Anon's seem to form two opinions when it comes to how engagements are waged in war:>Circle gets drawn on a map and infantry just bum rush towards it>Everything is meticulously planned with infantry tactics mirroring a more open form of closed formation fighting from the Napoleonic era with battle drills and formationsBut often times when listening to stories told by veterans who fought in wars ranging from WWII to Korea to Vietnam, it often comes down to small ad hoc groups of men seemingly making up courses of action on the spot just to fit in with either the commanders intent or whatever they think is best just to survive. As if an entire frontline comprising entire divisions on paper are actually just countless small fireteam to squad sized groups of men trying to unfuck the situation and figure out on the spot what to do next, all in the moment. No real planning or complex schemes of maneuver, just them figuring out what to do on the spot.My questions are, how common does that actually happen where the situation gets so fucked that it really just boils down to a sort of large open formation modern day form of melee combat with guns with small ad hoc groups just going "I guess well do this and see what happens". And my second question is, from the perspectives of guys who've actually seen some shit, what individual skills and tactics are actually useful in combat and how combat actually happens from the perspective of being a fighter, not the perspective of a guy looking at a map and pushing unit markers around.
Terrain?
>>62739941A lot of it fall backs on their training. They are just essentially trying to unfuck the situation and survive but the training they got influences the individuals decision making
>>62739941Your misunderstanding lies in seeing these three things as mutually exclusive instead of simultaneous.Think of small unit combat like a game of soccer or football. You have a bunch of common themes you've practiced and you adapt them on the go as the situation develops. If everything goes wrong and two groups bump into each other, then the side which practiced its "Napoleonic" tactics the most wins, the same way a cowboy with a faster draw wins.
>>62739941Mission command has been the standing doctrine of the US military for decades. NCOs will understand their doctrine and apply whatever part of it they deem best suited to accomplishing the task at hand, within the bounds of commander's intent and task and purpose.
>>62739941>WWII to Korea to VietnamIn some important ways 'modern' infantry combat didn't exist back then. Yes, WW1 stormtroopers inspired the modern infantry, Korea added higher levels of suppressive fire, Vietnam added platoon/company calls for high level fire etc. But if you compare the training levels and some basic techniques like the Depuy foxhole a lot of stuff taken for granted as so old its almost obsolete today hadn't been invented yet.
>>62740018battle drills = audibles?
>>62740074The innovations in Vietnam were in air cavalry and, as you said, high level fire support. We Were Soldiers is by far my favorite Vietnam era movie because it actually shows a battle with troop movement and an understanding of terrain. Half the fucking Vietnam movies are about dumb fuck GIs holding lightly fortified positions in the middle of bumfuck nowhere getting night-raided with an occasional village massacre, but they never really go anywhere or do anything of military significance.
Every war is different, every war is the same. If we look at the US during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the mission set involved a lot of police work, escorting supplies, building infrastructure, etc. Those operations were executed jointly by US military, private military contractors and civilian contractors like electricians, and to make all of that happen there has to be several chains of command that all exchange information, but act independently.For example, you have Air Force air base 50 miles from the city, they have a platoon of green berets as QRF they can send in on helicopters, they have access to the live drone feeds and can call in strike missions, but unless they are actively given a mission, they remain on standby.Civi contractors need to perform maintenance on the local water supply, so they send in the civilian contractors with the private military contractors to do the job. All the PMC are there to do is secure the civilian contractors and get them out of the shit if need be, but the actual US military would be providing operational level security, EG running patrols around the city and setting up road-blocks.At any time during this operation, if one element hits contact, all of the other elements respond in kind, in an agreed upon fashion.Contractors GTFO, Air Force sends in the Apaches and the QRF and starts assembling an F-16 strike package, the regular army groups advance into contact and all of it is coordinated on a laptop in the back of your humvee.
>>62739941The west has a high level of autonomy.The Company commander will be given an AO and will tell his Platoon commanders where he wants each platoon but he doesn't really care if they are exactly at X location just that they can support each other and can do their job.The platoon commander will tell his section commanders where he wants each section but again he doesn't really care if they are in an exact spot so long as they can do the job.The section commander will tell the fireteams where he wants each but doesn't care about them taking house 27 instead of 29 because it has better sightlines.Where command matters and why strategic level plans are made is what the job actually is, be it defend, advance, which direction to advance, when to fall back ect.You might have a section defending that is doing great but another section in that platoon is getting fucked on so they all pull back so they aren't leaving guys unsupported, this happens at every level.
>shits fucked, like for real: a beginners guide to small unit infantry tactics
>>62739941What matters is good basic training for recruits and education for NCOs and as last anons said. Autonomy helps a unit adat and having a good basic training for lower ranks is what can get them out alive.
