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Thread: Fraud or Fuzziness? Dissecting William Owen’s Critique of Maneuver Warfare

  1. #41
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Am I missing something or is

    Quote Originally Posted by ericmwalters View Post
    I'll take the liberty of quoting my April 1995 Marine Corps Gazette article, "Is Mission Control The Weakness of Maneuver Warfare?," which goes into this to some depth. For thread readers, mentally substitute "Directive Control" or "Mission Tactics" for "mission control" (which has nothing to do with NASA or space flight in this context!):
    directive control awfully close to the Soviet process? Sounds like it -- and which is the default, half fish / half fowl solution the US Army had almost inadvertently arrived at (only to be saved by Afghanistan and Iraq).
    Funny to read this again after thirteen years. COIN operations in combat would seem to be engendering decentralization even when our institutions back in the rear aren't able to--at least not able to sufficiently enough.
    True, combat will always do that, not just COIN. Centralization of command only works in peacetime; every war sees more decisions pushed to lower levels -- with no particular problems. You'd think we'd learn...
    Is MW not worth the cost? I suspect it may be in peacetime, but the crucible of extended combat is making us adopt more of its features (the German School aspect of it, anyway). Why else would we be doing development on Enhanced Company Operations (ECO), which is looking more and more like "stosstruppen on steroids?"
    Because ECO makes sense...

    One visitor to Iraq made the comment on a slide that to do better, we had to "Delegate beyond the point of discomfort." Just so -- and we should embrace that but letting go is hard to do...

    Actually, it's worth the cost in peacetime but the US tendency toward micromanagement and the desired retained perks of the upper echelons of the hierarchy mitigate against it; add in that Congress is amenable to funding any kind of superfluous hardware made in multiple districts but loth to fund training -- particularly that training which lets junior officers control the fates of many -- and the likelihood for the much needed improvement of our initial entry training, officer and enlisted, is totally illogically and very regrettably, not good...

  2. #42
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Render View Post
    Sports analogy warning (sorry, it’s football season)…
    Uh. Good. What's football?
    Ken: I think I was leaning toward the Hussites and their war wagons at some point back in there, but your Mongels and infantry outflanked me so I’ll yield the right of way while hiding my chariots behind a hill.
    Happens. Mobility does not equal maneuver. Ask James Ewell Brown Stuart.
    Marines to the front, because somebody has to rescue the Airborne.
    Nor is a battering ram needed to rescue LGOP.

  3. #43
    Council Member ericmwalters's Avatar
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    Default Directive vs Detailed Control and Distributed Operations

    Okay, let me clear this up right quick:

    Detailed Control:

    ...described as coercive, a term which effectively describes the manner by which the commander achieves unity of effort. In such a system, the commander holds a tight rein, commanding by personal direction or detailed directive. Command and control tends to be centralized and formal. Orders and plans are detailed and explicit, and their successful execution requires strict obediance and minimizes subordinate decisonmaking and initiative. Detailed command and control emphasizes vertical, linear information flow: in general, information flows up the chain of command and orders flow down. Discipline and coordination are imposed from above to ensure compliance with the plan. In a system based on detailed command and control, the command and control process tends to move slowly... (pp.77-78, MCDP 6, Command and Control)

    Directive Control:

    [called "mission command and control" in this publication, which was a confusing term. Don't know that "directive control" is any better, but that's what many maneuverists called it when I wrote the April 1995 article--EMW] By contrast, mission command and control accepts the turbulence and uncertainty of war. Rather than increase the level of certainty we seek, by mission command and control we reduce the degree of certainty that we need. Mission command and control can be described as spontaneous: unity of effort is not the product of conformity imposed from above but of the spontaneous cooperation of all the elements of the force. Subordinates are guided not by detailed instructions and control measures but by their knowledge of the requirements of the overall mission. In such a system, the commander holds a loose rein, allowing subordinates significant freedom of action throughout the organization. Because it decentralizes decisionmaking authority and grants subordinates significant freedom of action, mission command and control demands more of leaders at all levels and requires rigorous training and education. Mission command and control tends to be decentralized, informal, and flexible. Orders and plans are as brief and simple as possible, relying on subordinates to effect the necessary coordination and on the human capacity for implicit communication....By decentralizing decisionmaking authority, mission command and control seeks to increase tempo and improve the ability to deal with fluid and disorderly situations.
    (p. 79, MCDP 6, Command and Control)
    I've been asked in other quarters what is driving modern militaries to decentralize, so here's a presentation I did when the USMC was first looking at Distributed Operations. Keep in mind that term is no longer used and has been "officially" quieted--we are doing "Enhanced Company Operations" instead. I'll leave it up to you on what you think that means. We're still working on it. Anyway, this will give you some context.

