One good thing about OODA

[ericmwalters]

WM writes:

If all you have is pebbles, how quickly you run around an elephant throwning them at him does not really matter. You will never win. And, once you tire yourself out, the elephant can just stomp on you when you have to lie down to rest.

Yes, and the best case of this that I think you are alluding to (and I intend to get to this later) is Rommel in the aftermath of the December 1941 CRUSADER battles. I honestly believe there are more examples than just this and we can talk about those.

Which is why in this particular premise we use the "initial" preference of maneuver over strike and protect when uncertainty is high. It may not always stay that way. But you go in that way first. Of course, this means you must have the capacity to transition into those those other modes effectively--and ideally when your opponent is relatively unready for them. Ideally is the operative word. It doesn't always happen that way. In fact, it won't happen that way with uncomfortable frequency. The idea is that it happens often enough that--on balance--you end up gaining advantage more than you lose it and end up with net gain. And this is one of the implicit things about the OODA loop, particularly WRT the quality of decisions.

Indeed, some of the most interesting things about the CRUSADER battles is how often wrong the Axis was, especially in decentralized C2 modes. Fritz von Mellenthin is pretty blunt about that in his chapter in Panzer Battles. Yet because C2 was decentralized and because the commanders had an implicit understanding of intent, the mistakes were generally self-correcting. The most important Higher Headquarters intervention was when the operations and intelligence officers countermanded Rommel's orders during his "dash to the wire"--incredibly, German two-star and Italian three and four-star generals deferred to the orders of lieutenant colonel and major on the staff when Rommel couldn't be raised on the radio. Still, all that improvisation brilliance won the tactical battles but at the cost of the operational position. Hmmmm.

As the example and discussion points out, all is for naught if (1) you have no capacity for switching between strike, maneuver, and protect (again, a tip of the hat to Robert Leonhard for that insight); and (2) you neglect the essentials of Opertional Art/Campaigning--the sinews of which tend to be on side of force sustainment/survivability over the long haul. The first I hope to cover later, the latter I won't but it's worth noting because we see a number of other examples of this. I should point out, however, an institutional bias in the Marine Corps that papers over this last shortfall. We win battles. We are a purely tactical organization with only limited capability in campaigning compared to other outfits like the Army and Air Force. So it's perhaps natural that you don't see much discussion of this in Marine circles.

[ericmwalters]

reed11b writes regarding the MW Essential Premise #3: Weapons, organizations, techniques, procedures, concepts of operation, and training to accomplish these must be oriented towards achieving higher quality "fast transient" actions when confronted with such situations.

The historical failure of airborne operations would stand in strong contrast to any historical support for this theory. The AH-64 deep strike failure in OIF is another historical counterpoint. Decentralized control provides greater “maneuverability” then emasculating the force structure TO&E
Reed

Hmmm. I probably need to talk about a SPECIFIC example here. Some will say that airborne operations were not historical failures. Even the German air assault on Crete in 1941--catastrophic in casualties as it was--proved an operational success.

The crux of the issue here is "maneuver" in the MW sense of the term and "decisive maneuver" which is what most airborne operations sought to accomplish on the battlefield, which was generally confined to a single, decisive, vertical envelopment. This is not what MW "maneuver" means, particularly when we are talking about the OODA loop. What "maneuver" means in this context is the imagery of two wrestlers, each seeking leverage over his opponent. There are many, many maneuvers--not just one that is judged to be decisive ahead of time. Indeed, the wrestlers aren't sure what pin or hold is going to win the match for them...or whether they're going to win on points.

Most airborne operations sought to achieve a military fait accompli on the battlefield--and this requires a very high degree of certainty regarding the situation to pull off. That's quite different from MW/OODA, which is designed to work in situations of relatively poor certainty/high uncertainty. The problem with airborne operations is that, once the troopers are on the ground, their ability to execute fast transients is extremely limited against certain kinds of enemies. So you want to ensure that the blow truly is decisive just by landing it where you land it, and not depend on the flexibility of the airborne force to overcome signficant opposition once it's on the ground.

Bottom line--you can't execute just ONE "fast transient." In this MW essential premise, the OODA Loop is judged to be an interative process that constantly repeats/cycles, and you have to execute "faster" and "focused" overall/in aggregate, if not in any single iteration. Airborne ops execute one fast transient (operational-level insertion to tactical employment on the ground) and then they can have severe difficulties after that.

Lest anyone think I'm poking the paratroopers in the chest here, let me just say that it works very much the same way for amphibious operations. The one crutch that amphib forces have that airborne forces don't is the potential for very high throughput of follow-on reinforcement and logistical sustainment, provided sufficient facilities are seized early on, compared to purely vertical envelopment. Interestingly, the USMC's initial and tentative forays into Distributed Operations and Ship To Objective Maneuver tended to be much more reminsicient of airborne operations, with all the attendant advantages and disadvantages regarding being able to mount consecutive "fast transients" once on the ground....