Feral Jundi

Friday, June 5, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: The Attack By Fire and the Super-empowered Individual

“It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair. “-The Joker, from the movie Dark Knight

     This is a building snowmobiles post for the simple reason that no one else is covering this arsonist story or fire in this way (minus maybe War Nerd), or really getting into the concepts of the ‘attack by fire’.  Oyler, the arsonist, is the ultimate definition of the super-empowered individual, and truly symbolizes a modern day Joker.  Fortunately, he will be meeting the same fate as that character.

   Now of course I will not give a DIY class about using the attack by fire, but I do want to give a hint to the reader that this is stuff we need to be thinking about.  Lets just say it should be in your toolbox of ideas, so you know how to defend against it. But according to the Geneva Convention, fire as an offensive weapon has been ruled out, hence why flame throwers are not used anymore. (I posted the protocol below)  But if you read through it, it lists everything a terrorist or an insurgent wouldn’t mind doing to achieve a goal.  So learning how to defend against it, is key.

     But back to the attack by fire and the super-empowered individual.  What Oyler did, is exactly what arsonists do, and that is get off on lighting fires.  He had been perfecting his technique all summer in 2006, and the Esperanza Fire was his so called ‘masterpiece of chaos’.  So what can we learn from this tragic event? I will attempt to answer that question, both from a smokejumper/forest fire fighter position, and from a security professional position, and also delve into the attack by fire from a warfighter and strategist point of view.  

     As a smokejumper, I fought many forest fires throughout the west.  We would fight the small fires, and we would fight the big fires, it didn’t matter.  We would fight naturally started fires(lightening started) and we would fight man made fires (trash fires, thrown cigarettes, etc.).  But the most disheartening and frightening fires, are the ones set by arsonists.  Especially arsonists that know what they are doing.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: The Useful Contractor

   I was flipping through some military history the other day, and found what I think is another excellent building snowmobiles topic.  What defines the ultimate security contractor out there?  Is it someone who is just really good with a pistol, or someone that drives really well, or what?  Or better yet, what kind of contractor really has value in the grand spectrum of this kind of work?  

   Well, from what I can gather in history, it pays to know how to do a lot of different things if you want to do this kind of work and be successful.

    For example, a guy that knows how to fix weapons, is a very valuable asset out on contracts.  Most companies do not provide armorers, and if they do have them, they seem to never make it out to your location when you need them the most.  So eventually, you either learn to fix your own weapons, or you take it to the guy on that contract who has armorer skills and the tools to do the job.  That guy tends to be very popular on contracts, and they increase in value with every repair they do.  And if the site manager has to make some cuts, and he has to choose between the ‘useful contractor’ or the guy that just gets along, then he will cut the non-useful contractor and go with the guy that can fix weapons.

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Sunday, April 12, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: PMC Versus PMC, and Learning from the Battle of Marignano

So what happens, when in the course of events, a modern private military company contracted by one side of a conflict, confronts a private military company contracted by the other side on the field of battle?  What would that look like in modern times?
Of course who ever can pay the most, would conceivably get the best contract army, but if both sides could afford the best in the industry, what would that fight look like and what would be the deciding factors in victory?
Well one case study that I stumbled upon, was the case of the Swiss Guard versus the German Landsknecht back during the early 16th century.  To sum it up, the Germans copied the model of warfare of the Swiss Guard, and then added new technology in the form of some really crude but effective muskets and cannons (arquebus and artillery), and gained as much field experience as they could when fighting other enemies to essentially prepare them for the eventual big battle with Swiss.  The Swiss Guard was defeated because of this preparation, technology, strategy, and because of their arrogance and failure to apply Kaizen to their organization.     The Swiss were successful for a long time, but they got cocky and just couldn’t believe anyone could defeat them.  Famous last words.  The Landsknecht built the better snowmobile, and knocked the king right off the mountain.
So to really boil this down, the Landsknecht were a better learning organization.  They identified the best model of operation (the Swiss Guard model), copied it to the point of even wearing the same types of showy uniforms, and also found the latest technologies and used those to great advantage on the field of battle.  It also took sound leadership to convince the troops that they could defeat the best of the best with that new technology and Swiss Guard-like organization and tactics. The Germans knew themselves and the enemy, and they won. Business can learn from this, and if a modern PMC ever has to fight another modern PMC on the battlefield, these very lessons will more than likely have to be re-applied to gain this victory. Especially now with the advent of the internet and the free flow of information–everyone has access to everything to include the best industry practices and successful models of operation.  I almost think warfare will boil back down to just being faster, more organized, and more efficient than the other guy, who will more than likely be using the same stuff and ideas as you.  The OODA loop will definitely apply.  That, and the ability to be more creative and forward thinking than the other guy.
I also look at this from a strategist’s point of view.  The Germans obviously had the Boydian style of thinking, when trying to figure out how to defeat the best of the best.  They would have been the ones to use a little Clauswitz, a little Sun Tzu, and whomever else to really seek out what works and take pieces of everything to build the army they wanted.  The prize for this battle, was increased reputation and more contracts for being the new leaders in the industry.
I guess we can give the Swiss credit for being the first to use the fife (a dorky little flute) for command and control in their battle against the Germans? lol –Matt