    This brief entitled "Distributed Operations and Command: A Brief Historical Perspective" is archived in The Defense and the National Interest website here. Those who are interested in what the "old" USMC Distributed Concept was, look here.

    Lastly, slide 7 of my Distributed Ops brief quotes Lind's MANEUVER WARFARE HANDBOOK on what "reconnaissance pull" REALLY is. Yes, MCDP 1 isn't that clear. I wish it was. Good news for the Marine Corps is that our internal correspondence course materials had this explained relatively well (such as the Marine Corps Institute correspondence courses called the Warfighting Skills Program (now defunct) and the older "Warfighting" block for the Amphibious Warfare School (AWS), also defunct--it's now the Expeditionary Warfare School (EWS)). At least the vignette, OPERATION VERBAL IMAGE, which the first chapter in MCDP 6 Command and Control, shows recon pull marvelously as a helicopter pilot touches down to tell an infantry company commander that enemy is coming his way...and they hatch plans together--cooperatively--and the entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force starts to coalesce an operation around the initiative of these two captains...
    Last edited by ericmwalters; 09-18-2008 at 08:36 PM.

  4. #44
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Reading the book definition of Directive Control reassures me that

    my possible misinterpretation is probably indicative of the confusion that unwieldy term and that definition could cause. Instead of all that, why not call it Decentralized Control and describe it thusly:
    Subordinates are guided by their knowledge of the requirements of the overall mission and are given significant freedom of action. Decentralized Control demands more of leaders and requires rigorous training and education. Orders and plans are as brief and simple as possible, relying on subordinates to effect the necessary coordination and on the human capacity for implicit communication. Decentralized Control seeks to increase tempo and improve the ability to deal with fluid and disorderly situations.
    Couching old ideas in new terms always leads to confusion; the US impetus to reject anything "not invented here" is always fascinating -- but is rarely very helpful.

    Having applied that bit of superfluous nit-picking (with no harm or slam intended), I'd like to thank you for the effort you put into the comments. Always good to learn something new and get partly understood background clarified.

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ericmwalters View Post
    Those who are interested in what the "old" USMC Distributed Concept was, look here.
    Sounds like the old Shoot...Move...and Communicate I was taught in the 82nd Airborne. Which leads me to ask has anyone ever looked at the history of Airborne Operations from WW2? They were very good at distributed Operations?

  6. #46
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Render View Post

    Wilf: All in all kudos for the article. Not because I agree with some points and disagree with others, but for spurring an extremely informative and interesting (to me at least) thread. I learned a bunch of stuff, so it had to be good.
    My work here is done....

    Thanks. That is ALL I am trying to do. I am quite prepared to be wrong but I just want a people to question the areas of orthodoxy that seem to serve us poorly.

    What is more, I don't do "original". 99% of what I say has been said by others. I just wave it around a bit!
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
    Uh. Good. What's football?
    uh...

    Something the Army and Navy Academies don't do very well at the collegiate level?

    GALLOPING
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    Council Member ericmwalters's Avatar
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    Default Odds and End for Ken and Slapout

    Ken: I remember talking about labels like "decentralized control" but then we'd have to pair it against "centralized control" in the spectrum. It was felt at the time we were wrestling with MCDP 6 and C2 issues in particular that we wanted to tie it to the commander's style. Was he "directive" kind of person--gives you direction (an azimuth, an aiming point)? Or was he a "detailed" kind of guy--gets in your knickers about seemingly everything? We felt it was the commander's command philosophy that drove the kind of C2you ended up with--directive commanders tended to decentralize, detailed commanders tended to centralize. Of course, none of this thinking ended up translating well, probably due to innumerable revisions along the way to publication (which weren't nearly as bad as what it used to be--then MajGen Paul K. Van Riper, as director C4I, was the parent of MCDP 6 Command and Control and he did it completely outside existing Doctrine Divison channels, which did not endear him to the doctrine gods at Quantico. Even worse for them, he transferred from HQMC to be their boss as Command General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Poetic, I'd say).

