Did you have armies in history that operated without a leader? Were these types of armies moreso prevalent when defending?
Five years ago, I lost thirty thousand armies in the blink of an eye, and the leader just fuckin' watched. Tomorrow, there will be no shortage of defending, no shortage of attacking. I know... you... understand.
>>64348700what in the ESL is this bullshit
ruskie slide thread
>>64348700the very concept of an army requires organization and thus leadership
>>64348713>>64348716Unfortunately for you this is an actual thread made by an English-speaking native. I know it might sound idiotic but I wanted to ask it regardless.>>64348717This would also be required when sitting in a fortification? I just don't see how a leader in this sense would be all that necessary, idk.
>>64348717Maybe I play too many video games..
>>64348700We used one for an offensive operation. It went poorly. There are many elements required to make an army function. One of these things is accountability. An unorganized militia may not be set loose on the enemy if you hope to win against them unless they have no professional force to draw on.
>>64348700>>64348761It's such an odd question my first reaction was of reading something ESL or computer generated honestly, but it's an interesting question.A lot of accounts of desperate city sieges I've read will talk about how every citizen was manning the walls, and I've almost never read that the besieged army had to fight with the citizenry no matter how bad things get in the city, everyone seems to pull together in those sort of situations.But there's always someone in command of the defense to put on the wikipedia sidebar. You really don't get far without a command structure. Someone has to make calls and people in desperation will appoint a person to make calls in 5 seconds if they don't have one.
>>64348717The concept in it's conventional, optimal and most effective interpretation and application. It seems to me, given optimal and sufficient values in the variables of cooperation, incentive and interest, leadership could be substituted in some form, to some degree and scale though this implication may be largely theoretical
>>64348981No. The concept in any interpretation or application worth jack shit. And army without leadership is nothing more than an armed mob, and just as useless as that implies.
>>64348981The communists in 1917 tried this. No officers, decisions to be made by soldiers councils and voted on. They dropped that shit quick, as it meant absolutely nothing got done.
>>64348710Not your best work.
>>64348700There have been anarchist and democratic armies in several conflicts, perhaps most notably the Spanish Civil War. Disunity of purpose limits their effectiveness, but they have fought successful defensive actions. I’m unaware of any successful offensive campaigns fought in this manner, but the kind of political movement that would adopt such a “structure” tends to reject offensive war philosophically, except for possibly resource raiding.
>>64348996I suppose for all intents and purposes you're correct
>>64349012Any outcome to it's application would be highly educationally and culturally contingent. It is idealistic given it's requirement of a better anthropology all together I suppose.
>>64348974>I've almost never read that the besieged army had to fight with the citizenry no matter how bad things get in the city, everyone seems to pull togetherLots of sieges ended when the civilian inhabitants told the defenders "either you give up, or we will". This dates back to antiquity; best example I recall is when an Italian city turned to support Hannibal, was besieged, and then turned back to the Romans against the wishes of the Carthaginians, hoping for mercy(Romans: lol nope)Especially common when laws of conflict were introduced in the Middle Ages and they had the option to avoid the traditional post-assault sack, i.e. 3 to 7 days of permitted mass pillaging, raping and killing>>64349062>TL;DR Depends.
>>64348700Leadership is a fundamental element of any useful military action or unit. The only times this has ever been tried that come to my mind are the CNT militias in Spain and the PLA in the 70's. Both were miserable failures. Even medieval villages would have had an old veteran or somebody versed in arms who would have been in charge of the town militia if it came down to it.
>>64349012It is a bit ironic how after that soviet and now russian military command is top down to a point where it becomes a problem. The real balance is having a clear chain of command where each individual units on the ground are allowed to take initiative without express commands from higher ups other than having some kind of commanders intent so they know what they should be doing but can figure it out themselves. But those units need a commander to get everyone in line otherwise it's just chaos.>>64348700So individual units can act somewhat independently but it still need leadership within the units and command coming from higher ups. You can't just have a bunch of soldiers running around doing what they want. That gets nothing done.
>>64348700>Did you have armies in history that operated without a leader?What a stupid fucking question. Youre a woman arent you? Work together and all smiles am i right?
>>64348700Read the 10.000 of Xenophon, very interesting. It's about Greek mercenaries in Asia and their troubles when they get mixed up in power politics in the Persian empire, plus their freaking badass exodus from Asia when their leadership got decapitated. These dudes had balls of steel. But still, leadership just got passed down to the next officer, a military without leadership is just dead in the water, only good for some rampage and that's it
>>64348710You could have and should have just posted the actual quote
>>64348700The Anarchists tried it in the Spanish Civil War and it went about as well as you'd expect.
