gw: hire someone who knows military strategy!

[Denzark]

Theirkin - you said warfare, not warfare tactics, in your post above.

[awats124]

I;d love to know what the Art of War has to say about defeating an invasion from a swarm of high powered fighter aircraft that outmatch you in every way.

agreed

[cobra6]

I was referring to the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of conflict. Strategy is how the military forces directly accomplish the nation's (or the Imperium's, or the Chaos Gods', etc.) political goals. The operational level is the campaign of battles and engagements to win the war. Tactics are how those battles are fought.

Formulation of a strategy consists of the goals you want to achieve ("ends"), the methods by which you will bring about those ends ("ways") and the resources you have available ("means"). Risk is accrued where there are disconnects between these three, and must be identified and managed.

An example of an Imperial strategy for the Badab War might be:

Ends: Recapture and pacify rebel worlds, open space lanes, publicly destroy renegade Astartes (as opposed to the doctrinal task "defeat") Reward/appease Loyalist chapters.

Ways: Naval warfare, planetary assault, assassination, war of attrition, religious pogroms

Means: Naval battlefleets, Space Marines, more Space Marines, Inquisitorial forces, Imperial Guard, Titans, Officio Assassinorum, large population, forgeworlds, etc.

Risks include the fact that there are not enough forces to concurrently enact all the strategic ways (this is where you game theory comes into play), Imperial forces might not be able to "destroy" the renegades, and other Imperial forces might join the renegades.

As you can tell, this is not the stuff good pulp Sci-Fi is made of!

[Denzark]

I was referring to the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of conflict. Strategy is how the military forces directly accomplish the nation's (or the Imperium's, or the Chaos Gods', etc.) political goals. The operational level is the campaign of battles and engagements to win the war. Tactics are how those battles are fought.

Formulation of a strategy consists of the goals you want to achieve ("ends"), the methods by which you will bring about those ends ("ways") and the resources you have available ("means"). Risk is accrued where there are disconnects between these three, and must be identified and managed.

An example of an Imperial strategy for the Badab War might be:

Ends: Recapture and pacify rebel worlds, open space lanes, publicly destroy renegade Astartes (as opposed to the doctrinal task "defeat") Reward/appease Loyalist chapters.

Ways: Naval warfare, planetary assault, assassination, war of attrition, religious pogroms

Means: Naval battlefleets, Space Marines, more Space Marines, Inquisitorial forces, Imperial Guard, Titans, Officio Assassinorum, large population, forgeworlds, etc.

Risks include the fact that there are not enough forces to concurrently enact all the strategic ways (this is where you game theory comes into play), Imperial forces might not be able to "destroy" the renegades, and other Imperial forces might join the renegades.

As you can tell, this is not the stuff good pulp Sci-Fi is made of!

You are forgetting Grand Strategic.

Grand Strategic in terms of Intergalactic Empire, would probably be planning regarding a sector or a crusade.

Strategic may be a whole system or planet depending on if the objectives interlink.

Operational would probably be a whole continent. Gaunts Ghosts doing some of their thang probably hovers at the lower end of the operational level, but normally it would be several units working to one goal.

Tactical would be an individual unit battling away.

[Slurpeemourne]

I'd like to know which novels the OP was referring to. I've got to say, there has been a lot of muddled strategery and inscrutable battlefield tactics in what I've read, but I think that that is largely intentional. I see this play out primarily in the infantry novels, but part of establishing the setting for a 40k infantry novel is a disconnect between the generals and the grunts -- the feeling that the brass is working against the trooper, and the best they can do is keep their head down and live until tomorrow. Nonsensical or inscrutable orders establish that.

Perhaps another issue is that these fellas are military lifers in a regime that makes the distribution of military intelligence a very low priority if not a capitol offense. They don't give their planning and reasons, because the assembled personnel don't deserve to know. Or perhaps it isn't given because it's instinctively understood, as in the case of the Space Marines (although insight into Space Marines tactics via internal dialogue would both make sense stylistically, and establish them as somewhat more dry and one-track-minded).

[Slurpeemourne]

Plus, sound military strategizing is just bad plot design. It becomes: "This is what we want, what we're going to do, and what we're going to do it with. This is how they are likely to respond. Here is how we will mitigate their response." Then, they march from the command tent, and proceed to do exactly that. The enemy might unveil some new grand strategy, but the story's already half told. And the opening chapters of the fighting is largely redundant and boring. The whole, "tell them what you're going to do, do it, then tell them what you did" formula may be a great way to communicate, but is awful at building tension.

[theirkin]

cobra6: thanks for the definitions. it's always been explained to me (and this is probably the result of instructors and myself improperly reasoning it out for ourselves) that strategic and operational were synonymous (i was an enlistee and did 5 years, so strategy wasn't something emphasized at our level in an official capacity, so strategic and operation were the same. as to your last bit, about the fact that this wouldn't make good pulp sci-fi, i totally agree. but in the campaign books and other, non-narrative driven settings it shouldn't become that pulpy sci-fi like the black library is. i feel that this create an artificial barrier in getting into the minds of the commanders.

denzark: i like your different levels and assigning them their own terms. by defining them we are better able to hold this conversation.

slurpeemourne: i was mostly referring to the ghosts books. to a lesser extent you can also talk about the heresy series, the cain books, and most of the non-inquisition imperium novels. i'm not as familiar with novels from other perspectives, so i can't speak to them with any kind of authority. i agree with you on all counts about the limiting of information sharing and dissemination of purpose. again, i'd nuance my argument to refer it to campaign books (which are light on the ground) and codexes. i called out black library books because they sometimes give a more plausable overarching view of strategy, but it's that very perspective that i want from my codexes and campaign books.

again, i agree that it makes for good narrative to withhold or distort that information as it gets passed down, but we as the reader should be privy to this information, and i find it un-credible that, for example, in the example of that bit of flavor text the instructor wouldn't have the benefit of hindsight and be able to better explain it when reprimanding his failed students.

joe