Tactics as the art of command and control.

The art of command and control is the core of tactics as a theory and practice of conduct of battle. There can be no battle without command and control. While individual knowledge and skills make it possible to operate weapons and fighting equipment within units (detachments, details, and crews) the command and control system realizes potentials of all formations according to their tactical purposes. Control of troops is the only instrument that makes it possible to realize in practice all designs: to achieve high combat readiness of all units, to skillfully concentrate efforts of all formations and organize their cooperation, to carry out flexible maneuvering and attain complete supply and replenishment.

Military leaders and theoreticians at all times looked at command and control as a many-sided art. Here is what Marshal Vassilevsky had to say on that score: "Command and control is an art, a far from simple art, that involves profound thinking and knowledge of psychology. I think that each military leader, whether in command of a unit or a division, army or front, should possess a calculating mind that prompts him to think before leaping. This is his job: he is responsible for thousands and tens of thousands of lives. It is his duty to think twice before making final decision and to seek best solutions." (1) Sir Basil Liddell Hart in his Strategy--the Indirect Approach wrote that battle was a physical act commanded by human mind. (2) V. Cheremissov wrote: "Commander should demonstrate reasonable independence rather than blind obedience, genuine artistic creativity rather than formal approach." (3)

Marshal of the Soviet Union Bagramian in his book Synovia velikogo naroda (Sons of the Great Nation) wrote that Zhukov, Vassilevsky, Rokossovsky, Shaposhnikov, Timoshenko, and Konev while demonstrating their own individual characters and creative approaches were similar in one thing--they were past masters of the high art of command and control and were full of "bubbling energy and boldness with which they shouldered responsibility and sorted out the most complicated situations." (4)

Today, the factor of command is correctly equated to the material factor (the numerical strength of the troops and the quality of their equipment) where their contributions to victory in a battle are concerned. The levels of command and control of the warring sides are an important indicator of their fighting abilities. They are regarded as a correlation of fighting potentials.

The contemporary art of command and control imbibed experience of numerous wars. It should be carefully studied because without knowledge of the past it is impossible to look into the future. Historical approach to the problems of command and control can arm the officer corps with methodological landmarks, an ability to identify the main development trends of the art of command and control. Lessons of the past help avoid the mistakes made by previous generations.

The Art of Command and Control as Revealed by the Wars of the 19th and 20th Centuries

The service of command and control had appeared and developed even before regular armies were formed. In the slave-owning society the military leader had to formulate an aim of the campaign, identify the ways to achieve it, to conduct reconnaissance, to select the best spot for a battle, to guard and supply his troops, and to coordinate the movements of cohorts, legions, detachments, hosts, etc.

Works by Aleksandr Suvorov Nauka pobezhdat (Science of Winning) (1795-1796), Karl Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, Antoine Henri Jomini, Traite des grandes operations militaries, and others offer scientific foundations of the theory and practice of command and control formulated in its complete form in the 18th and 19th centuries. They generalized the very concept of "command and control," revealed the complexity of the process, described the demands on a military leader who should, as Clausewitz put it, first have a "mind capable of illuminating the twilight with his inner light and find the truth; second, he should possess enough courage to follow this weak ray of light." (5)

Napoleon's works and his battles are a valuable source of knowledge of the art of command and control though not all his propositions can be accepted. This refers, first and foremost, to what he wrote about the human factor: "In a war people (soldiers) mean nothing, their military leader means everything... It was not the Roman army that conquered Gaul but Caesar; it was not the Carthaginian army at the gate of Rome that forced the republic to tremble but Hannibal; it was not the Macedonian army that reached the Indus but Alexander; it was not the Prussian army that defended Prussia for seven years but Frederick the Great." (6) This smacks of disdain for the rank-and-file.

Russian military leaders (Suvorov, Rumiantsev, Bagration, Potemkin, Kutuzov, Barklai-de-Tolli, and others) were of different opinion. When planning battles and commanding them they relied on the initiative and resourcefulness typical of Russian soldiers, and on their patriotism. They did everything to explain to the army the meaning of maneuvers in the battle. All manuals of the Russian army starting with the earliest The Field Manual for the Infantry (1647) taught all commanders to show initiative, resourcefulness, and sharpness in a battle.

