"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (6 Viewers)

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MiTasol said:
This could get interesting. He thinks he has the manpower etc to start a new front.

www.abc.net.au

Putin spends hours speaking on Ukraine war as division between Wagner and defence ministry deepens

Russian President Vladimir Putin spends more than two hours giving some of his most detailed remarks about Russia's invasion of Ukraine in months, as the first independent confirmation of the results of Kyiv's counteroffensive come through from the frontlines.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
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The key word is MIGHT
 
The Russian military still carries the tradition of the Imperial Russian Army, where the officers were from the upper class and the Soviet era, where no one beneath an Officer was to be trusted with much in the way with authority and even then, junior Officers held limited power.

The "Western" form of command falls back to Imperial Roman doctrine, where the chain of command falls to the next senior soldier, all the way down to their equivellant of a corporal (Decanus), if need be.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I can't imagine a newly commissioned lieutenant deferring to their battle hardened sergeant.
Click to expand...

Just want to touch on this topic. Are you suggesting that a newly-commissioned officer would ignore the advice of an experienced SNCO? I can tell you from personal experience that such an officer wouldn't last long and wouldn't succeed.

A good officer listens to his SNCOs and gathers their input before making a decision. A bad officer thinks he's smarter than his subordinates and arrogantly acts regardless of their opinions. That's not to say the officer should abrogate his responsibilities and just do what the SNCO says. Ultimately, it's the officer's decision so the buck stops with him. He may consider the SNCO's inputs and then decide differently, anyway...but at least he should consider their ideas. Conversely, ignoring your experienced SNCOs is NEVER a good idea, IMHO, and is frequently a recipe for disaster.
 
I am not particularly knowledgeable about the land warfare. My focus has been on the strategic air offensive in WWII. However, my uncle was a lieutenant with the 23rd Field Regiment, Self-Propelled. I am now reading "The Guns of Normandy" by George Blackburn, an officer with the 4th Field Regiment (artillery) of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division.

What is relevant to the present situation in Ukraine, is just how difficult it was to breakout in Normandy. The losses the Canadians and British took during Operation Goodwood and the taking of Hill 112 and the Verrieres Ridge were horrendous. In particular he points out just how out-gunned these forces were against the Tiger II and Panther tanks. The British lost 400 Sherman's in the process. However once they broke through, they had the Germans on the run.

Blackburn is highly critical of historians and others in their misunderstanding of the conflict and the challenges they faced. He emphasizes the Tiger tank's ferocious capabilities during Goodwood. The Germans put everything they could into preventing a brake out at Caen, with the crack SS units deployed to prevent the breakout.

I suspect the Ukrainians face similar challenges.

Jim
 
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buffnut453 said:
Just want to touch on this topic. Are you suggesting that a newly-commissioned officer would ignore the advice of an experienced SNCO? I can tell you from personal experience that such an officer wouldn't last long and wouldn't succeed.

A good officer listens to his SNCOs and gathers their input before making a decision. A bad officer thinks he's smarter than his subordinates and arrogantly acts regardless of their opinions. That's not to say the officer should abrogate his responsibilities and just do what the SNCO says. Ultimately, it's the officer's decision so the buck stops with him. He may consider the SNCO's inputs and then decide differently, anyway...but at least he should consider their ideas. Conversely, ignoring your experienced SNCOs is NEVER a good idea, IMHO, and is frequently a recipe for disaster.
Click to expand...

From my experience in the Army, company level officers always listened and conferred with their senior NCOs.
 
Here is a good read on NCOs in the Ukrainian military and how they have emerged as one of Ukraine's greatest weapons against Russia:

www.defense.gov

NCOs Key to Ukrainian Military Successes Against Russia

Since 2014, the United States has sent Ukraine more than $32.4 billion in security assistance, and while the transfer of equipment is important in Ukraine's defense, the training aspect of this aid
www.defense.gov
 
buffnut453 said:
Just want to touch on this topic. Are you suggesting that a newly-commissioned officer would ignore the advice of an experienced SNCO? I can tell you from personal experience that such an officer wouldn't last long and wouldn't succeed.

A good officer listens to his SNCOs and gathers their input before making a decision. A bad officer thinks he's smarter than his subordinates and arrogantly acts regardless of their opinions. That's not to say the officer should abrogate his responsibilities and just do what the SNCO says. Ultimately, it's the officer's decision so the buck stops with him. He may consider the SNCO's inputs and then decide differently, anyway...but at least he should consider their ideas. Conversely, ignoring your experienced SNCOs is NEVER a good idea, IMHO, and is frequently a recipe for disaster.
Click to expand...
Another way you could phrase this: take out the word officer and replace with leader. Then take out SNCO and replace it with experience people.
 
buffnut453 said:
Just want to touch on this topic. Are you suggesting that a newly-commissioned officer would ignore the advice of an experienced SNCO? I can tell you from personal experience that such an officer wouldn't last long and wouldn't succeed.

