What is the minion going to do? "The Soldiers of Brahma" from a military point of view

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The author of this site, Mr. Cheng Tianzong , has published several management articles on the theme of "The Soldiers Who Don't Pull Horses". He talks about the change in the form of an enterprise, if there is no change in the allocation of work and manpower, or in the way of thinking about its use, there may be Create redundant people or locations.

A few days ago, another author, Konrad Young, extended it further with the article "Let's Talk About "The Soldiers of Brahma ", and said that the achievements of the organization come from the "vector integration" of everyone's efforts, so the most hurt in this is still. It's not "soldiers who don't pull horses", but "soldiers who pull horses in different directions", which is also very incisive.

Although the most original story of "The Soldier of Brahma" may have happened, it has a greater chance of being a fable. Since this story involves the military, and the military is one of the things I do better, let me extend this topic from another angle.

The following discussion is not intended to confuse the theories of the above two predecessors, but to extend, and from the point of view of military affairs, some elements that were omitted from the original fable.

Does the "Blama's Soldier" really exist in the military?

In fact, it is impossible to test whether it really exists, but even if it exists, it may only be for a short time. In the war, the manpower needs are urgent, and even the number of casualties is large. It is necessary to fill up positions at any time. There is probably no space for idlers to stand still on the front line.

However, the army is a special kind of organization; because the quality of manpower varies, may be attrition at any time, and it is not easy to cultivate professional non-commissioned officers, so although it is often called "lean", if possible, some redundancy will be allowed to exist. .

And the extra people represent extra manpower, so when there is no combat mission, the officers must find some things like sweeping the floor and mowing the grass to be evenly distributed to each soldier, instead of some people performing skilfully and some people. Stand by as a "soldier of Brahma".

Business organizations are simpler. At least there will be less "casualties" issues; in the past, perhaps some companies would "duplicate" important positions or "have deputies on standby" to deal with the "death in battle" problem that everyone joked about. The job-seeking channels are also smooth, so there is less need to save people first.

All in all, there are historical reasons why the military or some enterprises deliberately retain "necessary" redundant manpower; and because of the Xiao Gui Cao Sui mentioned by Teacher Cheng Tianzong, or because the system cannot keep up with the times, it often causes the original "necessary" redundant manpower. "Reserve manpower" swelled, causing the unit to be filled with "branch soldiers".

It's just that they don't stand by and don't pull the horse as you see, everyone still has their own business to go in and out, at least it looks like they are mowing the floor; but they will still hope that one day they can replace it, Or survive until retirement.

Not pulling a horse waiting to be replaced

The above-mentioned “redundant workers waiting for replacements” may be replaced by machines after a period of time; machines will originally replace part of the regular manpower, and if the replaced manpower is still there, they will become their own substitutes and no longer need. "Someone else".

And once the army progresses to the point where "human sea tactics" are no longer needed, and many offensive and defensive strategies are carried out by machines, the dependence on "spare manpower" (which is not the same as "redundancy") will also decrease.

In other words, in theory, the "Brahma Soldiers" should indeed disappear due to changes in the environment. The key point is whether the "competent authorities" are aware of this and respond immediately through policies. Otherwise, you might still see them on the battlefield in the 21st century.

What is Brama going to do?

However, these are the general directions of theory; there are still some subtle considerations in the details of many implementations. Here is a military example:

Readers who are a little involved in the military may know that the Russian chariot has been using the configuration of "three crew members with an automatic loader" for many years, while the design of other European, American and Asian countries is based on "four crew members, of which Including a Loader".

That is to say, the Russian chariot has been designed through automation to replace the loader whose basic function is only to "take out heavy shells and put them into the main gun"; not only saves a precious manpower/human life, but also can put Tanks are made smaller, less visible to the enemy, and can be reloaded faster to engage in combat.

Western military commentators have been discussing this issue for decades. For these reasons, supporters believe that Western tanks should also imitate Russian designs; but it is strange that the major Western tank design countries such as the United States and Germany are not willing to adopt this, but have always insisted on the design of four occupants, And thus make the chariot bigger and heavier.

Speaking of which, can you guess why this is?

According to the original theory of "unarmed soldiers", after the automatic loader was mature and popularized, and the system and tactics were adjusted accordingly, the loader became the soldier without horses and should be eliminated.

However, Western tactical thinking believes that "loading heavy shells" is only the task of the loader when it is in contact with the enemy; a combat vehicle must retain its combat energy, and the usual maintenance, maintenance, supply, and even wartime guard duties are the same. important. If the loader is abolished, it means that three people will do the work of four people for the work outside the battle.