    I'm sure this will come up when somebody decides to revise the publications.

    For Slapout--actually, U.S. Army airborne operations provide quite a cautionary tale about both the advantages and disadvantages of distributed operations. Same with Merrill's Mauraders in the CBI theater. While Marines and Airborne tease each other quite a bit, the mentalities are very similar. All I have to do is hold a hip pocket/short class on the attack by 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, against the SS defenders at the Cheneux bridge on 20 December 1944, to get attention from Marines (that unit earned a PUC for its incredible tenacity and courage--relatively few came back alive).

    But the problem with DO is that elements tend to be out of support range of each other, and therein lies the key to defeating the tactic. Defeat in detail is a real risk, and you had better be sure you are more nimble, agile, and mobile than your adversary or you are going to get your butt kicked. There's a number of situations in Sicily, Normandy, and MARKET-GARDEN where that nearly happened--and the fact that it didn't was due more to individual courage/bravery and luck than any tricky/slicky application of the DO concept. As a leader, I don't like counting too reliably on pluck and the gods of war when planning an operation. I like to rig the situation so it simply can't help but succeed, given average luck. 'Course, that's easier said than done!

  9. #49
    Council Member ericmwalters's Avatar
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    Default MW "Orthoroxy" Serving Us Poorly?

    Wilf wrote:

    I am quite prepared to be wrong but I just want...people to question the areas of orthodoxy that seem to serve us poorly.
    I'd like to expand on this for any Small Wars Journal readers who are currently pursuing an advanced degree or thinking of doing so. Fideleon Damian has done good service in explaining how we got FMFM-1 and the Maneuver Wafare "ball" rolling in the Marine Corps. But that isn't the end of the story.

    Wilf brings up the notion of "orthodoxy" here, and I'm assuming he thinks that either maneuver warfare is an "orthodox" concept or there are parts of it that are. Hmmmm. This begs a number of questions that someone could write a master's thesis and/or PhD dissertation on. For starters, let's see what the dictionary definition of "orthodox" is:

    1.a: conforming to established doctrine, expecially in religion; b. conventional. --Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
    So we've gone from "The Maneuver Warfare Fraud" to "The Maneuver Warfare Religion." Fair enough. Some Marines have made that observation in the course of past (far older) maneuver warfare debates: "It's all just religion/theology of warfighting." As you might guess, I smile at the "orthodox" label.

    But religion means beliefs and believers, and it would be interesting to see how many and who these believers have been since MW became doctrine in the Marine Corps. Is MW really orthodoxy in the USMC? And what does this belief mean, for practical purposes? I've suggested that I do not think there are that many who truly believe (and even fewer who can demonstrate effective understanding) of MW in the USMC today. This would be worth a serious academic investigation.

    Secondly, Wilf brings up the question of whether this MW "orthodoxy" (or "religion" or "belief system") serves us poorly. Very good question. I take it from this sentence that he thinks so, but I'm still not clear on why beyond the problem that it's just one style where we should demonstrate mastery of all styles. Okay, I can buy that line of thinking. But remember, MW was designed as an "antidote" for a particularly corrosive "attritionist" ill, and it would be worthwhile to ask whether this specific medicine actually cured the patient of that particular ill. And if it did, were there any undesirable "side effects." I don't know the answer to either of these questions with any degree of evidentiary or analytical defendability. There certainly can be a positive case made for MW, I'd think, given how we achieved some of our more recent victories. But I've not seen any kind of academic study (yet) that explicitly addressed how adopting maneuver warfare as doctrine made this possible. So there is another rich motherlode for serious academic investigation.

    What is great about both topics--(1) was MW actually embraced and followed by the USMC after it became official doctrine? (2) Was it actually effective in improving Marine performance in war?)--is that no matter what answer you arrive at for either question (yes or no), it would be significant.

