JonS

after that press conference with Putin I have no faith that Trump has any idea at all about how to negotiate. Litigate yes, negotiate no. 

You missed the point completely.  Trump cares, they are his cheerleaders.  They don't balk at almost anything he does.  They balked on this one. 
No idea why you felt you needed to sink that comment on women on Fox.  It had nothing to do with anything I was remarking on and completely unrelated to anything on this thread.
Anyway back to DPRK.  https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2018/07/16/North-Korea-pardons-criminals-to-mark-regimes-70th-anniversary/8011531706148/
Kim showing how magnanimous he can be- just before he shoots someone with an AA gun, probably a family member.

Even Fox and Friends is balking on this one - how does that Kool aid taste?
 

Technology’s Contribution to the End of Trench Warfare
In the spring of 1918 four years of positional, attritional, trench warfare on the Western Front in France and Belgium suddenly came to an end. Over the final eight months of the war offensives by both the Germans and the Allies were able to achieve advances measured in miles per day, where previously miles per month had been considered good progress.1
A range of factors lay behind this return to semi-open warfare2; the cumulative effects of years of blockade on Germany, the release of large German forces from the Russian Front, political decisions that affected the size of the British armies in France, and a renaissance in infantry tactics and organisation.3 Overlaying this was a range of new technologies that restored the Principle of Surprise to the battlefield, and changed the style of war waged on the Western Front.4
From 1914 through to the end of 1917 both the Germans and the Allies faced the same fundamental problem: defensive firepower generated by well handled artillery and machine guns that exploited intelligently designed and constructed defences and obstacles could slow down an attacker long enough to ensure that sufficient reserves – travelling on the dense road and rail net of Western Europe – would arrive on any given battlefield before the attacker had been able to make a breakthrough. As a result, operations became very slow and deliberate wearing-out exercises, fought over small areas at extraordinary cost. For example, the Somme and Verdun in 1916 resulted in roughly 2 million casualties between them, although very little ground changed hands.5
The tactical and operational problem, then, was to find a way to surprise the enemy and speedily breach the entire depth of his defensive zone before reserves could arrive, and then to hold ground won against counter-attacks. It was recognised by 1917 that in order to do this all elements of the enemy’s defensive scheme – especially obstacles, MGs, and artillery – had to be neutralised swiftly and simultaneously.6 However, each part of the defence required a different solution – and different technology – to be overcome before surprise could be restored.
Many technologies contributed to ending the stalemate, such as improved warships, submarines, and antisubmarine warfare. These all played their part in weakening the land armies, but their direct effect on ground operations is hard to assess. Four key areas of technological development contributed directly to opening up the Western Front. These were artillery, aircraft, tanks, and infantry firepower.7
The way all nations used their artillery in 1914 was relatively unsophisticated. Communications were almost invariably by voice, most shooting was by direct lay, and the overall aim was destruction of the enemy immediately to the gun’s front. Over the following four years the effectiveness of artillery firepower increased out of all recognition, largely on the back of new technology. Improved communication equipment meant that guns could be controlled indirectly, which improved their survivability and therefore long-term usefulness.8 Understanding, measurement, and control of variations between individual guns, ammunition lots, and the effects of weather meant that targets could be accurately engaged without prior adjustment.9 A range of new ammunition natures and fuzes provided commanders with the ability to tailor fire to the particular effects they desired; smoke could be used to shield men moving in the open by blinding defenders;10 gas was used to create confusion and considerably hamper command and control;11 high explosive with graze fuzes could smash enemy positions, equipment, and men. Advances in target detection and survey, combined with the better measurement of ballistics, meant that targets far to the rear – most importantly the enemy’s artillery – could be engaged with confidence.12 At Amiens the British counter battery programme was so effective that
… hostile artillery was insignificant and several enemy batteries were captured with the muzzle covers still on the guns, showing that the detachments had failed to reach their positions.13
Taken together these artillery technology innovations meant that specific results could be achieved on selected elements of the enemy’s defensive infrastructure, and be achieved quickly for a high degree of surprise. By 1918 artillery was being used in incredibly large, complex, and sophisticated fire plans to surprise, confuse, destroy, and defeat the enemy.14
Aircraft started the war as reconnaissance platforms and it was in this role that they served most usefully.15 The primary role of fighter aircraft was to protect friendly reconnaissance assets – including balloons – or to drive off those of the enemy.16 Over the course of the war the type and nature of reconnaissance conducted changed considerably. Early in the war reconnaissance was primarily by direct observation and verbal reports. By 1918 photographic surveys of the entire front were routine.17 These surveys would be compiled into large mosaics, and then minutely examined and compared to previous surveys to identify new positions, equipment, dumps, routes, and other items of interest.18 A significant proportion of this effort was dedicated to improving the accuracy and effectiveness of friendly artillery, especially its ability to engage enemy artillery.19 In that sense, improvements in aerial technology became improvements in the artillery system.20 Aerial reconnaissance was also used to assist other arms – photo mosaics of frontline trenches were invaluable for planning attacks and determining the enemy’s intentions.21 By 1918 wireless sets were being installed in aircraft, allowing them to report information to frontline units in near-real-time.22 Night time did not provide security, since aircraft equipped with flares enabled observation of the enemy at any time.23
Air power was also developed to intervene directly in the land battle. Both sides increasingly employed squadrons to attack ground targets with machine guns and bombs.24 This role exploited the inherent flexibility to quickly and unexpectedly concentrate firepower where it was needed – attacking pillboxes, anti-tank guns, and reinforcements, as they revealed themselves during the course of a battle. In this role, too, the use of wireless greatly assisted the speed with which ground attack aircraft could intervene on the battlefield.25 Compared to the artillery the weight of munitions delivered by WWI ground-attack aircraft was modest.26 However, its immediacy – and novelty - meant that airborne firepower was seen as a valuable addition.27
Aircraft also conducted resupply on a very limited scale in 1918, something that had never been tried before.28 In theory aircraft could leap over the shell torn and muddy battlefield to deliver supplies quickly and directly to where they were needed in order to sustain advances. Whilst useful, the long lead time required and the limited quantities of supplies that could be delivered meant that the impact of aerial resupply on operations in 1918 was modest.
The Somme, in September 1916, saw the battlefield debut of the tank. It had limited effect on that battle, and indeed throughout most of 1917 its effect was slight and drawbacks legion. Nevertheless, its potential was recognised. The Germans, due to their late start and stretched economy were never in a position to field effective tank forces.29 The French and the British, on the other hand, were each able to develop large armoured arms and employ hundreds of tanks on several occasions.
The tank’s great contribution to mobility in WWI was its ability to crush dense obstacle belts, and carry sufficient firepower to destroy enemy defensive positions left intact by the artillery. Using tanks to deal with wire and obstacles meant that obstacles could be left intact until an attack commenced, preserving surprise, and freed the artillery to engage other targets.30 The mobility and armour of the tanks meant they were able to bring their fire power to bear at accurately at close range, thus assisting the infantry forward.
Specialised models of tanks were produced to safely carry supplies, men, and drag wire for communications forward into the battle zone.31 As valuable as these niche technologies were, their effect was limited by the nature of the tanks themselves – hot, noisy, exhausting, prone to breakdown, short endurance – and the limited quantity of specialised models produced compared to the tasks required of them. These limitations also affected the battle tanks, denying them the opportunity for exploitation of their own success.32 Although the tanks were unquestionably useful in breaking the stalemate, the Germans demonstrated that similar results could be achieved without them in their spring 1918 offensives, while the British also found that significant success could be achieved without tanks in many of their attacks late in the year.33
Infantry battalions by 1918 had a distinctly modern look to them. Instead of a homogenous mass of 1,000 men, all armed with a rifle, attacking and defending en masse, they now routinely employed grenades, light and heavy machine guns, submachine guns, flame-throwers, mortars, and a variety of direct fire artillery.34
This range of weapons technology had created – and been created by – a demand for new infantry tactics. Using the new weapons and organised in small, self supporting units the infantry were able to in attack with each group working its way forward independently to flank, engage, and destroy enemy positions and achieve objectives.35 The new weapons also allowed the infantry to man positions with fewer men yet generate more firepower than previously.36
Along with these new technologies – sophisticated artillery, air power, tanks, and greatly increased infantry firepower – by 1918 there had been significant changes in the way forces were being employed. Both the Allies and Germans had come to realise that smaller, more flexible, independent and self-reliant units that were highly trained could, using infiltration tactics the new technologies and surprise, achieve better results on the attack while suffering fewer casualties.37
The success of these infiltration tactics was, however, dependant on another change. Infiltration tactics and flank attacks could only make headway where the enemy’s front wasn’t held continuously or strongly.38 The Germans had been thinning out their front lines in the face of increasing British artillery since the Somme in 1916, a practice that accelerated with the introduction by the British of their greatly improved artillery during Third Ypres in 1917.39
For the British, a similar change came as a result of the their own terrible losses suffered at Third Ypres.40 Politically motivated decisions were made to transfer several divisions from France to Italy, increase the length of front being held by the British, and tightly restrict the supply of replacements.41 All this meant that the British line in early 1918 was held much more thinly than before. In addition, the British had far less practice than the Germans at conducting defensive operations.42 The French had also suffered grievous losses in 1916 and 1917, and shared the British inexperience in defensive tactics.43 Furthermore, with Russia’s withdrawal from the war, Germany was able to transfer significant forces to the Western Front and concentrate overwhelming force at selected points. For example, The Germans concentrated 6,500 guns against the British for the opening of their offensive on March 21, 1918.44 This combination of thinly held lines, defensive inexperience, overwhelming mass plus new offensive tactics, and the new technologies to gain surprise, enabled the startling initial success of the German Spring 1918 offensives.
For various reasons the Germans had concentrated their best equipment and men in a relatively few special attack divisions.45 These divisions suffered heavy losses in their otherwise successful attacks,46 while the follow on forces – wholly untrained or equipped for the new attack techniques – fared even worse.47 Also, the Allied defences evolved quickly to decisively rebuff the new German tactics and technology at Arras in late-March and Reims in mid-July.48 When the German then lost the initiative they found themselves holding unprepared positions, over a longer front, and with fewer men who were on average of lower quality than before.49 This gave the Allies the opportunity to put their own new technologies, tactics, and organisations into effect to surprise the enemy. The confluence of these factors led to the spectacular victories at Hamel and Amiens.50 The subsequent Allied successes that won WWI were in turn enabled by the further progressive disintegration of the German Army, with successive positions being repeatedly broken open by the new technologies and techniques, in a spiralling cycle of success.
These thinner defences would nevertheless have been sufficient to halt the Allied advances had technology not changed over the previous years – in 1915 defences that were broadly comparable to those of mid- to late-1918 were sufficient to repulse all attacks. Similarly the well equipped but inexperienced Americans found that merely throwing new technology at the enemy without a sophisticated plan for employment could lead to disaster, as they discovered in several costly attacks.51
By 1918, then, the artillery was able to swiftly and effectively neutralise enemy defences, tanks could crush wire and obstacles and engage surviving strong points directly, while overhead the air force provided crucial intelligence, attacked point targets, and delayed reserves. This enabled the infantry to exploit surprise and swiftly and efficiently break into and through what would previously been impenetrable.52 However, these new technologies would have been unable to break the stalemate on the Western Front had they not been leveraged as part of a intelligent combined arms package, a package that also included new tactics, training, and organisations.53
 
