Attrition and Maneuver- Apples and Oranges

[Guest Seimerst]

The "Attritionist Vs Maneuverist" thread has sucked me into the gentle debate. The thread is a worthwile read because of the quality of the discussion, however, being a victim of my experiences, I would submit that the discussions are accurate but the lables are not. We teach cadets at West Point that there are three basic military stratgies used to produce victory.

1. Decisive Battle-- derived in the aftermath of Napoleanic Wars. One battle wars. A single knockout blow. This strategy is the heart of the manueverist argument. This wasand is the Holy Grail taught in all the western military schools from then until now. But Napoleon was the last guy to do this with any consistency.

2. Strategy of Attrition. You win the war by grinding down the enemy-- brute force. Grant against Lee in 1864/65 is a classic example. Grant knew he could better absorb 3 or 4 casualties to Lee's 2 or 3. The north could sustain even this unfavorable exchange longer than the south. Each side, schooled in the decisive battle mantra, sought for that knockout blow-- Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg would have qualified as decisive battles 50 years earlier but they could not end the war. The German "bleed the French white" at Verdun is another example.

3. Strategy of Total War. The target being the destruction of the enemy nation's will and or capacity to continue the struggle by any an all means. This usually entails a complete mobilization of a nation's economy to a war footing. US approach to WWII is one example. North Vietnam's ultimate victory is another. North Vietnam absorbed horrific casualties compared to what they inflicted. They were certainly using elements of the attrition strategy but their real target was not the destruction of the US/ARVN armies in the field, but the national will to continue. You can make a case that the US Revolutionary War falls into the total war column because we out will to continue the conflict outlasted the British will.

The scope of CM is of course tactical (apples) and these strategic (oranges) labels might be an element of the confusion-- creating a fruit salad, but a tasty one nonetheless.

As as aside, one of the final exam two hour essay questions for the year-long course at USMA "The Art of War" or as the cadets called it, "From Plato to NATO" was this:

"Discuss the conditions that allowed Napoleon to attain decisive battle and why decisive battle became so elusive ever since. Be specific and cite examples."

After re-reading this, I think I have merely added some grapefruit into the salad.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Without reopening the whole question, I have some comments on your on your essay question.

Decisive battle as the question means it, remained achievable and achieved for 100 years longer in naval warfare, as opposed to land warfare. Manila Bay in the Spanish-American war, and the Russo-Japanese war are cases in point. And it was perhaps still possible at the time of Jutland - it was remarked at the time that Admiral Jericho was the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon.

By the time of Midway, it seems to me the naval reality has already shifted to more like the U.S. Civil war case - battles than seem like they could be decisive and remind one strongly, in their scope and incidents and effects, of earlier battles that actually were decisive. But in fact they were not, and the outcomes could lengthen or shorten wars but not really change their outcome in a day.

Incidentally, it is not entirely clear to me that the change hadn't already occurred on Napoleon's watch, so to speak. He won too many "decisive" battles, and still lost eventually, for the "decisive" label to be truly deserved, in the full sense. Perhaps Jena was the last. Or more accurately, perhaps Wagram, since Austria did leave the field afterward - for all of four years. Still, there is something comical about the most famous winner of decisive battles in history, losing to a coalition of the nations he defeated with such "decision", is there not?

[Panzer Leader]

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[Wesreidau]

Hi Mom!!!!

[The Commissar]

Jebus H. something...I thought you guys agreed on your POV's somewhere in the "Let the healing Begin" thread?

I dont think no matter how much you argue, you wont get much more then you already have, which is more then enough to write tomes on.

As to Napoleon,

When he got a bit too cocky and inpatient in the War of 1812, he tried to force a decisive battle onto Kutusov. However, I think the battle turned more into one of attrition then maneuver. The Russians were well entrenched, and Napoleon lost many men (for those who know: am I incorrect in assuming that before Borodino, Bonaparte never lost so many men {some 35,000} in a single battle?) where he could not take losing them. Far behind his own lines, with his supplies stretching all across Russia, with many men far away behind him thanks to the dismal condition of the Russian roads.

Do you think, by the time of Waterloo, Bonaparte got too old? Was his "spark" gone? Was he just too eager to make up for his defeats earlier on and to prove to the world that he still had it? Was it just luck? Did he pick the wrong men to do the wrong things (putting fools to lead men, and generals to do staff work)? Was it a combination of all of these? Probably.

