Col Richard "Zimbo" Lorentz - the creator of the Finnish Fighter Arm, Page 5 Richard Lorentz - Finland's John Boyd Both Lorentz and Boyd got to know the military life before they joined the air force as pilots. Lorentz was born in 1900 and joined jaeger major Aarne Sihvo's troops in 1918 to fight the Russian troops on the Karelian Isthmus. Boyd was born in 1927 and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1945. He served a brief period as an enlisted man in Japan. Boyd found himself part of the occupation forces at a former Japanese airfield. Lorentz entered the Finnish Military Academy in 1919 and graduated in 1921. Lorentz served as a junior officer at Tampere Regiment 1921 - 1925. He didn't feel that it was his line of duty so he applied to Finnish Air Force and entered flight training at Santahamina marine flying base and graduated as a military pilot. Boyd entered the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of Iowa in 1950. The Korean war started in June 1950 and Boyd graduated in June 1951 entering pilot training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. Lorentz was transferred to Utti air base "the home of Finnish fighter aviation" for fighter training in 1926. Boyd went to Williams Air Force Base in 1952 to fly the F-80 Shooting star and later that year reported at Nellis AFB to fly the F-86 Sabre. Boyd was sent to Korea in the winter of 1952-53. There he never got to fly lead since he flew only 22 missions before the war ended so he never got to be the shooter in the two-ship unit.. During Korea the tactics used by experienced F-86 pilots were essentially the same tactics used by P-51 pilots in World War II, but at higher altitude and greater speeds. New pilots in Korea were told never to get in a turning fight with a MiG and to use their speed to blow through enemy formations. This is something that Lorentz who was now retired figured out by reading articles from Newsweek and other magazines. Boyd clearly was the best F-86 driver in the squadron, so good that in 1953 he was made the assistant operations officer and then the wing tactics officer. In 1954 Boyd was transferred to Nellis AFB and assigned to the Fighter Weapons School as an instructor where he stayed to 1960. Lorentz served as a flight commander at LLv 24 from 1930 to 1932. He took command of the same fighter squadron in 1934. Lorentz didn't like to copy fighter tactics from abroad. He preferred home made tactics which suited the Finnish combat environment. Air combat against other fighters was first studied on paper calculating the most effective evasion maneuvers. Then the theory was put into test during air-to-air missions. There was a difference between the Finnish attack training and the approach abroad; Finns cut the maneuvers into pieces and trained them separately using the gun camera as opposed to the common view abroad to train all possible opening maneuvers as a whole. All missions were thoroughly briefed and analyzed. The progress of every pilot was closely tracked during fighter training. When Boyd entered the Fighter Weapons School in 1954 he was appalled to find out that the unit was largely a gunnery school. The banner shooting practice hardly resembled air-to-air combat. The air-to-air portion of the curriculum had dwindled to almost nothing. There was not even a manual of tactics. Already in 1956 he published the article "A Proposed Plan for Ftr. Vs. Ftr. Training". Boyd was teaching the pilots a new way of thinking; his article showed the results of their maneuvers. After Squadron Officer School Boyd was made the head of the Academics Division. This now gave him a chance to change the way tactics training was run. He redid the curriculum, developed mission cards, devoted most of the briefing time to tactics and gave individual attention to the students. In 1957 Boyd published the article "Air Combat Maneuvering" in the Fighter Weapons School Newsletter and in 1959 he began dictating the draft of the upcoming legendary 150-page "Aerial Attack Study", which was finished in 1960. Boyd changed the FWS emphasis from gunnery alone to aerial tactics. During the early 1930s Lorentz did mathematical studies with the engineers, then tested them in the air and based on the observations included the working solutions in the Finnish fighter training syllabi, which was being continuously developed and revised. Major Richard Lorentz was transferred to Finnish Air Force Headquarters at Helsinki in 1935 as a result of his articles to aviation magazines and the critical papers he had sent to the Finnish Air Force HQ. In the headquarters Lorentz was confronted by a majority of offensive aviation proponents who didn't trust the capabilities of small fighters against bombers. He became the chief of the Air Force Training Department. There the chief of the Air Staff activated a project to develop a new Air Warfare Manual for the Air Force. Lorentz wrote the chapters dealing with fighter operations and aerial