User:Masao battousai

This is a guide to E-UNI fleet command. Your contributions to this page are most welcomed to help make it comprehensive. Please place your personal "Fight" preferences / strategies in the bottom section on "Fleet Commanders". This page has been recommended for deletion. I would ask you to please post your views on the relevance of this document in the page discussions. Please Note, ALL of the information contained here was from existing pages on the wiki. Please see the "Pre-Command recommended reading for my references. The essence of this guide was to consolidate the information contained throughout the WIKI. I appreciate your contributions, but please don't call this a checklist. Make any corrections you feel need to be made by editing the actual consolidated doc.

Pre-Command

• Read the following:

    * http://www.eveonline.com/pnp/terms.asp
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Ivy_League_Policies
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Wartime_Standard_Operating_Procedures
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/The_Rookie%27s_Guide_To_Fleet_Ops
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/FC_Guide
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Scouting)
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Tackling_101_Guide
    * http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/EWar_101_Guide

• Add Dotlan to your OOG we browser favorites (http://evemaps.dotlan.net)
• Install the Teams speak overlay utility (http://www.projecttint.com/teamspeakoverlay.php).
• Add the following to your in-game Address book

    * Student Relations Manager
    * Director of Personnel
    * Director of Education
    * Director of Logistics
    * Director of Public Relations
    * Current Diplomats
    * Current War Targets

• Scout your hunting grounds and create safe spots and gate observation warps-ins / mirror points
• Learn to fly a covert cloaking ship
• Know how to scout for an E-UNI fleet
• Train the fleet command skill to level 2

Command

• Create overview filters to sort ships by type / size
• Remember to notify a Diplomat of hostile neutrals
• Remember to notify the student relations manager of problematic fleet members
• Remember to correct all your / fleet mistakes
• Avoid singling out fleet members for mistakes or praise
• Do Maintain a tranquil demeanor (EVE Fleet command is a lot like Online Poker)
• Don't allow your self to be identified as FC of the fleet
• Remember to feed your scouts and fleet bookmarks
• Do Maintain comms discipline
• Don't let the fleet channel become a chat box
• Remember to provide BIO breaks

Pre-Fleet

• Remember to ask scouts to convo you

    * Be sure to ask how much experience they have in scouting
    * How long it takes for them to scan down a signature (if at all)

• Be Prepared to scout and run a wolf-pack if no scouts convo you
• Remember to create a fleet with yourself
• Remember to disable Self Invite
• Remember to disable free move
• Remember to enable loot logging
• Do Change the fleet view to hierarchy
• Do Disable the fleet finder advert
• Do Create a separate wing for the scout
• Do Check the forums, corp and alliance bulletin board, Corp / Alliance mail, Corporation war status, the kill board, in-game map statistics, and corporation calendar for mitigating circumstances
• Remember to check for war targets online and use locator agents, if you have them.
• Do have predetermined routes laid out.
• Do know how long the op will take including setup time and travel times
• Do announce the fleet before role call in the: TS combat lounge, Alliance and Chat.e-Uni channels (asking scouts to convo you).
• Do convey the general nature and length of the fleet when announcing it (who, what, when, where, why, and How)
• Remember to have a pad of scratch paper and a pen handy

Fleet

• Don't accept tacklers larger than a frigate
• Don't accept EWAR larger than a cruiser, or DD smaller than a cruiser / larger than a BC; unless forming a BS fleet
• Remember to send your scouts ahead to probe and hunt down prey
• Remember to restrict Low-sec PVP fleets to E-UNI Members
• Do select your Squad and Wing Commanders wisely and choose leaders that you can work with.
• Remember to request role and ship type when requesting leadership (a working mic is implied)
• Remember to check age, employment history and titles when appointing leadership
• Remember to invite your commanders to squad chat and instruct them which TS wing to join as channel commander
• Do delegate tasks to your leaders (command broadcasting, second in command, Command re-invites, etc..)
• Remember to instruct squad commanders to create squad channels that specify the Wing and Squad number (W#S#)
• Don't let the SCs create 16 character channel names
• Remember to instruct and let Squad Commanders build their own squads with 4 Ewar, 4 Tackle, and 2 DD
• Remember to call for roles in alliance channel requesting ship class (EAF, Recon, Cruiser, Frigate, etc)
• Do Invite EW first, Tacklers Second, and DD Third
• Don't accept or make role calls with ship class (Blackbird, Rifter, Scorpion, etc)
• Remember to Global announce in TS to all Channel commanders that you're taking out a fleet (If at war)
• Do let your SCs invite members to fleet
• Do designate a primary and secondary (bait) squad and give those SCs priority selection in role call (T2 ships)

