Design for military operations

[Ron Humphrey]

Rely on black boxes cause black days

Serious questions, two of them:

How much of all this emphasis today on 'planning,' IPB, MDMP and Design is due solely to the fact that overlarge staffs can afford to expend the effort?

Without getting into the specifics although that may be one piece of it the enablers both digital and otherwise available to commanders has to be seen as a part of it as well. Comparing to the stuff available when I first joined one or two fairly good soldiers can keep tabs on more stuff then 5 or six of us before.

Although I accept the wisdom in the proverb above does that mean you still don't find ways to work those capabilities available into the standard procedures for staffs. The expectation that the enemy gets a vote and that that will be one of his targeted areas may affect how dependant on it you are but isn't that where you focus countering through mutually assured limitations(ex: make sure the only way they knock out comms is to knock em all out thus your both fighting with hands tied behind your back. )?

What is going to happen in a major conflict when those large staffs are unaffordable due to casualties and other personnel issues -- and the time to do all that is simply not available?

That really tough question is made all the tougher by the fact that I'm young and dumb and as such have a somewhat hard time imagining how exactly something like that is going to happen in any context that is not equally as detrimental to ones opponents.

Also because as I look at plans now compared with plans from back then-

That was why Patton, Slim and a few others were able to plan major operations in 24 hours and issue Op Orders on one page. None of these guys even tried to anticipate everything. It was all about preparation, not prediction.

It's hard to see how it's actually any different in its less digitally supported form. IF you have C2 and full staffs you plan with what you have for what you can. IF you run low on either you plan with what you have for what you can. On papyrus if necessary and with a bunch of grunts and new officers instead of 16 -20 highly educated 0-6 and aboves.

Old Asian proverb. Still, that's one approach. Many today will agree.

However, your excellent comments still do not answer either of my questions. Your first point is an approach -- but I suggest that over reliance on communication means that failed has been the downfall of entirely too many Commanders. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that knowledge management will adequately do the job in a major conflict when we will have smaller staffs. That size factor is a given; the current size will not be sustainable in a war with even moderate casualties (as opposed to the light casualties overall in both theaters today). Given smaller staffs and a rapid tempo of combat with casualty rates above 10% per day at times and movements of one-half to ten or more miles day -- in one direction or the other -- I strongly question whether that reach back will be adequate. Nor do I believe it can be sustained. Perhaps some day, though I would question the wisdom of it, we aren't there yet.

Knowledge management only in the sense of what soldiers that have been empowered to share and learn from each other, history, academia, and especially you old guys and are able to perform this with or without static enablers.

The one thing the younger generation has going for it that even my generation only slightly gets, is that everything they learn comes without restrictions as to how it happens. You can build all the infrastructure you want in order to facilitate it but regardless with or without it they will network, collaborate, research, wargame, etc. They will use whatever is available to do that and more often than not it may even be more efficient and or productive then what you provide them. Unfortunately it's also a major opsec problem so there you have the why on what we need to provide them.

No matter what happens on the battlefield it seems to me we have to understand that those coming into the future leadership are not going to end up doing it the way many in the past may have.

The same lessons may apply but how they address them will probably be as radically different as they way cars are built today compared with the Model T.

Look at the enemies we face today, even they manage to come up with remote controls, sat phones, and virtual trainers.

As for involving those not knee deep in the fight, it's been my observation in a bunch of fights that those who are not knee deep in it aren't nearly as interested in that fight as those that are...

While unfortunately true enough and for understandable reasons there should be ways to help address that. One of them is getting those who support you involved in supporting you. Occasionally that means making them a part of the solution. Most that I've met care they just don't necessarily see or feel the impact they can and do have on those on the line. (for good and bad)