combat. At the same time he acted as the aerial tactics instructor for the captain courses so tactics was his main hobby. Lorentz was a great lecturer stating his points in a calm and logical manner. The key points in the manual were the superiority of own fighter aircraft, the continuity of missions during daylight hours and surprise attacks. The manual was published in April 1939, just seven months before the war broke out. Both Lorentz and Boyd were extremely experienced fighter pilots. They both had the unique capability to connect between the data and observations on the other hand and the imagination, insight, and innovation on the other hand. The "numbers were singing" to them and they could work closely with engineers in order to solve the mathematical problems that they then could themselves test in the air. In addition to their capabilities as scientists they had the energy and practical mind to turn their findings into effective tactics and training syllabi so that others could benefit from their novel ideas. As a result of timing in history neither pilot became an ace since Lorentz didn't fly combat missions during WWII and Boyd only got 22 missions at Korea and didn't get to fly in the Vietnam war. Both officers were very intense persons. They kept processing their ideas through the nights so long that eventually they came up with the solution. Lorentz could come up to Capt. Magnusson at the flight line an tell that he had been thinking about a certain tactical problem the previous night and now thought that he had a solution they might test in the air. Now the intense flying period in their careers was behind them. Lorentz was in the FiAF HQ prior to the war. Boyd attended the Georgia Tech in the summer of 1960. There in the spring of 1962 the lightbulb flashed and Boyd came up with the idea of energy maneuverability theory that would change fighter design and tactics for decades to come. Boyd's studies showed that managing energy level was the key to success in fighter combat. In his secret comparative analysis he also found out that Soviet fighters could outmaneuver U.S. fighters and especially the planned F-111. Boyd was transferred to Eglin AFB, where he continued his studies. He now had an idea bigger than himself - a cause. Boyd had done some E-M calculations on the F-111 and knew what a terrible mistake the Air Force was making. In 1963 the E-M charts were beginning to come together. On November 1963 Richard Lorentz passed away during a holiday trip to Andalusia, Spain.  The U.S. Air Force looked at technology rather than the mission. Swing-wing technology would ultimately ruin two generations of airplanes. Dogfighting was becoming and arcane and almost lost art in the Air Force. This same trend was obvious in Finland where the transfer to jet fighters in the 1950s resulted in losing the dogfighting tradition. Lorentz was now retired and the majority of the WWII fighter pilots had left the service after the war. Finland had over 500 aircraft at the end of the war. The Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 allowed only 60 aircraft, which was interpreted to mean 60 front-line fighter aircraft. The combination of destroying the majority of the aircraft inventory, scarce operating funds and the loss of experienced fighter pilots and operational leadership proved to be a deadly combination to the fighter combat capability of the nation. In the summer of 1966 Boyd moved to Pentagon to save the troubled F-X program. The warrior joined the bureaucrats (anti-tacticians as Lorentz called them) in the "Puzzle Palace" to challenge the "Bigger-Faster-Higher-Farther fraternity". Boyd entered the fighter procurement business in 1966, while Lorentz had had his share of the inter-service rivalry and fighter procurement issues already in 1935-39 as the Chief of the FiAF HQ Training Department. Lorentz tried his best in the HQ to get more modern fighters purchased for the fighting units. Based on his theoretical studies and tactical tests Lorentz concluded that bomber formations couldn't protect themselves against fighter attacks the way that the media and the majority of FiAF HQ officers seemed to believe. The 1938 war in Spain validated what Lorentz was saying, but still there was no awakening in the FiAF HQ. Already in 1936 Lorentz had tried to shift funds from the Blenheim bomber procurement to the fighters. Unfortunately Douhetism and the proponents of bomber aviation got their way and Finland purchased some Blenheim bombers, but was eventually left with only one squadron of 31 slow Dutch Fokker D.XXI fighters that were developed for air-to-ground operations in Indonesia. During the additional military exercises (YH) in 1939 the Commander of the Finnish Air Force finally changed his mind to support the fighter force. Unfortunately the procurement plan was late and had to be done within budget allocations that were strictly enforced all the way to the war. All this reminds the SAC-dominated