oh wow you even have an anthem for the Star League. You have thought this out pretty extensively so far. Keep up the work.
Thanks! Trying to anyways.
Lets take a look at some doctrine now.
Here is a Wiki Link to the Principles of War as practiced and understood today, in the real world (TM)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_warHere are the original Star League Defence Force Principles of War, as original cited in the SLSB. They refer to them as the Principles of Command, but we know what we're looking at; these are not quite guidelines for leadership, so much as warfighting in general and they are sourced in-universe from; "A Primer to Tactics and Strategy": 34th Edition, edited by General Aleksandr Kerensky, SLDF Press, 2742
1.Objective. Always keep a clear goal in mind. Without it, the lives you lose are meaningless.
2.Offensive. When given the chance, attack and remain on the offensive for as long as possible. The enemy is weakest when backing up, and so are you.
3.Unity of Command. Always know who is above and below you in the chain of command and what they are doing. It will not only help you in times of trouble, but it will also give you a better sense of how your mission fits into the overall picture.
4.Strength. Never willingly enter battle at a numerical disadvantage. Even the sloppiest army can defeat you if it is bigger.
5.Economy of Force. Do not waste your effort and supplies. Use just enough of your force to inflict the maximum amount of havoc on the enemy in the minimum amount of time. Save the rest of your strength to exploit your gains or protect yourself from counterattack.
6.Maneuver. Learn the value of maneuverability. Being able to speed across the battlefield in a coordinated wave of force can overwhelm the toughest opponent with a minimum of bloodshed.
7.Surprise. The element of surprise effectively doubles your force.
8.Intelligence. Information is like eggs, the fresher the better. A good guess might win a battle, but a bad one can eventually lose a campaign.
9.Simplicity. If a plan looks messy on paper or in a computer simulation, it is too complicated to succeed. The best plans often turn out to be ones drawn in the dirt and explained with a few hand gestures. A good solution applied with vigor immediately is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later.
10.Maintenance of Morale. Instill pride and sense of duty, worthiness, and loyalty into your soldiers. Keep them informed, rested, and happy. Officers should visit the front often, not to meddle but for personal contact with the troops.
11.Administration. This is the dullest, most mind-numbing of chores, but doing it properly is infinitely better than facing the enemy without ammunition.
12.Mercy. Be firm and win the day, but once the fighting is over, treat your prisoners with respect and courtesy. Not only is it the correct and moral thing for a soldier of the Star League to do, but once enemy soldiers hear of your merciful treatment, they might also be more willing to surrender.
***
Absorbing the job before his team, Then-Brevet-General McKenna knew from the patterns of history that to simply try and remake what had once been would be a disaster; for all the SLDF stood for, accomplished and meant as a symbol; just doing their best to re-create the force circa-24-hours before Stefan Amaris launched his coup would be both impractical and a waste. While people had not changed in over 50,000 years, let alone less than 400, the known worlds were a different place now than then; the current operating environment and the mission had both changed.
The problem was that the mission-statement had not.
The Purpose in Being for the SLDF was almost naive in it's simplicity; ensure the supremacy of the Terran Hegemony (which no longer existed), defend the Star League from existential threats (which was open-ended enough to baffle and disturb a socially deaf pragmatist like McKenna) and perform other such Peacekeeping and support duties as proved necessary.
The Clans represented an existential threat, but applying fuzzy logic could expand that definition to encompass almost any threat the First Lord of the Day chose. McKenna knew first-hand and by avoidance just how easily missions like Peacekeeping, domestic operations, counter-terror and other asymmetrical missions and operations other-than war could descend into expensive and unpopular quagmires. He'd arranged it often enough himself.
Another person would have rebelled at the unreasonable expectations, or subverted them. Not McKenna; he just followed the strictures of the mission statement to it's logical conclusion and extrapolated what he'd need when he got there.
