TJ,
You obviously have no idea what THE Operations Officer of a Brigade Combat Team does, whether at home station or deployed for combat operations. He is not just some "staff guy." Do you actually listen to yourself?

Niel Smith, who is a friend of mine, has more time in combat than you had in the Army. I am sure to you, with the obvious attention span of a child if his short note was too complex for you, he is just another careerist lifer, punching his ticket. Oh by the way he is a published author too. Dang, so am I.

And no, less is not always better. Complex topics require people who can understand a lot of information---combat operations are complex. Too often we try to oversimplify things that are not meant to be simple...like buying real estate for instance.

I see, according to the Amazon editorial comment on your book (which sells for a whole two cents), that you have "lifetime of real estate investing expertise and experience."

Since turnabout is fairplay...thanks for your obviously substantive role in tanking the American economy with your real estate schemes. Very patriotic of you. How many people did you put out on the street?

Is that Mr. Lucier's comment was an irrelevant ad hominem.

But he did ensure 100% use of the yellow belts in his unit.

Walt

What's the matter Tommy, can't you distinguish between honest commentary and so-called boorish behavior? And once again, your rather obvious lack of military service comes back to bite you in the ass! The good Major Smith is what's known in the vernacular as a freaking "staff puke!" And "staff pukes" get people killed in combat because they lack troop time and training and all that other stuff that makes an effective combat leader. As far as verifiable Bookscan book sales go, 107,000 copies is a best selling book! And based on the comments made by some of your more ignorant blog readers, it's rather obvious that their heads are firmly ensconced in their rectums and they're suffering from a bad case of cranial inversion! Tommy, here's a newsflash for you: Blogs by their very nature are opinion oriented. And smart Bloggers don't get their panties in a wad whenever a visitor writes a comment that they find "personally" offensive. Or takes one of their butt buddies to task! I hate to be a spoilsport, but good blogs encourage stimulating debate and intellectually honest discourse. And one more thing, you're a typical lazy newspaper hack and it shows by the lame crap you try and pass off to your readers as relevant, topical nuggets of news! Oh, by the way, when are you going to share your Bookscan numbers with your blog readership?

I had forgotten what it was that you were trying to tell us By the time I finished reading your long-winded mini- symposium, here u can check aboutNmci Homeport

I really had forgotten what you were trying to say when I finished reading your long post, here u can check aboutNmci Homeport

If one only read comics it might seem long winded, but otherwise, umm, no. Less than 1000 words is hardly long winded.

Well Sir, I’ll keep this short for both you and I. MAJ Smith is definitely a “one of a kind”, I have served with this academically inclined Leader who truly wants the next generation of Warriors and Leaders alike to be successful. I sat through a few of those Thursday morning sessions and the staff benefited greatly from them. He is verbose and prone to pontification, but you are extremely mistaken about classifying him as a “Staff puke” who gets people killed in combat. If anything MAJ Smith believes that knowledge is power and an engaged knowledgeable staff is a combat multiplier that enables inexperienced and experienced Troop Commanders to be successful. He would not have been selected to serve as a Brigade Operations Officer otherwise.
A daily, no hourly dose of the modern Troop Commander’s day is a bit more complex than worrying simply about how much gas is passed. I truly believe passing gas is important just not that complex.
Scouts Out!

I don't think that anyone's bashing maneuver, suprise, or initiative, but it seems like the increased planning and coordination required by a greater variety and complexity of supporting systems and capabilities requires some rethinking of how staff planning relates to initiative at the platoon and company level (i.e., initiative is great, but if your initiative takes your unit to a place without logistical support, IDF, or CAS, you're kind of fucked). Critical thinking and planning are a pretty important tool, as well as the ability to make things up as situations change.

TYRTAIOS, dredges up the old Soviet USTAV, which of course as he says incorporates the elements of maneuver, surprise and initiative. However from 1941 on the Bug to Berlin in 1945 the displaying of initiative was a double edge sword in the Red Army. The Wehrmacht would encourage initiative among their tactical commanders and even accepted a mission failure as a learning experience as long as it did not become a habit. In essence, in the Wehrmacht doing something was more forgivable than doing nothing even if it did not produce results.

The Soviets may have recognized Wehrmacht initiative and included it into their own doctrine but it never really materialized on the field. From Soviet Front commanders to company commander’s failure was unacceptable and not infrequently lethal. In fact, mission failure by a Soviet officer using his own brains and initiative would more than likely be pounced on by commissars as politically subversive and earn him a fast trip to the gulag.

There is an old story about the brilliant Friedrich von Seydlitz, Fredrick the Great’s outstanding commander of cavalry. At the battle of Rossbach Fredrick was increasingly uneasy with the lack of activity of Seydlitz corps and as the tension increased sent rider after rider to get Seydlitz to move. Finally, Fredrick sent a message to Seydlitz containing a threat if action was not taken. Seydlitz retuned the message and wrote on its reverse side was “His Majesty may do whatever he pleases with my head after the battle but in the meantime may he allow it to be used in his service”. This anecdote was imbued in the thinking of the Prussian officer corps for two centuries.

