Army Doctrine Reengineering and the Loss of Any Historical Perspective

[Fuchs]

I have here a book written by Eike Middeldorf in the 50's. He was later responsible for the early FMs of the Bundeswehr in our Ministry of Defence.
The book is quite general - about all relevant facets of land warfare (context Germany 50's).

It has less than 500 pages and could easily replace a dozen manuals of that time. There's not the same degree of detail, but taken together it's the best in military writing that I've ever seen.
Sadly, it's in great part not timeless at all - much was outdated already in the late 60's (the leadership-related parts were outstanding, though).
(An earlier work of him was equally great (Taktik im Russlandfeldzug - tactics in Russian campaign) and claimed to have been translated in three languages (most likely including English), but I never saw any English copy.


I personally see little problem in plenty background info. Officers should sit together with more experienced officers and most senior NCOs at times (no uniform, no rank insignia, casual and civilian atmosphere) and just discuss/interpret manuals as if they were beautiful literature.
It would be worth two afternoons per month.



A good example for great FMs at the vehicle/NCO level were the German Tigerfibel, Pantherfibel and Schiessfibel (fighter shooting guide) of WW2. They're almost fun to read.
http://www.panzerlexikon.de/hinter/Tigerfibel/menu.htm
http://www.panther1944.de/Panther/fibel/fibel.htm
http://www.rafiger.de/Homepage/Pages/Schiessfibel.html

They're way better than the usual weapons-specific FMs.

[selil]

When I see text length requirements I think that there is either an extensive over-writing problem or a poor reading problem. On the former concision is a skill not wrought by bureaucrats or dinosaurs. On the latter reading in serial is a flaw of the under-understood. The expectation a reader should or will read everything word for word is a passing futility that shouldn't be or expected of the reader. That density of the material should be arbitrarily set is also a failure. Pithy, lengthy, laborious passages give depth.

I would suggest that we need to teach officers how to read at all ranks. It is a skill lost to many. I am not talking about grammar but an innate skill learned specifically to cover vast amounts of information with high conceptual understanding rapidly.