Greatest Commander of all time?

[JasonC]

Sure, his political acumen got him stabbed 23 times because he was so clever at it. Spare me.

You are right to mention England, it was another example of just plunging in without prep and making what he could of it.

The premise that he had to hide anything he did in Gaul is false. Until the end of his term he was absolute in his province, and only success counted.

He was surprised in winter quarters and subordinate forces decimated because he did not see the general revolt coming at all.

Unforced enemy errors were his greatest asset in that campaign. There was no sound military reason for the Gauls to hole up. Their cavalry was superior and they should have stuck to harassment tactics against his foragers and denial of pitched battle. Vercingetorex knew it, but was not allowed freedom of action by his subordinates.

I mention that he was indeed an good campaigner on the spot. Somebody tried to pretend that is strategy. It isn't. Its closest modern analog is operations, though it is really a distinct thing. It means deciding where to march, whether to post this hill or that, when to offer battle and when to avoid it, how to get across a river, all that sort of stuff.

Strategy on the other hand is what wars to fight, what basic means to use, preparation of same, making a few risks go a long way in outcomes, and the like. Alexander showed brilliant strategy in conquering Asia with all of 3 battles and 2 seiges. (He can be faulted for the India stuff which was poorly played, the rest was consistently excellent).

Caesar's one great strategic play was at the opening of the civil war, the continual offers to share power combined with refusal to disarm, the march into Italy while his opponents were unprepared, and maintenance of the initiative thereafter.

At other times he oscillated, sometimes effective and sometimes caught out, as his nearly uniform policy happened to fit with or clash with the real necessities of his campaigns. His "move order" in stringing wars together to achieve maximum results for minimum risks was not high. On the contrary, he repeatedly fought for the same object after flubbing some previous near approach. But he made each one of them a win, through skill at the lower levels aspects of the general's art.

[Krautman]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Sure, his political acumen got him stabbed 23 times because he was so clever at it. Spare me.

I'd say the fact that he was killed doesn't mean he was a bad politician. Non sequitur. The admittedly rather impressive amount of holes in his upper torso is probably more a sign of his strong physique, the murderers' lack of martial prowess or the unsuitability of Roman knives to the task of murder than of a lack of political acumen on Caesar's side.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The premise that he had to hide anything he did in Gaul is false. Until the end of his term he was absolute in his province, [...].

Even in ancient Rome, you had to justify it when you went to war. Why would he have written the commentarii the way he did? Caesar almost always makes it sound as if he was fighting a defensive war.

Originally posted by JasonC:

and only success counted.

That's again overly simplified. It is not only success that counts. Verres was, in what the usual aim of a Roman provincial governour was, very successful in sicily. But then, after his term, Cicero made him regret what he did there.

Originally posted by JasonC:

I mention that he was indeed an good campaigner on the spot. Somebody tried to pretend that is strategy. It isn't. Its closest modern analog is operations, though it is really a distinct thing.

If asking whether campaigning well on the spot probably is part of being a great strategist is "trying to pretend", then well. As there were no maps, only local guides who each knew only a small part of the territory to be conquered, it is only natural no preliminary planning on a scale like 1942 was possible.

Greetings

Krautman

[ December 03, 2005, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Krautman]

By the way, could you tell me Fuller's full name and the title of his book? You got me interested in it, but amazon, upon typing in "Fuller", has 1800+ hits.

R. Fuller's "Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics" is surely interesting though.

EDIT: Found it. Looks like Fuller is specialised in a strange combination of modern warfare, satanism and esoterics. Exactly what I'd consider a reliable historian of antiquity to be focused on.

[ December 03, 2005, 04:34 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Aragorn2002]

Originally posted by Erik Springelkamp:

When we come down to 'decent' I would like to add Maurits of Oranje-Nassau and his brother Willem Frederik, for their 'scientific' operations and the first steps towards the introduction of fire-based linear infantry tactics, resulting in the establishment of a stable new republic in Europe.

Oranje boven, Erik!

Actually, after reading 'The Great Siege, Malta 1565', by Ernle Bradford, my choice for greatest commander would be Grand Master Jean Parisot De La Valetta of the order of St. John, whose gallant defence of Malta prevented a Turkish invasion of Sicily and Italy and possibly even Turkish domination of Western Europe.

