Small unit leadership. Units down to the squad level (13 Soldiers/Marines), are in control of themselves. They are given objectives, constraints, and all relevant info, then told to achieve the mission. They’re also in constant communication with other nearby units. There is no solid plan. It is all contingency.
Squad leaders get a 5 paragraph order: SMEAC
- Situation: What the battle field look like.
- Mission: What needs to be accomplished. Who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why? The why lets unit make adjustments as necessary.
- Execution: Overall greater goal, enemy weak spots, and what other units will be doing for the mission.
- Admin & logistics: Beans (food), bullets (ammo), band-aids (medical info/gear/plans), & bad guys (EPWs)
- Command & signal: Command structure and communication matters
These units figure it out on their own and coordinate with other units that are in control of themselves also. From what I hear, Russian troops are all dependent on commands from an officer! lol. That would be insane in the American military. Everything would get paralyzed every time there is an unexpected issues, which in battle, is basically all there is. Battle is a series of unexpected issues. To quote the philosopher Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
tl;dr: The American military is trained to function assuming units know how they function best and everything will go to shit. It’s designed to maximize individual strengths and be chaotic af. American units don’t know what they’re doing until they’re doing it.
An old NCO once told me that “the first casualty of war is the plan.” I don’t know where he got that from, but I’ve always liked that quote.
It was Eisenhower maybe that said “plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable.”
Iirc it was some German general around the first world war.
Edit: it is probably based on von Moltke the elder a prussian field marshal
„Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.“
And yet, it’s a famously specialised force with tons of complexity and supply chain overhead. Pretty much every other military is flying by the seats of their pants, by comparison, whether it’s a Canadian soldier with the MOS of “dunno, boats maybe, and your equipment is definitely filled with mold”, or a North Korean soldier that can change their own orders with a bribe of pork.
I feel like all four people in this document (including the author) had an angle of some kind.
I was in the US military, so that was my angle. Don’t know about the rest. @BombOmOm@lemmy.world seems like they might have been in the US military also.
Ah, isn’t that the key of it, though? A highly specialized force knows not just what they’re assigned to do, but what they’re supposed to do for the overall operation, making adaptation both possible and likely to not result in catastrophic failure.
Russian troops are all dependent on commands from an officer!
To me, that sounds like they never updated command and communication strategies from, oh… the 18th century? This works great where you have regimented battalions with muskets and bayonets, all lined up on a single battlefield with clear lines of sight. But introduce so much as an opposing guerilla unit or machine guns (let alone tanks, air support, and artillery you can’t even see) and it all goes to hell in a hand-basket.
There’s actually a very good reason why Russia operates like that - mutinies. If you give junior officers authority, in a political system like Russia’s where the leadership’s legitimacy is purely based on power and self-interest, they might decide they’d rather be the ones in charge. This was perfectly demonstrated when they gave a military unit autonomy, and that resulted in the Wagner mutiny.
NCOs and local autonomy is OP. The soldier with the most info is the one with a gun in his hand. The closer the command structure is to that information source, the better everything runs.
As Von Steuben once said, the sergeant is the most important man in the Army.
Also, Maxim #2: A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on
Mods, can you lock this post? Responses are entirely too credible.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Post something funny, I’ll upvote you.
It’s reasonable to assume that many of us are veterans or to put it another way; can just as easily explain the US doctrine as jerk off in a porta-john in under 5 mins during an Iraqi summer.
Can I come in time before I pass out from heat exhaustion?
Challenge accepted.
All of which has led American trainers to develop a rule of thumb: a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army has as much authority as a colonel in an Arab army.
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/why-arabs-lose-wars
This post is already too credible, so what the fuck, I might as well continue to dishonor it’s noncredibility even further.
You can’t really compare a modern major Arab army, to a western army. They serve different functions.
Major Arab armies, at least contemporary ones, are designed to primarily preserve the internal social order and hierarchy. They’re internal security forces, with war planes and tanks.
Which presents another problem, coup d’etats. You can’t risk your command staff aligning against your ruling class, or monarch, so they should not trained, or inclined, to cooperate too much. So you put rivals in charge a different branches, and make sure to purge anyone you cannot trust to preserve the status quo, above all else.
This also means small unit leadership and tactics are antithetical to the purpose of their military.
To be clear, I’m not talking about Arab militant groups or militias, and this is definitely not a function of race. It’s function of the types of political systems you currently find in much of, but certainly not all, of the Arab world.
Amazing. From what I heard Russia is the same, I’m wondering how is China (probably similar). Along with the known numbers, it also makes me think if there is even a credible threat to the US military’s dominance - probably not.
It’s also funny, how things like delegation of authority are very simple and proven concepts, yet it’s not used at a lot of places, even western companies. My squad only fights battles with ppts and clients, but I operate in the same way, often having weird interactions with other leaders, when I explain how I don’t hog power and information for myself unnecessarily.
I once read at the start of WW2 Germany’s military was decentralized and USSR’s was centralized. As the war progressed, that flipped. Certainly not the only reason why either side saw successes or failures but I thought it was interesting.