Pre-Flight

• Remember to Instruct fleet members to join the appropriate TS Wing Channel
• Remember to check improper command channel key ups with fleet
• Remember to instruct fleet members and commanders who they should have in their watchlist
• Do:

    * Remind members not to fly anything they can't afford to lose
    * Remind members to Zoom out as far as possible, to see the entire fleet and battlefield
    * Remind the fleet that weapons are not free, they'll attack only when ordered
    * Remind members that their is no talking in Teamspeak without permission
    * Instruct the fleet on your comm rules for Fleet Channel, local, and TS
         * Keep general chatter confined to squad chat
         * No talking in local
         * No talking to neutrals or hostiles while in fleet (post in fleet channel if convo'd)
         * X up in fleet Channel: if you're fired on by a neutral, warp scrambled, ship / pod destroyed, need RR, have loot to transfer, or currently docked in system
    * Remind fleet members to ask in squad chat for a re-invite and SCS / WCs in command chat
    * Remind squad commanders to echo commands in squad chat if members desire
    * Instruct the fleet to keep general chatter confined to their squad channel
    * Remind members to dock and remained stationed if their ship is destroyed and / or purchase a new clone if they are podded.
    * Remind members to check that:
         * Their clone is up-to date, no implants plugged-in they don't want to lose, ship is insured, in Aldrat / at the POS, renamed their ship, set auto target back to 0, checked their cargo bay for a minimum of 5 ammo reloads, drones in drone bay, guns / missiles are grouped, and all needed modules are online.

• Remember to check your T2 fleet composition and move members around if needed
• Remind Fleet members to mute their microphones if they're not in command channel
• Remember to review fleet rules and maneuvers for any new members

    * JOC, HOC, JJJ, JOC, OGC, DGC, A, Break, Break, Break, Hold Cloak, Check Check
    * T2 tanks and T1 frigate / cruiser rigging rules (if wartime)

• Do review Fleet member broadcast settings (superiors)
• Do review highlights of Varius Arcturus's Overview

    * Good Standing / Excellent Standing / Alliance Member above Outlaw

• Remember to give members a flight destination and test align times
• Remember to specify autopilot and security status penalty settings for destinations
• Do Ask for volunteer +1 and -1 pickets
• Do remember to rotate your pickets in and out if possible after breaks and fights
• Do clarify your engagement rules for each role in the fleet

    * DD
         * All on the primary, secondary locked
    * Ewar
         * Squad 1/2 stay off grid till point is called
         * 1 racial module spread around on targets that have characters name that starts with the same letter as your own character name, or as close as possible
         * Target Painters' primary is FC called primary
         * Tracking Disruptors' primary is Short Range Damage Dealers
         * Remote Sensor Dampeners' primary is Long Range Snipers / ECM
         * ECMs' primary is ECM and Missile / Drone Boats
    * Tacklers
         * All Orbit at minimum 7.5km,
         * All attack drones, excluding interceptors
         * Non-Squad 1/2 interceptors on T1 Cruisers, and T1 / T2 Frigates
         * Squad 1 members on the primary
         * Squad 2 members on the secondary
         * Non-squad 1/2 tacklers on a target that has a character name that starts with the same letter as your own, or as close as possible in the alphabet

* Long range damage (Jam Only), Close range damage (disrupt), Long Range ewar (damp)

• Don't forget your personal disclaimer before departing

    * You shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless Masao Battousai and his alts, ILN superiors, and corporation; and their respective employees, contractors, officers and directors, from any and all claims, loss, damages and demands, including reasonable bounty fees, arising out of:
         * Your obedience or disobedience to fleet commands
         * Your access to sensitive fleet intel
         * Your engagement of ship modules
         * CCP's Coding of the Game

Flight

• Have your +/- 1 pickets to initiate their Warp / Jump when a fleet align is issued.

