Bullethead

CM treats pillboxes and bunkers as a type of vehicle that can't move and has a passenger capacity of "none". Thus, there is no way to simulate the very common troop shelter type of pillbox encountered in the West Wall ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

It was either a 2cm Flugabwehrkanone 30 or 38. The 2 weapons were indistinguishable from the outside, the differences being all internal guts tweaks to achieve a higher ROF in the Flak 38. My guess is that it was a 38 in the movie, because this started replacing the Flak 30 in about 1940. The weapon came with a little 2-wheeled trailer that it sat on for transport. It could be fired from the trailer, as was done in the movie. However, the weapon was mostly intended for static defense so would be dumped off the trailer and deployed on 3 folding legs. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

I sent out v3 of my Kohima scenario to several people some time ago and so far have heard nothing. C'mon guys, any comments? -BH

I think you're just screwed on this one. The AI has a huge problem with passengers of all sorts, not just towed guns. It just doesn't like to go for rides, apparently. If you set it up so the AI starts with passengers aboard vehicles, more often than not it seems like the 1st thing it does is take them off. The only real exception is if it's a scenario where there are points for exiting units off the map. In such cases, the AI seems more likely to keep passengers aboard. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

ASL Veteran said:

L.Tankersley said: Something doesn't add up here. If the "maneuverist" and the "attritionist" come to the same conclusions about their course of action when confronted with the same problem, then why bother having 2 "schools" of thought? I mean, the "same decision about what to do" means that they move their units in the same ways to the same points to shoot at the same targets. Thus, an outside observer would be unable to tell the "attritionist" from the "maneuverist" from watching the battle. In which case, the whole "maneuverist vs. attritionist" distinction is completely academic. And not only does this distinction have no practical effect, its very existence is totally unprovable because the distinction is based on the unknowable subjective thinking of the commanders. Somehow, I feel this can't be what Pillar meant. Otherwise why bother with all this thread? ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: Yes, he almost always tried to directly destroy the enemy army in battle. That was really all he could do, being a continental power lacking command of the sea. The only time I can think of he tried an indirect approach (his "continental system" of boycotting Brit goods Europe-wide) failed miserably, while the counterposed Brit blockade and peripheral actions caused him a lot of problems. So he eventually decided to invade England and kick their ass directly, but Nelson short-circuited that at Trafalgar. So bascially, your answer is that despite doing all these maneuvers and basing his plan of campaign upon using maneuver to achieve his goal, he's still an "attritionist" because his maneuvers were simply stepping stones to planned attrition, even if on terms favorable to him? This is why some of us have trouble accepting your point of view. The terms don't make sense My own answer is that Napolean was neither an "attritionist" nor a "maneuverist". He was just applying all the principles of war in pursuit of his stategic goals better than his contemporaries were doing. But von Falkenhayn was the German head honcho so he was using attrition at the strategic level to facilitate maneuver at the strategic level. How does that fit "maneuver theory"? That's difficult to say, because his plan doesn't dovetail neatly into modern warfare theory as either you or I perceive it. The answer I feel most comfortable with is that there were no operational goals as we understand that term today. Verdun was THE German offensive effort in the West in 1916. Its ultimate goal was to win the war by means of attrition. It was conducted by a full army (commanded by the German Crown Prince), and (to give an idea of the strategic scale) after a while 15 full divisions were withdrawn from its strength to meet a new Russian threat. So it was a strategic offensive whose goal was attrition. There was a lot of back-and-forth maneuver through horrendous barrages and MG fire on both sides at the tactical level, but this just stoked the strategic attrition forges. There doesn't seem to be an operational level involved. In any case, this is all exceeding the parameters of the problem. I guess I should have pointed out von Falkenhayn was the top dog in the army under Supreme Warlord Wilhelm, though. But anyway, as of now, you're saying Falkenhayn was a "maneuverist" because he used attrition to try to faciliate maneuver. OK, recap time. It seems to me that the definitions "maneuverist" and "attritionist" as used by "maneuver theorists" are flawed because they don't fit what I consider