Originally Posted by chimera

Originally Posted by Stonker

you simply have not begun to grasp the underpinning philosophy of mission command.

Please share with us you understanding of it? (Or perhaps your understanding of it when you left the Army in 2003 - because, 2 major campaigns later we just may have moved on)

It does not exist in the peacetime / garrison army. The overwhelming entrails of a centralised bureaucracy stifle any initiative and smother creativity.

MSR

Originally Posted by rickshaw-major

Originally Posted by "Farmerbleep

Feck me - someone who knows his history! Well done. And taking it further, GB had a fleet of the biggest ships in naval history yet they were seen as too valuable to be put to sea. Wrong, the Fleet was continually at Sea - globally

Odd how at the end the german fleet was scuppered on the scottich islands rather than be taken into hands of the English. And?

Did you know that most of the stuff flying around in space is made of steel that is reclaimed from these as the steel was formed pre atomic bomb? Different steel, see... Pre-nuclear steel and ......?

I think that the underlying point is that the Great War, as it was known then, was not the war that we think it was. Correct that Germany was getting bigger and that there were lots of other factors too which led us all into a big conflict which many say, needn't have hapened. You are missing the point - the Germans were in a situation where they had to go to war or they would lose any strategic initiative they possessed.

The bit about oil is that Germany didn't have it's own supply but with the orient express ending just a few hundred miles short of what is now called Iraq (called Irak when first formed) is just a something else that was happening at the time. Germany couldn't be seen to be bigger than England - the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family were having none of it as these were the days of the empire and England's was huge. What on earth is the relevence of this pipeline?. The only way the German could get to it by land was via the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans. Also you appear to be saying the King started WW 1

WW1 is seen by historians as a war which needn't have happened and WW2 could have been shorter if we had got WW1 right. Haigh's plan to win by might was a disaster which cost so many lives to be lost and he never went to the front line! Not once! By the time we reached a stalemate there were trenches from switzerland to the English Channel. So Haig never visited the Front Line? Haigs plan to win by might was of course totally wrong. he should have used Phasers Plus it wasn't his plan.

Kitchener (the bloke in the recruitment posters) was running the army but he was living mentally in the times of the Boar war and couldn't change his tactics. Luckily for many he died on the way to russia in 1916 but that left us with the types of Haigh instead so wtf - it's all history now. I think you will find Kitchener was Secretary of State for War. Generals Douglas, Murray and Murray and later Field Marshall Robertson were the people who ran the Army - Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff

You didn't do much history at school did you? If you are going to google something FFS read it properly because most of the above is arrant nonsense.

Here is a little problem for you.

Haig is in the front line when a major attack occurs. He is cut off by artillery bombardment so can't get out.

How does he control the battle?

Jeasus, you argumentative, pedantic fecker. Years ago, the pedants used to be thrown to the lions. As this law was passed, the pedants asked "What kind of lions? There are two types, you know..."

I am trying to keep this in context - as part of the article that was written because of a certain document. The nit picking of every phrase is not part of the larger discourse. Further, as neither of us were there, we can only rely on the history that is available. An interpretation of fact does not produce another fact. Mine are to illustrate a point whilst yours seems to be making new ones.

F'rinstance, the title of "Secretary of State" equates to our modern title of 'Minister'. Therefore Kitchener was Minister of War - he was in charge of the lot. So up yours with brass knobs on.

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

I am trying to keep this in context - as part of the article that was written because of a certain document.

Go and start another thread.

MSR

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

I don't know if you've read Spenser Fitzgibons(?) book on Goose Green but it's interesting. As he reports, some Senior Officers were happy to lie about the conduct of the battle, rather than risk tarnishing the repuation of the unit, and serving or dead officers.

I also would mention that most reports on the fighting make it clear that the "Section Attack" drill broke down in the major attacks and men fought in pairs. Yet we still teach a drill that hasn't really changed since 1982.

Even more subtle, in the same book is a quote from FarrarThePara (Junior) - who was OC of the 'stalled' company 'H' was trying to inspire when he was killed. F-H said something to the effect that " there was nothing to be learned from the campaign, because it was so unique" . I'd interpret that as "The war didn't match the expectations I had developed since I was a youth: my expectations couldn't possibly be wrong, ergo - there must have been something wrong with the war".

Now, even if my interpretation is hopelessly cruel, it is interesting that a professional officer, from a professional regiment, and a professional military family, and whose personal attributes earned him promotion to General officer rank, seemed quite unwilling/unable to reflect and learn upon, and learn lessons from his own combat experience.

That alone speaks volumes for our 'professional' culture.

On Info Ops in B-H I have a personal interest in this topic: please don't think I am bragging, but as an SO2 in HQ ARRC, I originated the Info Ops concept that was (finally and imperfectly) implemented by NATO in B-H.

