data saturation on in future combat

> You wrote:

> Mikko brings up an excellent point that having all this sensor data

Quite frankly, there are a number of trends leading to this. First, this trend
stems from two issues. A commander is 100% liable for the behavior of ALL of
his subordinates. Second, the officer evaluation
process in the US Army requires a 0 defect mentality--any mistake no
matter how minor, will wipe out the entire chain of command's careers. Hence
the leadership gets used to micromanaging their junior leaders in
peace time and this carries out to a combat environment.  The mid-level
and senior officers don't trust their junior officers and men to do their damn
jobs. My personal feeling is that if you trust the man to do his job, then let
him do it without jogging his elbow. If not, relieve him NOW and get someone
who you can trust.

Possible solutions--first, you need to have people who have lived their
entire careers with this sort of data flow. It's unsurprising 1990s colonels
and lieutenant colonels have difficulty with the flood of computor data.
Remember, these guys likely got their commisions 20 years ago. The Army (hell,
the World) has changed dramatically since they were 2LTs. Next there needs to
be a doctrine dealing with this increased level of data flow. As far as I know
the Army does not have a data flow doctrine per se, and what doctrine their is
on the role of staff work in weeding out the chaff from the wheat is probably
WWII-era.  This is being worked on.  You'll also find expert computor
systems (Central in Hammer's Slammers) which can handle the housekeeping and
minor details. Some scout gets lost? Let the computor handle it rather than
the Batallion Commander dealing with it personally as I have read of occouring
in Force XXI exercises. Aircraft incoming? You don't need a staff to deal with
it, you need a computor coordinating the air defense network and automatically
yelling to aerospace units for air cover. Your artillery, air defense, chemmo,
and some other staff officers may be replaced by little black boxes.

You will also have (at least in my image of colonial warfare in the XXIInd
century) much smaller forces operating across larger areas during the stages
of conventional mechanized conflict (force ratios for
insurgency/counter-insurgency will be something else entirely).  So it
will not be unusual for a Company Team (the normal level of
organization for most 'high tech' Dirtside II games I play--I can put
out 15,000 point Company Teams if I go for Clibanophoroi. I sometimes go up
the the short batallion size) to have a slice of Batallion and
brigade level assets--perhaps even troops attached down from division.

> In special operations, we're there has always been a lot more sensor

I imagine 'misread' grid coordinates, 'interference', 'static', and 'radio
malfunctions' will also play a part in keeping Captain
Thus-and-So free from nosy interference from higher HQs which may be
sveral hundred (or hundred thousand) miles away.

> pesky infantry tank killer teams trying to ambush them. He starts

First, in such a case in the Nea Rhomaioi Army the Company Commander would be
cashiered for not turning off his radio and fighting his company, and the BC
would be cashiered for gross incompetence.:) The only real solution would be
to create a mentality of 'damnit, I'm not the man on the ground so I'm not
going to interfere' that we saw in Washington during Desert Storm. The SecDef,
JCS, and NCA refused to get involved in a lot of decisions that they got
involved in during Vietnam for precisely that reason. It was unfortunate that
noone
in-theater took a lesson from that and stayed out of decisions too far
below their link in the chain of command. Patton once said that a commander
should issue orders one level down and his maps should not show the location
of any unit more than two levels down. A division commander should order
around his brigades and independant batallions, and show batallions of
brigades and companies of divisional batallions on his main maps.

> John Atkinson wrote:

> You wrote:

Agree.

> and senior officers don't trust their junior officers and men to do

Exactly.

> Possible solutions--first, you need to have people who have lived

> You will also have (at least in my image of colonial warfare in the

Yes I too see self sufficient company task forces handling most actions in the
FT universe at least.. Unless you have huge transports, it seems like the
largest reasonbably sized element you can get squeezed in with all its
equipment and logistical tail into an assault transport.

> the man on the ground so I'm not going to interfere' that we saw in

there were a lot of good anecdotes in Shhwartzkopf's book about some of the
monkeying around cabinet members were trying to do. Good thing he had Powell
running interference. Some were even calling him MacLellan because he refused
to alunch an offensive befre christmas. haha