 

Wikipedia

The Swiss (on the right) assault the Landsknecht mercenaries in the French lines at the Battle of Marignano.

 

The Swiss and the Landsknechts in the Great Italian Wars (wikipedia)

Until roughly 1490, the Swiss had a virtual monopoly on pike-armed mercenary service. However, after that date, the Swiss mercenaries were increasingly supplemented by imitators, chiefly the Landsknechts. Landsknechts were Germans (at first largely from Swabia) and became proficient at Swiss tactics to produce a force that filled the ranks of European armies with mercenary regiments for decades. Although the Landsknechts were never quite as redoubtable as the Swiss, they were much more readily available for hire, as after 1515 the Swiss pledged themselves to neutrality, other than regarding Swiss soldiers serving in the ranks of the Royal French army. The Landsknecht, however, would serve any paymaster, even, at times, enemies of the Holy Roman Emperor (and Landsknechts at times even fought each other on the battlefield, something the Swiss flatly refused to do in mercenary service). The Landsknecht assumed the bright, garish soldier’s outfits of the Swiss, and in fact soon outdid the Swiss in the flamboyance of their military dress.

The Swiss were not flattered by the imitation, and the two bodies of mercenaries immediately became bitter rivals over employment and on the battlefield, where they were often opposed during the major European conflict of the early sixteenth century, the Great Italian Wars. Although the Swiss generally had a significant edge in a simple “push of pike”, the resulting combat was nonetheless quite savage, and known to Italian onlookers as “bad war.” Period artists such as Hans Holbein attest to the fact that two such huge pike columns crashing into each other could result in a maelstrom of battle, and ghastly casualties on both sides.

 

Despite the competition from the Landsknechts, and imitation by other armies (most notably the Spanish, which adopted pike-handling as one element of its famed Tercios infantry formations), the Swiss fighting reputation reached its zenith between 1480-1525, and indeed the Battle of Novara, fought by Swiss mercenaries, is seen by some as the perfect Swiss battle. Even the close defeat at the terrible Battle of Marignano in 1515, the “Battle of Giants,” was seen as a victory of sorts for Swiss arms due to the ferocity of the fighting and the good order of their withdrawal. Nonetheless, the repulse at Marignano presaged the decline of the Swiss form of warfare — eventually, the two-century run of Swiss victories ended in 1522 with complete disaster at the Battle of Bicocca when combined Spanish and Landsknecht forces decisively defeated them using fortifications and new technology. It can be argued that it was arrogance — overconfidence in their own supposed invincibility — which defeated the Swiss as much as the armed forces of their enemies, for at Bicocca, the Swiss mercenaries, serving the French king, attempted repeatedly to frontally storm an impregnable defensive position, only to be mown down by small-arms and artillery fire. Never had the Swiss suffered such awful casualties while being unable to inflict much damage upon their foe. Arrogance and overconfidence were at play here, but another consideration was economic — many of the Swiss mercenaries were still farmers, and needed to return home from campaign quickly in order to work the fields. This meant they often rushed, unthinking, into ill-advised battles in the hopes they would crush the enemy of their employer, collect booty, get paid, and march home to work their fields.

