One good thing about OODA

[ericmwalters]

wm writes:

How about cases for deliberate attack or movement to contact where our side starts on the offensive--perhaps something more like Marines storming ashore at Tarawa.

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." I can cite instances and sources if you want.

I only talked about the "meeting engagement" because Wilf was asking the question on how that might work. Recon pull also works in the defense--in fact, this is where the Germans first got the idea for it as they were economizing forces on the Western Front in WWI. I'd refer you to Bruce I Gudmundsson's excellent Stormtroop Tactics for a detailed discussion, but even Tim Lupfer traces this in his Fort Leavenworth monograph, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War.

Does this answer your question? They key here is that the situation is uncertain--it doesn't matter what your force mission is (attack, defense, etc).

[ericmwalters]

wm asks:

What keeps this from becoming a series of piecemeal attacks that get defeated in detail? By the time the formation commander has enough situational awareness to "command 'by negation,'" things may have gone too far to extract some or all of the committed elements that got the commander's intent wrong, misread the situation, or just plain got surrounded by "Indians at the end of that box canyon they stormed into" because the bad guys reacted/acted faster than our own forces did.

That indeed is the difficulty with the concept--a good intent, a common understanding between element leaders of who or what the main effort is, and strong lateral communications are an absolute must to prevent this from happening. Many believe that establishing this is just too hard to rely upon. But we've got plenty of cases to show how it can work and why. I'll get into the cases later about when it doesn't. Certainly the Soviets felt much the same way as you do--and Leonhard (and I) would also agree that the United States ground forces often feel the same way as well. The question is whether we'll ever do better. The Marines are trying--thus their adoption of "German School MW" as doctrine.

[wm]

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).

[Ken White]

...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).

Dare I say it yet again?

METT-TC. Takes space to maneuver and it should make sense to do so. Innovative, intuitive and flexible commanders will generally use the appropriate tactic or operational technique. Selection of the right people for command is a far more important discriminator of success in combat than all the 'improvements' in doctrine. Lacking the desire to do that selection properly, we're forced to try technique modification looking for girls. Er, grails...

[ericmwalters]

wm writes:

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:

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.

[wm]

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.

I suspect that MW is a concept with applicability at the operational level. Now that requires some level of debate about what constitutes the operational level of warfare. Once upon a time, I would have tried to draw that distinction based on the size of the headquarters conducting the effort {with the caveat that headquarters implicitly have a set of support forces/functions associated with them--e.g, a division has a fire support element (DIVARTY w 3/4 firing Bns,, a recon element (Cav squadron), a maneuver support element (Engineers, Intel/EW, AD, MP) and a sustinment base of supply, maintenance, trans (DISCOM)}. Now I think I'd draw the line at the force's ability to be self-sustaining for a duration of time that I am open to discuss, but about a month seems right to me.

Below that level of command/force structure we are talking tactics and above it we are talking strategy or even grand strategy. So Tarawa on the ground was tactical application of standard fire and maneuver--the kind of stuff that hapens as low as the squad level using two fire teams. Leading up to the landings one might see MW at play (if US Forces were actively probing the whole area of the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas, looking for the "soft" spot to attack and draw the greatest Japanese response into a fire pocket of annihilation). But that seems not to have been what actually happened. In fact at least one perspective is that we made the Japanese think they needed a build up on Tarawa--apparently we needed Tarawa out of the way so we could have free supply lines to island hop up to the Phillipines. But I'll drop the historical discussion as tangential to the main point being discussed here.

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.

I submit that no battle/operation/campaign goes at it was planned to, which makes suspect any discussion of what really happened (as compared to what was planned to have happened).

I think we could say that understanding MW based on the German Spring 1918 series of offensives is a case of recognizing that maybe the game plan ought to be to let the QB call a lot of audibles rather than try to coach from the sidelines. Sometimes, we just hand the halfback the ball and let him pick his own hole to run through; sometimes we use a fullback dive through the 3 hole; sometimes we even quick kick. That's all fine provided you have a Glenn Davis and an Arnold tucker and not just a Doc Blanchard (1947 Army backfield). But it goes back to the point that Ken White and I have made in many places on these discussions (Ken recently in this thread)--you make your plans and execute based on METT-TC.
And that answers the following:

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.