the prime examples of the opposing views on how to conduct campaigns. Napolean to me is a guru of maneuver, while von Falkenhayn is the epitome of attrition. Also, it seems that the definitions used by "maneuver theorists" are based on the commander's ultimate subjective intent, rather than what he actually does. That is, whether or not the ultimate intent is ever fulfilled, or even communicated to other people at the time, academic hindsight can "infer" this intent and thus pronounce that General X was a "maneuverist" or an "attritionist". IOW, Falkenhayn wanted to maneuver at some indefinite but hoped-for time, so he's a "maneuverist", even though his campaign had no allowance for maneuver and had attrition as its express object. OTOH, Napolean is an "attritionist" because all his maneuvers were intended to set up massive battles, even though he is considered by many as the archetypical practitioner of modern (what some call "maneuver") warfare. I find these "maneuver theory" definitions unworkable. One of the goals of military science, just like physical science, is to develop a theory that allows accurate prediction of future events. In military science, the future events of most relevance are those stemming from decisions made by your opponent, so the goal is to predict what your oppenent will decide. Because the definitions used by "maneuver theory" judge past events (not to mention being based on the shaky ground of inferred subjective intent), they are useless in the practical world of anticipating your opponent when your nation's fate on the line. Or so it seems to me. Moving on to extra credit: That's debating the truth of a "given" again. I "gave" it as true that the Germans could win a battle of attrition because that's what von Falkenhayn believed. And in fact it seems more French died at Verdun than Germans, despite the Germans being on the attack most of the time. This was all part of von Falkenhayn's plan. He wanted attrition so he needed to fight over a place the French would not surrender. The harder they tried to keep it, the more of them he could kill. That was his thinking. Hence he chose to fight at Verdun. Because, as given, the 2 years of Western Front war to that point had shown again and again that even the maximum attacking strength that could be mustered in a given sector was incapable of breaking through even relatively weak defenses. This is why I gave the inability of frontal attacks to achieve breakthrough as a "given". It just didn't work. And it kept on not working until masses of tanks appeared, although constant refinement of technique even without many or any tanks did cause some nervous moments, such as the 1918 German offensives. If you are in a boxing match and the other guy hits the mat first, you win even if you're wobbling and bleeding. Winning is all that ultimately matters in war, although it's of course quite nice to come through relatively unscathed as well. Falkenhayn had by 1916 accepted that coming through unscathed was out of the question, so he was just concerned with winning. As to the Entente replacing its losses, you're off track there in WW1. They never did and the effects of the WW1 losses are still felt today in England and France. Not as much now as in WW2, however, when they were a major factor, but still noticeably. Drive through many an English or Scots village for example. In the town square, you'll see a WW1 memorial with more names on it than live in the town today. Beside it is a WW2 memorial with maybe 10-25% that number of names on it. Also don't forget, America wasn't in the war yet. Nope, the "givens" said that all frontal attacks were futile. A deception at Verdun and an attack elsewhere means doing a frontal attack elsewhere, because it's also "given" that the entire front is continuous. IOW, there was no option at all but frontal attack into prepared defenses at some point. Which in the past had only gotten a lot of people dead for no territorial gain. So the answer to the question, IMHO, is that Falkenhayn had NO better option than a campaign of attrition, at least as he understood the situation. If he had to attack to win the war, if this attack had to be frontal, and if he could expect it to go nowhere and only kill a bunch of folks, then it seems to me only logical to try to make it kill more of the enemy, so as to eventually wear him down. Subsequent research has shown that if the Germans had done a few things differently at critical times in the battle, they might have broken through at Verdun and won the war. But von Falkenhayn wasn't expecting such opportunities, so didn't see and/or failed to grasp them, if they ever existed. If this is true, then von Falkenhayn's plan was based on the false assumption that breakthrough was impossible. Had he known that, he would probably have done things differently. But based on the info he had, he made what I think was the only possible choice, however horrible it was (but when is a wartime decision NOT horrible?). ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 02-22-2001).]