Readers with practical experience in the army will know how much impact this has on the division of labor after reading the last sentence.

In addition, bullets do not have long eyes on the battlefield. If one of the three crew members loses combat ability, there will be one less person who can be replaced; this may be the ability to continue fighting at a critical moment, or even the survival of life and death. problem of chance.

What's more serious is that in order to cooperate with the automatic reloading system, the ammunition stored on the Russian chariot is almost not separated from the crew (this is being improved recently), so once it is hit, the entire turret is often blown away and the car is blown away. No one was spared.

The combat experience of Russian chariots in recent years, especially the tragic performance on the Ukrainian battlefield since the beginning of this year, has made Western countries further question the Russian three-person configuration and the peripheral design of automatic loading (not just the automatic loading machine). itself) on overall combat performance.

The Russian chariot and the inspiration of "that soldier"

In the trend of "automation" and "AI", it is an inevitable trend to replace some human jobs with machines and reduce the demand for redundant manpower; but why are there such negative cases as Russian tanks?

(Battlefield cases are very complicated to analyze, so we only pick relevant and enlightening points here.)

1. Design issues of the overall system

In the process of automation, instead of rudely removing manpower from a certain link, just put the machine in directly. Perhaps direct replacement can see some efficiency improvements on the books, but it is not necessarily a bonus factor in the entire context and workflow. This can be seen on Russian chariots and many cases of "xx machines replacing labor".

2. Process optimization

The previous point mentioned "process", and the process is composed of many steps and the flow of materials, information, and human resources that connect the steps. As I said in "Have you been tested for systematic intelligence today?" > mentioned in the article:

The squares on the flowchart are important, but the devil is often in the lines that connect the squares.

Just improving the blocks on the flowchart, without improving the lines, can do more with less. And the improvement of these blocks is not just to make them more automatic or more functional, sometimes it is necessary to add or delete these steps according to the change of demand, and finally review the whole effect.

The example I often give is that after some steps are automated, computerized, and networked, the system has become more complicated, difficult to use, and even wrong because of the need to increase the design of identity verification, foolproof, and fraud prevention. The probability is higher; and the most common situation is that redundant people must be called to assist the user, preventing the user from triggering the fraud prevention mechanism or "automatically obtaining" the wrong information.

German solution

Back to the military example. Although the three-person design of the Russian chariot indirectly led to heavy casualties (relatively speaking, the US military's M1 has maintained an astonishing record of no crew killed in combat in the 40 years of service on the battlefield) and the problem of adequacy rate, but through automation to reduce personnel Loads and increased capacity are still broad trends.

Under this trend and the combat experience of the United States, Russia and other countries, the German KF-51 chariot was born.

Simply put, the KF-51 uses an automatic loader and has only three occupants, but retains the seat of the fourth occupant (company-level commander or drone operator), and avoids the easy ammunition of Russian tanks. explosion problem. The KF-51 is arguably one of the only new tank designs in decades (there's also a Russian T-14 with three crew members sitting in the hull and an unmanned turret, which I'll ignore here).

Part of the reason why it is "new" is that the overall design is based on the needs of automation, less humanization, and informationization, which overturns most of the concepts that were "taken for granted" in the past, rather than just rough replacement of some elements (mentioned earlier). 1.).

At the same time, the workflow is optimized for these changes (2. mentioned above). For example, with the advancement of electronic wire control and network technology, everyone can replace the work of others in their own positions; so even if other occupants are injured, it is not easy to be unable to control the chariot.

In short, technological progress and system optimization make it more feasible to reduce manpower reasonably (but the supply logistics work mentioned earlier is still unsolvable, and must be strengthened by a more efficient supplementary system), resulting in Negative effects are also less.

As for whether or not to have an additional soldier who does not have a puller for the time being, leave an additional seat and let the commander decide.

Epilogue

The focus of this article is not so much on the "chariot" (you can think of it as a system or organization in action), but on an example that is closer to military affairs to illustrate the so far Why it exists, and its role as a “transition buffer” until a technical solution emerges.

In the military (or similar organization), such roles may be redundant, and sooner or later must be removed to make the system leaner, but unconsidered direct replacement, or neglect of contextual changes, can be disastrous the result of.

The example of the chariot or army may not apply to all organizations, but it may help you to review your thoughts on the "brother of the horse" and confirm the situation in your own organization.

As for whether they should exist, in what way, when they should retire, and what mechanism should they use to replace them, it depends on when they want to reform, or when they "have to reform."