[ December 03, 2005, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: Aragorn2002 ]

[Aragorn2002]

Originally posted by Erik Springelkamp:

And at sea Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruijter successfully fought the combined French and Brittish fleets.

He established the tactics of large scale fighting in line that would dominate the sea-battles untill well after Napoleon.

Definitely the greatest commander at sea!

[Philippe]

J.F.C. Fuller was an amateur classicist and amateur historian. Ancient historians tend to greet his work with a sneer of contempt, though I think that's a bit unfair. Unlike most modern classicists he's actually had some practical experience to back up what he's talking about, so he often can provide useful insight. I was always in the minority in that I rather liked what he wrote, but then again, I have no taste, got out of the business, and rather liked Delbruck too (who is also greeted with mild suspicion at best). Modern classicists aren't supposed to actually do things, just talk about them. And if they get their hands dirty and try to invoke practical experience, it's considered unprofessional.

JasonC seems to have misunderstood my comment about Caesar hiding things. I'm talking about the text of the Gallic Wars, which we can make statements about through direct observation. I'm pointing out that Caesar makes pains not to describe background events in chronological order so that the reader accepts the premise of his story line more readily. I really don't think we want to get into a discussion of the publication date of Book I or the intended target audience -- they're not really relevant to my point. So let's all be good Chicago school critics and just stick to the text. Secondary interpretations are not really that important and change every thirty years anyway (blink of an eye when dealing with a 2000 year old text).

[JasonC]

JFC Fuller was also a general officer, who created the Royal Tank Corps in WW I, and initiated modern armor theory. Guderian read him and corrected his oversimplifications, but acknowledges him as the source of the basic ideas that became Blitzkrieg. While Fuller was as nutty as you please in other respects, he was quite competent at strategy.

[Philippe]

And Liddell Hart was entirely sane ? I have a sneaking suspicion that if he hadn't been obsessed with over-simplifying history so he could find The Indirect Approach under every bed, you probably wouldn't be at war with maneuverist doctrine.

Which raises an interesting question. I'm not sure that many generals in antiquity were maneuverists. Apart from Alexander and (occasionally) Hannibal, they usually just went at it head-to-head. When I was a naive classicist the biggest shock of my life came in a course on Thucydides when a Learned Ancient Historian commented that a Greek general's most important asset was a powerful set of lungs.

[ December 03, 2005, 08:16 AM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[JasonC]

The particular book is Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant. It is part of the Wordsworth Military Library series, as is Fuller's book on Alexander - The Generalship of Alexander the Great. He also wrote the Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, and a history of assorted decisive battles ancient and modern called The Decisive Battles of the Western World.

As for his military career, he served in infantry, the machinegun corps, and its heavy branch which became the royal tank corps, in its headquarters. He personally planned the use of tanks in the Cambrai operation and helped plan the late 1918 offensives, ending as a major general.

His nuttiness was political, and especially philosophical and personal - British facist party on the former score, Alesteir Crowley and occult silliness mixed with amateur eastern mysticism on the latter. His nuttiness and political unreliability affected the reception of his ideas within the British army, seriously. BHL Hart tried to act as his saner publicist, mangling his ideas in the process by oversimplifying them.

In the Caesar book his nuttiness peeps out briefly in the discussion of Cleopatra, rather amusingly. Obviously, they toured southern Egypt to solidify her rule there, but he'd rather see it another way.

[Philippe]

"And if her nose had been a little shorter, it would have changed history..."

[JasonC]

Phillipe - on maneuverism, Hart is one of the offenders for oversimplifying and projecting his silly "go around" notion back on lots of places it does not belong. But the cult of Sun Tsu is an equal offender, and the modern Leonhard Woods and William Lind types and their influence within the US military today are the offenders de jour. Attrition as a synonym for stupid, etc.

They mostly have Wehrmacht envy, and aren't as sound as the Germans themselves. It is better to get it straight from Guderian, Manstein, and Rommel (GMRs I like to call them). The GMRs have it in its proper context, understand its limits and role in a larger theory of war going back to Moltke, Gneisenau and Napoleon, and are less prone to exaggerate claims on its behalf to the point of falsehood.

