Patterns of Conflict
| The works of |
| Works of John Boyd |
|---|
OODA WIKI Edition
Quantico Transcription
Okay. So you look at the creation of blitzkrieg. Here’s the kind of things they had: the envelopment, Leuctra/Cannae double/single envelopment, flying column, the tank attack, infiltration. Pull it all together and you’ve got blitzkrieg a la Heinz Guderian.
Multiple narrow thrusts. I have narrow thrust [unintelligible] Armored recce. Commanders forward. Commanders forward. In other words, they understand what’s going on in the battle, understand what’s going in the operation, so they can give the right kind of orders and they can adjust to circumstances.
And then extensive communication net. Not extensive communication, the sense of communication net with only what you have to say. And guess what they said to the Panzer [unintelligible] verbal orders only. Not just written orders, verbal orders only.
We asked Balck and the other German commanders, they have all the same reason. One, by
giving a verbal order, what are you doing? If you only give a written order, you’re really only communicating on one channel. When you give a verbal order, by your own personality, you’re communicating on many channels. He really knows what you mean. So you have a richer communication. That’s one reason.
Another reason why, is if you give a written order, the guy might then— you might actually suppress his initiative, because he recognizes if he sort of gets outside that order, he can be court-marshaled or something like that. So you have a verbal order, that doesn’t suppress initiative.
More bold action. Then you write the orders up afterward. They may not read too honestly but—that’s the point.
That’s one of the reasons why I like verbal orders. So you don’t suppress initiative. If one guy says well, we fucked up the last time, I’m putting more and more constraints in there, that guy goes outside, I’m going to have him by the balls because I’ve got a written order. But once a guy knows that, he says oh, I’m not taking a risk.
You see the subtlety there? So the verbal orders, it’s looser but they have to understand what’s going to be done. You also have to understand you have that common outlook. Note the words, verbal orders only.
One guy said well, hell, we saw the written orders. He said, that’s right. After the fact. You got to have a good story for the archives. He saw not only that, they read a lot better that way. After the fact. They look more perfect. You know, it’s like a Monday morning choir. Air in lieu or with artillery obviously.