Just my HO.

Cheers!

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

No, Napoleon was not too old at Waterloo, and no he did not lack "spark" or any other magical attribute. He had a strategic problem - too many enemies. He had an operational problem - Blucher showed up and Grouchy didn't. And he still might have succeeded, at least that day, except he also had a tactical problem - the Scots Greys made one heck of a charge...

[The Commissar]

Jason,

By "spark" I meant nothing magical, but rather the eagarness and energetic way Napoleon used to lead his forces in his earlier campaigns. This, from what Ive read, was laregely gone by the time of Waterloo.

Can't really blame him, of course. He was nearing - what - 50 or 60? Cant remember clearly at the moment.

Cheers!

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[Jasper]

I'm not familiar with this 'decisive battle' stuff.

Was Waterloo considered a decisive battle? I mean it was the last battle, but suppose the French had won - then what? They win the war - hardly. Some other battle seals their fate later.

Like Gettysburgh, in the American Civil War. What if the south had won? The war over? Hardly. The south either declares their raid a success and go back home to prepare for siege, or press until and get stomped in some other battle in the north.

When a commander fields his entire army for a single battle - as often happened earlier in history - I'll buy the decisive battle bit. But when somebody can't muster his entire military for one battle - like there's too much of it (Roman for example) then I'm afraid the 'decisive battle' idea falls rather flat for me.

Perhaps someone can provide me with some example where (a) the entire military wasn't involved in the battle and ( the outcome ended the war. I'm prepared to take negotiated settlements as ending wars - if it did, in fact, end the war and simply not pause it.

[Michael Dorosh]

Was Midway not the "decisive" battle of the Pacific? It didn't end the war, but it "decided" it. "Decisive" comes from "decide", as in "decide who will win."

Midway broke the Japanese winning streak, broke their morale, and shattered much of their carrier fleet. They built more carriers, and the Pacific War was never a sure victory for the Allies (witness the bitter fighting afterwards), but after Midway I don't think the outcome was in serious doubt.

Decisive does not mean, in the generally accepted usage of the word, "war ending." Merely "decisive."

[Croda]

Best I remember, Midway was called the turning point in the war in the Pacific, much like Gettysburg was the turning point in the U.S. Civil War. I recall the fighting being furious thereafter in both conflicts, thought the momentum had certainly shifted.

Although, I believe it was Yamamoto who felt that the decisive battle in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor, as he felt that the Japanese could not defeat the U.S. in a Naval war.

My 2 cents

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[CavScout]

many military leaders search for that "decisive" battle. Maneuver proponents seem to be of this ilk... everyone wants to lead in the one battle that wins the war. But like the "decisive" battleship admirals of WWII, want and reality are sometimes stark adversaries.

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Jasper:

Like Gettysburgh, in the American Civil War. What if the south had won? The war over? Hardly. The south either declares their raid a success and go back home to prepare for siege, or press until and get stomped in some other battle in the north.

I would not be so sure - if Ghettysburg had been lost, Lincoln as a president may well have been finished, with a peace in the offing. Wars do not happen in a political vacuum.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Croda:

Best I remember, Midway was called the turning point in the war in the Pacific, much like Gettysburg was the turning point in the U.S. Civil War. I recall the fighting being furious thereafter in both conflicts, thought the momentum had certainly shifted.

Although, I believe it was Yamamoto who felt that the decisive battle in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor, as he felt that the Japanese could not defeat the U.S. in a Naval war.

My 2 cents

Yamamoto said they could win, a very slim chance at best, but it had to be in the first 6 months, or the industrial might of the US would make the outcome a foregone conclusion.

Midway happened 6 months after Pearl Harbor.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Croda:

Although, I believe it was Yamamoto who felt that the decisive battle in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor, as he felt that the Japanese could not defeat the U.S. in a Naval war.

Then why did Yamamoto put the Midway operation into play? He hoped to force a decisive battle there.

[Guest wwb_99]

Well, I would say the French revolution ended the real possibility of a decisive battle, at least in europe. The armies got too large to be deployed at one time and place, and therefore be able to be destroyed in one battle. Also, the idea of a citizen based army meant that new ones could be raised, literally overnight (cf. the frontier battles of 1790) if needed.

