Leadership Under Fire

[quincannon]

Some would have you believe that a leaders place is always in front of his troops, and at no other place. We fault the chateau type of leadership as being out of touch. I uncovered the following, and present it for your consideration.

" I got little sleep that night as I tried to figure out what went wrong during the day. Our casualties were one dead, one missing, three wounded, and five horses killed or wounded. That there had been a lack of discipline and liaison under unexpected fire was not surprising. But I believed then and believe now that I was partially at fault. Where a leader should position himself in battle is always a difficult decision, and there is no ready made rule. When Lambert and I  lay in the road and opened fire with automatic rifles on the Germans, we were not acting as commanders of troops, we were engaging in boyish heroics . In short we were too far out front  to be in control of our men. It was a lesson which could be learned only in the field."

Captain Ernest N. Harmon, USA

At the time Captain Harmon commanded the Provisional Squadron, 2nd U. S. Cavalry, the only cavalry unit of the four regiments deployed (2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 15th) that saw any combat in France during World War I. In a later part of his life Major General Harmon would become one of our most notable commanders of Armor in World War II, commanding one division (2nd Armored) twice, and the First Armored Division in North Africa and Italy. Later in life he would become the commander of the U S Constabulary and in retirement the President of Norwich University, which has been long known as the producer of some of the finest Armor and Cavalry officers in the United States Army. His book "Combat Commander", an autobiography,  ranks with some of the best of its kind, imparting lessons on nearly every page. I rate it a notch higher than Truscott's book "Command Missions" in that regard, and I loved Truscott's book

[quincannon]

Command and control are two sides of the same coin. You cannot command if you do not exercise control, and you can not control if you do not exercise the authority given you to command.

Command the is the requisite authority to control, while control depends upon properly exercising that control within the limitations of your God given talents.

In the example General Harmon gave us he realized that he had improperly exercise the authority given him. He corrected it, and to my knowledge never repeated this mistake again, which in turn illustrates another command and control maxim. - There is no crime in making a mistake. The crime is making the same mistake twice.

[deadwoodgultch]

The obvious problem with the above adage is that some of the folks that never commit the crime are those who died the first time. For some they are just lucky, repeat the mistake, and begin to believe their own press clippings. For our purposes here on this board, we know that GAC made his mistake three times, not knowing the force he was up against, on three different occasions, that we know of. Trevilian Station, the Washita, and the LBH, He dodged the bullet on the first two and paid for his crime on the third try.

Oh and he very nearly got whacked on the Yellowstone expedition for being too far out front, must not have read Harmon's book!

Regards,
Tom

[quincannon]

People die in war, and that is the unfortunate part of making that first mistake. Men always die in war though by someone making a mistake. It goes with the territory, be that a mistake on the part of the commander, or on the part of the soldier himself. When you are shot, you made the mistake of exposing yourself to being shot. When you step on a mine you were not cautious enough, another mistake, When artillery gets you, you have insufficient overhead cover, and the list goes on. Not much comfort but someone's mistake is always present.

The crime is in not realizing it was a mistake, and take precautions not to repeat it.

You are absolutely right about Custer's three strikes, to which the Yellowstone I would submit as being number four. A deep dive into Custer's career undoubtedly would reveal many more. Of that I have do doubt. He certainly did not win any friends, exhibit good judgment, or contribute to the solution of conflict by hanging Mosby's men, and there are so many others.

Custer was unfit to command men under fire.

I applaud you for making the Custer connection in my first post. That connection was the food for though I was throwing out hoping someone would pick it up and digest it.

[colt45]

When I was an armor platoon leader, there was an article our battalion CO required all PL's to read. It was an article recommending that all tank PL's be given a sword as a weapon instead of the 50 cal we had in the cupola. The whole point of the article was that too many LT's acted as a tank commander instead of a platoon leader, and as such you wound up with 5 tanks acting individually instead of as a team. So the solution was to lead the platoon instead of participating as one of the shooters. That meant we were to lead and direct the 5 tanks, not pull triggers. The same also applied to the company CO's, who also had a tank.

[quincannon]

I remember that article in Armor Magazine.

Another reason to like the five tank platoon, which I much prefer to the present four tank platoon.

[quincannon]

Another Harmon pearl cast before the swine of Custer worship.

" It has always been my idea that the more exact battle information you can give the soldier, the better he will carry out his assignments. The "theirs not to reason why" of Tennyson's noble six hundred is long out of date. The American soldier, in particular, wants to know the "why" of military movements. And if he knows why, and if the whole thing seems to make sense, he will carry out the most hazardous assignment without complaint. There is another factor: many battles are lost because senior officers are killed, and junior officers and noncoms do not know the objectives to be gained."

Harmon goes on to say that he was criticized by other officers, contemporaries of his, that by pushing down battle plans to the lowest possible level he was compromising security. So he had to weigh the divergent factors of security, against that of fully briefed troops. He chose the latter. He also valued complete and extensive reconnaissance to the point that every (troop leading) officer was flown over the battle space in light aircraft, so they may see the ground upon which much was expected of them. This occurred just before the breakout at Anzio, and included Infantry and Tank platoon leaders and artillery forward observers.

[mac]

The Custer parallel is apparent here also. One wonders why he did not want to divulge his plans to Benteen, Reno et al, I have always leaned towards him not actually having a set plan but rather intending to "wing it " as he did unltimately.

To digress a little and return to tank platoons. My giant expertise is well known in this area  but in all things I have a fondness for asymmetry and so I can see an intrinsic virtue in 5 anything rather than 4. I take Colt's point to be one commands and controls as a primary function. This makes sense to me, so what is the rationale for going to 4?

