Thursday, 16 January 2014

the operational level the planning and prosecution of the Allies’ campaign in Sicily in July 1943


the operational level the planning and prosecution of the Allies’ campaign in Sicily in July 1943
Operation Essay: Analyse at the operational level the planning and prosecution of the Allies’ campaign in Sicily in July 1943.
Operation Husky (the code name of the campaign in Sicily) has lots of stuff in the planning side. However, the essay has to be balanced between planning and prosecution.
The analysis should be written in operation level so we should not be drifted into the tactical level nor to stay only on strategic level.
General structure of the essay:
Introduction (~600 Words)
1. What will this essay look to answer?
2. What is the structure of your essay?
3. Why are we looking at the Op level in Sicily – was the operational level used or not? Was the doctrine utilised?
4. Did some of the commanders in theatre utilise it?
5. What are your conclusions going to be (state them here).
Context and Definitions (~1000 Words)
1. What is the definition of the Operational level? Look to discuss
a. Origins of the Op level (Soviets 1936 ‘Deep Attack’ and ‘Blitzkrieg’).
b. The origins in the western world (US in the 1982???? Field Manual and the British in 1989).
c. State that the Operational level in contested.
2. What were the Grand Strategic aims for Sicily (Money? Power? Hegemony etc???)
3. Are the operational aims coherent with the Grand Strategic aims?
4. How did the command and control of the Campaign work?
5. Who owns the operational level in the Sicily campaign?
The Campaign (~600 Words)
1. Give a brief description of the campaign
a. Give a brief description why it occurred
b. Try and break it into phases if applicable
c. Give a brief description of the outcome
Analysis of the Planning and Execution of the Campaign (~3200 Words)
1. Was the campaign planned (whether the commanders knew it or not) at the operational level?
2. Give examples of operational successes and failures. Concentrate on:
a. Jointery (E.g. Army / Navy / Air Force joint operations)
b. Did the commanders in the campaign show strong or weak operational appreciation?
c. What was the single service culture like?
d. What was the joint service culture like?
3. Were the battles co-ordinated into a coherent campaign?
4. Was there operational level awareness either at the tactical / operational or strategic level?
Conclusion
1. State your conclusion as per your introduction.
2. State that the formalized operational level did not occur until after this conflict even though the Soviets had coined it in 1936.
3. What does the operational level do for warfare? Does it give a ‘handrail’ for operational commander to work towards that helps ‘operational art’

No comments:

Post a Comment