# What comes first Equipment or Doctrine? (from: I see a Role for MGS)



## a_majoor (10 Nov 2007)

As far as I understand; the MGS in the SBCT is crewed by infantry soldiers integral to the unit. This is very much the model of the USMC LAV Coy, but then again, the Marines are fully integrated well beyiond anything we do.

We need to understand what we want to do with our doctrine before we pull out the Sears catalogue and go shopping for "stuff"


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## Kirkhill (10 Nov 2007)

But Arthur, "Stuff" determines what you can do.


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## McG (10 Nov 2007)

CSA 105 said:
			
		

> No, your doctrine should determine what you MUST do, SHOULD do and COULD do, then you should buy the appropriate "Stuff" to do those things.


Yes.  However, there must also be a feedback loop.  Doctrine must not fail to exploit what is technologically feasible and there is a risk (if doctrine is looked at in isolation) that doctrine will be written only to what the author knows to be achievable while falling short of what is actually possible (maybe even COTS possible).


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## tomahawk6 (10 Nov 2007)

Doctrine needs to constantly evolve to remain relevant.


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## Kirkhill (10 Nov 2007)

How about starting from the position of "What would I like to do?" as opposed to "What do I need to do?"

I need to stay warm and dry.

There is a hole in my roof.  I would like to fix it.  But.  I don't have the money to buy a tarp let alone reroof the house. 

1. What would I like to do
2. What is possible
3. What is affordable
4. What is acceptable


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## a_majoor (10 Nov 2007)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> How about starting from the position of "What would I like to do?" as opposed to "What do I need to do?"
> 
> I need to stay warm and dry.
> 
> ...



But that is exactly what we are saying. What you "need" to do is stay warm and dry. Items 2,3 and 4 are mostly iterative processes to determine how you will be able to do what you "need" to do, and what "stuff" you need to do it. If done properly, you may end up with "out of the box" thinking and come up with a different solution than what might have been expected.

One example is how the "Fighter Mafia" managed to come up with the F-15 and F-16, even though the powers that be in the USAF hierarchy had initially convinced themselves and the contractors that an all singing and dancing F-111 clone was the way to go. The USAF had identified certain "needs", but since the Fighter Mafia was using John Boyd's "Energy-Maneuverability"  theory to determine "What was possible" they were able to change many minds about what was affordable and acceptable.

Starting with "Stuff" already delimits the "what is possible". Operational experience, kludges, upgrades and clever operators dreaming up new TTPs "may" be able to get you through, but examples ranging from the Boulton-Paul Defiant fighter plane to US "Tank Destroyers" to "Ferdinand the Elephant" SP assault guns should indicate there are pretty strict limits to what you can do if you are starting with the wrong "Stuff".


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## Kirkhill (11 Nov 2007)

Point taken on the iterative process - and I agree - but if it is an iterative process does it matter where you start?  If somebody starts from the position of "Here's a bunch of Stuff, what can we do with it?" and some one else at the table starts from the position "Here's what I need or want to do, what Stuff is available?" does it really matter so long as both people are at the table adressing the issues of "Where do we go from here?"

In the OODA loop, observe-orient-decide-act-observe-orient-decide-act-observe-orient-decide-act... does it really matter where you start in the loop? Does it matter if you are forced to act before you have had a chance to observe-orient-decide so long as after you act you continue observing-orienting and deciding before acting again?


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## McG (12 Nov 2007)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> Point taken on the iterative process - and I agree - but if it is an iterative process does it matter where you start?


You must start with need because it is the goal that focuses everything else.  If something is unrelated to the need, then it is irrelevant even if it is acceptable, achievable, and affordable.


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## TangoTwoBravo (13 Nov 2007)

I tend to believe in inductive reasoning, while I observe that our system seems based on a belief in deductive reasoning.  We would like to think that doctrine should drive material, but sometimes a little change comes along and doctrine has to adapt by reverse-engineering itself to the new technology.  The machine gun didn't come out of some capability development board, and I imagine that 1905-era armies were arguing over which PYs to assign to this non-doctrinal piece of equipment that some folks were demanding to be adopted after seeing what it could do in Manchuria.


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## Greymatters (13 Nov 2007)

MCG said:
			
		

> You must start with need because it is the goal that focuses everything else.  If something is unrelated to the need, then it is irrelevant even if it is acceptable, achievable, and affordable.



On that point, everything starts with panic - we need it and dont have it.  But otherwise, I agree

We've seen a lot of this recently in Afghanistan and before that in many other places.  Did doctrine encourage us to send over tanks?  (Actually it would have if we had looked at the right doctrine instead of some balls-up concept of peacekeeping).  Did doctrine and studies and negotiations get the uniform changed from green to brown?  Did doctrine convince us to get new armour, or other new fancy kit no one had ever seen before?  It was need, and that need drove the system.  Doctrine was only changed afterwards.


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## pbi (13 Nov 2007)

Docrtine can easily be developed without equipment: look at the development of combined arms theory in the British and German armies in the 20's and 30s when much of the kit either didn't exist or was composed of inadequate stand-ins. Good doctrine, by intent, is pretty broad and readily adaptable stuff. If it wasn't it wouldn't be much use. Canadian doctrine (perhaps to some folks' surprise...) is evolving pretty well-just take a look at the new CFP 300-001 Land Operations-very up to date.  There actually is a fairly good link between theatre, Lessons Learned and the Army training system. Some doctrine stuff is lagging, but mainly because of horsepower shortages.

TTPs, on the other hand, are almost directly driven by equipment, because they tend to be about how specific things are done with certain bits of kit.  Sometimes I think we say "doctrine" when we really mean "TTPs". 

Cheers


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## Spr.Earl (20 Nov 2007)

Oh my has Rick thrown a wrench into the works?
It is well known that the CDS has a affinity for the U.S. system after he did his time in Texas.

I for one do not like it.

Yes the U.S. are our neighbours but that does not mean we have to copy cat in regards to their Military System.


We should already know from our past when we were cannon fodder in WWI,WWII with the British.

Canada should develop it's own and stay the course and not flip flop like we have done for the last 40 yrs.
Yes that is what we have done is flip flop.
I have seen and read 3 white papers on defence since I joined 30yrs ago and all professed new kit,max training, etc. 
Yet to see any one of them completed. :

The time has come where we as a Nation suck back and reload and REALY decide what we whant from all 3 branch's of the C.F. and decide what will be the aim for the C.F. and Canada as whole.

If not the our right to the North will be taken from us.

Nick



UBIQUE


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## Kirkhill (20 Nov 2007)

pbi said:
			
		

> Docrtine can easily be developed without equipment: look at the development of combined arms theory in the British and German armies in the 20's and 30s when much of the kit either didn't exist or was composed of inadequate stand-ins. Good doctrine, by intent, is pretty broad and readily adaptable stuff. If it wasn't it wouldn't be much use. Canadian doctrine (perhaps to some folks' surprise...) is evolving pretty well-just take a look at the new CFP 300-001 Land Operations-very up to date.  There actually is a fairly good link between theatre, Lessons Learned and the Army training system. Some doctrine stuff is lagging, but mainly because of horsepower shortages.
> 
> TTPs, on the other hand, are almost directly driven by equipment, because they tend to be about how specific things are done with certain bits of kit.  Sometimes I think we say "doctrine" when we really mean "TTPs".
> 
> Cheers



With respect pbi wasn't the Doctrine of the 20s and 30s the outgrowth of the observed technology of WW 1?  I believe it was seeing the combined impact of radios, artillery ranging systems, aircraft and tanks that resulted in Fuller's Plan 1919 which in turn led to Liddel Hart and then Guderian.  Those plans were also impacted by the reorg of the inf that was possible because of the introduction of the section LMG, the rifle grenade, the 3" Stokes battalion mortar, and the battalion HMGs - those technologies permitted the tactics which became doctrine.  

