Thread: toxic officer warning

I think that like in most large organisations, the very good people prefer to do things, working in the field/in operations rather than get sucked into the arse-licking, paper-pushing politics of Head Office, and this has been exacerbated under NuLabour with their 1984-speak right-on agenda & refusal to hear dissenting voices. The Army has also always been conservative - a great example is Percy Hobart, a 'wasted brain' whose revolutionary ideas were taken up by the Germans as Blitzkrieg, & who was only rescued from his 1940 role as a Home Guard corporal by Churchill. I can't somehow see that armed forces lover & supporter of courage Brown micro-managing the army to promote mavericks & radical thinkers.

A good piece on Percy Hobart, which I use in management training, is this: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n1p-2_Constable.html

Originally Posted by Stonker

I'd caution her against rushing to judgement.

Not quite sure where you got the impession I am female. Perhaps it's my pink and fluffy persona, but sadly not the case as my wife and kids will testify. :D

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

Very little happened at sea compared to other conflicts.

Arrant tosh...5,515 allied ships lost? 15 major combattant engagements and eight significant "campaigns" including the "First Battle of the Atlantic" (sic)? Royal Navy war dead of 32,287 [11,339] and the Merchant Navy war dead of 14,661?

To say very little happened at sea is deeply flawed, it would be akin to saying that the RAF did nothing in the First World War, based on the fact their casualties were never identified discretely in the 1922 War Office Report.

Changing the facts to suit your argument is a dangerous strategy in debate and life. Are you Gordon Brown in disguise?

Originally Posted by Stonker

[We nominally adopted Mission Command 14 yrs before we invaded Iraq and I resigned.

Bit of an overreaction Stonks?

Originally Posted by chimera

Because in 2003 (the point at which your military experience ends) Kosovo was hardly a campaign - it was Catterick with a rifle.

Surely Catterick is Catterick with a rifle? :D

Originally Posted by Cuddles

Originally Posted by Farmerbleep

Very little happened at sea compared to other conflicts.

Arrant tosh...5,515 allied ships lost? 15 major combattant engagements and eight significant "campaigns" including the "First Battle of the Atlantic" (sic)? Royal Navy war dead of 32,287 [11,339] and the Merchant Navy war dead of 14,661?

To say very little happened at sea is deeply flawed, it would be akin to saying that the RAF did nothing in the First World War, based on the fact their casualties were never identified discretely in the 1922 War Office Report.

Changing the facts to suit your argument is a dangerous strategy in debate and life. Are you Gordon Brown in disguise?

FFS don't get involved with facts. He will classify you as pedantic

He does however have a "fresh" outlook on WW1. Kitchener "the bloke on the poster" etc

Alternatively you could say he is a bluffing cnut who can't even google properly

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Some time in the 1990’s a Major in a Cyprus based Infantry unit writes an article reporting on his work with the Section, Platoon and Company attack. In this he breaks down into Fire teams as the main manoeuvring force on the field. 2 sets of attacks produce interesting results. Attacks conducted by sections invariably end up as Frontal assaults. Attacks conducted as Fire teams dissolve into left, right and rear but rarely go frontal as supporting fire teams mob enemy positions . (I’m paraphrasing from memory here but if anyone has got a copy of the article, please be kind and throw a bone!)

Major Jim Storr, Ex SEA WALL, if I remember correctly. He went on to look at other things.... asking such heretical questions as "why do we have so many staff officers" and "why are such wonderful, mission-oriented, large headquarters demonstrably unable to organise a p*ss-up in a brewery" (a source of huge amusement to those STABs who had to put up with claims that we didn't have the skills to cope in a fast-moving all-arms environment - the ARABs didn't either).

The other part of the experiment was having more, smaller, platoons - something about span of command.

Originally Posted by chimera

Originally Posted by Stonker

I'd caution her against rushing to judgement.

Not quite sure where you got the impession I am female. Perhaps it's my pink and fluffy persona, but sadly not the case as my wife and kids will testify. :D

Sorry ma'am - you chose the alias, not me:

chimera

/kimeer/ (also chimaera)

• noun
1 Greek Mythology a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.
2 something hoped for but illusory or impossible to achieve.
3 Biology an organism containing a mixture of genetically different tissues.

Oxford English Dictionary

Research, you see - always pays off in the end.

Originally Posted by Gravelbelly

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Some time in the 1990’s a Major in a Cyprus based Infantry unit writes an article reporting on his work with the Section, Platoon and Company attack. In this he breaks down into Fire teams as the main manoeuvring force on the field. 2 sets of attacks produce interesting results. Attacks conducted by sections invariably end up as Frontal assaults. Attacks conducted as Fire teams dissolve into left, right and rear but rarely go frontal as supporting fire teams mob enemy positions . (I’m paraphrasing from memory here but if anyone has got a copy of the article, please be kind and throw a bone!)

Major Jim Storr, Ex SEA WALL, if I remember correctly. He went on to look at other things.... asking such heretical questions as "why do we have so many staff officers" and "why are such wonderful, mission-oriented, large headquarters demonstrably unable to organise a p*ss-up in a brewery" (a source of huge amusement to those STABs who had to put up with claims that we didn't have the skills to cope in a fast-moving all-arms environment - the ARABs didn't either).

