Multinational corps and formations

[Fuchs]

That's already quite slow for mobile warfare, especially on the part of the brigades (unless they're resting in a camp).

[William F. Owen]

That's already quite slow for mobile warfare, especially on the part of the brigades (unless they're resting in a camp).

Maybe but IIRC, Guderian's Corps orders were for operations were issued about every 24 hours. Orders issued at midnight should carry through for 24 hours. EG: He issues Corps Order No 14 at 20:00hrs on the 27th and does not issue 15 until 23:15 on the 28th.

[Red Rat]

We allow (hours):

++++++++++++Execute++++++++++++++Planning and Observation

Corps ++++++++ 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 24-96

Div ++++++++++ 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 12-48

Bde ++++++++++ 12 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 6 - 30

'Execute' is time from receipt of orders through battle procedure to executing the plan. That is quite slow but:

a) We never claimed to be good at manoeuvre warfare (unlike COIN )

b) Rather then rely on a finely honed HQ of men (and women) tried, trained and few, we have dumbed down our officer corps and added layers of process and bureacracy instead - all of which adds time and diminshes tempo. We call it progress

[Fuchs]

Those are crappy peacetime figures. They were thrown overboard in 2003 even by the U.S.Army and that was overdue.

Formation leaders who lead from their Schwerpunkt (up front) were able to make on the spot decisions and turn around their formation or a big chunk of it in much less than two hours.


The allowance of days for preparations should be a relic of the days when front lines were established and defended. Formations had to be much, much more agile even back in that long gone age once the front line was penetrated.

Feel free to allow 6-96 hours if you want to recreate France's disaster in 1940.
A German armour Corps was expected to move about 300 km in 96 hrs and to defeat several rifle divisions on the move in '41.
Vehicle cruise speeds were increased by about 50-75% since 1941, communications gear has been improved - modern peer vs peer mobile warfare could easily exceed the gold standards set in WW2 by 25-50%.

Maybe but IIRC, Guderian's Corps orders were for operations were issued about every 24 hours. Orders issued at midnight should carry through for 24 hours. EG: He issues Corps Order No 14 at 20:00hrs on the 27th and does not issue 15 until 23:15 on the 28th.

Month, Year?

Guderian led mostly from up front, so his Corps orders were quite often "follow me" messages. The important decisions were made at the advance party (Vorausabteilung) which was in his direct reach if not direct control.

[William F. Owen]

Those are crappy peacetime figures.

Concur

Month, Year?

1940

[William F. Owen]

'Execute' is time from receipt of orders through battle procedure to executing the plan. That is quite slow but:

a) We never claimed to be good at manoeuvre warfare (unlike COIN )

Wow... seriously? Where do those times come from? The SOHB? or LWC?
To quote Lt Col Jim Storr, in his work on UK Command.

Patton was absolutely clear. In his ‘Letter of Instruction to Third U.S. Army’ , he said that a division should have twelve, or preferably eighteen, hours from the physical receipt of the order from corps headquarters. We will assume that the ‘one thirds, two thirds’ rule applies. That means that at each echelon of command a headquarters should take no more than one third of the total time available to both plan and give its orders. If we have twelve hours for a division, then we have eight hours for a brigade, and about five to six hours for a battle group.

Now actually I think BG's should aim, in training, to complete in 4 hours, so this pretty generous.

Rather then rely on a finely honed HQ of men (and women) tried, trained and few, we have dumbed down our officer corps and added layers of process and bureacracy instead - all of which adds time and diminshes tempo. We call it progress

.... that is a huge problem and one that folks keep pointing out, so I wonder why we do nothing about it?

[Fuchs]

Hmm, shock therapy then.

http://wi.informatik.unibw-muenchen....Mellenthin.pdf

Commanders and subordinates start to understand each other during war. The better they know each other, the shorter and less detailed the orders can be.

from a corps level wargame:

Generals Balck and von Mellenthin accepted the challenge and conferred privately over the map. General von Mellenthin, at one point, turned to the American participants to announce that they would not take long. He observed that in Russia they normally had about 5 minutes to make such decisions. In a very short time they arrayed their forces and expressed their willingness to explain their concept.

There is an almost irresistible temptation to put words in their mouths in the course of explaining their proposal. But in fact it was short, crisp, and simple. Their concept was the following:

(...; 7 bullet points on 3/4 of a page - 186 words - follow. The 8th bullet point is an explanation and cautioning.)

There may be a bit boasting involved, but it fits to German military history writings.


About leading from up front and how it influences the agility of a Corps' leadership: I was quite stunned to learn in 2008 that a Russian division commander had been wounded while being in an advance party, leading from up front a flanking attack. To me, this was the worst news of the month. I did not expect them to behave like that (his bad luck is unsystematic and not of interest).



@Wilf:
You're apparently referring to the hours immediately after the more than three days rest forced on the armour corps by Hitler (the infamous stop order at Dunkirk). Guderian was obviously able to let his corps quite loose in the first hours of advance (15 km to Dunkirk only) after days of waiting & preparations. The anecdote tells therefore little. An average figure for the hot phases (the peak challenge situations) of 1940 and 1941 would be much more telling.

[William F. Owen]

Hmm, shock therapy then.

http://wi.informatik.unibw-muenchen....Mellenthin.pdf

Wow... good find. Say what you like about the Germans... but you guys are thorough!

