Friedman - On tactics: a theory of victory in battle

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2017 by B. A. Friedman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Friedman, B. A., author.

Title: On tactics: a theory of victory in battle / B.A. Friedman.

Description: Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016059034 (print) | LCCN 2016059857 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682471647 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tactics.

Classification: LCC U165 .F83 2017 (print) | LCC U165 (ebook) | DDC 355.4/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059034

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

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First printing

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

This book is a rectification. I have been a practitioner of military tactics for sixteen years and a student of strategy for roughly five years. The latter is far easier, and not for the obvious reasons. The student of strategy, once he realizes the importance of the concept, has a well-organized field in which to plant the seeds of his intellectual development. (Unless otherwise stated, whenever the masculine gender is used, both men and women are included.) The furrows are straight and parallel, the plow is sharp and ready, and even the fallow fields are clearly defined. The study of tactics offers no such easy introduction. The fields are unseen, buried beneath tangled undergrowth, thorny bushes, and towering trees. A chaotic mix of overgrown strategic theory, dense doctrine, and of course military history hides the underlying nature of tactics. Unlike strategy itself, there is no organizing structure such as that provided by Carl von Clausewitzs On War (1976/1832). This work is an attempt to provide that structure or at least the beginning of one. I have endeavored to meet that very theorists goals for any theory:

Theory will have fulfilled its main task it used to analyze the constituent elements of war, to distinguish precisely what at first sight seems fused, to explain in full the properties of the means employed and to show their probable effects, to define clearly the nature of the ends in view, and to illuminate all phases of warfare in a thorough critical inquiry. Theory then becomes a guide to anyone who wants to learn about war from books; it will light his way, ease his progress, train his judgment, and help him to avoid pitfalls.

Strategic theory organizes what a practitioner learns by teaching him not what to do in war but how to think about war. This is what I have endeavored to do not for strategy but for tactics, a subset thereof. To my knowledge, an attempt to codify tactics in this manner has not been attempted before. Most writers who have written about the principles of war, including Ferdinand Foch, J. F. C. Fuller, and myriad others, have attempted to turn tactical insights into strategic principles vice tactical ones.

I have eschewed a focus on technology for two major reasons. The first is that I agree with Steven Biddle that it is a poor predictor of victory (above the level of an individual). The second reason is that whole books could beand have beenwritten about the interaction of tactics and technology. These days, such books are outdated before they are printed. Applying tactical principles such as those presented here to specific technology is the role of doctrine, most of which is continually updated for just this reason. I do not deny the influence of technology on tacticsI just choose not to focus on it in this book.

Clausewitz believed that any theory of war must address its threefold nature: passion and enmity, probability and chance, and subordination to the rational. Although this work is not a theory of war I believe it passes this test: the primacy I have placed on the moral sphere, the presence of probability throughout, and the subordination of tactics to strategy are parallels directly derived from Clausewitzs trinity.

Due to the nature of tactics as simultaneously the base of and servant to strategy, it is impossible to construct or discuss a theory of tactics without strategy. Strategic ideas are thus interspersed throughout the text where they are relevant. I believe such a mixture is necessary and it supports the idea that strategy and tactics are intimately related, but it does not mean that a tactical system cannot be developed. It can, but just not in a vacuum of strategy. It will also serve to introduce unfamiliar readers to strategic concepts. This is another reason for its length. This work is short by design. It is meant to be read primarily by the practitioner while also being accessible to the layman. Academics and experts have the training and time necessary to evaluate a long treatise filled with reams of examples and counterexamples. Corporals and lieutenants do not. It is meant to be a simple, easy, but useful base that will serve as such for a time until the corporal and the lieutenant become the sergeant major and the colonel, when a deeper study of warfare will be ideal. It solves the problems that I, looking back, have seen both in my professional training as a tacticianfirst in the infantry and then in the artilleryand in my academic pursuits in strategic studies. I have written the book I wish someone had handed to me as a young non-commissioned officer as I prepared to assume the duties of an officer.

While the sinews of war may be infinite funds, the sinew of tactical prowess is a common outlook, one that contextualizes and unifies doctrine, history, and experience across a military force. One cannot standardize everything, especially experience. But one can instill in troops a common outlook that they will use to analyze doctrine, history, and the experience they gain. This book is not intended to provide a guide in how to win in a specific situation, but instead to introduce a common set of terms and a cognitive framework for evaluating and analyzing past events and future plans. This is all that theory can provide, and no theoretical system is foolproof. The final gap between theory and practice can never be bridged. The crossing is necessarily a leap of faith through the danger and fear of combat. This system applies to the tactics of military units, however small, except the individual, whether that individual be a soldier, warrior, ship, or aircraft. The tactics of a duel, like the duel of the Bismarck and the Hood, fall outside the scope of this work. Modern discussions of tactics usually use the phrase tactics, techniques, and procedures. This is unfortunate: the first word has little if anything to do with the second and third. This book applies only to the first.

In constructing a theory of tactics, concepts are the rafters but the nails and joints are necessarily historical examples. That being said, I am not a historian. I have used the work of many fine historians in this book but cannot count myself among them. If I have erred in interpreting the historical record, the fault is solely mine and not that of my sources.