Shaping the Battlefield

[Jim Webster]

Just kicking a few ideas about rather than a set of rules.

Taking a step back. Shaping the Battlefield

The idea is that it’s something you can perhaps fit into your own system

 

 

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[Deleted User]

Maybe it’s too early in the morning, but I don’t quite understand the fighting it out thing.
You mentioned that supplies are assigned but don’t need to be and a company can have more than one supply assigned to it. Combat is rolled based on the difference in supply level? How does fighting work if both defending and attacking company has the same supplies?

[Jim Webster]

If there is no difference in supply level, then it’s a stalemate as nobody has an advantage.
A company that is ‘in a quiet part of the front’ doesn’t need supply, but if they are attacked they are at a disadvantage (only have the point for defences)

Companies can have a more than one supply point, because the supply includes stuff like supporting artillery/air cover. It could even be armoured support brought up

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[Guy Farrish]

I’d like to take a step back and ask what is ‘Shaping the Battlefield’?

Leaving aside current PsyWar use of the term to explain lack of progress  ‘Shaping’ is a buzz word dropped into military documents the author wants to get published and get credit for. It is part of the Manoeuvre Warfare doctrine team’s lexicon. Whether it really means anything different to what military leaders have always done seems unlikely. But new name, new set of Emperor’s clothes.

As near as I can find a definition that isn’t circular [‘Shaping the battlefield is a concept involved in the practice of manoeuvre warfare that refers to shaping a desired situation on the battlefield and gaining military advantage for own forces.’ Lt General P.K. Srivastava, Director General of Artillery, Indian Army 2017] it includes more than logistic superiority. The General is pretty focussed on the role of artillery firepower in ‘shaping’ for some reason.

What it actually means is open to some discussion particularly to boots (or tracks in this case) on the ground soldiers as opposed to Psy War operators:

‘ FM 3-98 states that the cavalry “shape[s] the battlefield for the commander.” However, there is little explanation of what it means to “shape the battlefield” or how the cavalry might go about this task.’ Maj  Mark Sargent ARMOR 2022, p.91 Shaping the Battlefield: A Framework for the Cavalry

It includes intelligence gathering, denial of terrain, interdiction of supply (yep, logistics), masking own axes of attack, feeding false information to the enemy commander and breaking their understanding of what is happening, getting them to locate forces and commit reserves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Breaking  the enemy’s cognitive will to understand and resist  prior to the actual engagement of the the enemy forces on the ground in the main attack, will defeat the enemy before the battle begins. (You hope).

Most (all?) of this has been going on for centuries without having a ‘cool’ name, but cool names get attention and money for programmes hooked into the latest cool doctrine. Hell if you ‘shape’ enough maybe even the miniscule forces we now have might achieve something, right?

So I quite like the logistics game but I wonder if there is not scope for more.

Perhaps something like a ‘Dover Patrol’ type phase where you have to work out what is where and try and confuse and misdirect your opponent. Of course if someone is giving you satellite imagery and signals intelligence about where units and formations are you can get extra information. Same with reliance on mobile phone comms. But what happens if someone er… turns the system off? By the simple expedient of sending code to turn off the system or blowing up the flex points where mobile phone systems burrow into the landline and microwave network. Sudden lack of C3i  if you were using grannies with attitude to give the info.

Lots of scope I think, plus weighting of your logistics game depending on how integrated the opponents logistics systems are. One side could say, thinking completely at random here with no real life data to hand, have multiple non compatible weapons systems that each require a separate logistics tail whereas the other might have a unitary system where one size fits all. Of course you could balance that by the first side having experience in modern flexible just in time style delivery operations while the opponent is wedded to rigid systems that require forms in triplicate before dispatch down single pipeline physical routes that can be easily interdicted.

Of course if your ‘shaping’ game goes really well for one side, like most campaign games, throwing it down on the tabletop is going to be a pretty short and miserable experience for one player. They may have an understrength conscript battalion facing the sudden unexpected appearance of a professional standard armoured division with full fire support from some of Lt General Skrivastava’s types.

Maybe it’s an operational level game.

Thanks for prodding my brain on a Sunday morning Jim.

[Mike Headden]

An interesting and thought provoking read, as ever, Jim.

A nice simple system to show the importance of logistics.

“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” – Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)

“I am tempted to make a slightly exaggerated statement: that logistics is all of war-making, except shooting the guns, releasing the bombs, and firing the torpedoes.” – ADM Lynde D. McCormick, USN

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Jim Webster]

Guy Farrish wrote:

 Thanks for prodding my brain on a Sunday morning Jim.

