For many the concept of Commander’s Intent is nebulous, but it is a critical part of Mission Command. Opportunities on the battlefield are fleeting and a clear Commander’s Intent enables subordinates to seize those opportunities when they arise. Often the planned method of achieving a mission will not be possible, may incur too many casualties or there may just be a better way that it can be done. The Commander’s Intent empowers a subordinate to understand their part in the larger plan and conduct their mission to the achievement of the higher commander’s intent.
Patton wrote in War as I knew it,
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Here he is explicitly advocating for Mission Command, knowing that his subordinates are best placed to
Field Marshall Slim wrote
‘I suppose dozens of operation orders have gone out in my name, but I never, throughout the war, actually wrote one myself. I always had someone who could do that better than I could. One part of the order I did, however, draft myself—the intention. It is usually the shortest of all paragraphs, but it is always the most important, because it states—or it should—just what the commander intends to achieve. It is the one overriding expression of will by which everything in the order and every action by every commander and soldier in the army must be dominated. It should, therefore, be worded by the commander himself.’
Lord Nelson had a simple idea of Commander’s Intent.
To obey orders is all perfection. To serve my King and destroy the French, I consider as the great order of all, from which little ones spring; and if one of these militate against it (for who can tell exactly at a distance), I go back and obey the great order and object, to down – down with the damned French villains! My blood boils at the name of a Frenchman! Down, down with the French! … is my constant prayer.
In Nelson’s first large battle, the Battle of Cape St Vincent, he directly disobeyed an order and brought his ship, HMS Captain, into combat with the Spanish San Nicolas. This slowed up the Spanish fleet and allowed the rest of the British fleet to catch up and engage the Spanish fleet.
His instructions to his Captains on the eve of Trafalgar were:
“No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.”
A very clear and simple statement of intent. He knew he could rely on the superior training and rate of fire from the Royal Navy ships to destroy the French.