Although I could also argue that the mud and the trenches created the need and technology was canvassed to determine what was possible and practicable.  Once Best Available Technologies were fielded then TTPs were adjusted and in the fullness of time became Doctrine.


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## a_majoor (22 Nov 2007)

The evolution of doctrine is driven by many things, Kirkhill. The doctrine adopted by most continental armies prior to WWI was partly driven by technological advances such as rifled firearms, telegraphs and railways, but also by what might be described as an philosophical belief in the ability of the human spirit to prevail, hence the emphasis of the supremacy of cold steel in the face of fire. 

The belief in mechanization in the post WWI period was more of a reaction to the horrors of the stalemate of trench warfare. Combined arms doctrine was well understood prior to WWI (indeed, sophisticated combined arms "doctrine" was understood in the ancient world), but had largely been abandoned after the opening battles of the WWI due to the massive casualties and the loss of the experienced pre war cadre of officers and NCO's.

Mechanized combined arms doctrines developed by the UK, Germany and the Red Army is actually rather similar (since many of the underlying assumptions are the same) despite the differences in the technologies available to the various parties. Some of the differences turned out to be vital (German doctrine suggested aviation was a form of tactical artillery, which limited the flexibility of the Luftwaffe as the war progressed), but it was doctrine which suggested the sort of aircraft which should be developed. Later, when that idea was overtaken by events, German industry struggled to meet the new demands (see Luft 46), but it was brilliant ad hockery.


Today, we see doctrine driven by both the possibilities available with "smart" weapons, but also political considerations to limit costs,  casualties and loss of morale. It will be interesting to see how this develops over time.


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## ArmyRick (22 Nov 2007)

The concept of combined arms dates back along ways (romans with chariots riding into battle, fire support from archers, men with spears and swords to close with and destroy, etc).
Its kind of interesting to look at how Art breaks down things. I see WWI the start of a major technology "bump" that changed the way we fight wars (Indirect artillery, machine guns, trenches, relying less on the horse, the intro of the tank, etc, etc)


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## a_majoor (22 Nov 2007)

I suppose everyone has their favorite technology "bump", WWI _in my view_ is actually the culmination of technical trends dating back to about the time of the American Civil war. While rifled firearms, quick firing artillery and even trenches and barbed wire first made their large scale appearance in that war, the real technological changes that overturned millennia of military tradition and knowledge was the introduction of the telegraph and railroads.

The telegraph broke the age old limitation of command and control by personal presence and messages carried by runners and couriers.

Railroads provided logistical support at greater scales and speeds than possible by animal transport, foraging or even water transport.

Together, these innovations really define the start of modern warfare.


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## TangoTwoBravo (23 Nov 2007)

If we are talking about "bumps" as being revolutions then I have a couple of choices.  I see a revolution as being something that completely changes the "rules" of combat.  My own test is that would a general from a previous era recognize the extant tactics.  I think that there were two early revolutions that happened rather close to each other.  The first was having some form of close-order drill and the second was the use of horses.  Homeric epic poetry aside, war was changing (in those societies that employed these techniques) from single or tribal combat into battles between mass armies where group cohesion meant more than individual skill in battle.

The army that kept its nerve and stuck together despite the odds could prevail.  Discipline, bravery, keeping ranks and the ability to execute drill under great duress could make all the difference.

I think that war trundled on until about 1900 to 1904 along those same lines.  Armies would fight in relatively compact lines.  Cavalry use had waxed and waned over the centuries and indeed by the US Civil War was not really the shock arm that it had occasionally evolved into.  Nevertheless, I think that Alexander would have recognized Waterloo or Gettysburg as being battles he could fight.  Indeed, I think that his army could have done quite well with a quick one-week course on firearms. 

I haven't called gunpowder a revolution and that is a calculated risk as opposed to an oversight.  Cannon, perhaps, could be seen as being revolutionary in what they did to seige warfare, but in a general sense battles fought in the late 18th century were fought much as they were centuries before.  True rifles may have been the fore-runners of the upcoming Firepower Revolution.

The British gained a glimpse of the revolution in the Boer War, and the whole world saw it in Manchuria in 1904.  Machine guns, barbed wire, trenches and quick-firing artillery meant that the old virtues of bravery and discipline under fire could be turned into deadly vices.  (I didn't fully undestand what quick-firing artillery was and why the 1904 observers were so exicted.  The recoil mechanisms that we take for granted had only recently been introduced and guns were now much more accurate as well as being able to fire more rapidly).  I don't know if barbed wire and trenches should be seen as revolutionary but perhaps as adaptations to the machine guns and quick firing artillery.

The Japanese eventually abandoned their Prussian field regulations (their doctrine) and blue uniforms and went to dull uniforms and skirmish lines.  Siege guns were used to pound fortifications instead of charges on foot (the Germans took notice of that) and cavalry didn't have much too do, much to the disappointment of the visiting Cavalry attaches.  A visit to the front at Mukden revealed the nature of "the empty battlefield" where infiltration and trench lines replaced the formed up ranks of previous generations.  British observers were gratified to see that their decisions from the Boer War had been validated, while French observers drew that the "offensive spirit" of the Japanese had allowed them to break through the stalemate against the passive Russians.  The results of the latter analysis played themselves out tragically in WWI.

I would argue that this revolutionary doctrinal earthquake continued through to 1918.  The integration of tanks, artillery, infantry and airpower backed by a modern logistical network was realized and put into practice.  World War II took the methods of 1918 and refined them or evolved them to greter degree.  

I would argue that we are still waiting for the next revolution.  Our doctrine is actually pretty good at being descriptive.  Doctrine, however, has problems being predictive about changes.  It is hard to read future technologies and how emerging technologies will influence our business.  If changes in technology are only really evolutionary then the extant proven doctrine should generally prevail.  If, however, the technology is truly revolutionary then doctrine should be discarded.  The trick is telling the difference.


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## a_majoor (25 Nov 2007)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> I think that war trundled on until about 1900 to 1904 along those same lines.  Armies would fight in relatively compact lines.  Cavalry use had waxed and waned over the centuries and indeed by the US Civil War was not really the shock arm that it had occasionally evolved into.  Nevertheless, I think that Alexander would have recognized Waterloo or Gettysburg as being battles he could fight.  Indeed, I think that his army could have done quite well with a quick one-week course on firearms.



I will stipulate that an Alexander, Hannibal or Henry V would indeed recognize Waterloo or Gettysburg, and even thrash the likes of Hooker or Burnside (although how well they would do against a Lee or Sherman is debatable), but that would be irrelevant. The great Generals of the past would not be fighting against the commanders in the field but against Halleck and Lincoln, who have the ability to direct and supply armies across a continent through the use of the telegraph and railroad, and the industrial power of the Union to back them. Doctrine was thus greatly expanded to include factors of time, space and logistics which were not possible in the campaigns of the past.


