Shock tactics

“ At one level, destroying an adversary's military force leaving the enemy impotent and vulnerable may provide the necessary Shock and Awe. At another level, the certainty of this outcome may cause an adversary to accept our terms well short of conflict. In the great middle ground, the appropriate balance of Shock and Awe must cause the perception and anticipation of certain defeat and the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless short of complete physical destruction. ”

“ Though there is, of course, no fixed moment when shock may be said to disappear, it is plain that with every additional yard of extension, either in the attacking or defending line, or both, shock, which means the violent physical impact of a united body, must diminish. ”

“ This category of Shock and Awe applies massive and, perhaps today, relatively precise destructive power largely against military targets and related sectors over time. It is unlikely to produce an immediate effect on the will of the adversary to resist. ”

“ However, it is the cumulative effect of this application of destruction power that will ultimately impose sufficient Shock and Awe, as well as perhaps destroy the physical means to resist, that an adversary will be forced to accept whatever terms may be imposed. ”

“ And now as to the effect of defeat beyond the Army, upon the Nation and Government! It is the sudden collapse of hopes stretched to the utmost, the downfall of all self-reliance. In place of these extinct forces, fear, with its destructive properties of expansion, rushes into the vacuum left, and completes the prostration. It is a real shock upon the nerves, which one of the two athletes receives from the electric spark of victory. ”

“ Finally, the enemy must be displaced from selected key positions, for if he is allowed to occupy those areas that he considers strategically important, it is difficult to imagine how his shock could be complete. ”

“ I have seen them with wounds that ordinarily would cause them to collapse, but under the influence of the shock exert themselves with such strength and violence that it would take a couple of sturdy men to hold them. There is a trite saying that every disadvantage has a corresponding advantage and I wondered that night when I got back to the gun pit if nature intended that the advantage from this disaster was the increase in our supper ration due to the death and wounding of my soldier pals! ”

“ Achieving Shock and Awe rests in the ability to deter and overpower an adversary through the adversary's perception and fear of his vulnerability and our own invincibility, even though applying ultimate retribution could take a considerable period of time. The target set encompasses both military and societal values. ”

“ At whatever unit level, Shock and Awe are magnified by the speed and effectiveness of targeting. The ability to achieve Rapid Dominance simultaneously throughout the battlefield will create strategic Shock and Awe on the opposing forces, their leadership, and society. When the video results of these attacks are broadcast real time worldwide on CNN, the positive impact on coalition support and negative impact on potential threat support can be decisive. ”

“ The actual attack of targets in order to induce Shock and Awe may, in some sense, be considered a subset of controlling the enemy's perception. It will not always be necessary to destroy numerous targets in order to induce shock. However, it would be vitally important to give the appearance that there are no safe havens from attack, and that any target may be attacked at any time with impunity and force. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, confusion must be imposed on the adversary by supplying only information which will shape the adversary's perceptions and help break his will. ”

“ If, therefore, we look at this sphere of destruction in Strategy in the same manner as we have considered that of fire and close combat in tactics, then we may well imagine that everything which comes within its vortex will, at the end of the campaign or of any other strategic period, be reduced to a state of weakness, which makes the arrival of a fresh force decisive. ”

“ Who believes that at a moment when a violent shock, a fever, is moving the masses to their very depths, when the danger of a gigantic war with its appalling misery confronts us—who believes that at such a moment it is possible to institute a general strike? ”

“ In the attempt to keep war "immaculate," at least in limiting collateral damage, one point should not be forgotten. Above all, war is a nasty business or, as Sherman put it, "war is hell." While there are surely humanitarian considerations that cannot or should not be ignored, the ability to Shock and Awe ultimately rests in the ability to frighten, scare, intimidate, and disarm. The Clausewitzian dictum concerning the violent nature of war is dismissed only at our peril. ”

“ Once more he is the smart Himmelstoss of the parade-ground, he has even outstripped the lieutenant and is far ahead.
Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades—words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.
Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary to death; when the attack comes we shall have to strike many of the men with our fists to waken them and make them come with us—our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed, our elbows are raw. ”

“ While there has always been shock, awe, and fear associated with warfare, unless the fear or losses are focused and great enough, a quick cessation of hostilities under favorable terms is not certain. How to apply elements of Shock and Awe against rogue states, terrorist elements, international drug and crime cartels, as well as in the more traditional MRCs and LRCs needs much further study and analysis. Shock and awe, to reach the level required to achieve Rapid Dominance, must also bring fear to those who are in charge. ”

“ Deluged by high explosives, shrapnel and gas shells, seeing their comrades mowed down by machine gun fire, bombed from the sky, alternately in pouring rain and burning sun, hungry half the time, their eyes burning from want of sleep, half suffocated from long intervals in gas masks, undergoing all the hardships of a bitter campaign against a determined, vigorous and unscrupulous enemy, yet their only thought was to push on—and on—and on. ”

“ Aeroplanes, zeppelins, artillery, various types of trench mortars, mining, machine-guns, poisonous gases, liquid fire, and the many other means of killing and disabling our enemies have rendered this war the most horrible and terrifying in history. Yet it is rare at the front to see officers or men exhibit cowardice. With few exceptions all face death in its many forms with a smile on their lips, bearing at the same time indescribable hardships of mud, dirt, lice, work and weather with unbeatable stoicism. ”

“ Now, every convergent attack in strategy, as well as in tactics, holds out the prospect of great results; for if it succeeds, the consequence is not simply a defeat, but more or less the cutting off of the enemy. ”

