Gun Registration

[nigelfe]

Individual accounts are difficult, its also too easy for the exceptional to be interpreted as the norm. That's why I tend to rely on the official publications of the time and try and take a wide view. Of course being the British Army doesn't mean slavish adherence, but in WW1 it indicates what the thinking was as to the best way at a particular time, and probably what most were trying to do or better. Obviously new ideas had to start somewhere and no doubt many 'improvements' or variations were tried out. And in most cases I don't think there was a 'big idea', it was small incremental changes, evolution.

The problem is authors all too often are looking for 'champions' because personification can sell. What's the quote about 'success having a thousand parents' or something?

[Pete1052]

As it happens I was RA too for some years, but many other things also. As regards your point I understood it well, but am not sure that I was guilty of any dropping in of the "contrary examples" that you imply.

Frogsmile, I wasn't knocking you for that. I was thinking about what might happen were we to attempt to discuss an abstract topic such as fire support for offensive operations. Were we to do that guys would post lots of anecdotes from the Somme, the Hundred Days, and so forth that might make trying to distill things into basic principles all but impossible. There are of course exceptions to all the rules. There was a much-quoted statement, probably apocryphal, attributed to a Soviet general that what made planning for war with Americans so difficult was that they could never tell what we might do because we never bother to read our own field manuals!

[FROGSMILE]

Frogsmile, I wasn't knocking you for that. I was thinking about what might happen were we to attempt to discuss an abstract topic such as fire support for offensive operations. Were we to do that guys would post lots of anecdotes from the Somme, the Hundred Days, and so forth that might make trying to distill things into basic principles all but impossible. There are of course exceptions to all the rules. There was a much-quoted statement, probably apocryphal, attributed to a Soviet general that what made planning for war with Americans so difficult was that we never bother to read our own field manuals!

Roger out

[Pete1052]

The alleged statement by the Soviet officer about how U.S. Army officers never read their own manuals was on an Army briefing slide that was intended to be humorous. The same slide had an alleged quotation from a Wehrmacht officer, something to the effect that the reason why the U.S. Army does so well in war is because warfare is a state of chaos, which is the state the U.S. Army is in as a matter of course. It was the sort of thing a PoW German colonel may have said to a U.S. Army intelligence interrogator in 1945-46 once he realized he would neither be hanged nor shot for saying it.

[Pete1052]

On another forum I'm told that the exact quotation attributed to the Soviet officer is as follows:

"One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine."

[nigelfe]

On another forum I'm told that the exact quotation attributed to the Soviet officer is as follows:

Sounds like the British Army as well (except in part artillery because the Gunnery Staff ensure technical procedures are followed).

[Pete1052]

The technical stuff has to be done right or else accidents will happen. In the broad realm of operations there is a lot to be said for improvising on the spot but there is also much to be said in favor of the methodical tried-and-true school solutions. It brings to mind Montgomery with his set-piece tidy battlefields with phase lines and his more rash American counterparts putting things together on the fly. I think a competent officer needs to know how to do both.

[nigelfe]

Before Montgomery arrived in N Africa doing things on the fly was the order of the day. Quick orders work fine at coy level, well trained battalions can also do it. The higher up the food chain you get the more important the Coordinating Instructions become. When commanders and staff are really well trained then you can start thinking about Auftragstaktic. Montgomery recorgnised the limitations of a mass 'for the duration' army, they need more direction. WW1 was the same, with three complications, the destruction of much of the professional army in 1914, the hugely expanded army and the shortage of trained staff officers.

[Pete1052]

Good points. There's a point where the methodical planned battle and the improvised solutions become blended and mixed together. I don't want to get into the thorny issue of the "Broad Front" versus "Single Thrust" debate about Northwestern Europe in 1944-45, even though the two involved the contrast between one style of command when compared to the other. There were also personalities involved, not to mention considerations of national pride.