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## Infanteer (30 Nov 2007)

I don't believe in revolutions.  The application of technology to battle takes place either through a slow filtering process through existing doctrine or simply by pure accident.  With every emerging technology there was a period of time for this to occur.  As well, technology is applied to doctrine differently by different people.  This would imply evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary trends.


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## TangoTwoBravo (30 Nov 2007)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> I will stipulate that an Alexander, Hannibal or Henry V would indeed recognize Waterloo or Gettysburg, and even thrash the likes of Hooker or Burnside (although how well they would do against a Lee or Sherman is debatable), but that would be irrelevant. The great Generals of the past would not be fighting against the commanders in the field but against Halleck and Lincoln, who have the ability to direct and supply armies across a continent through the use of the telegraph and railroad, and the industrial power of the Union to back them. Doctrine was thus greatly expanded to include factors of time, space and logistics which were not possible in the campaigns of the past.



The relevance is that they would not have recognized Ypres.  A huge shift had happened, the likes of which had not been seen before (clearly in recorded history anyway) and have not been seen since.  The battlefield had changed on a fundamental level.

Alexander and Henry had logistics and communications and had to incorporate those things into their plans.  I think that Alexander grappled with time, space and logistics.  The scale and speed had changed, perhaps, but the principles may have held.  I would argue that you could brief them in ten minutes that the quartermasters now had access to really fast pack animals and they could adapt.  Their tactical adaptation to machine guns, trenches, real artillery and barbed wire, however, would probably not have been fast enough to survive.  The principles (if there truly are such things) had changed.  I grant that Alexander might have recognized Port Arthur in that he seemed to enjoy sieges.

My silly time travel is just to bring out the point that warfare trundled along for two thousand years while retaining a rather familiar form.  That form started to come apart around the turn of the 19th century and was completely gone by 1918.

Infanteer,

If "revolution" in this context means that people sit down and deliberately plan these things out then I would agree that there are no real revolutions in military affairs.   I have been using revolution simply to mean a radical change in the order of things.  Much of that was accidental, but the change was massive nonetheless.  I hate to use the expression "paradigm shift", but perhaps one could use that to look at what happened between 1870 and 1918.

Cheers!


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## TangoTwoBravo (7 Dec 2007)

I was reading through John Ellis' The Social History of the Machine Gun  and came across an interesting persepective on the relationship between equipment and doctrine.  J.F.C. Fuller wrote a staff paper in 1914 (before the war) which proposed that "tactics are based on weapon-power and not on the experience of military history, and that since in 1914 the quick-firing field gun and the machine gun were the two most recent weapons, our tactics should be based on them."  Apparently Fuller was criticized for taking this position at the staff college.  

We can get into a chicken and egg routine with what comes first, but I would offer that equipment should have the right of way over doctrine.  This may be backwards, but I think that doctrine and tactics should adapt to new technology and not the other way around.  

p.s. Editted to remove one obvious grammar error.  Others may remain...


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## Colin Parkinson (7 Dec 2007)

The Marines have the luxury of occupying a Niche in the US force structure, admittedly it is evolving. However Canada's Military has two distinct roles that contradict each other in the terms of equipment and roles. The first is the need for domestic defence for an area way out of proportion to the size of military available. The 2nd is the need for an expeditionary force that may fight/peacekeep anywhere in the world. I can't imagine a bigger headache for any military planner, trying to balance domestic, peacekeeping, war fighting both in the present sense and being able to respond to a threat such as a massive conventional war with N. Korea.


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## Infanteer (9 Dec 2007)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> We can get into a chicken and egg routine with what comes first, but I would offer that equipment should have the right of way over doctrine.  This may be backwards, but I think that doctrine and tactics should adapt to new technology and not the other way around.



I agree.  Technology is the "external" force in this one; we (as in a military force) have no control over how it is "evolved" into the battlefield - it is our professional duty to observe this evolution and to mold doctrine so that our force best puts the technology to use.

Another interesting point.  Technological and doctrinal evolutions are completely dependent on the context.  I was reading a comparison of the evolution of German and British defensive doctrine in WWI.  The German system evolved over two years, going through many iterations before becoming the "elastic defence" we now read about.  When the Brits realized their offensive capability was spent in 1917, they tried to bring their defensive doctrine up to speed.  Their solution was to copy, almost verbatim, German manuals they had captured.  However, when doing so, they failed to consider that German defensive doctrine was designed to counter Allied offensive tactics, and that it may have been wholly unsuited to counter German offensive tactics.

Point is, there is no "good way" and "bad way" in absolute terms - the interaction between doctrine and technology is entirely dependent on time and space (who you're fighting and the circumstances of the fight).  In essence, the "evolution" or "revolution" (however one sees it) isn't really a forward moving process, but rather one of constant loops.  I'm sure now that Counterinsurgency is en vogue, you could find lots of examples of this.  

Does any of this make sense.  I'm just procrastinating from reviewing PDRs....


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## TangoTwoBravo (10 Dec 2007)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Their solution was to copy, almost verbatim, German manuals they had captured.



I think I saw the same sort of thing going on here in the late 90s with our own doctine... 

In all seriousness, doctrine, tactics and related equipment do have cultural and societal aspects and your point on context is very well taken.  What works very well for one army in one time and place may very well not work for another army in another time and place.  Other nations could not just pick up the devastating English longbow.  The English longbowmen of Crecy and Agincourt were the product of a society over time, not an instant technological weapons advancement.  I might be reading into the politics of the day too much, but I don't know if the French knights would have supported having their own 'commoners' possessing such weapons, assuming that they could have developed the strength and trainig to do so.  The Samurai had brakes on military development in Japan for hundreds of years to preserve their own place.

Going further back, the Persians had learned over time that 'Greek' hoplite infantry were pretty tough to beat (maybe they had watched 300).  They began to hire Greek mercenaries to provide infantry formations, and the long Pelopenisian War provided a ready supply of hoplites available for hire.  When Darius III lost his Greek mercenaries at the Grancius (the first big battle of Alexander's war against Darius) he tried to form his own Persian 'heavy infantry' to counter the Macedonian _phalangists_ (pike-armed infantry who fought in close, deep formation).  The Persian _Kardaces_, however, were apparently not up to the task and were crushed at Issus.  There was more to being in a Macedonian phalanx that having a pike.  What works for one culture may not work for another.  Alexander himself hired allied contingents to provide other types of troops that his own Macedonians had trouble fielding, with the outstanding Agrianian skirmishers being perhaps the most prominent.

We can, however, go too far down the road of national tendencies.  In my recent readings on European armies on the eve of the First World War I have often come across contemporary writers discuss the differences between Germans and Frenchmen and making assumptions about either regardind suitable tactics.  The French doctrine writers of 1904 trumpeted the 'souplesse" or flexibility of Frenchmen as compared to the more rigid Germans.  They thought that the more individually-minded French soldiers would find a way forward on their own to deliver attacks.  This sounds fine in theory, but the practice ten years later showed that initiative will only get you so far.  

We can also get a little arrogant or stereotypical regarding other nations, and pride comes before the fall.


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## Mikeg81 (10 Dec 2007)

But arn't you always fighting the last war, when you are trying to make doctrine?
Sure, during the '20's and '30's, development of equipment happened, but it was applied re: experience gained previously(ie: Tanks taking over from horses).

Whereas during a war, like right now, if you've haven't fought one like it before, you end up learning on the fly, adapting exisitng equipment and getting new stuff?

