Attrition

[The_Capt]

Just having completed a year long staff course, the topic of manoeuvre and attrition was forefront throughout.

Manoeuvre is NOT the rapid deployment of forces towards an enemy weakness, all Blitzkriegy and sneaky. Attrition is NOT the opening of the Somme and 6000 dead in about 25 minutes.

The labels "Attritionist and Manoeuvrist" are in fact terrible as they conjure up the above images.

Manoeuvre is a methodology. A way of doing business. It is actually quite simple but amazingly complex to apply. Manoeuvre doctrine at it's absolute essentials stresses the Commanders "intent" over that of the actual mission, to the point, (everybody pay attention here) that it becomes more important to the actual mission statement itself. Manouvre "empowers" a subordinate to exercise maximum initiative in contributing to the overall success of the plan. This mentality yields a very fast tempo pace of warefare which relies on armour (because it can move quicky) to exploit and "show max initiative", normally aimed at enemy weakness. The applications and implications of that statement are legion so I will move on.

Attritionist doctrine, stresses the actual letter of the law rather than the spirit. It focuses on immediate objectives with little or no room for change. "Take the Flag", not why or what if the enemy does "blah", just "TAKE THE FLAG" until I say otherwise. Attritionist doctrine stresses maximum control over your troops towards a central (normally terrain based objective..Vimy Ridge for example).

To answer what seems to be a snide post by Mr Cawley (no doubt born out of frustration)...No War has been one by single use of either of these two principals. They are in fact two sides of the same coin and have direct application to any conflict. D-Day was an attrition battle. The sole design of which was to allow "break-in" into Germany where some commanders (Patton most notably and Monty most "not"-notably) employed a manoeuvrist method to the battle across France.

Attrition stresses control and maximum planning and is normally used in the break-in battle when "fancy-footwork" will only get you killed. Manoeuvre is used when an attrition battle has been successful and exploitation can be accomplished. Both of these methods may be employed numerous times in any given conflict.

As to CM, it is attritionist, period. Sub-commanders are actually strings of code and cannot execute initiative beyond a very narrow scope. Also the entire emphasis is on Flags or terrain objective which may or may not have any real value in term of what the enemy is doing. We may have battles which may have been part of a "manoeuvrist" operation but each battle is an execise in attrition, no matter how fancy someone is with their tanks and Halftracks.

Anybody who preaches otherwise has no real understanding of the concept but have jumped on the "buzz-word" band wagon anyway.

[ASL Veteran]

So you are sitting on your soapbox awaiting a response to your lengthy lecture on warfare eh? Okay, well your point seems to be that attrition warfare = killing enemy soldiers. I suppose that can be one definition of attrition in its most simple form, and if you are using that as a definition of attrition then obviously there is no such thing as maneuver warfare and the discussion ends.

Of course, since your definitions of attrition and maneuver seem to be a bit of a moving target (a new form of maneuver warfare?) then it is difficult to debate the matter with you. It would seem that we have arrived at a bit of a consensus in the maneuver thread and I completely agree with the Marine Corp definition of maneuver warfare that was posted there. I think that if you take the time to read through that definition you will find that it is a simple matter to find instances of maneuver warfare throughout history.

Perhaps it would be better to debate the definitions first rather than to assume that your definitions are the correct ones. Otherwise this leads to a situation where the various esteemed members of our community must attempt to prove to you that maneuver warfare exists, but only within the context of the definitions you have assigned. Once a definition has been settled upon, then perhaps examples of each type of combat can be found.

How about if we start with a fairly straight forward example from this thread? One of the posters in this thread called the strategic bombing campaign against Germany in World War 2 maneuver warfare. After reading the Marine Corps definition of maneuver warfare - is that a valid example of maneuver warfare per that definition or is that attrition warfare?