    * +1s should orbit and -1s align at the end of their movement

• Have your +/- 1 pickets to Jump / Warp to reposition themselves when the JJJ or JOC command is issued.

    * -1s should orbit and +1s align at the end of their movement

• Here are a few optimized low sec pirate haven pipelines I built around Aldrat

   * Decon makes for a nice 12 point high sec jump-in from Aldrat
   * Pipes can be joined with common hubs: Ingunn and Goinard (instead of Decon) 
   * Set auto pilot to prefer less secure - stay in 0.0 to 0.4 where possible
   * set Security Penalty to 100
   * Add the following way points 
        * Pipe A - 62 Jumps
             * 1. Akora
             * 2. Messoya
             * 3. Tasti
             * 4. Ingunn
             * 5. Frulegur
             * 6. Illamur
             * 7. Atlar
             * 8. Oddeluf
             * 9. Bosena
             * 10. Sedaya
             * 11. Mifrata 
        * Pipe B - 61 Jumps
             * 1. Ingunn
             * 2. Rancer
             * 3. Hagilur
             * 4. Hadozeko
             * 5. Resbroko
             * 6. Amamake
             * 7. Eggheland
             * 8. Goinard
       * Pipe C - 54 Jumps
             * 1. Decon
             * 2. Old Man Star
             * 3. Goinard
             * 4. Naguton
             * 5. Vecamia
       * Pipe D - 46 Jumps
             * 1. Decon
             * 2. Old Man Star
             * 3. Tama
             * 4. Jan
             * 5. Otsela
             * 6. Ihkana
        * Pipe E - 44 Jumps
             * 1. Decon
             * 2. Old Man Star
             * 3. Tama
             * 4. Aunen

Pre-Fight

• Remember to keep eyes on the target and system local count
• Remember to have scouts or bait position themselves behind the target(s) for the fleet warp-in
• Do have a strategy and know when and how to get out if need-be
• Remember to review target selection for each role
• Do keep commands to 6-7 words or seven words and detailed with who, what, when, and where
• Remember to keep your composure

Fight

• Remember to speak clearly, moderately, and confidently
• Don't loose your composure for even a second
• Remember to stay and warp-in with the fleet
• Remember to repeat calls of primary, secondary, and tertiary
• Do call targets according to threat assessment based on your current fleet EWAR composition

Post-Fight

• Remind members to post kill mails and loss mails with a comment
• Do designate a squad to stay behind and loot, salvage, and destroy wrecks (Move the rest of the fleet to a safe spot)
• Remind looters to note and trade / contract loot from wrecks back to corp mates
• Do have tacklers transfer loot to a tanked DD
• Do have your tackles loot while the rest of your fleet aligns for a fast get away (if need be)

Post-Fleet

• Remind members to:

    * Deposit all war target loot to ILN Hangar, and fleet loot to the sorting hangar
    * Set auto pilot settings back
    * Remove avoidance system settings
    * Leave the fleet only after docking
    * Leave their squad chat
    * Remove channel commander from TS
    * Leave the Teamspeak Wing channel
    * Un-mute their microphones
    * Comment your AAR (provide a estimated post time)

• Remember to download your fleet log
• Write an After Action Report, including the:

    * Objective of your fleet and the operational area
    * An explanation of what happened during the fleet operation
    * What you learned during this experience
    * A link to your ILN Patrol Log (if relevant)