A good officer listens to his SNCOs and gathers their input before making a decision. A bad officer thinks he's smarter than his subordinates and arrogantly acts regardless of their opinions. That's not to say the officer should abrogate his responsibilities and just do what the SNCO says. Ultimately, it's the officer's decision so the buck stops with him. He may consider the SNCO's inputs and then decide differently, anyway...but at least he should consider their ideas. Conversely, ignoring your experienced SNCOs is NEVER a good idea, IMHO, and is frequently a recipe for disaster.
Click to expand...
As an aside when working in IT, I worked with someone who was in this situation during the troubles in N Ireland. There was a riot in the Maze prison and he as a newly qualified officer straight (more or less) from Sandhurst was told to go to the prison with his unit and resolve the situation. For some reason he was with the Parachute Regiment. They turned up the rioters were having a field day, but when they realised the Para's had arrived they quietened down a bit as they knew it was going to get messy. However he had no idea what to do, and his Sgt took him behind a truck and said, Tell everyone this (which was how it was going to work), then detail A to do this, detail B to do that and lead us in.

He did more or less what he was told, they waded in and sorted it out.

As he put it, he was the officer, but everyone knew who had the knowledge. Interestingly afterwards there was a debrief and his more senior officers reported that the NCO's had been full of positive comments about him. The reason being that he knew his limits and wasn't above taking advice from experienced soldiers, and that they respected him for it.

They worked well together and after he left the army working for an IT company he sought out the Sgt and asked him to work with him in IT. He accepted the offer and they both had a good career in Project Management.
 
Glider said:
As an aside when working in IT, I worked with someone who was in this situation during the troubles in N Ireland. There was a riot in the Maze prison and he as a newly qualified officer straight (more or less) from Sandhurst was told to go to the prison with his unit and resolve the situation. For some reason he was with the Parachute Regiment. They turned up the rioters were having a field day, but when they realised the Para's had arrived they quietened down a bit as they knew it was going to get messy. However he had no idea what to do, and his Sgt took him behind a truck and said, Tell everyone this (which was how it was going to work), then detail A to do this, detail B to do that and lead us in.

He did more or less what he was told, they waded in and sorted it out.

As he put it, he was the officer, but everyone knew who had the knowledge. Interestingly afterwards there was a debrief and his more senior officers reported that the NCO's had been full of positive comments about him. The reason being that he knew his limits and wasn't above taking advice from experienced soldiers, and that they respected him for it.
Click to expand...

Great story...and, yes, respect is a two-way street. Respect your troops and they'll respect you. Prove that you have their best interests at heart, and they'll crawl over broken glass for you.

Couple of personal examples. Squadron detachment to Italy. Lack of air transport resulted in me leading a small overland contingent trucking the recce exploitation equipment with a couple of imagery analysts (IAs) and a couple of technicians (for the kit we were lugging). The rest of the groundcrew were taking a VC-10 from Brize Norton. My team would arrive first to start setting up the detachment, then the VC-10 would arrive with the groundcrew, and then the jets would arrive. Simple, right? Well, the VC-10 had a maintenance snag and was delayed. The Italian F-104 squadron that was hosting us then heard from air traffic that our jets, 12 Tornados, were inbound. We asked the Italians to marshall in our aircraft but they shrugged and refused "Tornado too big for us." Oh crap! What to do here? I had a Flight Sergeant IA, a Cpl technician, a Jnr Tech and a couple of airmen (both IAs). I gathered the team and laid out the problem. Up pipes the Cpl "Sir, I was a liney (line-level aircraft maintainer...who would marshall in the aircraft) before coming to the Squadron. So was Tommy (the Jnr Tech)." "Ok, reckon you can each lead a team to marshall in the jets?" "Yes sir." "Ok, Hargreaves, Jones (the IA airmen), you're now helping marshall in the aircraft." Up pipes the Cpl again "Sir, we should probably do a FOD plod. The Tonka can hoover up a lot of crap from a parking apron." "Right you are" says I, and we duly got the entire team, self included plus a few Italians, to walk the apron and pick up any FOD. Completed that just in time as the jets then arrived and our ad hoc marshalling teams duly brought in each aircraft and parked them safely. About 30 mins later, the VC-10 arrived with the groundcrew. Cue no end of banter about how useless they were and how anyone could marshall in a jet. I was lucky that I had a really good set of blokes...but that event cemented relationships between all of us that continue to this day.

Second story, same squadron...and another detachment, this time to Spain. Again, no air transport so the ground team all went to Bilbao by ferry and thence coach to the airfield near Madrid. I was running the finances for the detachment as a secondary duty. Detachment goes fine, although one of the groundcrew Sergeants had been a bit of a pest. Something of a barrack room lawyer, always trying to get more money than he was entitled to receive, and we crossed swords frequently due to his constant demands for unauthorized allowances. Final day and our jets all depart, at which point the groundcrew Flight Sergeant approaches me about an airman whose pregnant wife had to go into hospital. Apparently, she'd had 4 miscarriages previously. Cursing the Flt Sgt for not telling me before the jets departed (we could have put the chap in the back seat of one of the Tonkas. Problem solved!), I gathered the details and then headed off to the Embassy to try and secure an airline ticket to get the man home (the prospect of him sitting on a coach and then a ferry for 2 days just didn't make sense to me). Got to the Embassy, reached our home station admin officer who declared that, last reported, the wife was doing fine. I retorted that the airman would be entirely out of contact for 2 days and, given the family's history, I thought it much better to fly him home. I won the argument, got the necessary money from the Embassy and drove like a mad thing to get the airman to the airport. Then it was back to base to pack up and catch the coach home. On the ferry back to Blighty, the Sergeant barrack-room-lawyer walks up to me and says "Hey Boss, just wanted to pass on from the lads that they're really impressed with the way you treated [the airman]. You EVER need anything from the groundcrew, just ask."

Enough war stories...let's get back to the Ukraine problem.
 
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