What does cohesion mean?

[stikkypixie]

I can more or less guess what this means in the "real world", but what does it mean in the "game world". I saw used a lot in the game manual but I don't understand its effects.

Same question really for the leadership modifiers, it's explained a bit vague in the manual.

[Secondbrooks]

How easily squads members starts to disappear (=rout) when under fire?

[stikkypixie]

How easily squads members starts to disappear (=rout) when under fire?

Isn't that morale?

[Secondbrooks]

Which is part of unit cohesion, might point also to leadership. So when manual refers to cohesion it's speaking of there two things (morale, leadership) combined. But i'm not reading manual at the moment and just quessing.

So you can shoot me down. I don't mind

[Battlefront.com]

Well, originally we planned on having an actual "Cohesion" modifier (bonus) attached to Experience. However, we decided against that since the effect we're looking for comes from a combination of Experience, Leadership Bonus, Morale, and Motivation Bonus. Basically, a unit with good cohesion is one which works well together internally. They know how each other thinks, they generally act on that knowledge quickly and to the benefit of the unit, and they tend to be more resilient when in stressful circumstances. Lower values in the things I mention means, basically, lower overall cohesion.

Someday I would like to get an actual Cohesion modifier in. Why? Well, the US military (at least) has identified a problem with some units which becomes "too cohesive". Such units tend to be risk adverse because they really care about each other and want to avoid casualties and/or looking bad in front of each other by making mistakes. They also know how to "work the system" better than newer units and are therefore often able to avoid punishment for bad behavior, get assigned the better jobs, etc. In other words, they might be the best fighting unit in the whole damned Army in 10 different ways, but if they try to avoid tough situations to preserve their cohesion that actually diminishes their value in actual combat. I read an interesting DoD paper about this many moons ago and it is definitely interesting stuff.

It's a significant problem, but not a huge one. If we had a Cohesion Bonus in the game a negative modifier would mean the unit is too cohesive and therefore less likely to follow orders, or at least follow them on time. But that's something for another day

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Pretty much all the Allied top generals were griping about this problem at the end of WW2 - no one in the ranks wanted to be the last guy to die, and it was getting difficult to force the veterans to really go forward and put in a high-risk attack. The different armies dealt with the problems in different ways, roughly, the Soviets led off 1945 full-dress assaults with Asians and relatively unblooded units, the British just conceded the troops weren't up to a major attack, and the Americans muddled along with a mix of hyperbole and throwing green troops at the problem.

During the 20th century, in most western armies, it was a rough rule of thumb that a soldier was good for about 3 - 6 months of combat, the first couple he learns to survive, if he makes it the remainder he gets good at the job, and then after a while he learns that personal survival outweighs anything doing the job well could bring, and he gets bad at the job again. The window got longer or shorter, based on intensity of combat and how fast the soldiers got killed or wounded.

I think it is worth mentioning that by some standards, these US units even the long-serving ones have never really taken a real test of cohesion, that would be when a unit takes 10 - 40 per cent casualties and is expected to keep functioning. For practical purposes, the last time any demanded that of a US unit was in Vietnam, and that pretty rarely. So if in Afghanistan and Iraq the powers that be are having trouble getting units to do what the powers that be believe need doing, it isn't because the soldiers have realized that doing what the authorities say is hugely dangerous. It is, by the standards of pretty much any war, marginally dangerous - but of course more dangerous that pretty much all civilian US jobs.

If we look elsewhere for the roots of the problem - and this is really nothing more than the classic one of how you get the infantry to go forward, updated for modern conditions - then I think there are some interesting trends we can point to.

For instance, the US military has made unit loyalty and male bonding almost a fetish, in contrast to previous wars where the soldiers were generally told they were doing their job for the good of America, the motivator given the troops here is, roughly, that each and every soldier is part of an awesome military force the most powerful the world has ever seen, with a band of brothers in arms, with whom the soldier is experiencing the most meaningful and intense experience of his life. There is little effort to convince the soldiers they are fighting for an ideal, probably logically so as "fighting terrorism" is hard to push as a motivator when even the stupidest trooper can see he is in a foreign country where at least some of the foreigners want to kill him, because he came to their country. There is also the volunteer army factor - these US soldiers are not drawn from across society, but rather from those part of the society where becoming a soldier is acceptable or better than staying a civilian.