Fleet Commanders

Masao Battousai

• Who: PVP Unistas for Low Sec Pirate Roams
• What: Wolpacks
• When: 12:00 -17:00
• Where: Derelik, Domain, Essence, Genesis, Heimatar, Lonetrek, Metropolis, Sinq Laison, The Citadel, The Forge
• Why: LoSec Pacification

Tactics and Strategy

"The Nature of War" To understand the philosophy of warfighting, we first need an appreciation for the nature of war itself—its moral, mental, and physical characteristics and demands. War is a violent clash of interests between or among organized groups characterized by the use of military force. The essence of war is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. The object in war is to impose our will on our enemy. Total war and perfect peace rarely exist in practice. Portrayed as a clash between two opposing wills, war appears a simple enterprise. The very essence of war as a clash between opposed wills creates friction. Whatever form it takes, because war is a human enterprise, friction will always have a psychological as well as a physical impact. While we should attempt to minimize self-induced friction, the greater requirement is to fight effectively despite the existence of friction. We can readily identify countless examples of friction, but until we have experienced it ourselves, we cannot hope to appreciate it fully. Another attribute of war is uncertainty. War is intrinsically unpredictable. Because we can never eliminate uncertainty, we must learn to fight effectively despite it. One important source of uncertainty is a property known as nonlinearity. By its nature, uncertainty invariably involves the estimation and acceptance of risk. Part of uncertainty is the ungovernable element of chance. Like friction and uncertainty, fluidity is an inherent attribute of war. It is physically impossible to sustain a high tempo of activity indefinitely, although clearly there will be times when it is advantageous to push men and equipment to the limit. Military forces will mass to concentrate combat power against the enemy. In an environment of friction, uncertainty, and fluidity, war gravitates naturally toward disorder. Each encounter in war will usually tend to grow increasingly disordered over time. By historical standards, the modern battlefield is particularly disorderly. The occurrences of war will not unfold like clockwork. If we are to win, we must be able to operate in a disorderly environment. War is a complex phenomenon. As a result, war is not governed by the actions or decisions of a single individual in any one place but emerges from the collective behavior of all the individual parts in the system interacting locally in response to local conditions and incomplete information. Because war is a clash between opposing human wills, the human dimension is central in war. War is an extreme trial of moral and physical strength and stamina. No degree of technological development or scientific calculation will diminish the human dimension in war. War is among the greatest horrors known to humanity; it should never be romanticized. Since war is a violent enterprise, danger is ever present. Leaders must study fear, understand it, and be prepared to cope with it. War is characterized by the interaction of physical, moral, and mental forces. Although material factors are more easily quantified, the moral and mental forces exert a greater influence on the nature and outcome of war. Because it is difficult to come to grips with moral and mental forces, it is tempting to exclude them from our study of war. War is both timeless and ever changing. One major catalyst of change is the advancement of technology. It is important to understand which aspects of war are likely to change and which are not. Various aspects of war fall principally in the realm of science, which is the methodical application of the empirical laws of nature. An even greater part of the conduct of war falls under the realm of art, which is the employment of creative or intuitive skills. the conduct of war is fundamentally a dynamic process of human competition requiring both the knowledge of science and the creativity of art but driven ultimately by the power of human will.

At first glance, war seems a simple clash of interests. On closer examination, it reveals its complexity and takes shape as one of the most demanding and trying of human endeavors. War is an extreme test of will. Friction, uncertainty, fluidity, disorder, and danger are its essential features. War displays broad patterns that can be represented as probabilities, yet it remains fundamentally unpredictable. Each episode is the unique product of myriad moral, mental, and physical forces.