[Juardis]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

As to CM, it is attritionist, period. Sub-commanders are actually strings of code and cannot execute initiative beyond a very narrow scope. Also the entire emphasis is on Flags or terrain objective which may or may not have any real value in term of what the enemy is doing. We may have battles which may have been part of a "manoeuvrist" operation but each battle is an execise in attrition, no matter how fancy someone is with their tanks and Halftracks.

Anybody who preaches otherwise has no real understanding of the concept but have jumped on the "buzz-word" band wagon anyway.

OK Capt, riddle me this. If I'm defending, and decide to let you have the flag by pulling my forces away from it, and then take those forces and move them through a gap you left during your attack, then attack you from behind (in a place you least expect), have I just not practiced maneuver warfare? I care not one whit about the terrain. I care about killing your force. By using your attack and my maneuver, I have successfully put myself in a position to best kill your force. I attacked from an unexpected direction by unexpectedly letting you have the terrain you were trying to get.

Did I miss something here?

I happen to think that CM is both. Sometimes, he with the mostest locally wins. Sometimes, he who manuevers to ensure he has the mostest locally wins.

All IMHO of course.

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Jeff Abbott

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

No, I am not debating straw men, like pretending shooting equals attrition. And no, I do not accept definitions of "manuever" that turn the Battle of Verdun into "manuever warfare" and therefore render the constrasting terms vacuous.

When the British planned to subdue New York via a three-pronged invasion from Canada and up the Hudson, they were engaged in a manuever strategy. The Americans used a manuever strategy against it, which I can actually name rather than a cloud of "anything that works" rhetoric - the principle of central positioning. It would be perfect fair to say the young U.S. won the Battle of Saratoga through manuever. But winning that campaign did not win the war. Winning the war required an attrition strategy aimed at the British forces in the field, constricting their movements, harassing them with militia and guerrillas from Charleston to Boston, and besieging them wherever they sheltered in their coastal forts.

Napoleon was certainly one of the greatest practioners of manuever warfare that ever lived, especially on an operational scale. His first invasion of Austria, then of Prussia, or is 1814 campaign in defense of France, remain masterpieces of manuever. But the Napoleonic wars were not won through successful application of manuever strategy, but instead through the successful application of long strategies of attrition -Spanish guerillas draining the French of men over nearly a decade, above all the loss of 500,000 men in the Russian campaign, only 1/5th of which fell in battle, the campaigns in central Germany and the Battle of Leipzig, issues of the raising of armies as much as their movements - which were recognizably affairs of attrition.

Lee was a brilliant manueverist in the U.S. civil war, and employeed its principles to great effect in the east, using the power of the defensive at Fredericksburg, balking flanking march with his own wider flanking march at Chancellorsville, conducting great invasions of the north and retrieving even lost battles with skill. Arguably, Grant and Sherman employed manuever even more, in the west, with great effect on the overall war. But the war was actually won when Grant, put in command in the east, adopted as his strategy - "we will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer".

WW I saw great schemes of manuever, from the initial Schiefflen plan to the operational success of Tannenburg, above all the attempt by the "easterners" in German strategy to employ central positioning to defeat essentially all adversaries in the east (after the initial failure to do the reverse). The allies attempted Gallipoli, and several times attempted "breakthrough" battles on the main front in France, including notably history's first mass employment of tanks at Cambrai. But the war was actually won by attrition processes, by "artillery offensives", by enourmous battles of material like Verdun and the Somme and the later refined versions thereof, all aimed at enemy front-line rifle strength. Entire nations fell apart in the field after sufficient suffering and loss had been inflicted on their armies, without much in the way of changes in territory at all. Verdun has been almost a synonym for "attrition strategy" even since.

WW II saw great schemes of manuever and great successes from it, from Manstein's plan in France to the armored spearheads of the army groups of Barbarossa, to the rapid Japanese conquest of all of southeast Asia and its islands. And there were certainly large scale manuevers used in defeating the Axis powers - the landing at Torch, the breakout from Normandy, the pincers of the Russian counterattack at Stalingrad, to name only a few conspicuous ones. But the war was won by attrition processes, by the giant clashes at Kursk (and to a lesser degree, but a similar battle, the Bulge), above all by the giant Soviet offensives after Kursk and in Operation Bagration. Outproducing the enemy and placing newly organized giant armies directly opposite him, was decisive.