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ericmwalters View Post
    For Slapout--actually, U.S. Army airborne operations provide quite a cautionary tale about both the advantages and disadvantages of distributed operations. Same with Merrill's Mauraders in the CBI theater. While Marines and Airborne tease each other quite a bit, the mentalities are very similar. All I have to do is hold a hip pocket/short class on the attack by 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, against the SS defenders at the Cheneux bridge on 20 December 1944, to get attention from Marines (that unit earned a PUC for its incredible tenacity and courage--relatively few came back alive).

    But the problem with DO is that elements tend to be out of support range of each other, and therein lies the key to defeating the tactic. Defeat in detail is a real risk, and you had better be sure you are more nimble, agile, and mobile than your adversary or you are going to get your butt kicked. There's a number of situations in Sicily, Normandy, and MARKET-GARDEN where that nearly happened--and the fact that it didn't was due more to individual courage/bravery and luck than any tricky/slicky application of the DO concept. As a leader, I don't like counting too reliably on pluck and the gods of war when planning an operation. I like to rig the situation so it simply can't help but succeed, given average luck. 'Course, that's easier said than done!

    Hi Eric, I was 2/504 and yes being cut off is or was a problem. With more modern resupply and fire support that becomes less of a risk. That is DO's problem from what I have read...also sometimes taking a risk is not taking a risk because it is unexpected. MG Robert Scales wrote a paper I read called Precision manuever or something like that, which somewhat addresses the problem. But I have never understood why you would want to seperate Firepower and Manuever??? as Wilf points out in his article? It's like Baptist Iced Tea... you have to have a lot of sugar in it or it just isn't tea. And in SBW-Slapout Based Warfare it's all 3- manuver,firepower and communications. We should not be seperating to a single concept we should be combining to create muti-option concept. Just my thoughts for now more later getting kinda busy at work but I will pop in when I can.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ericmwalters View Post
    Wilf brings up the question of whether this MW "orthodoxy" (or "religion" or "belief system") serves us poorly. Very good question. I take it from this sentence that he thinks so, but I'm still not clear on why beyond the problem that it's just one style where we should demonstrate mastery of all styles. Okay, I can buy that line of thinking. But remember, MW was designed as an "antidote" for a particularly corrosive "attritionist" ill, and it would be worthwhile to ask whether this specific medicine actually cured the patient of that particular ill.
    I actually use the words, "I just want a people to question the areas of orthodoxy that seem to serve us poorly," in full realisation of the religious connotation. Military doctrine has a vast number of similarities with religion - eg: the use of poor or non-existent evidence, maintaining an belief in the face of evidence to contrary.

    Let me state for the record, my complaint against "MW" is the selective use of the evidence used to promote it. - If someone does "MW", and it works, then "way cool!" .

    ...but if someone tells me that the German March 1918 is an example of "MW" I am going to argue very long and hard that it is no such thing, and that to claim it is, is to corrupt the operational record and to create a fallacy - because to believe it was, is neither true nor useful.
    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

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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Default In the new Army lexicon its 6 WFFs

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    I have never understood why you would want to seperate Firepower and Manuever??? as Wilf points out in his article? It's like Baptist Iced Tea... you have to have a lot of sugar in it or it just isn't tea. And in SBW-Slapout Based Warfare it's all 3- manuver,firepower and communications. We should not be seperating to a single concept we should be combining to create muti-option concept. Just my thoughts for now more later getting kinda busy at work but I will pop in when I can.
    While I like Slap's "shoot, scoot, and communicate" triumvirate, I think we need to add a little more to the equation.

    As we find in the Feb 2007 Army doctrine updates posted to SWJ, the Army now recognizes 6 WFFs. WFFs are warfighting functions--they used to be Battlefield Operating Systems (BOS). A WFF is defined as a group of tasks and systems (people, organizations, information, and processes) united by a common purpose that commanders use to accomplish missions and training objectives. The 6 WFFs are: intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires, protection, sustainment and C2.

    So, if we accept the TRADOC analysis, SBW is missing intell, protection, and sustainment as pieces of the solution
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  13. #53
    Council Member ericmwalters's Avatar
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    Default Marketing MW and Selective Evidence

    Now this is an interesting line of inquiry, but it's much broader than merely Maneuver Warfare....

