Maneuver Warfare Collection – Page 16 – Marine Corps Association

Synchronization

The U.S. inheritance of Soviet military doctrine?

The USSR's military doctrine long emphasized synchronization of battlefield elements to achieve maximum combat power. Soviet experience with this tactic has shown that centralized control does not work under actual battlefield conditions; the USMC should consider this lesson well before applying

They Shoot Synchronizers, Don’t They?

Properly viewed, synchronization is not a lockstep, mechanical approach to warfare, but a flexible tool to integrate battle activities in time, space, and purpose.

Critics of battlefield synchronization make good points but do not make the crucial point that synchronization should be abandoned in the USMC's Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF). A case for synchronization is offered.

Guderian and Synchronization

If we are to understand the synchronization issue, we must read the historical examples accurately-and we need to understand it is a debate about centralization and decentralization.

The initial reactions of other USMC officers to Kenneth F. McKenzie's ideas on synchronization are presented. Historical examples of synchronization, which employs a body of maneuver warfare techniques and procedures, must be understood accurately in order to understand synchronization.

Responses to “Fighting in the Real World”

Letters to the Editor

by Maj Frederick J. Whittle Bravo zulu to Maj McKenzie. His article represents some new and original thinking on a subject of great interest to all Marines. Synchronization concepts have

Keeping Up With Maneuver Theory

Book Review

reviewed by Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.\ Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., Presidio, Novato, CA, 1993, 414 pp., $35.00. (Member $31.50) This is an eclectic

Fighting in the Real World

Is synchronization, the artistic blending of a variety of combat-related tasks and techniques, compatible with maneuver warfare, or will it institute a plodding checklist mentality in the battlefield leader?

The question of whether synchronization, the artistic blending of a variety of combat-related tasks and techniques, is compatible with maneuver warfare or whether it will institute a plodding checklist mentality in the battlefield leader is examined. Some critics have expressed concern over the

At the Forefront of Tactical Thought

A doctrine that does not grow-evolve in consonance with other changes-is a danger rather than a helpful device. Our FMFMs, all doctrinal publications, need revision from the very day they are issued. . . .

A doctrine that does not grow is a danger rather than a helpful device for armed forces. The need for FMFMs to be revised from the very day they are issued is discussed.

FMFM-1, Warfighting

Letters to the Editor

by Capt Robert J. Muise Two articles in the October issue-those by Maj Philip E. Knobel and Maj Robert S. Trout-criticize FMFM-1, Warfighting and call for its revision. I disagree

Studying Squad Tactics

In order to be as proficient as possible. Marine squads must train the way they fight-focused outward on the threat, not inward on control.

In Vietnam, squad leaders depended on their Marines to be alert and move into opportunities without waiting for orders. It was the squad leader's job to be there with the point man or whoever first met the enemy.

Doctrinal Change: The Move to Maneuver Theory

The roots of the maneuver warfare movement in the Corps reach back to Vietnam and the lessons learned there by many junior officers . . .

[William S. Lind]'s name became disproportionately prominent partly because a rigid Marine bureaucracy found him a convenient scapegoat for criticism in their effort to defend the status quo. Of him they could say "He's never been in combat so he can't be right." So a separate controversy having

New Doctrine or Slipping Into the Past?

If FMFM-2 embraces concepts of synchronization, battlefield geometry, top-down planning, and battlefield operating systems, the Corps is taking a step toward rejecting its own maneuver philosophy.

I suspect LtGen James C. Breckinridge is rolling in his grave at the prospect of Marine Corps doctrine so closely iesembling Army doctrine. Ms Kerry Strong, Archives Director, Marine Corps University, in a research paper quotes one of Gen Breckinridge's constant complaints in the 1930s, "Marine