Like all things, it varied in spirit from one Soviet field commander to another as to the tone they set within their respective commands/armies.

Hitler liked to control primarily because he didn't trust any one commander with too much power. Crazy Joe, on the flip-side, finally learned to trust his army and corps commanders and let them execute without micro-managing (although early-on, Stalin wasn't above purifying the military talent gene pool. . .in extremis, which may have been on many minds).

Yes, primary staff and special staff officers are important, but I want to emphasize, and I know you didn't infer otherwise, but they should not become so important in there own minds, that they fail to recognize they are there to support those out on the pointy end of the spear.

Take into consideration those fundamental principles which you view as authoritative, and although they should also guide those you are supporting, those principles (and doctrine) require judgment and some patience in application toward the varying situations.

Nothing is worse than a supporting element drunk on its own importance. The problem that I typically have with the units that I support is that they overestimate their importance relative to policy established by higher, or constraints on limited resources. Sometimes it's a little ridiculous (getting my ass chewed because a squadron didn't have any money because Congress hadn't pass any appropriations for FY11), but most of the time it's because squadrons don't adequately plan ahead or communicate their needs to me.

The supported/supporting relationship definitely has a lot of give and take that's situationally dependent.

Hopefully once you staffers get done writing all those blizzards of paperwork to show how important you are, you will do something more practical to the line troops. Write an SOP that says: Don't send troops into narrow valleys where the Taliban can shoot at them from high above in a classic fish barrel trap (Think Wanat). You should understand that most First Sergeants in line outfits have more smarts than the self-important paper pushers at Brigade and Battalian levels.

You make an interesting point, but pray tell...what does one do when the entire northwest part of the country is valleys among mountains where the bad guys can shoot down at you - like Wanat?

I don't know any better answer myself...seems a difficult problem to have, maybe the so called REMFs weren't so stupid, maybe they didn't have so many options. Regardless I think you should investigate more to understand why they did what they did at Wanat (at least initially).

Do any of the staffers seem to realize that each new outfit that rotates into Afghanistan feels the need to re write all the SOP's and procedures? Are your new SOP's better than the older SOP's? At least now we can understand why they have such bloated staffing.

Some of that has to do with personalities and the way a unit trained before deploying. If we'd used the SOP's of the unit we replaced, it wouldn't have gone well for us. We implemented our own with no comment on theirs.

The real problem isn't failure to use the old unit's SOP's so much as a failure (that has been largely remediated over the last few years) to take on the prior unit's lessons learned and to import the intelligence they've gathered over their previous deployment.

One thing I remember from the Rommel history and maybe Guderian and Manstein, too, is that German officers spent a lot of time at the company command level. Rommel might have had a company into this 30's or 40's? Something similar applied to the interwar US Army, where some officers stayed shard as they churned through commands, staff jobs, and detail assignments. The good ones like Eisenhower and Rommel must have known their stuff, while staying sharp on details, and gaining strategic awareness.

The incessant up and out of the contemporary professional military meritocracy makes it harder for people to master anything, or make much of a difference, or advocate for a better process, before they move upward toward their Peter Principle job.

Yes, Afghanistan is a different tempo war than Nazi Germany fought. But Steve, you may be missing the point of mission tactics and not setting a tone whereby subordinates, even down to the fire team level, are afraid to use initiative toward what they feel, or very well know, is a fleeting exploitable moment. . .which exists in some shape or form in all conflict, whether big bang or low intensity.

I enjoy your articulate posts. However, Auftragstatik has nothing to do with strategy really, and all to do with mission tactics, which is why it makes me all tingly inside when it's discussed in its pure form.

Your salient point. isn’t lost on me that all the good tactical success will not substitute for a cohesive strategy . . .I know, I headed down that trail long ago and came to the clearing and found nothing but emptiness.

Fair enough about tactics v. strategy, but I was always intrigued by the German culture from that period, and really have trouble making a comparison.

The older folks I met during my four years in and around Hof Gap were a product of something very much deeper than, say the Southern Civil War ethos. Even in Baghdad, I met a very serious Pole, a product of the very oldest military families/traditions.

The Elector of Hesse had been sending out his military as a highly valuable tool for generations. The Prussians and Poles from military families lived in a culture that carries forward through the Imperial Period, the Weimar, and later periods. These folks were dyed in the wool spartans; not the kind of pick-up forces that typify the US military---kids from Iowa who joined the navy to get away, college student/ROTCs committed due to the whole 9/11 thing, or so many soldiers doing it as a professional job.

As background, too, all of these folks grew up in and lived in a fairly common Euro framework and terrain---villages, towns, trains, school masters, government systems, and many even had common language skills (ala Battenburgs in England, Russians who spoke french).

