05-02-2005 16:03									#1
	Battles: Low Level vs Overall Increase Your PM Length

What this thread topic means is, that most doctrines have a.. how should I put it.. a different approach to the same situation, often leading to the same solution. So it's like a commie and capitalist doing the same thing to work out a problem, so to speak.. in which case, the solution is most likely the best. Though it's not guaranteed.

I've been lately reading a lot of stories and history about battles in the last 50 years, I mean from WWII to these days would be the range.

I've been wondering the number of mistakes done by many participants. Of course they always happen. But the basic concepts have been tossed away and up with the new ones.

Some of the very basic level fighting has been forgotten in the big picture. Of course, to defendor it is always easier, but it seems to me the armies today, granted mostly from 'weak armies' never seem to be preparing and blocking, evading and dodging the enemy recon, except take some measures that are not enough.

The only way defendor will win or put a good fight is to prepare itself wisely, strategically. IF this preparation is totally supervised by the enemy, be it from air via spy planes, satellites, SF on the ground, informants.. it's going into crappers, depending how much is revealed. It is naturally a very basic concept and you don't need a lot of money to avoid sallite imagery ruining your plans, informants are always limited and not trusted by the enemy, SF type of recon is difficult to oust but there can be areas where they can be sealed off, at least should be. I do not know why recent conflicts have seen these bits as not important enough to take care of. Of course, only strong and sophisticated armies cna truly capitalize on these mistakes, like say the US, and many Euro countries, Russia, China, well basically anyone who has an army that is .. like real.

However, the approach of many real armies is still, and is going to be, the big picture. The approach is to advance to the goal. However, this is a weakness that is very much exploitable. It's like Hockey, you start from defense to the offense. That is, that your biggest concern at first when creating a doctrine is the lowest level of fighting. It's not anything else. It can't be. You make sure you have max mobility and firepower and support. If you lack in any of these, especially in local group or unit level firepower and mobility, and your doctrine isn't the hottest crap, it means you are going to lose unless a miracle happens. And this is why FFL lost in DBP in then Indochina, from which US took notes and launched their own one in there as well to stop the north commies and help the south not-commies. The strategy wasn't too bad, and they won the battles, however situation became unbareable and it would be considered a loss. However I would still claim, that it wasn't a loss in military terms, it was a political loss. Unfortunately that overruns the military terms.

So, in Vietnam, the recon did work well, even though the area and enemy was well prepared, and functioned very well. One of the toughest places to gain that recon victory, however they did. But ever since, it seems to me as people have taken Vietnam as a bad example of how to fight a war. I don't see it as a bad example of how to fight a war. US was dominating. Granted it couldn't take the total domination and oftne lacked initiative and momentum, which kept the enemy alive, but aside that it was kicking ass. The rest can be contributed to tough terrain and almost impossible task, outside that they perfomed very well.

Germany has had big military history, and it has been based on the right things at least in the last century. Say what you want, but it was one helluva army. It would win their counterparts most of the times because they had taken care of the small details and executed them precisely. This allowed them to advance fast and implement blietzkrig. Naturally it fell tits up after some megalomaniac plans. However had they stuck with little less and settled for a little less, who knows. We have the same concept of battling, low level and from their upwards.
It works. You don't hand your guy a bad pair of skis, train him a week in it and give a gun and say now you are a ski trooper. Because you can't match the counterpart. You don't deny them support and say just go forward damn it take the bastard town and then you be ok. You don't deny them protective gear, target hmv's and say take it to the invisible enemy. You don't strip down the individual and make a trade off for the bigger plan, because the machine won't work then and what is the good plan then? Nothing but a plan that never happened. And this is why politicians should NEVER do any doctrines and write their little academic POS strategies that they feel are superior without a lifetime experience first. They are all famous for not being succesful. Most working models are made by lifetime experts. Politicians are FAMOUS for ****ing it all up, they tend to disregard the low level and go for the big picture. Get my point?

	05-02-2005 22:41									#2
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: However I would still claim, that it wasn't a loss in military terms, it was a political loss. Unfortunately that overruns the military terms.

I would disagree. Colonel Hackworth showed in the Delta that you can fight and beat the VC and NVA, while still having a kill to death ratio of 100+:1. The US strategy across the rest of vietnam was flawed, because they couldnt figure out that capturing that part of jungle wasnt worth it, since they would have to pull out if it anyways, the VC would just move back in. So they would lose 30 soldiers taking a patch of jungle, pull out, and have to do it again right away. they didnt use airpower properly, didnt use tricks, didnt out guerrilla the guerrillas. and thats why we lost every single battle.