The Korean War saw noticeable successes in manuever warfare - above all, the conception of Inchon by MacArthur, but also the initial North Korean mobile attack and the Chinese use of mountain infantry as mobile forces against road-bound Americans immediately on their intervention in the war. But the war, which can hardly be said to have been "won" by anyone, was at any rate settled, by Matthew Ridgeway's successful use of an attrition strategy to stem the Chinese onslaught. Which was not, by any means, unimaginative or lacking in flexbility, but which was definitely aimed exclusively at killing Chinese troops in the battle zone, and not at terrain objectives or taking them in rear or flank.

I mention only a few prominent examples, especially in U.S. military history. In none of the above will you find "attrition" used as a synonym for shooting at the enemy or any such straw man, nor will you find a notion of "manuever" so rhetorical and contentless that it includes the Battle of Verdun. I am not lumping everything right and true into one category, nor defining away the real contrast that is there in the actual events.

Grant in the east is not Lee in the east. Tsar Alexander and Blucher are not Napoleon, and Leipzig is not Austerlitz. The French front in WW I is not the Battle of Tannenburg. Kursk, Normandy, and Bagration and the Bulge are not Manstein's plan for the invasion of France. If you say they are all "manuever" or that they are all "blue", then I say you are color-blind.

And it is a simple but striking -, by no means necessary and theoretical, but a purely *empirical* - fact, that the attrition strategies were *decisive* in every one of the constrasted cases. Manuever ideas often won campaigns, battles, or particular fights, and it is quite noticeable in the histories. Obviously, people who stress the importance of manuever ideas have noticed this. I have simply pointed out that they are going to school with all the "brilliant" *lost* causes - Napoleon and Lee and the Easterners of WW I and Guderian and Manstein. The brilliance of these commanders is freely admitted. I simply insist, repeatedly, that they *lost*.

I would dearly like anyone who believes in the manueverist doctrine heart and soul, to tell me *why* they lost. Explain the empirical data with your own theory of the world, if you please.

And tell me how the Germans are supposed to win the Battle of Kursk, or tell me that it was a mistake to launch it in the first place. And if the latter, tell me *why*, what *limits* on manueverist brilliance being decisive exist, and what other factors become more decisive when certain conditions are not met. Believe me, this is not mere rhetoric. Any manueverist who is intellectually honest should have definite opinions about the subject, even if he finds it awkward to confess them publicly.

To make this point easy to see, I also asked for a similar analysis of the German military position in February, 1945. Because it is obvious to me that by then it matter was far beyond anything that operational or tactical "manuever" could possibly retrieve. The German position was completely and hopelessly lost.

And the reason was a logic of attrition strategy - that no "force multiplier" within *practical* reach through manuever would be large enough, against well equipped, mobile, combined-arms enemies with pretty good military doctrine, to outweigh the differences in numbers - of planes, tanks, artillery pieces, and soldiers, organized and trained for battle - then existing.

An attritionist thinks in such terms. He thinks about achieving such situations as desired end-states of his military operations. He thinks of them as *decisive in themselves*, when he can achieve them.

How soon such tipped balances happen in reality, and why, under what additional conditions (e.g. of doctrine) is, to me, the central issue in dispute between theorists of attrition and theorists of manuever.

But first I have to get at least one manueverist to drop empty rhetorical question-begging by stuffing terms with his preferred meanings, and recognize that there are conditions under which manuever ideas are beside the point and attrition logic has taken over. We can then debate when and where that happens, if he likes.

Someone wanted a definition. I give ideal types, whose contrast should show the specific distinction involved. Verdun was attrition warfare, and not manuever warfare. Manstein's plan executed in the conquest of France in 1940 was manuever warfare, and not attrition warfare.

