Since the end of World War II, the U. S. Army has attempted to adopt positive aspects of the World War II German Army's decentralized tactical leadership methodology currently called Auftragstaktik. This effort has been less than successful due to...
The decentralized command and control system required to execute AirLand Battle Doctrine presents a significant challenge to tactical leaders. Incapable of predicting the critical place on the battlefield or occupying multiple vantage points...
Research Problem. The Army does not use leader initiative as a criteria to design units. Yet, Army doctrine requires that leaders display initiative on the decentralized battlefield. The Army may therefore not be able to fight on the decentralized...
History shows that the U.S. Army can fight and defeat its opponents using centralized command concepts, but the challenges of the contemporary operating environment place a premium on the abilities of subordinate commanders to act independently and...
This monograph addresses the continued relevance of airpower’s master tenet in light of advances in technology. The purpose of this monograph is to examine the doctrinal assumptions used to justify centralized control with decentralized...
Historically, fog and friction have exacerbated the best laid battle plans of even the most intuitive wartime commanders. To mitigate these ever-present elements, the U.S. Army emphasizes the decentralized execution of AirLand Battle. Paramount to...
Communications technology has enabled the U.S. military to move data rapidly around the globe and provide commanders with the ability to monitor and maintain nearly constant communication with subordinates. However, this capability has the...
With the publication of the 1982 FM 100-5 operations, the U.S. Army officially adopted the concept of decentralized operations. Based on the recognition that success in future warfare would demand soldiers and units capable of fighting on a...
The Luftwaffe's defeat of Allied airpower in the Kasserine Pass in 1943 imprinted the principle of mass upon the US Air Force's organizational psyche. The then Army Air Corps recognized the necessity of consolidating airpower under the command and...
Uncertainty and confusion in warfare make decision making a challenge. Every commander must determine whether or not the information he has is valid or complete, and whether or not he should wait for additional information which may arrive at any...
Innovations in command and control procedures for joint air operations have been unable to keep pace with changes in technology and military requirements. Current U.S. operational capabilities often fail to meet the need to task, re-task, and...
Today's Army is undergoing significant change, completing its modular transformation and adopting mission command as a war fighting function in an effort to meet the needs of a constantly adapting enemy and uncertain environment. Mission command is...
The authors of AirLand battle doctrine, realizing the importance of decentralized command and control on the modern battlefield, incorporated Auftragstaktik in US Army doctrine to deal with the uncertainty of war. Despite the importance of...
The Interim Strike Force Headquarters organizational concept has emerged as the experimental platform upon which the U.S. Army will examine how to reorganize the Army in the near term to meet the conflicting demands of National Security Strategy,...
This study considers the implications of video datalink (VDL) on the AC-130. Gunships use infrared and low-light television sensors, and synthetic aperture radar to search for and to identify target for close air support and interdiction missions....
This monograph identifies the essential characteristics and capabilities of intelligence organization structures for an army force that is global, rapidly deployable and capable of executing full spectrum military operations in joint and combined...
This thesis will use a comparative study of the German Storm trooper battalions and the Canadian trench raiders in order to examine the dynamics of the World War I battlefield, the role of military culture in adaptation in order to acknowledge and...
The small wars fought by the French in Algeria and the United States in Vietnam provide lessons for the United States military to use today. Although neither France nor the United States met their strategic objectives, their command and control...
Certain characteristics of the Information Age both pressure and tempt commanders, in powerful ways, to exert greater control over military forces during the execution of operations. As examples, real-time communications with political leaders and...
Self-synchronization is an idea that comes directly from Network-Centric Warfare but its foundations lie in complexity theory and the ideas of self-organization and emergent behavior. In order to understand self-synchronization the basics of...