The armies grew bigger and the demands on command and control became stricter. By the early 19th century Russia had considerably improved the structure of its army. It created infantry and cavalry divisions and corps. In 1812, a new structure was created to command and control a large army-in-the-field. As a result, divisions and corps received staffs and chiefs of staffs. By that time it had become clear that the old communication means (post and couriers) no longer served their aim: orders and other documents had to be communicated to the army much faster. Russian scientists and innovators scored certain successes in this field. In 1795, Ivan Kulibin invented an optical telegraph. Soon after that navy officer Butakov invented a telegraph that consisted of a flag, a pennant, and a globe. The system was first used in 1810 by Admiral Seniavin during a Russo-Turkish war.(7)

During the Patriotic War of 1812-1814 Kutuzov used couriers and the post to send reports to Moscow and Petersburg. Army commanders communicated with the corps commanders through mounted adjutants and orderlies. Division commanders used couriers on foot and on horseback and signals to communicate with battalion commanders. When skillfully used this communication system allowed the military to collect reconnaissance, make decisions, and inform the troops. During the battle of Borodino the French captured the Semenovskoe village, brought 35 thous men and 300 pieces of artillery closer to it to attack the battery defended by Raevsky. Kutuzov who received information about the movements of the French dispatched orderlies with an order to atamans Platov and Uvarov to attack the left flank of the enemy. The Cossacks delivered the blow at the French, disrupted its plans and retreated in good order while maintaining communication with the commanders and the neighbors.(8)

Thanks to the efficient postal service and couriers Kutuzov received on time reinforcements from Arzamas (infantry), Murom (cavalry), and the Don area (Cossack regiments). It is interesting to note that Kutuzov introduced written dated and timed reports that were delivered from the HQs of armies and corps twice a day. The main HQ in the field dispatched orders to partisans and the commander-in-chief personal orders and received intelligence from them.(9)

Radical changes in the command and control system occurred when large armies appeared armed with better weapons and fighting equipment. Rifled artillery and rifled small arms appeared in the latter half of the 19th century. New equipment was developing rapidly especially after smokeless propellant had been invented. The range, efficiency, and accuracy of fire increased dramatically. Railways and cars helped troops to maneuver. Hostilities became more complicated, the role of fire increased, armies became more viable, training of reserves and transfer to the front as well as maneuvering became easier. Telegraph and telephone made it possible to command and control at a distance.

This deprived the general battle as a form of hostilities of its priority. Warfare acquired greater scope. Indeed, while in the battles at Gravelotte and Sedan in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war, the sides brought into battle about half a million men along the front of 12 to 15 km wide and 3 to 5 km deep during the Russo-Japanese war the hostilities were unfolding on an area of hundreds of kilometers. Operations increased their scope during World War I when the entire theater became a battlefield. Planning and command and control became much more complicated, the structure of command and control acquired additional levels: while in the 18th century divisions and corps were the highest operational units in the first quarter of the 20th century this role belonged to the armies and fronts (army groups).

The huge scope of hostilities changed the systems of strategic and operational command: it was no longer possible to command multi-million armies according to the old pattern that included the commander-in-chief and his army. A new structure appeared: headquarters-fronts (army groups)-army. Technical communication means (telephone, telegraph, radio, aircrafts and cars) helped ensure highly centralized command and control. During World War I the army level of command and control lost its independence and had to act according to orders issued by supreme and front commanders.

During World War I the scope of the tasks that division and regiment commanders and their HQs had to address while readying for action and in the course of it increased many times over. This was the main trend of development of tactical command and control because battles became integrated all-arms battles. The problem of organization and cooperation of arms and services became acute. Combat operations needed all-round support. The roles of HQs (especially their operational sectors) as structures of command and control increased, their functions became more varied, the rights of chiefs became wider while the communication system developed and documentation improved.

Between the wars the Red Army was engaged in an intensive search for new structures and methods of command and control reflected in field manuals. For example, the Temporal Field Manual of 1925 dedicated 262 of its paragraphs to the questions of command and control, its technique, preserving the troops' fighting efficiency, maintaining communication and conducting reconnaissance. Later draft field manuals (1929, 1936, 1939, 1940, and 1941) developed these ideas.

The Manual of Administration in the Field issued in 1926 and re-issued in 1933 and 1936 played a great role in the development of the command and control system of the Red Army. For the first time in the history of the art of warfare the manual of 1926 offered a fairly complete theory and practice of staff work to ensure command and control. It described the functions of staff officers during preparation for action and in the course of battle, the staffs' part in planning, support, and coordination of actions, in informing the rank-and-file about orders, organization of reconnaissance, etc.

In the 1920s and first part of the 1930s Frunze, Tukhachevsky, Shaposhnikov, Varfolomeev, Triandafillov, Krasilnikov, Galaktionov, Lapchinsky and others published their theoretical works. One should pay special attention to a definitive work by Boris Shaposhnikov Mozg armii (The Mind of the Army) that has retained its topicality.