Cheers

[quincannon]

Well it is obvious that whomever made that decision did not read the article Colt referred to

With five, the platoon leader has a more flexible organization. He can control two, two tank teams, and move his own as the situation dictates, or he can form a light team of two and a heavy team of three, the light team covering the movement of the heavy which is usually meant to be the decisive maneuver element.

Going down to four means that the two teams of tanks that maneuver, must do so by some sort of bounding operation. Instead of being alert to what is happening, the platoon leader is much more concerned with his own, and his wingman's movements. Good way to get yourself killed and your platoon whacked if you ask me.

We went to four with the introduction of the M-1. It is clearly a superior tank to that which it displaced. I fear the answer to your question though Mac is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish

[yanmacca]

If you think that four tanks are bad, well how about three. This is a British Tank Squadron circa 1940/42. But I would guess that in the western desert, that this formation fought as a whole and not split into penny packets.

Squadron HQ:
2 x Cruiser Tanks (Command Tanks)
2 x Cruiser (95mm Close Support Howitzer)
4 x Troops, each contained:
1 x Cruiser Tank (Command Tank)
2 x Cruiser Tanks
Total: 16

Cruiser Tanks could be either A9, A10 or A13 Tanks

By the time we get to 1944, things do change and a British tank squadron gets reinforced a little with the excellent Firefly, which brought the squadron up to 19 tanks.

The way the fireflies were used, was down to the squadron commander, some kept them as a separate troop and others split them between the troops, giving each troop an extra tank.

Example No1

Squadron HQ:
1 x Cromwell IV (Command Tank)
2 x Cromwell V (95mm Close Support Howitzer)
4 x Troops, each contained:
1 x Cromwell IV (Command Tank)
2 x Cromwell IV

1 x Sherman Firefly (17 pdr Gun)

Example No2

Squadron HQ:
1 x Cromwell IV (Command Tank)
2 x Cromwell V (95mm Close Support Howitzer)
4 x Troops, each contained:
1 x Cromwell IV (Command Tank)
2 x Cromwell IV
1 x Troop

4 x Sherman Fireflies (17 pdr Gun)

The Germans used five tanks per platoon, until 1943 when losses forced them to drop down to four per platoon.

Here is one for you all, the German and American tank platoons both had five tanks, but who thought of this number first?
The Germans apparently studied the US Army in the inter war years, but in 1940, the US Army closely watched how the Germans fought. So who copied who, or was five just a practical number used by both countries without any copying.

[quincannon]

The problem with a three tank platoon is that it would soon lose its combat effectiveness (as a platoon) with the loss of even one tank. The U S Army looked at three tank platoons back in the late 1970's with the Division 86 Study in anticipation of the introduction of the M-1 tank in the early 1980's. The Russians had three tank platoons, but they had them for a much different reason. They thought that three was the highest number one junior officer could handle, which does not speak well for the abilities of their junior officers. They of course had a tightly structured army, and to them, under their system a platoon was just so much cannon fodder and three tanks probably worked well. We rejected the idea.

The question we should ask about the Germans is what did they do after WWII, when they started their army back up again. They went immediately to five, which tells you that were it not for production problems late in WWII they would have stayed at five.

I read somewhere that the British Army based the three tank platoon on what the RAF was doing at the time. During the Battle of Britain RAF fighter squadrons used a three plane element as their basic building block. When you look at it closely air combat in a fighter squadron is not all that much different then fighting a tank platoon or tank company. It is the mobility of the platform (the tank or aircraft) that allows the mobile combat, be that in the air or on the ground. The RAF changed to the finger four, or four plane element sometime in 42 I think, and the U S Navy changed to four plane divisions (from three) a year before.

The basic play with a four platform element is two of two, and that's OK IF your battle drill is pretty solid, and the controlling person in each two tank team (the platoon leader and platoon sergeant) know exactly what the other is thinking and how best to react in a given situation. That takes weeks and months of training and fine tuning to reach that level of proficiency. In both two tank teams the main responsibility of the two wing men, is exactly what it is in the air, keep the leaders tail dusted off.

So much of this discussion is wrapped up in personal opinion. In my opinion if four is good, five is better.

PS: After finishing this post and drinking another cup of coffee I realized that I had not answered the question, who got five first. I think it was the U S Army, but to check I would have to go into "Through Mobility We Conquer? a task I dread. It is a book full of information, but one badly written, and the editing is even worse. I will check as time allows. Somewhere I got the idea that the Germans back in the 1930's organized around platoons larger than five, but then paired down to five, as their experiments progressed. Might have to check that as well.

[yanmacca]

I think that the Soviets had problems in communication and this restricted the ability of the tank platoon Co to keep his tanks in order. In the early days of WW2, the Russian tank platoons were mainly armed with BT tanks [either BT-5s or BT-7s], which no radios.

This meant that the platoon commander had to get out of his turret and wave a couple of flags around to get his platoon to follow him.
Even as late as 1944, only the platoon commander had a radio, which was a problem which dogged the T-34s for most of the war. The main way of tank v tank communication was done by maps before hand or even visible land marks, similar to follow the leader with the platoon commander riding towards an objective and his platoon following.

The T-34 was regarded as one of the best tanks of the war, but early models only had a four man crew and no radios add to this bad optics, fuel tanks inside the fighting compartment and no trained mechanic among the crew, and you can see how the Germans managed to defeat the T-34s on the battlefield.