The other part of the experiment was having more, smaller, platoons - something about span of command.

That's the Fella.....Sounds even better that I remembered....

Originally Posted by Gravelbelly

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Some time in the 1990’s a Major in a Cyprus based Infantry unit writes an article reporting on his work with the Section, Platoon and Company attack. In this he breaks down into Fire teams as the main manoeuvring force on the field. 2 sets of attacks produce interesting results. Attacks conducted by sections invariably end up as Frontal assaults. Attacks conducted as Fire teams dissolve into left, right and rear but rarely go frontal as supporting fire teams mob enemy positions . (I’m paraphrasing from memory here but if anyone has got a copy of the article, please be kind and throw a bone!)

Major Jim Storr, Ex SEA WALL, if I remember correctly. He went on to look at other things.... asking such heretical questions as "why do we have so many staff officers" and "why are such wonderful, mission-oriented, large headquarters demonstrably unable to organise a p*ss-up in a brewery" (a source of huge amusement to those STABs who had to put up with claims that we didn't have the skills to cope in a fast-moving all-arms environment - the ARABs didn't either).

The other part of the experiment was having more, smaller, platoons - something about span of command.

The same, curiously enough an extremely bright cove across the board and now a PhD. To further assist Farmerbleep's cause, Jim is helpfully a WW1 expert of some recognition...

Nicest Kingo I've ever met... :D

Edited to add: http://www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk/members/storr.htm

I bet your wallet changed ownership when you did meet.

Lt.Col.Storr's report on HQ's across 2 Gulf Wars makes scary reading..

To put it bluntly and crudely, Brigade and Divisional HQ's were bloated blobs overmnned by too many Very Senior Officers that produced junk.

At 22 pages it's nifty reading but I can't help thinking that my blunt summary is pretty much on the nail...

Anyone else read it and disagree?

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Lt.Col.Storr's report on HQ's across 2 Gulf Wars makes scary reading..

To put it bluntly and crudely, Brigade and Divisional HQ's were bloated blobs overmnned by too many Very Senior Officers that produced junk.

At 22 pages it's nifty reading but I can't help thinking that my blunt summary is pretty much on the nail...

Anyone else read it and disagree?

I'd be fascinated to read it

If you can't point me to an online version - d'you have a scanner and time to spare to create soft copy?

I'd betcha that there is an almost mathematical relationship between the size of a fmn HQ, and the speed of reaction of its subordinate units (probably a bit like Ohm's law)

I remember being struck, 20 yrs ago, on an exercise in Denmark, by the contrast in size between a Brit BG HQ and its Ge Para equivalent.

Ours was full of chaps and blokes beavering away" to ensure the the Bn was working properly"

Theirs seemed to have a warrant officer quietly manning the desk with a signaller.

I was perplexed at the time - but slowly it dawned on me, that in an organisation that is designed and properly trained and educated for mission command, much of the work that a BG HQ does (coordinationg Atk Def plans, coordinating inter-coy arcs of fire. c-attack plans etc etc) is picked up and executed - much more quickly - by fwd sub-unit commanders who simply do it without being told to, and then report back. Alll that leaves for the BG HQ is crossing 'T's and dotting 'I's - if there is time.

That's why the Wehrmacht trashed us in '40 (and gave us a run for our money until '45), it is how Patton taught his troops to beat the Wehrmacht at their own game, and it is how the Frontwheelskids trashed the Jippos so often back in the day.

The Israelis are interesting in this respect. Many had fought under Brit auspices in ’39 – ’45, yet taking their lead from Moshe Dayan, who had fought alongside the Brits and was himself a one time (and deeply unimpressed) student on a Brit wartime staff course, they made a conscious decision, at a very early point, to adopt the German command philosophy (which, I surmise, older German jews who survived or escaped the Holocaust would have experienced at first hand in the pre-Nazi German army: although I confess I haven't found a way to confirm or deny that particular hypothesis).

Trust, y'see - it is a funny little word . . . . it makes all the difference . . . and a li'l bit of toxin goes a long. long, way to eroding it, and all its attendant benefits.

Originally Posted by Stonker

I'd be fascinated to read it

Link from GB's post about 5 above yours: http://www.dodccrp.org/events/9th_IC...papers/068.pdf

MSR

Originally Posted by BigD

I think that like in most large organisations, the very good people prefer to do things, working in the field/in operations rather than get sucked into the arse-licking, paper-pushing politics of Head Office, and this has been exacerbated under NuLabour with their 1984-speak right-on agenda & refusal to hear dissenting voices. The Army has also always been conservative - a great example is Percy Hobart, a 'wasted brain' whose revolutionary ideas were taken up by the Germans as Blitzkrieg, & who was only rescued from his 1940 role as a Home Guard corporal by Churchill. I can't somehow see that armed forces lover & supporter of courage Brown micro-managing the army to promote mavericks & radical thinkers.

A good piece on Percy Hobart, which I use in management training, is this: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n1p-2_Constable.html

Percy Hobart's story is fascinating and he had great influence on the US, whose officers it was thought he got on with much much better.