The original pattern for this sequence is Napoleon's actual accomplishments compared to Jomini and Clausewitz writing commentary on them. They are better at it than Hart, but the fall off in quality is otherwise similar. There is no substitute for following the actual campaigns, and the professional officers tend to be more reliable about which bits are sound than the mere academics and writers.

(Incidentally, Napoleon's own writing is not a substitute because his writing is systematically shallow and self-serving, on purpose. The same can be said of Caesar, incidentally, if taken without critical commentary).

What have the great commanders of the past that the maneuverists love, to do with actual maneuverism? Where they practicing it themselves? No not really, for most of them. But many of them were military gamblers, by which I mean taking outsized risks for the highest stakes, not with a fall-back in hand (that is risk rather than gambling, in Rommel's formulation of the distinction - risk to a portion of one's force or position with serious upside only) but "balls to the wall" as the colorful saying goes. Many of them had the gambler's tendency to double up until busted.

In the nature of the case, there is dramatic sample bias operating here, that the maneuverists are insensitive toward. Lookee here, all the guys who nearly conquered the world took great risks, take great risks and you will conquer the world. Well no, because you've never heard of the million guys who took great risks and busted. So that is one problem. Maneuverists encourage unsound risk taking by promising more than they can actually deliver.

Napoleon is the paradigmatic great captain who actually did practice maneuverism, or perhaps invented it. He did not "go around" as in BHL Hart's cartoon Napoleon, who might have been defeated by any 13 year old wargamer. But he did invent central positioning, tactical deployments extended up to the operational level, the army corps, engagement in sequence, etc. Tactically he was adept at flanking and frontal assault, at active defense, etc.

He made mistakes and he lost occasionally of course. Logistics was a weak point and in Russia utterly disasterous - he had been dependent on spoiling a far richer countryside, than Russia possessed and did not know it. He encountered similar problems but on a lesser scale in winter campaigning in Poland (before Eylau I am thinking of), but did not draw the lesson. His conduct of the 1813 campaign was uninspiring to say the least. But he was the real deal among great captains and among inventors of real maneuver that multiplied the effect of his forces.

Incidentally, he also shows it is nonsense to claim organizational accomplishment and preparation is not part of the general's art until 20th century bureaucratic mass armies. He found the rudiments of a tactical system but perfected it himself. He created the army corps, organized the Grande Armee, invented the Marshalship and Guard "career tracks", etc.

The rabble of the revolutionary armies was not his army, his army was something vastly superior. Phillip and Alexander between them created a similarly innovative military system, but Caesar emphatically did not. He not only made no significant changes to the Roman way of war, he suffered from its serious defects without noticing or patching them (deficiency in cavalry, light troops for operational roles, etc).

Lee is another favorite of the pre WW II maneuverists. Napoleon was the context for him. Few remember that Hooker prided himself on his dedication to maneuver and the indirect approach, and got clocked. More are aware of Lee's considerable deviations from its principles, in little affairs like Pickett's charge. Most still want to see Lee as brilliant when he was competent but mostly blessed with a string of dumb opponents and a stable of capable subordinate generals.

The failing of modern maneuverists compared to the real lessons any professional might glean from the campaigns of such leaders, is their tendency to ideological thinking, exaggeration and cartoonish caricature. They want to win without fighting through mere cleverness, or they think they can paralyze the enemy without targeting his fielded forces, or they think the multipliers maneuver can give are unbounded. That odds do not matter. They think speed is everything, the maneuver forces are everything, the offensive is everything - all false.

Napoleon on the other hand said "I see only one thing, the main body of the enemy. This I crush, confident that lesser matters will take care of themselves". He said the last battalion decides, never denied the importance of numbers, always respected the role of firepower, etc.

The GMRs pursued annihilation battle, targeting the fielded forces of the enemy. Guderian turns north to the channel after Sedan, not south to Paris. Because the idea is to destroy portions of the enemy army, and encirclement is a multiplier furthering that. (Something they knew as long ago as 1870, taught by Moltke).

