USMC GEN Mattis says what everyone has known for a while - we're too technology-dependent in the field. Heck, back in 1997, people were already leaning on GPS more than map-reading.
The military relies too much on technology, and soldiers need to practice more “with the radios turned off,” a key general said.
“We must be able to operate when systems go down,” Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, head of Joint Forces Command, told a luncheon audience Thursday at a joint war-fighting conference. “It is much more important for officers to get comfortable operating with uncertainty rather than to keep grasping for more certainty.”
Mattis recalled when, as a young officer training during the Cold War in Germany, radios were turned off so that units could operate without directly relying on headquarters for intelligence or direction.
“What are we creating today with our command-and-control systems?” Mattis asked. “I don’t think we have turned off our radios in the last eight years. What kind of systems are we creating where we depend on this connection to headquarters? While we want the most robust communications, we also want to make sure we can operate with none of it.”
Leaders also need to plan on that possible loss of communications, he said.
“Mission-type orders rather than bandwidth are the key to the future,” he said. “We need officers who can operate off a commander’s intent, understand what the boss several levels above wants, and carry them out to suffocate the enemy’s hopes.”
By: Brant
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2 comments:
Re: “It is much more important for officers to get comfortable operating with uncertainty rather than to keep grasping for more certainty.”
I fully agree. We design a series of operational level wargames for the commercial games market and do defence consulting in the simulations area. One thing I constantly come up against from wargamers trying our system is that they get frustrated with the uncertainties presented to them. They want perfect intel and perfect control. My usual reply is that that is totally unrealistic and that good operational level commanders have to be able to deal with uncertainty. They have to think ahead identify the trggers and develop contingency plans to deal with them. This takes a lot of getting used to for most people. It required a flexibility that many initially are uncomfortable with or challenged by. Coming to grips with this is best done experentially - practice makes perfect. That's where good simulation technology plays its part.
Dave "arjuna" O'Connor
www.panthergames.com
What I like about Panther is the AI y'all have for the subordinate commanders - makes for a much more realistic experience at the operational level.
What's *really* hard is getting that uncertainty in a board game, where every value that matters is right there on the map in front of you. FoW on the tabletop is very challenging...
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