Following the end of the World War I, the major combatants engaged in varying degrees of reorganization and reformation to incorporate the lessons learned from the conflict. Germany faced the pressing need to quickly reconstitute and reorganize her...
Military effectiveness is a common goal among military forces. But it is an ill defined concept. Two divergent theories cover the ground of military effectiveness. One looks at the interaction of social structures, whereas the other looks at the...
A revolutionary tradition did not exist in the Imperial German Army. But during the years 1918-1944 events occurred which produced such an impact on the moral fibre of the German Officer Corps that eventually a few of them participated in a...
This monograph discusses the actions of the United States Army during the current interwar period. The future battlefield environment will be quite different than the environment of Operation Desert Storm. The United States Army needs to be able to...
The German General Staff launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 assuming the eastern campaign would last only three months. However, within six months after the initiation of hostilities the Red Army blunted the Wehrmacht’s attack outside the...
This monograph defines blitzkrieg as a way of operational-level systems thinking that evolved over a twenty-year period. In the on-going debate over whether blitzkrieg was operational or tactical in nature, much of the discourse centers either on...
This study examines the evolution of the German Army's defensive doctrine on the Russian Front from 1941 to 1945. It begins by reviewing prewar doctrine as expressed in German field manuals and professional journals. German defensive techniques are...
Discusses intelligence issues in Europe (British Empire, Anglo-African Relations, France, Italy, Germany, Poland) and the Far East (Japan), including information on a propaganda committee and projects under consideration. Also contains a...
This paper provides an excellent survey of the intricacies of employing defensive tactics against a powerful opponent. Using after-action reports, unit war diaries, and other primary materials, the author analyzes the doctrine and tactics that the...
This monograph examines the transformation of military forces, the development of military doctrine and the influence of previous wars. It is an attempt to identify the driving factors of military transformation in general, to look into the role...
Germany reestablished its air force during the last half of the interwar period of 1919 to 1939, a period in which airpower theorists attempted to merge the new technology of aviation with traditional roles of the military. The Royal Air Force...
America's current financial strains necessitate an investigation into the effectiveness and efficiency of our fighting forces. This monograph explores the history of technology, theory, and doctrine development in heavy ground combat power and...
One of the most complex challenges facing the U.S. military today is the problem of imposing stability over the chaos that follows major combat operations. Despite the U.S. military’s predilection to distill warfare into the linear, Newtonian...
Department of the Army pamphlet 20-255. The German attack on Poland precipitated World War II, making the Polish campaign one of particular significance to the student of the 1939-45 conflict. The lessons learned by the German Army in its...
Operational maneuver is a key element of operational art and AirLand Battle Doctrine. Some prominent theorists have argued that our modern mechanized forces do not possess the requisite characteristics for modern operational maneuver. Brigadier...
Between 1993 and 1995, while serving as the secretary of the Canadian Land Force Doctrine and Tactics Board, the author participated extensively in the process of doctrinal change which eventually resulted in the publishing of new ‘capstone’...
For this Civil Affairs document, three main sections include the Bismarckian Empire (1871-1918), the Weimar Republic (revolution and the new array of forces, period of consolidation, and the end of the Weimar Republic and Hitler's rise to power),...
This is volume 5 of 30 volumes concerning the training and development of German General Staff officers. Contents include the origin, tradition, formative forces, methods and performance, German theory of war, weakness of the general staff, and an...