sum it up pretty well. We'll see. One can always hope a change will occur and trickle down...
Regrettably, I'm afraid your last two paragrpaphs
sum it up pretty well. We'll see. One can always hope a change will occur and trickle down...
Mixed Feelings
Glad the Death Certificate has been written for DO; sad that the USMC has found it easier to go to "Enhanced Company Operations". Granted, the USMC has perhaps the best Rifle Company layout in the business, and there are a lot of (other) Infantrymen out there who experience a noticeable Pavlovian response to Marine Infantry TO&E's. But I just don't understand why the USMC doesn't feel comfortable using Platoons to go out and whack the enemy; use your Squads to find em', then bring in the rest of the Platoon to finish 'em. And if things go really wrong, you've got a Platoon (or at least the remnants thereof) to fight your way out, not just a Squad.
But using an entire Company? The enemy will see (or hear) you coming long before you can get to grips with them. Enhanced Company Operations or not (whatever that is) still ends up tending to sacrifice or at least compromise the most important tactical attributes that small-units require (and should exploit to the max when possible) - surprise and agility.
Before I finish, I just want to to make clear that this wasn't a swipe at the Marines, or any other Army that prefers to use Companies where Platoons will do. As anyone can see in places from Fallujah to Garmser, the Marines are unsurpassed at getting it right at the tactical level, combining as they do all Arms right down to Battalion/MEU-level in a way that noone else does, and giving them a battlefield superiority that few can match at that level. I'm just saying that given all this, it does not make any sense that the Marines would see fit to be satisfied with this and not go whole hog to achieve tactical superiority and dominance at all tactical levels, from Battalion all the way down. Something just doesn't fit here. Why?
Sad day for me. I have often said that the closest thing to General Gavins's Air Cavalry division was the Marine Air Ground Task force. Gavin's concept of Amoeba warfare was very close to DO operations and I hoped the Marines might prove this out. It is a double loss in a way because it would not just work in LIC but HIC it was the closest thing to one universal theory of combat that would work anywhere, anytime that I have ever seen or read about. General Robert Scales wrote a nice piece about how this might have worked but he didn't call it DO. General Van Ripper seems to have written something too can not remember but I think it went under the name of Precision Maneuver. Looks like it dosen't matter anymore
"precision engagement"
I don't know its details, though.
Do not read into this article. My take is the focus will be for Companies to start taking over many of the functions usually reserved for battalions. In my experience in Iraq company FOBs operated semi-independently from Battalion HQ. They relied upon the battalion for logistical support but had all the requirements in place to handle operations. Even to the point of conducting limited targeting.
The effort to place intel cells at the company level just reinforces this effort. Put the tools to accomplish the mission at the lowest level.
Just my two cents.
That's a valid approach as long as resources are not seriously limited. It's likely effective but not very efficient, though.Originally Posted by Crusoe
Combat effectiveness
trumps efficiency. Totally. Unless one can safely remain a theorist...
I'm not sure. If I understand the proposal correctly, it sounds sort of like an attempt to push the MAGTF concept down to company level.
Did anyone else get that impression?
"Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen." - Jeff Cooper
Maybe in some ways it is the MAGTF concept, although I don't see the "air" piece of the task force being incorporated at a company level. I'm think DO was a bit of a reach at this point, so the decision to focus on company level operations is a good one. It seems like more of a natural progression to develop the enhanced companies before working on distributed platoons and squads. After all, a company HQ with better embedded logistics and intel support and its an operations capability would be better able to support distributed operations in the future. I know MCCDC said DO was dead, but I really can see it being a natural outgrowth of ECO.
Where can I find more info on TSULC? Sounds like it would be a great course to push some of our ANGLICO NCOs through, but this is the first I've ever heard of it. We've been trying to get slots to the Army's RSLC as a substitute.
Its all to do with definitions...
...my battalion ran Distributed Ops in the Defence against a superior armoured force on a TESEX last year, which worked very well. Distributed, highly dispersed light role infantry operating as small groups of determined men, with cached CSS, autonamous aufragstaktik guidance, clearly delineated & simple battlespace management and C2 redundancy. It was a great success. By the same token, 'multiples' or 3 x fire teams of 4 men (about the same size as an ODA...) can routinely conduct all sorts of useful activity on operations if connected to the right ISTAR enablers. As ever, it all needs to be J2 led, and this pushed down to Company level. Inefficient? Nonsense. What's inefficient is taking a high school graduate, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars training and equipping him, and then employing him like a WW1 doughboy as part of a swarm, or on a front gate doing fatigues when PMCs could stag on and guard the camp for a fraction of the price. With embedded specialists at the right level, you can get a far greater return on your investment by making your operations meaningful (and I don't just mean CT Strike - J2 led ops apply to EVERYTHING).