Sir Oscar said: Did Ambrose define what "non-battle casualties" were? This term was often used in the WW2 US Army as a euphemism for "combat fatigue". If Ambrose is including such cases in his figures, then a lot of the "non-battle casualties" were in fact the direct result of combat. Guys who came through more or less physically intact but were so wounded mentally as to be out of action. Also, when you consider actual non-battle physical injuries taking guys out of action, you're including all the truck wrecks in the supply convoys and such. This is a background condition--the calculation of effective combat power of the front line troops already takes this into account before battle is joined. Hence, it's not "attrition" because it's the starting condition. Finally, how many of these "non-battle casualties" were things like cases of the clap contracted when the unit was in the rear for rest and refit? Enough to keep a guy in sickbay and off fatigue parties for a couple days, and thus going on the records as a "casualty", but having no effect at all on the combat power of the unit when it was in the line? ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks CupOHemlock said: View modes 5-8 are top-down views from various distances, with 5 being very close for detail movement of single units, while 8 can often show you the whole map. While using each of these view modes, you can issue interface commands via the hotkey list to make certain types of units more visible. Bases have been mentioned, but you can also make the units appear bigger and can turn various types of terrain and units off and on. All those trees in the way, for example? No problem, just turn trees off temporarily and have a look at what's under them. However, there is no "OOB" screen like in SP. If you hit the TAB key, you are "autocentered" on that unit. As long as you don't move the mouse enough to change your angle of view and break the autocentering, this autocentering remains in effect. Even if you change view modes or use the + and - keys to change units. For example, you are in view mode 6 (short-medium range top-down view). You click on a unit and hit the TAB key. This centers your view down on top of that unit. Then when you hit the + and - keys, your view autocenters over the next units in sequence. No new models that I know of, but simply "skins" for the old ones and the terrain. Being .bmp files, I don't think they can contain viruses but in any case, I haven't found any in them yet. The only problem is that some models use the same texture as other models for certain parts of them, so you can get some strange-looking things if you mix texture mods up too much. However, most mods come with a text file outlining any such potential problems, so you can steer around them. The scenarios are also virus-free so far. Very. No problems stemming from the game, just your connection. And even if you get disconnected in the middle of a game, you recover the game and keep going once you reconnect. Thanks, CHL