The structure and organization of the New Model Army was almost predestined by the selection of SOG as it's cadre and progenitors, but to that point the mercenaries, while doctrinally adept; had yet to really put pen to paper; relying instead on a mix of institutional knowledge and a position-by-merit system which was in a word; Darwinian.
It was the hope of McKenna and his staff that by doing so now, they might produce a guiding light for future generations of soldiers who they knew would be extremely put-upon. In this way, they sought to influence the organizational culture and outlook of the army they were building and thus, they laid out their own Principles of War.
Such was hardly unusual in the successor states and beyond, where each great house (excepting the Federated Suns and Lyran Alliance, which still shared a system) had their own set of principles; elemental, certain, absolute and each subtly or severely different from the next. So too the major periphery states and some of the Clans (Some clans preferred a model more alike to what SOG practiced; you know it basically naturally, or you do not long retain your position. Upright; for instance).
The Principles of War of the New Model Army were thus:
Objective
Maneuver
Surprise
Simplicity
Information
Logistics
Superiority
Frightfulness
Annihilation
Geometry
Improvisation
All-Arms
Of these 12 principles;
Objective, Maneuver, Surprise and
Simplicity were unchanged from the original SLDF's Principles of Command and would have been familiar to most schooled military leaders of the Inner Sphere and beyond as well. Keen observers could pick out influences from Sun Tzu, Clauswitz, Kerensky and others, with very little imagination.
Information comprised intelligence, communication and security of same.
Logistics had to do with matters of supply, maintenance and administration.
Superiority was taken as a fact in evidence of the late SLDF's effectiveness and made a virtue of always maintaining the upper hand in at least one of technology, numbers, skill or one of the other Principles.
In
Frightfulness the SOG-Heritage of the New Model Army was on full display. McKenna and his inner circle sought to impart an intimate familiarity with Terror to their new SLDF. Frightfulness was a principle applied at every level; from the bearing of individual soldiers to basic tactics, on up to the assault upon the psyche of the enemy population and their leaders, all was balanced with the idea of unbalancing the mental equilibrium of opponents and replacing it with a sheer, unreasoning, paralyzing fright.
Annihilation was just simply an expression of the value of inflicting casualties and material friction on the enemy. It was inculcated to soldiers of the New Model Army from the very beginning that their job was to hurt people and break things; to get at the enemy any way they could and cause the maximum amount of wound, death, pain and destruction in the shortest time and all for the purpose of making conflict with the SLDF of the 2nd League a totally unpalatable proposition. "War is cruel." The posters said; "And the Crueler you can make it, the faster it will end. Long wars are never fruitful."
Geometry applied to matters of space and time in planning, as well as task-organization and organizational structure (shape) and how these ideas inter-related and produced a desirable outcome on the battlefield. In this way, it was hoped SLDF soldiers would come to understand the organization and structure of the larger force on a basic level; make it make sense to them why a given unit was "Shaped" how it was, employed how it was and how it moved and fought and covered ground.
The Principle of
Improvisation was a core SOG value that had saved time and lives over and over again. Getting this principle into the heart of the new SLDF's planning and leadership culture was deemed essential from the start. The New Model Army was from the outset a force which valued skills over drills and leaders were judged partly on how they could adapt their force to the situation on the ground, at every level, without the aid of an iron-clad set of drills and doctrine, which would set them into a narrow way of thinking about every situation.
Lastly
All-Arms was emphasized as a holistic, or cross-disciplinary approach to problems at all levels. Soldiers and leaders were taught from the outset to utilize the capabilities of diverse forces. This was inculcated at the lowest possible levels; taking the original concepts of combined arms to their natural conclusion with things like air support, security troops and fire support available as an organic part of all formations. McKenna had seen during his time with the Hell's Horses that the strict adherence to trade-loyalty practiced in some armies was the inferior way to go and close co-operation of different forces, under the same cap-badge was superior.
While overall the attitude would forever remain that leaders (and indeed; soldiers) were more born than trained, it was felt that ideas such as these would ensure the minimal wastage of talent among recruits passing through the cadre system.
