Needed For Armor: An Idea Center

Each and every day, in all parts of the world, officers and NCOs of armor units wrestle with the myriad of minor technical, administrative, and management details that consume so much valuable time. The sign-out of tools from the tool sets, the care of machinegun repair parts, methods of starting the tanks in cold weather, techniques for carrying extra oil and grease, ready-rack organization, and arms security are among the perennial small but powerful problem areas. At battalion and brigade level, there are comparable kinks to be ironed out wth assault bridging, column control, vehicle evacuation, situation reports, aid station location and so on. Eventually, with practice and sound judgment, these and other rough edges are honed down, their solutions incorporated in SOP’Sand memory.

New problems arise with changes in locale, equipment, and people, but are eventually overcome. And more often than not, these have not been unique problems, and the solutions are rather standard solutions. But to the person who is incommunicado, all problems are unique. In other words, there is a great deal of effort spent solving problems that have already been solved. I would suspect, based on personal experience, that many of the ideas submitted as new in the recent tank design contest of the Armor Association had already been voiced in one paper or another. This circumstance stems from the physical inability of anyone to keep abreast of all the technical and tactical developments in any branch of the Army.

The means of intercommunication within the military profession have been unable to assimilate the avalanche of new data generated by the technological and theoretical advancements of our age. This situation is certainly not limited to the military field, but is a current problem in almost every area of study. Publications such as Armor and Infantry magazine, and the field manuals and Department of the Army 46 ARMOR Pamphlets have reduced part of the problem to somewhat manageable dimensions. However, there exists no centralized screening facility to document and disseminate new ideas, novel techniques, and unofficial but often helpful optional hints to junior leaders. PS Magazine is worth its weight in gold; the Military Review and Army Information Digest include monthly news on professional developments; the Marine Corps Gazette and Ordnance Magazine frequently describe innovations of real interest to Armor leaders. And so do The Military Engineer, Naitonal Defense Transportation Journal, Army, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, and so on.

In the files of staff studies at the Armor School and the archives at the Command and General Staff College rest the possible immediate solutions to some frustrated commander’s dilemma in Germany or Viet Nam or Fort Knox.

Now it is not feasible, even with ADPs, to catalogue all the current thought in any one field, much less to file and reference every past experience of all former Armor leaders. Field manuals and the school system should carry the substantial burden of the long range doctrine and fundamentals problems. What is, however, practicable and necessary is a system of collecting and disseminating new approaches to the solutions to contemporary problems of technique in armor units. The objective of the idea center, then, is to conserve time and effort in both research and execution through the organized exchange of ideas. The tasks inherent in the problem are collecting information, evaluating the information for its originality and general applicability, and disseminating the information to those it would assist. Thus there must be physical facilities to receive and store ideas, and qualified personnel to scan, evaluating and package data into meaningful and identifiable bits of relevant information. There are two principal sources of information that