Bibliography
Bailey, J.B.A., Field Artillery and Firepower (London: Routledge, 2004)
Bidwell, Shelford and Graham, Dominick, Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (Winchester, Mass.: Allen & Unwin Inc., 1985)
Brown, Ian M., “Not Glamorous, But Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917-1918,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul 1994), pp. 421-444.
Campbell, Christy, Band of Brigands: The First Men in Tanks (London: Harper Press, 2007)
Cook, Tim, “Dying like so Many Rats in a Trap: Gas Warfare and the Great War Soldier,” The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Winter 2002-2003), pp. 47-56
Corum, James S., ”The Luftwaffe’s Army Support Doctrine, 1918-1941,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan 1995), pp. 53-76.
Dupuy, T.N., Understanding War, (London: Leo Cooper, 1992)
English, John A., and Gudmundsson, Bruce I., On Infantry (Westport CT: Praeger, 1994)
Griffith, Paddy, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack 1916-18 (Great Britain: Yale University Press, 2000)
Gudmundsson, Bruce I., On Artillery (Westport CT: Praeger, 1993)
Liaropoulos, Andrew N., “Revolutions in Warfare: Theoretical Paradigms and Historical Evidence – The Napoleonic and First World War Revolutions in Military Affairs,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Apr 2006), pp. 363-384.
Lupfer, Timothy T., The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, Leavenworth Papers No. 4 (Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, July 1981)
Marble, Sanders, The infantry cannot do with a gun less: The Place of the Artillery in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918, accessed via http://www.gutenberg-e.org/mas01, August 2003
NATO, Land Force Tactical Doctrine, ATP-35(B)
Palazzo, Albert P., “The British Army’s Counter-Battery Staff Office and Control of the Enemy in World War I,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan 1999), pp. 55-74.
Shimshoni, Jonathan, “Technology, Military Advantage, and World War I,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990-1991), pp. 187-215.
Steel, Nigel, and Hart, Peter, Tumult in the Clouds: The British Experience of the War in the Air, 1914 – 1918 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997)
Stevenson, David, 1914 – 1918: The History of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2004)
Terraine, John, White Heat: The New Warfare 1914-18 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1982)
Travers, Tim, “The Evolution of British Strategy and Tactics on the Western Front in 1918: GHQ, Manpower, and Technology,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr 1990), pp. 173-200.
Travers, Tim, “Could the Tanks of 1918 have Been War-Winners for the British Expeditionary Force?” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Jul 1992), pp. 389-406.
Van der Kloot, William, “Lawrence Bragg’s Role in the Development of Sound-Ranging in World War I,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Sep. 22, 2005), pp. 273-284.
 
