Attack - whats harder? Defending or attacking?

[Sir Uber General]

I'd like to chip in.

As a defender, I find the style of play I go for (fluid or static) is determined by a)my purchases and the terrain.

There are situations such as loads of cover where a fluid defence works better - you can counterattck with your forces getting into their jump-off postion unseen which is very important. On the other hand, counter-attacking across open terrain is pretty suicidal so in those situations a more static defence is appropriate. What I hate most though is that once past the purchase screen, I cant go back and change my forces if the terrain is inapropriate for my selections

Now to pillboxes and bunkers. My take on wooden bunkers is dont give them a terrific LOS because they WILL get nailed before they do any good. If used to defend a reverse-slope V infantry I have found they simply dont die unless the attacker can get a piat/zook up close to knock it out, which can be terribly difficult if the attackers are being counter-attacked off the reverse slope. If the attacker wants to use up arty trying to get a top penetration on the bunker, please do. I wont cry because because it is still a lucky shot IMO and it uses up his arty nicely. Now, if the attacker wants to move an AFV into position to take out the bunker that is fantastic too, because it will have to expose itself inside the covered arc of an ATG somewhere, and the earlier I rid my enemy of his AFV's the better.

Now AT pillboxes. Placed correctly and backed up with more mobile buddies these things make a great strongpoint. Yes, the strongpoint can be avoided but to do so will mean the attacker is going use an alternate route, and on a CM map there is only going 1 or at most 2 possible other routes, and those will be the focus of the rest of my defense. I use pillboxes to dominate the terrain and funnel attackers down routes I want them to travel. If the attacker decides to try and kill my pillbox though via 37mm AFV, it means it is time to roll out the big tank that will kill his light armour and shrug off their AP (or anti-light-armour gun, both do nicely, but I prefer the tank as it can be moved elsewhere if required). That forces the attacker to go around the strongpoint (and into a towed gun ambush) or try again with bigger armour that has even less chance of taking out the box. Both results are satisfactory in my book.

Pillbox MG's arent worth it to me, end of story.

Now combine the woodies (I often buy 2 and place them to cover each others backsides) with the Pillbox75, you have the cornerstone of a nice static or semi-fluid defence.

I gotta change this signature

[NightGaunt]

I never play QBs.

the battles I involve with are usually 40-60 turns with a 2kmx2km map of some sort with important locations pointed out, and objective laid out.

But you point out the significant point that I don't take the clock into account when I play.

However, if the battle is properly made, you should have some amount of time to probe defenses, or, lacking that, the designer should tell you some information to guide your general attack plan. during a shorter term battle, you simply have to keep a larger reserve to immediatly take advantage of any perceived weakness. A shorter timed game definitly favors the defender. However, I have not had trouble with 40 turns on a 2kmx2km where I had to really travel the whole map to reach the objectives.

With all that said, the counter attacking defense is STILL better in a short length battle. Any disruption to the attacker in a short term battle is critical, if you screw up his advance in a 20 turn battle by even 5 turns, you have seriously affected his chances of winning.

[skelley]

I believe attacking is way easier than defending. I would love to see a defender running troops across the map to reinforce or counter attack my forces. Any smart attacker has his arty already targeted to areas that he thinks will give him trouble so just walking it over as his boys come running in tired as can be should be no problem. The key to defense is putting off the fighting as long as possible. Keep the attacker searching for your MLR and use MGs to keep his scouts pinned. Also putting assets in the least likely places as possible with good LOS. I think that the only way for a fair attack is for the attacker to take a -10% force reduction and for the map to be fairly open to reduce attackers scouting with MGs. Even then the defender should only hope for a minor win at best.....if both sides are equal in skill.

[Scott B]

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

Clausewitz would never argue that the (morally and/or physically) weaker side should carry the war to the attacker. As Fionn does.

