Battle Procedure and the Operational Planning Process

[Kirkhill]

in

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I know that you are fond of your football vs rugby metaphor, but I am not sure that it really fits.

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Darn.  I'll now have to go and find another one.  .

And I can see how the "overlay" system can be made to work but it always seems to me to be rather stultifying.  In a rapidly changing environment, where you don't have time to huddle up and review tactics, I don't believe that it works.

I info'd Infanteer about an article in last months Harvard Business Review comparing Navy/Air Force types as CEOs vs Army/Marine types as CEOs.  Basically it came to the conclusion that Air Force/Navy managers were "Process Oriented " managers whose career training drove them to religiously adhere to check lists in order to eliminate risks insofar as possible because the results of failure were so catastrophic in both lives and treasure.  If one mistake is made, and the flight deck incident aboard the USS Ticonderoga was cited as an example then hundreds die and hunrdeds of millions of dollars are lost, or inadvertently innocents can die.

By contrast the army and marine types were trained to accept risks and act on the balance of probabilities.  Their battlefield generally was more complex as there were more individual moving parts but conversely the loss of one part didn't materially affect the outcome.  They were trained not to eliminate risk, but to manage risk.

The Playbook system strikes me as Process Management and might be applicable for a raid or another short tem task.  But the longer the engagement continues, and the faster the pace of the engagement, then the less effective the playbook system becomes, in my opinion.  In a protracted campaign the opportunities to huddle up will become fewer and farther between.  That would seem to be particularly true if you want to get inside the OODA loop of a flat and amorphous enemy organization that makes decisions only one or two levels removed from the battlefield.

Harvard Business Review link

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Its a planning process. Its not a management system. To me, the trick is not to cut steps out of the process but to shorten the time spent on the steps. If time is short maybe you don't wargame everything but rather on a couple of steps that you determine are critical (which is a wargaming method). Now, if we are simply following the OPP/MDMP process and putting in checkmarks without any real thinking then yes, we are getting too focused on the process. If the Op Order doesn't come out in time then process has trumped product. Again, I don't see an issue with the process as long as we do a time estimate and stick to it.

I don't see overlay orders as stultifying - what are you basing your impression on? They are simply graphical representations of what you want done. I don't walk around with a playbook, but when you think about it we do have a number of basic plays that we execute. When I say "right flanking" people can visualize what is going to happen and they don't need very much more to make it work. When I say "defile drill" they know what to do. They adapt these to the situation, but they have a start point. Having these basic plays/drills means that we get things done quickly.

 

[Kirkhill]

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I don't walk around with a playbook, but when you think about it we do have a number of basic plays that we execute. When I say "right flanking" people can visualize what is going to happen and they don't need very much more to make it work. When I say "defile drill" they know what to do. They adapt these to the situation, but they have a start point. Having these basic plays/drills means that we get things done quickly.

And that is precisely why I prefer "Rugby" to "Football".  One inculcates a tendency to look to the sidelines for guidance.  The other tendency is to focus on the developing play with a constant awareness of the goal, the ball, teammates positions and anticipated actions, opposition positions and anticipated actions - coupled with rapid decision making at the lowest possible level.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Many sports analogies work nicely in isolation, but we are not playing a sport. There are no sidelines. There are no coaches.

The willingness of commanders (at all levels) to use initiative springs from the prevailing command climate, not what sport they played in college.

 

[vonGarvin]

I would offer that "sidelines" represent "limitations" and coaches = chain of command.  Yes, I'm being serious.  If for one person the rugby (league or union?) analogy works, then I can see it.

War has gone from NFL football (only one person in motion, set "plays") to CFL football (more in motion, wider and longer limits, but still very similar to the previous version) to a more dynamic version, in which our opponents are playing Rugby while in some cases, we try to play NFL football and call ourselves "progressive" and "cutting edge".

Anyway, I think the main thing here is simple: passage of information.  You need a plan, lest you set out in chaos and expect good results, but it must be flexible enough to "call an audible".

 

[Journeyman]

Sports analogies are just that -- analogies. The similarites are only in certain aspects, which allow for very rough comparisons; try not to get too wrapped up over them.



Now David, I no longer comment here on Catholicism.....so please feel free to avoid ever including Rugby League (  :  ) in any discussion of real rugby -- you know, the kind that men, and right-thinking women, play.

 

[vonGarvin]

Sports analogies are just that -- analogies. The similarites are only in certain aspects, which allow for very rough comparisons; try not to get too wrapped up over them.