"The Theory of War"

Having arrived at a common view of the nature of war, we proceed to develop from it a theory of war. War is an extension of both policy and politics with the addition of military force. As the policy aims of war may vary from resistance against aggression to the unconditional surrender of an enemy government, so should the application of violence vary in accordance with those aims. To say that war is an extension of politics and policy is not to say that war is strictly a political phenomenon: It also contains social, cultural, psychological, and other elements. When the policy motive of war is extreme, such as the destruction of an enemy government, then war’s natural military tendency toward destruction will coincide with the political aim, and there will tend to be few political restrictions on the military conduct of war. There are two ways to use military force to impose our will on an enemy. The first is to make the enemy helpless to resist us by physically destroying his military capabilities. The second approach is to convince the enemy that accepting our terms will be less painful than continuing to resist. At the highest level, war involves the use of all the elements of power that one political group can bring to bear against another. Conflict can take a wide range of forms constituting a spectrum which reflects the magnitude of violence involved. Military operations other than war and small wars are more probable than a major regional conflict or general war. The nation’s force-in-readiness, must have the versatility and flexibility to deal with a situation at any intensity across the entire spectrum of conflict. Activities in war take place at several interrelated levels which form a hierarchy. These levels are the strategic, operational, and tactical. Activities at the strategic level focus directly on policy objectives. Tactics refers to the concepts and methods used to accomplish a particular mission in either combat or other military operations. The operational level of war links the strategic and tactical levels. The distinctions between levels of war are rarely clearly delineated in practice. All actions in war, regardless of the level, are based upon either taking the initiative or reacting in response to the opponent. The flux of war is a product of the continuous interaction between initiative and response. This discussion leads to a related pair of concepts: the offense and defense. The defense tends to be the more efficient form of warfare— meaning that it tends to expend less energy—which is not the same as saying the defense is inherently the stronger form of warfare. While opposing forms, the offense and defense are not mutually exclusive. Similarly, the defense is an essential component of the offense. This brings us to the concept of the culminating point, without which our understanding of the relationship between the offense and defense would be incomplete. The offense and defense exist simultaneously as necessary components of each other, and the transition from one to the other is fluid and continuous. These relationships between initiative and response, offense and defense, exist simultaneously at the various levels of war. Styles in warfare can be described by their place on a spectrum of attrition and maneuver. Attrition warfare may recognize maneuver as an important component but sees its purpose as merely to allow us to bring our fires more efficiently to bear on the enemy. Pure attrition warfare does not exist in practice, but examples of warfare with a high attrition content are plentiful. On the opposite end of the spectrum is warfare by maneuver which stems from a desire to circumvent a problem and attack it from a position of advantage rather than meet it straight on. Firepower and attrition are essential elements of warfare by maneuver. Like attrition warfare, maneuver warfare does not exist in its theoretically pure form. All warfare involves both maneuver and attrition in some mix. Combat power is the total destructive force we can bring to bear on our enemy at a given time. Combat power is the situationally dependent and unique product of a variety of physical, moral, and mental factors. Of all the consistent patterns we can discern in war, there are two concepts of universal significance in generating combat power: speed and focus. Speed is rapidity of action. It applies to both time and space. Since it is relative speed that matters, it follows that we should take all measures to improve our own speed while degrading our enemy’s. Focus is the convergence of effects in time and space on some objective. Since war is fluid and opportunities are fleeting, focus applies to time as well as to space. We achieve focus through cooperation toward the accomplishment of the common purpose. The combination of speed and focus adds “punch” or “shock effect” to our actions. Two additional concepts are particularly useful in generating combat power: surprise and boldness. By surprise we mean a state of disorientation resulting from an unexpected event that degrades the enemy’s ability to resist. The advantage gained by surprise depends on the degree of disorientation and the enemy’s ability to adjust and recover. While the element of surprise is often of decisive importance, we must realize that it is difficult to achieve and easy to lose. There are three basic ways to go about achieving surprise. The first is through deception—to convince the enemy we are going to do something other than what we are really going to do in order to induce him to act in a manner prejudicial to his own interests. The second way is through ambiguity—to act in such a way that the enemy does not know what to expect. The third is through stealth— to deny the enemy any knowledge of impending action. Boldness is a source of combat power in much the same way that surprise is. Boldness is the characteristic of unhes- itatingly exploiting the natural uncertainty of war to pursue major results rather than marginal ones. There is a close connection between surprise and boldness. To win, we must focus combat power toward a decisive aim. There are two related concepts that help us to think about this: centers of gravity and critical vulnerabilities. Each belligerent is not a unitary force, but a complex system consisting of numerous physical, moral, and mental components as well as the relationships among them. centers of gravity are any important sources of strength. We want to attack the source of enemy strength, but we do not want to attack directly into that strength. we should focus our efforts against a critical vulnerability, a vulnerability that, if exploited, will do the most significant damage to the enemy’s ability to resist us. We should try to understand the enemy system in terms of a relatively few centers of gravity or critical vulnerabilities because this allows us to focus our own efforts. Center of gravity and critical vulnerability are complementary concepts. The ability to take advantage of opportunity is a function of speed, flexibility, boldness, and initiative.

