GRAND TACTICS AND THE MODERN BATTLEFIELD
Articles
Sun, 07/16/2023 - 7:32pm
Grand Tactics and the Modern Battlefield
By Justin Baumann
Introduction
"Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain." - Sun Tzu [1]
In 1772, French General Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert, wrote, Essai général de la Tactique (General Test of Tactics or General Essay on Tactics), which likely contained the first recorded instance of the term “Grand Tactics”. [2] Guibert used his military insight to develop “Guibert columns”, in addition to other advancements in command and control, to help increase the mobility of infantry units just prior to the Napoleonic era. [3] Guibert’s foresight in building the French Army based on the principles in his book helped Napoleon win a significant number of victories throughout the European continent, and the doctrine of this Guibert-designed Grande Armée was instrumental in Napoleon’s early success. [4]
Franco-Swiss military theorist Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini, in his book The Art of War (1836), which many American Civil War officers studied at West Point before the outbreak of hostilities in 1861, described grand tactics as “the art of making good combinations preliminary to battles, as well as during their progress. The guiding principle in tactical combinations, as in those of strategy, is to bring the mass of the force in hand against a part of the opposing army, and upon that point the possession of which promises the most important results.” [5]
In the 20th century, famed American military theorist John Boyd described grand tactics as “[Operating] inside [the] adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action loops, or get inside his mind-time-space, to create a tangle of threatening and/or non-threatening events/efforts as well as repeatedly generate mismatches between those events/efforts [the] adversary observes, or anticipates, and those he must react to, to survive.” [6]
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/grand-tactics-and-modern-battlefield