You can download an academic analysis of its successes and failures here: http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Siegel_Target.pdf

The 2-year process of getting into American heads (in face, I might say, of supreme indifference from the Staff-College trained Brits including the SO2 G3 PSYOP), the idea that all their firepower would be useless in the face of a crowd of black-clad grandmas with a battery of news teams, was a grim and thankless task - made even more difficult by the determination of the US Psyop community to hang on the conventional war SOP thad insisted on all 'product' being approved in Washington, even if that meant being perpetually on the back foot, in face of some of the most media savvy, nimble and persuasive liars in history.

What clinched it was that a year or so ahead of the deployment, a bunch of TRADOC doctrine guru ninjas - Majors and Lt Cols - came to visit our CPX, and 'help' us with our plan. (The contingency at that time was NATO extracting UNPROFOR - which would have been distinctly against the wishes of the Bosniacs). I worked up an informal 15 minute situation briefing (delivered to pretty every one of the guru ninjas individually), that pointed up (for instance) how members of every ethnic grouping in BH had at one time or another fought both with and against each of the other groups, illustrated with anecdotes amassed from Brits who had been out there (guaranteed to drain colour from faces, and gain their thoughtful attention) - , and finished with the 'killer' question "Doctrinally speaking - exactly what kind of operation would you say we are planning?". That led naturally to a discussion about the role of the press, and the need to give primacy to 'info ops' in the widest sense, and sent them back to The States to work on their lords and masters in the doctrinal chain of command.

It paid off a year later, when after listening to Lt Col Santa-Olalla, CO of the Green Howards (in Srebrenica, IIRC) in the final debrief of our final pre-deployment CPX in Rheindahlen - the retired US General heading the US TRADOC delegation finally told the PsyOp folk to 'turn their operational procedures upside down' - which they duly endeavoured to do.

Neatly illustrating not only the intellectual apathy of Brit officers, the power of retired generals in the US, and their willingess to think outside the box, but also Churchill's epigram about Americans doing the right thing, 'after they have tried everything else'

Originally Posted by msr

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

I am trying to keep this in context - as part of the article that was written because of a certain document.

Go and start another thread.

MSR

I think you'll find i'm bang on.

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

Originally Posted by msr

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

I am trying to keep this in context - as part of the article that was written because of a certain document.

Go and start another thread.

MSR

I think you'll find i'm bang on.

You might be bang on, but you have not read the original post. That's the difference between accuracy and precision.

MSR

The Info Ops thing is quite interesting. The Comd MND SW when I arrived described PysyOps as not quite British. Our PsyOps cell was headed by an ETS Major and staffed by some enthusiastic amateurs (TA officers) - (which BTB is why I got the 3RMP info Ops brief).

The US PsyOps effort is (or was) part of Special Operations Command.

Originally Posted by msr

Originally Posted by chimera

Originally Posted by Stonker

you simply have not begun to grasp the underpinning philosophy of mission command.

Please share with us you understanding of it? (Or perhaps your understanding of it when you left the Army in 2003 - because, 2 major campaigns later we just may have moved on)

It does not exist in the peacetime / garrison army. The overwhelming entrails of a centralised bureaucracy stifle any initiative and smother creativity.

MSR

I wouldn't say that the British Army is bad with mission command. If anything it is because of the particular conformist socialisation that is imbued through training that subordinates are trusted to be 'Creative' as they will do so within very narrow parameters. There is little need to tell someone how to do something, when the way they are trained to think would automatically lead them to do it your way anyway.

I am not convinced that the point of mission command is to create original solutions, but rather to speed up the tempo of decision making by delegating it down the chain of command. So, mission command can only be effective in military forces where commanders have a shared way of thinking.

From Guardian - Major warns of toxic leadership undermining the army...

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/...fghanistan

So I deduce that the thread is about problems in the armed forces caused by problems in the leadership thereof.

I think you're talking bollox and of course, pardon me if i'm wrong...

Originally Posted by chimera

Originally Posted by Stonker

you simply have not begun to grasp the underpinning philosophy of mission command.

Please share with us you understanding of it? (Or perhaps your understanding of it when you left the Army in 2003 - because, 2 major campaigns later we just may have moved on)

1Already shared :
http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Auftragstaktik

2. The closest the Brits have ever got to mission command was in the closing 100 days of WW1. We never came close in WW2. If 2 world wars couldn't shift the command ethos of the British Army, why should a few assymetric operations, however violent, make any difference?

And why do you omit (I presume) Kosovo from your list of major campaigns?

Could it be because you weren't there, so somehow it 'doesn't count'?

Brits as a whole are very good at that kind of thing - which (in the absence of intellectual rigour and proper professional education) is why we have lost so many important lessons over time, and good tactics have so often been defined according to the personal experience and/or prejudice of the senior officer present . . ..