Should one have a reserve....?

[howardb]

After prolonged fighting in an Operation I'm doing I had a platoon standing ready by some trucks and another hiding behind some trees. The enemy attacked with several understrenght platoons my guys holding the line was running low on ammo so I moved in my reserve platoons. Boy did my reserves beat up the opposition, the battlefield was littered by eliminated troops. If you don't have reserves you can forget about counterattacking if you've fought a while that is (seldom at least). Now I'm looking forward to the continuation, the enemy has lost so many troops that it's my initiative now.

[chris talpas]

An important point of course is that Hughes' book is on naval tactics which are a very different beast. There is no real 'terrain' on the high seas and the attacker is very much favoured over the defender unlike land combat.

Probably the closest analogy would be a pure armour slugfest. Say each side had six tanks of equivalent capability (6 is only chosen arbitrarily) and the terrain favoured long range engagement. If one side commits all 6 tanks versus the other side keeping 1/3 in reserve, the likely outcome will be the locally (in time) superior force defeating the numerically inferior force.

Chris

[Trooper]

True, but increases in ability in what he terms 'anti-scouting' can make up for the inherent lack of terrain in blue-water engagements.

Besides, as the (CM) CO, it's my job to minimize the detremental effect terrain will have on my troops. If one guy is going to be in a position to shoot, they're all going to be in a position to shoot. You don't break cover singly, and you will have much greater success by having even one more gun on target. (See all those tables near the beginning of his book of firepower differentials in a slugfest. It seems even more than an exponential differential)

NTM

[Henri]

This question goes back all the way to the Clauzewitz vs Liddell Hart debate before WW2; I believe that the originator of this thread supports the Clauzewitz view (adapted by everyone in WW1)that to win a battle, the attacker has to as much power as possible at the point of conflict. It is hard to debate that whoever puts more into the fray is likely to win a slugfest.But...

The Liddell hart view as defined in his book "The Strategy of the Indirect Approach (which harkens back to Sun Tzu) is instead to use maneuver to disrupt the enemy, to open lines to his rear and then to create havoc in his rear areas. This was adopted by the Germans in WW2, and later in the war, also by the Soviets, for whom "rear" meant up to 500 miles behind enemy lines! I believe it is at least partly the US Marine Corps' doctrine. A poor application of the theory is Churchill's decision to bomb German civilians instead of industries in WW2

Now although those concepts were developed for the operational scale, they are also adaptable to the tactical scale of small units (the scale of CM). INdeed, the key ingredient to the whole idea is mobility, and mobility is highly hampered if one does not have a reserve. Contrary to some popular thinking, most available tanks were not used to create holes in enem,y lines in the Blitzkrieg: rather most were kept back in order to exploit the breakthrough, because fresh units were required for this phase of the battle.

For an illustration of how to use surprise to disrupt the enemy and to derail his plan, as well as how a reserve arriving at the right time can change the tide of battle, as well as how the ABSENCE of a reserve can render an enemy unable to react, see Fionn's AAR of The Sunken "Lane" on Thegamers CM web site and my analysis of the battle on this forum.

No one doubts that when the battle boils down to a slugfest, whoever can put the most into the battle will usually win, and those who follow Clausewitz are following a master of high level , but if they meet a Rommel in their battles , they will find themselves eating their socks in frustration

Henri