History of the Landsknecht

The first Landsknecht regiments were formed by Maximilian I. He called upon Georg von Frundsberg, known by many as the Father of the Landsknechts, to assist him in their organization. They later went on to fight in almost every 16th century military campaign, sometimes on both sides of the engagement. The landsknechts, formed in conscious imitation of the Swiss mercenaries (and, initially, using Swiss instructors), eventually contributed to the defeat of the redoubtable Swiss whose battle formations, overly-dependent on hand to hand fighting, became vulnerable to the increased fire power of arquebus and artillery. French artillery or Spanish firepower dealt serious blows to the Swiss formations, and the Landsknecht pike blocks were there to fight off the depleted Swiss attack columns once this had occurred.

The Landsknechts, although rather conservative themselves in weapons usage, and always containing a large majority of pikemen, were more predisposed to the tactical employment of firearms than the Swiss were because Landsknechts relied less on the precipitous rush to close combat and, as Imperial soldiers, they also often fought in formations mixed with Spaniards, who made widespread use of the arquebus and, later, musket.

The landsknechts typically came from Swabia, Alsace, Flanders, and the Rhineland, but ultimately the regiments were made up of men from all parts of Europe.

Their battlefield behavior was highly variable. Sometimes, such as at the Battle of Pavia, they performed very well, being instrumental to the Emperor’s victory. However, on many other occasions, (such as in the later Italian Wars, French Wars of Religion and the Eighty Years War) their bravery and discipline came under severe criticism, and the Spanish elements of the Imperial army regularly derogated the battlefield usefulness of the Landsknechts — the Duke of Alba is said to have hired them only to deny the Dutch enemy of their service, and that he put them on display to swell his numbers and did not intend to fight with them. The Huguenots scorned their landsknecht mercenaries after these were immediately routed by the battered Swiss mercenary pike block they had been sent to finish off at the Battle of Dreux.

Organization

The regiments often expanded from 4,000 to 10,000 men according to circumstances, or even larger — the Black Band, generally considered to have been a regiment of landsknechts, were 17,000 strong when raised by the French in 1515. It was this flexibility which allowed them to be used in various battle conditions. Oberste (colonels) were given recruiting commissions by the Emperor to form regiments, with a lieutenant-colonel and various regimental staff, and units divided into Fähnleins (companies) with a Hauptmann (captain) in charge, as well as lieutenants and Fähnriche (ensigns). Other ranks included majors of the court-martial and officers in charge of camp followers.

The Tross were the camp followers or “baggage train” who traveled with each Landsknecht unit, carrying the military necessities, the food and the belongings of each soldier and his family. Members of the Tross were made up of women, children and some craftsmen.

Weapons

Landsknechts were trained in the use of the famous long pikes and used the pike square formations developed by the Swiss. The majority of Landsknechts would use pikes, but others, meant to provide tactical assistance to the pikemen, accordingly used different weapons. For example, an experienced Landsknecht could be designated a Doppelsöldner, and instead of wielding a pike as did more recent recruits, would employ a six to eight foot long halberd or partisan, or, more famously, a Zweihänder, a two-handed sword as long as 6 feet (although it was generally called at the time a Beidhänder rather than a Zweihänder). These great war swords could be used to hack off the heads of enemy pikes; or more likely to knock the pikes aside, creating disorder among the tightly arranged enemy pikemen in order to break through their lines.

However, this tactic seems to have been of limited value, and was possibly dropped after around 1510 (although pictorial evidence of the use of these swords in the front lines exists until at least late into the 16th century) – their Swiss adversaries had specifically prohibited it when they went over to widespread use of the pike in the early 15th century, because the weapon was too large to use in constricted pike warfare. “Doppelsöldner” meant “double mercenary”, because they were paid double the wages of their less experienced counterparts.