Do you think we'd have bought RG31's of the 'Gan didn't happen?

(What came first, chicken or the egg?)


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## Colin Parkinson (10 Dec 2007)

So you are saying we should hire a battalion of Gurkha's? For that light infantry sensitive touchy feely stuff?

It certainly would solve our manpower problems. Mind you I doubt they would enjoy being stationed in Shilo.


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## Mikeg81 (10 Dec 2007)

Colin P said:
			
		

> So you are saying we should hire a battalion of Gurkha's? For that light infantry sensitive touchy feely stuff?
> 
> It certainly would solve our manpower problems. Mind you I doubt they would enjoy being stationed in Shilo.



Not a bad idea...but the cold might get to them...

Naw, I'm just trying to answer the question posed in the thread title.


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## Colin Parkinson (10 Dec 2007)

It may come to the point one day where a rich western country may have to contract out to a poorer country for troops to meet their obligations. I could see where such an arrangement would benefit both sides. We would sign an agreement with a particular country to hire X number of troops who would train to a certain agreed standard and practise with our forces regularly, they would agree to deploy under set conditions. What we would be doing is formalizing a scenario that already takes place in UN missions, but this would be an improvement on that existing arrangement. The benefits they would receive is better training, money to support the hiring housing of troops, an agreement to pay a portion of pensions and disability claims, access to modern equipment, good officer training. We would get the ability to deploy and sustain a much larger ground force than we can currently do.

This doesn't mean that Canadian infantry would be replaced, i suspect the higher trained, better equipped Canadians would be the hammer and the foreign troops would be the anvil. I would foresee the country of choice would be smallish, with a fairly large population and limited economic status. The country could also benefit from other econmic ties as well.


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## a_majoor (11 Dec 2007)

I think that technology isn't really the driving force behind doctrine, but more indefinable factors such as culture. There are many historical examples where opposing sides had very similar equipment, yet one side had a huge advantage based on their ability to deploy, support and employ their men and equipment. This is explored in greater detail in VDH's book "Carnage and Culture", with pretty concrete examples such as the opposing galley fleets at the Battle of Lepanto which were functionally identical (many of the Ottoman galleys were copies of Venetian galleys, for example).

This is one of the reasons I will stand by the introduction of the staff system and communications technology as the real revolutionary changes that drove changes in doctrine. The way work is handled, decisions are made and information transmitted depends a lot on cultural factors, and cultures which are open and flexible are much more likely to make the best use of their men and equipment, and establish structures and doctrines that work to do so.


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## dapaterson (11 Dec 2007)

Colin P said:
			
		

> It may come to the point one day where a rich western country may have to contract out to a poorer country for troops to meet their obligations.



Already doing it.  CANCAP and other contractor augmentation programs provide us with poor nation personnel to support our troops.  We lose the flexibility that military personnel filling those roles would give us, but get to claim with a semi-straight face that we have fewer troops deployed.

Of course, if you contract out much of your CSS and then discover that you won't be operating out of one static base the lack of military assets can cause some heartache...


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## Infanteer (11 Dec 2007)

Mikeg81 said:
			
		

> Do you think we'd have bought RG31's of the 'Gan didn't happen?



Yes, because we did - we owned and operated them before we ever deployed to Afghanistan....


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## Mikeg81 (11 Dec 2007)

When was that?


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## Infanteer (11 Dec 2007)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> I think that technology isn't really the driving force behind doctrine, but more indefinable factors such as culture. There are many historical examples where opposing sides had very similar equipment, yet one side had a huge advantage based on their ability to deploy, support and employ their men and equipment. This is explored in greater detail in VDH's book "Carnage and Culture", with pretty concrete examples such as the opposing galley fleets at the Battle of Lepanto which were functionally identical (many of the Ottoman galleys were copies of Venetian galleys, for example).
> 
> This is one of the reasons I will stand by the introduction of the staff system and communications technology as the real revolutionary changes that drove changes in doctrine. The way work is handled, decisions are made and information transmitted depends a lot on cultural factors, and cultures which are open and flexible are much more likely to make the best use of their men and equipment, and establish structures and doctrines that work to do so.



Culture is, I believe, part of the "context" portion of the equation that I mentioned.  But as previously stated we can only push the cultural explanation so far.  Victor Davis Hanson goes, in my opinion, too far - his theory was rightly ripped apart by John Lynn in "Battle".


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## Infanteer (11 Dec 2007)

Mikeg81 said:
			
		

> When was that?



I can't tell you when we first purchased them, but I have a picture of myself sitting on one in Bosnia - we're using an Engineer route proving vehicle as an armoured patrol vehicle.


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## TangoTwoBravo (11 Dec 2007)

No argument from me about the effect of culture on doctrine.  I still think that it can be dangerous, however, to start ascribing values and stereotypes to cultures and armies.  Cultural determinism might make smug people feel more smug about their own culture, but the bones of many a smug army can be found.  I won't argue about the need to be flexible and adaptable, but part of that flexibility might include looking beyond one's own culture.

The Byzantines appear to have had a well-organized army with many components to include infantry and cavalry and can be seen as a blend of Roman and Greek practices (albeit with centuries of evolution).  Nevertheless, they were crushed by the Seljuks at Manzikert in 1071.  The Romans suffered any number of disasters, not to mention one against the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 BC.  My point about Manzikert and Carrhae is that we in the West tend to look down upon Eastern rivals and that we should be careful using culture.  Cultures and societies may wax and wane indepenent of any inherent cultural tendency.

When comparing two armies we can look to many factors.  Numbers, quality of troops, quality of leadership, morale, tactical methods, equipment, logisitics are all ways to assess relative strengths.  Many of these are subjective, however, and we can sometimes shoe-horn our assessment when reverse engineering.  Knowing the outcome, we can set up the assessment to support that known outcome.  While minor differences in equipment may not matter compared to large differences in numbers, leadership or tactical methods, I do not think that we can write-off weaponry.  

I enjoy reading about the English longbowmen, perhaps due to cultural bias and the need to bask in the warm glow of victories.  I suppose I should ignore the defeat at Patay to maintain that warm glow.  The English longbowmen were able to accomplish at Crecy and Agincourt what many other foot bowmen had been unable to do.  Previous missile troops on foot were unable to achieve great effects against armoured targets before getting swept away (either by a phalanx or a heavy cavalry charge).  The longbow, however, presented at technological advance over other missile systems in terms of range, hitting power and rate of fire.  The French knights at Agincourt made things easier for their enemies by attacking over a muddy field on a narrow front, but nevertheless we see one system defeating another system.  The English system included considerable training requirements and required a doctrine for its employment, but I think that we can look to the longbow as an example of a weapon system giving a decided advantage to one side.  Going back to Patay (some fifteen years after Agincourt), however, we have an example of a French frontal charge sweeping away the English longbowmen before they were completely ready.  Thus, I concede that weaponry alone is not the only determinent.  Factors such as tactical setting and timing can make a huge difference as well.

I must concede, at this point, some ground to your argument about adaptive cultures.  The post-1066 English were, in effect, Normans.  Those Normans, themselves transplanted Danish Vikings hired to protect the Franks against maruading Vikings, were an adaptable lot who included various aspects of other cultures that they encountered.  They adopted the mounted heavy cavalry of their Frankish hosts and then added Bretonian light cavalry.  The post-conquest English Normans incorporated Welsh longbows and got away, somewhat, from the reliance on the mounted knight that seemed to grip France.  Adaptability is very important, but that can be a bit of a truism. In any case, we are speaking here in this thread about adaptation and namely should doctrine adapt to equipment or the other way around (which somehow started with the MGS).