environment where Boyd had to operate in the 1960's when he entered the Pentagon. The F-111 was to be the future F-X fighter. The only problem was that this 85.000 lbs "fighter" was inferior to all Soviet fighters at all altitudes. Boyd used his E-M studies and succeeded in eventually changing the swing-wing F-111 into the F-15 air superiority fighter. F-111 would  became a strike aircraft, not a fighter. This procurement fight had similarities with the fight that Lorentz encountered in the FiAF HQ prior to WWII, when he tried to shift funding from the medium-heavy Blenheim bombers to high performance fighters. Boyd won his battle, but unfortunately Lorentz lost his and FiAF went and used the money to purchase the bombers instead of fighters. During the Vietnam war the U.S. Air Force had no air superiority fighter. After World War II, the Air Force said dogfights were a thing of the past. In the 1950s, Air Force generals said Korea was the last hurrah for the gunfighter. Then came Vietnam, which was supposed to be a push-button war that made dogfights obsolete. But Vietnam proved Boyd had been right about serious inadequacies in the new missiles. America needed a fighter with gun. Boyd and the Fighter Mafia would succeed in pushing the F-16 procurement through. Fight for the F-16 became the military reform movement. Richard Lorentz had succeeded in forming extremely good relations with the legendary head of the Finnish radio intelligence community, Col. Reino Hallamaa. For Boyd the connection to the intel community became very real when he was transferred in 1972 to the Nakom Phanom intelligence base in Thailand. The Igloo White program was tracking the North Vietnamese infiltration routes and had the headquarters in Boyd's base. Boyd returned from Thailand in 1973 and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 at the age of 48. After retirement Boyd went on and studied the history of warfare and developed his "Patterns of Conflict" brief. He and Pierre Sprey interviewed WWII German Stuka pilots and armor commanders to get their views on warfare. For Lorentz life was a lot different after the procurement battles since the war broke out in 1939 and Lorentz was ordered from the FiAF HQ to Flight Regiment 2 to take command of the whole Finnish fighter force on the eve of WWII. He now was in a position to put all his fighter combat knowledge into use, which he did very successfully. After the Winter War ended Lorentz had time to finish the Air Warfare manual with U.A. Nieminen in 1941. The war broke out again in June 1943 and Richard Lorentz found again himself running the Finnish fighter aviation at war. In 1944 at the age of 44 Lorentz was ordered to the position of Joint Forces Air Component Commander where he was in a position to join the Finnish fighter and bomber forces and the detachment Kuhlmey's Stukas to long-range artillery fire in order to support the fight against the advancing Soviet forces. In his position Lorentz learned the lessons of joint warfare the hard way during the summer of 1944. The studies into command and control came as a natural progression to both Boyd and Lorentz as they grew older. came to the same conclusions about command and control. Boyd expressed his views in the Organic Design for Command and Control study he wrote after retirement. The lower level commander should be trusted and given tactical freedom. The higher level commanders should give the commander's intent and guide the troops to the right direction. Lorentz didn't want any more ordering mentality than just to make sure that the goal would be achieved. This method is called "mission orders" or "auftragstaktik" in German. Lorentz had very concrete an clear views about how to combine the tactical and operational information into a network of local command posts and a national air operations center. Lorentz retired as a colonel in 1950 at the age of 50 from the position of the Inspector of Air Defence. Also Boyd had retired as a colonel. Both men had challenged their superiors  and generals so many times that they lost their chance to advance themselves to the highest positions in their organizations. Lorentz and Boyd were men of principle. They had a mission and were serving a cause that was above the normal careerism in their air forces. Lorentz and Boyd wrote articles to magazines, but didn't publish any academic studies, which is unfortunate since they both had a scientific way of thinking and could have contributed a lot to their organizations and even to a larger audience. Both changed the way their organizations fought and were key persons in successful aerial warfare. Lorentz was running the whole air war on the eastern front in 1944 so he had a lot to say in how things were conducted in the air. The U.S. Air Force adopted Boyd's principles on the tactical level of air combat, but didn't respect his operational and strategic thinking. It was the U.S. Marine Corps that changed its way of warfighting based on