Footnotes
1 British forces advanced some seven miles in five months over the course of the Somme Offensive in 1916. On 8 Aug 1918 at Amiens the British advanced eight miles in one day. Stevenson, David, 1914 – 1918: The History of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2004), pp.409, 426.
2 Terraine, John, White Heat: The New Warfare 1914-18 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1982), pp.321-322.
3 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.399. Griffith, Paddy, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack 1916-18 (Great Britain: Yale University Press, 2000), p.89. Travers, Tim, “The Evolution of British Strategy and Tactics on the Western Front in 1918: GHQ, Manpower, and Technology,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr 1990), p195. Brown, Ian M., “Not Glamorous, But Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917-1918,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul 1994), p.443. Shimshoni, Jonathan, “Technology, Military Advantage, and World War I,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990-1991), p.205.
4 Dupuy, T.N., Understanding War, (London: Leo Cooper, 1992), p.6. NATO, Land Force Tactical Doctrine, ATP-35(B), p.1-3. Travers, GHQ, emphasises the importance of surprise.
5 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.162.
6 Bidwell, Shelford and Graham, Dominick, Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (Winchester, Mass.: Allen & Unwin Inc., 1985), pp.129-130. Gudmundsson, Bruce I., On Artillery (Westport CT: Praeger, 1993), pp.88, 91-93. Marble, Sanders, The infantry cannot do with a gun less: The Place of the Artillery in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918, accessed via http://www.gutenberg-e.org/mas01, August 2003, Chapter 4 – “Preparing the Attack, Part II:1917-1918”, sub-chapter “1918: Amiens”.
7 Liaropoulos, Andrew N., “Revolutions in Warfare: Theoretical Paradigms and Historical Evidence – The Napoleonic and First World War Revolutions in Military Affairs,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Apr 2006), pp. 377.
8 Bidwell, Firepower, pp.12, 68, 141-143. Marble, The Infantry, Chapter 2 – “Background through the end of 1914”, sub-chapter “1914: The test of battle”.
9 Marble, The Infantry, Chapter 5 – “The “Counter Blaster” and Counter-Battery Work”, sub-chapter “1917: The Problems Solved”.
10 Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp.140-141.
11 Terraine, White Heat, p.295. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.446-447. Cook, Tim, “Dying like so Many Rats in a Trap: Gas Warfare and the Great War soldier,” The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Winter 2002-2003), pp.49-40, 51, 52
12 Terraine, White Heat, p.308. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.446-447. Bailey, J.B.A., Field Artillery and Firepower (London: Routledge, 2004), p.142. Van der Kloot, William, “Lawrence Bragg’s Role in the Development of Sound-Ranging in World War I,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Sep. 22, 2005), pp.281-282. Palazzo, Albert P., “The British Army’s Counter-Battery Staff Office and Control of the Enemy in World War I,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan 1999), pp. 68-72.
13 Terraine, White Heat, p.307, quoting General Birch.
14 Gudmundsson, On Artillery, pp.90-95, 99-100. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.375-376. Bidwell, Firepower, p.134.
15 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.446. Steel, Nigel, and Hart, Peter, Tumult in the Clouds: The British Experience of the War in the Air, 1914 – 1918 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997), p.334.
16 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.191.
17 Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp.137, 157. Bidwell, Firepower, p.103.
18 Bidwell, Firepower, p.103.
19 Bidwell, Firepower, pp.102-104. Marble, The Infantry, Chapter 5 – “The “Counter Blaster” and Counter-Battery Work”, sub-chapter “1917: The Problems Solved”.
20 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.192. Griffith, Battle Tactics, p.157.
21 Bidwell, Firepower, p.103.
22 Steel, Tumult, p.334. Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.191.
23 Steel, Tumult, p.319
24 Steel, Tumult, pp.315, 317, 334, 335, 339. Terraine, White Heat, pp.289, 304. Bidwell, Firepower, pp.143-144. Travers, GHQ, pp.193-194. Campbell, Christy, Band of Brigands: The First Men in Tanks (London: Harper Press, 2007), p.358. Corum, James S., ”The Luftwaffe’s Army Support Doctrine, 1918-1941,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan 1995), pp. 54-56.
25 Bidwell, Firepower, pp.144-145.
26 For example at Amiens, on 8 Aug 1918, a total of 750 aircraft from the RAF were involved, each able to drop some hundreds of pounds of bombs per day. By contrast, the British employed about 2,000 pieces of artillery, each able to fire over a ton of shells per hour. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.192, 305, 307, 444-445.
27 Bidwell, Firepower, pp.144-145. Travers, GHQ, p.180.
28 White Heat, p.311. Tumult, p.335. During the siege of Paris in 1870-71 small quantities of items, including letters, were spirited out of the city by balloon, but that clearly wasn’t a supply operation. “$238,625 for mail from Prussian Siege”, The Dominion Post, Wellington, 9 April 2009.
29 Campbell, Band of Brigands, p.380. Terraine, White Heat, p.286.
30 Griffith, Battle Tactics, p.164. Bailey, Field Artillery and Firepower, pp.142, 148. Travers, GHQ, pp.192-193. Marble, The Infantry, Chapter 5 – “The “Counter Blaster” and Counter-Battery Work”, sub-chapter “1917: The Problems Solved”.
31 Campbell, Band of Brigands, p.389. Bidwell, Firepower, p.137.
32 Terraine, White Heat, p.303. Campbell, Band of Brigands, pp.389, 393. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.189, 444. Bidwell, Firepower, pp.137-138.
33 Bailey, Field Artillery and Firepower, p.145. See Travers, Tim, “Could the Tanks of 1918 have Been War-Winners for the British Expeditionary Force?” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Jul 1992), pp.389-406 for a backhanded acknowledgement of this point.
34 Bidwell, Firepower, p.127. Gudmundsson, On Artillery, p.83. Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.186. English, John A., and Gudmundsson, Bruce I., On Infantry (Westport CT: Praeger, 1994), p.28.
35 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.193. Griffith, Battle Tactics, p.97. Lupfer, Timothy T., The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War, Leavenworth Papers No. 4 (Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, July 1981), pp.40, 42.
36 Bidwell, Firepower, p.140.
37 Terraine, White Heat p.291. Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp.96-99. English, On Infantry, pp.22-23, 28-29. Bidwell, Firepower, p.132. Lupfer, Dynamics of Doctrine, p.40.
38 Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp.63, 195.
39 Terraine, White Heat p.220. English, On Infantry, pp.25-26. Lupfer, Dynamics of Doctrine, p.35.
40 There were 244,897 British casualties over 100-odd days at Third Ypres, Terraine, White Heat p.291.
41 Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp.89, 218. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.404-406.
42 Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.402.
43 The French continued to crowd front line trenches until Reims, 15 July 1918. Gudmundsson, On Artillery, p.95. Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.423.
44 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.399, 408. This was more guns than the British held in all of France. Comparable concentrations were achieved for subsequent attacks.
45 In principle advanced attack techniques and tactics were available to the entire BEF, Griffith, Battle Tactics, p.194. For streaming of German Army see Terraine, White Heat pp.279, 280. English, On Infantry, p.29 and note 30, p.34. Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.400.
46 The Germans suffered such high casualties among the specialist assault troops in their attacks in March and May that they were unable to continue attacking. Similarly, the British suffered 250,000 casualties during The Hundred Days. However, casualties per mile of advance had dropped precipitously since 1916, and even 1917. Terraine, White Heat p.324. Campbell, Band of Brigands p.397. Travers, GHQ, p.189.
47 Terraine, White Heat p.287. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.411-412, 413. Griffith, Battle Tactics, p.60.
48 Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.411, 423. Terraine, White Heat pp.288, 299.
49 As 1918 progressed, the average quality of the German Army continued to decline, Gudmundsson, On Artillery, p.102. Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.416.
50 Campbell, Band of Brigands, p.386. Stevenson, 1914-1918, pp.425-427.
51 For example the disastrous attack by 301st US Tank Battalion and 27th US Infantry Division on 27 September 1918, Campbell, Band of Brigands p.395. Also the US fiasco at the Meuse-Argonne, also in September, Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.430.
52 General Monash commented that Hamel was “all over in 93 minutes”, Terraine, White Heat, p.314. Campbell, Band of Brigands p.384 for Hamel, and p.386 for Amiens. The crossing of the St Quentin Canal on 29 September 1918 was carried out with great dash and success, Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.431. Overall casualties suffered by the British during The Hundred Days were comparable to Third Ypres, but the results achieved were incomparably greater, Campbell, Band of Brigands p.397, Terraine, White Heat p.323, and Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.442.
53 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p.447.
... back to contents

