The Art of War

[Gray Fox]

Jomini's book was taught to all the General's of the Civil War at West Point. I read that a copy of it was at every battle. For your own reading pleasure:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13549/13549-h/13549-h.htm

[Mickey3D]

Jomini's book was taught to all the General's of the Civil War at West Point. I read that a copy of it was at every battle. For your own reading pleasure:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13549/13549-h/13549-h.htm

Jomini who was a fellow Swiss citizen

As the war went on, I suspect a lot of officers did not follow West Point training but were learning-by-doing.

[Gray Fox]

Yes, Grant in particular.

[khbynum]

I just can't ignore threads like this, though I know I should. So, I'll risk p*ssing people off because I'm going to throw out generalizations (Granitestater) and denigrate the greats (Gray Fox).

I've read Jomini, von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. To me it all sounded like a turgid (the first two) or an opaque (the last) statement of the obvious. Brilliant commanders over the course of history succeeded because they ignored "principles" rather than adhered to them. I don't deny that principles are a useful way of training junior officers and that following those principles will work most of the time, but they did not make the great captains of history.

Can you get your subordinates to follow your orders? Can they get their troops to stand on the line of battle? Can you keep your army supplied (meaning, as often as not, managing the politicians)? The devil is in the details, the rest will take care of itself. Nathan Bedford Forest had it right; get there first with the most men.

[GraniteStater]

Nothing wrong with generalizations; like troops, if they are in the right place, at the right time and are well supported.

I hop they were violating principles, though, not principals - some school administrators might not like to contemplate that image.

Forrest had a talent for distilling volumes to pithy aphorisms.

[Mickey3D]

I've read Jomini, von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. To me it all sounded like a turgid (the first two) or an opaque (the last) statement of the obvious.

I didn't have the opportunity to read Jomini (and Clausewitz is still sitting untouched on my bookshelf...) but I already read similar comments on his work : good summary of Napoleon strategy but nothing groundbreaking.

[Gray Fox]

Posting as one who is not p*ssed off one bit and certainly not a "great", I only intended the link as an insight to those who might want a little historical reference. In game terms, if I totally misread a situation as the General, then I am the cause of the disobediant subordinates who are programmed to do something that is no longer possible. I exhausted the soldiers who can no longer hold the line. I am the quartermaster who is starving the army at the point of attack. I suppose that the "Art of CW2" is the ability to make sense of the gameplay to approximate what hopefully should happen.

[khbynum]

Thank you, gentlemen, for not excoriating me. Considering some of my posts on this forum, I deserve it.

The strategic theorist whose ideas most impressed me was B. H. Liddell Hart and his "indirect approach". Like so many theorists in every field who had One Big Idea, he tried to shoehorn the entirety of reality into it, but that doesn't detract from the basic soundness of the concept. I think Stonewall Jackson would certainly have understood.

[Overparduffer]

Strategy is overrated. Execution is underrated. The overweight smoker knows they should quit smoking and go on a diet, but most can't do it. Same thing here, most generals know they need to get there first with the most men but they can't cut through all the crap to actually do it.

[khbynum]

Strategy is overrated. Execution is underrated. The overweight smoker knows they should quit smoking and go on a diet, but most can't do it. Same thing here, most generals know they need to get there first with the most men but they can't cut through all the crap to actually do it.

Strategy may be overrated (and logistics underrated; we all know that quote) but I agree that execution can never be overrated. If I have learned anything from my study of military history, it is this: leaders most often fail because their subordinates cannot, or will not, obey their orders. That is the crap they have to cut through. For a Civil War example, take Braxton Bragg (please). He was a more than competent strategist and not bad at tactics, but he just could not, for a variety of reasons, get his subordinates (Polk in particular) to do what he said, when he said. When Lee had to deal with people like that, he sent them off to a post in the boonies.

[Gray Fox]

It's all about team building. I suppose that sounds over-simplified, but that's what we call it in the present U.S. Army. At its core, cohesion is the very basic tribal desire to belong. To depend on the men to your left and right and want them to know they can depend on you. Your soldiers have X number of battle formations and you drill these into them so they respond without thinking. The junior officers know what we call the Commander's Intent. It is the way the commander wants his unit to react in combat. He must inspire their trust and earn their respect. Then, even without orders, the officers will know when to draw their swords and yell, "Follow me, boys!" Team building gives your unit that extra gear when it's time to make history. Books can teach you to be a decent manager or supervisor. To fill in the gaps in the ideas and make it happen on the battlefield takes a deep passion to be a leader.

P.S. For the reading pleasure of those who have not studied Clausewitz and Sun Tzu:

http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/TOC.htm

http://suntzusaid.com/

Sun Tzu deals with some of the philosophy of war, Jomini presents sort of a geometry of military operations and Clausewitz has the science of war. If you read all three you'll likely get a headache.

