OODA Loop
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The OODA Loop is a concept originated by military strategist Col. John Boyd (USAF). Its main outline consists of four overlapping and interacting processes:
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This diagram is also known as the decision cycle, the Boyd cycle, or the OODA cycle. It has become an important concept in business and military strategy. According to John Boyd, decision making occurs in a cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (either an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly can get inside the opponent's decision cycle and gain a military or business advantage.
John Boyd originally developed this diagram to explain to new fighter pilots how to direct their own energies to defeat their enemies and find survival for themselves. Boyd emphasised that "the loop" is actually a set of interacting loops that are to be kept in continuous operation during combat. He also indicated that the phase of the battle has an important bearing on the ideal allocation of one's individual energies. Consider a fighter pilot being scrambled to shoot down an invading aircraft.
Before the enemy airplane is even within visual contact range, the pilot will be absorbing any new information about the nationality of the attacker. He will be reviewing his own previous experience that tells him what groups might attack at this time. If the pilot has any indication of the likely identity of the attacker he will be considering any information he may have pertaining to the cultural traditions that may come into play. Perhaps the likely genetic heritage of the presumed attacker will make the pilot consider possible issues of body mass, reaction to lower than normal levels of oxygen, etc. So even before the enemy comes into view, the pilot is looking at several scenarios that suggest themselves and forming analyses and syntheses. The pilot at this point has the leisure to be somewhat contemplative, but also needs to keep alert to his radio for outside information and keep a weather eye for unfolding circumstances.
When the enemy aircraft comes into radar contact, more direct information about that speed, size, maneuverability, etc. of the plane becomes available; Unfolding circumstances become very much more the center of attention than chatter from home base, and it becomes imperative to make a first decision based on the hypotheses that are forming on the likely national identity of the attacker, the flight characteristics of the aircraft if it has been identified visually or otherwise, etc. Perhaps the pilot decides that it should be possible and reasonably safe to "get into the sun." Back to observation: Is the attacker reacting to my change of vector? Back to orient: Is the pilot reacting characteristically, i.e., does it look like my original attempt to orient to the situation is panning out? Or is this pilot acting like a lost student pilot or a semi-conscious pilot? Then feed forward to action: Go for the sun! Unfolding interaction with environment: What is the reaction of this pilot? Observation: This plane is at least 10% faster than anything I've seen before. Outside Information: Call back to base: "Who in blue blazes flies fighters that can top my speed?"
When the enemy aircraft comes into dogfight range there is really not much time to devote to orienting unless some new, and stunning, information pertaining to the actual identity of the attacker comes into play. At this point, the information is a cascade in real time, and the pilot, if he is to survive, is primarily depending on fingerspitzengefühl, the ability that Rommel seemingly had to have his mental fingers on the pulse of all of his troops and all of the enemy's troops. Observe by eyes, seat of the pants, instrument panel... Decide, but not on a discursive level because if you slow down to think it out in words you've already been hosed. Act. and with no perceptible time lag you are observing the result, and deciding, and acting...
If the pilot's opponent is any good at all, he is going through the same cycle. How does one interfere with one's opponent's OODA cycle? How does one interfere with the enemy's fingerspitzengefül? One of John Boyd's primary insights in fighter combat was that it was more important to be able to change speed, direction, and altitude more rapidly than one's opponent than it was to simply be able to fly faster than one's opponent. If one's opponent was coming up from behind, that meant that your plane was in his gunsight. It might be possible to accelerate and put greater distance between the two fighters, but machine gun bullets and guided missiles can fly even faster than either plane. It is better to be able to turn faster than your opponent can turn, and therefore to be able to get behind him, or to be able to decelerate so rapidly that the opponent cannot follow suite and therefore run out in front of you. That is one meaning of the phrase "getting inside one's opponent's OODA cycle." The other meaning, the other application of the OODA cycle, derives from the military strategies first developed in Sun Tzu's Art of War. The other meaning involves almost literally getting inside the cycle -- getting into one's counterpart's thinking processes by creating opportunities for one's opponent to see what one is or what one is doing as though it were something else, and therefore reacting inappropriately in the conflict situation. As one of Boyd's collegues, Harry Hillaker, put it in his article "John Boyd, USAF Retired, Father of the F16":The key is to obscure your intentions and make them unpredictable to your opponent while you simultaneously clarify his intentions. That is, operate at a faster tempo to generate rapidly changing conditions that inhibit your opponent from adapting or reacting to those changes and that suppress or destroy his awareness. Thus, a hodgepodge of confusion and disorder occur to cause him to over- or under-react to conditions or activities that appear to be uncertain, ambiguous, or incomprehensible.
See also
External links
- The complete set of briefings by John Boyd (http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm), including analysis and links
- The Essence of Winning and Losing (http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/boyd/essence/eowl_frameset.htm)—a five slide set by Boyd.