Pillar said: No problem. I just hope you respect my honesty in not ambushing you with stuff not covered in "givens" of my questions. Sure thing. This is an exercise in definitions more than anything else. The only one that looks for something other than an explanation of a definition is the one about von Falkenhayn's options, which is optional anyway ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: Actually, this isn't what I'm frustrated with. I admit that sometimes, in very rare situations, maneuver can win battles without going into the attrition phase. The classic example is Napolean's "Maneuver upon Ulm" in the fall of 1805, in which he caused the Austrian General Mack to surrender his whole army with hardly a shot fired, simply by a brilliant move from the Rhine to the Danube and into Mack's rear. What I'm frustrated with is people who overlook the fact that this surrender, and any other examples like it, simply cut to the chase. Napolean went to Ulm to kick ass in battle. He was following his favorite plan of seeking decisive battle on terms of his choosing. He liked to do this by marching around the enemy's prepared positions and into his rear to cut his LOCs at a place that offered him terrain advantages and which prevented other enemy armies from giving help. The enveloped enemy would then be forced to fall back and fight him there, and usually lost badly. But instead of fighting this LOC battle, Mack just gave up immediately upon finding out how screwed he was. So here we have a great example of "maneuver alone" winning a battle, giving Napolean all the fruits of decisive battle success without the casualties that usually go with it. However, the only reason Mack surrendered was because Napolean was sitting there on his LOC with loaded guns and gleaming bayonets. If Napolean hadn't come prepared for and expecting to fight hard and decisively, Mack wouldn't have surrendered. So it really wasn't "maneuver alone". It was maneuver intended to bring the guns to bear on the enemy. That the guns never fired in this case is irrelevant. They were there and expected to be used. So like I and others have said, there is no separating maneuver from attrition. As for Henri, I've given up trying to discuss things with him. On the issues at bar at least, he's totally clueless, and he couldn't get a clue if he was standing in the middle of 40 acres of ripe clues, with a severe clue-storm falling, while armed with a belt-fed clue-harpoon gun with power winch and clue-seeking rounds, and doused in clue-in-rut pheromone. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: Well, the reason I asked was that you stated maneuver theory is all about what's "been proven by history". Seeing as you're such a devotee of "maneuver warfare theory", I figured that before you appeared in public carrying its banner, you'd have checked out history to see if its claim above was valid. Therefore, I assumed you had at least general familiarity with such notable, basic things from history as Napolean and Verdun, and could thus explain to me how even though they don't fit the definitions propounded by "maneuver warfare theory", they still support it. Note that instead of just asking the bald questions, I provided a several sentences of "givens" beforehand stating the parameters of the problems. These "givens" sum up the general perception of the generals I asked about. And that's I'm holding you to, because if you minutely examine the career of any soldier, you can see he did different things at different times. But just to make things clear, I will paint the out-of-bounds stripes on this field of debate, as follows: 1. Napolean Given that: A) his primary strategic goal was the destruction of the main enemy army; he sought to achieve this goal through decisive battle; and C) he tried hard to make this battle happen on his terms by the use of huge, daring maneuvers to make the enemy fight him on ground of his choosing in strength of his choosing; D) he is by Henri's definition an "attritionist" because he used maneuver to set up and enhance his fighting, despite his grand (and at that time, revolutionary) maneuvering. Prove: That Napolean was really a "maneuverist" despite this problem with definitions. 2. von Falkenhayn Given that: A) he deliberately set out to conduct a campaign of attrition pure and simple because he believed decisive maneuver under prevailing conditions was impossible; and he thought that after sufficient attrition, he would be able to conduct decisive maneuvers; C) he is by Henri's definition a "maneuverist" because he used fighting to set up and enhance maneuver, despite his express intention of conducting a campaign of attrition. Prove: That von Falkenhayn was really an "attritionist" despite this problem with definitions. Extra Credit: Given that: A) von Falkenhayn's assessment was correct--decisive maneuver really was impossible at that time due to a continuous front offering no flanks to turn and frontal assaults only getting many people killed for no gain; wars are won solely through offensive, not defensive, campaigns; C) it was his job to win the war for Germany, so that he had to conduct a decisive, victorious offensive; and D) there were more Germans than Frenchmen, and more Frenchmen than Germans would probably be killed in a 1-on-1 fight due to superior German firepower, Prove: That a campaign of pure attrition was not his best option. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: Well, what you reprinted wasn't what I asked. Here's the deal: First off, Henri said: Then you said: So I asked you the following questions: ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: This is maneuver for attritional purposes. You are either, as CavScout has said, exploiting passage of the enemy MLR and/or engaged in pursuit, or you are sneaking back there to cause indirect disruption of the MLR before it is breached by other forces. In both cases, you are maneuvering to a specific, intended point in order to shoot up a specific, intended target, per the mission assignment. More or less. But I still disagree with those who say that maneuvering to enhance combat is "attritionist" and meaning that in the negative, philosophical sense associated with Verdun. I think maneuvering to enhance attrition is the very basis of what's known these days as "maneuver warfare". I'm all for teaching company-grade officers to use informed initiative. IOW, they need to be able to see for themselves and know the difference between what's possible, what needs doing, and what's suicidal, and then doing the best thing on their own hook without having to be told. This is what sergeants have been doing since Christ was a corporal, despite the efforts of "by-the-book" butterbar replacement platoon leaders who just arrived yesterday. Things would be a lot better if there was no such thing as "by-the-book" except in terms of general principles. Of course, I think this is putting the cart before the horse. The greatest threat to ground-gaining forces is a lieutenant with a map and compass, so IMHO they need to teach land navigation to officers before anything else ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

I'm talking about the problem you and Henri have of seeing maneuver and attrition as 2 parts of the same whole ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: To me, attrition mostly means fighting, but this is from the POV of an observation of cause and effect. Sure, you have some "attrition" just by moving units around due to breakdowns, stragglers, etc., but these causes are insignificant compared casualties inflicted by fire and the losses (in personnel, equipment, supplies, morale, cohesion, organization, control, territory, you name it) sustained in running away from fire. So to me, fighting is where attrition happens. Does fighting equal attrition? Strictly speaking, no. Attrition is the loss of combat power from whatever cause. But fighting in all its phases (maneuver, attack, pursuit, mopping up, etc.) and subsidiary actions (interdiction of LOCs by arty or air, etc.) is where the vast bulk of attrition occurs. Therefore, I think it's safe to use the terms "fighting" and "attrition" interchangeably. Although this is not correct per the textbook, it's the correct answer on the practical exam However, "attrition", both definitionally and as I use it, also includes a definite sense losses happening to both sides. IOW, engaging in fighting is going to get some of your guys killed more often than not. This is inevitable given that the enemy wants to win (i.e. survive) as badly as you do and is usually just as well-equipped and trained. Thus, going 1-on-1 isn't going to do you any good. You need mass on your side to gang up on the selected target, so that when all the equalities cancel out, you still have superiority left over. Achieving this superior mass is the purpose of maneuver. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