The battle in depth theory caused a revision of the ideas of theory and practice of command and control. Hostilities were differently organized especially where cooperation of the arms during fire pressure to the depth of enemy deployment was concerned. It was intended to break in defenses in the shortest time possible and to send mobile troops and airborne assault forces into the gap. This increased the role of communication, especially of radio communication.

The military reform 1924-1925 brought radical changes to the structure of command and control in divisions and regiments to add to its sustainability, operational ability and continued command and control. Not all plans were realized.

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 put to severe test the pre-war system of command and control and corrected it. The very first days of fighting demonstrated that not all commanders and staffs had been prepared to command units and subunits in the conditions of a sudden attack. Many rifle divisions of the first echelons lost communication with their subordinate units and their superiors. This was especially evident during retreat and break out of encirclement. For example, in September 1941 the units of the 5th and 21st armies of the Southwestern Front deprived of command and control broke out of encirclement in small groups numbering from tens to several thousands of men.(10)

The main cause behind the failure was concentration, during pre-war training, on command and control in an offensive, in favorable conditions of numerical superiority over the enemy, and in retaining initiative.

The army had to adjust to the new conditions during the war-this was a painful process. The unfavorable situation of the first hours (communication failures, inadequate reconnaissance, the resultant lack of information about the enemy, the neighbors, and even about the units of one's own division) caused chaos. In an absence of reconnaissance data commanders had to orientate by the map. Cooperation was inadequate, logistic and engineer support as well as camouflage was practically non-existent.

During the war the Supreme Command Headquarters resorted to resolute measures to improve the system of command and control at all levels. This is testified by the fact that before 1944 30 manuals were issued, including the 1942 Infantry Field Manual, the 1943 Field Manual (draft), the 1942 Manual of Administration for the Staffs, the Manual for Reconnaissance, for Communication, for Breaking Through Positional Defense, etc.(11) Orders and directives issued by the Supreme Command Headquarters, information collections, bulletins, and instructions of the General Staff played an important role in improving command and control. These documents used the experience accumulated in the course of war and the changes of the means and methods of armed struggle.

The process was not free from errors: as soon as the war began the corps headquarters were liquidated. By late 1941, only 6 out of 62 corps headquarters remained while the number of all-arms army headquarters increased from 27 to 58. (12) In an absence of corps headquarters army commanders had to set up temporal operational command and control groups to work in individual sectors. Practice demanded that the corps link be restored. During 1942-1943 the number of corps reached 61. The system of command and control was considerably improved during the war when powerful motorized, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft artillery formations were formed. On the whole it took command more than three years to reach the best possible structure of command and control. It took the final shape by late 1943.

The war demonstrated that all-arms headquarters played an important role. The Field Manual for the Staffs of 1942 instructed: "The staff is an instrument of a commander. He uses it to organize continued command and control and is completely responsible for it. It is the duty of chief of staff to implement the will of the commanders." According to the 1943 Field Manual the chief of staff was the first deputy of the commander whom the chiefs of rear services and other services had to inform about their activities and the measures they took to fulfill orders.

During the war operational and unbroken command and control depended to a great extent on a rational system of command and control posts. At the early stages divisions and regiments were commanded from the same posts that left the troops without any control if the post was destroyed. It was decided to set up several command posts for command instances (from the regiment up). They were created thanks to disposition in depth (division) of the assets and forces of the link of command and control. Command post became the center of command and control: it concentrated all planning and organizational efforts and handling units and subunits in action. An observation post was part of the command post organized during a battle to monitor its course. There was also a rear services group (the second echelon) headed by the rear services chief.

Tank and motorized units had mobile command posts divided into three parts: groups of command and control, communication, and services. Ad hoc operation groups were created if needed.

One should say that at the early stages of war command and control was excessively centralized. Senior officers unnecessarily interfered with what subordinate commanders were doing thus depriving them of initiative. This forced the Supreme Command Headquarters to issues a directive in 1943 that banned any unnecessary interference.