This is what we got in perspective.
Bill Clinton, 1993
After nine days of talks at the UN, the US and North Korea essentially agreed to keep talking, based on their mutual support of 1992’s “North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
In that landmark 1992 declaration, Pyongyang agreed “not to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy, or use nuclear weapons; to use nuclear energy solely for peaceful purposes; and not to possess facilities for nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment.”
In the 1993 US-North Korea pact, both sides gave “assurances against the threat and use of force, including nuclear weapons.” This ultimately resulted in the 1994 “agreed framework” towards a nuclear-free peninsula that is considered the closest move towards a successful deal.
Eight years of talks later, it all fell apart.
George W. Bush, 2005
After the Clinton-led framework failed, China helped push North Korea to denuclearize, via the “Six Party Talks.” On their fourth meeting, in Beijing in 2005, the US, China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and Japan put out a detailed joint statement to say:
North Korea “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”
The US “affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade” North Korea.
All sides agreed the 1992 declaration should be “observed and implemented.”
All parties pledged “economic cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and investment” with North Korea.
After multiple rounds of talks, George W. Bush removed North Korea from the US’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2008. However, talks collapsed in 2009 when North Korea fired a test missile after disagreeing with the other parties about inspections and verification of denuclearization.
Barack Obama’s administration ratcheted up sanctions as Kim Jong Un increased militarization. But there were no further negotiations.
Donald Trump, 2018
The Trump-Kim joint statement released today (June 12) makes no mention of the 1992 declaration that was the basis for previous agreements.
Instead, it references this year’s “Panmunjom Declaration for Peace,” the agreement between North and South Korea to formally end their decades-long state of war. That declaration uses less specific language about the North’s denuclearization, saying both sides “confirmed the common goal” of “a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
The Trump-Kim agreement also says that Kim reaffirmed “his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” and that North Korea “commits to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Both sides have agreed to the repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action from the Korean War.
The joint statement was overshadowed after the summit, when Trump appeared to make a huge, surprise concession to North Korea, agreeing to pull US troops out of the region and stop joint military exercises with South Korea. That’s exactly the scenario that Beijing has been pushing for for a year—but the US Department of Defense said it had no advance knowledge of any such moves.
 
Yeah he got played.  The only real hope here is that Kim actually does want something more and figures to use that nuclear bargaining chip to insure he gets it and will eventually trade it in for whatever he wants, but I kind of doubt he'll really give it up for now.  Why bother when he seems to be getting everything he wants without actually giving anything other than vague assurances.

So I am looking through this game to use as a OP layer for a campaign with my PBEM partner.  Montélimar - The Anvil of Fate.  The game rules have a Mulligan chit.  For the Americans it is called Bourbon, for the Germans Cognac.  Being primarily a wine drinker I need guidance.  Here is what they recommend.  If I am going to drink when using these rules, are these good suggestions and do you have better?  And yes this is straight out of the rule book.  Almost worth buying the game just for this to support them!  And if I hear another person complain about the price of combat mission after looking at the cost these days of board games! ($109 for this though it is pretty - and my cats would love it ).
Optional - but a great Command and Control aid as well as being enjoyable:
We recommend the following Bourbon for the American Player to enjoy while playing: Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Barrel Strength. Great hint of toffee and oak.
We recommend the following Cognac for the German Player to enjoy while playing: HINE Bonneuil 2005 – pricey but worth it.

Takes all sorts I guess - I thought HR was dire. And stupid.
The story is fine; the film of the story is terrible.

I've not seen Fury, might watch should it happen to be on television when am bored. I only saw Hacksaw Ridge for the same reason. The scenes with the bar gunner carrying an torso as an bullet shield before tossing himself an grenade. The scene with the medic swatting grenades away in mid-air. They did not work for me and just seemed more comical than gut-wrenching. Not sure about the story either, gibson wanting an religious viewpoint on everything I guess.
Dunkirk I went to see. As the subject matters more interesting to me. I thought was alright film I guess. The sound was great, every time they are shot at scared the crap out of me. The messing with the timeline was confusing at first until you realise that each story/timeline are merging together to become the same story/timeline towards the end. Some things grated on me though, to try and keep it short;
The germans are being kept back from the beaches by an perimeter that seems to be about two streets away? The Andrew appearing to be fecking powerless in the whole matter. But the smalls ships appearing are Christ reborn. They have an boat loaded with soaking wet and oil covered troops but sail down to fecking Dorset rather than return them into Ramsgate like everyone else would have? The director I believe said that using an French post war destroyer rather than CGI should not be noticeable unless you know what an British destroyer from the era looks like. Well I do know, so was rather noticeable to me. I echo Warts also in remembering the BBC's Dunkirk being rather good however.

In the words of a certain USatian tennis player who now works for Aunty Beeb, "You cannot be serious". A movie based on a flawed book, made by "Darling Dickie" who had established his directorial credentials with "Oh, What a Lovely War", and was then leaned on by Hollywood agents to give their clients more scenes. Doesn't equal "historical" in my book.

Are we to assume that's supposed to be a cutting retort? 16 films won Oscars last night, out of the thousands made last year. Not getting an Oscar is the expected result. But go you ... that could have been quite witty. Yay?
 
Boy, you guys. Be careful what you wish for - at this rate producers and directors are going to quite rationally conclude "A war movie? **** that. Those mongs wouldn't recognise a story if it bit them in the arse, and keep confusing movies with documentaries. I'm just gonna make Terminator Dies Hard In 60 Seconds Of Speed #14."

My grandfather, who was a Stalingrad vet, helped me simulate a "tactical nuke attack" on a plaster diorama. I still remember the fireball rising three meters in the air ...
He was not very fond of US artillery, though.
Best regards,
Thomm

I don't think it was so much a matter of the British voters falling out of love with Churchill personally, after all, they returned him to Parliament in that election. They just felt that Labour would give them a better break. In other words, they had long since lost confidence in the Conservative party.
Michael

It's probably a little overstated One specific element I believe was first introduced by the Maori was overhead cover.  Artillery had come a long way since the Napoleonic wars, and bomb-proof dug outs rapidly became a feature of the Maori way of war.

You might enjoy this
http://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/nz-wars
I'm looking forward to digging in to it

Great games, I still play them from time to time on DOSBOX. That way the memory doesn't fade away.
For a number of years Erik Rutins and Ludovic Coval were pushing a game called Battlefields!/Combined Arms. It went quite far but the AI was totally out in the weeds and development kind of collapsed. I read recently that they were trying to restart development... that was over a year ago.
There are some green shoots @JonS - it's not all doom and gloom.
In the tubes we have Desert War 1940-42 which is currently under closed beta
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/676/details/Desert.War.1940-1942
It was slated for release after summer, but seems development hit a snag too.
Last, there's also Armor Brigade
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/685/details/Armored.Brigade
Which is pausable real time, with a User Interface that aims at minimising "mandatory" micro. If it comes with PBEM over impulses we then would have a high fidelity, WEGO, grand tactical sim. A true successor to TacOps and Command Ops.
 
 

In the 1990s Atomic Games released the "V for Victory" series of games (Velikiye Luki, Utah Beach, Market Garden, Gold-Juno-Sword), later sequeled in the "World at War" series (D Day: America Invades, Operation Crusader, Stalingrad). They were set in WWII, and used the same WEGO system that CM uses (simultaneous planning phase, followed by simultaneous execution with no player interference), albeit in 2D and at the grand-tactical/operational level rather than 3D in the minor-tac realm.
I loved and played the hell out of those games, and have been deeply disappointed that no one has yet picked up the 2D/Operational/WeGo mantle. HPS' Panzer Campaigns was a poor and pale imitation.

Just thought I'd share this funny experience: This summer the family and I spent some of our vacation in Normandy (guess who came up with that brillant idea?). And as we were entering Cherbourg I noticed a place and a sign from one of the photos I used in the background set.

I of course had to go back and take a picture - and try editing it in with the original:


On the way there I realised that another of the photos in the set was taken in the same street (Avenue de Paris, IIRC), so I took another photo - with my kids standing in for the GI's.