One other fundamental point is that pre-20th century warfare was often with limited forces for limited gains. The goal was more often to gain control of a border province rather than take over an entire country. So, when an army was destroyed, the offensive goal was met and the successful attacker would accept the unsuccessful defender's suit for peace. Provinces can be recovered, but nations will not die easily.

WWB

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[SirOscar]

Jasper WROTE

"Like Gettysburg, in the American Civil War. What if the south had won? The war over? Hardly. The south either declares their raid a success and go back home to prepare for siege, or press until and get stomped in some other battle in the north."

I can't disagree more, had Lee pulled off a victory at Gettysburg or even by passed the battle and headed into D.C. which was like 30 miles down the road, the war might of ended right then and there. You are totally over looking the political situation of the time, before Gettysburg the North was getting it's butt kicked on a regular basis and there were MANY in the North who were already calling for an end to the war, had Lee been able to take or siege D.C. I think it HIGHLY likely that the war would of been over.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by CavScout:

Then why did Yamamoto put the Midway operation into play? He hoped to force a decisive battle there.

Exactly. Yamamoto probably felt very strongly that it was "now or never", especially after the inconclusive results of the Coral Sea Campaign. The Doolittle Raid must have scared the hell out of them too, for all the little practical result - and on 18 April 1942, Yamamoto probably had a pretty good glimpse of just how right he was.

It is very interesting to notice how important code breaking was to the Allies in WW II - Midway is a great example, but also all the Enigma stuff in North Africa, the Atlantic, etc.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Exactly. Yamamoto probably felt very strongly that it was "now or never", especially after the inconclusive results of the Coral Sea Campaign. The Doolittle Raid must have scared the hell out of them too, for all the little practical result - and on 18 April 1942, Yamamoto probably had a pretty good glimpse of just how right he was.

It is very interesting to notice how important code breaking was to the Allies in WW II - Midway is a great example, but also all the Enigma stuff in North Africa, the Atlantic, etc.

Perhaps, I just find it odd that Yamamoto would be out seeking the "decisive" battle if he thought it would not help them win.

[Spook]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Yamamoto said they could win, a very slim chance at best, but it had to be in the first 6 months, or the industrial might of the US would make the outcome a foregone conclusion.

Midway happened 6 months after Pearl Harbor.

As a qualifier, Michael, the US Navy fought the Midway battle with pre-war assets, and as such, the US "industrial might" hadn't been brought to bear yet. In fact, in terms of US carrier deployment, it wasn't until mid-'43 that the new US fleet/light carriers started to deploy.

But if your point rather is that Yamamoto wanted a "decision" from the Midway campaign by finishing off what was available of the US Pacific fleet (and to threaten Hawaii with Midway's invasion), thus vastly improving Japan's standing control of the Pacific, then your point is taken.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Spook:

As a qualifier, Michael, the US Navy fought the Midway battle with pre-war assets, and as such, the US "industrial might" hadn't been brought to bear yet. In fact, in terms of US carrier deployment, it wasn't until mid-'43 that the new US fleet/light carriers started to deploy.

But if your point rather is that Yamamoto wanted a "decision" from the Midway campaign by finishing off what was available of the US Pacific fleet (and to threaten Hawaii with Midway's invasion), thus vastly improving Japan's standing control of the Pacific, then your point is taken.

As I understand it, Yamamoto wanted to take Midway to force the Americans into a decisive battle where they could destroy the American fleet. Even the great Yamamoto was looking for that big battleship battle...

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

wwb_99's position, sensible as usual, is the historian's and professors usual line on the subject. I am not so convinced, though, that army size or recruit's motivation are the main factor. Because there was an older item that made for indecisive big battles in the older days. This was that armies were then made out of money, more than out of men. "Soldier" literally means a man who takes his shilling a day. A soldus is a shilling, and anything given for a shilling has been sold.

In early modern wars, it was not uncommon for large battles to be fought that destroyed whole armies. But new armies replaced them, if the source of the political division and of the funding was still there. The Spanish discovered this in their attempts to suppress the revolt of the Netherlands. Wars were not decided by battles, but by national bankruptcies, when kings could not longer repay their borrowed debts, contracted to pay their soldiers. There was no scarcity of men to take the shilling if the shilling were available, in the case of losing powers. But it wasn't.