There was another weak spot: command and control bodies frequently planned operations according to well-known patterns that obviously helped the enemy. It was especially evident during reconnaissance in force before large-scale offensives. Here is what General Tippelskirch had to say: "Reconnaissance in force was a sure sign that the enemy would advance on the next day. It was a sign for our artillery and the crews of heavy artillery used by infantry to move to the prepared positions, for the infantry--to leave the front-line trenches so that to decrease the efficiency of the enemy softening-up process." (13)

On the whole the war created a wealth of positive experience used by generals and officers. Many of the battles testified that they approached the tasks in a creative way, learned to deliver surprise strikes, use stratagems and score victories thanks to their skills rather than buying victory with lost lives. The war created young talented commanders, taught them to be independent. General of the Army I. Tretiak who at 20 commanded a regiment wrote: "During the war there were no tutors. Despite their youth and lack of experience the officers were charged with important tasks and each had to shoulder responsibility." (14)

Regrettably, Soviet and Russian literature has not yet summarized experience of outstanding military leaders that can be used by the younger generations. It is interesting to note that Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Bagramian, Vassilevsky, Konev, Malinovsky, and Tolbukhin always tried to inculcate initiative and creative approach in subordinate officers. Let's have a look at what Konstantin Rokossovsky wrote about his relations with subordinates, officers of the front staff: "We did our best to create an atmosphere conducive to fruitful work and exclude a possibility of relationships based on subordination and obedience to orders when people do not dare to express opinions different from those of their superiors." (15)

General of the Army Chemiakhovsky set behavior pattern for his officers. This is what those who fought with him at the 3rd Byelorussian Front had to say: "We looked at him as a determined and just, efficient, attentive man of high personal culture. He found encouraging words for all of his subordinates. His exactingness stemmed from his profound knowledge of the situation and profound understanding of life. He knew how to insist on obeying his orders and knew how to teach people to creatively obey them." (16)

During the war General of the Army Nikolai Vatutin demonstrated his talent of a strategist. When talking to the staff officers he invariably emphasized that when assessing the situation one should take into account what the enemy might do. He compared the process with a game of chess when a good player anticipated the moves of his opponent. He was convinced that this was the key to all stratagems the enemy might use.

Fighting demonstrated that a flexible and efficient command and control system exerts a decisive influence on the nature of a battle, its course and result. It predetermines the efficiency with which weapons and machines are used and paves the shortest way to success, saves lives, helps deliver surprise attacks, seizes initiative and helps keep it, preserve domination over the enemy in the decisive sector and impose one's own will on it.

Here we should turn to the philosophical category of the correlation between the objective and subjective in fighting so that to understand how the circumstances affect commanders and staffs and their ability to control the course of fighting and find solutions in the most difficult situations. Hence a conclusion: the objective factors (such as conditions of fighting) create a possibility of victory (or a defeat) while the subjective factor (decisions of commanders) turns a possibility into reality.

During the nearly 60 years that separate us from World War II radical changes took place in military technology, equipment, organizational structure and the ideas about fighting. This naturally affected the system of command and control. During local wars and military exercises certain theoretical propositions were specified that triggered technical innovations in the sphere of command and control and a quest for new organizational methods.

Command and Control Today: Problems of Improvement

Today, the system of command and control has become much more complicated, the system has grown much more vulnerable under pressure of means of destruction, radioelectronic suppression, air-borne and aero-mobile landing groups and groups of sabotage and reconnaissance. To establish continuous operational command and control of troops in complex or even critical situations, to gain domination over the enemy in the sphere of command and control it is necessary, on the one hand, to steadily improve the technological basis of command and control, to introduce automatized command and control systems at all levels. On the other, we have to improve professional training of commanders and develop their creative abilities: an ability to predict possible developments, to make correct decisions and realize them.

The commander's intellect, an ability to predict, original plans, stratagems, resolute actions, surprise attacks, concentration of forces and flexible cooperation, firmness and consistency can double or even triple the troops' fighting ability, to rebuff strikes of a more numerous enemy and to defeat it. To be able to achieve this, commanders should outmatch the enemy, to prevent its actions, and to impose one's own will on it.

Today the command and control system should ensure efficient command of the units while readying them for action and in the course of fighting.

The following factors are normally considered to be the best indicators of efficiency of command and control (17) time (prompt gathering of reconnaissance data and their analysis, generalization and assessment, decision making, formulation of tasks and information of the troops; prompt response to changed situations; prompt restoration of the system of communication and command and control as well as restoration of units' battle readiness after a massive strike with high precision weapons) and effect (an ability of the command and control system to insist on precise and timely fulfillment of orders; steady fire at the depth of enemy deployment; steady command and control in the course of action; highly operational performance by commanders and staffs, their ability to deliver preemptive blows, to promptly adjust the command and control system to the rapidly changing situation, and to ensure secrecy of the process).