The theory of war we have described provides the foundation for the discussion of the conduct of war in the final chapter. All acts of war are political acts, and so the conduct of war must be made to support the aims of policy. War takes place at several levels simultaneously, from the strategic direction of the overall war effort to the tactical application of combat power in battle. At the highest level, war involves the use of all the elements of political power, of which military force is just one. Action in war, at all levels, is the result of the interplay between initiative and response with the object being to seize and maintain the initiative. All warfare is based on concepts such as speed, focus, surprise, and boldness. Success in war depends on the ability to direct our efforts against criti- cal vulnerabilities or centers of gravity and to recognize and exploit fleeting opportunities. As we will discuss, the warfighting doctrine we derive from our theory is one based on maneuver.

"Preparing for War"

During times of peace, the most important task of any military is to prepare for war.Force planning is planning that is associated with the creation and maintenance of military capabilities. all force planning derives from a common set of concepts which describe how we will operate and perform certain key functions. Based on this common set of concepts, force planning integrates all the efforts of peacetime, including training, education, doctrine, organization, personnel management, and equipment acquisition. The operating forces must be organized to provide forward deployed or rapidly deployable forces capable of conducting expeditionary operations in any environment. The active operating forces must be capable of responding immediately to most types of crisis and conflict. For operations and training, Marine forces will be formed into Marine air-ground task forces (MAGTFs). Operating forces should be organized for warfighting and then adapted for peacetime rather than vice versa. Commanders should establish habitual relationships between supported and supporting units to develop operational familiarity among those units. Doctrine is a teaching of the fundamental beliefs of the Marine Corps on the subject of war, from its nature and theory to its preparation and conduct. doctrine does not consist of procedures to be applied in specific situations so much as it sets forth general guidance that requires judgment in application. Doctrine demands professional competence among its leaders. The military profession is a thinking profession. Leaders must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of their office; the resources they will expend in war are human lives. Warfare requires intelligent leaders with a penchant for boldness and initiative down to the lowest levels. Not only must we not stifle boldness or initiative, but we must continue to encourage both traits in spite of mistakes. Consequently, trust is an essential trait among leaders— trust by seniors in the abilities of their subordinates and by juniors in the competence and support of their seniors. Relations among all leaders—from corporal to general— should be based on honesty and frankness regardless of disparity between grades. The purpose of all training is to develop forces that can win in combat. entry-level training provides a common experience, a proud heritage, a set of values, and a common bond of comradeship. Basic individual skills are an essential foundation for combat effectiveness and must receive heavy emphasis. Commanders at each echelon must allot subordinates sufficient time and freedom to conduct the training necessary to achieve proficiency at their levels. In order to develop initiative among junior leaders, the conduct of training—like combat—should be decentralized. Training programs should reflect practical, challenging, and progressive goals beginning with individual and small-unit skills and culminating in a fully combined arms. Collective training consists of drills and exercises. Critiques are an important part of training because critical self-analysis, even after success, is essential to improvement. Professional military education is designed to develop creative, thinking leaders. The early stages of a leader’s career are, in effect, an apprenticeship. As an officer continues to develop, mastery should encompass a broader range of subjects and should extend to the operational level of war. The responsibility for implementing professional military education iis three-tiered: It resides not only with the education establishment, but also with the commander and the individual. The education establishment consists of those schools, subordinate commands, or outside agencies—established to provide formal education in the art and science of war. All commanders should consider the professional development of their subordinates a principal responsibility of command. Self-directed study in the art and science of war is at least equal in importance to maintain. Since war is at base a human enterprise, effective personnel management is important to success. The personnel management system should seek to achieve personnel stability within units and staffs as a means of fostering cohesion, teamwork, and implicit understanding. Finally, promotion and advancement policy should reward the willingness to accept responsibility and exercise initiative. Equipment should be easy to operate and maintain, reliable, and interoperable with other equipment. In order to minimize research and development costs and fielding time, exploit existing capabilities—“ off-the-shelf” technology—to the greatest extent possible. Acquisition should be a complementary, two-way process based on established operating and functional concepts. Equipment is useful only if it increases combat effectiveness. The acquisition effort should balance the need for specialization with the need for utility in a broad range of environments. As much as possible, employment techniques and procedures should be developed concurrently with equipment to minimize delays between the fielding of the equipment and its usefulness to the operating forces. There are two dangers with respect to equipment: the overreliance on technology and the failure to make the most of technological capabilities.