Of the former, the initiator of the fight said "there exist behind the French front objectives for the retention of which the French army will be required to commit all its reserves. If they do so, then the French army will bleed to death." - Falkenhayn. Not exactly Manstein's plan...

[gaffertape]

And they say that nobody posts good threads anymore. This is great stuff.

GAFF

[CavScout]

Ayep.

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"Maneuverists have a bad case of what may be called, to borrow from a sister social science, "'Wehrmact penis envy.'"--D. Bolger

[This message has been edited by CavScout (edited 02-01-2001).]

[ASL Veteran]

"Inherent in maneuver warfare is the need for speed to seize the initiative, dictate the terms of action, and keep the enemy off balance, thereby increasing his friction. We seek to establish a pace that the enemy cannot maintain so that with each action his reactions are increasingly late-until eventually he is overcome by events."

Using this as our guideline of what a maneuver strategy is, let's answer the challenge posed to us

"To review, I am still waiting for a single example of a major war won by the successful application of a manuever strategy, as opposed to an attrition strategy, at any time since 1700, besides the 6-day war in 1967. No manueverist guru has come forward with a single example. A won war, not a campaign, battle, or firefight."

Okay, how about Napoleon's victory over Austria in the war of 1805 or Napoleon's victory over Prussia in the war of 1806? Certainly Napoleon's victory at Ulm was a victory of maneuver as was his victory at Austerlitz. Napoleon's decision cycle was continuously ahead of that of his enemies and this resulted in victory. It is fairly obvious that Napoleon was dictating the action in 1806 as well since the Prussians were always two or three steps behind. Napoleon's army lived off the land and his enemies were tied to supply points and depots thus giving his armies much more speed than the armies of his enemies. I think it is extremely apparent that both the Austrians and the Prussians were continuously caught off balance in both of those wars.

[The_Capt]

Soapbox?! Ok if that is what you want to call modern military doctrine. This is not definition by concensus. I have been doing this full time for the last 13 years and spent last year in staff college, I don't really care what the rest of the community thinks, I am only giving the definition and concept "chapter and verse" from current teaching. I am not here to argue. Most people on this forum have made the beginner mistake of thinking Manouevre Warfare has something to of with sneaky moves and flankings. It is an amateurs view but in most professional military circles what I have offered is in line with current teaching.

Mr. Cawley, thank you for the history lesson and yes history shows us wonderful examples of each types of warfare (although the modern concept of Manouvre doctrine is relativly new). Yes Verdun was open attrition but it was not Attritionist doctrine. D-Day, the March to Caen, Gettysburg were all wonderful examples of Attrition Doctrine by which a very controlled and centralized deployment of units towards a well-defined terrain objective. Try if you can to re-think the concepts as methodologies rather than a set of tactics/strategies historical or otherwise. Manoeuvre is a "way" of carrying out warfare not a set of rules or tricks. As for historical examples, the Gulf is your best bet not perfect by any stretch but the only real historical use in the formal sense. You are quite right though in it having been practiced by many great commanders, it was instinct and a personal gift. We are now trying to train leaders towards the idea rather than hope it develops

Mr Abbott, what you have is a very good case of deception and initiative but not Manoeuvre (with the capital M). In order to execute the scenario you describe you will still plot each units move and position in order to execute your brillant plan. True Manoeuvre would be your troops executing the gap exploitation against what you told them to do because if best supported your intent and in real combat you cannot see what they can nor get instant feedback. That is Manoeuvre. What you have are a neat bag of tricks which do emulate some of the tools used in Manoeuvre (or goals of this methodology) but Attritionist still.

[ASL Veteran]

My post was directed at Jason, not you Captain. I agree with the majority of what you said.

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

"Inherent in maneuver warfare is the need for speed to seize the initiative, dictate the terms of action, and keep the enemy off balance, thereby increasing his friction. We seek to establish a pace that the enemy cannot maintain so that with each action his reactions are increasingly late-until eventually he is overcome by events."