Other Landsknechts would use the arquebus, the precursor to the musket. When the Landsknechts were first formed, arquebusiers composed up to an eighth of the total number of soldiers, but the number gradually grew to be about a quarter.

The universal Landsknecht weapon was a short sword called a Katzbalger, carried in addition to the Landsknecht’s main weapon. Indeed, the Katzbalger was seen as the very symbol of the Landsknecht, Swiss illustrators being careful to depict it to indicate that a mercenary was a Landsknecht rather than a Reisläufer.

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Ascendancy of Swiss field mercenaries

During the Late Middle Ages, mercenary forces grew in importance in Europe, as veterans from the Hundred Years War and other conflicts came to see soldiering as a profession rather than a temporary activity, and commanders sought long-term professionals rather than temporary feudal levies to fight their wars. Swiss mercenaries (Reisläufer) were valued throughout Late Medieval Europe for the power of their determined mass attack in deep columns with the pike and halberd. Hiring them was made even more attractive because entire ready-made Swiss mercenary contingents could be obtained by simply contracting with their local governments, the various Swiss cantons—the cantons had a form of militia system in which the soldiers were bound to serve and were trained and equipped to do so. It should be noted, however, that the Swiss also hired themselves out individually or in small bands.

The warriors of the Swiss cantons had gradually developed a reputation throughout Europe as skilled soldiers, due to their successful defense of their liberties against their Austrian Habsburg overlords, starting as early as the late thirteenth century, including such remarkable upset victories over heavily-armoured knights as Morgarten and Laupen. This was furthered by later successful campaigns of regional expansion (mainly into Italy). By the fifteenth century they were greatly valued as mercenary soldiers, particularly following their series of notable victories in the Burgundian Wars in the latter part of the century. As a result, bands of men, sometime acting independently, other times under the banners of their cantons, marched off to foreign lands to fight in the causes of others, for pay. The native term Reisläufer literally means “one who goes to war” and is derived from Middle High German Reise, meaning “military campaign.”

The Swiss, with their head-down attack in huge columns with the long pike, refusal to take prisoners, and consistent record of victory, were greatly feared and admired—for instance, Machiavelli addresses their system of combat at length in The Prince. The Valois Kings of France, in fact, considered it a virtual impossibility to take the field of battle without Swiss pikeman as the infantry core of their armies. (Although often referred to as “pikemen,” the Swiss mercenary units also contained halberdiers as well until several decades into the sixteenth century, as well as a small number of skirmishers armed with crossbows or crude firearms to precede the rapid advance of the attack column.)

The young men who went off to fight, and sometimes die, in foreign service had several incentives—limited economic options in the still largely-rural cantons; adventure; pride in the reputation of the Swiss as soldiers; and finally what military historian Sir Charles Oman describes as a pure love of combat and warfighting in and of itself, forged by two centuries of conflict.

The Swiss and the Landsknechts in the Great Italian Wars

Until roughly 1490, the Swiss had a virtual monopoly on pike-armed mercenary service. However, after that date, the Swiss mercenaries were increasingly supplemented by imitators, chiefly the Landsknechts. Landsknechts were Germans (at first largely from Swabia) and became proficient at Swiss tactics to produce a force that filled the ranks of European armies with mercenary regiments for decades. Although the Landsknechts were never quite as redoubtable as the Swiss, they were much more readily available for hire, as after 1515 the Swiss pledged themselves to neutrality, other than regarding Swiss soldiers serving in the ranks of the Royal French army. The Landsknecht, however, would serve any paymaster, even, at times, enemies of the Holy Roman Emperor (and Landsknechts at times even fought each other on the battlefield, something the Swiss flatly refused to do in mercenary service). The Landsknecht assumed the bright, garish soldier’s outfits of the Swiss, and in fact soon outdid the Swiss in the flamboyance of their military dress.