Now David, I no longer comment here on Catholicism.....so please feel free to avoid ever including Rugby League (  :  ) in any discussion of real rugby -- you know, the kind that men, and right-thinking women, play.

I think we have a deal.  To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure of the difference, so I'll educate myself.  Rugby Union it is!  ;D

EDIT TO ADD: Just reading up on Rugby Union on Wikipedia (I know, I know), but I found this line interesting:

A player who has been replaced may not rejoin play unless he was temporarily replaced to have bleeding controlled

I have to admit, I love it: bleeding is in the rules!

 

[daftandbarmy]

I don't see overlay orders as stultifying - what are you basing your impression on? They are simply graphical representations of what you want done. I don't walk around with a playbook, but when you think about it we do have a number of basic plays that we execute. When I say "right flanking" people can visualize what is going to happen and they don't need very much more to make it work. When I say "defile drill" they know what to do. They adapt these to the situation, but they have a start point. Having these basic plays/drills means that we get things done quickly.

I think you've nailed it here: write orders if neccessary, but don't write up exhaustive tombes all the time as a matter of course. Good drills executed by trusted and well supported subordinates, at any level, can take care of most of what needs to be done on operations.

It's absurd that we treat every recce patrol as if they're doing a solo invasion of occupied Europe. It might be important in training, to teach improtant lessons, but shouldn't be done slavishly all the time as a matter of course.

 

[a_majoor]

From my rather less elevated position, it seems that over the years the full blown OPP process, orders, overlays and annexes have been pushed farther and farther down the chain. For section commanders and platoon commanders, orders can be as simple as "You and you; follow me!"

Frag O's and briefings can also work in fast moving situations, and "Chinese parliaments" make for a fairly quick and efficient means of sorting through options and determining COS's (including Branches and Sequels). Once you get above platoon level, then a more formal process becomes beneficial, but even then, it should be short and to the point. The Soviet Army had these things reduced to drills even at Regimental level for a reason, while the NATO headquarters were fiddling about, the Regimental march column was moving into line and advancing under the fire of the RAG, messy but well inside the enemy OODA loop.

Makes you wonder about the future, when high energy weapons like lasers, railguns or hypersonic cruise missiles can reduce the "flash to bang" time by orders of magnitude. The current process will not be able to deal with either the use of these weapons or being on the receiving end.

 

[pbi]

I think a full blown OPP cycle, with all the bells, whistles and briefs, will be most productive for drawing up the framework OP O, or for a subsequent major deliberate Op. It is in fact a very good system, if taught and practiced properly, and one of the great things about it is its infinite adaptability in the hands of people who understand it and aren't afraid to make modifications. If you develop your branches and sequels well, you probably have at least chance of being able to deal with sudden changes, but in the end I think that down in 9Tac, the 3 shop and the 3-5 shop it will all be about very abbreviated OPP, quick estimates and FRAG O's. Which is fine.

That said, on one of my theatre visits  the JTFA 3-5 told me they were frequently running 6-9 OPP cycles concurrently. (!)

OPP most definitely doesn't replace either battle procedure or the estimate, and anybody who says they do is OTFL. OPP occurs as part of formation battle procedure, and the estimate (both the Comander's and all the various "G" crews") are at the heart of OPP. OPP, after all, is really just the estimate on steroids.

I certainly agree that both NATO and the US have a fixation on very big HQs with numerous GOFOs and O-6's doing jobs that could probably be done a couple of ranks lower (I worked for  NATO's ISAF VI HQ, and inside US CJTF76 in 2004-05). Some of this seems to have rubbed off on us.

All that said, I still think that we need to be careful, regardless of what the Indians (or others with Div- and Corps- based armies) may do. We have been Brigade-Group-based for a long time, and the US went that way a few years ago. A Bde HQ under this concept has to have tools and horsepower that once upon a time might have resided at Div or elsewhere.

Cheers

 

[pbi]

The Soviet Army had these things reduced to drills even at Regimental level for a reason, while the NATO headquarters were fiddling about, the Regimental march column was moving into line and advancing under the fire of the RAG, messy but well inside the enemy OODA loop.

My thought here is that while this looked good in OPFOR manuals, and certainly worked  nicely on the open sandy plains of Poland or the Ukraine, (after, no doubt, endless rehearsals) without a thinking enemy that would probably have had air superiority very quickly, I don't know of one actual conflict in which it was ever tested under fire. (I certainly stand to be corrected here) When the post WWII Russians actually fought anybody (and in this I include the CIS forays into Chechnya, etc), things seemed much more confused, messy, and ineffective.