Using this as our guideline of what a maneuver strategy is, let's answer the challenge posed to us

"To review, I am still waiting for a single example of a major war won by the successful application of a manuever strategy, as opposed to an attrition strategy, at any time since 1700, besides the 6-day war in 1967. No manueverist guru has come forward with a single example. A won war, not a campaign, battle, or firefight."

Why wouldn't the 1940 war in Western Europe qualify?

Granted, Germany went on to lose WW2, but they certainly won the war with France. The decision to continue the fight was a political one made by the Brits. Had they sued for peace, would we be sitting here saying "Gee, what a great example of a war won by maneuver?"

I guess my point is that the line between "campaign" and "war" as Mr. Cawley appears to be defining it is pretty tenuous at best, and certainly has no relationship to the matter at hand.

For that matter, one could argue that Vietnam was a war won by maneuver. The Vietnamese were pretty good at not being where the US forces expected them to be. North Vietnam seemed like they did a sufficient job of frustrating the USs ability to apply force decisively.

Of course, you could just as easily claim that North Vietnam won by an attritionist strategy of outlasting US resolve to take casualties. Sure, the US might have had a 3:1 (or greater) casualty ratio, but without the political will to accept that ratio...

I am a complete amatuer in the discussion, but it seems to me like the terms are not strictly enough defined to force a conclusion to the debate.

Jeff Heidman

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Why wouldn't the 1940 war in Western Europe qualify?

To hear people talk you might never know that most of the "great" German triumphs turned out to be hollow performaces. As Bolger said, "They looked good losing, though, didn't they?"

Granted, Germany went on to lose WW2, but they certainly won the war with France. The decision to continue the fight was a political one made by the Brits. Had they sued for peace, would we be sitting here saying "Gee, what a great example of a war won by maneuver?"

Perhaps, but they didn't. Maneuver didn't cause the British to capitulate. Perhaps attrition by destroying Dunkirk would have. Both are "what ifs".

Did the Germans win by some great new doctrine or by the poor caliber of its opponents, France, Holland, Denmark and Belgium?

Cav

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"Maneuverists have a bad case of what may be called, to borrow from a sister social science, "'Wehrmact penis envy.'"--D. Bolger

Co-Chairman of the CM Jihad Brigade

Founder of the CMers who like playing the Allies Club

[ASL Veteran]

The war between France and Austria in 1805 is different than the war in 1940. In 1805 the war ended. The period between 1805 and 1815 (or even 1793 to 1815) was not a period of continuous warfare and can't really be compared to world war 2 where the hostilities never came to a conclusion until Germany's final defeat.

[Guest Big Time Software]

The_Capt,

Thanks for sharing your professional knowledge with us. Nice to see more of this enter this discussion. As you say, to us in the year 2001 most of these concepts are rather "obvious", whereas prior to WWII they were more "gifts" of leadership as you say. However, the imagination and application of theory into practice is where the real tough work lies. I think you mean by this that it is all too easy to get sucked into a straight out battle of attrition EVEN knowing all that is known about Maneuver warfare. Therefore, the best commanders (defined by success in the field) are still in need of both strong training and a certain "gift". Do I have that correct?

As for this quote, I have a minor quibble:

As to CM, it is attritionist, period. Sub-commanders are actually strings of code and cannot execute initiative beyond a very narrow scope. Also the entire emphasis is on Flags or terrain objective which may or may not have any real value in term of what the enemy is doing. We may have battles which may have been part of a "manoeuvrist" operation but each battle is an execise in attrition, no matter how fancy someone is with their tanks and Halftracks.

This is, I feel, an over simplification of what is going on at the CM level. True, CM is LARGELY about attritional warfare. As discussed in other threads, at this low level of combat the grand "Maneuvers" of more senior officers put you into this position, not the other way around.

