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Thread: William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

  1. #321
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    There is nothing shaky or flaky about Maneuver Warfare IF you read the whole handbook including Colonel Wyly's section on the fundamentals of Tactics. A lot of people say stuff about it and then other people say the same stuff to more people, all the while nobody ever actually read the book. It is very much about how to fight a system in the most efficient and effective way and that will require that you develop your judgment of what to do based upon each situation. I will say they should have called it something besides Maneuver Warfare because that can create some confusion.

  2. #322
    Council Member Infanteer's Avatar
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    Slapout, I've pretty much got the entire pantheon of this stuff on the shelf - I was a "maneuver warfare" junky prior to seriously considering the idea (I also was a pop-centric COIN junky too - fool me once, fool me twice!). Maneuver warfare clouds any useful concepts with so much junk that it should be flushed.

    1. The "Generations of Warfare" argument is completely silly - anyone who argues that "4GW" is an evolution of "3GW Maneuver Warfare" which are both superior evolutions of "2GW Attritive War" is a fool. Maneuver Warfare builds on this poor history by taking any examples of "good tactics" for its own as examples of "maneuver warfare" while denigrating examples of "bad tactics" as "attrition warfare". Pretty easy to say my theory is good if I illogically assign all good, unrelated examples of history to my column!

    2. The whole concept uses "maneuver warfare" and "attrition warfare" to create a false dichotomy where none exists. This takes away from the fact that firepower and maneuver both have roles to play on the battlefield and that attrition has battlefield value. Yes - the manual states that a "maneuver warfare force" still uses firepower, but the body of literature that Lind and Co. built around Maneuver Warfare (and yes, I've read almost all of it) clearly approaches things with this false dichtomy in mind. "Shattering will and cohesion" is done by killing people and wrecking stuff with firepower.

    3. The OODA loop, which MW elevated from Boyd, is not a good model. Humans are not iterative. They are constantly observing and acting. So "getting in a loop" really makes no sense (a tip of the hat to LCol Storr on this one).

    4. "Surfaces and Gaps" is silly. What consititutes a gap? If all I have to do to turn myself into a "surface" do is swing my MG 90 degrees, then is the concept of any use? "Recon Pull" suffers from the same problems.

    Shall I go on?

    Clearly, any benefits that maneuver warfare brings could be gained by abandoning the farce and simply looking at the basics.
    Last edited by Infanteer; 12-25-2010 at 01:11 AM.

  3. #323
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    Shall I go on?
    Sure go a head, debate is a good thing. List everything you think is wrong with the book or theory.

  4. #324
    Council Member Infanteer's Avatar
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    I'm on holidays now, so you'll have to wait a couple weeks for me to get home if you want to talk specifics. I've talked about some of the main concepts - Wilf's RUSI article is also good; along with numerous other Canadian and American critiques I've seen.

    Problem is, I've never seen the MW crowd defend against the critiques. Unlike pop-centric COIN, MW seems to have died as theoretical death; it's proponents had to invent 4GW to maintain some relevance.

  5. #325
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    I'm on holidays now, so you'll have to wait a couple weeks for me to get home if you want to talk specifics. I've talked about some of the main concepts - Wilf's RUSI article is also good; along with numerous other Canadian and American critiques I've seen.

    Problem is, I've never seen the MW crowd defend against the critiques. Unlike pop-centric COIN, MW seems to have died as theoretical death; it's proponents had to invent 4GW to maintain some relevance.
    Holidays are good, so have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

  6. #326
    Council Member Polarbear1605's Avatar
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    Default ;)

    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    Problem is, I've never seen the MW crowd defend against the critiques. Unlike pop-centric COIN, MW seems to have died as theoretical death; it's proponents had to invent 4GW to maintain some relevance.
    Sounds like game on!

  7. #327
    Council Member Infanteer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    Sounds like game on!
    Merry Christmas to you as well!

    Seriously, the narrative of the military literature on Maneuver Warfare seems to be:

    1. Lind and co. create MW;

    2. MW catches on and, in a flurry, is incorporated into doctrine;

    3. Critiques of MW appear;

    4. Critiques are not answered, instead 4GW is created (which isn't ever taken seriously); and

    5. MW falls into relative disuse, slowly becoming a footnote in doctrine, but leaving some "maneuverist traces".

    If you have copies of MW apologia in the light of all the literature critical of MW and its theoretical foundations, I'd love to see it.

  8. #328
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    Sounds like game on!
    I would say it is game winning. Our enemies seem to understand it. By blending with the civilian population they Maneuver through huge gaps in the military surface in order to attack civilian soft spots. All done in order to accomplish their mission.