My own doctrine on maneuver is that it lives within an overall attritionist-set context of annililation battle, as a source of useful force multipliers. Those are to be sought certainly, but as aids to a logic of warfare that is inherently one of force on force fighting, settled when one's own intact forces face enemies reduced to so weak a level they cannot continue to resist.

Warfare will always involve destroying the enemy force, and losses to one's own, and if that isn't part of what one is expecting or willing to contemplate, one has no business engaging in it. General combat power and numbers are always important, and both the design of force structures and operational estimates of sufficient force must take note of it.

War is friction, and general combat power continually replenished in an ongoing flow, is the safety margin that absorbs it. Also there is no sound warfighting without realistic facing and accepting of losses, and it is criminal to train professional soldiers otherwise.

Those are some of my reasons for disliking modern maneuverism. I've written on it at length here before, and at the slightest prompting I will write way too much on it again.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Krautman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JasonC:

Sure, his political acumen got him stabbed 23 times because he was so clever at it. Spare me.

I'd say the fact that he was killed doesn't mean he was a bad politician. </font>

[Grisha]

Guderian was not the originator of German armor theory. He merely takes credit for it, so that Hart can take credit for 'sparking' the idea for Guderian (which Hart most certainly did not). Neat little post-war agreement those two had going. The truth is a little more complicated, and involves von Seeckt's Reichswehr, and Fuller to a degree. Fuller figures in it, not for his theories necessarily, but for his practical observations as the head of tank development and deployment for the Brits in WWI. The Reichswehr found those very useful in making their own conclusions.

Regarding maneuver-attrition arguments, I tend to see it as arguing about apples and oranges. The reason is that attrition, at its core, is about the tactical level, since battle is where attrition comes directly into play. Maneuver is an operational concept, since it takes operational dimensions to make maneuver effective enough in war (WWI proved that). The Germans of WWII are a peculiar bunch, because they based their war on attrition (massive focus on tactics), yet their operational command structure was a catalyst for operational-like maneuvers. I say 'operational-like' because German maneuvers were little more than opportunistic pathways to further tactical attrition. A true operation is much better planned, more focused, and better directed than this. Of course, German tactical brilliance makes this all confusing, since it did allow for amazing operational runs. The problem was there was little coherency in those operational maneuvers--except where the next likely battle was to be found.

[ December 04, 2005, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Mad Russian]

Originally posted by JasonC:

On Jackson, he died after Chancellorsville, not "Charolte" anything. It was not his campaign, Lee was in command. He simply commanded the flanking corps. It got them a won battle but hardly a won campaign let alone a won war. Hooker made it a fight after Jackson got the drop on them, and the Union withdrew in good order the night Jackson was shot. There isn't the slightest evidence his death had any affect on the outcome of the war. The rebs invades the north afterward, successfully at first, but lost Gettysburg. Longstreet gave sound advice there but Lee didn't listen to it - Jackson could not have done anything more than Longstreet did.

The only part of that I disagree with is that Lee almost always listened to Jackson.

IF and only if Jackson had sided with Longstreet then things might have been different.

[JasonC]

Grisha said "attrition, at its core, is about the tactical level". I disagree violently. It is about the strategic level above all. It is also important at the operational level (e.g. the effect of logistical superiority via artillery fire on enemy trench strength takes a month to play out, typically).

Indeed, my primary disagreement with modern maneuver theory is that it tries to replace an attritionist "wrapper" at the highest strategy level with a "win without defeating the enemy fielded forces directly" goal ("shot to the brain", "command paralysis", "shock and awe", etc). Whereas attrition strategy sees the highest strategic level as fundamentally about fielded forces remaining, odds ratios, running the other guy out of manpower and equipment, and the like.

Attrition is not remotely about the tactical level exclusively. If maneuver confined itself to generating tactical advantages by operational moves, without challenging the role of annihilation battle as the top level goal, then I'd have little problem with it. But it does not.

[Wisbech_lad]

Nelson certainly wasn't a manouevrist - his aims were to either blockade the continental navies, or destroy them. His battles don't feature fancy force multiplier tactics either, he just reckons that better RN morale & training means if he could get ships on 1:1 situations, victory is certain.

