Staff (military)

[2] One of the key purposes of a military staff is to provide accurate, timely information (which includes the results of contingency planning) on which command decisions are based.

A goal is being able to suggest approaches or help produce well-informed decisions that will effectively manage and conserve unit resources.

While controlled information flow toward the commander is a priority, those useful or contingent in nature are communicated to lower-level units and/or through their respective staffs.

Issues that require major decisions affecting the unit's operational capability are communicated to the commanding officer.

Smaller matters that arise are given to a more appropriate tasker within the unit to be handled and resolved, which would otherwise be an unnecessary distraction for the Commanding Officer who already makes numerous decisions every day.

Senior Analysts are tasked with the finalizing of reports, and their enlisted personnel participate in the acquisition of information from subordinate staffs and units.

Prior to the late 18th century, there was generally no organizational support for staff functions such as military intelligence, logistics, planning or personnel.

Count Leopold Joseph von Daun, in a letter to Empress Maria Theresa in January 1758, pressed for a more important role for the Generalquartiermeister (Chief of Staff).

[3] The failures in the army, especially at the Battle of Leuthen made it clear that Austria had no "great brain" and the command needed to spread the workload to allow the Commander-in-chief the time to consider the strategic picture.

In a battle or when the army had detached corps, a small number of staff would be allocated to the column commander as a smaller version of headquarters.

The senior man, usually a Major, would be the chief of the column staff and his principal task would be to help the commander to understand what was intended.

When Karl Mack von Leiberich became chief of staff of the army under Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in the Netherlands, he issued the Instruktionspunkte für gesammte Herren Generals, the last of 19 points setting out the roles of staff officers, dealing with offensive and defensive operations, while helping the Commander-in-chief.

In 1796, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen augmented these with his own Observationspunkte, writing of the Chief of Staff: "he is duty bound to consider all possibilities related to operations and not view himself as merely carrying out those instructions".

"The Commander-in-Chief decides what should happen and how; his chief assistant works out these decisions, so that each subordinate understands his allotted task".

Finally in 1811, Joseph Radetzky von Radetz produced his Über die bessere Einrichtung des Generalstabs,[7] which prioritised the Chief of Staff's managerial and supervisory role with the departments (Political Correspondence, Operations and Service) under their own directors, effectively merging the Adjutants and General Staff officers.

In this system lay the beginnings of a formal staff corps, whose members could specialise in operations, intelligence and logistics.

[10] Staff officers were rotated out of the line on the Austrian model, but received no training and merely became efficient in the administrative tasks, especially the rapid issuance of orders.

Initially, the Prussian Army assigned a limited number of technical expert officers to support field commanders.

In 1814, Prussia formally established by law a central military command—Prussian General Staff—and a separate staff for each division and corps.

Despite some professional and political issues with the Prussian system, especially when viewed through the prism of the 20th century World Wars, their General Staff concept has been adopted by many large armies in existence today.

In this system, which is based on one originally employed by the French Army in the 19th century, each staff position in a headquarters or unit is assigned a letter-prefix corresponding to the formation's element and one or more numbers specifying a role.

The staff numbers are assigned according to custom, not hierarchy, traceable back to French practice; i.e., 1 is not "higher ranking" than 2.

This list reflects the SHAPE structure:[12] Since the original continental staff system only covered branches 1 through 6, it is not uncommon to see 7 through 9 omitted or having various meanings.

But the increasing complexity of modern armies, not to speak of the spread of the staff concept to naval, air and other elements, has demanded the addition of new prefixes.

The G5 serves as the mission support office (MSO) at the division level and HHC[clarification needed] for civil military plans and strategy.

Civil-Military Co-operation or civil affairs are the activities that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between the military forces, the government or non-government civilian organizations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile area of operations in order to facilitate military operations and consolidate and achieve mission objectives.

[26] The primary reasons given for this were the ability to standardise staff organisations across the breadth and depth of the services, and; improve interoperability between America, Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as NATO partners that employed this system.

In the British system, the principal staff officers at any HQ were always outranked by the subordinate commanders: Branches as brigade were as follows.

A and Q branches might be combined under a deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general, rank major (DAA&QMG).