  9. #329
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    Default False history

    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    Instead what they told us was to read study and analyze certain examples and look for those maneuver warfare elements that make it successful. Yes, the stalemated trenches of Flanders and “shells, shells and more shells” were used as examples of “attrition warfare”
    But even this characterization is largely false. Much of the slaughter of the Western Front happened for more complex and common sense reasons than a fixation with "attrition warfare" (ex. the Somme, pressure had to be relieved on the French, a British Army largely made up of green conscripts was justifiably confined to simple tactics). Douglas Haig is usually depicted as the stereotypical Western Front "chateau general," but he was a cavalryman who was always looking for a breakthrough, not an attritional victory. He was a "maneuvrist!" And this is probably the purest example of "attrition warfare" that can be found.

  10. #330
    Council Member Infanteer's Avatar
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    Actually, over half the casualties on the Western Front occured in the first and last phases of the war - the march to the Marne, the Spring Offensives and the Last 100 days. So 8 of 39 months of warfare - the 8 months of relative maneuver as opposed to the much maligned grinder of "attrition" trench warfare - produced over 50% of the casualties.

  11. #331
    Council Member Polarbear1605's Avatar
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    Default Wow…first…let’s define this debate a bit

    Quote Originally Posted by Granite_State View Post
    But even this characterization is largely false. Much of the slaughter of the Western Front happened for more complex and common sense reasons than a fixation with "attrition warfare" (ex. the Somme, pressure had to be relieved on the French, a British Army largely made up of green conscripts was justifiably confined to simple tactics). Douglas Haig is usually depicted as the stereotypical Western Front "chateau general," but he was a cavalryman who was always looking for a breakthrough, not an attritional victory. He was a "maneuvrist!" And this is probably the purest example of "attrition warfare" that can be found.
    Wow…first…let’s define this debate a bit…simply…Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict = Maneuver Warfare…based on the above comments we need a sand box to play in here that is smaller than a universe.
    If you are calling Douglas Haig a “maneuverist” meaning a Maneuver Warfare general (= Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict) because as a former calvary officer he was always looking for gaps (at the Somme or anywhere else), I strongly disagree. 600,000 causalities in exchange to relieve pressure on Verdun and movement of the front line by 10 miles = an attritionist in my mind. The technique of surfaces and gaps does not define a maneuver warfare general…but I would say that a maneuverist is someone who is always adapting. Compare Haig to Ludendorff…Haig is severely criticized for lack of adaptability … compare to Ludendorff who changed both Germany’s defensive and offensive doctrine in the middle of a World War.

  12. #332
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    …but I would say that a maneuverist is someone who is always adapting.
    Very much so and I don't know if it was in the book or some of the lectures that have been posted, but the 3 main elements the Mission,Surfaces and Gaps and the Main Effort are all connected to the theory. A new Trinity. You can't one without the other 2 even though the Main Effort is usually considered to be the most important at least from what I have read.

  13. #333
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    …but I would say that a maneuverist is someone who is always adapting.
    Been thinking about that some more. Maybe it would be better to think of a Maneuverist as someone who is always making the enemy adapt, always maintaining the initiative. And at the highest level he would be making the enemy irrelevant to him as far as accomplishing his objective.

  14. #334
    Council Member Polarbear1605's Avatar
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    Default Good Catch!

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Been thinking about that some more. Maybe it would be better to think of a Maneuverist as someone who is always making the enemy adapt, always maintaining the initiative. And at the highest level he would be making the enemy irrelevant to him as far as accomplishing his objective.
    Good catch Slap! And actually, I believe that it is both you and your enemy.

    Because combat is a matter of decisions and time, the adversaries are continuously reacting and counter-reacting to one another trying to get the upper hand in this mortal duel. Combat tactics can be viewed as a way to limit or eliminate the enemy’s options or reactions. Needless to say, killing the enemy eliminates all of his options.
    http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKi...July08_321.htm
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-27-2010 at 04:29 PM. Reason: Use quotes for 2nd citation

  15. #335
    Council Member Polarbear1605's Avatar
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    Default not the way I remember it...?

    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    Merry Christmas to you as well!

    Seriously, the narrative of the military literature on Maneuver Warfare seems to be:
    1. Lind and co. create MW; Wrong! As an Obnoxious Buzzer sounds. Yes, Lind coined the term “Maneuver Warfare” but what he was talking about was Boyd’s Patterns in Conflict. I would say it went something like …Boyd and his first acolytes win the E-M Theory war with the production of the F-16/F-15. Boyd retires. Boyd then comes up with Destruction and Creation…”Tada! A snowmobile is born”. Boyd enters his monk phase reading and analyzing war. Destruction and Creation is important because the snowmobile method is what Boyd applies to develop Patterns. “Let us take it all apart; pick the best pieces; and build a snowmobile”.

    2. MW catches on and, in a flurry, is incorporated into doctrine; From my observation, I have an issue with the phrase “in a flurry”. In 1978 I was introduced to Patterns of Conflict as a student at Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico. In 1988-1989 my Command and Staff College Class was trying to figure out things like Commander’s Intent, Mission Orders and so were a lot of other folks. That’s ten years and we are just starting to get serious.
    3. Critiques of MW appear; They did?? Where? If you got any please send me the references.

