"The British way of war – Balancing fire and manoeuvre " Topic

…for warfighting.

"To paraphrase a famous philosopher, "opinions about tactics are like arseholes… everyone has one." The range of recent writing bears this out and there is an on-going debate about the balance of fires over ground manoeuvre. Left of arc, the ‘Strike' concept is seen as one way ground manoeuvre enables a more aggressive deep battle. Right of arc, many point to contemporary conflicts and the evolving future utility of the main battle tank as being decisive in modern warfare. This article argues that the current British military mind-set lacks sufficient imagination to fuse the ideas together into a coherent tactical plan. Commanders are increasingly unwilling to take risk with assertive ground manoeuvre, instead favouring an artillery duel and non-lethal effects in the deep. Tactically, more imagination is required to better integrate effects and utilise the full capabilities of the assets available. A more aggressive mind-set is required to ensure success in future ground operations.

Modern military planning has become a balancing act between the ‘risk' of close combat and the need to impose effects on an opponent. In this author's view the balance is firmly weighted with joint fires over manoeuvre to achieve military effect. This means that ground attack options are routinely disregarded and considered to be too risky. One recent commentary goes further and argues that modern planners do little more than synchronise fires. Personal experience of divisional command post training reinforces this view…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Hmmm commanders unwilling to take risks, could the fact that every action is pored over by lawyers who want to find the military guilty, and have days or weeks even year to their comment split second decisions,have any bearing on that?

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand