Armored warfare: The British, French, and German experiences

Reexamining some management lessons from military history

“…These failures related directly to the preparation and (lack of) innovation during the interwar years and the resulting effects on operational doctrine and strategy (Boot, 2006;Doughty, 1985;Murray & Millett, 1996;Posen, 1984). France had missed numerous opportunities to learn from the extensive events in WWI (Murray, 2006), to craft something other than the methodical battle doctrine 8 (Bond & Alexander, 1986), to experiment further with aviation (Muller, 1996) and armored technology (Beaufre, 1968), the latter of which they had pioneered but basically dropped for a number of years (Murray, 1996).…”

Weapons for Strategic Effect How Important is Technology?

“…8 No less brutally, or accurately, Williamson Murray observes that "in the final result military organization are paid to kill the enemy in as effective a fashion as possib1e." 9 The threat and use of force, organized violence, for reasons of policy (be they dynastic, religious, spiritual -e.g., honor -or material), applied by contending political wills, is the very nature of war. It is the organization of violence that defines war, not the reasons of policy -provided the reasons are broadly political.…”

Innovation: Past and future

“…His officers developed doctrinal concepts based on past as well as current experience. 4 In 1920 he established 57 committees to study the lessons of World War I. 5 This effort produced the basic Reichswehr interwar doctrine manuals that had such influence on the Wehrmacht.…”