>>64350091>>64349012The Soviets did not encourage independent thought for political reasons. A lot of their military training, even up to the regimental level and beyond, concentrated on fixed battlefield drills and formalized training norms. It's an inflexible method, but it makes training easier and has everybody running off the same gameplay. (in theory) They also had no real NCO corps, with that additional layer of leadership between troops and officers to give that extra amount of initiative. Officers perform what would be NCO or warrant work in Western forces. Both these are true of the modern Russian military, depsite attempts to change over the years. It's also true of militaries the Soviets trained, such as the Arabs, or the Ukrainians and Poles (who still complain about their old Soviet-style officer leadership methods at the upper levels)>>64348700 (OP)There can be good examples of this, such as German sturmtruppen tactics or how the IDF is/was famous for its lower-level officer being given a mission and simply going and doing it however they see fit. You just can't let it happen TOO much and it needs well-trained, adaptable troops who don't need their hand held in the confusion of combat. In other words, leadership still, but at a lower level.
>>64348700The leadership of the imperial-spanish army that sacked rome in 1527 became either incapacitated shortly before (Frundsberg suffered a stroke) or died during the sack (Charles of Bourbon got shot while scaling a ladder; pic rel). As a result the imperial-spanish army became uncontrollable, spent multiple weeks plundering rome and then just disintegrated as soldiers packed up their stuff and left.>>64348761>This would also be required when sitting in a fortification? I just don't see how a leader in this sense would be all that necessary, idk.Yes. Ressources need to be brought in and distributed. Patrols and watch shifts need to be organised. Defenses need to be built or expanded. There is so much to do even when just "sitting in a fort". >>64348974>and I've almost never read that the besieged army had to fight with the citizenry no matter how bad things get in the cityAs in regular soldiers and civilians fought in defense of the city? That happened lots of times.
>>64348700>Leaderless armiesYes but no. There have been degrees of centralization within armies in history, redundancy and shrinkage of units, but no actual lack of leadership in the sense of a completely horizontal hierarchy.The idea might feel "funny", after all, the last decades have been about companies subcontrating, creating specialized small department and groups and trying to take out middle managers(or turning them into the new low workers with additional responsabilities). So some cooperative or dynamic hierarchies have sprung up with success. But as many will tell you, the military is different. In the military(not so much the chair force) you have to make sure that 1000 soldiers do exactly the same thing, despite uncertainty, despite fear and pain and despite having the power to do so many other things that might even make sense, locally. To illustrate: Anyone that has gone through at least basic training, can easily understand how many strange and bad ideas can go through the minds of 1000, or just 1 with a lot of power over those 1000.You need to make sure that everyone is moving in the right direction. Failure to do so is not only inefficient, it creates risks, that in a combat zone, even away from the front, can create danger. Therefore, decisionmaking must be centralized and everyone must learn to obey that central brain. Of course there is space for individual initiative, of course the units and subunits size will vary and of course each military will give more or less wiggle room to their subordinates. It is a spectrum, but a spectrum that is always centered around the idea of accomplishing the mission at each level of organization, you cannot move outside the boundaries of that spectrum without suffering.That is why, even bands of mercenaries, rebels or bandits that last, will have some sort of leader. Maybe it is formal or not, but there is always a strange guy that feels "right" to do as he says in certain situations.
Leaderless armies don't exist because the individual, now no longer coerced or swayed by organisation, realises how pointless war is and doesn't participate
>>64348700Even in totally fucked situations like a successful mutiny or literally all the officers getting killed a new leader tends to kind of organically rise. Xenophon probably is the best or most famous example of that
>>64348700>Did you have armies in history that operated without a leader?Depends on your definition of "army", but I'd say yes.>Were these types of armies moreso prevalent when defending?Probably.
>>64348700Very few if any, part of human nature is our instinctive search for leadership, hence why everything and anything has one and we have to make the effort to democratize things. Even the anarchist armies of the Russian civil war had leadership of some sort. Also an army without a leader is called a mob, and they usually are very shit at anything that isn't lynching and looting anything that isn't nailed to the floor.
>>64350848>tfw you're stuck in the ass end of roadless Pontus because Dexippus the land-lubber Spartan decides to steal your only pentekonter>oh well, better hold a vote with the lads on which Anatolian village to raid next