Oh yes, and shag cute babes. That was another aim.

[Grisha]

It was the Germans who developed the concept that through attrition tactics becomes a strategy. This was slow in developing, beginning around the time of von Moltke the elder, but by von Schlieffen is was the foundation of German military theory. The German belief was that if one could develop tactics that allowed for a decentralization of command yet have it directed by a single purpose or plan, then large formations could come quickly into play, and effect a swift series of tactical victories. This concept was taken to the extreme by Schlieffen who envisioned the entire German army as a line of troops stretched hundreds of miles that would advance in a single strategic line, and defeat the enemy all along the front, then follow through with a massive pursuit. Thus, the Germans had become obsessed with viewing war through a tactical 'lense'. For them, strategy was merely tactics, a linear attack of the enemy, followed by the attrition of many battles, and concluded through strategic 'pursuit'. Once the enemy army ceased to effectively exist, the war was over.

This concept was only possible through the technological, economic, social, and political developments of the 19th and 20th centuries, but it did not take into account all the effects of these new developments. For one, German military theory didn't adequately address the increased resiliency of the state through the union of a military front and civilian rear set on a war footing. The mass and destructive power involved was too great for anything the Germans could decisively overcome in WWI, and it wasn't until the mechanization of WWII that, at least a tactical solution was found by the Reichswehr. In WWII, the Germans were able to win wars of limited scale and scope, taking complete advantage of their brilliant combined arms tactics and facilitated by their mature operational command structure. These wars were won through attrition--by attriting the enemy army in battle, then surrounding him through pursuit. Pursuit was only possible because of the tactical brilliance of the Germans, which brought much success in battle. Such was the geographic scale of these theater of operations that the German maneuvers of tactical opportunity were sufficient to paralyse an enemy nation's political and economic system. In these limited wars, the Germans were able to circumvent the problem of a nation on a war footing by defeating the army before the nation had a chance to gear up for total war. In essence, it was preemptive war.

Maneuver warfare makes use of tactical attrition, but it also considers that an enemy nation is a system of many structures. These systems are military, political, social, and economic in nature, and combine to offer a nation at war tremendous resiliency. This is accomplished through the mass of nationwide mobilization, the transport capacity of rail and other modern means, the communications capabilities of land line and radio, and the production capacity for not only equipment of all types, but weapons of great destructiveness. Here is where attrition of a strategic sense comes into play, the ability to last out an opponent assuming all other aspects of a given war being equal. Maneuver warfare takes into account these aspects of a nation's war-making capacity, and tries to determine how best to meet military success against these opposing systems, and how their own systems can best achieve this. Rather than viewing such a war as a linear confrontation, maneuver warfare considers the military conflict primarily in terms of depth. There is the obvious depth of the military formations deployed along the front, but there is also the depth of a nation's resources, the depth of their political systems, transport systems, communications systems, etc., and, last but not least, the actual geographical depths of the theater of operations. Having a comprehensive assessment of these criteria will determine the scope of military operations, the scale of forces needed, and the necessity for successive operations.

Within military operations themselves, maneuver warfare is grounded on the fact that battle wins wars--but only the battles that insure operational success. There is no need to win every battle, but there is a need to insure breakthrough at key points, to insure extensive enough maneuver to fragment the enemy forces, and finally to insure that these fragmented forces are reduced to ineffectiveness. Operational success is grounded on a systemic approach to reducing an enemy force into ineffectiveness. It has purpose, direction, and limits. It understands the interplay of enemy combat arms, and their logistical and command structure. Most of all, it seeks to secure the intent of the enemy, as well as their assessments. With such vital information an enemy can be more easily defeated through manipulation.

