I want to know your pint of view: Is it easier to be tactical or strategical commander? I've read somewhere, that the only task for a strategic analyst is to bring more soldiers and weapons into a certain place tha the enemy, thus you can't lose... I don't agree with this sentence completely. One of the evidences is German Blitz against France and first year of operation Barbarossa.
Strategy is 'do we attack this city or that city'? Tactics are 'do we go round to the left of that tree or to the right of that tree'?
I'd say it is easier to be a tactical commander, because you don't have as much pressure on you, than a strategical commander.
If you were a strategical commander, if you lost, it would be the tactical level officer's fault. If you were a tactical level officer, you would blame HQ for bad strategy.
I would say that Strategic & Tactical leaders are entirely seperate. Strategic is the Staff Officer, the Divisional Leader, the Field Marshal - ie: those who plan the movement of armies. Tactical is (pretty much) Major down to Corporal - ie: those leading men in the field.
Not precisely. Strategy is 'how can we get the enemy to lose morale/strength/ground/the war?' Tactics are in-battle plans, just like strategies but on a smaller level and with less broad but more deep possibilities.
On the battlefield A strategic area is an area you wantor need whereas a tatical area is one you would like Hence a stategic area would be held at al costs I.E. to the last man but a tactical area would be given up quite quickly, in order to reorganise.
What, strategic bombing was all about logistics? I don't think that entirely covers the load, Kellhound. GP's description applies to direct combat and does really explain the two terms, thank you GP.
Not real Strategic bombing is bombing you have to carry out to acquire an objective, such as factories to deplete the war effort. Without an effective manufacturing base, you can't fight a war. Tactical bombing is used to attack specific targets if you have the resources to do so. This can be applied to any operation or warfare. In operation Market Garden, the gliders were at a premium and therefore the bridges given to the yanks had the priority, without them the bridges given to the Brits were of no value. The strategy there was to gain the closer bridges first. You didn't need the farthest bridges to gain the nearest, but you did need the nearest to get the farthest. So the long range objective is strategic and the short range objective is tactical. The strategy of Market Garden was to take the bridges in Holland, the tactics were to take each bridge and work up to the next. The long range objective is all of them the short range is each at a time.
Or another way of looking at it is tactical is short range, strategic is long range. Tactical bomber Short range small pay load. strategic bomber long range big payload. So as Ricky said The strategic Commander is bothered about the whole picture, and the tactical is bothered about the smaller angle. Putting ranks aside overall charge is the strategist and the various tacticians are the junior commanders.
Fair enough, but I'd like to comment that the strategical purpose of Market-Garden was to gain a bridge over the Rhine, in order to move north-east around the Ruhr area, turn back and thus deny the Germans further use of their main industrial centre. This has been the strategical objective of the North-West Europe campaign all along; never were the Allied strategists tempted to consider Berlin itself a target of operations. The tactical objective of Market-Garden was the taking of the nine bridges. Like I said, strategy is about making the enemy lose the war while tactics is about making his army lose the battle.