Anything that relies too much on drills instead of thinking and the use of initiative IMHO runs the risk of being unable to respond to something that suddenly throws a wrench into those nice, neat deployment evolutions from Div into Regt into Bn, etc. I'm not sure that "thinking" and "initiative" were overly encouraged at lower tactical levels in the Soviet Army we all knew and loved.

Cheers

 

[a_majoor]

While I agree that reducing things to drills isn't the ideal way to do things, in the much bigger picture, the Red Army would be deploying and crashing against the NATO lines like a series of waves. While the defenders were trying to dig out and reorg, another wave would be slamming into them. The ability of large formations to use their initiative would become seriously compromised, and lower and lower level units would start operating on their own (while yet another MRR was deploying across their front). From my understanding of Soviet military theory, they were far more concerned with paralyzing high level formation headquarters and breaking enemy units into bite sized pieces. When they were not fighting under the conditions they had theorized and trained for, then they were not adaptable enough to make headway (as the historical record suggests).

The super sized headquarters and elaborate planning procedures we are discussing seem to be conterproductive on either end of the conflict spectrum; against a major peer competitor the headquarters would become a smoking hole in the ground, while insurgents can run rings around them (like small furry mammals against dinosaurs). This also ties in somewhat with another historical analogy; the introduction of effective infantry weapons which made peasant armies the match of aristocratic armies. Aristocratic armies relied on highly skilled fighters with a lifetime of training backed by the best weapons and armour technology that could be provided at the time. By the 1500's pikemen, crossbows and firearms had swept aristocratic cavalry from the battlefields of Europe (and threatened to unseat the Samurai in Japan). Killing an aristocrat (or specialist like a longbowman who also needed a lifetime of training) took a generation to replace, while a peasant could be replaced and trained quite quickly.

Our soldiers, with their high tech training and equipment are being met on the battlefield by low tech insurgents armed with IED's, cheap infantry weapons like AK-47s and RPG-7's and communicating via the internet and cellphones. They can meet NATO/ISAF troops with a degree of equality at the tactical level. We need to be able to operate far faster and have a higher degree of knowledge about them in order to retain the advantage at the tactical level, which leads back to creating, using and enforcing a fast moving process to deploy and use assets.

 

[vonGarvin]

They can meet NATO/ISAF troops with a degree of equality at the tactical level.

I cannot disagree more.  Impossible for me to do so.  They had zero equality at the tactical level with us at no time.  Ever.  I couldn't care if their weapons were 'cheap and easy', they were led by dunderheads, and it's only once in a while that Murphy's Law catches up and they get "lucky".

I do agree that there are things we could do better, but I wouldn't hand the insurgents any credit for "running circles" around us. 

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I'm not sure that faster planning is the key to defeating an insurgency. I'm also not sure how this ties in with aristocratic armies. Professional armies still held the field when they faced untrained rabbles in open combat long after mounted knights were crashing about. I agree, though, that our massive TOC-Mahals would be a liability in a peer battle. They'd either be found and destroyed or be too slow to keep up with a mobile battle.

Back to the Soviets, some of the literature refers to the Soviets preference for Detailed Control as opposed to the Directive Control favoured by the Germans of old. Detailed Control involves coming up with a plan and making sure that subordinates fully understand their place in the plan. You rehearse the plan until you are certain that your subordinates can execute it. Initiative at low levels is frowned upon because it can upset the plan.

While the Canadian army professes a manoeuverist approach, I think that our historical happy-place is Detailed Control. What made us different from the Red Army was they thought in terms of arrows punching deep while we thought in lines that moved forward (and obsessed about not out-ranging the guns). I think that in our heart of hearts we still want to prepare for Vimy.

In any case I think that there is a place for both methods. Some situations may well call for a detailed plan that relies on everybody playing their rehearsed part. I think that it is preferable to rely on informed subordinate initiative, but we shouldn't write off the other method.

Back to drills, I see them as a start point. People still need to think, but a simple drill gives some discipline to that thought process under pressure. I think, though, that the value of drills and "plays" starts to diminish as the level of command gets higher. Combat teams have platoon drills and some do involve multiple platoons, but I'm having a hard time thinking of battalion and brigade level drills. Tactical plays such as "right flanking" and "hasty breach" also become fairly meaningless at Brigade level. A company can manouevre much like a platoon on a larger scale, but a battalion less so and a brigade certainly not.

 

[Infanteer]

I do agree that there are things we could do better, but I wouldn't hand the insurgents any credit for "running circles" around us.

Agreed.  Afghan insurgents of this variety are not your daddy's muhajideen and are, for the most part, tactically inept.  The only tactical piece for them is whether they can get away before being fixed.

