How the hell is it possible for commanders in modern war to keep track of all their units? When you have hundreds of divisions even just keeping track of which unit is part of which corps, who is in command, and where the unit is and its status seems like an insurmountable challenge.
And then you have a small number of commanders at the top having to absorb this absolutely massive amount of information and try to make a plan out of it that takes into account the actions of the enemy and THEIR dispositions

It's not one dude playing an RTS. You have a literal massive bureaucracy for keeping track of everything.

Hitler appears to have challenged the game-like management of the military.

There is an entire chain of officers from platoon leaders to division commanders under you to deal with that shit.

In a functional military. I'm reminded of that video of a Russian Major General beating random mobiks with a stick because they didn't complete a patrol to his satisfaction.

>>63878544 (OP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control

In a civilian office setting or blue-collar job site one manager can oversee up to 20-30 people; or up to 60-150 on an industrial-age assembly line.
In a high stress military environment it's traditionally 4 per manager in frontline roles, though sometimes up to 6-7 in the rear.
The general is overseeing 4-7 guys arranged in a staff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#Continental_Staff_System
Each oversees their own 4-7 guys and so on down the chain to the lowest grunts.

It's called the chain of command. They don't keep track of the units. They keep track of unit commanders.

>>63878544 (OP)
We have software for that

>>63878544 (OP)
>even just keeping track of which unit is part of which corps, who is in command, and where the unit is and its status seems like an insurmountable challenge.
correct, and sometimes enemy tries to take advantage of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dninvXjUzA

>>63878544 (OP)
Subordinates handle the more intricate, finer details of unit organization, movement, and logistics. The commander only really issues orders to large (generally theater wide) concentrations of troops and reacts to strategic changes in the situation.

sitaware frontline

>>63878544 (OP)
>How the hell is it possible for commanders in modern war to keep track of all their units?
It's called maps, Anon.

>>63878610
Professional militaries do, yes. Peasant militaries like Russia’s, Iran’s, most of the world’s etc, do not. A strong officer corps is required, and like everything else this is based entirely on the IQ level of the society.

>>63878544 (OP)
This is a thing known and accounted for. In general, a commander can only effectively control 3-4 maneuver elements in combat before it starts to get overwhelming. That's why most all militaries are organized so that each tier of command only controls 3-4 maneuver elements. A commander gives tasks to his direct subordinates and doesn't bother trying to micromanage the lower units. A battalion commander doesn't say "send 2nd platoon from C company to this ridge and lay out your guns like so." He says "C company, secure this ridge" and then the commander of C company tasks a platoon to cover over there, then the platoon leader lays out his squads, then squad leaders assign sectors of fire and then the team leader ensures his 4 guys do their jobs. Each level of command has their own role and as you go up, that role becomes more abstract and less about the minutiae of the present.

>>63879677
This.

>>63880041
At least until recently, russia's military had the opposite problem of what you think - they had too many officers. Something like 1 in 3 non-conscripts were commissioned officers, meanwhile enlisted get treated like dirt and raped and such, so they had barely any NCOs.

The one upside of having too many officers, though, is being able to handle bureaucracy pretty efficiently.

>>63880063
the golden number after WW2 seems to be between 2 and 3 elements
most divisions are now triangular, and each unit below that is triangular as well
and battalions tend to only maneuver 2 of their 3 companies at a time, the third being a reserve only committed at the critical moment

>>63881350
at least on paper, a WW2 soviet squad was headed by a SGT same as a US rifle squad
with the officer being in charge of a platoon, and with tactical movement being based around the platoon, same as any other squad of its time

>>63883922
>at least on paper, a WW2 soviet squad was headed by a SGT same as a US rifle squad
Isn't a Soviet or Russian sergeant basically just a higher ranked conscript who barely has any responsibilities other than ensuring the squad knows the officer's orders?
Well, he's probably senior to the rest of the squad, so his tasks may also include keeping them properly lowered and submissive, but anyways.

It's a very top-down military. Even the officer leading the platoon is usually just there to execute detailed orders written and signed by senior officers at brigade HQ last week.

>>63883994
Yeah, this top down style had some really bizarre antics. I remember the early war crap in 2022 and how the old fart math by the Kremlin suggested, that Ukraine would fold if you put enough modifiers on an army grouping.
Or how Wagner pioneered russian drone usage in Bakhmut. They observed their meat, told them via comms where to go and die. Like a bizarro rts.

>>63883994
>>63884021
probably the place where their officer-centrism was most apparent was probably in their tanks
the smallest tactical unit was the tank company, because the 3-tank platoon could not be subdivided into fireteams since any further division would result in a lone tank

so even the most basic fire and maneuver had to be carried out by a captain, moving his three tank platoons on the battlefield
and each LT didnt really have much control, since he effectively only controlled a single unit of 3 tanks

a platoon was a relatively free acting unit in literally any other army at the time other than the british
with the LT commanding 2 fire teams each, with all tanks being commanded by a SGT
so a platoon could fire and move on its own, or it could split into two teams to cover two different infantry platoons at its own discretion
whereas the same decision making was carried out at the company level at least for the soviets

>>63879677
>in a civ...
Maybe. In a competent organization. Where people give a shit and aren't turds.
You should see the shithole company I work for.
>ops vp
>ops dir
>ops manager
>two ops leads
>a secondary paper pusher
>12 actual workers
At least as far as production staff is concerned.
And the job is stupidly low effort to functionally manage. It's well known by everyone that 80% of these people's time is spent doing nothing at all.

