Solid planning requires solid intelligence and knowledge about your enemy. Any enemy with half brain knows that they'd better not to fight your fight, and, thus, will plan to counter your plan. I think Sun Tzu and Karl von Clausewitz wrote enough about war planning. There are only few examples of perfect planning in military history, the rest are mostly like decision on gambling, action and reaction. The ability to cope with error (loss), adapt and overcome is equally important as solid planning.

The successful militaries are the ones who planned their campaigns to the finish.

 

I can cite three times when I know this happened.

 

Winfield Scott did it twice: once during the Mexican American War with his Vera Cruz to Mexico City Plan. and thwen again with Plan Anaconda when he laid down the Union warplan for doing in the Confederacy. He was an Army general who understood seapower.

 

And then there was Plan Orange, the USN plan to do in Japan. When Hector C. Bywater gives you the blow by blow description and you as the Japanese don't see that freight train coming?  

 

Another example: Norman Schwatzkopf had a strauight up the middle plan for Iraq 1 before the rest of the Army showed up, and then he dusted off the old Patton "left hook". Franks screwed that up, but then nobody US saw the escarpment that funneled him and slowed that cautious cavalryman down, so you can't blame him too much. Still the terrain reconnaissance was botched. You didn't see the British do this charging around in North Africa without a terrain reconnaissance (LRDG) in WW II, did you?.

 

Iraq 2 you could read a map and see a replay of the British invasion of 1916 in the works-this time with tanks. Should have read Teddy Roosevelt II's account of the British invasion and noted what the British did WRONG.  We repeated their mistakes.  

 

Just thought I'd put all of that out there so that we kniow just what underlies this discussion from MY viewpoint.     

 

Herald

 

 

Thanks for seein' it that way DA but you two do seem to get it on some times. Ahhh the curse of the Alfa personnality! I have the same affliction at times. By the way, what you do in the Army? I'm in too.

I started off on the mechanized side of the fence, Cavalry/Armor to be specific then later switched to 11B. Are you a 21C by any chance?

-DA 

 

Sometimes but not always. That is why the statement "Fog of War" exist.

 I could cite many times when the best laid plans saw the planner defeated. You can't foresee everything in war.

Yet the USN had set backs and had to adjust just as the U.S. Army and USMC have done in Iraq.

Our terrain reconnaissance was picture perfect literally! That had nothing to do with it.

Not quite. However if you can elaborate perhaps this is just a different point of view.

DA, I'm not "a 2ic" T-2IC was my call sign in the Gan. I'm Cdn army, 21 1/2 yrs, done most of it mbt, with 6-7 yrs in armd recce during the Bosnia/Kosovo tours(5). "Strat" is a nic-name of my Regiment, "Lord Strathconas' Horse".

Well then I hope you don't mind that I consider you a fellow Cavalrymen as well...;)

Regards

-DA 

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has some reports on procurement that look interesting. I must admit though that I haven't yet had the time to thoroughly read them. :

 

"http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,4990/"

None of the peer threats to US military aviation are new. Underestimating technology,
failing to set reasonable performance specifications and control the growth over time,
appallingly bad cost estimation, and unrealistic development and production schedules
have been critical problems in aviation since World War I. The same has been true of the
misuse of analysis to justify given programs in the form of exaggerated threats, mission
needs, and effectiveness. There is an inherent tendency to turn every procurement
exercise into a liar?s contest, sell the program by overpromising and undercosting, and
These trends shaped the formation of one of Norman Augustine?s &S213;laws&S214; long before the
current Administration or any of the new programs described in the paper were even a
conceptual requirement: &S213;In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just
one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days
each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the
extra day.&S214; It is interesting to note that while this &S213;law&S214; was formally published in book
issued in 1983, when Augustine was then a leading aerospace executive, it was formed in
the 1960s, when Augustine was an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Aircraft designs have to evolve. Not every risk is predictable, cost analysis will always be
uncertain, and test and analysis will always have limits. The problem is not that the
system is imperfect. The US has had many successes that began as deeply troubled
program. The problem is that understating the risks in technology and production have
grown steadily with time. There now are far fewer program alternatives if any key
program runs into trouble, failed methods of cost analysis are still in play without
adequate cost-risk analysis or use of regression analysis, and the pressure to &S213;sell&S214;
programs by understating cost and risk have all combined to push air modernization to
the crisis point. What Augustine originally said in semi-jest has become a major threat to
This is not a crisis that can be blamed on any one Administration, and the nation?s senior
officials and officers did much during the eight years of the Clinton Administration to let
things get out of control. The fact is, however, that the modernization of combat aircraft
and &S213;enablers&S214; has gotten out of control under the Bush Administration, and has become
This does not mean that process-oriented solutions do not have value. Better analysis and
procurement reform may well help, although the impact of past efforts is questionable.
One really looks at the claims of progress, efficiency, and paper savings; the end result is
generally to layer another set of reviews, delays, and paper chases over the problems
involved, not solve them. It is also unfair and unrealistic to blame industry and
contractors, or program managers, for finding ways to survive such &S213;reforms&S214; in a
climate where program defense and a share of the budget is the goal, not program
effectiveness. Unless cost containment and actual performance in executing the program is made paramount, process-oriented reforms will never have much impact, and their
As has been said at the start of this analysis, the primary problem is a leadership problem
and not a process problem. Once again, &S213;fish rot from the head down.&S214; Successive
Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Defense had years in which to see every problem
described in this paper coming. The same is true of successive Secretaries of the Air
Force and Navy and Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force, Chief Naval Officers, and
Commandants of the Marine Corps. No one needed better models, analysis, test and
evaluation, cost analysis to predict that a broken procurement process would get worse. It
did not take great management skill to see this would be compounded by QDRs and
service strategies that did not establish clear force plans and procur

Hey, this is unfair. On the US side, you have M. Gen. Winfield Scott commanding with R. E. Lee serving as cavalry commander, while, on the Mexican side, you have a bunch of incompetent politicians screw up the defense.

 

However, Anaconda Plan may have been an auxiliary operation early in the Civil War. Lincoln indeed put most of his effort and focus on DC-Richmond front, and nothing went right until Grant took the command of Army of the Potomac.

 

Don't get me wrong, planning is important. It's just that there are right planning and wrong planning. While right planning is great, it is not the only factor that will lead to victory. IJN in WW2 actually correctly predict the action, strategy and respond of USN many times. Their planning is meticulous and detailed, but their executions were often botched due to variety of stupid events or simply visit by Murphy. Plan Orange didn't plan to lose Guam and the Philippines. Plans give general strategic concept and outline for actions, and, in practice, while facing unforesee enemy actions, the troops have to adapt, react, overcome and prevail. It kind of led to modern military decision loop cycle theory.