For example, in WWII a Company could not just suddenly decide to go running around behind enemy lines PURELY on its own initiative. However, a Company might very well find itself in such a position because larger events were orchastrated in order to facilitate such an action.

In other words, leadership is still a top down experience. Orders start from the top and go to the bottom. The lower down you are, the less initiative you are allowed. The degree of initiative restriction, however, is what seperates a fighting force capable of maneuver warfare from one that is incapable.

In a Combat Mission scenario you have been ordered to do something specific. In real life there is a fairly broad range of possible "somethings", but many of them are not interesting enough for a game setting. So what we are left with is the more combat oriented aspects, which obviously (by definition) are more attrition than maneuver. But this is NOT to say that there is no Maneuver warfare going on at the CM level. Yes, not of the sort of grand Maneuverist ilk, but still of the same philosophies. You yourself wrote:

Manoeuvre doctrine at it's absolute essentials stresses the Commanders "intent" over that of the actual mission, to the point, (everybody pay attention here) that it becomes more important to the actual mission statement itself.

While "intent" is impossible to be handed to the player in a Quick Battle, the scenario briefings for pre-made scenarios certainly do this. For example, in the Last Defense scenario I made for the demo, the American player is told that he is the rearguard and must hold up the Germans as best you can. Why? Because you are the last significant force inbetween the Germans and the rear of very large American forces.

So now the American player knows what his role is in the Big Picture AND the importance of his role. Now you, as the American player, can use your own initiative to carry out your orders. Obviously since this is only one battle your success/failure doesn't really have an impact on the imaginary forces you are trying to protect, but that isn't relevant to this discussion.

Manouvre "empowers" a subordinate to exercise maximum initiative in contributing to the overall success of the plan.

In Last Defense you are given complete, unhindered initiatve as to how to acheive this in the situation as dictated by circumstances (i.e. the scenario settings). And the same is true, in reverse, for the Germans. You don't have to put the Tiger there or the 60mm Mortars there. There are suggested starting positions, which dictate at least a starting strategy, but this is not manditory.

This mentality yields a very fast tempo pace of warefare which relies on armour (because it can move quicky) to exploit and "show max initiative", normally aimed at enemy weakness.

If you have ever played a weak player, or the AI on a really bad day, you should be able to see how much maneuvering at the tactical level is necessary to win. No, not the Grand Maneuvering at higher levels, but still the same in terms of philosphy (as you have defined in your post). The player that best understands the concepts of timing, speed, pressure, psychology, obtaining maximum results for minimal effort, applying strength against weakness, etc. will most likely win. At least in a scenario that is balanced. The player that thinks the way to victory is slug it out, head on, is likely to lose.

Now... what about the flags? They are important, yes, but they are not as important as people might think. In CM a player can win, hands down, without taking a single flag. How? By beating the other force to such an extent that the points associated with the flag do not need to be yours. You can either denny the points to the enemy OR, if you have beat him up really well, let him keep the points and still beat him. And how does one do this? Through the application of the flexibility and iniative inherent in the philosphy of Maneuver Warfare.

The key here, in my mind, is there are different levels of Maneuver Warfare. At the tactical level, in a situation worthy of playing out as a battle in a game, quite a bit of strategic/operation initiative is constrained. In some respects, tactical initiative is constraied (i.e. you can opt NOT to fight a battle in CM, but what the heck is the point of that?). True, you can't go about skirting the enemy MRL by 3000m off to the left flank, but in a dense combat environment like WWII this was not generally possible unless the enemy's front line was already destroyed. And again, there is little point of playing a CM battle without actually fighting a combat worthy enemy force. I mean, I suppose we could have an option before each battle:

Sweep to the left flank

Then we could either start you up on a blank map with no enemy force, or perhaps one that is 2x as strong as the one you would have fought the first time. But this is getting kinda silly

OK, there are some more thoughts for the discussion

Steve

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by CavScout:

To hear people talk you might never know that most of the "great" German triumphs turned out to be hollow performaces. As Bolger said, "They looked good losing, though, didn't they?"

