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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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 Posted: 12-May-2002 18:23 Post subject: LTG (R) Hal Moore on Battlefield Leadership |
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One of the best pieces on battlefield leadership I have EVER seen. Enjoy
Battlefield Leadership
By
Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore, United States Army (Retired)
These are comments, based on my limited experience on a Leader’s:
- Preparations for battlefield leadership
- My own philosophy on the conduct of a leader in battle
Preparations: Could fill a book. Only a few items:
1. Read military history. Read small unit actions. Personality of a big battle is often formed by a small unit action.
2. Visit historic battlefields with maps, books in hand.
3. Install the WILL TO WIN in your unit. No 2nd place trophies in trophy case.
4. Build unit discipline, teamwork. A team of fighters.
5. Prepare your unit for your death (or being gravely wounded and evacuated) and for your subordinate leader’s loss also. A Squad Leader must be ready to command a platoon or the company. PRACTICE THIS!
6. Squad leaders and Fire Team leaders must know how to adjust artillery/mortar fire. Live fire is not always necessary. You can do this with marbles and a sandtable; or golf balls and a small piece of ground.
7. Prepare for wounded men yelling for “Medic” or screaming for “Mom”. Practice reducing the enemy fire and neutralizing it BEFORE going out for the wounded. Train for this. It will happen.
Next, Conduct in battle, four principles:
1. The first is “Three strikes and you’re NOT out!”. Two things a leader can do. Either contaminates his environment and his unit with his attitude and actions, or he can inspire confidence.
- Must be visible on the battlefield. Must be in the battle. Battalion Commander on down – Brigade and Division Commander on occasion. Self-confident. Positive attitude. Must exhibit his determination to prevail no matter what the odds or how desperate the situation. Must have and display the WILL TO WIN by his actions, his words, his tone of voice on the radio and face to face, his appearance, his demeanor, his countenance, the look in his eyes. He must remain calm and cool. NO fear. Must ignore the noise, dust, smoke, explosions, screams of the wounded, the yells, the dead lying around him. That is all NORMAL!
- Must never give off any hint or evidence that he is uncertain about a positive outcome, even in the most desperate of situations.
- Again, the principle which must be driven into your own head and the heads of your men is:
Three strikes and you’re NOT out!
2. And the corollary principle which is inter-reactive with that on is:
- There is always one more thing you can do to influence any situation in your favor – and that one more thing – and after that one more thing, etc., etc.
- In battle I periodically detached myself mentally for a few seconds from the noise, the screams of the wounded, the explosions, the yelling, the smoke and dust, the intensity of it all and asked myself
“What am I doing that I SHOULD NOT be doing, and what am I not doing that I SHOULD BE DOING to influence the situation in my favor?”
3. The third principle is: “When there is nothing wrong – there’s nothing wrong except – THERE’S NOTHING WRONG! That’s exactly when a leader must be most alert.
4. And finally #4. “Trust your instincts” In critical, fast moving battlefield situations, instincts and intuition amount to an instant Estimate of the Situation. Your instincts are the product of your education, training, reading, personality, and experience.
TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS
When seconds count, instincts and decisiveness come into play. In quick-developing situations, the leader must act fast, impart confidence to all around him, must not second guess a decision – MAKE IT HAPPEN! In the process, he cannot stand around slack-jawed when he’s hit with the unexpected. He must face up to the facts, deal with them, and MOVE ON.
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I'm not family friendly. That's why I don't post here.
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
Imperial General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4120
Location: United States
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| Posted: 12-May-2002 18:51 Post subject: LTG (R) Hal Moore on Battlefield Leadership |
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All the ideas he gives are on target...to bad the military brass is more worried about not upsetting folks and making sure they protect the enviorment then they are about actually training the troops.
I get to see that kind of crap at every drill via my motor serageant and his theory that none of our vehicles work so we can't do missions. When we ask for his people to actually FIX the trucks he has hundreds of reasons of why that can't happen.
To bad common sense and the military don't go together.
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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Hardware
Clan Ghost Bear
Star Colonel
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 605
Location: United States
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| Posted: 13-May-2002 09:56 Post subject: LTG (R) Hal Moore on Battlefield Leadership |
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There is always a gap in the mentality of an armed forces at war and the mentality of a peacetime armed forces. Several ship commanders at Pearl Harbor were nearly put in hack for firing their ships firing live rounds during the attack. However, the beauraucrats in the Navy decided to dummy up and make it go away when the commanding admiral was not so quietly sacked for allowing Pearl Harbor to happen.
Another example is the Army Air Corps squadrons in the southeastern pacific being denied supplies and material in the months following Pearl Harbor because the requisition forms were not filled out properly.
Train the way you fight. Operate the way you go to war.
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The more I get to know people the more I like my dog.
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-May-2002 14:36 Post subject: LTG (R) Hal Moore on Battlefield Leadership |
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Quote:
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On 2002-05-13 09:56, Hardware wrote:
There is always a gap in the mentality of an armed forces at war and the mentality of a peacetime armed forces. Several ship commanders at Pearl Harbor were nearly put in hack for firing their ships firing live rounds during the attack. However, the beauraucrats in the Navy decided to dummy up and make it go away when the commanding admiral was not so quietly sacked for allowing Pearl Harbor to happen.
Another example is the Army Air Corps squadrons in the southeastern pacific being denied supplies and material in the months following Pearl Harbor because the requisition forms were not filled out properly.
Train the way you fight. Operate the way you go to war.
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That is a major point. I think only the aviation units are the only ones that are contantly training to handle war time needs. There is simply no way to do it otherwise, peacetime has an easy 600-700 flight hour schedule for the planes, this is easy training tempo. The time is spent explaining why we do it the fast way, and doing things efficiently. when the gulf war came we were able to surge the flight hours to nearly 2000 hours. The only reason we were able to do it is because we had trained for it. There was no way we could have learned on the job like in the past.
The day that Dunk's 4 volume almanac went out of print is the day that we started forgetting our fieldcraft and problem solving abilities. (Green Side Out; Brown Side Out; Run In Circles; Scream and Shout)
The almanac was an unofficial set of books that taught a lot. how to run tripwire at several different levels to make it hard for a point man to spot them, but high enough that rats would not trip them. It also covered GySgt NMI Stecker, and several other charachters. Stuff from WW2 and Vietnam was also included in the stories and helped keep hard lessons learned fresh.
In the Desert, there were 2 Watch Sectors that had their Pyrotechnics set off by rats. There was no memory of the Charachters and how they had solved field problems, so you had 3 different ways of approaching some issues that Dunk and his buddies had solved.
Several MSgts were not able to transition from Base to Field conditions. one capped himself. The other walked thru the tents and living areas like he was inspecting the barracks. Dust in a barracks is definately out of place, in a tent it is a fact of life.
There were several other issues as well, but why bother going into them, this war is going to be as different from My War, as Korea and WW2 were different from Vietnam.
_________________
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and strings also lie under it all.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
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