Overview
A. Formative Assessments (FA’s) are ‘open book’ but individual effort, only. See p.10-11 of the syllabus for the Academic Honor Code. Any student evaluated as “not yet” meeting expectations on an FA will be assigned appropriate remediation (see syllabus p.7) by the professor.
B. Submission Requirements:
- Due Date: 2359ET on Thursday of the week assigned (unless otherwise directed by your professor).
- Length: 800 words.
- Format: MS Word (.doc or docx), 12pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, student first and last name on each page (header or footer).
- File Name: Last name, First name_FA# (e.g., Jones_John_FA1)
- No cover sheet, bibliography, paragraph headings/titles, etc. are required for this assignment.
- Use parenthetical citations to indicate passages from the case study which support your arguments, for example: The Japanese operational objective was X (Hime, Leyte, p#). There is no expectation that students consult resources beyond course materials; if you choose to do so they must be fully cited in footnotes using the Chicago Manual of Style.
- Caution: substantial use of direct quotes or paraphrases, or recounting of the case study, will generally not meet expectations for this short assignment.
C. Operational Factors:
“One of the main responsibilities of operational commanders and their staffs is to first determine the ultimate objective of a campaign or major operation. Afterward, the operational commander must properly evaluate one’s own (friendly) factors of space, time, and forces individually and then balance them in combination against the respective objectives. This is far more an art than a science.” (Vego, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory & Practice, III-4).
Prompt: Using the Leyte case study, identify, describe, and briefly assess at least two attempts by Allied and/or Japanese commanders and their staffs to balance operational factors with the objective in planning the operation.
- Example provided below; for additional examples, refer to Vego, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory & Practice, III-51 to III-60.
Example: In planning for the Battle of Midway, Admiral Nimitz faced a time-force problem relative to his objective of destroying the Japanese carrier force. He knew the Japanese would have qualitative advantages due to their high degree of training and experience (intangible elements of force) and that the IJN’s carriers would outnumber the American carriers he had available (tangible elements of force). There was no time to train and deploy a carrier task force that could match Nagumo’s. To mitigate (balance) this time-force problem, Nimitz rushed temporary repairs to USS YORKTOWN (just returned, heavily damaged, from the Battle of the Coral Sea) and hastily cobbled together a makeshift airwing for her. He also crammed every aircraft he could onto Midway Island to further reduce the disparity in air power and improve reconnaissance. Finally, Nimitz used his intelligence advantage to maneuver his less proficient, numerically inferior carrier force into a position which maximized its chances of surprising the enemy. By these measures, Nimitz sought to balance a time-force challenge and increase the chances of achieving the objective: destroying the Japanese carriers.
This FA focuses on the relation of Time-Space-Force. CLOs 5, 6, & 20.