    4. Critiques are not answered, instead 4GW is created (which isn't ever taken seriously); and I agree here….4GW was a definite MW spinoff and a distraction

    5. MW falls into relative disuse, slowly becoming a footnote in doctrine, but leaving some "maneuverist traces". Yep! Can’t argue with that…after Desert Strom the debate, study, rigor and work on Boyd’s theory dropped into a black hole.
    If you have copies of MW apologia in the light of all the literature critical of MW and its theoretical foundations, I'd love to see it. In light of literature? Literature? ..sorry you just completely lost me here…references?

  16. #336
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    I usually agree with WILF’s critical analysis of Boyd Theory/Maneuver Warfare (to a point). Sometimes, WILF’s criticism sometimes makes we wonder if the Boyd Theory and Maneuver Warfare are not two separate things (but that is another issue).
    You might be on to something there, at the very least it might be better if they were seperated.

  17. #337
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    You might be on to something there, at the very least it might be better if they were seperated.
    I think that's quite correct, actually. I've never been a big fan of Boyd, mainly because I always felt that he was "reaching" when he took a model developed from air to air combat theories and tried to stretch it to cover something much more complicated and involved. MW was an attempt to deal with that complexity.

    That said, I'm no fan of the "generations of war" idea.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

  18. #338
    Council Member Infanteer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
    1. Lind and co. create MW; Wrong! As an Obnoxious Buzzer sounds. Yes, Lind coined the term “Maneuver Warfare” but what he was talking about was Boyd’s Patterns in Conflict. I would say it went something like …Boyd and his first acolytes win the E-M Theory war with the production of the F-16/F-15. Boyd retires. Boyd then comes up with Destruction and Creation…”Tada! A snowmobile is born”. Boyd enters his monk phase reading and analyzing war. Destruction and Creation is important because the snowmobile method is what Boyd applies to develop Patterns. “Let us take it all apart; pick the best pieces; and build a snowmobile”.
    Are you sure about this? Most of the literature that got the debate flowing seems to fall out of the concepts espoused in Lind's writing (of which Boyd's was one). I take MW to be a take on history using a mish-mash of germanophile/Boyd/new-age B.H. Lidell Hart to make a doctrine.

    I can't see how John Boyd, who left the equivelent of two powerpoint presentations and an essay on dogfighting, could be credited with designing MW.

  19. #339
    Council Member Polarbear1605's Avatar
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    Default OhYa!

    Oh Ya! And I am as sure as the sun coming up at dawn. Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict spawned MW, again a term that Lind coined in a 1980 (?) Marine Gazette Article. You need to think of Lind as the political arm or the salesman of MW. Yes, Lind had his own ideas (some right and some wrong) and he is a germanophile (actually a kaiserophile ). I say political because in the late 70’s Lind, as a Senator Gary Hart Congressional Staffer, writes a flaming critical critique of the Army’s FM-100. Lind would continually leverage what the Marines did in MW against the Army until their adoption.
    The 1980-81 Amphibious Warfare Class was where (and at the time Major Wyly was the tactics instructor) Lind introduced Wyly to Boyd. After the famous Boyd Brief given to that class, Lind and Wyly formed the first “unofficial” maneuver warfare seminar that meets in Lind’s home. Looking back at that seminar I think the first issue the seminar tried to crack was one of the first criticisms we heard from general officers …. “How do you control all those damn arrows that Boyd draws?” Some members of that seminar, at the end of the AWS class year, are transferred to 2nd MarDiv, Camp Lejuene and continue to meet at the O’Club. At one of those meetings, General Al Gray sits down at the table and asks what is going on. From there, Gray forms the first maneuver warfare board and appoints one of the young captains sitting at that table as the lead. The rest is history as they say.
    You also need to look at the period of 1980 until the first version of the USMC’s FMFM-1 (1989?) as an evolutionary growth cycle of MW for the Marines. (And also remember patterns evolved into Boyd’s Discourse on Winning and Losing.) I mention this “evolution” because Lind’s Maneuver Warfare Handbook was a very early work that was published to keep the debate going and was not intended to be the final word. I understand that it is easy to summarize Boyd’s work as a “couple of powerpoint presentations” but in my opinion that summarization avoids the obvious mental work (I think this is what WILF calls rigor) that is needed to understand the brief. That same mental labor was something, at the time, that was avoided (with a few exceptions) by the US general officer corps.

  20. #340
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default F3EA update

    In post 270 in 2010 I stated
    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Wilf cited:

    From my "armchair" and for very different reasons I found the F3EA concept very useful; yes similar to Wilf's text: Find, Fix, Finish, Evaluate & Analyse. There are a few open source references to the concept, which IIRC appear to come from the SF world Such as this:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...119-rawley.pdf and http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...28072547/pg_6/
    After a query from a UK observer of such matters I searched for an original article on the F3EA cycle and found this article JFQ in 2008:http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...f&AD=ADA516799

    Note one of the authors is now MG Flynn, of ISAF Intell fame.
    davidbfpo

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