“ There is the satisfaction of getting the range and firing, with results that may be guessed but cannot be known accurately by the man who fires; there is the curious thrill that comes when an angrily singing bullet passes near, and one realises that one is under fire from the enemy. In a normal action, there is the sense of disaster, even of defeat when one’s side may in reality be winning, for one sees men dying, wounded, lying dead—one knows the damage the enemy has inflicted, but has no idea of the damage ones own force has inflicted in return. ”

“ Attack implies a shock or onset; defence is a resistance to this onset. Whether a piece of ordnance discharges a ball against a plate of iron, or a casing of masonry, or an earthwork; or an assaulting column climbs a breach, the problem is substantially the same; in either case we have to oppose to the impulsive force a resistance that will neutralise its effect.
When there were no projectile weapons, or their range was inconsiderable, only a normal resistance had to be opposed to the shock—a man to a man—or if the effect was to be rendered certain, two men to one. ”

“ When it is successful in a high degree, confusion and broken courage in the enemy’s ranks are the consequences; and of the degree to which these multiply a success, there are examples enough, great and small. We are not now speaking of the particular surprise which belongs to the attack, but of the endeavour by measures generally, and especially by the distribution of forces, to surprise the enemy, which can be imagined just as well in the defensive, and which in the tactical defence particularly is a chief point. ”

“ How shall we manage to combat that extremely subtle idea, which supposes it possible, through the use of a special artificial form, to effect by a small direct destruction of the enemy’s forces a much greater destruction indirectly, or by means of small but extremely well-directed blows to produce such paralysation of the enemy’s forces, such a command over the enemy’s will, that this mode of proceeding is to be viewed as a great shortening of the road? Undoubtedly a victory at one point may be of more value than at another. ”

“ It is as if they [85] could not, even for one evening, forget the struggle for existence, and as if they regarded a dinner or a dance as an engagement with the enemy; a brisk assault to carry by storm some place that has long stood a regular siege—a lively skirmish in which everything that comes to hand is a weapon for either attack or self-defence. ”

“ Of course, behind all the compromise which pervades the section there lies the fatal obsession that openings for shock action must at all costs be allowed for, and that, in defence, entrenchments should not be so good as to encourage Cavalry to rely on them, to the prejudice of “mounted action,” which in Cavalry language means shock. ”

“ In the first case, the shock the body endures, is general, uniform, and therefore less fierce; in the other, a single part, a neck, or ear perchance, is attacked, and that with the greater violence probably, as it is done by a successive stream of cold air. And the cannon of a battery, pointed against a single part of a bastion, will easier make a breach than were they directed to play singly upon the whole face, and will admit the enemy much sooner into the town. ”

“ I kept repeating to myself, for my own nerves were at the jumping-off point and I thought the veins in my head would burst if I had to endure those explosion-roars another minute. Happily they ceased as suddenly as they began.
There is no kind of suffering endured in the battle front that has such a horror for the men as the gas; it is that fighting for breath that takes the life out of a fellow, and, God! how it chokes. Out of that bunch of 56 gassed men, only six came out whole. ”

“ It means targeting those things that will produce the intended Shock and Awe. And, it means having feedback and good, timely battle assessment to enable knowledge to be used dynamically as well as to know how our forces will react. ”

“ Then, when face, hands, and knees can endure no more, and the inevitable convulsive wriggle occurs, they rise in a vociferous swarm, only to settle again when the victim becomes quiescent. To these, high-explosives are a welcome relief. ”

“ Skirmishers have a destructive effect; formed troops a moral effect. Drill ground maneuvers should prepare for actual battle. In such maneuvers, why, at the decisive moment of an attack, should you lighten the moral anxiety of the foe by ceasing his destruction, by calling back your skirmishers? If the enemy keeps his own skirmishers and marches resolutely behind them, you are lost, for his moral action upon you is augmented by his destructive action against which you have kindly disarmed yourself. ”

“ As, in the rules of tactics, an attack in one sector compels a counter-attack in another, so as not to be hurt by the asperities of my nature, all of them effected in their own an identical resilience, always at the same points, and to make up for this took advantage of the gaps in my line to thrust out advanced posts. ”

“ Do not, dear reader, call the Boche coward because he surrenders. For you, it is easy to say you would fight to the death rather than be taken prisoner, but consider a man who has endured a week's bombardment—crash! crash! crr-r-r-r-mp! Roaring, blasting, one hideous din, for days; everything being smashed to smithereens; the smoke, the fumes, the stench, and last, but not least, dead and mangled comrades lying around. ”

“ Then we observed the signs of a disastrous repulse of the attack—disordered swarms of men coming out of the woods, first thin and scattered, then larger disbanded squads, some at a full run, others at a hurried walk; then shattered companies, or battalions, or skeleton regiments crowding around their colors and maintaining something like organization; and, finally, still larger bodies retreating in better order, and higher officers surrounded by their staffs, struggling to steady the retreat and to rally the straggling men. ”

“ Thiaucourt at Any Cost SHOCK troops are all that the name itself implies. They are the troops sent forward, in human waves, to receive and break the first shock of contact with the enemy lines. Invariably a large number of them are doomed to death or injury, and the men themselves know it. But the very knowledge seems to drive them forward with greater fury, and the clash, therefore, is one of carnage for one or both sides. ”

“ Further, we feel that the very fact that there are many more occasions suitable for fire action than for52 shock action must not make us lose sight of this, namely, that though we may use fire action when we meet the enemy nine times out of ten, it is on the tenth occasion, and then because shock action takes place, that something definite, something which affects the result of the campaign, is seen to happen. Therefore we must not let our future leaders be brought up with distorted views. ”