Thanks.
Esdaile; nope. To paraphrase one of the great statesmen of the 21st Century; as you know, you go to the typewriter with the bibliography you have, not the bibliography you might want or wish to have at a later time

Napoleon's Ulcer

When Napoleon invaded his erstwhile ally Spain in 1808 to complete his Continental System, he had little reason to think that his campaign on the Iberian Peninsular would be anything other than brief, glorious, and profitable. Instead he got none of those, and brutal French efforts to assert control over Spain only made the situation worse. French failure on the Peninsular was not due to lack of determination – the French attempted to control the guerillas through an extreme example of what today would be called ‘enemy-centric counterinsurgency’.1 However, according to Boot this approach of savage repression can only succeed ...
if the insurgents are devoid of outside support and if the counterinsurgents have some degree of popular legitimacy, if they can muster overwhelming force, and if they are willing to engage in mass murder on a scale that would be intolerable to a more liberal government.2
French revolutionaries had been able to meet all four conditions during The Terror in the 1790s, and thus succeeded in retaining their power, although at some cost to the legitimacy of the Revolution itself.3 Similarly the uprisings in Calabria in 1806 and in Tyrol in 1809 failed because external support was denied to them, and both were relatively modest affairs – geographically and demographically – so mustering overwhelming force against them was a practical proposition.4 Nevertheless, in Spain the same broad approach failed. Boot's four conditions provide a lens through which to examine the French failure in this longest running of the Napoleonic campaigns.
Throughout the campaign in Spain and Portugal the Royal Navy controlled the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of the Peninsular. This conferred a number of significant advantages on the forces opposed to Napoleon. For one thing, it meant that they always had a secure flank, and a potential means of escape. Moore took advantage of this at Corunna in 1809, when he was able to extract his outnumbered force rather than watch it be surrounded and destroyed. It also allowed the positive movement of forces, such as when the Spanish army in Denmark was relocated home in 1808, and when in 1811 Wellington was able to relocate his heavy siege train 230 miles from Lisbon to Lamego in just 18 days. The speed of this move can be judged by comparing the final stage of the move from Lamego to Ciudad Roderigo, a distance of just 130 miles which nevertheless took 26 days as it was conducted by road.5 Throughout the campaign the British were able to exploit the speed of maritime movement, whilst the French were limited to much slower land-bound transportation.
Similarly, controlling the ocean provided the British with the means a secure and efficient supply chain back to England, which was vital to the maintenance of Wellington's forces at Torres Vedras in Portugal and the last Spanish stronghold at Cadiz.6 Because of this, British supplies were able to arrive faster from England than the French were able to move their supplies from just across the Pyrenees border in France. This meant that the British forces were able to exploit opportunities and ward off defeats much more easily than their French opponents.
The oceanic flank also meant that the British were able to keep the Spanish supplied with arms, money, and other goods to keep the insurgency fighting. This suited the purposes of both the Spanish and the British.7 The British needed the insurgency to remain active and potent in order to keep significant French forces tied down across the length and breadth of Spain on occupation and security duties. For if the French had been able to concentrate their forces exclusively against the modest British forces, Wellington's forces would surely have been forced back into the ocean. Similarly, the Spanish guerrillas required a steady stream of munitions and money to sustain their means to continue the fight.
To meet the conditions of Boot's model the French had to either deny the insurgents popular legitimacy, or provide an alternative which had greater popular legitimacy. Prior to the French invasion in 1808, Spain was politically divided and ineffectually governed, and its army was small and powerless. Portugal was in an even worse position due to a weak economy and army that was poorly organised and had terrible leadership.8 As a result Napoleon was soon able to claim complete control of Portugal, and nearly complete control over Spain, and promptly installed his brother Joseph as king.9 For any other country in Europe between 1790 and 1815 that would have been the end of the campaign. However, on the Peninsular something unusual happened. Although their governments had failed them, the peoples of Spain and Portugal never collectively accepted defeat, and instead continued to resist the French on a regional basis. The central government in Spain had lacked popular legitimacy, so when the Napoleon replaced it many in Spain viewed the change not as a defeat but as an opportunity, one they weren't about to let the French usurp.10
The third factor in Boot's model that Napoleon required – overwhelming force – was almost achieved. Napoleon did commit large forces to Spain and, apart from some reduction prior to the invasion of Russia, maintained the force and improved its quality as time passed. Throughout the campaign the total number of French forces in the Peninsular seriously outnumbered the British, Spanish and Portuguese regular forces there. Despite that the French were never able to concentrate their superior numbers to achieve a decisive victory.
The most obvious reason the French forces were unable to bring their numbers to bear was due to the Spanish insurgency. The insurgents were spread across the length and breadth of Spain, and so the French forces were similarly spread in their efforts to combat them.11 However the insurgency itself depended on a number of additional factors which further hampered the French. The Iberian Peninsular is generally poor farming country, with a low population and meagre productivity. This meant that the land wasn't able to support large-scale foraging, which in turn meant that the French forces – who primarily depended on local foraging to support themselves – had to disperse to survive.12 This dispersal, plus large areas of mountainous terrain, made survival easier for the insurgents, and allowed them to conduct raids and ambushes on the dispersed French.
The lack of local foraging opportunities forced the French to establish supply lines back to France, with carts hauling supplies into the country. But these convoys were easy prey for the insurgents, which in turn forced the French to disperse their forces still more by establishing secure waypoints and providing close escorts to the convoys as they moved slowly across the countryside.13 British naval domination meant that the faster and safer route of carrying supplies into Spain on ships was not practical.14
There were also structural problems with the organisation of French forces which worked against their ability to concentrate. When Napoleon was personally in command he was able to effectively coordinate his Marshals. However he soon left, and thereafter showed curiously little interest in the continuing Spanish campaign.15 His brother Joseph wasn't able to command the same cooperation from the marshals, despite his titular position as King of Spain. Napoleon exacerbated this when he undermined Joseph's position by making the marshals answerable to himself rather than the King, and then worsened the situation by making them each the supreme ruler of their assigned regions, responsible for maintaining control and raising their own finances. This divided French command, and set the marshals up as competing rivals. Any incentive for them to coordinate their forces or even cooperate with each other was thus removed. Therefore, instead of a single powerful force, Napoleon perversely created for himself several small independent armies scattered across Spain, and each army was itself scattered across its area of responsibility as it tried to impose order and retain control.16
The French forces attempting to concentrate to defeat their enemies faced a paradox; they couldn't defeat the British army in Portugal without first clearing their lines of communications which ran through Spain, but they couldn't defeat the insurgency in Spain without first defeating the British in Portugal. The French failure to do either contributed directly to their eventual defeat.17
The third factor required in Boot's model is that the French were willing to engage in mass murder on a scale that would be intolerable to a more liberal government. The French invasion, occupation and attempt to rule Spain was culturally tone deaf from start to finish. Napoleon's diplomatic humiliation of the Spanish throne at the 'ambush of Bayonne' in 1808 might have allowed him a bloodless conquest if he'd considered how his arrogant actions would play out with the Spanish people. Instead of crowning Ferdinand VII in place of his discredited father Charles IV, Napoleon treated Spain much the same as any other conquered territory and peremptorily installed his own brother as king.18 Murat effectively opened the guerrilla war two months before Joseph's coronation with his Dos de Mayo massacre, behaviour which was subsequently emulated by other French commanders in other regions.19
As the campaign ground on murder and retaliations and counter-retaliations became the norm, in an ever escalating spiral of violence. Napoleon appears to have realised that this was counter-productive and attempted put a halt to it. On 12 December 1808 he noted the undesirable effects of plunder and ill-discipline, and ordered that
1) Any individual who stops or mistreats an inhabitant or peasant carrying goods into the city of Madrid will be immediately tried before a military tribunal and condemned to death;
2) Any individual who pillages and prevents the establishment of order will be tried before a military tribunal and punished with death.20
Despite the savage punishments - and the apparent disregard for due process - Napoleon’s general lack of interest in the Spanish campaign inevitably allowed his attention to be distracted, and incidences of mass murder by French forces soon resumed. However, since the other factors required by Boot's model for the French to suppress the Spanish by brutal repression – lack of external support, denying the insurgents popular legitimacy, and overwhelming force – were absent, continued murder only fueled ongoing resistance by the Spanish people.
Contrary to the usual French experience in Spain, General Suchet was able to subdue the guerrilla uprisings in Aragon and Valencia once the Spanish regular army there had been defeated and the ports closed to British. He also used a lighter touch than was the norm in other parts of Spain, seeking to win the goodwill of the Spanish people through measures such as easing trade restrictions to increase prosperity, treating the clergy with respect, and providing effective controls against graft. In contrast to most French forces, Suchet waged a population-centric counter insurgency, rather than the typical enemy centric approach of Napoleon and the other Marshalls. As a result his forces were able to control their corner of the Peninsular without living in constant fear of being ambushed.21
Suchet was made a Marshal for his successful operations in Spain, but his experience remained the exception. Overall Napoleon's long and futile Peninsular campaign caused a drain on French manpower because of the steady stream of casualties, and also due to the distraction required of maintaining the large standing garrison army needed to retain even some control. Financially the campaign was a failure, despite the efforts of the Marshals to make their forces self-supporting through local imposts.22 Furthermore, the campaign lowered morale throughout the French forces with a posting to Spain being seen as akin to a death sentence.23 A marker of this effect on morale is the high rate of desertion amongst French forces – in one case eight out of ten conscripts in a levy headed for Spain had deserted before they even reached the Pyrenees.24 Another marker of poor morale was suicide, tragically common amongst the French in Spain.25
Napoleon's personal prestige also suffered because of his ill-advised decision to install his brother as king, only to have him hastily evacuate Madrid within a few months. His prestige fell when he left Joseph in position to fail again and again, even while Napoleon was removing the levers of power Joseph might have used to attempt to restore the situation.
Overall the Peninsula War, once started, was such an ongoing military problem for Napoleon because when he attempted to use brutal repression to control the Spanish guerillas he was never able to separate the insurgents from the external support provided by the British, he was not able to install a central ruler with greater popular legitimacy than the provincial guerrilla leaders, and the French forces were never able to muster sufficient overwhelming force to defeat either the regular forces led by the British out of Portugal or the insurgencies spread across Spain. Napoleon attempted to use the same approach that worked elsewhere without recognising that the Spanish context in which he was trying to apply it was different to France, the Tyrol, or Calabria. Then, once the campaign began to go off the rails, he was unable to develop and implement an alternate strategy, despite the success Suchet demonstrated with his population-centric approach. Instead the spiraling cycle of murder and reprisal only served to inflame passions, making the soldier's experience in Spain all the worse.