[aariediger]

When it comes to the 'rules of war', I think the best way to think of them is that they're more like guidelines. The guy I really like is Bevin Alexander, who has a bunch of different ‘principles’, and examples of how they are used. There are simple ones, like cutting off the enemy’s retreat, and more complex ones like the central position. I like to use those two, and another one called ‘defend, then attack’, which works out really well in a Civil War game because the tactical defense is so strong.

The best examples are Longstreet rolling up Pope at 2nd Manassas after the Army of Virginia had shot its bolt against a dug in Jackson, and Grant halting Lee’s assault at Fort Steadman and then carrying through with a masterful counter stroke. Right after Lee’s men are retreating from that disaster, Sheridan smashes the flank at Five Forks and Grant busts through at 3rd Petersburg, destroys an entire corps at Sayler’s Creek, and then relentlessly pursues the AoNV to its grave at Appomattox. This campaign is kind of forgotten, but the AoNV still had 50,000 men on hand before Steadman, and Grant played his hand masterfully in rendering its destruction.

[ERISS]

execution can never be overrated. If I have learned anything from my study of military history, it is this: leaders most often fail because their subordinates cannot, or will not, obey their orders.

Post-WWII american army comes from far: for old prussians overated execution.
Napoleon defeated so easily those prussian robots that an underground school appeared in the prussian then german army.
Hitler in WW1 saw that strictly obeying the orders was not that good, and before WW2 he tried (the classical werchmacht generals were reluctant) to give rights to the learnings of that subversive german military 'school', and trained the werhmacht mainly in Poland. In France 40, which had the best army of the world, but with the worst high command (they don't want to quit WW1), this german learning of autonomy and responsability made a very critical victory with same number of soldiers and not better vehicles (edit: okay Hitler went afraid of his own success) ... It was like the revenge of the prussians with the same way that Napo beatted them!: the movement on the spot against the paralysed waiting orders or maddened by much counter-orders.
In the following of the war, the american army was impressed with this organization of the werhmacht, and copied it, until nowadays.
The followin post explains it some, but the 'new-wehrmacht' concept is deeper:

It's all about team building. I suppose that sounds over-simplified, but that's what we call it in the present U.S. Army. At its core, cohesion is the very basic tribal desire to belong. To depend on the men to your left and right and want them to know they can depend on you. Your soldiers have X number of battle formations and you drill these into them so they respond without thinking. The junior officers know what we call the Commander's Intent. It is the way the commander wants his unit to react in combat. He must inspire their trust and earn their respect. Then, even without orders, the officers will know when to draw their swords and yell, "Follow me, boys!" Team building gives your unit that extra gear when it's time to make history. Books can teach you to be a decent manager or supervisor. To fill in the gaps in the ideas and make it happen on the battlefield takes a deep passion to be a leader.

(I have underlined)
Danger makes the desire of unity. Fear makes the opposal desire. Passion makes the fear overrun.
The art can make a passion, the more convenient art for battle is music. That's why military needs music.
However, if people battle for their own, they don't need music, they already have their ideas and passion.
See where fighters need war music, here you'see that they are cheated (or slaves or morrons) and spill there own blood for somebody else, usually their masters.

[Gray Fox]

“A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction.
You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

[Mickey3D]

Aside strategy and tactics there is a third level that has been for long overlooked by western military thinkers and leaders : operational art (I think it is best known as "deep battle" by english readers) . I.e. Multiple operations conducted in parallel or successively to induce a major failure in the ennemy defensive systems (targets of operations don't need to be military, economical or politcal goals are valid too).

The Soviets (e.g. Toukhatchevsky) were the first to conceptualize it and it is where they beat the Germans in the WWII and what gave them their largest victories (like operation Bagration). I think US Army integrated it not before the 1980's.

[ERISS]

a level that has been for long overlooked by western military thinkers and leaders: operational art ("deep battle"). Multiple operations conducted in parallel or successively to induce a major failure in the ennemy defensive systems.
The Soviets were the first to conceptualize it and it is where they beat the Germans in the WWII and what gave them their largest victories. I think US Army integrated it not before the 1980's.

I think US-Army swiftly copied it in WW2, but were not able to make it in a large scale:
instead they applied it in a deeper inter-arms order of battle where regiments where devided and mixed in regiment-scale combat groups able to move independantly and make their own secondary objectives.
It completed very well the 'autonomy and responsability' style they wanted to copy from the germans and I think that's why (okay, with huge funding) from end-WW2 to nowadays the US-Army could be admired by many like the Whermacht had been admired by the US-Army.
What must have happened in 80' is the need to actually learn it in a large scale in case of armor warfare in the west-german countryside.

[Mickey3D]

I think US-Army swiftly copied it in WW2, but where not able to make it in a large scale:
instead they applied it in a deeper inter-arms order of battle where regiments where devided and mixed in regiment-scale combat groups able to move independantly and make their own secondary goals.

I don't think this is equivalent to soviet operational doctrine that was/is conducted at corps, army or front level.