Increased viability of command and control posts is one of the major problems. They should be protected against destruction means and radioelectronic interference. Today, this has become much harder to achieve. In World War II limited assets and forces (aviation and subversive landing groups) were used against command and control posts especially those sited far from the front line. Today, an ability to disorganize the system of command and control has become much wider through the use of all sorts of high precision missile and guided missile systems, powerful means of radioelectronic suppression, air, navy, and aero-mobile landing groups, flanking and raiding groups. The effect can be increased through remote minelaying. The Gulf War has shown that the measures to disrupt the command and control system have become a large-scale "anti-command and control" operation the results of which may predetermine the outcome of the war.

This creates a need to teach commanders and staffs, on the one hand, to rebuff such enemy attacks and to maintain continuous command and control in the most complex situation. On the other, they should know how to disrupt the enemy command and control, that is, to gain domination in the command and control sphere. This is hard to achieve because a potential enemy possesses powerful command technology and can actively rebuff us and protect its command system.

It is impossible to achieve domination in the sphere of command and control without developing electronic technology. It has been generally recognized that the road to a perfect system of command and control lies through automatization. Experts are convinced that the command cycle can be shortened by 2 or 2.5 times if an automated control system is used. The system also becomes much more stable. Many of the labor-consuming command and control functions should be automatized because today the troops use more complicated weapon systems and military machines as well as highly dynamic fighting.

In certain conditions the time factor may turn into a factor of force. This means that the side that takes less time to exercise command and control finds itself in a better situation and has a chance to promptly rout the enemy with smaller forces.

The automatized system of command and control requires technical, mathematical, information and other support. Technically it is important to create a highly stable, well-protected against interference, and fast system of communication, develop and introduce better electronic machines, that are faster, more reliable, and have larger operational memory. They should be smaller in size with a simpler data input system. Mathematically, the system needs new methods, models and algorithms that would make it possible to address all sorts of information tasks and calculations related to planning and the use of fighting machines and weapons. Mathematical support should be constantly improved on the basis of intellectual intelligence, that is one of the necessary conditions for further improvement of the automated system's efficiency.

Training has acquired special importance. Professional skills of officers can compensate, to a certain extent, for inadequate technical equipment. We all know that weapons and numerical superiority are not enough to win battles. What is also needed is the intellectual potential of commanders and staffs. Experience has shown that the level of professional training of officers, their creative potential, an ability to predict future developments, to use stratagems, to find bearings in complex situations and to promptly respond to its changes, to know how to control the situation, to show flexibility in command and control, to maneuver boldly, to maintain cooperation, and to offer all-round support to the troops in action are indispensable.

To put the above in a nutshell one can say: the art of warfare and the commander's skills are related to his ability to win with numerically smaller forces and with fewer losses, to deliver surprise strikes, to use stratagems successfully, and to use assets and forces efficiently.

NOTES:

(1.) A.M. Vassilevsky, Delo vsei zhizni, Politizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1973, p. 437.

(2.) B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategia nepriamykh deistvy, Izdatelstvo inostrannoi literatury Publishers, Moscow, 1957, p. 488.

(3.) V. Cheremissov, Osnovy sovremennogo voennogo iskusstva, Kiev, 1910, p. 2.

(4.) I.Kh. Bagramian, Velikogo naroda synovia, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1984, p. 7.

(5.) K. Clausewitz, O voine, Vol. 1, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1941, p. 66.

(6.) Quoted from: Sovetskaia voennaia entsiklopedia, Vol. 5, Moscow, 1978, p. 506.

(7.) Voenny vestnik, No. 2, 1989, p. 77.

(8.) Ibid, pp. 77-78.

(9.) Ibid, p. 79.

(10.) Istoria Velikoy Otechestvennoy voiny Sovetskogo Soiuza 1941-1945, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1963, pp. 34-37.

(11.) N.N. Popel, V.P. Saveliev, P.V. Shemanskiy, Upravlenie voiskami v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voiny, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 17.

(12.) 50 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1968, p. 269.

(13.) K. Tippelskirch, Istoria vtoroy mirovoy voiny, Izdatelstvo inostrannoi literatury Publishers, Moscow, 1957, pp. 317-318.

(14.) I.M. Tretiak, Khrabrye serdtsa odnopolchan, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 18.

(15.) Quoted from: V. Kardashov, Rokossovsky, Molodaia gvardia Publishers, Moscow, 1980, p. 247.

(16.) Dvazhdy Geroy Sovetskogo Soiuza general armii Ivan Danilovich Cherniakhovsky, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1953, p. 19.

(17.) Osnovy upravlenia voiskami v boiu, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1977, pp. 51-57.