CavScout said: Exactly. The "maneuverists" are taking all this theory out of context, misunderstaning it and thinking it's something it's not, and then misapplying it. Then telling those of us who've lived, breathed, and used "manuever warfare" all our professional lives, some of us even in real combat, that we've got it all wrong. It's really humorous ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 02-20-2001).]

Henri said in misguided smugness: Not arrogance, just fact. I've done it, you haven't. You go look at the pointy end of bullets for a while with other men under your command. Then try out your pet theories and see how well you do. If you survive that, I'll take you seriously Anyway, on to once again trying to show you how you are missing the forest for the trees, even using the very quotes you mistakenly think support your position: ...in order to achieve a more advantageous position from which to kill the enemy, without doing which none of the desired effects happen. See below. No screamin' eagle guano, Henri. You move your stuff around so you have superiority where you want it, then kick ass. Then do it again. This is "shattering" the enemy, making things go south for him faster than he can deal with. Very true, it's way better to kill a lot of enemy at once than it is to nickel-and-dime him. By killing a lot of people quickly, espeically if you can do this in several parts of the battlefield simultaneously, you make things appear to the enemy as worse than they really are. Plus you don't give him time to repair control systems, rally wavering troops, and bring up reinforcements. But note that this all involves killing the enemy. Please explain how you "tear apart" the enemy position without serious combat. Don't bother--you can't. All the above is saying is that it's preferable to avoid walking into the enemy's prepared killzones and instead flank him or something. Then bring your assets to bear with superior force on the critical points. You don't have to destroy an enemy division in its entirity, but if you destroy the right parts of it quick enough, the rest falls apart. IOW, this is using maneuver to facilitate favorable attrition, which is what I've been saying all along. Just to make sure you at least understand the basics here, we're talking about firepower here, not moving units around. With me so far? OK then, here we go. Firepower is employed by shooting at the enemy. Shooting at the enemy means engaging in combat. Engaging in combat means killing enemy personnel and equipment and breaking everything else that's important to him, such as C^3I systems. Obviously, you don't understand what disruption means when its applied by firepower. It means pinning enemy units down so they can't move, eliminating their assets (through death, destruction, or bullet-induced panic) so they can't deal with this situation themselves, and imposing an inability to communicate both within and without the unit, so that the unit itself and its higher command lose control of the situation. Just moving doesn't do this. It takes firepower, as all these quotes you posted demonstrate. True, the majority of bullets and shells fired in combat miss. Hence, you have to mass fires on targets to get the desired "shattering" effect as opposed to "incremental attrition". Guess how you mass fire? Right! It's maneuver! Give Henri a gold star. But now don't you see how maneuver is just used to make combat more effective? See above for the disruptive effects caused by firepower. Which is applied in combat. Which is arranged by maneuver. "Violence" and "shock effect" seem more fitting as descriptions of combat than of maneuver, wouldn't you say? Or maybe that's just me. In any case, see above description of the disruptive effects of firepower. This is just common sense and has nothing to do with what "school" you belong to, or even the existence of such schools. If you want to survive, you have to be unpredictable. Being unpredictable means working from general principles instead of specific methods. You know the general principles of war, don't you? Mass, speed, momentum, etc., all basically saying "get there first with the most and then kick ass". All the above does is show you have missed the whole point. It's like I've been saying all along--maneuver is simply an adjunct of attrition used to make combat go in your favor by allowing you to mass your firepower at the critical points while avoiding enemy firepower concentrations as much as possible. None of the "shattering" of enemy forces is possible without throwing considerable amounts of lead at them, but the ability to throw these amounts and living to fight another day is dependent on how well you maneuver. They go together; there is no separating attrition from maneuver if you want to have any real effect on the enemy. "Maneuver warfare" is just a name for the most recent codification of what armies have been doing since Napolean's day--using maneuver to achieve decisive battle results. It is not some new, post-WW2 way of making war. It's just the same theory but written for forces equipped along modern lines. Nothing about it de-emphasizes killing the enemy--on the contrary, the whole point is to achieve a better position from which to kill the enemy. Nope, we only had 1 regiment out on the boats. We had 2 reinforced divisions do a frontal assault through all the mines, wire, bunkers, flame ditches, etc., then exploit up to Kuwait City from the south to be the anvil. The army was the hammer, swinging around more or less freely through southern Iraq and back south into northern Kuwait. We smashed the enemy between us along the Highway of Death. Strange, huh? The Corps is your "maneuver school" star pupil but our most recent war involved a major frontal assault straight into prepared positions. Which is pretty much what we always end up doing, with beach landings and such. So anyway, not only can you not comprehend military science books, you can't comprehend history books either. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: OK, let's talk history. Napolean is widely credited with breaking the mold of "positional warfare" by targeting the enemy's main army instead of a spot of ground. He therefore conducted huge, daring maneuvers to bring about decisive battles in which he could inflict horrible attrition on the enemy while keeping his own force intact as much as possible in order to exploit battlefield success later. This is maneuver used to enhance battle. According to Henri, this makes Napolean an "attritionist". So is he or is he not an "attritionist" by your definition? OTOH, there is von Falkenhayn, who caused Verdun to happen with attrition as the express intent of the campaign, rather than taking Verdun itself. He wanted to bleed France to death, figuring he could win in the end because there were more Germans than Frenchmen. His goal was either to cause France to surrender once a certain number of casualties had been inflicted, or to weaken them enough that breakthrough maneuver could be be achieved. This is battle used to enhance maneuver, which by Henri's definition makes von Falkenhayn a "maneuverist" despite his express intentions of attrition. So to which school does von Falkenhayn belong according to you? As an aside, what do you think of von Falkenhayn's plan? Given the military realties of the time (continuous front with no flanks to turn, inability of frontal assaults to achieve breakthrough), can you think of a more logical goal for an offensive? ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pillar said: I see what you're saying, but it doesn't make any sense. I can't think of anybody except U.S. Grant and von Falkenhayn who deliberately set out to conduct attrition as an end unto itself, as the underlying philosophy of their campaigns. IOW, there doesn't seem to be a "school of attrition" against which a "school of maneuver" can be set up. So it seems to me that L&L misconstrued military history and science, invented a problem that doesn't really exist, and then provided a bogus "solution" to the equally bogus problem. Kinda like Hillary and health care. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