@Wilf:
You're apparently referring to the hours immediately after the more than three days rest forced on the armour corps by Hitler (the infamous stop order at Dunkirk). Guderian was obviously able to let his corps quite loose in the first hours of advance (15 km to Dunkirk only) after days of waiting & preparations. The anecdote tells therefore little. An average figure for the hot phases (the peak challenge situations) of 1940 and 1941 would be much more telling.

Understood, but based on Patton's comment, I cannot really see anyone issuing Corps orders more than once per 18 hours at the very most. People need sleep, so unless we have convincing evidence that that wouldn't cut it, I can't see how you can get much quicker than that.

[Fuchs]

Why this focus on "Corps orders"?
Where is the stone with the law written in it that says you need to issue regular corps orders, probably even in a certain interval?

A Corps Cmdr can keep his intent and still order a Bde to turn towards another direction to adapt a changed situation.

A Corps Cmdr can also decide on the spot to attack a few hills farther or to attempt an immediate river crossing with the effect that he'll advance another 50 km in a few hours.

A Corps Cmdr can also sense a crisis in one spot and tell a Bde to disengage elsewhere immediately in order to re-engage at the crisis.
Or he might want to make the enemy think that he's up against four brigades instead of one by disengaging and re-engaging from different directions.

Then think about a Bde or Corps being called to another spot ASAP. We don't suggest that the correct answer to the theatre Cmdr is "OK, we'll begin to move in 36 hrs.", do we?


Today's armies are fully motorised with vehicles that can march at 60-90 km/h! There's enough time to be found once you don't aspire to reach another continent by tomorrow.


And sleep? Come on. There's enough time for that once you're tired enough to immediately fall asleep once given the opportunity. Men can keep functioning satisfactorily on only 5 hrs sleep/day for quite a long time. Sleep is a leadership problem.


My take on battlefield agility and quickness is that this is something that can be trained. It takes a few weeks of free play exercises only.
Begin by booting a sluggish Cmdr, then proceed kicking asses and keep "killing" slow Cmdrs during the exercises so their 2nd in Cmd get a chance to prove how quick they are.
Use small formations (small brigades). Use independent units (companies for security, recce).Chase them around, let them turn, disengage, reengage, change defence-offence-march-offence, make sure that no unit goes to rest without making sure that leaving the area in any direction would be a perfectly fluid affair based on a bit organisation and SOPs, let them march in parallel on secondary roads, detect and fire slow-thinking officers, hammer a few slogans into their minds.
A few weeks later, they'll be much, much faster and have more than double the value of an average NATO Corps.


About oversized staffs:
30% of a staff does 70% of the work (if not 20/80!).
5% of the staff officers create 30% of the work - and that's almost entirely unnecessary work because some people simply spin around, keeping people busy for no reason.
In fact, some work that's being done was generated in order to neutralise idiots and keep them from doing actual harm.
Most of the staff work wasn't even thought of before the staff became bloated.

Make sure you have the right Cmdr for the formation and he knows the key people of his staff.
Then force him to select 100 personnel for his staff, take away all others and form some experimental Bn with them.
Then force him to ditch another 10 in the next month, again, again, again and again.
A slimmed-down staff will be unable to keep all that chatter (reports) going and will relieve subordinate units from superfluous reporting and answering.

[William F. Owen]

A Corps Cmdr can also decide on the spot to attack a few hills farther or to attempt an immediate river crossing with the effect that he'll advance another 50 km in a few hours.

River crossings demand a lot of planning, especially opposed ones, and you may march 50km in a few hours, but 50km opposed advanced will take about 24 hours or more, based on all the analysis I know of.

A Corps Cmdr can also sense a crisis in one spot and tell a Bde to disengage elsewhere immediately in order to re-engage at the crisis.

How many vehicles in a Brigade? Brigades cannot just break contact and skoot off somewhere. You need to draw back to assembly areas, plan routes, de-conflict convoys on the MSR etc etc etc.

Then think about a Bde or Corps being called to another spot ASAP. We don't suggest that the correct answer to the theatre Cmdr is "OK, we'll begin to move in 36 hrs.", do we?

How far and what's the state of readiness. Switching a Corps between armies, would require at least 24 hours. If you can show me it being done quicker, then I'm all ears.

Today's armies are fully motorised with vehicles that can march at 60-90 km/h!

Convoy planning speeds have not changed since WW2 - where all US and UK armies were fully motorised.

Men can keep functioning satisfactorily on only 5 hrs sleep/day for quite a long time. Sleep is a leadership problem.

Concur, but you cannot keep a planning staff working 24 hours a day

My take on battlefield agility and quickness is that this is something that can be trained. It takes a few weeks of free play exercises only.
Begin by booting a sluggish Cmdr, then proceed kicking asses and keep "killing" slow Cmdrs during the exercises so their 2nd in Cmd get a chance to prove how quick they are.

I do not know. We have little evidence and experience in this area.

About oversized staffs:
30% of a staff does 70% of the work (if not 20/80!).
5% of the staff officers create 30% of the work - and that's almost entirely unnecessary work because some people simply spin around, keeping people busy for no reason.

There are a few extensive studies in this area, that reach very firm conclusions, backed up by experience. Formations do not demand much more than 20 officers. The IDF thinks you can work with as little as 10.

Make sure you have the right Cmdr for the formation and he knows the key people of his staff.

Concur.

Then force him to select 100 personnel for his staff, take away all others and form some experimental Bn with them.
Then force him to ditch another 10 in the next month, again, again, again and again.

At the formation level no experimentation is necessary, at least based on the studies I have seen and the officers I have talked to who study this.