Thanks for the reply, I now feel a little guilty about posting something that sort of came to me as I travelled round across country, feeding dairy heifers and making sure I didn’t travel so fast that an elderly border collie bitch couldn’t keep up 🙂

But yes I think there are all sorts of things that can be factored in, Isandlwana  may be an example of what happens when the flow of ammunition stutters.
When you are suddenly dependent of ‘just in time’, we’ve seen with the supermarkets that this can become ‘just too late’ remarkably easily.

Similarly a  system that requires forms in triplicate can end up with troops accumulating stuff that they don’t need. Stalingrad getting pepper and condoms spring to mind.

Similarly with communications, the destruction of communication towers mean the Russians in the Ukraine seem to have reverted to everything up to and including runners.

I think these are things which are ‘conflict’ specific. So for example, any side fielding a Russian force will give more weight to railways. More vulnerable to their destruction, but with people on hand who can fix them.
But it is a fascinating game, and as you say, leading your conscript battalion whose artillery support has inexplicably ceased in the hasty defence of an exposed position about to be attacked by larger numbers of competent professionals with adequate support is not going to end well 🙂

 

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[Jim Webster]

Mike Headden wrote:

An interesting and thought provoking read, as ever, Jim. A nice simple system to show the importance of logistics. “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” – Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) “I am tempted to make a slightly exaggerated statement: that logistics is all of war-making, except shooting the guns, releasing the bombs, and firing the torpedoes.” – ADM Lynde D. McCormick, USN

Certainly treating the infantry as the people who exist to shovel the stuff out of the back to ensure it doesn’t build up in warehouses has a certain charm 🙂

But seriously, I think it will be possible to regard Armour, artillery, engineering as part of ‘supply’ and they’re stuff issued to infantry to enable them to do their job. I suspect in some regimental messes this opinion will be regarded as ‘eccentric’ in the least, whilst doubtless in others, it will lead to my name being toasted 🙂
But from the operation/simple campaign point of view, it is something that can save you an awful lot of paperwork 🙂

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[Guy Farrish]

Jim Webster wrote:

Thanks for the reply, I now feel a little guilty about posting something that sort of came to me as I travelled round across country, feeding dairy heifers and making sure I didn’t travel so fast that an elderly border collie bitch couldn’t keep up

Oh! Please don’t feel guilty! I really enjoyed it – I like taking into consideration all the non-shooty stuff occasionally. Too often we end up with tabletop games that feel as if they are in a void where ‘my guns bigger than yours!’ is all that counts.

My ramblings weren’t criticisms – I just wanted to join in.

(plus I think ‘Shaping’ is a bit of PR rag bag for the manoeuverist tendency, which gets whatever ‘peripheral’ elements need a boost at the moment thrown into it.).

[Hope the collie has recovered]

[Jim Webster]

Actually what has happened is what I hoped for, the grown ups have joined in and we’re getting a lot of interesting stuff.
As for Sal, it’s anno domini, whereas ten years ago she would have bounced about looking for the next adventure, now she flops happily down to watch 🙂

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[kyoteblue]

While I’m 69 I am in no way a grown-up, but I do want to follow this discussion.

[Jim Webster]

kyoteblue wrote:

While I’m 69 I am in no way a grown-up, but I do want to follow this discussion.

Growing up is over rated anyway 🙂

 

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[Mike Headden]

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is entirely optional! 🙂

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Jim Webster]

Mike Headden wrote:

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is entirely optional!

 

Geriatric delinquency beckons 🙂

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[John D Salt]

Guy Farrish wrote:

I’d like to take a step back and ask what is ‘Shaping the Battlefield’?

An excellent question. However I’m afraid Lt-Col Fashionista McCool is going to have to deduct a couple of style points for saying “battlefield” (a nasty muddy place where people get stabbed up with bayonets) where you should have said “battlespace” (a more airy and intellectual conceptual space where we can contemplate the intricacies of AI drone enabled cyber tech hybrid Nth-generation multidimensional postmodern conflict, and definitely not the old Triang Hornby OO railway set with the exploding ammunition wagon and helicopter truck).

Less snarkily, your run-down of all the stuff “shaping” includes seems to me pretty much bang on the money, and the only thing I would do is fling in a mention for the oft-neglected sappers. A lot of “shaping” at the tactical level will involve the mobility and counter-mobility tasks that make up about half of what engineers do, and will notably include implementing your own obstacle plan — sticking mines and things in places that will funnel the baddies neatly into your prearranged kill zones (“engagement areas” for the squeamish) and breaching enemy obstacles so that they can’t do the same to you. This ultimately includes the “always on” task of Battlespace Area Assessment (BAE), part of Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB), which used to be done by the Battlegroup Engineer and his pals poring over an overlay on an ordnance survey map and hatching in the “no-go” and “slow-go” areas with green pens to help the commander decide on suitable avenues of approach, of which there are often disappointingly few.

Jim Webster wrote:

When you are suddenly dependent of ‘just in time’, we’ve seen with the supermarkets that this can become ‘just too late’ remarkably easily.

