Admiral Cajal says that the Terrans must disengage, withdraw and regroup. A captain protests that then the Avalonian ships will escape. Cajal explains his decision and it is enacted. I am never quite sure how authentic such dialogue is. Should the Admiral be questioned? Should he explain himself? How likely is it that he would have changed his decision because of the point raised by the captain?
I once worked in a job where one of my fellow unskilled workers made a suggestion and was told, "You're not paid to think!" In that case, my sympathy was all with the suit. If he had replied to the suggestion, then the other guy would just have continued to argue his case so why start that conversation in the first place? The situations differ in that the captain is formally qualified to advise the admiral. If the admiral had requested advice, then obviously the captain should have spoken.
I heard (don't know whether it is true) of a guy who failed to get into the SAS on his third and last attempt. This time, he had completed every task satisfactorily so he whined, "But why have I failed? I did everything right this time!" Then he was told that that was the final test. He had not failed until he whined. Obviously the SAS cannot accept whiners. Even I know that the correct response would have been: "Yes, sir! Permission to ask why, sir!" But I would never have got that far in the first place.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I used to know, online, both an ex Major of the US 82nd Airborne division and an ex RAF officer. If such persons saw and commented on this blog piece, they could have discussed on how realistic was Admiral Cajal's behavior. I'm inclined to think they would have decided it was plausible.
I think that story about the SAS candidate who failed that last test was realistic.
Ad astra! Sean
It depends on the traditions of the particular service. German officers were trained to ask questions to clarify a superior's orders, and to suggest alternatives, for example; traditionally British ones weren't.
Ah.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I like the way the Germans trained officers. That seems to be one of the best ways of getting a really good army.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it is, but it requires a high degree of training and a coherent set of doctrines to prevent the system from becoming disorganized if it's decentralized.
There was a classic -- and much-quoted -- incident where a Prussian officer in Frederick the Great's time responded to criticism by saying that he was simply obeying his orders.
The general who was chewing him out said: "His Majesty has made you a colonel because he trusts you to know when NOT to simply obey orders."
Meaning the officer in question should have seen that circumstances required modifications in order to advance his superiors' -aims-, and that there wasn't time to kick the question up the chain of command.
That gradually filtered down to lower and lower levels in the German armed forces in the 19th and 20th centuries, not without opposition to be sure.
The end result was that rigid, unthinking obedience was actually more common in the English-speaking armies (and in France, and in spades in Russia) than in the German forces, contrary to stereotypes.
The Germans called it by a term that translates as "operational directives" -- that is, superiors tell subordinates what is to be done ("force a crossing of the river and advance on axis Y") but not -how- to do it.
That's the subordinate's job.
Likewise, it wasn't uncommon in WW1 and WW2 for German officers of lower rank who were in charge at the point of main effort (the Schwérpunkt, in German) be given tactical command over an area, including the authority to tell others of senior rank what to do for the duration of a crisis or operation.
The priority was the mission, the way orders flowed up and down was strictly a matter of what advanced the mission objectives.
At a lower level, the company commander may say: "Emplace the machine-guns from the heavy weapons platoon to give us defilade fire across here", and tap the map.
But he'd be rightfully furious if the subordinate kept coming back to ask him "is this or that the right place to put them?"
I saw an instance of roughly that on maneuvers once, and the Captain in question said IIRC, "I'm not your mommy, lieutenant, and I'm not going to hold your hand. Do your ****ing job and let me do mine!"
After WWII, thoughtful armies widely imitated the German system, which was much more effective at the tactical and operational levels -- the Israelis used it from the beginning (a lot of their original military types were Central Europeans), and the American and British armies did increasingly from the 50's through the present.
The Russians were and are much more rigid.
Eg., example: Soviet bombing doctrine in WWII was for all planes in a flight to proceed to the map-marked spot and drop their loads.
It turned out that the following planes would drop theirs each a little earlier than the one before, a natural and uncontrollable reflex to get the hell out of the fire zone as fast as possible.
So if the leader's plane dropped -beyond- the target, you got an optimum spread because the following planes would 'walk it back' across the target zone.
But that wasn't the official plan, so flight-leaders who did that had to hide the fact because they'd be punished for deviating from their orders even if it worked better.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think I get it: the Germany system was oriented to achieving aims and meeting goals. The means needed for attaining them was left to lower ranking officers and their men.
Where the Germans mucked up was in the STRATEGIES needed for winning wars. They might have won WW I if the Germans had stayed on the defensive with France in the west and concentrated on defeating Russia in the east.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup. Great at fighting, not so great at winning the war, and the terrible strategy was a big part of that.
The two are linked. Prussia, the source of the German military tradition, was always surrounded by stronger opponents. It had to focus on winning quickly, before its opponents could bring their potentially greater strength to bear.
Hence the emphasis on dangerous gambles and high-risk plans, and the lack of thought for long wars.
Being an island, Britain could (as long as it retained control of the sea) afford to think longer-term, and was fighting -world- wars from SE Asia to central Europe as early as the 18th century.
Hence its ability to roll with the punches and recover from early defeats.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I recall you discussing how Frederick the Great himself, after the chastening experience of nearly being totally crushed by Austria and Russia, took that lesson to heart, and never again tried his luck with such high risk gambles. Unfortunately, his successors were not so prudent.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: one major reason his successors didn't take the lesson to heart as much as he did was that he did come out on top in the end -- Prussia kept Silesia, and was a much more major power in Central Europe after Frederick than before.
Frederick, OTOH, knew that his skilled and loyal army and people and his own military genius were still inadequate to stave off catastrophe, because he'd been there. He kept winning battles and his stronger enemies kept coming right back at him and they could replace losses and he couldn't... until the "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg", when the Czarina died and her son turned out to be a besotted Frederick fanboy with a serious man-crush.
He knew that was a series of strokes of outrageous luck.
Something like a quarter of the population of Prussia died in the Second Silesian War (what we call the 7 Years War or the French and Indian War). Prussia was devastated and left a land of widows, orphans and cripples.
To his credit, Frederick spent the rest of his life earnestly repairing the damage -- lending money to set farms back in production, encouraging immigration, supporting orphans, paying pensions to widows, subsidizing schools, importing more advanced methods of farming and manufacturing, and so forth.
And he did so with as much energy and intelligence as he'd waged war.
The problem was that the system he used "enlightened absolutism" -- required someone -like- Frederick to work well; that is to say, a man who was a genius in a whole raft of different ways.
And such rulers are rare.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, it was sheer dumb luck Frederick the Great and Prussia survived the Seven Years War. If his bitter enemy Empress Elizabeth of Russia had lived even a few months longer, all the genius of Frederick would not have prevented him and Prussia from being totally crushed. His successors should have taken that lesson to heart: don't depend on luck!
As you said, enlightened despotism can work only if the man at the top is a genius. And such rulers are rare. The advantage of having congresses or parliaments in the state, whatever form it takes, is that you don't have to depend on one or a few men being geniuses. SPREADING out the responsibility lessens the damage from making mistakes. Or makes it more likely to recover from mistakes.
Ad astra! Sean
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