Training observations

[JMA]

As with any conflict the issue is determining which lessons are specific to this time & space (the war) and which lessons are applicable to all times & space (a war). The process that the UK is going through is therefore much like that it underwent post-Boer War (demonstrated in Spencer Jones excellent book From Boer War to World War), indeed many of the lessons are not new and are simply old lessons relearnt.

12 years later. What would be interesting is what the ranks of the the officers with Boer War experience were at the time of the Boer War. This also for the senior NCOs.

Bought the book on Kindle, thank you.

Afghanistan was a limited war fought with limited means and to uncertain strategic ends. The big lesson from Afghanistan is how to use military means to achieve policy ends in the current (western liberal) social and political climate which demands wars of discretion be fought not for national interest but for moral imperatives, with a finite horizon and very low appetite for risk.

It was a cock-up.

The decision to stay and get involved with 'nation building' rather than leave after the Taliban broke and ran for Pakistan with the threat to come back if AQ ever returned was a catastrophic error.

At the lower tactical level the lessons revolve around targeting and planning cycles, understanding and mitigating risk, use of PGMs, the reluctance to use Fires (indirect & direct) to suppress and a focus on using them to destroy (this in turn born out of an intolerance for collateral damage), tempo and combined arms manoeuvre (emphasis being on manoeuvre).

It is at this 'lower tactical level' that future senior officers and senior NCOs learn their trade. The question is whether these future generals and sergeants major have been exposed to war/combat/operations sufficiently to give them the needed grounding? Or did they just have the odd 6 months tour over a number of years?

Structurally UK infantry has fundamentally reshaped and augmented battalion HQ structures and Rifle Coy structures. Adaptive Force brigades are geographically focused on specific areas and career streams are opening up similar to the US Foreign Military Service Officer stream.

How exactly does all this improve the Brit military as a fighting force?

Whenever I hear of reorgs and reshapings I think of this quote:

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.” - Charlton Ogburn, pp. 32-33, “Merrill’s Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure,” Harper’s Magazine, January 1957

Previously falsely attributed to Gaius Petronius Arbiter

With most company commanders and below having known nothing but Afghanistan the army is to a large extent captive to its own experiences, there is a depth but not breadth of knowledge. Few have experience of training in combined arms manoeuvre against a peer foe or of operating outside of a Forward Operating Base lay down.

Well that is another self inflicted wound.

The Brit rotation was 6 months in Afghan and then 18 months sitting around doing apparently very little before the next tour.

I asked again and again (in the Afghan thread) whether the most productive use of the 18 months had been made. No satisfactory reply. I am left to assume that the Brits being financial over extended anyway that there were no respources available to continue with training in other phases/types of warfare.

In 1914 approx 40% of the BEF's established 165,000 strength had served with the Colours for 2 years or less. The British Army is already discharging officers and soldiers who have completed their minimum engagement period but who have never deployed on operations. Armies are traditionally young and traditionally inexperienced.

Not sure where you are going with this.

I would suggest that an important statistic is rather what percentage of officers and senior NCOs with significant combat exposure are retained to be in place for the next war ... and having passed on their experience in the intervening period.

I remind you a lesson from the Australian experience (this quote from the Brit document 'Serve to Lead'):

"In August 1942 the 39th and 53rd Battalions of the Australian Militia, composed of 18 year old conscripts, collided with a Japanese brigade advancing south across Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Trail. The 53rd battalion turned and ran. The 39th battalion, which a few weeks earlier had received an influx of experienced officers and NCO’s, stood its ground and over the next month fought the Japanese to a standstill. This action is regarded as a test in laboratory conditions of the impact of leadership on fighting performance."

So sadly the Brits have missed the point again.

PS: good to see you back posting. May be travelling to mud-island shortly, you around?