>>62739941>Everything is meticulously planned with infantry tactics mirroring a more open form of closed formation fighting from the Napoleonic era with battle drills and formationsno one runs tight formations like that anymorethe reason why NCOs are so valued is because they can make quick on the fly adjustments to their playbook to respond to the enemy the classic "group fires while the second group maneuvers" is an excellent formation, but its way too broad a tactic to be applied to every situationif you goofed and the enemy group is larger than you thought, they might simply choose to bumrush the flanking group which is currently half-strength, ensuring your force gets defeated in detailso the NCO in this case has to think really quickly on how to act to avoid that> No real planning or complex schemes of maneuver, just them figuring out what to do on the spot.a fair amount of planning is done at the platoon level and highertaking the terrain into account is one of thoseyou need to make sure the area is well scouted so you dont walk into ambushes, you need to know which routes to take to avoid detection, which vehicles can and cant maneuver in the area, and where the unit needs to regroup if things go southwhile individual discretion and improvisation is extremely vital, like mentioned abovethat doesnt mean people just rely on the seat of their pants to carry out an operation and they make sure everyone knows where to go and what to do
I feel like you're just calling audibles from a playbook pretty much sums up small unit tactics with the most important part being sure to train the soldiers enough that they all know how to play them.
>>62739941>it often comes down to small ad hoc groups of men seemingly making up courses of action on the spot just to fit in with either the commanders intent or whatever they think is best just to survivehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics
>>62740235People seem to like the village massacres..
>>62740235>Half the fucking Vietnam movies are about dumb fuck GIs holding lightly fortified positions in the middle of bumfuck nowhere getting night-raided with an occasional village massacreAnd the other half are aimlessly patrolling the deep jungle in small platoons until they run straight into either Vietkong or an entire NVA division
>>62742306Have armies ever tried to attack a minefield conventionally, like shelling it with artillery until the mines are inactive, hitting it with an airstrike, or setting the field on fire? Feels like with enough shrapnel or heat they could be deformed into uselessness, or at least a bridge of craters could be formed across the field.
>>62740235> but they never really go anywhere or do anything of military significance.That was the entire Vietnam war
>>62742704the reason this does not work and actually creates a more dangerous situation is because a "mine" is not a thinga "mine" is a metal container filled with high explosiveif you detonate a minefield there is a high chance of unexploded ordinance being flung around everywhere possibly with small bits or sheets of metal still stuck to itthat means insted of a field of mines that you know all likely work properly (as far as fuses and not randomly going off without being touched)you now have a field of live grenades that may or may not go off randomly or from something as small as a pressure shift in the air as you walk byside note to all of this is im pretty sure the germans clear minefields with explosives or atleast have developed a vehicle to do sobut there is a reason mine clearing is done the slow meticulous way that it is
>>62741600Kek'd Would buy a physical copy of that book if somebody wrote it
>>62742777>the reason this does not work-Ahemhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M58_MICLIC
>>62742962this clears a line to maneuver through but does not clear the entire minefieldit also does risk leaving UXO in the line but at much lower level then trying to clear a minefield with artillery
>>62742962MICLICs don't work against mines built to withstand the pressure, which is basically 90% of non-Russian non-American mines built after the 1960s. Hence the dozer blades in the breach.
>>62739941As for individual skills/tactics: basic battle drills, marksmanship, and radio procedures/reports were all super useful when I was in firefights. Honestly though, cardio and lower body strength were probably the two things I needed to train the most. Body armor, ammo, water, demo, batteries all weigh a fuckton and when you start getting shot at you want to be able to move and have a lower heart rate so your decision making and fine motor skills don't go to shit.
>>62740235>>62742371Not the filmakers' fault that's how most of the war went because of Westmoreland and the Pentagon's fixation on body counts and constantly searching for pitched battles.
>>62740235https://youtu.be/mLeoj5oezZc?si=YhntYnHTPrltw65o
pretty gay how modern battle formations are just divisions consisting of platoons sparsely scattered along a long line of attack on the frontlines.
>>62742704Breaching operations are one of the hardest types of operations to do and if you're not able to fulfill all of the aspects of SOSRA than your only alternative is to perform WWI Stormtrooper tactics, just like how Russians and Ukrainians have resorted to launching small "assault group" units for this very reason. Typically for the US Army if it's going to do a breaching operation, the actual unit conducting the breach will be a reinforced mechanized/armored battalion being supported by BCT, Division and even Corps level assets to enable them to conduct the mission in the first place. Which all goes to show how fucking difficult a "conventional breach" actually is and shows how retarded faggots are when they point and laugh at Ukrainians and Russians trying and failing to conduct them in the war. It's insanely difficult and requires the synchronization of massive military units all working flawlessly.
>>62745377Not true in the slightest.
>>62743630I've always wondered how dynamic or planned missions are. Like if you're going out on a patrol, would a platoon just occasionally bump out fireteams or squads to perform short range reconnaissance patrols or just keep walking until they get hit? Or if an attack was planned, how much of the actual maneuver is sort of preplanned and how much is made up in the moment.
>>62745780I hate to say it, but it depends. Sometimes it is a deliberate operation with prescribed assault positions. Even then, though, the on the ground individual movements of the Soldiers are dictated mostly by terrain.For a lot of the regular patrols basically everything is METTTC dependent. If you have the time and resources to kick out some patrols, then do it. If your mission is to do something else, then don't. The leader on the ground (at least in the US) has the ability to make that call.
>>62745377a division has 3 brigades under thema division wouldnt even think about individual platoons for maneuver unless that platoon in particular had a 155mm guna specific frontline feature would likely be held by at least a company
>>62740018>the side which practiced its "Napoleonic" tactics the most winsWhat do you mean?
>>62747396gay anal sex for protection against cavalry charges.