There are two basic military functions: waging war and preparing for war. Any military activities that do not contribute to the conduct of a present war are justifiable only if they contribute to preparedness for a possible future one. Clearly, we cannot afford to separate conduct and preparation. They must be inti-mately related because failure in preparation leads to disaster on the battlefield.

"The Conduct of War"

How we propose to accomplish a mission is the product of our understanding of the nature and the theory of war and must be the guiding force behind our preparation for war. The challenge is to develop a concept of warfighting consistent with our understanding of the nature and theory of war and the realities of the modern battlefield. Our concept for winning under these conditions is a warfighting doctrine based on rapid, flexible, and opportunistic maneuver. Maneuver warfare is a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope. Rather than wearing down an enemy’s defenses, maneuver warfare attempts to bypass these defenses in order to penetrate the enemy system and tear it apart. The greatest effect of firepower is gen- erally not physical destruction— the cumulative effects of which are felt only slowly— but the disruption it causes. If the aim of maneuver warfare is to shatter the cohesion of the enemy system, the immediate object toward that end is to create a situation in which the enemy cannot function. Inherent in maneuver warfare is the need for speed to seize the initiative, dictate the terms of action, and keep the enemy off balance, thereby increasing his friction. Also inherent is the need to focus our efforts in order to maximize effect. An important weapon in our arsenal is surprise. Besides traits such as endurance and courage that all warfare demands, maneuver warfare puts a premium on certain particular human skills and traits. Orienting on the enemy is fundamental to maneuver warfare. We should try to understand the unique characteristics that make the enemy system function so that we can penetrate the system, tear it apart, and, if necessary, destroy the isolated components. If the enemy system, for example, is a fortified defensive works, penetrating the system may mean an infiltration or a violent attack on a narrow frontage at a weak spot to physically rupture the defense, after which we can envelop the enemy positions or roll them up laterally from within. We should try to “get inside” the enemy’s thought processes and see the enemy as he sees himself so that we can set him up for defeat. First and foremost, in order to generate the tempo of operations we desire and to best cope with the uncertainty, disorder, and fluidity of combat, command and control must be decentralized. Second, since we have concluded that war is a human enterprise and no amount of technology can reduce the human dimension, our philosophy of command must be based on human characteristics rather than on equipment or procedures. Our philosophy of command must also exploit the human ability to communicate implicitly. This concept has several practical implications. First, we should establish long-term working relationships to develop the necessary familiarity and trust. Second, key people—“actuals”— should talk directly to one another when possible, rather than through communicators or messengers. Third, we should communicate orally when possible, because we communicate also in how we talk—our inflections and tone of voice. Fourth, we should communicate in person when possible because we communicate also through our gestures and bearing. Commanders should command from where they can best influence the action, normally well forward. As part of our philosophy of command, we must recognize that war is inherently disorderly, uncertain, dynamic, and dominated by friction. In practical terms, this means that we must not strive for certainty before we act, for in so doing we will surrender the initiative and pass up opportunities. There are several points worth remembering about our command philosophy. our philosophy requires competent leadership at all levels. Our philosophy also requires familiarity among comrades because only through a shared understanding can we develop the implicit communication necessary for unity of effort. Since our goal is not merely the cumulative attrition of enemy strength, we must have some larger scheme for how we expect to achieve victory. The first requirement is to establish what we want to accomplish, why, and how. To influence the action to our advantage, we must project our thoughts forward in time and space. Through shaping, commanders