The staff system and communications (do you include rail as communications?) were certainly important additions to warfare, but I still look to some rather mundance tactical aspects such as the machine gun and quick firing artillery as having driven the change in how war is fought today from how it was fought up until the turn of the last century.

Where I have been going here, however, is not to determine a way to tell which of two armies is better, but rather should equipment be purchased to fit doctrine or rather should doctrine be adapted to equipment.


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## TangoTwoBravo (11 Dec 2007)

Colin P said:
			
		

> So you are saying we should hire a battalion of Gurkha's? For that light infantry sensitive touchy feely stuff?
> 
> It certainly would solve our manpower problems. Mind you I doubt they would enjoy being stationed in Shilo.



My ramblings about Alexander's foreign troops were _not _ to suggest that we should hire foreingers to do the dirty work.  Rather, I was providing examples from the past of a given doctrine or fighting style being suited to a given culture or nationality.  Alexander merely took advantage of that.  His Agrianians and Thessalians should not , however, be seen as mercenaries if we are looking for modern parallels.  They were, perhaps, more like coalition allies who provided specialists.


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## a_majoor (12 Dec 2007)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> Where I have been going here, however, is not to determine a way to tell which of two armies is better, but rather should equipment be purchased to fit doctrine or rather should doctrine be adapted to equipment.



In the broadest sense, Doctrine is independent of equipment, ideally it is something like a philosophy which allows you to use your resources to the greatest effect. Doctrine also incorporates cultural assumptions, sometimes with unexpected results. Europeans were caught up with the idea of morale and marital spirit as the prime determinate factor of military success in the second half of the 19th century, which led to the cult of cold steel and the almost unshakable belief that soldiers trained and imbued with the right spirit could prevail by taking the offense. We might think of French soldiers mown down by machine gun fire in WWI as the end result of such thinking, but examinations of battles between European armies (or the Japanese, who were heavily influenced by European ideas) in the period between @ 1870 and 1915 has lots of examples. The worst thing was this actually worked for most of the period in question, hence Captains and Majors who led charges to victory in the closing years of the 19th century were now Colonels and Generals in 1914 who _knew_ that this would work......

I think we all have a tendency to think more of TTPs which _are_ dependent on equipment and resources, rather than the deeper assumptions which underly them. Although VDH's thesis about the cultural assumptions that underly our western brand of warfare is contentious, it seems pretty self evident that Western forces seek to settle the issue through shock encounters with formed bodies of the enemy, and this seems true when examining Alexander's march through Afghanistan or TFA Roto 4's actions today. Even the current buzz phrase "Kinetic effects" sums up the idea nicely.

Given that sort of assumption underlying the entire enterprise, fearsome shock weapons like tanks and PGMs become the preferred means of dealing with the enemy. Programs like MGS or FCS are harshly criticized because they are NOT shock weapons, and even their proponents in western armies have a difficult time rationalizing the utility or use of these weapons. (Manoeuvre Warfare buzzwords like "shaping the battlefield by fire" and "substituting speed for mass"  are about shock action after all). 

Staff, telegraph communications and railroad logistics marked a huge change in the way things were done, time, space and distance were always factors in the past, but once these innovations were brought into play, the scale and scope of the battlefield and how wars were fought increased far beyond anything that the ancient Generals could have imagined or dealt with; the example of Alexander not recognizing Ypres is the logical outcome of these developments.

So in the end, it doesn't matter (much) if you are going into battle in columns of route or delivered by a flying carpet, the issues there are resolved by TTPs appropriate to the means at hand and the skilled men to implement them. Getting these means and skilled men is the result of doctrine.


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## McG (12 Dec 2007)

CSA 105 said:
			
		

> So, the Nyala is not an Engineer route proving vehicle, it is an armoured patrol vehicle.


Especially since, doctrinally, such a process does not exist.  It was a recce vehicle in the engineers & it was frequently used to recce routes with high explosive threats.


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## TangoTwoBravo (12 Dec 2007)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> In the broadest sense, Doctrine is independent of equipment, ideally it is something like a philosophy which allows you to use your resources to the greatest effect. Doctrine also incorporates cultural assumptions, sometimes with unexpected results.
> 
> I think we all have a tendency to think more of TTPs which _are_ dependent on equipment and resources, rather than the deeper assumptions which underly them. Although VDH's thesis about the cultural assumptions that underly our western brand of warfare is contentious, it seems pretty self evident that Western forces seek to settle the issue through shock encounters with formed bodies of the enemy, and this seems true when examining Alexander's march through Afghanistan or TFA Roto 4's actions today. Even the current buzz phrase "Kinetic effects" sums up the idea nicely.
> 
> So in the end, it doesn't matter (much) if you are going into battle in columns of route or delivered by a flying carpet, the issues there are resolved by TTPs appropriate to the means at hand and the skilled men to implement them. Getting these means and skilled men is the result of doctrine.



I think that your definition of doctrine might be a little more broad than mine, and in looking at underlying cultural organization I see some more of that cultural determinism that I am uncomfortable with.  Doctrine should deal with fundamentals, but I think that it does delve into the "how" of combat to some degree.  I would include field regulations under doctrine, and in past there may not have been a big difference between doctrine and TTPs.  I would include how troops are organized (groupings) in combat as part of doctrine.  Thus, by 1942 the Germans had evovled some pretty effective combined arms doctrine that incorporated the new equipment of the day.  The British did not develop that doctrine for a little while longer and suffered for it.

I've been researching for a paper on the Russo-Japanese War.  The Japanese Army went in with essentially Prussian doctrine.  As Japan underwent the Meirji Restoration that threw off the restraining hand of the samurai they actively sought out "best practices" from the world.  They figured that the British had the best navy and the Germans the best army (certainly looked that way after 1870) and they adopted those doctrines accordingly.  They certainly tried to make the extant German doctrine work, and their horrific casualty lists bear testament to that.  Shock combat is not a European monopoly.

The doctrine of the day, however, had come hard up against new technology and associated methods.  Eventually the Japanese adapted their doctrine to allow for skirmishing, fire preparation and infiltration, not to mention drab uniforms.  The British observers were able to smugly report that the Japanese had adapted their methods that they had learned in South Africa, although they were disappointed that cavalry did not play a big part.  The French drew that their 1904 infantry regulations were fine, since the ascendancy of the offensive over the defensive had been demonstrated by the outcome of the war (Russian defeat, and they were on the defensive) and that their "supple" infantry would figure things out on the ground when the time came.

Nobody got it right completely, but the French looking at a high theoretical level may have led them to have ignored the realities at the tactical level.  Those realities made their overarching strategy irrelevant.  People don't always 'figure it out' in time.  That casual laissez-faire attitude cost the French army dearly.

Going back to how you defined doctrine, I also don't know if I would include how we get the "means and skilled men" for war as part of doctrine in this discussion.  Force generation has, I suppose, its own 'doctrine' and that can certainly have an impact on failure or success.  Regardless, doctrine that exists independent of means (to include equipment and technology) may find itself rather irrelevant.


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## Kirkhill (12 Dec 2007)

I see that PPCLI Guy is on a one man crusade to bring Rugby to the CF.  Is that a doctrinal shift?