First let me say that the "art of war" is not applicable at the tactical level. Second, Boyd's categorizations may be valuable shorthand, but being shorthand descriptions, they are as likely to cause confusion as to clarify--to simplify is to inject error.
Next, I assert that great leaders are able to motivate those who work for them to get great results. (Good leaders get good results; poor leaders, poor results.) Part of the process of doing that is being able to evaluate what one has to do in terms of what one has to do it with. To place that in an OODA context, think of Observe and Orient as being not only looking and understanding the other guy. One must also observe and orient oneself to the area in which he is operating and the forces with which he operates. One's staff is part of that force. So are the logistics assets available to the force.
The difference between Good Leadership and the Art of War is in the ability to make the best of what you have--that's good leadership--and providing a force that has the capabilities leaders need to fight and win--that's the art of war. On another thread, I suggested that prior to reading Clauswitz one ought to read Machiavelli's Art of War--most of that book is about building an army and then organizing it in garrison, camp and on the march so that it can react effectively on enemy contact. It's been a while, but I seem to recall that Vegetius spends a lot of time on the same types of subjects as Machiavelli.

BTW, my biggest heartburn with wargaming is that the problem of motivating subordinates, the real challenge of leadership, is usually not included in the sim. I'll quote Vizzini in The Princess Bride, "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" How does any wargame simulate that vital piece of war?

[selil]

...I submit that no battle/operation/campaign goes at it was planned to...

I would suggest that as a cliche of military activities the "No plan withstands contact with the enemy - Helmut von Moltke" line should be excised with extreme prejudice.

First, it by reference it suggests there really is no point in planning. I'm not going to believe that planning has no place and I think the cliche comes from large battle formation high intensity warfare where communication was limited. I like dead Prussian writers as much as the next guy but the over use of homilies erodes the discussion as much as religious pandering and zealotry would.

Second, it is to often used as an excuse or a sideways attack against discussing strategy. It gets trotted out anytime somebody wants to shut somebody else up working through a set of strategies.

Third, we have high speed, high density, high reliability communications and it is a matter of fact that broad intentions can have as much relevance to planning while relying on technology for coordination. Mogadishu swarm attacks anybody?

WM I don't think you were trying to use that trite cliche as overly broad but I have noticed it getting trotted out more and more lately. I think that the meaning of it has been lost and it has become a stop sign for debate. Cliches can often take on new meanings that were never intended.

[CR6]

I would suggest that as a cliche of military activities the "No plan withstands contact with the enemy - Helmut von Moltke" line should be excised with extreme prejudice.

If anyone relies on that quote to justify not planning, they should be excised with extreme prejudice!

You make a good point Sam, but I think thst the value of Moltke's quote stems from the idea that commanders and staffs cannot remain wedded to their plan in conditions on the ground prove their assumptions to be invalid or if things have changed to the point where the plan is irrelevant. You plan in order to be prepared to achieve your objective, but it needs to be flexible enough to deal with changes rather than serve as a script to be adhered to at all costs. As Eisenhower said, "Plans are nothing; planning is everything."

[wm]

I would suggest that as a cliche of military activities the "No plan withstands contact with the enemy - Helmut von Moltke" line should be excised with extreme prejudice.

First, it by reference it suggests there really is no point in planning. I'm not going to believe that planning has no place and I think the cliche comes from large battle formation high intensity warfare where communication was limited. I like dead Prussian writers as much as the next guy but the over use of homilies erodes the discussion as much as religious pandering and zealotry would.

Second, it is to often used as an excuse or a sideways attack against discussing strategy. It gets trotted out anytime somebody wants to shut somebody else up working through a set of strategies.

Third, we have high speed, high density, high reliability communications and it is a matter of fact that broad intentions can have as much relevance to planning while relying on technology for coordination. Mogadishu swarm attacks anybody?

WM I don't think you were trying to use that trite cliche as overly broad but I have noticed it getting trotted out more and more lately. I think that the meaning of it has been lost and it has become a stop sign for debate. Cliches can often take on new meanings that were never intended.

Sam,
Thanks. You're right that was not how I was using it. I was instead using it to point ought how trite EMW's response was about Tarawa and Normandy not going as planned.
BTW, the use of the Michael Offensive as a postivie example is subject to the same rebuttal--the plan to do recon pull MW didn't quite come off as expected. If it had, folks might all be speaking German in what is now France, Belgium and the Netherlands, a guy named Adolf Hitler may not have been able to orchestra a holocaust, we might not be embroiled in the GWOT because the French and Brits wouldn't have screwed up the Mid-East so badly as a result of their execution of provisions of the Treaties of Versailles and Lausanne, and Georgia might not have been invaded because the former Soviet Union might have had to actually honor the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

But we really shouldn't be doing "what if" history now, should we?

I'd say that the real point is that one needs to be prepared for the unexpected and be nimble enough to react to it. Planning is not a "done once and over" effort--it is a continuous process informed by developing situational awareness as things go forward. (This is where the disparaged chess analogy comes into sharp focus IMHO.) While one may not be able to plan for every contingency, one can plan for the fact that things may (probably will) not go exactly as expected and have a reaction capability on call.