Clausewitz believed that the defender should ALWAYS be looking to carry the war to the attacker-- it is the logical progression, and he specifically states that the counterattack is "the necessary component" of the defense.

Additionally, since the defender has the advantages of terrain and surprise, at the point of contact it certainly does not necessarily follow that he will be the "morally and/or physically" inferior of the combatants at all.

On War, Book Six:

If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object. When one has used defensive measures successfully, a more favorable balance of strength is usually created; thus, the natural course in war is to begin defensively and end by attacking. It would therefore contradict the very idea of war to regard defense as its final purpose, just as it would to regard the passive nature of defense not only as inherent in the whole but also in all its parts. In other words, a war in which victories were used only defensively without the intention of counterattacking would be as absurd as a battle in which the principle of absolute defense-- passivity, that is-- were to dictate every action.

Now clearly, he's not advocating a passive stance here by any stretch. Use the defense to construct the opportunities that will allow you to effectively attack and defeat your enemy. This is potentially out of the scope of individual Combat Mission battles, which exist in a vaccuum where you can win just by standing in the right place and never firing a shot.

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

(3) Furthermore, Clausewitz explicitly says -and you seem to have overlooked this- that there are positions that cannot be attacked at all. Torres Vedras was such a position. What I am saying is: Building such a position should be the defender´s ideal. Ideal in the Kantian sense: Something that, in the real world, can not always be achieved, but, as far as possible, should be approximated.

Sometimes it is preferable to build an impregnable fortress. And actually, Clausewitz tells us that it can be even more beneficial to create a virtually impregnable fortress-- that which will draw an enemy and damage him in vain attempts to assault a position that is tougher than it seems. But Clausewitz, in his discussion of the defense, does not agree that this is always, or even often, going to be the preferable objective.

Book Six, Chapter Nine

...we stated that in the course of his defense the defender can fight a tactically offensive battle by seeking out and attacking the enemy as soon as he invades his theater of operations. Alternatively, he may await the enemy's appearance and then attack him in which case the the battle is still offensive in a tactical sense, though somewhat modified in form. Finally, he may actually wait for the enemy to attack his position and then strike back; not only using part of his force to hold the enemy locally, but also attacking him with the rest.

It should be clear that Clausewitz realizes the value of passive defensive measures-- and he indeed specifically mentions fortifications-- but he was still offensively minded in that while the offensive is the weaker form of warfare, it has a positive aim.

Fortifications are force multipliers, as you have correctly pointed out. If properly handled, in real life conditions they can potentially turn back an opponent with significant material superiority. In Combat Mission, however, due to a variety of factors (of which several have already been noted in some detail in this thread), they are often not an efficient use of points.

Do you believe that fortifications are preferable to additional maneuver assets while on the defense? In Combat Mission, specifically?

In what ratio?

I can not take you seriously here.

In that, I assure you, you are hardly unique.

Make the map large enough, and there can be no defence at all (WWII, North African Desert).

You're suggesting, then, that effective defenses were impossible in North Africa? It's sort of down and to the left of my area of interest, so I'm certainly interested in hearing about that. Elaborate.

Was, say, the whole of the Western Soviet Union too large an area to effectively defend?

Of course, a static defense doesn´t work on a large map with no time limit -because this is not a balanced scenario. Such a map can, quite simply, not be defended.

While this was not my intent, you have generated an additional point. We're not interested in defending a map; we're interested in defending an objective. Several of the inherent advantages of the defense-- such as surprise and terrain-- still go to the defender in this situation. I do find it interesting that you claim that a static defense would be inadequate to the task; would you then believe a more dynamic one to be preferable?

On that map, as an attacker, I build a moving hedgehog and take 2.000 turns to kill the defender one man at a time.

All attacks have a weakness; all defenses have holes. He that best takes advantage of his opponents vulnerability, wins. While it is true that time works to the defender's advantage, it is not the defender's sole advantage, and possibly not even the most important.