In Gulf War 1 Rupert Smith was the Divisional Commander of 1 UK Division attached to US General Franks' Corps in US General Norman Schwarzkopf's Army.  This put a Rugby player in the middle of a Football playing chain of command.  When Scwarzkopf set up his "Hail Mary" play he and his staff created a planning document that put the Encyclopaedia Britannica to shame.  The demanded and expected the same from their subordinate commanders. From the Americans they got them.  From the Rugby player they got a 4-page document and the information that he would rely on his subordinates and their training come the day.

Football is a game of chess played violently.  The decisions are made off the board by one man.  Troops with specialist skills are shuttled in to fill specific tasks and withdrawn once their task is complete.

Rugby is organized mayhem. The decisions are made by 15 individuals on the field at the time.  They are reliant on their training and the knowledge they have acquired of each other to be able predict each others actions and best utilize each others skills.  Decisions are made locally and rapidly, dependent on the enemy and the situation.

Or is doctrine about how you conduct appreciations and planning?  Because if it is staff work then Sun Tzu defined a method of performing appreciations (Way, Weather, Terrain, Leadership, Discipline) 2200 years ago.  

Or is doctrine about having canned METT-T appreciations in a playbook to meet every eventuality?

Both METT-T and Sun Tzu appreciations consider technology as a planning factor but only indirectly. For Sun Tzu it appears under the head of Discipline: how troops are organized, their chain of command and the logistics necessary.  Under METT-T (Mission, Enemy, Terrain (Environment), Troops (and equipment) and Time.

I guess I am confused as to exactly what "doctrine" is.


Merriam Webster defines doctrine this way:



> doctrine
> Main Entry: doc·trine
> Pronunciation: \ˈdäk-trən\
> Function: noun
> ...



From that I take it that doctrine may be construed as a teaching tool that eventually becomes dogma. And in my view dogma, and dogmatic response is the antithesis of flexibility and flexible response.

With Million Man conscript armies men were trained in a short period of time to perform a limited task and then were applied to the "board" as the Chain of Command saw fit.   Is that still an appropriate model for professional, volunteer soldiers who give their lives over to the study of arms and are likely to experience a number of "wars" in their career?  

Can you gain by delegating Responsibility-Authority-Budget to the players on the field?  

Would that be a doctrinal shift?


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## TangoTwoBravo (12 Dec 2007)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> Going back to how you defined doctrine, I also don't know if I would include how we get the "means and skilled men" for war as part of doctrine in this discussion.  Force generation has, I suppose, its own 'doctrine' and that can certainly have an impact on failure or success.  Regardless, doctrine that exists independent of means (to include equipment and technology) may find itself rather irrelevant.



I hate quoting myself... 

Thinking about it more, how a force prepares for war would indeed be a part of doctrine as you mention.  I think that Canada regards doctrine as 'a formal expression of military knowledge and thought which covers the nature of the conflict, the preparation of the army for conflict and the method of engaging in conflict.'  Perhaps I am overly focussed on the tactical level, but I still place my own emphasis on the method of engaging in conflict.  That being said, whether your national doctrine is based on a long-service professional army or a concript army with massive reserves may indeed drive what methods you use.  I have read arguments about principles of war and whether they indeed are immutable over time or if they have changed.  If doctrine is restricted to principles and tenets then it does, indeed, gain some independence from external forces.  You may find, however, that the devil is in the details.  Some doctrine reads like a collection of truisms and you can use a principle of war to support practically any course of action.  The following example is a bit ridiculus to be sure, but a battalion of infantry advancing on foot in close order with their colours and drums seems to achieve concentration of force and maintenance of morale, and the enemy machine gunners will probably be surprised to be offered such a target.

Kirkhill,

Having done my staff training with the Americans I can recognize the football analogy.  We often talked of "plays" and "playbooks."  We enjoyed answering "METT-T" to any question from our instructors about what we would do in a given situation.  In Canada, however, we do have drills at many levels so it isn't like we make it as we go along each time.  Doctrine would, I believe, include the 'appreciation' that the commander employs, although whether he indeed follows it is up to debate.

I like the idea of initiative and letting the leader on the spot, at whatever level, determine the best way to accomplish a task.  That leader may need, however, a frame of reference that springs from doctrine.  Assuming that they will find a way over fire-swept ground may not be setting them up for success, especially if the methods they have been taught and trained are not suitable for the existing conditions.  Hoping that people figure it out on their own may not always work.  A doctrine that assumes away technology or other external forces may not be of much use.  That being said, doctrine should have some enduring aspects and I wouldn't suggest that it changes all the time.  

Are we arguing about where Doctrine ends and TTPs start, and whether Doctrine is unchanging while TTPs evolve in response to any number of external factors?


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## a_majoor (12 Dec 2007)

Since I doing a lot of hand waving at this point, I can understand why my ideas seem a bit vague. I am pitching this too high, as it were, so maybe an example will make this more understandable:

You decide to change careers and take up your new position as the local warlord somewhere in Dafur. You have a collection of locals armed with various AK series weapons, mortars, a couple of UNIMOG trucks and a few Toyota Land Cruisers mounting 14.5mm HMG's

In order to employ them most effectively against maurading enemy militias, Sudanese forces and other factions, you can pull out your well worn "Combat Team Commander's Handbook" and create a combined arms team out of these disparate elements. The TTP's need to be adjusted to reflect the equipment and terrain, and the effects are much smaller and closer than you may be used to, but otherwise the well known combined arms doctrine works just as well with this equiment as with Leopard 1 and M-113's, or ranks of pikemen and "Companion" heavy cavalry.

Doctrine will have to change if you are heavily overmatched or operating in unexpected environments (i.e. when entering close or complex terrain), in which case you might change into an insurgent force or refuse combat.


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## Kirkhill (12 Dec 2007)

So if I am looking for common ground here can we say that "doctrine" is what is taught and that that which is taught is designed to make the best use of available resources.  Implicit recognition that not every soldier is an Alexander (or has a Field Marshal's Baton in his knapsack) or that locks don't have the necessary flair to be flankers.

We conduct training to prepare for eventualities, right enough, but don't we also train to build cohesion and familiarity?  If you leave flexibility out of the syllabus and doctrine becomes dogma don't you just make it that much more difficult for the occasional Alexanders to respond effectively to a change in the enemy's actions or the situation?  

Don't you have to leave room for:

"...THE EXPLOIT OF WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT...." ?

I noted with interest that during the Grey Cup it was the Defensive Backfield that made all the going for both teams.  The offensive teams were most tied to the playbook (apparently the QB these days has it taped to his fore-arm).  The defensive line, by the nature of their work has to be the most responsive and thus less bound by the tyranny of the playbook.


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## TangoTwoBravo (12 Dec 2007)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> The TTP's need to be adjusted to reflect the equipment and terrain, and the effects are much smaller and closer than you may be used to, but otherwise the well known combined arms doctrine works just as well with this equiment as with Leopard 1 and M-113's, or ranks of pikemen and "Companion" heavy cavalry.
> 
> Doctrine will have to change if you are heavily overmatched or operating in unexpected environments (i.e. when entering close or complex terrain), in which case you might change into an insurgent force or refuse combat.



I would argue that while having a principle about combined arms might endure, how that plays out into docrtine will certainly adjust as we switch from Companian cavalry to tanks.  It might not change all that much, however, going from a Leopard 1 to a Leopard II or M1, or even from a Sherman to an M1 since they are similar systems.