    Wilf writes:

    Let me state for the record, my complaint against "MW" is the selective use of the evidence used to promote it. - If someone does "MW", and it works, then "way cool!"
    I'd argue that this is a problem that just about EVERY concept has when you are trying to "market" it to the uninitiated. What people do is trot out the supposed "best examples." Well, maybe it's better to say that they are the "most illustrative examples," and not necessarily the best. And for sure they are not the most representative examples.

    I think Wilf's frustration is that it seems to stop there. People swallow the marketing materials and that's as far as it goes. The religious analogies are germane--I grew up Lutheran and went through parochial school...when I was in college, I'd get some very eager Jehovah's Witnesses at my door and I was one of the few who'd invite them in for a soda and talk. Nearly every one of these eager beavers was completely theologically unprepared for the ensuing conversation; their understanding was "pamphlet deep." I was not challenging their belief. I was challenging the basis for that belief, given that they expected me to be convinced. While I'm sure they were at first overjoyed at my invitations and then disappointed that they didn't win over a convert, I'd like to think they were a bit richer for the dialogue and the experience.

    You don't see this outside of the Marine Corps and you have a difficult time seeing it inside the Marine Corps, but MW was supposed to have been sustained and improved through a lot of military history reading, military societies (like the one Scharnhorst ran), human-to-human wargaming, and plenty of Tactical Decision Games (TDGs). These would be the "morning and evening vespers" and chapels for the faithful. The lack of these would indicate not much faith in the "orthodoxy." The fact that the Marine Corps Association can't publish TDGs in the pages of the Marine Corps Gazette because of a lack of submissions (and when they were publishing them once upon a time it was always "the usual band of suspects" providing solutions) bears testament to the hollowness of MW as a well-practiced and comprehended concept. I could well be quite wrong. It could be that, since 9/11, we've simply been too busy. And maybe now, in the crucible of combat, we've practiced the concept for real and have a rich understanding of it.

    But it was this kind of practicing, study, and fellowship/community of the faithful (my, these are religious terms!) that must exist for any kind of real depth of understanding to occur. Merely getting a few hours of class on the topic in formal military schools or the 50-minute "maneuver warfare" PME brief in the unit is simply not going to be enough.

    So I share Wilf's frustration in superficial understandings and comprehensions of the MW concept. I run my own TDGs, Case Studies, Reading List discussion guides, wargaming curriculum, and all manner of things thereunto pertaining (and I'll be happy to provide copies of this to anyone who asks; e-mail me at ericmwalters@yahoo.com). My G2 Marines suffer the slings and arrows of my "mandatory" PME sessions. But I know I'm the minority and am not sufficiently aware of similiar efforts.

    Now, the question of marketing a concept remains. How else do you do it save by providing the simplest, easiest to grasp examples...even if they are a bit shallow? Of course, one would hope that, once enticed, interested people get a bit of the caveat for the example, saying "well, not every operation is like Guderian on the Meuse, of course--your mileage may vary." And then we start getting the more "representative examples." But you and I (and everyone else) knows this rarely--if ever--happens....

    And I could say this very same thing about any concept for any pursuit in life...anything. So this is a much larger question about marketing versus teaching concepts and not confined to Maneuver Warfare.

  14. #54
    Council Member Ratzel's Avatar
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    "While the selective use of examples by MW adherents has sought to prove them as opposing or differing styles, they are better explained as complimentary." (William F. Owen)

    I think this statement is the most important thing I took away from this article. Instead of developing a doctrine that features one kind of thought or another, we should be developing [A]leaders[/U] who can asses situations and react with the assets available to them. Sometimes this will require bypassing an enemy strong point and moving to his rear areas to confuse and disorient him. Other times it might be necessary to smash the enemy at his strong point. There is no right answer, except the one that works.

    This doesn't mean we shouldn't think about different ways of overcoming an enemy, or accomplishing a mission, it just means we shouldn't base our whole zeitgeist on one kind of tactics. The overreaching military zeitgeist should be that of a "leader-centric" variety. Figuring out how to develop quick thinking problem solvers with an arsenal of knowledge should be the number one project we embark on..