 
Bibliography
Asprey, Robert B., War in the shadows. Little, Brown and Co., 1994
Boot, Max, Invisible armies. Liverlight Publishing, 2013
Connelly, Owen, Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Campaigns. Wilmington, Delaware, 1987.
Dwyer, Philip G. (ed.), Napoleon and Europe. Longman, 2001
Dwyer, Philip G. (ed.), The French Revolution and Napoleon, a sourcebook. Routledge, 2002
Ellis, John, From the barrel of a gun, a history of guerrilla, revolutionary and counter-insurgency warfare, from the Romans to the present. Greenhill Books, 1995
Elting, John R., Swords around a throne, Napoleon's Grande Armée. Oxford, 1988
Haythornthwaite, Philip J. (ed.), Napoleon, the final verdict. Arms and Armour, 1996
Jaeger, Matthew C., Imperial Soldiers and the experience of guerrilla war in Spain, 1808-1814. M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 2003
Kilcullen, Dave, Two Schools of Classical Counterinsurgency, Small Wars Journal Blog. http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/two-schools-of-classical-counterinsurgency January 27, 2007
Knight, Roger, Britain against Napoleon, the organization of victory 1793-1815. Allen Lane , 2013
Record, Jeffrey, Beating Goliath, why insurgencies win. Potomac Books, 2007
 
Notes
1 Kilcullen, Two Schools of Classical Counterinsurgency, on Small Wars Journal blog
2 Boot, Invisible armies, p.81-82
3 Dwyer, Introduction, in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.6-7
4 Esdaile, Popular resistance to the Napoleonic Empire, in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.143-144, 150-152
5 Knight, Britain against Napoleon, pp.202-3, 241-2, 427
6 Knight, Britain against Napoleon, p.427-8
7 Tone, The Peninsular War, in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.231-2
8 Esdaile, Popular Resistance to the Napoleonic Empire, in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.149
9 Asprey, War in the shadows, p.77
10 Tone, The Peninsular War in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.226
11 Dempsey, The Peninsular War: a reputation tarnished, in Haythornthwaite, Napoleon, the Final Verdict, p.106
12 Elting, Swords around a throne, p.565
13 Ellis, from the barrel of a gun, p.75-76
14 Jaeger, Imperial Soldiers and the experience of guerrilla war in Spain, p.37-8
15 Arnold, Napoleon and his men in Haythornthwaite, Napoleon, the Final Verdict, p.239
16 Tone, The Peninsular War in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.231. Dempsey, The Peninsular War: a reputation tarnished, in Haythornthwaite, Napoleon, the Final Verdict, p.101, 103
17 Record, Beating Goliath, p.36-37
18 Connelly, Blundering to Glory, p.120-122
19 Jaeger, Imperial Soldiers and the experience of guerrilla war in Spain, p.51, 53
20 Napoleon, Order of the Army, 12 December 1808, quoted in Dwyer The French Revolution and Napoleon, A sourcebook, p173-174
21 Elting, Swords around a throne, p.151-2
22 Connelly, Blundering to glory, p.132
23 Jaeger, Imperial Soldiers and the experience of guerrilla war in Spain, p.78
24 Tone, The Peninsular War, in Dwyer, Napoleon and Europe, p.231
25 Jaeger, Imperial Soldiers and the experience of guerrilla war in Spain, p.72-5
... back to contents

It's funny - it's pretty big and significant part of our history, yet it totally gets glossed over. Not as much as in the past, but still a lot. Titokowaru, for example, was spectacularly successful against the British and colonists in the 1860s, for which he was paid the honour of being written out of our history. At school I learnt more about British kings and the British Civil War than I did about our own wars.
I very much recommend that you make space for Belich, J. (2015). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict, Auckland: Auckland University Press in your library and reading schedule. It was first written in the 1980s, but has aged well.

Interesting and eclectic selection of topics @JonS
 
In a very specific sense my answer to @Sgt.Squarehead question is yes to "older texts". Columbus was a man of his times, the Renaissance, when the scientific and mathematical literature of the Greek and Roman tradition started to disseminate throughout Western Europe beyond the vaults of monastic orders, which very often in turn acquired formerly lost pieces by way of its curation through the ages by Muslim and Jewish scholars based on the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.
The Spanish entry for Christopher Columbus - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristóbal_Colón - has a very good discussion on this specific topic:
 
 
which translated into English by yours truly reads:
So no mysterious hermetic or atlantean - as invented by Von Daniken 1970s acolytes, see We Are Not The First and other books of the same ilk  - knowledge preserved by warrior monks - but actually wishful thinking (Marco Polo's Travels) riding on the back of unsound mathematical calculations (those  of Posidonius) which had been preserved verbatim for over 1500 years, and dumb luck. See the path of the first of Columbus travels

Columbus pretty much sailed (left Palos in Huelva in 3 August 1492) on the wake of the easterlies that push the hurricanes along the Caribbean archipelagos island chains right into Florida... and came back on the westerlies.... following pretty much the same route that Spanish galleons hauling bullion out of Mexico and Peru followed for the next 250 years. Columbus wanted to set sail much earlier... probably finding himself right in the middle of hurricane season. He was actually lucky that the trading families his ships were confiscated from by order of the King and Queen of Spain, retaliated by blackballing him. That prevented Columbus from gathering supplies as quickly as he wanted. Also, the whole notion of the travel sounded crazy to most captains and sailors in the area, delaying the trip for two months as no sailors or senior experienced seamen were coming forward to man the ships...
 