 

[Infanteer]

Tactical plays such as "right flanking" and "hasty breach" also become fairly meaningless at Brigade level. A company can manouevre much like a platoon on a larger scale, but a battalion less so and a brigade certainly not.

Absolutely - this goes back to combat not being fractal.  On another discussion on training, it was remarked that moving a formation in combat is difficult and expensive to practice.  No matter how many times you JCATs it, nothing can simulate what happens to a Brigade when it's lead Battle Group has fought to establish a bridgehead and one must pass the next one through.

 

[Kirkhill]

I'm going to backtrack a bit here to my comments about "Process Management" versus "Mission Management" and try to stay away from references to the Union game.

It seems to me that the critical  issue is how you transition from "Planning" to "Execution".  It was mentioned by someone that the planning process has great utility as a learning tool.  It allows the planner to get their ducks in a row and figure out what they have and what they might do in a given situation.  Then when they roll over to execution they are well prepared for whatever situation presents itself.  One of the resources they have to hand are well-drilled troops who can be expected to perform in a given manner in most situations.

But this presupposes that the planner is the executor. If the executor is not the planner then the executor doesn't have the benefit of the learning exercise that derived the plan.  Consequently the executor will be encouraged, both by their own inclinations and by external forces, just to work the plan.  The executor then moves from managing the mission, to achieve a specific tactical outcome in the field, to managing the process, to fulfill the requirements of the plan.

"That rifle is filthy."  "But I cleaned the rifle for the 30 minutes you gave us."  "But the rifle is still filthy".  The process was undertaken but the mission was not accomplished.

In the case of the Process Management style identified by the HBR article, it seems to me that the executors do not get the benefit of writing the manuals. They are trained to follow the manuals and why the manuals are important.  In the Misssion Management style the executors are more often than not writing thier own "manuals" on the fly. 

Mission Management would seem to be appropriate for small unit actions while Process Management is critical for planning the invasion of Europe.

Given that most of the actions involved in Counter-Insurgency operations happen quickly at a low level, and the enemy doesn't have a clearly defined "centre of gravity" or "schwerpunkt" at which a large number of resources can be directed, then it seems to me that in the Co-In game that the decision making process should be driven downwards to the lowest possible level.  The need for co-ordination is minimised and the risk of failure by a small unit is small.  No matter what the outcome of a specific misssion the nature of the conflict is such that the you are going to be there a long time and you will get a do-over whether you like it or not.  In that sense it is like cutting the grass and weeding.  The more often you do it the better the appearance of the garden.  But as soon as you stop the grass grows back and the weeds take over.  You just have to keep mowing.


That puts a premium on well trained and intelligent troops capable of being flexible and adapting to the situation as they find it.

Conversely , the invasion of Europe demands narrowly focused, well-drilled troops, that willl execute the plan come what may. They have to be process oriented because it would not be possible to co-ordinate the actions of the mob in a timely fashion to deal with a large number of moving parts concentrated in time and space.

On that basis, I would suggest that there is room for two types of army. One that focuses on training well drilled troops capable of executiong someone else's plan faithfully.  One that focuses on small unit actionsin a more free flowing environment.  That doesn't necessarily mean that you need two different tiypes of people.  All the troops need to be well trained before they can act independently.  And the independent-minded need to be reminded from time to time that there may be a need for them to act in a manner that is not obvious to them.  They need to follow the process even if they don't understand the mission.

 

[McG]

On that basis, I would suggest that there is room for two types of army. One that focuses on training well drilled troops capable of executiong someone else's plan faithfully.  One that focuses on small unit actionsin a more free flowing environment. 

There is only room for one type of army.  It must be able to operate on a spectrum of independance vs control that runs between the two extreems that you described, or it must pick a point on that spectrum and get really good at operating from that one spot.

 

[daftandbarmy]

"That rifle is filthy." 
On that basis, I would suggest that there is room for two types of army. One that focuses on training well drilled troops capable of executiong someone else's plan faithfully.  One that focuses on small unit actionsin a more free flowing environment.  That doesn't necessarily mean that you need two different tiypes of people.  All the troops need to be well trained before they can act independently.  And the independent-minded need to be reminded from time to time that there may be a need for them to act in a manner that is not obvious to them.  They need to follow the process even if they don't understand the mission.

We've already got that: they are called, respecitvely, the Regular Force and The Militia  ;D

 

[Kirkhill]

We've already got that: they are called, respecitvely, the Regular Force and The Militia  ;D

Buggerye.  ;D