    During OIF the two biggest battles showcased both maneuver warfare, and attrition warfare. During OIF I, coalition forces used maneuver warfare to take down Iraq in 3 weeks. Later on, during the second battle of Fallujah, it was necessary to use attrition-like tactics while clearing every room in the city. Both of these scenarios required differing tactics and approaches.
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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    But religion means beliefs and believers, and it would be interesting to see how many and who these believers have been since MW became doctrine in the Marine Corps. Is MW really orthodoxy in the USMC? And what does this belief mean, for practical purposes? I've suggested that I do not think there are that many who truly believe (and even fewer who can demonstrate effective understanding) of MW in the USMC today. This would be worth a serious academic investigation.
    I would certainly not consider myself to have an effective grasp of MW, but perhaps I can assist with this line of query, based on my training, career timeline, and operational background:

    -I graduated TBS in 1996, AWS in 2002, and am in the midst of C&S non-resident right now.
    -I participated in ops in Somalia in '94, OIF, OIF 2.2, and am currently on a OIF 08.2 rotation. I also participated in the March Up, and Fallujah vers 2.0
    -I've been an infantryman all the way through.

    -I believe that the enemy is a series of parts that aggregate as a system, and since he is a system, you can attack certain elements of that system and eventually defeat the whole. That is why we have high value and high payoff targets.
    -I was taught that at the Company and often Battalion-level, every atack is a frontal attack. You need to get to the Operational Level of war before maneuver is apparent.
    -I believe that speed and tempo are relative. It doesn't matter if you are slow, so long as you are faster than your oppo and continuously force him to react to you. This is true for both the offense and defense. If you can force him to hit more decision points than he can realistically manage, as well as making those decision pts somewhat cloudy as to what is truly going on, you stand an even better chance of defeating the enemy on your terms as opposed to stumbling upon victory.
    -I believe that certain concepts, like OMFTS, can run afoul of simple issues like weather. We are limited in our operations right now by "red air" days. It doesn't necessarily mean that the enemy will stop moving on the ground.
    -Fallujah was a fight where we were attempting to seize terrain, and thus that necessitated a frontal attack of sorts. Even within that attack though, there were supporting efforts that were designed to offer commanders a certain degree of freedom of maneuver should the opportunity present itself. We also shaped the hell out of that fight (from IO, PSYOP, fires, HUMINT, you name it), but the details of those things just aren't out there to be able to readily recognize.
    -COIN totally changes the rulez!
    Last edited by jcustis; 09-21-2008 at 10:27 AM.

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    Council Member ericmwalters's Avatar
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    Default A few words from Colonel Mike D. Wyly, USMC (Ret.)

    I'll confess I'd been egging on Mike Wyly to say something about this, given that he got in on "the ground floor" of the MW movement and was--if you read Fideleon Damian's thesis--perhaps the most important major player in MW as he was inculcating its ideas in the heads of a lot of captains at the time (myself included)....

    Anyway, he sent me an e-mail on this debate and is letting me quote him here:

    Two points I would make right off the bat:

    1. First and most important - From the standpoint of my involvement in proposing change to how we fought, which began in earnest in 1972 when I was an AWS student, it, in the beginning, had nothing to do with Blitzkrieg or the Israelis, or rapidity or the OODA Loop. Those things came later. My concern was singular: We were not studying our profession in a scholarly way. I was an academy grad, I'd been to several Marine and Army professional schools, and no one had required me to look into and learn whatever Nimitz, Patton, et al., had learned.