My original intent in that statement, I should probably mention, was to point out that if you depended on the clock or the map size in a Combat Mission quick battle to win, then it is difficult to consider such a defense "impregnable." By taking it to its logical extreme, though, I think you've raised some interesting questions.

You are really arguing that I am wrong, because my argument depends on the existence of space and time.

Actually, I was mainly arguing that you were wrong in your discussion of Clausewitz thus far; I'd probably never have bothered posting here if you'd not mentioned him. Unfortunately, misinterpretations of Clausewitz grate like nails on a chalkboard; I'm pretty far from an expert on it-- I've met maybe three people in my life whom I think are-- but I've at least spent some time trying to grasp the basics.

Fionn,

I'll have a look, thanks for the heads-up; might be a few days, but I'll get to it.

Pillar,

I'll try to answer your questions.

1) Is it possible that sometimes mobile defense may have large demands on the skill of the commander using it, because it is not the most efficient way to go? In other words, the skill of the commander must make up for the poor defensive doctrine?

I do not believe it is a poorer doctrine, although there are certainly more moving parts, so to speak. It could be that the moving parts, however, are what makes the defense more efficient. I see the main advantage in enacting a mobile defense as being able to choose the timing as well as the location of an engagement; sometimes-- maybe even often-- this is the preferred course of action, to the commander that feels that it is within his grasp.

I do feel that the mobile defense is to some extent more resource intensive; you only have a 3-2 point ratio difference in a normal CM battle, while in real life the actual manpower ratio might be three or four or ten to one, and the only option to "make up the difference" is in organizing a defensive zone. I think the whole reason anyone employs static defenses is an economy of force measure; you use them, so you can use your troops someplace else to greater effect.

I think that last part was a fair response to your second question, on the necessity of static defenses. Clearly the need does exist for them.

Unfortunately, I'll be out of town the next few days and will likely not be able to post to the thread again until Sunday. Good stuff, though; I am very much enjoying reading the posts in this thread.

Scott

[ May 31, 2002, 01:15 AM: Message edited by: Scott B ]

[Tarquelne]

Austrian Strategist's "siege like attack" vs Fionn's "Attack defense" would be a mighty encounter

Watching this battle from my FO position, I think that AS may have missed that Fionn's full-scale counter attack is an extreme form of the "fluid attack", not the default form. If I've misunderstood, and the full counter attack is something Fionn uses every game, then the psycho-kinetic theory for Fionn's success might be true...

I think it's simply the fluid attack version of the "static defense." Like an extreme form of the passive-defense is a utterly static defense, an extreme form of the active-defense is a full scale counter attack.

I suspect that we all (with the notable exceptions of those involved in the Great Bunker Debate) agree on the theoretical issues, it's just the gritty real-world issues - the practicality and frequency of how the "ideal forms" manifest themselves - that are the real sources of disagreement.

This discussion game me a number of ideas on how to counter a fluid defense.... or at least a fluid defense run by an unsuspecting enemy. Making sure my opponent was aware of this debate, I arrainged for 105mm arty to fall behind a section of Woods the turn after the 81mm mortar started hitting one of his positions in those woods. Sure enough, he wanted to demonstrate "mobility", and ended up trying to withdraw through a 105mm barrage.

Later I used a HMG as bait and drew a counter-attacking platoon into a 81mm attack. Heh heh. I love guessing games. Huh... come to think of it, that's an example of using a static-type tactic on the attack.

[ May 31, 2002, 03:55 AM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

[Fionn]

Removed because it REALLY wasn't worth it.

[ May 31, 2002, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Wreck]

"emptiest braggadocio, and obscurantist nonsense."

I'll also point out that people seem fixated on "full scale counter-attack" and think I do that from the first turn or something. I never said that.

But yet:

I habitually chase attacking forces back to their start lines when defending. It really freaks them out and makes the game a bit more fun than just sitting in your foxholes waiting for them to come to you.

