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bradnelson t1_j1irub0 wrote

Reply to comment by mobilgroma in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

Sending a smaller unit out ahead of the main body is primarily done to locate the enemy and scout positions. A smaller unit is more mobile and can fall back to the main body. Sometimes you want your enemy to chase the vanguard as it retreats so that your main force can then attack the enemy from favorable ground. Very commons in Napoleonic and American Civil War era tactics, though you still see good examples of it in the world wars.

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mobilgroma t1_j1isbia wrote

Thanks for the quick and very good reply!

And because they do different things than the main army, they are organised and named differently?

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bradnelson t1_j1ix5gs wrote

Essentially, yes. There are variations on this based on the time period (and thus technology) as well as the theories of any given army. But broadly speaking, a vanguard could be any given army unit that is simply assigned that task. The next time they advance, it could be a different unit serving as the vanguard. Some armies might prefer to make the same unit the vanguard on a regular basis and train/equip it differently because of that. In some instances, it might be sending horse cavalry out ahead of the infantry, or it could be a specialized tank unit in WWII. I tend to think in the context of the American Civil War, so I typically picture infantry units ("skirmishers"). Usually they want to clear out any enemy units separated from the main enemy force (stragglers, scouts, or the enemy vanguard). Depending on who intends to go on the offensive, the vanguards might engage each other in a minor "battle" but they are never intended to carry out a proper fight, only to "feel out" the enemy, get them to retreat to avoid the main force, prevent the enemy from gathering intelligence about the size or position of the main force, or like I said before to coax the enemy into an attack on an entrenched main force.

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jrhooo t1_j1mgk7o wrote

Depends on time and task.

To steal from wikipedia here, an example of a Middle ages vanguard (literally “advance guard”) would have been the ubits tasked with first up duties. So..

Scouts

Engineers (to clear obstructions from the road)

And even some messengers/diplomats (to reach towns first and basically say “ok, the rest of the army is coming up, do you guys want to just surrender now? Or do we have to bother setting up the whole siege thing? Come on. Save us all a headache and just surrender eh? We’ll give you a nice deal)

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jrhooo t1_j1ml00l wrote

If you read the BOOK Generation Kill, they have good sort of example of this. (The TV Show is good but incomplete. It doesn’t explain whats happening as well)

But basically, on the initial invasion of Iraq, 2003, it LOOKS LIKE a Marine Corps Force Recon unit is being used as a traditional maneuver element, and (per the perspective of the book) being put in some needlessly risky positions, like obvious ambush routes.

Later the book sort of explains that the main force was on a “speed run”.

The Iraqi army was large, but notoriously disorganized and bad at command and control, SO the Allied war plan was speed. Overwhelm the Iraqi army and move too quickly for them to organize and coordinate defensive lines. Thus taking most of the country without a fight, and minimizing casualties all around.

Problem: slowing doen was not an option. Getting bogged down = giving the Iraqis a chance to regroup and dig in, snd them having to slug it out more often.

(In the words of Gen Mattis himself, in the prebrief, moving slow was a good way to land in an unpleasant convo with him. See: the Colonel he fired on the spot for getting stuck at a bridge)

So, SPEED

They were worried the Iraqis had a bunch of delaying ambushes set up that would bog down the main force

The Recon units were (according to the book) actually decoys, meant to trick the Iraqis into springing their ambushes early, so that your main force could just bypass them.

Hell of a tough task for the recon guys, BUT the whole idea dis that your toughest, best trained guys are the ones able to

A - lay down enough orce snd firepower for them to bluff an opponent into thinking they are a full sized unit

B - go around finding and baiting ambush positions, and actually survive doing it.

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