 

Let our hearts be dark
The role of mana and rangatiratanga in the conflicts in New Zealand during the 1840s
 
To the soldiers only, who are enemies to our power, to our authority over the land, also to our authority over our people, let our hearts be dark.
Hone Heke, 1844[1]
 
In the 1840's the British settlers and Māori were each striving to achieve different aims in New Zealand.  Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the British believed they had sovereignty over New Zealand and therefore the right – if not the physical wherewithal – to expand immigration, purchase land wholesale, and impose British legal norms across the country.  On the other hand, based on their understanding of the Māori translation, Māori believed the Treaty secured their right to rule as they saw fit, and only sell land to the British as and when they wanted.  This subtle mismatch would drive the first round of the New Zealand Wars.
At the core of the Māori grievances which led to conflict were the related concepts of mana and rangatiratanga. Mana was the prestige, influence, and spiritual capital that an individual held, and was thus the root of chiefly authority and status.[2]  It derived in part from birth and whakapapa, but was sustained and enhanced by demonstrated leadership, particularly in war.[3]  Indeed, “the purpose of war was to restore the integrity of chiefly and/or group mana, or to redress its loss after a defeat.”[4]  This was significantly different from the European view of war; in Māori culture, war was fought for mana rather than simply for conquest.  Conquest of another hapu or their land might be the outcome of a war, but it would not generally be the cause.
Rangatiratanga was the leader's chiefly authority, which was in turn derived from mana.[5]  The two concepts were bound tightly together, such that a reduction in mana reduced a chief's rangatiratanga.  Similarly a curtailment in the ability of a chief to wield his rangatiratanga reduced his mana.
By examining the three main conflicts of the mid-1840's – the Wairau Affray, Hone Heke's Northland War, and the Hutt Valley Campaign – it is possible to see the role that mana and rangatiratanga had in their outbreak and conduct.
In the early 1840's Captain Arthur Wakefield of the New Zealand Company came into possession of a deed, apparently signed in 1839, in which Te Rauparaha had apparently sold the Wairau area.  Te Rauparaha claimed that the treaty was fraudulent, and it is clear that he was never recompensed as stipulated in the deed.[6]  The following year he signed the Treaty of Waitangi and indicated he was prepared to negotiate for the sale of land, but in 1843 the Company began attempting to enforce the existing deed.
Te Rauparaha advised the Company that he refused to recognise the 1839 contract, and wrote to William Spain to request assistance. Spain had been appointed Land Claims Commissioner, with the role of investigating land purchase agreements made before the Treaty of Waitangi.  Spain agreed to review the Wairau deed, but not immediately.[7]  In the meantime the New Zealand Company began surveying the Wairau Plain north of what is now Blenheim.
Te Rauparaha recognised the threat this activity posed to his rangatiratanga over the land, and demanded they stop.  He was reluctant to use violence as he realised this would hinder his efforts to trade with the British, and would quite possibly involve the crown with whom Te Rauparaha wished to maintain relations.  However it became clear that more forceful means would be needed before the Company ceased its activities.  Still reluctant to spill blood, but needing to challenge the surveyors in order to preserve his mana, Te Rauparaha damaged or destroyed the surveyors’ tools and equipment, and burnt their huts and sheds.
This angered the settlers, and Wakefield resolved to bring Te Rauparaha into line. Gathering an armed posse, Wakefield confronted Te Rauparaha and a group of his tribe, including a number of armed warriors, on 17 June 1843.[8]  Still seeking to avoid bloodshed, Te Rauparaha attempted to negotiate with Wakefield.  This was effort was abruptly halted when one of the English party fired their weapon, leading to a general exchange of gunfire, and what became known as the Wairau Affray[9] was in full swing.  Despite not seeking violence, Te Rauparaha’s party were more than ready to respond in kind, and soon gained the upper hand, killing several of the British, including Wakefield. In a running battle more of the scattering British party were killed, with the first survivors reached Wellington the following day.
Once the fighting began Te Rauparaha no longer attempted to show restraint.  He had not sought a fight, but would not risk his mana by preventing his tribe restore balance through utu on the British.  Further, because the brief battle was so successful, and swept the British out of the Wairau, Te Rauparaha’s mana was enhanced and his rangatiratanga over the both the land and his tribe confirmed.
Subsequently there were calls from the British settlers in Wellington to bring Te Rauparaha to justice.[10]  However after reviewing the original contract, the operations of the NZ Company in the upper South Island, and Wakefield’s conduct on that fateful day, Governor FitzRoy felt that although Te Rauparaha’s behaviour in killing 22 British was deplorable, it was justified. No further action would be taken by the crown – yet.[11]  This outcome further enhanced both Te Rauparaha’s mana and his rangatiratanga; his mana was protected then enhanced by confronting the British and beating them in battle, confirmed his authority over the Wairau, and used the British laws to shield himself and his people from retaliation.  As the custodian of his tribe’s mana, he had admirably fulfilled his role.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Northland tribes were in the happy position of being able to dictate terms of trade, and also being the first port of call for most traders.  This gave them a steady income through tariffs, as well as first call on any imported products and a superior ability to sell their own goods.  The Chiefs saw much advantage in maintaining the status quo since their mana was enhanced as their tribes prospered.
However, once the Treaty was signed, the right to impose tariffs passed to the crown.  Shortly afterwards the capital moved from Kororareka to Auckland, and with it went many of the ships that had previously called into the Bay of Islands.  This double blow to the economy of the Northland Māori threatened the mana of the Chiefs, and with it their rangatiratanga.[12]  Some of the Chiefs, such as Waka Nene, felt that continued support of and trade with the British would be best, even if not as lucrative as previously.  Some chiefs adopted a wait-and-see approach.  Hone Heke chose a third course, and adopted a policy of confrontation, although he was disciplined in the application of violence.  Like Nene, Heke wanted to continue trading with the colonists, but he felt that the loss of the right to impose tariffs and the loss of trade to Auckland could not be overlooked.[13]
Heke was clear that his quarrel was with the crown, and throughout his war he ensured that civilians and missionaries were allowed to continue their business unmolested.  This policy reflected Heke’s understanding of mana; how it could be enhanced, and how it could be damaged.  Since the crown was responsible for the loss of tariffs and trade, it was only by successfully confronting them that his mana could be restored and rangatiratanga maintained.  Attacking civilians would undermine that objective and would further threaten the trade that still remained in Northland, while attacking the missionaries would threaten the source of education for his people.[14]
Having identified his target, Heke also considered his objectives.  These were strictly limited to restoring mana and maintaining rangatiratanga.  Heke desired to defeat the British in battle in order to demonstrate his superiority and fitness to be chief, his rangatiratanga.  But he did not seek to conquer the British, nor drive them from Northland.  This seems like a very fine line to tread, but it was in fact a conceptually simple and traditional limited war for specific aims.[15]
Heke’s problem was that he knew that in a straight up fight against the British Army he would lose because his warriors lacked numbers and firepower.  His genius was to recognise these shortcomings, and develop the modern pa to overcome them.  At Puketutu, Ohaewai and Ruapekapeka Heke built pas in locations which were easy to approach and attack from one direction yet difficult surround.  He equipped them with artillery proof shelters, trenches to protect his warriors while they engaged the British, protruding bastions to allow enfilade fire, obstacles to slow the assaulting infantry and expose them to fire for longer, and dispensed with elevated or exposed positions.  Unlike traditional pa, these modern versions were not intended to defend villages or resources, they were purely locations at which the British would be fought, and they could be readily abandoned at any time with no penalty.[16]
The British commanders were singularly unable to develop a tactical response to Heke’s modern pa, and suffered defeat at each of them.  Although claiming victory on the basis that they held the ground at the end of each battle, the Governor nevertheless agreed to peace on terms that were favourable to Heke.  By defeating the British in battle his limited aims were accomplished so Heke was satisfied that his mana was enhanced and his rangatiratanga assured, and therefore had no wish to continue the war.[17]
The causes of the third conflict in the mid-1840s were broadly similar to the Wairau Affray.  The colonists that had been landed in Wellington by the New Zealand Company sought land, especially flat land that could be farmed.  The only ready source was in the Hutt Valley, and tensions soon rose when both sides believed the other wasn't abiding by settled agreements.  The New Zealand Company's earlier purchases had largely been overruled by Spain, nevertheless the limits of the land he had granted to the Company were unclear.[18]
The chief, Te Rangihaeata, had been a member of Te Rauparaha's party at Wairau, and felt a similar challenge to his mana from the steady encroachment.  Matters came to a head when Governor Grey bought the power of the government in unambiguously on the side of the colonists and ordered the destruction of the pa at Makahinuku.  Te Rangihaeata responded by murdering settlers and attacking a British stockade.  However, as was the case with both Te Rauparaha and Heke, Te Rangihaeata's response was proportional and measured – he did not seek total war with the British, or to drive them from the Wellington region.  He did however demand that they respect Māori claims to land in the Hutt Valley, and his could not allow his mana and rangatiratanga be diminished by allowing the encroachment and attacks on Māori villages go uncontested.  At the tactical level Te Rangihaeata was reasonably successful, generally inflicting more casualties than he suffered during fights in the Hutt Valley, slipping smoothly away from the pa at Pauatahanui as it was being invested, and deftly checking the British advance at Battle Hill.[19]  Although Te Rangihaeata was able to retain his role as chief, he was driven out of the Wellington region, and only settled in the flax swamps west of Shannon. As part of Grey's campaign against Te Rangihaeata, Te Rauparaha was illegally arrested and held for many months.  Although it had taken several years, Grey thus extracted a revenge for Wairau by diminishing both men's mana.[20]
During the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s the British and Māori were each seeking to achieve quite different objectives, and both could therefore claim victory.  The three conflicts were each started by affronts to mana and rangatiratanga, and from the Māori perspective were waged within that context.  These were not wars for territory, per se, nor for conquest.  This confused the British no end since it was far outside their traditional understanding of war.  Given this narrow context, the Māori chiefs were far more successful at the tactical level, restoring or maintaining their mana and rangatiratanga through fighting and winning in on Māori terms.  However in the longer term, and with the benefit of hindsight, these three conflicts can perhaps best be seen as holding or delaying actions.
 
