Ignorant Civilian Questions

[snyder]

I have two ignorant civilian questions, but they are asked in good faith and with full realization that it might be impossible to have a rational dialogue: What's the value of officers on the battlefield? I realize these are ignorant questions but at least I am acknowledging my ignorance. I ask because much of the commentary I've read over the years would seem to indicate that the military would run better if the non-coms were in charge at least to some level.

Another similarly naive question is what are the merits of a separate training track for officers as opposed to having all or most of them picked from the non-com ranks? This is pretty much how things happen in the civilian world in a de facto sense. Yes, there are business schools but most of the people who go to those places have been in the lower ranks before attending. Again, on both of these questions I have no opinion. I'm not qualified to have one. But I am curious so I thought I'd ask.

A related question that's not really a third one would to ask how armies have done this through history.

[Andy O'Pray]

Interesting questions snyder which should prompt many varying responses. One must start back in history and work up to todays armed forces in order to see how things have evolved. At one point in history it was considered that the French had the best officers, whereas, the British were considered to have the best soldiers. Napolean made reference to this when inspecting a Royal Marine guard of honour.

This should be a time consuming topic which I shall return to. You will read the views as to how the non commissioned officers are the backbone of the British forces, to a point this may be true in some cases, but there is a definite requirement for an officer corps, which has produced many fine officers.

During the discussions one must accept, that in general, there is, in most cases, a link between education and intelligence. Gone are the days where the idiot son of the wealthy families had a commission purchased for him in one of the regiments. Some of my colleagues will probably point out examples where my aforementioned statement is inaccurate, hence, "in most cases".

I shall return.

Aye - Andy.

[Greg S]

Officers plan and sit back while the action happens and run the whole show. Soldiers are at the sharp end of the action - along wih the non-commisioned officers. Without Officers there would be nobody to brief people on the plan of action, without NCO's there would be no control over the soldiers.

[Andy O'Pray]

Officers plan and sit back while the action happens and run the whole show. Soldiers are at the sharp end of the action - along wih the non-commisioned officers. Without Officers there would be nobody to brief people on the plan of action, without NCO's there would be no control over the soldiers.

Is this why so many junior officers were killed in active service? A bit simplistic Greg S. Young officers, after extensive training, are still under training when they take command of their first troop/platoon. Their instructors are their troop/platoon sergeants and company commander. Can the troop sergeant take over from the company commander? In theory they can, but he does not have the extensive training of that company commander. Before one attains the rank of general, one must first have been a 2/Lt. and worked their way up from there.

Aye - Andy.

[Guest]

My first 'command' was as a platoon leader... 'MY' platoon sergeant kept my stupid newbie butt from making too many mistakes... because I was told very specifically to "listen to that man, he'll keep you from screwing up too bad..." dam good advice. A good NCO can be the making of an officer. And to you chaps who were 'good' NCOs...THANKS, (although you probably already know how much you contributed to making things run...) aaaah, you know what I mean.

[goldie ex rmp]

its not just the forces, we in the prison service have an APS scheame which lets the smart? people join up as a senior officer for a year then principal officer for a year then go direct to governor so in 3 years they are what would take me about 15 if i put my back into it.
we also have cross-deployment where if your a manager at lets say the post office?, you can come and join us and run a bloody prison with no training at all...........whats all that about

[sneaky beaky]

This is written under the influence of too much painkiller! (Although I see I have managed to type all of this, withouth reverting to the spellchecker!!)

Officers, A totally necessary branch of any Corps or Whatever.
Only from the officer branch do you get the Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels etc.
And they are all trained by the NCO ranks. And when they go on to make big rank, we can all look back and say - "I trained him"!! , with a big bit of pride!!
Sneaky

[goldie ex rmp]

This is written under the influence of too much painkiller! (Although I see I have managed to type all of this, withouth reverting to the spellchecker!!)

Officers, A totally necessary branch of any Corps or Whatever.
Only from the officer branch do you get the Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels etc.
And they are all trained by the NCO ranks. And when they go on to make big rank, we can all look back and say - "I trained him"!! , with a big bit of pride!!
Sneaky

good point snaeky.....well put

[Guest]

its not just the forces, we in the prison service have an APS scheame which lets the smart? people join up as a senior officer for a year then principal officer for a year then go direct to governor so in 3 years they are what would take me about 15 if i put my back into it.
we also have cross-deployment where if your a manager at lets say the post office?, you can come and join us and run a bloody prison with no training at all...........whats all that about

UH ... 'cause they're 'male-men'...?

[Humphs]

of course the other good thing that officer's do best is
sign your leave chits and your X's forms

[snyder]

It would be interesting to read something more detailed and thoughtful on this subject. Maybe someone could recommend a book directly dealing with the issue, i.e., not by reference or inference but one that approaches the subject in its own right.

[buford]

I am curious about the extent to which you can question an order which you know or suspect may be wrong. From a military history standpoint (which is pretty much all I know about), for example, at Gettysburg when Hood was attacking the Union left he saw that where Lee has directed the attack was wrong and he needed to change and go more around to the right. He asked Longstreet who asked Lee who said no. So Hood had no choice and did as he was told, but a lot of men died and he was very bitter about it later. An attack as Hood wanted probably would have succeeded. So what can you do in a situation like that?

[Redhand]

Snyder, Im not in the forces but i can give you my opinion from a military history standpoint.

Different forces throughout history have applied the use of officers to varying degrees.

In WWII German officers were required to fight with their units, this is why some noted historians say that the Wehrmacht could pull out just that little bit more on the field. The officer death rate was some quite a bit more (i forget the exact %) for German units than allied units.

Whereas the the US forces had increasingly bad morale problems because the commissioned officers usually had 0 experiece.

It was the German Prussian military history that required this of their officers. So Im assuming this system had been in place for awhile.

[davo141]

on a different note it was wide spread that the new Iraqi army suffered many problems due to lack of trust in there officers and lack of officers in general, this prompted to the US led forces to bring back some of Saddams generals and officers, this gives the men an example to follow in many cases and reasures that someone, who knows there stuff is in charge, not some useless us backed figure who talks the talk but doesnt have any legs to walk the walk with...

i geuss its the same, officers are there to keep ratings and so forth in order, with out a hierachy(sp) of power the whole thing would, i feel, self implode with power battles and struggles.

As for NCO's who become CO's, i feel they have more repesct as they know what to do and how to do things to gain respect as they have been on the brunt end of officers previously!

Davo