Tiger and King Tiger analogies are all great sport, but inappropriate for this. J2 specialists are 'inefficient' if you're trying to resource a clanking great industrial age nation-state army. But we're in a different game today, and we need to be able to do it all.
What's REALLY inefficient is when deterrence fails because assymetric actors feel invulnerable to clumsy retaliation. If we (the West) had grasped this and adapted to the emerging AQ/non state threat in the 90s (numerous clarion Agency warnings, all unheeded), rather than configuring for Desert Storm Ultra, perhaps we'd be a few pages ahead in history than we are today.
Price of preparing for what you want to, rather than what you need to. Perhaps I should write a book....
Yes.
Yes -- but please do it before you're promoted to Brigadier or above -- they seem to often lose the bubble...
My belief is that's due to having carpets on the floor in their offices. There's something about carpet fibers...
Excellent points all.
I broadly concur. Having read and corresponded extensively on DO, I saw nothing in DO that conceptually ruled out the use of Squad, Platoon, or Company. It just wasn't a very well thought out idea in the first place, and it was further challenged (at least in what was written) by seemingly flawed execution.
https://www.mccdc.usmc.mil/FeatureTo...igned%20co.pdf
Considering how many things there are wrong with that statement, it's incredible the idea ever got as far as it did!!Distributed Operations constitutes a form of maneuver warfare. Small, highly capable units spread across a large area of operations will provide the spatial advantage commonly sought in maneuver warfare, in that they will be able to sense an expanded battlespace, and can use close combat or supporting arms, including Joint fires, to disrupt the enemy’s access to key terrain and avenues of approach.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
The traditional infantry could be used for dispersed forms of infantry combat, but changes in equipment and training would be necessary and organizational changes would enhance the effectiveness a lot.
DO kept confusing me because the statements about it were quite contradictory.
Sometimes it was about 6-man teams, in other documents it was about platoons covering huge gaps between each other with indirect support fires.
From what I've heard, the DO platoon in Afghanistan was very successful. I doubt our capability to field more than one or two of these platoons per battalion, however. For one, the DO concept calls for a JTAC per squad. That's 27 JTACs per battalion, not including the air shop in the S-3. The EWTGs can't meet that sort of demand for trained JTACs.
I think the Marine Corps is making the right call to focus on developing company-level operations. We've trained for years to fight as battalions, and only as independent companies as absolutely necessary. Now we move to "Enhanced Companies". I'll be interested to see what capabilities develop out of this, and how exactly my company will be enhanced.
Either way, it looks to be an exciting time for me to take command of a company of Marines.
I'm rather clueless about all those acronyms, but I remember that the USA raised a multi-million men army out of a tiny army in World War II in about three years.
DO has been around as DO and as predecessor forms for more than ten years now.
Any training bottlenecks are wrong excuses imho.
Interestingly enough, there is a certain appeal to me regarding DO, but an almost equal aversion, because I am in the USMC's LAR community, where we have coys of 25 vehicles apiece. Each vehicle, regardless of variant, is crewed by less than 8 Marines, yet the company commander has two forms of high power VHF communications to the vehicle.
If I remember correctly, the structure of DO elements was based around a team riding inside of some JLTV-esque vehicle, which no doubt had the requisite communications and could move about nimbly acoss the battlefield in a mobile role, or presumable slow down to 3.5 mph when dismounted tactics were required.
LAR platoons are currently operating with great depth and width between themselves, and even during the "march up" we did not always operate in mutually supporting (by means of direct fire) elements. The LAV-25's greatest asset is it's sensors, whether it be the stabilized thermal sight, or a vehicle commander with a set of binoculars. I remember being slightly caught off guard during my first field exercise, when I had communication with every one of the other 24 vehicles, and out to a great range. Compare that to my days when the platoon HQ had one VHF radio, and my surprise comes into context.
I think DO has merits, but it was thought out by folks who didn't have any practical experience in any distributed operations outside of the historical constructs they used to explain DO. I am probably wrong and will gladly stand corrected if someone from the Marine Corps comes aboard and sets the record straight. As a result, I think DO bankrupted itself with the gear requirements, and became tough to swallow.
These initiatives often die hard, because during the xperimentation phases, a lot of gucci gear is procured and pushed down - and used well in most cases - for employment because it is just how we do it. Then when it comes time to look at pushing gear sets across the Marine Corps, tough bedgetary choices have to be made. This may be an oversimplification, but I am always ready to eat a little crow.
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