That certainly sounds like a prescription for "full scale counter attack". I realize you might not be thinking that, but players without your skills will not be able to deflate the rhetoric and realize what you are saying.

And this:

I play with Regular troops mostly. Because I BELIEVE I will win they outperform most opponents' Crack troops. MORAL superiority is a real phenomenon with real effects on your in-game troops.

... is obscurantist nonsense. Your regular troops perform well because you lead them well and do not do things with them beyond their ability. There is no moral influence at all, outside of the commands you give. Your beliefs do not affect the computer, outside of your actions made predicated on those beliefs. To suggest otherwise, as you are doing, is nonsense.

[Fionn]

Deleted because it simply isn't worth it.

[ May 31, 2002, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Sarge Saunders]

Hmmm...been following this thread enough to comment for what it is worth. According to Fionn, mental attitude is key to victory. Fine. I will grant that belief in victory will more likely garner that victory than lack thereof. However, we are not all as talented as Fionn so we actually lose sometimes. What does that do for one's attitude? [retorical question...]

Here is what wins: Tactics. How do tactics win? Belief that a tactic is good (formed from experience) and skill at carrying it out.

That is it. Skill can even override belief. (ie. I am not sure if this tactic will work but I know how I want to execute it....)

Oh did I mention luck helps? Timing?

JasonC's and Redwolf's posts, among others, are helpful because they are specific. General statements coming from players who win all the time about moral attitude (should that not be "morale"?) can only help so much because the rest of us CM mortals will lose sometimes and become more cautious (sometimes incorrectly) as a result.

It is all part of the game and I will probably never start a game "knowing" I will win. This would qualify as an improper mental attitude. So be it. I still win and lose with my skill as a player.

Just speaking for us mortals here....

MHO

-Sarge

[Fionn]

Deleted because it simply isn't worth it.

[ May 31, 2002, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[Cooper]

posted by fionn

I lose sometimes too. What is important is that you always BELIEVE you'll win. That

belief is, mathematically, unsupportable BUT the belief is important since it sets the tone

for your decision-making cycle.

You will be more daring, more aggressive and more attuned to searching for enemy

weaknesses. Certainly you will sometimes lose ( that's life) BUT you'll lose far less than if

you go into a game believing the other guy can beat you.

I going to have to agree here, the commander's moral is key. Back when I first started playing CM, I can't count the number of games I could have won had I kept a aggresive attitude.

example

game starts, VL are taken by both sides, shot are exchanged, pitched battle begins, damn I am taking a beating (this is before I could estimate size of enemy force by points and realize the damage I am causing him), damn I really am getting my a@# kicked, better hold on to what I got and hope for the best, game over draw.

Then you look at the map after the battle and you see that if your threw those 2 plt. of inf. in reserve into a counter attack (instead of reinforcing the mlr) you could have won the battle.

When you think you are "losing" you make decision based on "Saving your remaining manpower/afvs/support units" instead of "destroying the enemy" I believe that is the key, and if you look at your own games (that you lost) you will find the moment that you decision making changed. I know I do.

ps. BTS needs a spell check in their forums for the non spelling bee champs like me : )

[ May 31, 2002, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Sarge Saunders:

Hmmm...been following this thread enough to comment for what it is worth. According to Fionn, mental attitude is key to victory. Fine. I will grant that belief in victory will more likely garner that victory than lack thereof. However, we are not all as talented as Fionn so we actually lose sometimes. What does that do for one's attitude? [retorical question...]

I think that touches a very important issue: playing against a known good player.

Inexperienced Players who think the opponent is much better will often play very cautiously.

But that is exactly wrong. Being predictable and slow against a superiour opponent (whether from tactics or numbers doesn't matter) is a very sure way to defeat.

