"Open warfare demands elastic tactics, quick decisions, and swift maneuvers. Mobility includes far more than mere rapidity of movement. From the leader it demands prompt dicisions, clear, concise orders, anticipation of the probable course of action and some sure means for the rapid transmission of orders. From the troops it demands promptness in getting started, the ability to make long marches under the most adverse conditions of terrain and weather, skill in effecting rapid deployments and abrupt changes of formation without delay or confusion, facility in passing from the defensive to the offensive, or the reserve, and finally, a high morale. In brief, then, mobility implies both rapidity and flexibility." [1]

Usually, when you think of your weapons, you think of your personal M-16 or pistol, your unit's machine guns, mortars, and AT-4s, or your aircraft's Sidewinders or bombs or rockets. If you are a logistician, you may realize your weapons are also your trucks. Some Marines overlook one of their most powerful weapons, a weapon that serves infantrymen, aviators, and logisticians equally. That weapon is speed.

SPEED IN COMBAT

How is speed a weapon? Think of sports: The breakaway in hockey uses speed as a weapon. By rapidly passing the puck down the ice, one team denies the other the chance to set up a defense. Speed circumvents their opponent's ability to respond in an organized manner. The fastbreak in basketball seeks the same result. In two or three passes, the ball is downcourt, the basket scored, and the team quickly reorganized for the defense, all before the opposition knows what is happening.

The results of speed often reach beyond the immediate goal. How many times have you seen a team score on a fastbreak, steal the ball as it comes inbounds, and immediately score again, and even a third time? Unable to regain their composure, the victims of the fastbreak become the victims of a rally. The rallying team again fastbreaks and scores yet again. The victims lose confidence. Passes go astray; signals become crossed; tempers flare; arguments ensue. The rally becomes a rout. The beleaguered players see certain defeat. They virtually give up while still on the field of play.

The same thing happens in combat. The battalion or fighter aircraft or logistics train that can consistently move and act faster than its enemy has a tremendous advantage.

In 1862, Stonewall Jackson moved his foot cavalry up and down the Shenandoah Valley against several larger Union forces. His corps' ability to quickly move considerable distances, strike, delay, move, and strike again tied up three times his numbers in Union forces. His speed in movement and action convinced Union leaders that a significant Confederate invasion force stood ready to attack Washington, D.C.

As a result, Jackson's actions denied reinforcements to the Union General McClellan in his peninsula campaign. Jackson's speed offered immense advantage with relatively little risk to his limited manpower.

The British aviators bested the Germans during the Battle of Britain of World War II in part because they could reconstitute and redistribute fighter squadrons faster than the Germans could sortie. After each German bombing raid, the British quickly assessed their casualties and transferred combat-effective units into the active areas. The ineffective squadrons rotated out of action to recover and refit. Thus, German fighter and bomber pilots constantly faced fresh British pilots in serviceable airplanes. Eventually, German aircraft and pilot losses forced the Germans to end daylight bombing and resort strictly to night bombing sorties.

The great captains repeatedly commented on the value of speed in combat. Napoleon said, "I may lose a battle, but I will never lose a minute." [2]

Nathan Bedford Forrest told the secret of his many victories: " . . . get there first with the most men." [3]

General Heinz Guderian's nickname was schneller Heinz-fast Heinz. General Hermann Balck's motto for his staff was, "Don't work hard-work fast!" [4]

History's great captains differed in many ways, but one thing they shared was a sense of the importance of speed.

In Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, Battalion Landing Team 2/8, under Lieutenant Colonel Ray Smith, moved fast, as he had trained them to do. When they captured the operations officer of the Grenadian army, he said to them, "You appeared so swiftly in so many places where we didn't expect you that it was clear that resistance was hopeless, so I recommended to my superiors that we lay down our arms and go into hiding." [5]

That is what speed used as a weapon can do for you. 

WHAT IS SPEED?

This question would seem to have a simple answer: Speed is going fast. It is speed as we think of it when driving a car-more miles per hour.

That is part of the answer in tactics as well. For example, when a Soviet tank battalion attacks, it goes over the ground as fast as it can-at as many meters per minute as it can. General Balck was asked whether the Russian tanks ever used terrain in their attacks against him in World War II. He replied that they had used terrain on occasion, but that they usually used speed. The questioner followed up: "Which was harder to defend against?" Balck answered, "Speed" [6]

Physical speed, more meters per minute or miles per hour, is a powerful weapon in itself. On your approach to the enemy, speed narrows his reaction time. When you are going through him or around him, it changes his situation faster than he can react. Once you are past him, it makes his reaction irrelevant. In all three cases, speed gets inside his mind, causing fear, indecision, helplessness.