    Academy curriculum had morphed more and more into the curriculum of a civilian universtiy - the result of some kind of an inferiority complex the Navy seemed to have. Marine schools had settled into teaching rules and checklists, not theory. I was a bachelor at AWS with no wife to want me home in the evenings and little interest in boozing it up at Liversedge so I spent my evenings at Breckinridge Library. I READ FERDINAND FOCH'S "PRINCIPLES OF WAR" among many, many other works because I felt like that's what a professional officer ought to be doing. To skip over many details of a very long story, when I found myself on the faculty of AWS in 1979, I decided it was time to start doing whatever I could in whatever small way to fix the problem of not approaching our profession as would a scientist or an artist, looking for new ways, better ways--just viable ways--to do our job effectively. That's WHY I introduced myself to anyone and everyone who seemed to be working on the problem, too. That's why I introduced myself to Bill Lind in 1979 and it's why I took Bill up on his suggestion that I introduce myself to John Boyd. It's why I went into General Trainor and argued that we ought to get Col. Boyd down to Quantico. And then as we moved forward, sifting through the body of literature that existed, including Foch (whose writings didn't electrify me), Fuller (whose writings did electrify me), Liddell Hart (who was useful in a number of ways), Manstein (whose writings were great), sifting, rejecting, accepting - and out of it all came something that somebody (over my objection and over Boyd's objection) had decided to call Maneuver Warfare. But the MW buzzword was catching on and this was a good thing. Neither John nor I thought it would be productive to waste time arguing over a name - that was, after all, part of the problem at Quantico. Marine officers were arguing over names for control measures and checklists for attacks and defenses. Out of it came what went into FMFM-1 after Al Gray became CMC. So--it's not as Owens seems to think-- that somebody had a theory he wanted to float. All we really wanted to do was to get professionals acting like professionals, studying, questioning, etc. I hope we are still doing that.

    2. This one just a burr that stays under my saddle. THERE IS NO DISCONNECT BETWEEN SO-CALLED MANEUVER WARFARE AND COUNTERINSURGENCY AND COUNTERTERRORISM. I can lay it all out for the 999th time - but not now.

  17. #57
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    So--it's not as Owens seems to think-- that somebody had a theory he wanted to float. All we really wanted to do was to get professionals acting like professionals, studying, questioning, etc. I hope we are still doing that.
    Owen (note: no s) never said someone had a theory to float. To quote my article,
    This paper will argue that the community it was intended to
    serve based its wide acceptance largely on ignorance and a lack of intellectual
    rigour.
    Please note: "Wide acceptance" and "largely on ignorance." I then examined all the major works usually cited in defence of the concept, and to demonstrate that the use of the historical examples, had clearly not been subjected to rigour.

    I am in no way surprise that Col Wyly has read all the major relevant works. The Colonel patently did do rigourous work, as did many others.

    As I have said before, if MW did something good for the USMC, then cool. That's not the source of my complaint. My questions still remain,

    a.) Are Attrition and Manoeuvre "opposing styles of warfare"?
    b.) Did Sun-Tzu write for Emperors or Generals?
    c.) Is BLH's Strategy, actually good/useful military history and theory?
    d.) Why is Recon Pull, and the OODA loop part of MW theory?
    Last edited by William F. Owen; 09-26-2008 at 03:07 PM. Reason: Making sure I spelt all the names right
    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

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    Default Good Questions, Some Answers, Some Deferrals

    Wilf asks:

    a.) Are Attrition and Manoeuvre "opposing styles of warfare"?
    b.) Did Sun-Tzu write for Emperors or Generals?
    c.) Is BLH's Strategy, actually good/useful military history and theory?
    d.) Why is Recon Pull, and the OODA loop part of MW theory?
    All good questions that he still thinks he needs answers for. So I'll take a stab at summarizing where I think I can. Some I can't without additional explanation and I'll have to defer the answer for other threads, other places, and with much more depth.

    Are Attrition and Manoeuvre "opposing styles of warfare?" I'd argue they are "opposite" in many ways, but not "opposing" in the sense that one is going to triumph over the other. As has been said before (by Wilf and others), a master of the art of war needs both in the kitbag. They are possibly complementary, depending on how a campaign or war unfolds--you may be able to use one style to push the opponent where you can best attack him using another style. But they are indeed opposite styles in the sense of the methods used to achieve the result. If this isn't clear, consider style in the fine arts world--music for example. Jazz Band improvisation or formal symphony hall orchestra? Both can be pleasing to the ear, but take opposite approaches towards achieving that sound. They are certainly not "opposing" styles...and I'm curious where we see this characterization in the literature.