Why is it so hard to simply ask a question without the response being this kind of bull**** personal attacks? Where did I say this was a "great German triumph"?

Someone asked for an example of a war won through a pre-defined idea of maneuver. While admitting that I was not an expert on the subject, I provided two examples of what I thought *might* qualify, and even went so far as to outline why they might not.

Of course you have nothing to say until *I* post, and then you ignore one example so you can use the other one as more evidence that people are members of the secret neo-Nazi Germanophile cabal.

Damn Cavscout, you are like a freaking Chihuahua or something. If you can't respond to a post of mine with something substantive, do me (and everyone else) a favor and ignore me.

Jeff Heidman

[This message has been edited by Jeff Heidman (edited 02-01-2001).]

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Why is it so hard to simply ask a question without the response being this kind of bull**** personal attacks? Where did I say this was a "great German triumph"?

Personal attack? I'd suggest some reading glasses as there is no personal attack anywhere in that post. If you consider disagreement an attack then so be it.

Of course you have nothing to say until *I* post, and then you ignore one example so you can use the other one as more evidence that people are members of the secret neo-Nazi Germanophile cabal.

When you do get those glasses, go to page one and see that I posted there. Also look above your post and see another post before you did. You give yourself too much credit.

Cav

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"Maneuverists have a bad case of what may be called, to borrow from a sister social science, "'Wehrmact penis envy.'"--D. Bolger

Co-Chairman of the CM Jihad Brigade

Founder of the CMers who like playing the Allies Club

[This message has been edited by CavScout (edited 02-01-2001).]

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

The war between France and Austria in 1805 is different than the war in 1940. In 1805 the war ended. The period between 1805 and 1815 (or even 1793 to 1815) was not a period of continuous warfare and can't really be compared to world war 2 where the hostilities never came to a conclusion until Germany's final defeat.

I disagree.

The war was essentially over in 1941, until Germany went and attacked the USSR. If they had not done that, then GB would have had no way to beat Germany.

The continuation of hostilities was due to soemthing well beyond the scope of this discussion, and not prediacted upon manuever or attrition. Maybe they would be right.

The problem is that had that I happened, I think the attritionist would just say that the France campaign was won through attrition brought about through the use of maneuver. Or something like that.

I personally have no opinion on the subject. I do not pretend to be well read enough on the theory to argue convincingly, except that I think there are some inconsistencies in the logic presented by both sides.

Jeff Heidman

[Guest Big Time Software]

Ah... there you go again Jeff. This is the "chip" I mentioned before. Dude, chill out. CavScout said NOTHING that should have illicited such an outburst from you. Even it if was meant as a jab, couldn't you handle it without the temper tantrum?

And, BTW, CavScout did answer your question. Not as detailed as you might have liked, but he did all the same.

Steve

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by CavScout:

When you do get those glasses, go to page one and see that I posted there. Also look above your post and see another post before you did. You give yourself too much credit.

Cav

I'm sorry, I failed to give you credit for your one word treatise on the validity of the previous posters comment on good threads. I apologize for that glaring oversight.

Jeff Heidman

[Guest Big Time Software]

OK, looks like the three of us are all posting at the same time. Let's just keep it focused on the topic, OK?

Steve

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Ah... there you go again Jeff. This is the "chip" I mentioned before. Dude, chill out.

Bull****. I am not the one interrupting perfectly reasonable and calm discussion with personal attacks, he is.

CavScout said NOTHING that should have illicited such an outburst from you. Even it if was meant as a jab, couldn't you handle it without the temper tantrum?

Pointing out when someone is acting like an asshole is not a temper tantrum. Why do you feel a need to try to bait people with terms like that?

He attempted to portray a perfectly reasonable comment from me as some sort of evidence of an agenda that does not exist. Ic alled him on it, and now he is going to act all innocent, and you are going to back him up.

And, BTW, CavScout did answer your question. Not as detailed as you might have liked, but he did all the same.