SPEED AND TIME

There is more to speed in a military sense than simply going fast. First, there is a sense of time, and there is also a sense of timing. Speed and time are closely related. In fact, speed is defined in terms of time: miles or kilometers per hour. In tactics, what this means is that time is always of the utmost importance.

Even when you are engaged with the enemy, you are not always moving fast. Some of the time, you are not moving at all. Nonetheless, every moment is still of the utmost importance even when you are sitting still. A brigade staff that takes a day to plan an action is slower than one that takes an hour. A tank battalion that takes three hours to refuel is slower than one that takes two hours, just as one that must refuel every hundred miles is slower than one that must refuel every two hundred. A company that sits down to eat once it has taken its objective is slower than one that immediately presses on into the enemy's depth. A fighter squadron that can fly only three sorties per aircraft per day is slower, in terms of effect on the enemy, than one that flies six. A maintenance repair team that takes two days to fix a damaged vehicle and get it back into action is slower, in terms of effect on the enemy, than one that can do it overnight.

Making maximum use of every hour and every minute is as important to speed in combat as simply going fast when you are moving. It is important to every member of a military force whether serving on staffs or in units-aviation, resupply and repair, ground combat, everything.

A good tactician has within him a constant sense of urgency. He feels guilty if he is idle. He never wastes time, and he is never content with the pace at which events are happening. Like Guderian, he is always saying to himself and to others, "Faster! Faster!" He knows that if speed is a weapon, so is time.

TIMING

Time, and the need to make maximum use of it, is also related to timing. At first glance, the two may seem to be in contention. Maximizing the use of time would appear to require acting at the earliest opportunity. On the contrary, timing may require deliberate delay. For example, if you are on the defensive, you may want to let an enemy penetration develop itself so that your counterattack, when it comes, bags the largest possible enemy force. One of the most common errors when on the defensive is counterattacking too soon so that the enemy is merely pushed back rather than cut off, encircled, and destroyed. Timing, in other words, seems to require that you sometimes sacrifice speed by waiting.

Generally, the contradiction is more apparent than real. The reason is that the results of your timing -a greater defeat for the enemy-give you the opportunity for greater speed over the longer run. The most frequent source of delay is the enemy. The greater the defeat you inflict on him in one situation, the less he will be able to delay you subsequently. So timing, instead of being in tension with time and in conflict with a sense of urgency, is actually a more skillful use of time.

RELATIVE SPEED

Going fast and making maximum use of time are both parts of the answer to the question, "What is speed?" However, there remains something else to be considered: the enemy. As with all things in war, speed is relative. It is only meaningful militarily if you are acting faster than the enemy. You can do that either by slowing the enemy or by hastening yourself.

In the battle for the Falkland Islands in 1982, the British Army moved slowly. The terrain was difficult, the weather was abominable, and much of the material had to be moved on men's backs, all of which slowed down the British. Nevertheless, the British still had the advantage in speed, because they moved faster than the Argentines who, once they had made their initial dispositions, essentially did not move at all. That superiority in relative speed gave the British the initiative throughout the campaign.

CONTINUOUS SPEED

To be decisive, a superiority in relative speed must be constant. It is not enough to move faster than the enemy only now and then because when we are not moving faster, the advantage, the initiative, passes to him. This need to operate continually faster makes the challenge more difficult. Most forces can manage a burst of speed now and then, provided they can then halt for a considerable period to recover. During that halt, they are likely to lose the advantage in speed over time . . . the consistent advantage.

Here the speediness of the logistics or combat service support element of the MAGTF becomes of critical importance. Although physical exhaustion is often a factor, halts usually are driven by logistics: ground or aviation units must stop to catch up on maintenance and supplies. Nonetheless, supporting forces can minimize loss of speed if they can move and operate fast. If they can deliver the supplies and perform the maintenance quickly, the combat units can move again before the enemy gains the initiative.

SPEED AND CHANGE

In order to act consistently faster than the enemy, it is necessary to do more than move fast in whatever you are doing.

It is also necessary to make rapid transitions from one action to another. In the 18th century, the importance of fast transitions (sometimes called agility) was often seen in the need to shift from column formation into line. If an army was caught by an enemy while still in column and could not rapidly deploy in line, it was often beaten. Much drill practice was devoted to making this difficult transition so that it could be accomplished rapidly in combat. A modern example of the importance of fast transitions comes from aerial combat.

