Part 07 · 1986 originals beside recreations

1986 · printed 55

World War I

On narrow screens, scroll sideways or focus this diagram and use arrow keys to see both groups.

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1986 · printed 56

World War I · A way out

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1986 · printed 57

World War I · Infiltration tactics

Action

• Brief but intense artillery bombardment, that includes gas and smoke shell, to disrupt/suppress defenses and obscure the assault.
• Stosstruppen (small teams or squads of thrust troops equipped with light machine-guns, flame-throwers, etc.) thrust forward close behind rolling artillery barrage, without any “effort to maintain a uniform rate of advance or align formations”. Instead, as many tiny, irregular swarms spaced in breadth and echeloned in depth, they seep or flow into any gaps or weaknesses they can find in order to drive deep into adversary rear.
• Kampfgruppen (small battlegroups consisting of infantry, machine-gunners, mortar teams, artillery observers and field engineers) follow-up to cave-in exposed flanks and mop-up isolated centers of resistance from flank and rear.
• Reserves and stronger follow-on echelons move through newly created breaches to maintain momentum and exploit success, as well as attack flanks and rear to widen penetration and consolidate gains against counter-attack.

Idea

• Hurl strength (echeloned in great depth), via an irruption of many thrusts, thru weaknesses along (many) paths of least resistance to gain the opportunity for breakthrough and envelopment.

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1986 · printed 58

World War I · Infiltration tactics

Note

• Such classic descriptions, often repeated, create in listeners or readers minds vivid images of the infiltration technique.

Critique

• Unfortunately this depiction does not address how and why infiltration fire and movement schemes work.

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1986 · printed 59

World War I · Infiltration tactics

Key points

• Fire at all levels by artillery, mortars, and machine-guns is exploited to hold adversary attention and pin him down hence—
• Fire together with gas and smoke (as well as fog and mist) represent an immediate and ominous threat to capture adversary attention, force heads down and dramatically obscure view, thereby cloak infiltrators movements.
• Dispersed and irregular character of moving swarms (as opposed to well defined line abreast formations) permit infiltrators to blend against irregular and changing terrain features as they push forward.
• Taken together, the captured attention, the obscured view, and the indistinct character of moving dispersed/irregular swarms deny adversary the opportunity to picture what is taking place.

Result

• Infiltration teams appear to suddenly loom-up out of nowhere to blow thru, around, and behind disoriented defenders.

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1986 · printed 60

World War I · Infiltration tactics

Essence

• Cloud/distort signature and improve mobility to avoid fire yet focus effort to penetrate, shatter, envelop, and mop-up disconnected or isolated debris of adversary system.

Intent

• Exploit tactical dispersion in a focused way to gain tactical success and expand it into a grand tactical success.

Implication

• Small units exploiting tactical dispersion in a focused way—rather than large formations abiding by the “Principle of Concentration”—penetrate adversary to generate many non-cooperative (or isolated) centers of gravity as basis to magnify friction, paralyze effort, and bring about adversary collapse.

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1986 · printed 61

? — Natural question — ?

Are infiltration tactics a rejection of the Napoleonic methods—or are they application of these methods under a different guise?

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1986 · printed 62

Infiltration tactics

Response

Infiltration fire and movement schemes can be viewed as Napoleon’s multi-thrust strategic penetration maneuvers being transformed into multi-thrust tactical penetration maneuvers down to the lowest operational/organizational level—the squad.

Point

Until the rise of the infiltration tactics (and the use of tanks by the allies) in the latter part of WWI, neither the 19th century nor the 20th century commanders were able to evolve effective tactical penetration maneuvers that could offset the massive increase in weapons lethality developed during this same period.

Why

The aristocratic tradition, the top-down command and control system, the slavish addiction to the “Principle of Concentration”, and the drill regulation mind-set, all taken together, reveal an “obsession for control” by high-level superiors over low-level subordinates that restrict any imagination, initiative, and adaptability needed by a system to evolve the indistinct-irregular-mobile tactics that could counter the increase in weapons lethality.

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1986 · printed 63

World War I · Infiltration tactics

Result

• Immediate success at platoon/company/battalion level coupled with ultimate failure at corps/army level.

Why

• Ludendorff violated his own concept by his tendency to use strategic reserves to reinforce against hardened resistance—hence, at the strategic level, he seduced himself into supporting failure not success.
• Exhaustion of combat teams leading the assault.
• Logistics too inflexible to support rapid/fluid penetration and deeper exploitation of breakthrough.
• Communications too immobile to allow command to quickly identify and reinforce successful advances.
• Elastic Zone Defense, when used, (as developed by the Germans and practiced by Pétain) that emphasizes artillery and flank attacks against penetrations when they stretch beyond their own artillery support.

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1986 · printed 64

World War I · Guerrilla warfare

(à la T. E. Lawrence)

Action

• Gain support of population. Must “arrange the minds” of friend, foe and neutral alike. Must “get inside their minds”.
• Must “be an idea or thing invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas” (inconspicuousness and fluidity-of-action). Must be an “attack-in-depth”.
• Tactics “should be tip-and-run, not pushes but strokes” with “use of the smallest force in the quickest time at the farthest place”.
• Should be a war of detachment (avoiding contact and presenting a threat everywhere) using mobility/fluidity-of-action and environmental background (vast unknown desert) as basis for “never affording a target” and “never on the defensive except by accident and in error”.

Idea

• Disintegrate existing regime’s ability to govern.

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1986 · printed 65

Impression

• Infiltration tactics à la Ludendorff seem to be similar in nature to irregular or guerrilla tactics à la Lawrence.
• Why? Both stress clouded/distorted signatures, mobility and cohesion of small units as basis to insert an amorphous yet focused effort into or thru adversary weaknesses.

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