Steve

He did not answer it in the very least. In fact, he missed the entire point of my post in his zeal to point out the emergence of yet another supposed German uber-alles fan. In your zeal to back him up, you seem to have missed the point also. here is a hint, it is sumemd up in the last paragraph of my post, which (of course) he neglected to comment on.

And now here is yet another thread that he has turned into some personal vendetta.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

dp

[This message has been edited by Jeff Heidman (edited 02-01-2001).]

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

I disagree.

The war was essentially over in 1941, until Germany went and attacked the USSR. If they had not done that, then GB would have had no way to beat Germany.

And Germany would have no way to beat the UK. At best you can argue for a stalemate.

The continuation of hostilities was due to soemthing well beyond the scope of this discussion, and not prediacted upon manuever or attrition. Maybe they would be right.

Actually, the German path to victory was predicated on attrition warfare. They thought with U-boats they could win by sinking enough ships.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Bull****. I am not the one interrupting perfectly reasonable and calm discussion with personal attacks, he is.

What personal attacks?

I said, "To hear people talk you might never know that most of the "great" German triumphs turned out to be hollow performaces. As Bolger said, 'They looked good losing, though, didn't they?'"

If calling the German victory in France a "hollow performace" is a personal attack....

[Guest Big Time Software]

Jeff:

Bull****. I am not the one interrupting perfectly reasonable and calm discussion with personal attacks, he is.

Didn't your mom ever teach you it doesn't matter WHO started WHAT? You are being judged by your actions. Now we have TWO posts from you that involve curse words and a lot of anger. None from anybody else, just you.

Pointing out when someone is acting like an asshole is not a temper tantrum.

It is if you can't do it rationally.

Why do you feel a need to try to bait people with terms like that?

I didn't bait you. To use your own words, slightly modified:

Pointing out when someone is acting like an asshole is not baiting that someone to keep on acting like an asshole.

He attempted to portray a perfectly reasonable comment from me as some sort of evidence of an agenda that does not exist.

Where? I didn't see ANYTHING that said this. He disagreed with you, and posted as much. Anything more you are reading into it comes under the heading of "chip on your shoulder". Cripes, you are like a certain someone that I banned a few months back. You imagine attacks where there are none, then you come out swinging. Not cool.

Ic alled him on it, and now he is going to act all innocent, and you are going to back him up.

I am not backing him up at all. He posted something that disagreed with something you said. And now you are throwing a big fit about hidden agendas and other such things.

He did not answer it in the very least. In fact, he missed the entire point of my post in his zeal to point out the emergence of yet another supposed German uber-alles fan.

Well, you can of course see it that way. I call it paranoid (no, I am not trying to bait you). He disagreed with what you posted and offered another point of view. You chose, and I mean CHOSE, to see it as some sort hidden agenda against you.

And now here is yet another thread that he has turned into some personal vendetta.

Yup. It would be nice if you could stop making threads like this possible, but you are so HELL BENT on seeing every comment made by CavScout as a hidden attack on you that I fear more threads will go this way. And, as

I stated VERY CLEARLY in my previous post, even IF CavScout meant this as a snipe at you could have chose to be a lot more mature about your response. See Jeff, I did not ASSUME that you were flying off the handle for NO reason, but why should I expect you to think otherwise. You might be right. Maybe CavScout really DID have a hidden message for you (I don't see it, even knowing the history here), but that does NOT excuse your outbursts.

You are as much a part of the problem as anybody you are shouting at. And you are most certainly not part of any solution.

Steve

[Guest Wildman]

Okay,

Once again an interesting and informative thread on military doctrine and theory has degenerated to CavScout and Jeff Heidman calling each other names.

If you two guys would just go start a thread where the two you could bludgeon away at each other and let the rest of us have a pretty civil discussion, I know that I, and problably the rest of the forum would appreciate it.

To quote from the best:

"Don't go away mad....just go away"

---

Wes "Wildman" Netcher