In the Korean War, American aviators achieved a high kill ratio of about 10:1 over their North Korean and Chinese opponents. At first glance, this is somewhat surprising. The main enemy fighter, the MiG-15, was superior to the American F-86 in a number of key respects. It could climb and accelerate faster, and it had a better sustained turn rate. The F-86, however, was superior to the MiG in two critical, though less obvious, respects. First, because it had highpowered hydraulic controls, the F-86 could shift from one maneuver to another faster than the MiG. Second, because of its bubble canopy, the F-86 pilot had better visibility. The F-86's better field of vision also contributed to fast transitions because it allowed its pilot to understand changing situations more quickly.

American pilots developed new tactics based on these dual superiorities. When they engaged the MiGs, they sought to put them through a series of changing maneuvers. At each change, the F-86's faster transitions gave it a time advantage which the pilot transformed into a position advantage. Often, when the MiG pilots realized what was happening, they panicked-and thereby made the American pilot's job all the easier.

These tactics illustrate the way fast transitions relate to overall speed and to time. They also show the importance of time and speed in a broader sense which has been brought out in the work of Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret). Colonel Boyd studied a wide variety of historic battles, campaigns, and wars. He noted that where numerically inferior forces had defeated their opponents, they often did so by presenting the other side with a sudden, unexpected change or a series of changes. The superior forces fell victim because they could not adjust to the changes in a timely manner. Generally, the defeat came at relatively small cost to the victor.'

This research led to the Boyd theory which states that conflict may be viewed as time-competitive cycles of observation-orientation-decision-action. First, each party to a conflict enters the fray by observing himself, his surroundings, his enemy. Second, based upon his observations, he orients to the situation, that is, he produces a mental image of his situation. Next, based upon this orientation, he makes a decision. Last, he puts the decision into effect-he acts. On the assumption that his action has changed the situation, he again observes, beginning the cycle anew. Actions continue to follow Boyd's cycle, often called an OODA (observation, orientation, decision, action) loop.

The Boyd theory defines the word "maneuver" in the term "maneuver warfare." It means being consistently faster than your opponent. As your enemy observes and orients on your action, you must be observing, orienting, deciding, and acting upon your second action. As you enact your third, fourth, and fifth move, your enemy falls behind in a panicked game of catch up. The time gap between your actions and his reactions increasingly widens. As he tries to respond to your penetration, you attack his reserves and his command and control. As he counterattacks with his mobile reserve, you by-pass with helicopterborne forces. Everything he does is too late.

Colonel Boyd's research showed that historically forces faced with these continuous changes panicked or became passive. In the first case, they generally retreated. In the second, they surrendered. In either case, victory resulted from speed.

Thus, you see that the military answer to the question "What is speed?" is not simple. Nonetheless, it is central to every aspect of tactics, especially in the context of maneuver warfare doctrine. As General George Patton said, "In small operations, as in large, speed is the essential element of success." [8]

BECOMING FASTER

Now you see clearly the importance of speed in tactics and why it is one of the basic concepts that shape tactics for ground, air, and combat service support. You want to be fast. How do you do it?

You start by having a sense of the importance of time. We already noted this, but mention it again here because many of us must make a change.

We, as Marines and leaders of Marines, have a responsibility to make things happen fast. If some set process gets in the way of operating fast, change it or get rid of it. You are responsible for results, not method. Your sense of the importance of time, of urgency, must direct your actions. You must work to create and build that sense within yourself.

Once you have it, there are a number of things you can do to increase speed. First, you can keep everything simple. Simplicity promotes speed; complexity slows things down. Simplicity should be central to your plans, your staffs (large staffs are one of war's greatest consumers of time), your command and control, and to your own actions. Fast decisions on your part, in place of lengthy councils of war, are an important element in simplicity and thus speed.

Second, you go fast by using mission orders. Mission orders allow everyone to harmonize efforts by knowing what result they are collectively attempting to achieve. Each person can act quickly as the situation changes without having to delay to pass information up the chain of command and wait for orders to come back down.

