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Commanders intent


Kingtiger

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This is a good article I just read and wanted to share, The commanders intent.

Read it and I dont have to explain much else, its the decisive difference between success and failure in sutations where fog of war and communication breakdowns (or fast situations with no time for checking with higher up officers)

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics-101-027-commanders-intent.htm

/KT

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This is a good article I just read and wanted to share, The commanders intent.

Read it and I dont have to explain much else, its the decisive difference between success and failure in sutations where fog of war and communication breakdowns (or fast situations with no time for checking with higher up officers)

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics-101-027-commanders-intent.htm

/KT

Just got back from western Canada on a training ex and this was the theme of the whole training. It's the key into giving commanders at all levels to ability to complete their mission without much guidence in difficult situations.

Good shit for the masses.

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Sounds a lot like Auftragstaktik, which has been around for decades.

thats because they go hand in hand, you cant have auftragtaktik if you dont give the soldiers under you an intent. Because if they dont know what you want to have happend and where they are supposed to be when the battle is over there is no auftragtaktik, and if your "intent" becomes a clear order then you cant have auftragtaktik as the freedom of action dissaperes.

/KT

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I've heard lots about this in the Air National Guard. I have yet to see how well this balances with a world of advanced comm capability, which COs use to gain pictures of greater granularity into local situations. This ability causes many COs to become commander-centric, which I believe is the antithesis of commander's intent.

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The Boss would have to have full confidence in his subordinates to achieve his aim for it to work. Like you say, harder to do with all the moving parts in today's battlespace.

In my former life (armoured crewman/commander) :cul:it was easy to follow his intent.

The armoured world is very formal and structured. My new role/job (CIMIC) I have much greater freedom, you could say I'm on my own in most missions, thous it's crucial to keep the commander intent in mind at all times, or I could (do) get carried away with my job as I see fit.:biggrin:

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Agree that with all of the communication capability (Blue Fore tracker etc) available today, it's very easy for a commander to micro-manage, but he can easily be overloaded with information, or alternately be "target fixated" on a particular incident - hence I believe that "commander's intent" is more important than ever - while the Boss has to trust subordinates to act as he thinks they will, giving them an understanding of what he wants to achieve allows him to concentrate on the big picture (?), while subordinates are given both the knowledge and hopefully the authority (mission command?) to sieze a fleeting battlefield opportunity that may turn the tide. I'm all for it.

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I think the Speed of todays battle demands a good commanders intent, atleast for the Mech infantry I come from. Our CO always gaved good aggresive intents and the platoon commanders knowed how to act from it, Often you could just hear on the net "Enemy pulling back from Y, Alpha attacks to X, out" so the CO just had to say "copy alpha, good out". All due to the commanders intent, if the CO had given a sucky intent or a direct order intent that wouldnt be possible and that aggressivnes mostly gaved us victory in the battles (exept one time when it lead to total failure :D )

/KT

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I got batalion commanders intent and company commanders intent.

When there was a order on the battalion net we used to switch to BatNet att listen to it there, otherwise we just got it in short from the Company net when the CO gaved hes orders and hes intent after brifeing us on battalions commanders order and intent.

My Plt leader rarely gaved any intent due to our special situation of being the companys combatsupport platoon with ARV and medic APCs so we just had to react after what the enemy did to our CV90s.

/KT

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