This is why military logistics are usually “just in case” rather than “just in time”. It does rather spoil the scheme you outlined in the original post, but a unit will typically carry three days of supply (DOS) on the fighting wagons and unit transport. You are right to identify ammunition as the one type of supply that has the potential to become critical quickly. People can burn up a week’s allocation of ammunition much more easily than they can use up a week’s fuel or eat a week’s rations. In particular, this applies to artillery ammunition, which typically accounts for half the total tonnage of logistic lift in a division. Artillery reconnaissance is an important part of “shaping” — although counter-bombardment (CB) is normally planned above Division level, everyone should hand in SHELREPs and MORTREPs to help locate the enemy’s indirect fire elements, and any worthwhile plan will include a fireplan which, if it is of any weight at all, will in turn need a dumping plan for ammunition. Really modern SP artillery (or MLRS) fighting a mobile battle won’t sit around in old-style gun lines, with ammo coming up from the waggon lines. Instead, ammunition will be dumped at planned points around an artillery maneouvre area (AMA) covering several map squares. When the time comes to rain exploding steel on the heads of the enemy, the SPs will come roaring out of their hides, screech to a halt next to an appropriate dump, and have the gun-bunnies shovel the ammunition off the ground and into the breeches of the guns as fast as possible. Everyone then clambers back aboard and drives off giggling before the enemy counter-battery fire arrives.

Jim Webster wrote:

Certainly treating the infantry as the people who exist to shovel the stuff out of the back to ensure it doesn’t build up in warehouses has a certain charm 🙂

It’s an improvement on the old days, when an important part of logistics (A rather than Q) was to shovel infantrymen through the system and into the mouths of the enemy guns. That’s what all those “march battalions” in German orders of battle are for.

Mike Headden wrote:

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is entirely optional! 🙂

The rule as I understand it is “If you haven’t grown up by the time you’re forty, you don’t have to.”

All the best,

John.

[Guy Farrish]

John,

Sappers – yes – I think I had mentally lumped them into denial of terrain (or more likely simply forgotten all that muddy horribleness they are prone to).

I also watched my miniscule credibility sliding down the drain as I recognised my faux pas re use of ‘Field’ vice ‘Space’. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa!

My Triang train had a satellite launch wagon with real launching satellite I’ll have you know.  Although why a train should want to launch a satellite was unclear. (And how anyone on the train, or the train, would survive the launch of a vehicle to escape velocity didn’t figure in the brochure specs).

[Jim Webster]

I confess I regarded sappers and armour as ‘supply points’ which are handed out to deserving infantry battalion commanders to deploy as they seem fit 🙂
As superior officers will tell you, this isn’t how it works, but actually from a ‘game’ point of view, for the map game it doesn’t matter, it’s all supply points.
When you convert to the table, one side’s surplus of supply points can be depicted by a rain of artillery fire, the arrival of armoured support, or the fact that the enemies much cherished minefields have been quietly mapped and cleared

 

 

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[Tony S]

It’s an improvement on the old days, when an important part of logistics (A rather than Q) was to shovel infantrymen through the system and into the mouths of the enemy guns.

“Old days”?  I think the recent Wagner group “offensives” – back when they’re weren’t marching on the Kremlin – were designed exactly that way.

[Jim Webster]

Tony S wrote:

It’s an improvement on the old days, when an important part of logistics (A rather than Q) was to shovel infantrymen through the system and into the mouths of the enemy guns.

“Old days”? I think the recent Wagner group “offensives” – back when they’re weren’t marching on the Kremlin – were designed exactly that way.

All it takes is a leadership class which considers people expendable.  I suspect it will continue to reappear 🙁

 

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[Mike Headden]

Jim Webster wrote:

All it takes is a leadership class which considers people expendable. I suspect it will continue to reappear 🙁

“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” – Uncle Joe (attrib)

 

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Guy Farrish]

Pick your bete noire of the moment: the Germans preferred:

Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!

attributed to a French diplomat.

Same idea but in 1920s, so a hundred thousand not a million.

Presumably someone needed to add a zero for inflation in the 40s or whenever they made up the Stalin version.

[Not Connard Sage]

“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” – Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)

I get tired of reading this old saw, usually attributed to some tit with pips in the USMC as though it’s a blinding insight that nobody has ever thought of before.

Professionals had better have studied, and be proficient in, both. A few other considerations might also be useful, such as strategy and operational effectiveness and an umpteen other things that a professional senior officer might be expected to be at least conversant with.

 

And, as ever, what John and Guy wrote.

 

 

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Jim Webster]

Was it Napoleon who said him that he had a million francs and a hundred thousand men a year to spend?

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[Not Connard Sage]

“Not everything you read on the internet is true” – Isaac Newton.

 
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Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Author]

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