From this standpoint, the "revolution" brought about by the French was simply the revival of looting, or as Napoleon called in "making war support war". Usually looting just raises a country against you, and in Spain it still did. Or it destroys it so utterly that nothing more can be exacted, as in Germany during the 30 years war.

But in other places the French got away with it and called it social revolution instead of theft. So Napoleon shipped what are now the treasures of the Louvre to Paris from Lombardy. From this perspective, however, his final defeat was not exactly an accident - the British always found new continental armies to ally with because they always had subsidies to dispense - and that, for exactly the same reasons the Dutch Republic successfully resisted the Spanish. Meaning naval victories, revenue from trade, blockade as piracy, etc.

As for Japan in WW II, I wonder why it is so difficult for people to see that they were simply betting their country on the proposition that the Germans would win. Of course Japan had no chance against the industrial might of the U.S., Midway or no Midway. But when Midway was fought the Germans were conquering southern Russia and were still months from their high water mark at Stalingrad. It was perfectly plausible that the Germans might win, and then the U.S. would have to decide whether a "Germany first" strategy left any room for a secondary war with Japan. When Germany did not win, nothing on earth could have saved Japan from defeat.

As for the comment that Midway hurt Japanese "morale", it is laughable. If Japan had a long suit, that was it. They had sufficient morale to have 5000 volunteers to suicide-dive bomb-laden airplanes into the decks of American ships after 4 years of war when scores of their largest cities were already piles of ash - to say nothing of the generals who tried to break into the palace to stop the final surrender declaration after it had been taped, and killed themselves when they failed. They were not going to lose through an attack of glum among the officer corps. As for the civilian populace, they simply were not told a blessed thing about any of it.

Midway shortened the war, and saved a lot of later lives and efforts. It did not decide the war. Yes, the Japanese were seeking "decisive battle" at Midway, but they were seeking something that did not exist for them. Nothing they did could defeat the U.S.

Only things the Germans did, or the Russians did not do, might save them. This is often overlooked by people who speak of the whole policy as one of folly and national suicide. Unwise it certainly was, but they were not the only people on earth who thought it entirely possible the Germans would win. They bet that way and grabbed for their piece of the spoil. It happens it was a losing bet.

[CavScout]

jasoncawley@ameritech.net the only problem I see with this is that Germany and the US went to war after Pear Harbor. When Japan started the war with the US they were alone in fighting the US.

[SirOscar]

CavScout

Yep, very correct and there was a strong sentiment in the U.S. that Europe had it's war and the U.S. had it's against Japan, anti war feelings were VERY strong in the U.S. and even after Pearl Harbor there were many against involvement in Europe. Then that crazy paper hanger did the the pro European war crowd a favor and declared war on the U.S. adding to a long list of DUMB things an ex corporal could do. However jasoncawley@ameritech.net may not be to far off since the Japanese mostly likely assumed( or were reassured by Hitler himself) that if the U.S. entered the war it would be in Europe as well.

[Henri]

Originally posted by Spook:

But if your point rather is that Yamamoto wanted a "decision" from the Midway campaign by finishing off what was available of the US Pacific fleet (and to threaten Hawaii with Midway's invasion), thus vastly improving Japan's standing control of the Pacific, then your point is taken.

This is rather fuzzy in my memory, but I am almost sure that the stated objective of the Japanese in winning the Battle of Midway was that the destruction of the US fleet would bring the US to negotiate a peace settlement that gave Japan what it wanted in the Pacific region (whether or not this would have happened is another question). The Japanese never intended to force the US to surrender, and I am not even sure that they had any plans to take over Hawaii.

Henri

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by CavScout:

jasoncawley@ameritech.net the only problem I see with this is that Germany and the US went to war after Pear Harbor. When Japan started the war with the US they were alone in fighting the US.

Not quite - teh US Navy had in effect taken over escort duties in the North Atlantic and exchanged shots with submarines quite a while before the formal declaration of war. I read somewhere that Hitler simply assumed that it could not get much worse than that (was he ever wrong), and that the Japanese might be enticed to reciprocate by declaring war on the USSR (ditto).

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.