Granted, you shouldn't be be reckless, especially not with AFVs. But you need to be agressive. That way you may still fail because you ran into his/her teeth, but the alternative is having his teeth come to you at a position and time of his choice. You have no chance that way against a much more experienced opponent - whatever you do once you are pressed into a non-agressive position he has seen X times before and will counter it with ease.

If you can take space while it is free or very cheap, then do it. You need firepower overwatch to do so, and if you don't have it there, you have to move it. You may lose AFVs this way from a lack of experience. But you probably learned a lesson about AFV positioning you can use next time. If you keep your AFVs at your start lines until it gets overrun by Panzerfaust carrying Volksgrenadiers, you did not learn a useful lesson except that you need space.

Against an experienced opponent, do not feel pressed to let loose ambushes earlier because the opponent is experienced. Granted, it is true that he will much more likely detect it in the timeframe between now and optimal ambush than a normal opponent. And then you haven given up the limited ambush damage you could do right now. However, even if he blows the ambush, you learned an important lessen and can build a better one next time. The premature ambush only teaches you that constantly winning less than neccessary leads to defeat.

BTW, Swamp has a nice ME tutorial at thforums.com (see my signature).

[Sarge Saunders]

Originally posted by redwolf:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sarge Saunders:

Hmmm...been following this thread enough to comment for what it is worth. According to Fionn, mental attitude is key to victory. Fine. I will grant that belief in victory will more likely garner that victory than lack thereof. However, we are not all as talented as Fionn so we actually lose sometimes. What does that do for one's attitude? [retorical question...]

I think that touches a very important issue: playing against a known good player.

Inexperienced Players who think the opponent is much better will often play very cautiously.

But that is exactly wrong. Being predictable and slow against a superiour opponent (whether from tactics or numbers doesn't matter) is a very sure way to defeat.

</font>

[NightGaunt]

"I lose sometimes too. What is important is that you always BELIEVE you'll win. That belief is, mathematically, unsupportable BUT the belief is important since it sets the tone for your decision-making cycle."

"You will be more daring, more aggressive and more attuned to searching for enemy weaknesses. "

This is turning into a broken record, but once again I understand exactly what you are stating.

BELIEVING you will win, all the time no matter what the situation is critical.

Unconciously, if you have a doubt about your ability to win a battle at any time, you seriously comprimise your chance to win. You make dumb mistakes, miss important details, etc etc etc. It your own personal "morale".

Think of it like sports, when a boxer has an opponent a little staggered, he goes in for the kill because there is a good chance to put him away.

Same thing with the game, when you are staggered (ie your personal morale is low), you give your opponent an edge.

That is what I believe FIONN is stating, and I agree with it. Boardgames are great examles of it, diplomacy,EA, and A&A come to mind. When you can see in your opponents eyes he is demoralized, you go for the kill. And the same time, if he sees you supremely confident, it can shake his confidence and affect his decisions, I've seen it many times.

Its a bit harder in CM to affect your opponent, or at least see the affects, unless your opponent is a big typer during games. so you have to concetrate on yourself and make sure you are always confident.

On a side note, it is the confidence that kept Priest pestering me to challenge you, FIONN. He recognized the same trait and wanted to see me get kicked by someone whose confidence style (for lack of a better term) was similar. I, of course, insist I would win...although I haven't actually played a game in close to 7 months

[ May 31, 2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: NightGaunt ]

[Panzer Leader]

Ahem, could we get off the old self-help, be your own best friend bandwagon, and maybe start talking about TACTICS again?? Not to insult for sure, but we are starting to sound like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

[Fionn]

Nightgaunt,

You don't have an email address listed. If I read you correctly you said that you emailed me once looking for a game? I don't see the email here in my challenges folder so maybe I didn't get it... I change email addresses regularly to prevent my email address getting out to people whom I don't want to have it... so can you post your email here or send it to priest and have him send it to me?

It won't be immediate ( still got to clear about 20 games backlog) but if you want to play I'll certainly give you a run out.