The Swiss were not flattered by the imitation, and the two bodies of mercenaries immediately became bitter rivals over employment and on the battlefield, where they were often opposed during the major European conflict of the early sixteenth century, the Great Italian Wars. Although the Swiss generally had a significant edge in a simple “push of pike”, the resulting combat was nonetheless quite savage, and known to Italian onlookers as “bad war.” Period artists such as Hans Holbein attest to the fact that two such huge pike columns crashing into each other could result in a maelstrom of battle, and ghastly casualties on both sides.

Despite the competition from the Landsknechts, and imitation by other armies (most notably the Spanish, which adopted pike-handling as one element of its famed Tercios infantry formations), the Swiss fighting reputation reached its zenith between 1480-1525, and indeed the Battle of Novara, fought by Swiss mercenaries, is seen by some as the perfect Swiss battle. Even the close defeat at the terrible Battle of Marignano in 1515, the “Battle of Giants,” was seen as a victory of sorts for Swiss arms due to the ferocity of the fighting and the good order of their withdrawal.

Nonetheless, the repulse at Marignano presaged the decline of the Swiss form of warfare — eventually, the two-century run of Swiss victories ended in 1522 with complete disaster at the Battle of Bicocca when combined Spanish and Landsknecht forces decisively defeated them using fortifications and new technology. It can be argued that it was arrogance — overconfidence in their own supposed invincibility — which defeated the Swiss as much as the armed forces of their enemies, for at Bicocca, the Swiss mercenaries, serving the French king, attempted repeatedly to frontally storm an impregnable defensive position, only to be mown down by small-arms and artillery fire. Never had the Swiss suffered such awful casualties while being unable to inflict much damage upon their foe. Arrogance and overconfidence were at play here, but another consideration was economic — many of the Swiss mercenaries were still farmers, and needed to return home from campaign quickly in order to work the fields. This meant they often rushed, unthinking, into ill-advised battles in the hopes they would crush the enemy of their employer, collect booty, get paid, and march home to work their fields.

Organization and tactics of early Swiss mercenary contingents

The early contingents of Swiss mercenary pikemen organized themselves rather differently than the cantonal forces. In the cantonal forces, their armies were usually divided into the Vorhut (vanguard), Gewalthut (center) and Nachhut (rearguard), generally of different sizes and often echeloned back with respect to each other. In mercenary contingents, although they could conceivably draw up in three similar columns if their force was of sufficient size, more often they simply drew up in one or two huge columns which deployed side by side, forming the center of the army in which they served. Likewise, their tactics were not very similar to those used by the Swiss cantons in their brilliant tactical victories of the Burgundian Wars and Swabian War, in which they relied on maneuver at least as much as the brute force of the attack columns. In mercenary service they became much less likely to resort to outmaneuvering the enemy and relied more on a straightforward steamroller assault.

Such deep pike columns could crush lesser infantry in close combat and were invulnerable to the effects of a cavalry charge, but they were vulnerable to firearms if they could be immobilized (as seen in the Battle of Marignano). The Swiss mercenaries did deploy crossbows, handguns and artillery of their own, however these always remained very subsidiary to the pike and halberd square. Despite the proven armour-penetration capability of firearms, they were also very inaccurate, slow-loading, and susceptible to damp conditions, and did not fit well with the fast-paced attack tactics used by the Swiss mercenary pike forces.

The Swiss remained primarily pikemen throughout the sixteenth century, but after that period they adopted similar infantry formations and tactics to other units in the armies in which they served. Accordingly, their tactics became less unique, and they took a normal place in the battle line amongst the other infantry units.

End of Military Ascendancy of Swiss Mercenary Pikemen

In the end, as proven at Marignano and Bicocca, the pike attack of the Swiss mercenaries proved to be too vulnerable to firearms wielded by Spanish and Landsknecht arquebusiers and the earthworks and artillery of the French. These arquebusiers and heavy cannons scythed down the close-packed ranks of the Swiss squares in bloody heaps — at least, as long as the Swiss attack could be bogged down by earthworks or cavalry charges, and the shooters were backed up by Spanish and/or Landsknecht pikemen to defend them if necessary from the Swiss in close combat.

