[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

It is already France. Quite frankly, given their 150-year history, they'd view this incident, like all others, through a lens. As I've mentioned before to Mirificius, the most likely outcome is that they actually decide the current battle verifies their doctrine, and would make no changes to it. We'd be lucky if they incorporate AMF training into subsequent training criteria.

The TSAB's inability to consistently draw the right lessons from its experience and its ineptitude at training its junior officers and NCOs into effective leaders is completely unlike the Reichswehr/early-war Werhmacht. Even if it had no other combat experience whatsoever, the collective experience of the first two seasons alone could have gone a long way to developing effective TTPs and basic tactical doctrine, particularly since all of the combatants did in fact joined the TSAB. After A's, all of the combatants and staff that were involved were easily accessible to be interviewed and write reports about their observations and experiences upon which to form a basis for rigorous analysis.
After the Cradle battle, should have a basis to start working on tactical operational doctrine at the operational level.

The TSAB can't develop appropriate doctrine and training from its experiences if it keeps drawing its conclusions first and then selectively looking over the evidence to justify them. Its theories are useless without sufficient testing and revision to match its observations.

First the TSAB needs to take the study of tactics seriously. It needs to have a central body responsible for both doctrine and training and it needs to have authority to match. If one already exists, it needs to be trashed because it is worse than useless.

The Reichswehr equivalent had its own section within the new Truppenamnt (General Staff in everything but name, established in 1919) which included a T-2, the Organization Section responsible for drafting organization and equipment tables and T-4, the Training Section, responsible for supervising training throughout the army.

Although branch inspectorates did most of the routine work and training and compiling manuals, all training programs, manuals, and materials had to be approved by the T-4. The Training Section would ensure that the military training and doctrine developed by the branch inspectorates would conform to the unified operational doctrine and organization established by the T-1 and T-2. The Training Section of the Truppenamnt also had direct responsibility for training General Staff officers, as well as for creating and supervising the armywise testing program for officers and NCOs

This is what the Reichswehr started doing immediately after the war:

"It is absolutely necessary to put the experience of the war in a broad light and collect this experience while the impressions won on the battlefield are still fresh and a major proportion of the experienced officers are still in leading positions."
...
The officers named to committees were to write, "short, concise studies on the newly-gained experiences of the war and consider the following points:
a). What new situations arose in the war that had not been considered before the war?
b). How effective were our pre-war views in dealing with the above situations?
c). What new guidelines have been developed from the use of new weaponry in the war?
d). Which new problems put forward by the war have not yet found a solution?"

Von Seeckt's directive follows with a list of the fifty-seven-different aspects of the war to be examined, ranging from military justice and questions of troop morale to flame throwers, river crossings, and the military weather service. Military leadership, from leadership of an army group to large artillery formations, took up the largest single part of the plan (seven committees). Each inspectorate was also expected to assemble and analyze the recent tactical experiences of its branch.

Mountain and armored warfare each got their own committees, headed by officers (a general and a captain) with current and relevant experience. Just over a hundred officers were appointed to the committees and another three hundred joined as practically all of the inspectorates and department of the Defense Ministry was expected to work on the studies.

After those studies were completed, there was still much work to be done,

The Training Section was given responsibility for collecting and reviewing the work of the committees. T-4 was ordered to recommend comiitee changes regarding the opening of new subjects of study and the appointment of additional committee officers. T-4 was also to edit the reports for possible use in army manuals and regulations. During 1920 the Training Section would initiate a further twenty-nine studies of subjects not covered by von Seeckt's directive of December 1, 1919. The Training Section appointed mostly its own officers to carry out these [new] studies but solicited contributions from retired officers and some officers outside the T-4 as well. Some studies were specific and tactical and thus more suitable for direct application as sections of the new tactical manuals, such as "How Should Tactical Units Be Organized for Mountain Warfare?" "Should Supply Trains Be Placed under Divisional Control or under Higher Headquarters?" Others were on the more general subjects, such as "The Economy and the Two-Front War."

At the same time, the Air Service officers within the Truppenamt organized a similar program for assessing the aerial warfare experience citing von Seeckt's directive as their guideline for asking and developing solutions. Special committees were formed, and over one hundred airmen, including the senior Air Service commanders and a higher proportion of the former squadron commanders, would contribute studies.

Counting the original committees, the additional officers who conducted studies for the Training Section, and the efforts of the Air Service, by mid-1920 over five hundred of the most experienced German officers were involved in a program to mold their war experiences into a system of modern tactics and military organization.

The Germans took the postwar study of tactics very seriously. The Truppenamt assigned many of its best officers to its tactical doctrine studies. Why the TSAB doesn't take advantage its own experienced captains is a mystery. The TSAB has a very long road to go if it wants to adopt the German approach.

Imagine companies of sentoukijin with a human leader (though the way the TSAB is going, the sentoukijin are likely better at tactics than most of TSAB's officers). Their mistake was keeping Scarlietti around for too long.

The numbers are probably better at tactics because they haven't studied with the TSAB and thus haven't been learning the wrong pre-conceived notions year after year.

Actually, Tea had much better equipment than the regular aerial mage units. But the real thing that bought her the victory was her talent - tactical thinking.

Her talent seemed to be all her own. I'm sure Teana learned a lot WRT to magic-use but Nanoha didn't really seem to help much otherwise with her professional development.

Did Teana turn out well because of or in spite of Nanoha? Four is a small sample size to work with to judge Nanoha's effectiveness as an instructor but the failures do begin to add up. From what we've seen of the Forwards in combat, the TSAB's training standards must be particularly low or Nanoha may not be such a great instructor.

The problem is how that would compare with the total output of the administered worlds, would it? Considering how many worlds there are, a division of drones may still only represent a miniscule fraction of output.

The problem there is the TSAB is weak enough for that kind of output to be a significant threat nor does it have the intelligence resources to recognize such threats as they're beginning to develop.

He should still have been discovered the moment he started to use his "radio", though. He was transmitting in a mountain!

SIGINT

It seems like we can draw a couple more conclusions from episode 26. The TSAB makes uses its manpower oddly. Just look at Alto and Vice. From what we've seen, Alto is the better pilot yet she was used as an easily replaced communications officer. Vice is the best sniper in the unit but instead of giving him psychological counseling, they used him as an average pilot.

We also have more evidence WRT the TSAB Navy now.

Originally Posted by BBM

The ships mostly serves as a mode of transport and if the mages don't win, then they blow the lost logica up. They seem to have the wrong weapons or lack of them for any real military action.

The primary role of the TSAB Navy during the Cradle battle was to destroy the Cradle. There was never any question of it transporting additional mages to engage the Cradle. They never even planned to send Chrono in as a mage. The fleet was to destroy the Cradle regardless of whether the mages had "won" or not and that is exactly what it did in episode 26. The maximum effective range of the weapons the ships used to engage the Cradle is unclear but at least six ships were equipped with them and their firepower was more than adequate to destroy the Cradle in a single volley despite all of the AMF.