[JasonC]

To Panzer Leader - quite. More diplomatically put, but my previous point exactly. Norman Vincent Peal is not a profound military theorist.

To Fionn - apparently you see nothing insulting (your term) in claiming you always win because you are morally superior to everyone else in existence, but do see something insulting in being quite accurately called a braggart for saying so. Why is unclear. Why shouldn't you regard "braggart" as a term of praise, if you think humility is a defeatist vice and bragging the key to victory?

On the more realistic distinction between patience or caution vs. a risk taking or aggressiveness (which, not being metaphysical-magical qualities of persons, can actually be varied consciously by any commander), the claim seems to reduce to "most CM players err on the side of caution". That is somewhat plausible, as it is noticable e.g. that all double-blind wargames induce relatively more cautious play than full intel ones. So somewhat more aggressive players are acting more like their full-info counterparts.

But this is hardly a matter of extremes or maximizing anything. Overconfidence is just as deadly as despondency, if your opponent expects and exploits it. Rashness can lose battles as easily as caution. For every wavering position not rushed when it might have been, there is a kill sack blundered into. The balance between them may not be even *empirically*, meaning the average player might improve by more aggressive or by more cautious play. But they are perfectly symmetrical relations theoretically, in the sense that too much of either can hang you.

And that is obvious enough historically. Fionn may not have understood - or accepted, perhaps - my France 1914 analogy. But there have been times and places when entire militaries have subscribed to something very similar to his faith in the power of confidence and "moral ascendency", along with a cult of the offensive believed to go hand in hand with it. It was called the school of St. Cyr.

It resulted in the French army charging into the attack in 1914, against the advancing Germans, expecting their moral superiority and supreme self confidence to carry them to victory. The clash that resulted is known as "the Battle of the Frontiers", and it cost the French one million men.

All the self confidence in the world did not defeat superior heavy artillery. Confident men rendered into small pieces of bloody pulp do not win every battle because they believe they will. Petain, the only general officer of his day in the French army who never bought in to the St. Cyr cult of the offensive and of "moral superiority", drew the lesson - "firepower kills".

The reason I take this sort of thing seriously has nothing to do with Fionn personally, or even with CM. The attitude he is expressing is one intentionally cultivated in modern US and NATO military training, for junior and field grade officers in particular. And it is every bit as dangerous today as it was in 1914. I care very little whether CM players believe the Norman Vincent Peal philosophy of warfare. But I care very much that future commanders of American fighting men (and of allies) may face the modern smart weapon firepower revolution with a contempt for Petain's dictum as extreme as the boys in blue pants of 1914. Preaching rash self-confidence as a military philosophy is not something to be done lightly.

But Panzer Leader is right, that such things are distant from CM tactics, which is a more proper subject of discussion here. I also note that it is entirely possible Fionn does not himself fully understand what he does to win, and may mistake effects of his tactical skills on his confidence, for a cause of victories actually due to those skills. That he has seen others "learn" the same is unsurprising, if he has also taught them such skills. Just being more confident without them, I am willing to claim, would have no such effect.

[Ligur]

The power of will will lead us to final victory!

-Adolf

Now for some humour!

6th Army can't be supported by Luftwaffe and a wacky airbridge.

-Various officers

Power of will blah blah!!!

-Adolf

[Fionn]

Deleted because it simply isn't worth it.

[ May 31, 2002, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[arax3]

Fionn: I need a lesson. Send me a setup, your choice. Your convenience. It would be an honor to play you. A3

[JasonC]

To Fionn - You think that you win more because you are more confident, I think you are merely more confident because you win more - for other reasons. You think your confidence before a game is a superior mental attitude, and I think it is an inferior mental attitude. You think it is a superior attitude because you think belief in victory leads to victories, and I think it is an inferior attitude because I think pride is a weakness, as stupid as plucking your own eyes out. I am not misunderstanding what you are saying, I am disagreeing with it.