This may be an error, but I see doctrine as being the baseline for "how" we do things.  When we train we are, in essense, practicing and learning our doctrine. 

Gazing back sixty-odd years and perhaps tying back in to the title of the thread, lets look at how the US Army set itself up for World War II.  As reports of German panzers in 1939 and 1940 came in the US Army looked to how the would defeat the tank threat and employ their own.  They devised the idea of a Tank Destroyer branch equipped with relatively light but mobile and hard-hitting AT systems.  The tank destroyers (whether towed or self-propelled) would destroy enemy tanks.  To their own tanks they gave the role of neutralizing enemy strongpoints.  I would argue that this vision of how the battle would be conducted was _doctrine_ and it drove equipment decisions.  It was, perhaps, at the tactical level but I wouldn't just call it a TTP.  A breach drill or a defile drill is a TTP perhaps, but I would argue that your overall vision of how the various branches will interact is doctrine even if it is at a low level.

In the case of tank destroyer and tank doctrine for the US Army I would argue that their doctrine was somewhat faulty.  Reports from the field led to grudging changes to include putting guns on US tanks that could deal with enemy tanks and the eventual dissolution of the Tank Destroyer branch.

German doctrine dealing with the same issue was, perhaps, a little looser while still striving for the same idea.  They did prefer to leave the destruction of enemy tanks to their anti-tank weapons, but they had also learned to make their tanks capable of dealing with enemy tanks.  They were also happy to employ anti-aircraft guns to kill tanks.  The idea behind the US Tank Destroyer doctrine was, perhaps, sound, but its dogmatic application led to problems.  I've seen similar problems with 'paper/scisssors/rock' ideas in 1990's manouevre warfare texts.

I would argue that there is a relationship between doctrine and equipment.  If you have battle-tested doctrine and there have been few real technological changes then extant doctrine should probably guide equipment purchases.  If there has been a big change in weapons technology, however, we may have to adjust.  Perhaps there is a weighting that can applied on a sliding scale?  The higher the level of doctrine, the less effect technological changes might have? 

Kirkhill,

The application of doctrine on the ground should, indeed, be flexible.  Dogma can be a trap as I alluded to earlier.


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## Kirkhill (12 Dec 2007)

So T2B, what I think I am hearing you say is that in 1939-40 the US Army

Observed the application of doctrine, technology and tactics
Oriented the results to what they hoped to achieve
Decided on their own version of how to modify the technology, tactics and doctrine to achieve an advantage
Acted by implementing their changes 
Observed the effect of their changes at Kasserine
Oriented
Decided on modifications
Acted again in Sicily...


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## TangoTwoBravo (12 Dec 2007)

I suppose, but I wouldn't restrict doctrine to a decision-making model, even a buzzword model like the OODA Loop.  The fundamental steps of the decision-making process are probably quite similar for all rational actors through time, but I would argue that process is _not_ the extent of doctrine.

My point in including the tank destroyer tangent was to give an example of what I would call doctrine at a relatively low tactical level.  The bonus for me was that it shows that slavishly hitching equipment decisions to doctrine can lead to problems and also that doctrine can change.


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## a_majoor (12 Dec 2007)

That was a great example (and I am sad to say it didn't even occur to me), but I also think it reflects the relative primacy of doctrine over equipment.

The US Army's "Tank Destroyer" branch was a great example of fitting equipment specifications to doctrine. The contemporary British fielded slow, massively armoured "Infantry Tanks" and fast, lightly armoured "Cruiser Tanks" to create weapons that fit their armoured doctrine. The French had a much different idea about the use of AFV's, leading to the contemporary "Char B" series of tanks, while the Red Army had decided tanks would be the future of Cavalry (until Stalin decided to eliminate both the doctrine and the writers....), leading to the BV series of fast tanks. 

The Germans did best of all, since they expanded their ideas of combined arms doctrine much more broadly than their counterparts, although the negative consequence of _that_ ended up being a relatively short ranged and inflexible air force.

So from the top, all these forces had to deal with similar problems. The combined arms ideal was the basis of their doctrinal solutions. In every case these armies came up with some sort of mechanized force, based around tanks. As we get down closer to the weeds we start seeing a divergence of opinion as to exactly what the roles of the various pieces of the combined arms teams will be, and this is what leads to the different end results. Outside factors such as the terrain they operated out of, historical experience, ideology and the technological and industrial resources at hand also had a lot to do with the shaping of the doctrine and the ultimate shape of the forces deployed to employ doctrine (the Red Army looked to the long distances and open battles of the Russian Civil War, the use of masses of conscripted troops, and ideology of exporting the Socialist revolution as the backdrop to their 1936 Field Regulations, for example).

Hard experience in battle did cause evolutionary changes in contemporary doctrine, and I would suggest that all the various armies solutions in 1945 had converged much more closely than they were in 1939 (not only the doctrine but even as far down as the specifications of the equipment [once you discount wingers like the "Maus" tank]).


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## TangoTwoBravo (13 Dec 2007)

I would agree that doctrine often drives equipment, but I would argue that the relationship between the two should be dynamic.  If your doctrine is sound and battle-tested then I have no particular problem with it determining what equipment is to be acquired.  That being said, however, we should also realize that no doctrine is perfect and that equipment capabilities do change.  Doctrine should guide equipment decisions, but we should also have our eyes open to the possibility that the situation has changed and we have to alter our doctrine to fit the new situation (or new capability).  It can be hard, however, to really predict how a new weapon will work on the battlefield.  We military types tend to be both traditionalists and skeptics.  This can protect us from some bad ideas but it can also blind us to good ones.  

I hate to pick on Haig, but as related in The Social History of the Machine Gun  he insisted in 1913 that a Cavalry Division have four Brigades.  It needed four brigades "For the charge!  Two brigades in the first line, one in support and one in reserve."  Battle-tested, time-honoured and irrelevant doctrine.  I have read that the 1908 pattern cavalry sword was the perfect expression of doctrine in a weapon (designed for a thrust).  

As you note, the distinctions between cruiser,infantry, support, heavy, light and medium tanks seemed to disappear as time went by and we ended up with the Main Battle Tank.  Some are a bit lighter, some a bit slower etc,  but all in all we have settled on a rather general-purpose platform which makes sense on a variety of levels.  The various doctrine writers were all right to some degree, but many also had it wrong.  A tank should be able to support an infantry platoon, but it should also be able to destroy a tank that it meets.  At the higher level they should be massed, but at the same time you need to give all elements to deal with enemy tanks in turn.  The doctrine that had been hammered out by 1945 in most nations was based on a blend of theoretical work and combat experience.

If a particular doctrine has lots of rules and restrictions then perhaps we have opportunities for failure.  If it has lots of "your job is to do this and my job is to do that" or "tanks deal with such and such a target" then we might be handcuffing ourselves.  If the underlying doctrinal assumptions are based on faulty premises or special cases then we also have opportunities for failure.  