By 1815, the Prussian Army was already well advanced in the use of mission orders. General Friedrich Muffling detailed as the Prussian liaison officer to Wellington's army, was with the British at Waterloo. There, at one point, Muffling saw Napoleon's Imperial Guard halt. He sensed this as a critical moment in the battle and urged two British brigade commanders to attack with their cavalry. Both commanders agreed on the excellence of the opportunity. However, both refused to take action because they had not received orders to do so. [9]

Without orders from Wellington, they could not act. General Muffling was astounded, but the British commanders expressed no misgivings. Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, the British Army remained noted for the slowness of most of its actions, while the Prussians had precisely the opposite reputation.

Third, you can rely heavily on implicit communications. Implicit communications are mutual understandings that require little or no actual talking. The commanding officer of Charlie Company on your left flank is well-known to you. You think alike because your battalion commander has established SOPs and has schooled his officers in his approach to war. Thus, you do not need to talk with the Charlie Company commander very often in action because you know how he is likely to react to many different situations. If you create an opportunity for him, you know he will take advantage of it. That is implicit communication. It is faster and more reliable than explicit communication (trying to pass words or messages back and forth over radios or other equipment).

Of course, if you intend to raise your speed by using implicit communications, that implies that you take some other actions. It implies keeping people together in their units and stable in their assignments. It implies keeping good teams together. It implies developing a band of brothers in your unit, as Admiral Horatio Nelson did. He spent many evenings with his captains gathered in the cabin of his flagship talking over tactics, ways they might fight different engagements, how they would defeat this or that opponent. From those evenings came a shared way of thinking so strong that, at Trafalgar, Nelson needed only to signal "England expects every man will do his duty," and "close action." [10]

They needed no more instruction than that.

Fourth, speed is greatly increased by decentralization. Mission orders are key to decentralization, as you know. Another key is lateral communication. If all communication is up and down the chain of command, action will move slowly. But if commanders and leaders at every level communicate laterally-if you, as a leader, talk directly to other leaders -- action moves much faster. Lateral communication is in fact a natural consequence of mission orders. It represents a letting go on the part of the higher commander that follows after he states his intent and gives his subordinates their missions.

A good example of lateral communication comes from aviation. In the air, a squadron of aircraft communicates laterally as a matter of course. If one pilot needs to talk to another, he does so. He does not go through the mission commander and then wait for him to talk to the other pilot. Events would quickly outpace communication if he did. The same should be true of ground combat and logistics units as well.

Fifth, you can speed things up by putting the commander forward, at the anticipated focus of effort. If he is in the rear, trying to command with maps and telephones, events will often move faster than he can. If he is forward, at the focus of effort, he can instantly make the adjustments necessary as the situation develops.

Throughout World War I and while in command of 7th Panzer Division in France during May through June of 1941, Erwin Rommel led his formations from the front. He achieved extraordinary success during both wars almost entirely as a result of this style of command. Even as a corps and later an army commander, Rommel led from the front. During his defeat of the British field army in Libya and the seizure of Tobruk, he accompanied the advanced elements of the combat forces which he sensed were at the crucial point in the battle. Amid the climate of danger, uncertainty, and confusion, Rommel reduced friction and grasped fleeting opportunities through his personal, physical presence with the forward elements of attacking forces."

Sixth, improvisation is of critical importance to raising speed. Often, you will find yourself in a situation where your assets -- weapons, vehicles, etc. -- are not adequate to keep you moving fast. Some of them may even be hindrances in your particular situation. When that happens, improvise. If you don't have enough mines, make some. If you do not have enough vehicles to move all your men, get some from the local economy. In France in 1940, Guderian put some of his infantry in commandeered French buses. On Grenada, when Army Rangers needed vehicles, they took East German trucks belonging to the Grenadian army. Sound extreme? If the situation were not extreme, you would not be improvising!

War -- successful war -- is filled with improvisation. You should start to learn how to improvise now, in your training. Leaders should value this innovative thinking. Moreover, they should expect it from their subordinates because it offers new opportunities.

For improvisation to be effective, commanders must readily exploit the opportunities uncovered by subordinates. Commanders cannot remain tied to plans that blind them to fleeting opportunities. While making the best possible preparations, they must welcome the unforeseen.

Finally, experience breeds speed. This is why veteran units are usually much faster than green, untried units. If you are familiar with a situation, or at least know generally what to expect, you can think, act, and move faster. In peacetime, your Marines are not likely to be veterans. Still, you can give them experience through tactical decision games, sand table exercises, war games, and field exercises.

SUMMARY

You may think of additional ways to be fast. That is to the good. When you find one that works, tell your fellow Marines about it so they can use it too. Anything that works to make you faster is good whether or not it is in the books.