Bibliography
. (21 June 1843). New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/new-zealand-gazette-and-wellington-spectator/1843/6/21 , 26 Mar 2017.
Ballara, A. (2003). Taua : 'musket wars', 'land wars' or tikanga? : warfare in Māori society in the early nineteenth century. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books.
Belich, J. (2015). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict (This edition 2015. ed.). Auckland: Auckland University Press.
Bohan, E. (1998). To be a hero : Sir George Grey : 1812-1898. Auckland, N.Z.: HarperCollins.
Keenan, D. (2009). Wars without end : the land wars in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin.
King, M. (2003). The Penguin history of New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books.
Moon, P. (2009). Hone Heke : Nga Puhi warrior. Auckland, N.Z.: D. Ling.
Prickett, N. (2002). Landscapes of conflict : a field guide to the New Zealand wars. Auckland, N.Z.: Random House New Zealand.
 
[1]Quoted in Belich, James, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2015 (1986), p.32
[2]Ballara, A. (2003). Taua : 'musket wars', 'land wars' or tikanga? : warfare in Māori society in the early nineteenth century. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books, p.79
[3]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.23-24
[4]Ballara, A. (2003). Taua : 'musket wars', 'land wars' or tikanga? : warfare in Māori society in the early nineteenth century. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books, p.26
[5]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.21
[6]King, M. (2003). The Penguin history of New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books. p.182
[7]King, M. (2003). The Penguin history of New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books. p.181-2
[8]Keenan, D.(2009). Wars without end: the land wars in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.:Penguin. p.135-7
[9]The Affray was initially known as the Wairau Massacre, reflecting British-centric reporting, and attempting to colour the narrative by falsely hinting that the only reason the Māori won the fighting was because the British had fallen victim to an underhanded ambush. Ballara, A. (2003). Taua : 'musket wars', 'land wars' or tikanga? : warfare in Māori society in the early nineteenth century. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books. p.182
[10]New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, 21 Jun 1843, p.2
[11]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.21
[12]Moon, P. (2009). Hone Heke : Nga Puhi warrior. Auckland, N.Z.: D. Ling. p.19
[13]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.34-5
[14]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.232-3
[15] Ballara, A. (2003). Taua : 'musket wars', 'land wars' or tikanga? : warfare in Māori society in the early nineteenth century. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books.
[16]Moon, P. (2009). Hone Heke : Nga Puhi warrior. Auckland, N.Z.: D. Ling. p.140
[17]Belich, J. (1986). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict . Auckland: Auckland University Press (2015. ed.), p.58-64
[18]Keenan, D.(2009). Wars without end: the land wars in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Auckland, N.Z.:Penguin. p.152-3
[19]Prickett, Nigel, Landscapes of Conflict; a field gide to the New Zealand Wars, Auckland, 2002, p.49-53
[20]Bohan, E. (1998). To be a hero : Sir George Grey : 1812-1898. Auckland, N.Z.: HarperCollins. p.84-85
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This last article about the Maori - British wars is my current favourite of the series @JonS. Thanks and keep them coming

try 'be evil unto him' - it's basically ALL recce.

I’ve written elsewhere that I think ‘balance’ – let alone ‘well balanced’ – is an impractical and illusory design objective, and so I don’t really consider it as a specific design criteria anymore. What I’m more interested in is creating plausible, interesting, and asymmetric challenges. By that I mean that the ‘story’ behind the objectives that each side is going for makes sense, and that given some skill and luck either side can achieve its own objectives. The objectives are asymmetric in that while Side A might be principally trying to secure a bridge, Side B may not care about the bridge at all and could instead be going for the church, or trying to move all forces off map, or something else. That sets up an interesting dynamic tension in that in order to win you need to achieve what you’ve been told to do, but also prevent the enemy doing what they’ve been told to do … but that probably isn’t simply the opposite of your goals. So you need to figure out what they are trying to do, and hinder that as much as possible without compromising the achievement of your own objectives.   Ticklish.   Well, that’s the idea, anyway   I believe it also adds to replayability because now the player's goals are more clearly tied to the relative balance of points at the end of the game. Since the number of ways points can be accumulated - and therefore generate different end-game totals – is quite large, then the number of distinctly different viable approaches that each side can take is similarly large.   So, yeah; all the scenarios are playable and in principle achievable from either side, but actually winning will depend on your skill. As it should.