I live in a hell of incompetence and laziness.

>>63878544 (OP)
You don't keep track of everything
You keep track of ten guys, and every one of them keeps track of their own tend guys who each keep track of their own ten guys
It requires a lot of trust in your subordinates' competence, but it allows a lot of flexibility and makes it easier to wrangle everyone, at the cost of being able to micromanage (which is an advantage more often than not desu)

>>63884727
>requires a lot of trust in your subordinates' competence
Well, it's either this or you send senior officers to the front line to yell at the tards until things are done properly.
Incidentally, hasn't Russia lost like 150 colonels and a few hundred Lt Cols since 2022?

computer do everything

>>63878544 (OP)
It's called a General Staff and some of the smartest and hardest working soldiers in the army are part of it. It could be as simple as a half dozen enlisted playing secretary or you could have an entire building of office workers just sorting out reports and figuring out what orders need to be issued to carry out the general's orders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#

>>63884768
You need someone to actually do data entry for the computers. Otherwise the computer is just a very expensive box.

>>63884819
yeah you still need a pilot even with autopilot

>>63884849
If only to turn on the autopilot.

>>63880063
This. Although it gets more complicated with attachments and enablers. If refine this answer with saying a general typically has 9 people he needs to control. 3-4 organic land maneuver, 1 aviation, 1 arty, 1 sustainment, his S3 (operations), and his XO (or deputy cdr).
The XO figure has the more difficult job of synchronizing the staff. The s3 is to synchronize the subordinate units. Honestly- generals don't really plan shit. They MIGHT give a direction, but the s3 shop planners create multiple courses of action with input from the staff, then brief the general and he provides input and decides which plan will be implemented. At the div and corp echelon it's really majors (10-14 year exp) running the war. The general's primary function is the approval authority and briefer to higher echelons. A good staff will create a decision matrix that the general approves so his input isn't even required, if there's decisions that require a general's decision during operations then the enemy has outmatched your staff's planning capabilities and that's typically seen as bad, or the staff didn't have enough time to prepare and is winging it. We would create multiple branch plans so even if you did start losing there was a script the general pre-approved.

>>63884761
>yell at the tards until things are done properly
>Russia lost like 150 colonels and a few hundred Lt Cols since 2022
>the tards are still tarding
Monke remains a strategic genius.

>>63878544 (OP)
Maps and staff officers whos entire job is to do that for you so that all you have to do is draw arrows and they make it work in reality.

>>63883922
Three is for maneuvering in open terrain. Four is for complex terrain like cities where you can cycle 2 on/2 off the frontline.

In peacetime armies tend to three because you can get more officer slots out of the same number of employees.

>>63887589
>Three is for maneuvering in open terrain. Four is for complex terrain like cities where you can cycle 2 on/2 off the frontline.
Ehhhhh. Not really. It has a lot more to do with what the organisation is required to do for itself vs what it isn't. Four manouevre elements allows an organisation to do things like their own flank security and exploitation in the attack. Organisations with 3 elements basically never have a real reserve: What they call their reserve is either tasked with something else (and hand waved away as a "situational reserve") or is really just depth or reinforcements.

The quintessential example is the infantry battalion in the attack: One company must provide support by fire to achieve break in, one company must achieve break in, and one company must FPOL and fight through. That permits no reserve or flank security, so triangular organisations develop complex and nonsense descriptions of where their reserves are where every element in their attack is responsible for doing multiple things at every phase of the attack, and since the higher mission will fail if any of them don't happen no element either has unity of mission or a main effort. Suddenly the SBF company will provide flank security in the first phase (while also doing the SBF) and the depth company will be the reserve, and in the second phase the SBF will be the reserve while the (culminated) assault company is apparently providing flank security, and other such absolutely impractical nonsense. The real number is 4 for practically everything unless the plan is to attach a fourth element anyway by robbing someone else in a big game of taskorg musical chairs.

>>63878643
>Hitler appears to have challenged the game-like management of the military.
Hitler was the first gamer.

>>63883922
The golden number is between 3 and 4, depending on how independent the element needs to be. 2 is only ever the number for extremely complex command environments (eg a Tk Pl where the two sections will usually be miles apart, the tactical situation is dynamic and very fast, information is scarce but valuable, and the commander must also command their own vehicle), but even then they go to 3 or 4 as soon as they can at a higher level (eg a Tk Coy is still 3 Pls).

4 is almost universally preferred for fighting, but the rub for organisations like the CAB and ABCT is that they usually get atts beyond the orbat and even when triangular start with slightly more than 3 elements to manouevre (eg the Cav Tp and CE Sqns in the ABCT, which both develop combat power and conduct manouevre, even if it isn't their primary role). When you see these 3 element organisations, it's almost universally because they're meant to get a fourth attached for fighting - eg two of the three CAB in the triangular ABCT are expected to get a CE Sqn attached in the assault, the third CAB will absorb an infantry company from somewhere, and an Aviation (Attack) Bn/Coy will probably get attached to the ABCT for reserve or SBF, or the Attack/Recon Bn or a Coy from it will be attached for flank security/reserve. But the whole thing is a game of musical chairs, since that means the Div then ends up triangular, and so the musical chair game continues with higher assets again.

>>63887885
interesting

the way it was explained to me was that 4-elements was common in WW1 for 2 forward, 2 rear formations
before it was replaced by 3-elements for 2 combat, 1 reserve formations

>>63887443
>the tards are still tarding
And they're still charging. The strategy may be nasty, but it is being executed as intended.