[Tarquelne]

cult of the offensive... The attitude he is expressing is one intentionally cultivated in modern US and NATO military training, for junior and field grade officers in particular. And it is every bit as dangerous today

The cult has spread well beyond purely military matters. For example, most people are trained to attack an opponent's argument where it seems weakest. Which is a good "offensive" tactic, and used because it does, indeed, win arguments.

For example:

apparently you see nothing insulting (your term) in claiming you always win because you are morally superior to everyone else in existence,

Is a great example of reformulating an opponent's argument into a weaker form. One's opponent will reject it - maybe just because you've pissed 'em off. It's usefull for convincing someone else (or yourself) that your opponent is wrong, but won't sway your opponent one whit. Not concerned about swaying your opponent? Then you're not trying to participate in a discussion, you're trying to win a game. Which is fine, in it's proper place.*

Ignoring any qualifiers or further explainations ("the belief is important since it sets the tone for your decision-making cycle.") is also classic tactic used by this rhetorical "cult of the offensive."

(As are, of course, personal insults.)

OTOH, if you want to try to get at the truth, or just communicate effectively, you should be willing to attack an opponent's argument where it is strongest. If your opponet doesn't seem able to give a decent argument to attack then you have to try reformulating it. This can be as simple as assuming your opponent simply made a poor word choice. Yes, that does put more of a burden on you. But unless your opponent is completely wrong - which is unfortunatly rare - there is some degree of truth to be delt with. If you want to find it you have to remove the truth from the dross _and keep the truth_, not respond to the dross.

The reason I take this sort of thing seriously has nothing to do with Fionn personally, or even with CM.

...But because it's more or less my profession, and I think it's important. This discussion, for example, seemed far more fruitfull when everyone was trying to understand just what the other person was talking about, and try to change his mind, not simply demonstrate that the other one is wrong.

*Speaking of "proper place" - I swear not to follow up on this subject at all in this thread.

But seeing the "cult of the offensive" mentioned again was too tempting.

[Blackhorse]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The reason I take this sort of thing seriously has nothing to do with Fionn personally, or even with CM. The attitude he is expressing is one intentionally cultivated in modern US and NATO military training, for junior and field grade officers in particular. And it is every bit as dangerous today as it was in 1914. I care very little whether CM players believe the Norman Vincent Peal philosophy of warfare. But I care very much that future commanders of American fighting men (and of allies) may face the modern smart weapon firepower revolution with a contempt for Petain's dictum as extreme as the boys in blue pants of 1914. Preaching rash self-confidence as a military philosophy is not something to be done lightly.

Jason,

Where do you get that? Explain how this is translated into an officer's military education. There are no courses entitled "Battle and victory through Norman Vincent Peal's philosophy of confidence and over confidence." Better yet, explain how this particular discussion is even remotely going to affect any officers?

This is not AC3 or CGSC or the War College. This is a forum for a game, and Fionn, a fella who plays the game damn well, was giving us his opinions of what makes a successful player.

Lighten up Frances.

Tarqulene,

Bravo! Well said.

[NightGaunt]

FIONN:

[edit] I will get my email address to you shortly. Happy to hear you have a backlog, I will have time to shake the rust off

JASONC:

This thread really shows what sort of debater, and I use that term loosely, you are. Frankly I am very thankful that people of your calibur are few and far between on this forum.

It is obvious you don't subscribe to the theory, probably because you don't have the awareness to recognize and understand what is being stated. That is fine, it is good to DEBATE a subject you do not subscribe to.

However if I was interested in reading rants and personal attacks, I would go to a less intelligent forum.

And with that, i depart this thread. I'm sure you will come up with some smart reply. Rest assured I will read it, but will not respond.

[ May 31, 2002, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: NightGaunt ]

[Priest]

I will forward that email address. And Fionn and NightGaunt if they choose to avoid the mental game so be it, one more advantage for the "cagey" ones!