, either as a result of a direct envelopment or as a result of a preliminary breakthrough, and to the capture or holding of a certain line or geographical area. Tactics and administration are the material and the success of the development of an operation depends on both the successful solution of individual tactical problems by the forces and the provision of all the material they need to conduct an operation without interruption until the ultimate goal is achieved. On the basis of the goal of an operation, operational art sets forth a whole series of tactical missions and a number of logistical requirements. Operational art also dictates the basic line of conduct of an operation, depending on the material available, the time which may be deployed for battle on a certain front, and finally on the nature of the operation itself. We cannot acknowledge the full superiority of objective battlefield conditions over our will. Combat operations are only one aspect of the greater whole represented by an operation, and the nature of the planned operation.
In the immediate post-civil war period, Soviet Russian military academicians, staff and commanders set up associations to study military science, under the guidance of the Communist Party. One area that was of particular concern to the Military Studies Society of the Red Army was how to articulate as doctrine forms of combat action as well as the restructuring of the armed forces to match these changes in military thought. Two leaders of this school of thought were S.S. Kamanev, the commander of the Red Army from 1919-1924 and M.N. Tukhachevsky. Kamanev wrote:
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In spite of all victorious fights before the battle, the fate of the campaign will be decided in the very last battle – Interim defeats in a campaign, however serious they may be, subsequently will be viewed as ‘individual episodes’ – In the warfare of modern large armies, defeat of the enemy results from the sum of continuous and planned victories on all fronts, . . . the uninterrupted conduct of operations is the main condition of victory.
In 1926 Tukhachevsky wrote:
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Modern tactics are characterised primarily by organisation of battle, presuming coordination of various branches of troops. Modern strategy embraces its former meaning: that is the ‘tactics of a theatre of military operations.’ However this definition is complicated by the fact that strategy prepares for battle, but it also participates in and influences the course of battle. Modern operations involve the concentration of forces necessary to strike a blow, and the infliction of continual and uninterrupted blows of these forces against the enemy throughout an extremely deep area. The nature of modern weapons and the modern battle is such that it is impossible to destroy the enemy’s manpower by one blow in a one day battle. Battle in a modern operation stretches out into a series of battles not only along the front but also in depth until that time when the enemy has been struck by a final annihilating blow or when the offensive forces are exhausted. In that regard, modern tactics of a theatre of military operations are tremendously more complex by the inescapable condition mentioned above that the strategic commander cannot personally organise combat.
In all my readings I never came across the term 'Deep Battle' . From memory this is a US Army term which is used to describe the area 70 to 150km behind the FEBA (old term I know). To strike at the second echelon. It is certainly not what Soviet officers were talking about. A series of successive battles in disparate sections along many fronts.
However I really do believe, to quote a mentor and friend, we are over intellectualising something which is quite simple. We are all arguing over the same thing, from a different viewpoint. :(
Want to go all the way back to Movchin?
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Originally Posted by
GI Zhou
I have to disagree with you. This is taken from my PhD so sorry for the dry tone:
Not sure what you are disagreeing with, but I would be interested to read your PhD.
I am pretty well aware of how the Soviets tried to explain the idea - which is why I remain unconvinced. You are right that the term "Deep Battle" is never used. IMO, it actually comes from Simpkin's book on Tukhachesvsky. - which is why is said,
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- but If you believe the PU-36, is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle" then poster child of the "Operational Level," is Tukhachesvsky. Svechkin and Triandifillov never really say anything about "Deep Battle" and it is that which has come to define the idea of Operational Art.
Sure AA Svechkin may up with the all terminology, but what about the actual practice? I've only read the paper attributed to Svechkin, in the 1927 "Strategiya," - and it's pretty rambling stuff, and the definitions are not good.
He does not tackle the real issues that Triandiffolov does. IMO, Triandiffolov gets the ball rolling in a practical way - a year later, and may have written it well before. You have to split and encircle enemy armies, to destroy them across their "depth." Like it or not, "Deep Battle" is how the Soviet attack into the enemies depth is described.
Now I do not believe that PU-36 is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle," because it's actually pretty banal stuff. I do not think it is actually anything much to do with Operational Art either, but it is supposed to be the practical guidance laid out by Tukhachesvsky. If you know or can prove he didn't write it, then sing out.
Reformist or Reactionary?
Boy, was I ever wrong about the Small Wars Council forum. I thought it would be a place that sought to address the small wars deficiency in U.S. military doctrine. Instead, the U.S. Army's institutional response to the small wars situation, FM 3-24, has, along with the horse it rode in on, been thoroughly torn to pieces! Now you guys are complaining about a 1980s version of FM 100-5, a manual that doesn't even exist anymore under the same name! This place isn't reformist, it's reactionary, and really really reactionary at that, the way a discussion forum for exiled Tsarist officers would have been in the 1930s!
Trsarist? Moi? Let me tell you a little story
In 1993 my brother was in Saint Petersburg as a guest of the then new government. He was with a group of very senior officers who offered a toast. One officer offered the toast to the government. he was over ruled with the expression, (censored) the government, TO THE TSAR! My brother felt distinctly uncomfortable, as we are republicans, being our forefathers were Fenians and all. Selected by the best British judges on the first assisted migration scheme to Australia.
Lest anyone thinks that Afghanistan or Iraq were/are small wars per se, how many tens of billions and tens of thousands of soldiers have been or have set foot in country. How many soldiers are in Afghanistan now? To me that is a pretty big war.
It is on many fronts, with different players, and at stake is no less than the survival of the state. Many of the issues that faced Lenin, Trotsky et al.
Many people, well officers, grappled with what term to describe hunting small groupos of insurgents bent on causing havoc in isolated areas. Low Level Conflict was one until one is reminded the entire Australian Defence Force was deployed. All that training and doctrine paid dividends in the 1990s onwards, from East Timor onwards.
A dull light-bulb is starting to flicker...
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Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
By making it simpler, more robust and flexible. Tactics are essentially "teaching." - that is what they flow from, so they are also tied to a level of command and planning.
Just because you conduct "Operations," it does not follow that there is something called an "Operational Level."
Gotcha - or at least got the basis of your objections to the Operational on a simplistic level. I'm going to be interested in reading further on this subject when time allows (as such, thanks for the small bibliography Tukhachevskii - looks like a good list to start with) with the anti-Operational view fixed in mind.
I do hope that everyone here realizes that when I fail my next promotion course after I deliberately disregard the Operational Level of War and thus go against prime doctrine, I shall be naming and blaming you all!