I said: Henri said: Dude, I hate to dis your heroes, but that's the most bass-ackwards definition I've ever heard in my life (next to Clinton's definition of sex). By L&L's definition as you state it, Napolean, Stonewall Jackson, Moltke the Elder, Rommel, Patton, and Schwartzkopf were "attritionists" while U.S. Grant, Haig, von Falkenhayn, and Nivelle were "maneuverists". Each of the above "attritionists" used grand maneuvers specifically to set up decisive ass-whuppings for the enemy, while each of the above "maneuverists" engaged in extremely bloody, often futile frontal assaults in the hope they'd eventually wear down the enemy enough to allow breakthrough maneuver. In general, the more words required to explain a theory to experienced practitioners of the art it applies to, the more bogus the theory. That seems to be the case here, as well. And I supposed that if I stated the earth goes around the sun, you'd write that off as simply the Copernican point of view and hold forth on the esoteric virtues of the Ptolomeic universe, which us dim-witted Copernicanists can't fathom. And I hope you don't take this as patronizing, but not only have I read that, I also read and absorbed everything else the USMC taught me about warfare. And I learned it well enough to go fight an actual war with great success and lead platoon-sized elements in combat without getting any of my Marines killed, while inflicting horrendous losses on the enemy. If you read any USMC stuff, you completely misunderstood it. The Corps is all about killing the enemy, and all its efforts are directed towards bringing that happy event to pass. "First to Fight!" and all that. The basic mission of the Marine Corps rifle platoon on the attack is to "locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver." The basic mission of the Marine Corps rifle platoon on the defensive is to "destroy the enemy by fire and close combat". IOW, destroying the enemy is the main objective on both sides of the ball. The above maxims are painfully drummed into the head of every Marine recruit in bootcamp. As such, they constitute much of the institutional philosophy of my beloved Corps. According to your definition, that makes the Corps an "attritionist" institution. Yet you cite it as an example of your "maneuverist" school. I think there's no further proof needed to show you don't have a clue what you're talking about. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Yes, there is a limit to the number of ambush markers you can have at once. I don't know what that limit is, but it's higher than you need in most CM battles, although lower than you need a in few huge ones with contact all along the front at once like Sherbrooke Fusiliers. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Pilar said: Dude, it's like ScoutPL said. Attrition is when it comes down to swapping bullets and bodies. It's the unavoidable nut-cutting of war. You cannot simultaneously avoid attrition and fight a war. Here's why: You have to kill the enemy--that's the whole point of the war, at least at the small unit level. This is putting attrition on the enemy. And most times, the enemy is just as smart, just as skilled, just as well-armed, and just as desperate as you are. Which means he's going to kill some of your guys whether you like it or not. This is putting attrition on you. So the best you can do is arrange things so he has as hard a time killing you as possible while you kill him, so that the attrition exchange ratio favors you. You do this by every means available, fair or foul, including maneuver. Because once units get heavily engaged, there's no going back and moving them as you'd like to--they're stuck in the attrition phase of the battle. So you'd better hope you set things up advantageously before then. Think about this. Napolean is famed for his maneuvers, right? OK, so what was the concept behind his maneuvers? To seek a decisive battle with the enemy main army in order to destroy it. IOW, severe attrition of the enemy was the goal of his maneuvers. He'd pick a point in the enemy rear where he'd be able to fight at best advantage, then go there. The enemy would have to fall back and fight there to restore his communications, playing right into Napolean's hand, and thus Napolean had a long string of victories. Sure, a lot of French got killed in the process, but not as many as otherwise. This is the classic example of maneuver used to stack the attrition deck in your favor. This is why I say that there is no separating attrition from maneuver. Attrition is the whole reason you are on the battlefield and were issued a weapon. You can do attrition with or without maneuver, but maneuver is never more than an adjunct to attrition, a means of making attrition work for you instead of against you. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

