William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[TROUFION]

The fact that the Chindit ops faced constrants is the point. When you read the DO theory you see a tendency to use future tech promises to remove the effects of weather, terrain, enemy and relative mobility. In the case of the Chindits the Jungle, the air commando, the jungle skills, the use of FWCAS, and OSS/indig forces gave the Chindits realtive superiority. The radios they carried, the air resupply capability and indig foces gave them a level of communication and aggregation-deaggregation capability the enemy could not match. It was of course a unit designed to fight in jungle terrain only,, it was not intended to fight in open conflict and when pressed to do so as at Mytkynia they suffered. Historical examples are only capable of providing a perspective, what can work, what has worked and what is ineffective and what should be shelved. DO has a lot of open questions we should not write off any past close approximations. LRDG and LRPG are very similiar and neither is an exact guide for future DO.

[jcustis]

The radios they carried, the air resupply capability and indig foces gave them a level of communication and aggregation-deaggregation capability the enemy could not match.

I'll give you the capabilities, but I'm not seeing the aggregation part. Didn't the columns remain separated throughout ops?

I'm doing intermittent reading of "Codebreaker in the Far East" by Alan Stripp. Based on what I've gotten through so far, the capability to decipher Japanese codes was fairly robust by 1943, and it makes me wonder how signals interception factored into Chindit movements and target planning.

Let's develop this a bit further, if you can humor me TROUFION...You make mention of the Chindits actually having relative superiority, but were there any lasting results? Did they sever any lines of communication that weren't restored in quick order? Did they tie down any formations, and if so, which ones? Did they pass on actionable intelligence that contributed to the destruction of any Japanese combat formation?

Finally, what would the Chindits have been were it not for Allied air superiority at the time, and the availability of CAS as a supporting arm?

I'm not trying to downplay the Chindits, just that I'm not so sure those operations bear the fruit of lessons learned that many people think.

[TROUFION]

Here are the stats that I know of:

During the first 90 days of the Chindits, a brigade sized air ground task force, second operation March-May 1944. The Chindit 'special force' supported by the 1st Air Commando succeeded in:

Supporting the major offensive in southern and central Burma, Impahl-Kohima, by Slim's 14th Army by 1) destroying @70 enemy aircraft, 2) cutting the line of food and ammo supply 3) tieing down the equivalent of 2 and a half Japanesse Div.

"General Wingate's airborne tactics put a great obstacle in the way of our Imphal plan and were an important reason for its failure." Japanese 15th Army Commander.

Further: the columns moved about the jungle with speed and through radio and OSS/indig support were able to and did at many different points aggregate and deaggregate. This was a key component of their mobility and allowed them to conduct several larger scale assaults.

No analogy is perfect, and the Chindit force had a lot of downsides. They were missused in assaulting Mytkiniya-they lacked artillery and due to monsoons and scheduling the 1st Air Commando no longer flew for them at this time, they were kept in the field beyond the planned 90 day mark which seriously degraded their combat effectiveness. But these very downsides are what make the operations valuable to DO study. It is hard to replicate the effects of weather, distance , indigenous populations and extended combat in the DO experimentation. The 77th Inf which was the CHindit Special Force's official title, was made up of regular troops, not SAS types, regular troops who recieved extra training for jungle-airborne ops. Further LRP was somewhat radical in its day and controversial much the same as DO, the fight to get LRP actualized and supported is a similiar fight that proponents od DO face.

-T

[jcustis]

The link will take you to the Marine Corps University page, and has some expanded scope of things DO:

http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/MCRCweb/Library/DOHome.htm

[Rifleman]

I don't know how relevant this is, but I'll toss it out for consideration.

I think the SF Mobile Guerrilla Forces, aka the Blackjack projects, probably took the Chindit/Merrill's Marauders concept to the next level.

They accompolished a lot tactically; however, I don't know how significant or lasting the effects were. It seems to me that any study of the DO concept should include them though.

I've read one of Jim Donohue's books about the operations. I intend to read the others.

[Xenophon]

Off topic a little bit, but I completely agree with his most recent (April 16th) article. But, I'd like to see him suggest how to make that transition. Not just complain that it hasn't been done.

[PhilR]

I had some involvement at MCCDC in reincarnation of DO back in 2004(interestingly, many of the "usual suspects" from the USMC Hunter Warrior experiments).
What I don't like about the current USMC definition is that it describes units operating out of mutual support range of one another. I think that the whole point of DO is to redefine, through training, education, technology, etc. what exactly "mutual support" is and what distances it can be effected at.
It seems that much of modern warfare is simply the story of the tug between dispersion and concentration (look at Napoleon's corps). There are many variables: communications (to coordinate external fires and logistics), mobility, internal fires capabilities (that has to balance for mobility and logistics), training and maturity (how independent can units operate depending on the environment).
DO applies to every unit in every mission--its just how physically dispersed they can be and still be able to mass the appropriate "effects" (whether these be fires, civil affairs, training indiginous forces).
The current thrust of USMC DO seems to be to validate small unit infantry organization and equipping. I welcome DO if it means we're putting brainpower and $$ to supporting squads (compared to the money we put towards aviation and other big items).