It completed very well the 'autonomy and responsability' style they wanted to copy from the germans and I think that's why (okay, with huge funding) from end-WW2 to nowadays the US-Army could be admired by many like the Whermacht had been admired by the US-Army.
What must have happened in 80' is the need to actually learn it in a large scale in case of armor warfare in the west-german countryside.

Tactical excellence of German army is indisputable but until the 80' and the Airland Battle doctrine, the US Army based its doctrine on the feedback of the WW2 German Ostheer officers who never understood the operational level developped by the red army and were more interested in advocating the superiority of the Wehrmacht and clear themselves of any responsibility.

[Gray Fox]

Terms like tactical are applied to small units like squads, platoons and companies. These units employ "tactics" such as how best to use their heavy weapons to spearhead an attack or support a defense. Larger units such as battalions, regiments and Divisions are operational formations. They command many tactical formations and guide their "operation" on the battlefield. As formations grew in size, these already large units were grouped together in Corps and Armies. So by the First World War, many armies might be grouped together along a "front" to achieve one strategic goal. By the Second World War, the Soviets mustered several million men along one huge contiguous front. The Soviet military also used deception in that a Russian Corps was only the size of a western Division and their Army unit about the size of a western Corps. So the Russian Front had lots and lots of different Armies, Army Fronts and groups of Army Fronts. A doctrine to govern the synergism of groups of armies as operational formations to achieve one less than strategic goal was developed. Tukhachevsky's Operational Art was finally used as an interim plan between tactical and strategic theory.

[ERISS]

About 'autonomy and responsability', we can see an example in the operational scale in the serie "Generation Kill".
Okay it's a Reco unit (but with less freedom it could however be seen with classical heavy infantry units), we see that they have a main objective but the commandant is free to decide how to do, and even what could be their secondary objectives (take contengency objective, earlier achievement, ..). Even, the commandant do have to use his freedom, he is never waiting for orders, he is compelled to use the more efficiently his freedom if he wants to shine and have swifter advancemment. In the same way, he is in theory fully responsible of what he makes of his freedom, but in the serie he succeed in "opening the umbrella" and makes another to pay for his fault. No theory is perfect when humanity is not lol. We however must always make for the better.
http://www.hbo.com/generation-kill

[ERISS]

Napoleon defeated so easily those prussian robots

"Meine Maschinen sind boreit" ('My machines are ready') was a common sentence of prussian captains.

[ERISS]

It's not before year 1900 that german army officially started to evolve, but only on 'operational' scale, it was not made to the needed tactical levels: the availability to tactical began in the end of WW1, were the declining imperial power had to give only some lower ranks (shocktroopers) some needed freedom to be efficient, and other lower ranks gained some freedom after WW1.
Before WW1, at the time of first 1900's years, french army was still believed itself in its napoleonic glory, despite the awfull 1870 defeat. I think it was not false: Despite its very bad ways, german army could beat the french army in 1870 war for this war was launched by the french in the utermost bad conditions (for Napo III was a low minded driven by usual bourgeoys purse obsessed): the usually bad german army vanquished the momentarily worst french army.
But this belief of being the better made the french army to forget 'why'.
If the french army was revolutionnary by its fighters, it was still aristocratic by the napoleon dynasty way: The commandants began to stand in their 'ivory tower', believing they were the better so they didn't have to think: french army began to have the bad old prussian habits.
In WW1 it was starting to give bad results, but as the french however won the war, the french army didn't learn any lesson and became worst for its commandment.
And french lost the 1940 battle.
It is still a danger nowadays, as to enter the french army you have more points if your family is already in (or maybe it was removed not long ago?).

[Gray Fox]

A caste system's lies become painfully apparent in battle. Soldiers led by a class of gentlemen will always lose because the gentlemen aren't soldiers and the soldiers certainly aren't gentlemen.

[ERISS]

Lol, that's why the English, to keep their crown, learned to nobility how to be the worst ever suckers (and they maybe too anoblish the worst suckers). The lesson for them how loyalty always over-rule honor.
That's so a few part why England can be called "Perfide Albion" (treacherous 'scotland') by the french.

[ERISS]

the french army was still aristocratic by the napoleon dynasty way: The commandants began to stand in their 'ivory tower', believing they were the better so they didn't have to think: french army began to have the bad old prussian habits.
In WW1 it was starting to give bad results, but as the french however won the war, the french army didn't learn any lesson and became worst for its commandment.

And why the french won WW1: for, if the french commandants had begun entering their ivory towers, the german command was since far long in (even some rare tried to shake them), they had still didn't quit the prussian habits of stupid haughtyness.

It feels in military history, the winner is not the best, it's who is not as bad as the enemy.. So, if you want to win, don't let military make war, lol: one vs one country, revolutionnary armies of conscripts always win the professionnals in the end (the lessons can be very though for conscripts..).

edit: 'in the end': if you want to see the (winning) end, don't let the governments. (traitor which sign defeats)
"Who has lost is who says so."
That's why bourgeoisy want (only) representatives of their slaves: some willing slave to tell the slaves are defeated and must return to work.