elementalwarre said: Yeah, I'm completely at a loss here. I mean, BTS got Los on board and all, so I'm sure they've heard this from people they trust . Oh well. With the recent unrealistic reduction of offensive force ratios, BTS has been forced to admit implicitly that its combat modeling is lacking something essential on the defensive front. The most obvious thing is the lack of MG functionality. So hopefully, now their pride will have been hurt and they'll expunge this blot on the reputation of their otherwise highly realistic game. What's even more puzzling to me is that the attacking force ratios were reduced and this evoked no comment thread from the audience. Where are the cries of outrage that CM would have a problem serious enough to warrant such a measure? Where are the grogs? Where are the people howling that a 1.75 - 1 force ratio in an assault is woefully inadequate compared to real life ratios? Word up. Exactly. Also, why else do modern forces retain MMGs and HMGs when every swingin' Richard carries an automatic personal weapon? It's because MGs can do things that assault rifles cannot, and that's bring sustained, high volume fire to bear either at a specific point, down a specific line, or even sweeping back and forth across an area. Even if modern MGs can't do the latter as well as their water-cooled predecessors, those water-cooled predecessor are still in CM. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

There's one thing I don't understand at all in this big argument of "attrition vs. maneuver", and that's the "vs." thing in the middle. To me, they are intimately linked. Moving from Point A to Point B is a waste of fuel unless you then proceed to kill the enemy at Point B. The whole point of maneuver is to achieve a better position from which to engage in attrition--to stack the deck so the exchange rate favors you as much as possible. No matter how fancy your moves are, sooner or later you get down to the nut-cutting. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.