Observation from The French

[Samson]

serving with an American Unit in A-stan:

(This is the main area where I'd like to comment. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: 'If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white/remember its ruin to run from a fight./So take open order, lie down, sit tight/And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers.

'In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.' Indeed, virtually every army in the world.

The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other 'incident', the American force will simply go counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.

This is very true in my experience: Whereas officers are essential elements in even the smallest of European units, in American Units they are somewhat supervelous.

 

[rightwinger]

The same thing happened to the German army in WWII, they could do nothing without orders. In most cases from Hitler himself

 

[Samson]

The same thing happened to the German army in WWII, they could do nothing without orders. In most cases from Hitler himself

Indeed, if Americans on Omaha Beach had depended on orders, D-day may have failed.

 

[FiscalSanity]

Our military was designed that way. Anyone that's spent time in uniform knows that it's really the sergeants that run the day to day operations. On a tactical level most sergeants are just as proficient (if not better) then any LT that might be leading them, and as WWII proved there are a lot of segeants that can swing a company just fine. It's when you start getting to the levels where you need to think about logistics and large scale strategy that the officers really become necessary.

 

[Samson]

Our military was designed that way. Anyone that's spent time in uniform knows that it's really the sergeants that run the day to day operations. On a tactical level most sergeants are just as proficient (if not better) then any LT that might be leading them, and as WWII proved there are a lot of segeants that can swing a company just fine. It's when you start getting to the levels where you need to think about logistics and large scale strategy that the officers really become necessary.

By Why?

Why is the US Army unique? Where they not modeled by ExBritish, French, and Prussian Officers?

And up until the Civil War, it appears the US Army WAS very much like their Continental and British counterparts.

Between the Civil War and WWII something happened to the American Army (or American society?) that did not happen in The British Empire or Germany.

My theory is that the West Was Won, and this precipitated a large number of very individualistic Americans who had survived The Great Depression.

 

[rightwinger]

Our military was designed that way. Anyone that's spent time in uniform knows that it's really the sergeants that run the day to day operations. On a tactical level most sergeants are just as proficient (if not better) then any LT that might be leading them, and as WWII proved there are a lot of segeants that can swing a company just fine. It's when you start getting to the levels where you need to think about logistics and large scale strategy that the officers really become necessary.

By Why?

Why is the US Army unique? Where they not modeled by ExBritish, French, and Prussian Officers?

And up until the Civil War, it appears the US Army WAS very much like their Continental and British counterparts.

Between the Civil War and WWII something happened to the American Army (or American society?) that did not happen in The British Empire or Germany.

My theory is that the West Was Won, and this precipitated a large number of very individualistic Americans who had survived The Great Depression.

I think it may be because we are less of a Class based society. Europe always maintained a ruling class and that ruling class ran the officers corps. Allowing enlisted (commoner) soldiers to make critical battlefield decisions contradicts the class system.

 

[SFC Ollie]

I learned as a young dumb Corporal to step up and take charge of the situation, just don't do anything stupid.......

 

[martybegan]

The same thing happened to the German army in WWII, they could do nothing without orders. In most cases from Hitler himself

The German Army in WWII was a mess of conflicts regarding command and control. The prussian tradition was actually based on the independent actions of company grade officers when given a directive from above. Hitler turned it to mish-mosh by becoming an interloper in basic millitary strategy and tactics.

While we remember the held panzer divisions on D-Day, people forget that during the Battle of France in 1940 gurdarian basically pushed his orders to the limit in making the panzer group reach the channel. He had authority to control the situation as he saw fit.

Local control in the prussian sense was allowable according to thier training doctrine, as in thier view thier training was so thorough that given a situation, every graduate of thier general staff school would come out with the same answer to it.

 

[martybegan]

Our military was designed that way. Anyone that's spent time in uniform knows that it's really the sergeants that run the day to day operations. On a tactical level most sergeants are just as proficient (if not better) then any LT that might be leading them, and as WWII proved there are a lot of segeants that can swing a company just fine. It's when you start getting to the levels where you need to think about logistics and large scale strategy that the officers really become necessary.

By Why?

Why is the US Army unique? Where they not modeled by ExBritish, French, and Prussian Officers?

And up until the Civil War, it appears the US Army WAS very much like their Continental and British counterparts.

Between the Civil War and WWII something happened to the American Army (or American society?) that did not happen in The British Empire or Germany.

My theory is that the West Was Won, and this precipitated a large number of very individualistic Americans who had survived The Great Depression.

I think it may be because we are less of a Class based society. Europe always maintained a ruling class and that ruling class ran the officers corps. Allowing enlisted (commoner) soldiers to make critical battlefield decisions contradicts the class system.

Going back to the revolution american millitary philosophy has been almost the opposite of how europeans saw thier forces. Up until during the civil war most officers, at least at the company level, were elected by the men, as they did in thier milita units.