Other stratagems could also take the Swiss pikemen at a disadvantage. For instance, the Spanish rodeleros, also known as Sword and Buckler Men, armed with steel rodelas and side-swords, often wearing a helmet and a breastplate, were much better armed and armoured for man-to-man close combat than the Swiss. Accordingly, they could heavily defeat the Swiss if their pike column could be disorganized so that the rodeleros could dash under the unwieldy pikes of the Swiss and stab the lightly-armoured, shieldless Swiss infantry. Landsknechts, using a formation similar to that of the Swiss, were defeated with terrible slaughter by the Spanish rodeleros at the Battle of Ravenna. It should be noted, however, that this required disorganization of the pike column, and Swiss pike columns which retained good formation were able to heavily defeat Spanish rodeleros formations in battles such as at the Battle of Seminara.

Link Here for the Swiss Guard

Link Here for the Landsknechts

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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Building Snowmobiles: OODA and You by Robert Greene

   snowmobile

     This is a new category that I am really excited about here at FJ.  Colonel John Boyd is highly inspirational not only to me, but to thousands out there that are into radical thought processes and winning the fight.  He also was able to change the Pentagon from the inside out with his ideas, which says a lot about his ideas.  So in celebration of his ‘building snowmobiles’ concept, I will try to find the various idea people out there that are putting the pieces together to win.

     Also, if you want to get a good sense of what Boyd was about, there are several videos and audio recordings of him and his briefings.  Just click here to check them out.

      This article below, is a prime example of an idea guy ‘building snowmobiles’ out of Boyd’s OODA Loop.  In the future, I will seek out individuals who are creating new ideas out of the various pieces out there.  How this applies to the security industry, is that we are always trying to assemble the pieces in our area of operations and put them together to find solutions to defeat the enemy.  To us, winning is protecting our client.

    In a larger sense, security companies are also building snowmobiles by winning bids on contracts.  They do this by constantly constructing plans and strategies within their own organizations to be more efficient and cost effective than the next guy.  And companies are constantly reworking their capabilities(building snowmobiles) and doing their best to deliver excellent services so they can keep those contracts.

     On a personal level, we as security professionals are constantly evolving.  We must never say we are an expert, because that would imply that we know everything there is to know about a subject.  Instead you should always have the mind frame of having a firm foundation with the concepts, but always willing to look outward and inward and learn.  To continue to learn about yourself and to learn about your enemy.  And we are always taking all of this information and assembling it into what we are and how we do business or basically building snowmobiles. –Head Jundi

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(This is the break down of the building snowmobiles thought experiment by one of Boyd’s associates.)

 On to the experiment. Imagine four scenarios: someone skiing, someone power-boating, someone bicycling, and a boy playing with a toy tank. Break down each domain into its component parts: For skiing, there would be snow, chairlifts, skis, hot chocolate, and so on. Within their domain, the parts have directly identifiable relationships with one another. But scramble together the parts from the four domains, and suddenly it’s hard to determine any relationships at all. We are thrown into chaos.

Now, Spinney instructs, take one part from each scene: From skiing, select the skis; from power boating, the motor; from bicycling, the handlebars; and from the boy with his toy tank, the treads. What do these elements have to do with one another? At first, seemingly nothing — because we still think of them in terms of their original domains. But bring the parts together, and you’ve used your creative pattern-recognition skills to build … a snowmobile! “A winner,” Boyd concluded, “is someone who can build snowmobiles … when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.”

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 OODA Loop and You

February 24, 2007

by Robert Greene

A few weeks ago I gave a talk at a company convention in southern California. This company has offices worldwide, is very successful in its line of work, but on the horizon are some dangers. They brought me in to address those dangers. The specifics here do not matter much, only to say that, like a lot of companies that were successful in the 80s and on up to the present, they have come to rely upon a particular business model that is part circumstance and part design.

Loosely put, their upper-tier employees operate more like entrepreneurs, each one out for him or herself. Each office tends to think of itself as an island, competing with the other branches across the globe. This works to some extent, as these entrepreneurs are very motivated to expand the business. On the other hand, it makes it very difficult to create an overall esprit de corps.

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