Excellent. This comports with many other things I have read about the development of the German Army 1870 to 1945 to include Officer education and General Staff Officer selection and training. To focus on one segment:
The development of a highly competent Officer Corps is a tremendous investment in time and effort with the results hard to measure until wartime. It is also a warning that it is not enough to be superb at the tactical and operational levels, select the cream of the crop from your nation but to also have the size, depth, industrial capacity and strategic leadership to prevail in modern attrition warfare. The lesson for the US might be:
1. Develop a professional officer corps of significant size without high turnover and with a singular focus on merit.
2. Discard the up or out system.
3. Slow promotions and extend service maximums
4. Do not discourage staff officer tracks
5. Husband and protect the true mavericks
6. Permit leaves of absence
7. Assign officers to operational units, schools and staffs. The rest is secondary.
8. Push language skills and assign Officers to every possible foreign exchange tour and foreign schools.
9. Reduce midgrade Officer education at civilian universities our tours with private industry.
“Marvelous to say, this section of Captain Wedemeyer’s report makes no mention of either motorized corps or armored corps.” 🤔
Excellent. This comports with many other things I have read about the development of the German Army 1870 to 1945 to include Officer education and General Staff Officer selection and training. To focus on one segment:
The development of a highly competent Officer Corps is a tremendous investment in time and effort with the results hard to measure until wartime. It is also a warning that it is not enough to be superb at the tactical and operational levels, select the cream of the crop from your nation but to also have the size, depth, industrial capacity and strategic leadership to prevail in modern attrition warfare. The lesson for the US might be:
1. Develop a professional officer corps of significant size without high turnover and with a singular focus on merit.
2. Discard the up or out system.
3. Slow promotions and extend service maximums
4. Do not discourage staff officer tracks
5. Husband and protect the true mavericks
6. Permit leaves of absence
7. Assign officers to operational units, schools and staffs. The rest is secondary.
8. Push language skills and assign Officers to every possible foreign exchange tour and foreign schools.
9. Reduce midgrade Officer education at civilian universities our tours with private industry.