European armies transistioned from mercenaires to state established forces during the renissance, and into the early industrial era. As these countries had to maintain standing armies the transition happened gradually. In what was to become the US there was no true standing armies, and a milita system took hold.

Even in the civil war the traditional european powers scoffed at the forces on both sides, with Moltke (the elder) comparing the armies to "armed rabble.)

We also lacked a knighed class, that transitioned to the officer class in other armies (as rightwinger stated).

 

[FiscalSanity]

Samson,

There are a lot of cultural and historical reasons, but there is another reason that's just as important. In todays world there are two basic ways to build an army.

One is to have an army in which the Officers are the people who have long careers, but the enlisted men rarely last more then one enlistment. That's the model most of Europe and Asia used, because it has some advantages. First off, it's cheaper then our type of military. It's also a lot easier to expand it rapidly without effecting the average quality of the troops. The drawback is that enlisted men and low ranking officers usually don't have much authority to make decisions or act on their own initative. There is also a tendency to spend less on equipment and such for the enlisted troops, since the country doesn't have nearly as much time and effort invested in training them.

The other option is to have an army like ours, in which a large portion of the enlisted men stay in and make it a career. Basically, we have a full time professional army, while a lot of the world uses a professional officers corp backed up by a lot of amateur soldiers. Since our enlisted men are a lot more experienced and aren't (usually) hobbled by micro managing commanders they tend to be a lot better able to improvise and deal with unexpected situations. The drawback to an army like ours is that it's very nature limits it's size, as well as it's ability to expand rapidly without stinting on training. Because such an army is usually going to be fighting at a numerical disadvantage it is also neccessary to equip it with the best stuff you can possibly afford, which makes it even more expensive to maintain.

 

[Trajan]

our services in this context are more egalitarian as martybgean alludes.

and as Sgt Ollie said, in the absence due to being killed wounded whatever, the chain of command functions.

I remember reading a dept of def. study from ww2, where in it was surmised that American units on the attack broke more quickly than their counter parts BUT rallied much more quickly than their counter parts hwho had themselves been cowed or broke off an attack.

 

[FiscalSanity]

Trajan,

In some ways that seems to me to just indicate good sense. If you're attacking a position and things start going wrong it makes a lot more sense to fall back quickly and preseve your forces while you figure out a better plan then it does to hold your position and let the enemy dictate the terms of the engagement.

 

[ginscpy]

Nobody much cares what the Surrender Monkeys think.

 

[Samson]

Nobody much cares what the Surrender Monkeys think.

Thanks for playing.

Don't forget your free prize:

 

[Baruch Menachem]

It might just be a longer democratic tradition, and the career nature of enlisted.

Victor Davis Hanson argues that Democratic armies have a trust force multiplier.

 

[FiscalSanity]

Baruch,

Are you talking about the effects of esprit de corps?

Gin,

I have to admit that the French haven't exactly covered themselves with glory in the last century, but every nation goes through it's share of military defeats and it's periods where it seems militarily hopeless. For that matter, our own track record hasn't been exactly fantastic since 1945.

 

[Trajan]

It might just be a longer democratic tradition, and the career nature of enlisted.

Victor Davis Hanson argues that Democratic armies have a trust force multiplier.

very much so, we must have read some of the same books.

 

[Trajan]

Baruch,

Are you talking about the effects of esprit de corps?

Gin,

I have to admit that the French haven't exactly covered themselves with glory in the last century, but every nation goes through it's share of military defeats and it's periods where it seems militarily hopeless. For that matter, our own track record hasn't been exactly fantastic since 1945.

if you are speaking strictly in the ,military context, you are wrong.

 

[martybegan]

Baruch,

Are you talking about the effects of esprit de corps?

Gin,

I have to admit that the French haven't exactly covered themselves with glory in the last century, but every nation goes through it's share of military defeats and it's periods where it seems militarily hopeless. For that matter, our own track record hasn't been exactly fantastic since 1945.

if you are speaking strictly in the ,military context, you are wrong.

Indeed, the french held out for 4 years in WWI, fighting on their own territory, with some of the most productive areas of thier country on the wrong side of the line. The debacle in 1940 was caused by thier national will being already broken in 1918, and understandably so. The french people bought into the "war to end all wars" out of sheer horror on how many people they had lost. To them WWII was fighting WWI all over again.

As for our military sucess since WWII, lack of political will was what cost us Vietnam, and made us decide the status quo in Korea was an acceptable situation. In neither case did we mobilize our full military might. The same is true for all our wars since. We have basically returned to a high tech army of professionals, not seen (except for the technology) since the mercenary armies of the late rennisance. The current situation cannot be adequately compared to the two world wars, or our civil war for that matter, in terms of mobilization and utilization of national resources.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

it is more like mutual trust between the enlisted and the officers, the feeling that their backs are covered, so they can move with confidence.

Esprit is something quite different, and in some ways opposite.