To go down another historical rabbit-hole, the Japanese Army in the 1930s was engaged in a guerrilla war in China.  Tanks were seen as supporting the infantry in the Japanese Army.  Their tanks were relatively slow and primarily armed with machine guns, and to be fair they were not alone in this regard.  Some tanks were even designed for the purpose of bringing up supplies for the infantry.  These did quite well, however, against poorly armed guerrillas.   Their bruising encounter with Zhukov in 1939, however, revealed that their Army was not really ready for a clash with a peer opponent out in the open.  They began to reorganize and made efforts to improve their tanks and acquire larger antitank guns but they were never able to make up the difference (the 1945 replay is quite fascinating and was used by Rand as an example of what a  Soviet blitz into Germany would look like).   I should add that at the strategic level Japan had to make priorities balancing a navy and an army and underplaying tanks is an understandable resource decision.  I only raise this to show the danger of developing a body of military thought that is focused on a special case.  You had better hope that you fight in that special case...


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## dapaterson (13 Dec 2007)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> I only raise this to show the danger of developing a body of military thought that is focused on a special case.  You had better hope that you fight in that special case...



Or, to quote the grandson of  McNaughton, "Afghanistan is *A* war, not necessarily *THE* war."


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## TangoTwoBravo (13 Dec 2007)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Or, to quote the grandson of  McNaughton, "Afghanistan is *A* war, not necessarily *THE* war."



A good point.  I guess we deal with the alligator closest to the boat, but we should also seek to retain the ability to deal with other alligators (or snakes or bears or some other metaphor/allegory) that lurk in the swamp.  For expeditionary nations like ours, we should probably avoid the words "never" and "always" in our doctrine when framing what the future conflict will look like.  An Israeli doctrine writer can probably focus on "the war", while we need to devote some portion of our thoughts and resources to "a war."  I am guilty of emphasizing "the war" all the time, and did so on the SCTF thread last year.  Still, we need to beat this alligator first...


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## Michael OLeary (2 Feb 2008)

Arius said:
			
		

> Ah, the elusive doctrine.  What come first? The equipment or the doctrine?  DLR or DLFD?  Here is my take on this.



Actually, the elusive part is when "doctrine" is actually used to support or deny weapons initiatives.

It wasn't "in our doctrine" to use the 60 with bipod in the late 80s.  Even though units were starting to do so, the Infantry School refused to allow staff to document of new drills because the weapon in that employment "wasn't in our doctrine".  Apparently doctrine is enough reason to turn a blind eye to reality.

In the mid-1980s we had the 120 mm mortar project.  I've been told this was a pet project of a very senior officer who was using the Corps 86 model as a means to bring in a weapon system from a particular country   Interestingly, although a number of weapon systems were trialled, ones which were not comparable examples, only one fit a Statement of Requirement that exactly matched its published characteristics (and no other 120 in the world met that SOR).  That project died when it was determined that there was no doctrinal justification for it (perhaps when the senior officer was replaced?), but we were able to ignore doctrine long enough to actually trial three different systems.

So, which is it really? Theory/doctrine leads or reality/equipment leads?


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## McG (3 Feb 2008)

pbi said:
			
		

> Docrtine can easily be developed without equipment: look at the development of combined arms theory in the British and German armies in the 20's and 30s when much of the kit either didn't exist or was composed of inadequate stand-ins.


Even this doctrine development had to take into consideration the potential for equipment to fill roles.  A combined arms doctrine based on archers and horses would have looked significantly different than the ones based on machine guns & armoured vehicles.  This goes back to my earlier point that these things need to feed back into each other.  Doctrine will only be marginal (at best) if it fails to consider & exploit the potential of modern technology.  At the same time, equipment that is incompatible or ill-suited to doctrine will weaken the overall force.  

The whole force development in the Army is impaired against doing this right.  While the force development & requirements folk are not in the same building, at least they are in the same city (basically).  However, with DLCD and doctrine in Kingston, the two halves of the Army's force development brain are not even close enough to sit together over coffee every other week & ensure they are working in the same step.

With equipment it stands out more because the wrong answer gets dumped on the troops & they have to make it work (or there is nothing & the troops still have to make things work).  When the doctrine side is missing, the troops make their own (which is a lot easier that fabricating vehicles, weapons & other kit in the field).  However, it seems to me that signs of the doctrine ball being dropped are plenty to be found.  The Infantry platoon & company doctrine is so badly out of date that it is hidden and not even available on the AEL.

When the field army runs into problems that require a fast & coherent response from the national headquarters, the solution is to create new ad-hoc organizations (like the CF C-IED TF) with PYs to do what should already be happening in existing staffs ... except that it is not because those staffs are so physically separated that good communication is not happening at the working levels.

Doctrine must lead the acquisition of equipment, but doctrine must also be realistic & account for the potential of technology & our soldiers.  when inputs change sufficient to make doctrine irrelevant or out-dated, then the Army must be flexible enough to quickly fix it.  At the same time, equipment acquisition must continue and so requirements staffs must know exactly the developments that are happening even prior to publishing new doctrine.  If we are ever going to get to this point, then the Army's force development efforts need to be put under a single roof (and I wouldn't feel any emotional pangs if that meant LFDTS had to again lose its "D").


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## TangoTwoBravo (11 Feb 2008)

I've spent the last month hunting in dusty vaults looking for what others before us may have said on this issue.  One intriguing passage came from a Captain Johathan House in his Towards Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th Century Tactics, Doctrine and Organization.  This was published in 1984 by the US Army Command and General Staff College and is a good little read on the major developments of the 20th century at the tactical level.

He makes the following points that relate to our discussion:

"It is not sufficient to develop a doctrine for combining the different arms and services.  In order to practice, refine and employ this doctrine at least five other elements are necessary:

1.   First, an army must _design and procure weapons _ with the _characteristics required by the doctrine _ and _must stay abreast of technical changes _ that may invalidate or modify those weapons and doctrine.   

2.   The doctrine must be effectively explained and disseminated to the commanders who are expected to use it.  

3.   The commanders must believe that the doctrine can be effective with the organizations, weapons and troops available.   Previous experience can hamper this if doctrine has changed.

4.   The unit must have the training and morale to implement the doctrine

5.   A combined arms system cannot function without effective command and control to integrate and direct that system."

His first point seems to cut at the heart of what we have been discussing.  Weapons should be made according to doctrine, but doctrine should be updated to keep abreast of changes in weapons.  The other points are interesting and I wonder how a study of modern Canadian doctrine would look like through that framework.


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## Colin Parkinson (11 Feb 2008)

For Canada the problem is we have two diametrically opposed doctrine to fill. The first is defense of Canada and the ability to operate in the terrain and weather dictated by our extremely long and diverse borders.

The 2nd is to field a expeditionary force which based on history has had to fight or maintain operations in Jungles, deserts, urban, rural areas, Africa, Asia, ME and lands in-between.

In the end the majority of the equipment must be flexible enough to be used in any possible scenario, creating a major headache for planners. This is why I have maintained that we need a requirement for heavier tracked forces and lighter wheeled  forces for the Army. In 1999 I doubt anyone foresaw us being involved in a shooting war in Afghanistan, predicating the next operation will also be difficult. We are going to have to live with a flexible doctrine and equipment structure that will never be perfect.


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## McG (11 Feb 2008)

Tango2Bravo said:
			
		

> The other points are interesting and I wonder how a study of modern Canadian doctrine would look like through that framework.


I suspect it would come up lacking especially given that (as you once said) Canadian doctrine is whatever the highest-rank in the room says it is.


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## Panzer Grenadier (16 Mar 2008)

MCG said:
			
		

> I suspect it would come up lacking especially given that (as you once said) Canadian doctrine is whatever the highest-rank in the room says it is.



That's quite sad - and probably more true than false.


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