Major Smith is dealing with a high-turnover volunteer army from, essentially a Western framework, in a fairly atypical culture, environment and language. In some ways, the multiple tours raise confusing issues where either the mission was very different in that area/period, and the ROEs and tactics were different.

As Cordesman points out, there is no time left for any new ideas or approaches---just take one and play it to its end. If they don't work, it doesn't matter. There are no resources or sustaining support for anything else.

After a decade of experimentation and change, with a brief period of fairly unlimited resources, the implications of the post-announced withdrawal phase is very, very unique: no more promises promises, patient capacity building, or projects. No more dreaming of what could be.

Rolling back a mission, in prep for withdrawal is a very complex endeavor, and represents major tactical differences. EG, what my instinct from the past told me is irrelevant today.

Like Iraq, there is no question that the withdrawal will happen, but mapping it out and implementing it will be a huge change of course.

The Major's points are, in my opinion, very much larger today than last year, when time and resources were unlimited.

Would someone clue the Major and Mr Cordesman that the US State Department and military have been in secret arm twisting negotiations with the Afghanis to stay in a "strategic relationship" until at least 2024. It includes selling them fighter planes and other military equipment. The same thing in Iraq, where the US military would be whittled back to 3-4,000 troops but hired mercenaries would be 5,000 and total would be 17,000 total employed by State. The good Major should start writing a new SOP for when the Mahdi Army lays seige to the US embassy in Baghdad.

60mm Mortar tube in handheld configuration.

Thanks for the information.

Here is some enlightenment for you RVN, you are, IMO, right. In OEF, a couple of companies would be the max unless we start pushing east into Pakistan and I do not see that happening. This is a small unit war with small unit tactics and the big boys with armor, IDF, CAS, AWT Platforms are their to provide support.

While I tend to agree, that once units are on the ground fighting, it is a small unit fight, however...the placement of where Companys, and Battalions will be located, the ID of the Main Effort and higher level assets that support the main effort (ISR, PRTs, etc...) are decisions made at the BDE level and higher. So although you may not see a Brigade level MVMT to contact, laying out priorities is still necessary at the higher levels of command, otherwise you have just a bunch of tactical units fighting with no higher purpose.
At the Strategic Level, keeping the NATO partner nations in the fight still occurs, be it through training the units prior to, engaging the national leadership and placement in country all still occur.

While the spread of forces for support and logistics will always be at higher levels, the problems Maj. Smith talks about are often self made from what I have seen with an overly heavy staff and S shops also heavily manned with people who could and should be out in the field. Part of the problem with ISR and UAV platforms is it gives those officers who are in the JOC/TOC a habit of wanting to call the shots on the ground, second guessing what their people are doing and in the end what they should be doing is getting SITREPS from their JOs who are on the ground and providing support and dividing assets to provide the support that the ground forces request. The Squad, Platoon or even Company that is engaged in either Patrols or in an actual contact should be given CAS/IDF, resupply (Water, Ammo, etc...), CASEVAC if needed, etc...etc...as it is requested of the JOC/TOC and that JOC/TOC should be acting in support of and not attempting to control those folks on the ground, i.e.; let them complete the mission and give them the platforms you can spare (ISR, AWT, CAS, IDF, QRF, etc...as available) and DON'T throw your two cents in, DON'T attempt to tell the guys on the ground what they actually need, THEY know what they need. THEY are there and the JOC/TOC Commandos are not. DON'T second guess them at every turn and cut some of the fat out of your staff and other shops so that the mission itself is better supported. Again, I think some of the problems are cultural and if the USMC and SOF can do more with less and be a little quicker to react, take the initiative and adapt then the army can too. As for the sheer paperwork circus the Army has for kit issue, ammo and inventories, I am sure Lester and Maj. Smith can write a longggggg article on how that can be reformed and hence take some of the incredible a@@ pain that is involved out of it.

but, I would counter with this, sure they know what they need, but they do not know what they need if they do not know about other assets available, they may not know what an adjacent unit needs and that unit is a higher priority on limited assets. It's the whole Known and Unknown Rummy argument.
That being said, lets get on with Wednesdays post Tom, time for a new thread.

Re: Kit issue, all USMC needs is enough flaks, kevlars, and hot/cold weather gear to issue every Marine, and an incredible administrative burden would be removed from my shoulders.

Re: Inventories. Inventories would be easy if responsible officers would a) organize their records to make it easy to find the stuff for which they're accountable and b) would quit losing shit.

Soldiersdiary, the assets are pretty well known, that is what we have FOBs for so we can store that stuff until we need it but the people at the FOBs deciding if you actually need something or not when they are not out in the field and doing it via video armchair quarterbacking is a problem. I guess what I am saying is that the huge staffs and huge numbers that the Army used in their shops (S2, S6, etc...) wind up being counter-productive to the idea of Auftragstatik.

Lester, you are right and they are simple points as well as being something that can be corrected with of course the exception of losing stuff and from what I have seen....umm....breaking stuff.

But, Tom.....