So what we have, in a way, is a situation where the army has become TOO professional, too separated from the civilian society, and too bound up in its own small unit values to do the job the military authorities want done. I'm sort of reminded of the mercenary bands of Central Europe in the 1600s, where military loyalty had little to do with the supposedly huge moral issues (Catholic vs. Protestant) and everything to do with things like regular pay, and personal combat risk vs. chances of loot. That's a stark comparison but I think it is arguable the tendencies are there in the modern US force.

But like Steve said, overall the problem is not severe.

[Apocal]

Well, the US military (at least) has identified a problem with some units which becomes "too cohesive". Such units tend to be risk adverse because they really care about each other and want to avoid casualties and/or looking bad in front of each other by making mistakes. They also know how to "work the system" better than newer units and are therefore often able to avoid punishment for bad behavior, get assigned the better jobs, etc. In other words, they might be the best fighting unit in the whole damned Army in 10 different ways, but if they try to avoid tough situations to preserve their cohesion that actually diminishes their value in actual combat. I read an interesting DoD paper about this many moons ago and it is definitely interesting stuff.

It's a significant problem, but not a huge one.

Got a name off the top of your head?

For instance, the US military has made unit loyalty and male bonding almost a fetish, in contrast to previous wars where the soldiers were generally told they were doing their job for the good of America, the motivator given the troops here is, roughly, that each and every soldier is part of an awesome military force the most powerful the world has ever seen, with a band of brothers in arms, with whom the soldier is experiencing the most meaningful and intense experience of his life.

Only speaking for myself here, but I like the food.

[Bigduke6]

Another thing I forgot to mention is of course that just because the Pentagon planners SAY the soldiers aren't doing what's needed, that doesn't mean that what the Pentagon planners say is necessary is actually necessary. It it pretty much certain that in most of these cases where the troops don't quite do the job the way the planners want, it's because the troops are convinced the job is a waste of time.

Whether the Pentagon planners have the right idea and the troops are just being insubordinate, or the troops have the right idea and the Pentagon planners are just out there in la la land, is of course not so easy to tell. But obviously, even if they're wrong as a general thing you want planners making policy, not the troops on the ground.

[Battlefront.com]

Apocal,

Got a name off the top of your head?

Unfortunately, no. What I read was in "study" form, in that it was a report which may, or may not, have been credited to an individual.

BigDuke6,

Thanks for the commentary. Spot on. From what I remember of that report "over professionalization" seems to fit as a description. It's where the job of being a soldier becomes the focus more than a job of getting a specific task done as instructed by someone outside of the unit in question. In other words, the unit becomes so bonded to each other in order to be the best they can be, that they start deciding for themselves which tasks are worthy of their complete compliance.

Interestingly, this is one thing that has been seen in peacetime during field exercises. There's been more than a few units which rated VERY high on the cohesion and morale scale which went to NTC Ft. Irwin and had their asses handed to them. Which is, as I understand it, one of the purposes of NTC... give a bit of a reality check

Another thing I forgot to mention is of course that just because the Pentagon planners SAY the soldiers aren't doing what's needed, that doesn't mean that what the Pentagon planners say is necessary is actually necessary. It it pretty much certain that in most of these cases where the troops don't quite do the job the way the planners want, it's because the troops are convinced the job is a waste of time.

This might be part of the problem. When you tell a grizzled veteran that they should cross the street swept with insurgent small arms fire, based on experience the soldier might not do it as the higher ups think it should be done. On the surface it might look like there is some sort of subtle insubordination going on, when in fact the vet thinks "why bother? By the time I cross the street and work my way around to the enemy's firing position, he won't be there. Why risk getting killed when my chances are so low that the enemy will get the same?". The AARs you posted from Afghanistan show that there is more than a little validity to such thinking, so it could very well be that SOME of the issue is a gap in expected results from established doctrine.

But I think anybody in any sort of professional environment knows all too well that sometimes a group within an organization can be too bonded and therefore to isolated from the Big Picture. In the private sector the way to handle it is to remove some of the members and substitute them with strong willed individuals from another group. Or dissolving the group in some way. Generally punishing the group, or individuals, only increases the alienation between the sub group and the whole.

It's a reminder that there is always two extremes for any given situation, and neither extreme is where you want things to be. A unit that is too sloppy might present more problems than one that is overly cohesive, however one that is less cohesive might indeed be the best of the three.

Steve