    Did Sun-Tzu write for Emperors or Generals? Not sure how that relates to the issue at first blush. This probably deserves another discussion thread. My short answer is that he wrote for emperors, mostly so the bloodshed that had been so rampant in the Warring States period could (1) be reduced through a reduction of "unnecessary wars," (something only sovereigns with the power to make and end war can do) and (2) if the sovereign is going to mount a campaign, there's at least some basics that can't be ignored if he is going to conserve strength and resources to achieve greater victory at the least cost. I think Wilf may be hinting that the maneuverists' fondness for Master Sun may be inexpertly applied to tactical matters and audiences, which aren't really the best fit. But I don't know this and perhaps he can clarify why this question is germane to the discussion.

    Is BLH's Strategy, actually good/useful military history and theory? Frustratingly for some, I will answer that it depends on who you are and what you do with the "useful" history and theory. For me personally, it's very interesting and explains a good deal of why some historical decisionmakers may have done what they did, particularly if they were at all influenced by his work. But do I find myself thinking about it when I'm attacking my opponents in wargames? No. Because it's too obvious that you should take "the indirect approach" when you can. The real problem for me, personally, is accurately evaluating "when you can" and especially "when you can't." I'm reminded of a game I did last year as the Hessian General William Knyphausen, running a feint against George Washington and Lafayette at the Battle of the Brandywine. Maybe it's because I'm a product of my Marine culture, but I didn't do much flanking, even though I could have. I took very much the direct approach because: (1) I thought I could pull it off given my opponent that day; (2) I needed to immediately fix the maximum amount of Allied combat power so that the northern flanking force (Cornwallis, played by a teammate) could make the most headway before Washington could respond; and (3) I was always going to maintain the threat of flanking (keep that complementary force dilemma going) at all times, even when I wasn't doing it--that way Washington's reinforcements would come my way and not elsewhere).

    That said, when I ran some TDGs in my "Surfaces and Gaps" series--despite read aheads that talked about the utility of "going 'round" and one of Wyly's solitaire/practice TDGs in Maneuver Warfare Handbook--when we did the TDG "wind sprints" I witnessed my seasoned Marine officers and SNCOs hurling individual fireteams 300 meters across open ground against enemy squads with automatic weapons on hilltops with insufficient smoke/suppressive fire. Had the attackers been Gurkhas or British Marines and the defenders been Argentinian conscripts at the Falklands, this might have worked. But this is not a method I would rely upon for success in most cases. For these Marines, reading BLH's Strategy might do them some good.

    Why is Recon Pull and the OODA loop part of MW theory? This is a most important question and the one I really must defer because the answer isn't easy to summarize with any real sufficiency. I'd argue, for the sake of making my position known, that the OODA loop is a necessary part--indeed is a foundational proposition--for both "German School" and "Soviet School" MW. I'll have to explain that in some detail over at the OODA Loop thread next week because I know that just making this bald statement is completely unsatisfactory without justification. Recon-Pull is ONLY a part of "German School" MW theory--it does not exist in the "Soviet School." Again, that deserves some explanation. My apologies that I'm only whetting appetites here, but I cannot do more at present. Bear with me and I'll get to that. It's going to be a long ride, I'll just warn you.
    Last edited by ericmwalters; 09-26-2008 at 04:41 PM.

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    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ericmwalters View Post
    My apologies that I'm only whetting appetites here, but I cannot do more at present. Bear with me and I'll get to that. It's going to be a long ride, I'll just warn you.
    Eric,

    Your posts have been thoughtful, balanced, and enlightening. I appreciate your efforts to educate us from your experience. I for one am learning a lot on these threads.
    "A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes
    Who is Cavguy?

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    Default More Wyly's Wisdom

    Yet another e-mail snippet I've gotten permission to post from the eminent Michael D. Wyly:

    It was never my, John Boyd's, or any of the others' who worked and wrote to form the tenets of what we now call maneuver warfare, intent that we produce some new doctrine (Boyd eschewed the word "doctrine") that would stand unchanged over the years. What we wanted was an Officer Corps of professionals that would keep military thought alive and dynamic. In other words, the debate must go on. It must be unending. And it must be based on real and open minded, relentless study of what works in war. And the only way we have of knowing what works is through a good undestanding of what has worked. But we need to realize, too, we can never be sure. He who has to wait until he is sure is of little value in combat. The ability to decide and act and apply sound judgment trumps knowledge in a battle. --MIKE WYLY

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