gain the initiative, preserve momentum, and control the tempo of operations. The further ahead we think, the less our actual influence can be. The higher our echelon of command, the greater is our sphere of influence and the further ahead in time and space we must seek to shape the action. Decisionmaking is essential to the conduct of war since all actions are the result of decisions or of nondecisions.Since war is a conflict between opposing wills, we cannot make decisions in a vacuum. Time is a critical factor in effective decisionmaking—often the most important factor. Decisionmaking requires both the situational awareness to recognize the essence of a given problem and the creative ability to devise a practical solution. Decisionmaking may be an intuitive process based on experience. Alternatively, decisionmaking may be a more analytical process based on comparing several options. We should base our decisions on awareness rather than on mechanical habit. Finally, since all decisions must be made in the face of uncertainty and since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any battlefield problem. Mission tactics is just as the name implies: the tactics of assigning a subordinate mission without specifying how the mission must be accom- plished. Mission tactics benefits the senior commander by freeing time to focus on higher-level concerns rather than the details of subordinate execution. Mission tactics serves as a contract between senior and subordinate. It is obvious that we cannot allow decentralized initiative without some means of providing unity, or focus, to the various efforts. We achieve this harmonious initiative in large part through the use of the commander’s intent, a device designed to help subordinates understand the larger context of their actions. There are two parts to any mission: the task to be accomplished and the reason or intent behind it. The intent for a unit is established by the commander assigning that unit’s mission—usually the next higher commander, although not always. It is often possible to capture intent in a simple “. . . in order to . . .” phrase following the assigned task. A clear expression and understanding of intent is essential to unity of effort. Another important tool for providing unity is the main ef- fort. We cannot take lightly the decision of which unit we designate as the main effort. Each commander should establish a main effort for each operation. Put simply, surfaces are hard spots—enemy strengths—and gaps are soft spots—enemy weaknesses. Gaps may in fact be physical gaps in the enemy’s dispositions, but they may also be any weakness in time, space, or capability. Similarly, a surface may be an actual strongpoint, or it may be any enemy strength. An appreciation for surfaces and gaps requires a certain amount of judgment. Due to the fluid nature of war, gaps will rarely be permanent and will usually be fleeting. In order to maximize combat power, we must use all the available resources to best advantage. We accomplish combined arms through the tactics and techniques we use at the lower levels and through task organization at higher levels. In so doing, we take advantage of the complementary characteristics of different types of units and enhance our mobility and firepower.

We have discussed the aim and characteristics of maneuver warfare. We have discussed the philosophy of command necessary to support this style of warfare. We have discussed some of the tactics of maneuver warfare. By this time, it should be clear that maneuver warfare exists not so much in the specific methods used—we do not believe in a formularistic approach to war—but in the mind of the Marine. In this regard, maneuver warfare, like combined arms, applies equally to the Marine expeditionary force commander and the fire team leader. It applies regardless of the nature of the con- flict, whether amphibious operations or sustained operations ashore, of low or high intensity, against guerrilla or mechanized foe, in desert or jungle. Maneuver warfare is a way of thinking in and about war that should shape our every action. It is a state of mind born of a bold will, intellect, initiative, and ruthless opportunism. It is a state of mind bent on shattering the enemy morally and physically by paralyzing and confounding him, by avoiding his strength, by quickly and aggressively exploiting his vulnerabilities, and by striking him in the way that will hurt him most. In short, maneuver warfare is a philosophy for generating the greatest decisive effect against the enemy at the least possible cost to ourselves—a philosophy for “fighting smart.”