Boyd's ideas. It is interesting to see that in their own organizations both Lorentz and Boyd formed a threat to the bureaucrats, bean counters and anti-tacticians, who then tried to make service life miserable for these warriors and succeeded in their efforts. Lorentz and Boyd shared a lot in common and would have had very intense meetings together. It would have been interesting to have Boyd interview Lorentz about the lessons the latter had learned from the air war against the Soviet forces. Grant T. Hammond wrote in his "The Mind of War, John Boyd and American Security": "The Air Force is not much different from most large enterprises. The sheer size, scope, and scale of operations, bureaucracy, regulations, and standard operating procedures are so large that a certain amount of stultifying routine and a lack of imagination are to be expected. In saying this, one should realize that most of corporate America, academia, and many other institutions of some size and complexity share the same characteristics most of the time. The trick is to allow the mavericks to exist and to be heard, to select those who have real contributions to make from those who merely complain, to keep a certain amount of in-house criticism and nay-saying as a counterpoise to the routine. Somebody has to keep the system honest by asking the novel and tough questions and pushing radical ideas. Taking care of the mavericks is not something the American military does well. Few make it to the general officer, and most don't make colonel, deciding to leave rather than continue to get hammered in the effort to create change." Hammond goes on to say: "To contribute to the defense of the nation by defying others is a hard kind of patriotism. To challenge orthodoxy as a part of a military hierarchy meant challenging one's superiors. Challenging one's superiors risked assignments, promotions, and ultimately one's career and very livelihood. To do so routinely for an entire career and continue to challenge the system in retirement exacts and even heavier toll. To do so as a matter of principle and not for private gain marks one as dangerous. Such conviction requires self-sacrifice and loyalty to an authority higher than one's superiors. Unfortunately, there are few rewards, virtually no ribbons and medals, and few thank-yous, even for jobs well done. The satisfaction gained from success, whatever the victories won, is relatively short-lived. The system will return to its accustomed inefficiency until nudged temporarily out of its lethargy by the next crusader, always coming back to rest essentially where it was before. Boyd and company nudged harder and longer than most. Though Forty-Second Boyd's service to his country is over, a grateful nation may continue to profit from his insights." Lorentz and Boyd where mavericks who weren't protected. They nudged the system hard for a long time, but unfortunately the system eventually always wins after it has crushed the mavericks. To change the system in any lasting and meaningful way would require a string of John Boyds and Richard Lorentzes, all strategically positioned at the right place for a decade or more. Even then, true reform would be doubtful and not likely to happen. The system endures. The influence of Boyd and Lorentz always exceeded their rank, a damning sin in a military hierarchy.  Lorentz and Boyd didn't get the reward they deserved during their life time. Only years and decades after they passed away did they start to get the recognition they should have received immediately for their exceptional achievements that changed aerial warfare in their nations. There are now two biographies written about John Boyd, but more than four decades after Richard Lorentz passed away not a single book has been written about this officer, whose thoughts and actions were crucial for Finland at a time when the future of the nation was on the line. Sources: Coram, Robert: Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war, Little, Brown, 2002 Hammond, Grant T.: The Mind of War, John Boyd and American Security, Smithsonian 2001 Juutilainen, Ilmari: Double Fighter Knight, Apali, 1996 Karhunen, Joppe: Ilma-aseen iskumiehiä, Tammi 2000 Karhunen, Joppe: Magnussonin laivue, Otava 1969 Lorentz, Richard: Iskuja ilmaan, 1953 Mattelmäki U.A.: Eversti R. Lorentz, Suomen hävittäjäilmavoimien luoja, 1988 Pajari, Risto: Talvisota Ilmassa, Werner Söderström, 1971 Porvali, Seppo and Wind, Anja: Viimeinen Kotka, Gummerus 2002 Sögren, Börje: Hasse Wind, hävittäjälentäjä, Tammi, 1984 Valtonen, Hannu: Lento-osasto Kuhlmey, Keski-Suomen Ilmailumuseo, 1991   Home Latest Topic | Air Warfare | Conferences/Air Shows | Fighter Tactics | Fighter Aircraft | Missiles | Fighter Aviation Topic | Fighter History | Warbirds | Magazines | Current News | Links | Physiology | Photo Gallery | Bibliography | SIIVET - Wings | What's New J Lindberg. Copyright © 1997-2006 Fighter Tactics Academy. All rights reserved. Revised: tammikuu 04, 2006.