In WWII, the Soviets practiced maneuver warfare, and quite poorly until mid-1943. The Germans practiced attrition warfare, as did the US and Commonwealth. The obvious difference between the Germans and everybody else has to do with brilliant tactics that were augmented with a fluid operational command structure, but it still wasn't maneuver warfare, because it was essentially linear in nature. The point Jason brings up about attrition is from the sense of maintaining a war. I prefer to think of it as logistics. The Germans were conducting limited war as long as they could (until about 1943), whereas everyone else was conducting total war within some key area of their national system. I should also state which nations are better suited to long term attrition is mainly a matter of circumstance. A nation either has the massive demographics, resources, and geography--or it doesn't. In WWII, the US and USSR had it, but the UK and Germans didn't. This is a part of what a nation has to work with, not something it can necessarily create or produce. But, just because a nation may not be endowed with large resources doesn't mean it shouldn't put what they have to maximum use. Hence, the bravado of the Germans.

Attrition is essential to winning wars, but it should never be confused, in and of itself, as the sole goal to winning wars. That is a more involved question, one revolving around the many systems that make up a complex polity. In maneuver warfare, one picks their battles to win, in an order of their choosing. Characteristically, in maneuver warfare it is the last battle that must be won. This is because if an operation has gone according to plan and ones forces have all reached their objectives, they are also likely to be significantly attrited and stretching their logistics to the limit and beyond. Typically, this will coincide with enemy reserves who are fresh and very close to their supply network. All ones planning must ensure that this final phase will conclude successfully.

[JasonC]

Over involved balderdash my friend.

Germany had plenty of depth of resources and knew how to use them. In WW I, they beat Russia, France, and would have finished England too (in 1918) had not the Americans arrived to bolster them. By attrition, not breakthrough.

In WW II, they did not plan for a war of attrition in the east and that is the only thing that saved Russia. Russia did not have greater industrial capacity than Germany, nor effectively greater depth than all of occupied Europe, nor access to considerably greater manpower, even, after losing a third of the country in the first six months. But they fully mobilized what they had, and the Germans did not, until late. The reason was not necessity, it was overconfidence. The Germans did not think they'd need it.

Why? Because they thought their maneuver warfare advantages created by modern mobile combined arms used offensively, created unbounded quality multipliers in their favor, making numbers largely irrelevant. That was false. The thesis that total mobilization of all possible numbers is critical in warfare is not maneuverist anything. It is simply the corollary to the attritionist belief that numbers matter and running the enemy out before he runs you out is how you win. If you believe that, of course you drive your own numbers as high as possible.

To notice that no, not everyone believes that, consider not only the overconfident Germans in WW II, but modern western doctrine and practice. We field very small professional militaries and do not totally mobilize for war. We expect technology and quality edges to count for more, in an unbounded fasion.

Moreoever, the classics of maneuverism are quite explicit about their faith in victory by means other than running the enemy out of fielded forces. The "shot to the brain" was Fuller's formulation. Douhet thought enemy will could be broken on the home front. They are precisely trying to avoid force on force engagement because they expect enemy forces in the field to be tougher than any other target (an impression that is empirically erroneous, incidentally).

Dazzling initial maneuver victories frequently transition to long slow attritionist slogs for a reason. The goals they are pursuing aren't as decisive as their ad copy pretends. Countries that lose battles through head fakes and baffling static on the command net have this way of coming back for more, not "satisfied" that they have actually lost. Countries that have their entire adult military manpower base shot to rags while under arms are not so uppity.

Nobody much likes this conclusion because it makes war a much more serious thing than the clean pros would like it to be. But it is how most actual lasting victories are won. And in practice, excessive faith in maneuverism is a recipe for starting wars you can't finish in the belief they will be cheap, failing to prepare for them adequately, not mobilizing enough to win them convincingly, unwillingness to tolerate losses that exceed prewar ad copy, etc.

In pure military terms, running risks with modest portions of one's forces for potential upside "multipliers" through maneuver success, is sensible. Everything beyond that is a species of military gambling, hiding behind flattery and self-aggrandizing "big talk". Sensible commanders prepare for the worst contigency, and have all necessary resources to meet it. And in practice that means the willingness to face every soldier the enemy can field, take all their firepower and all the losses it inflicts, and shoot them down to a man. Anybody not ready to do that, has no business getting into a war in the first place.

[Moronic Max]

Epaminondas > *

I mean, c'mon, he took out the Spartans. You can't beat that, I says!

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

My own theory is that Blucher simply liked his gin and joked about his weight.

Obviously Jason is familiar with the quib 'I am pregnant with an elephant - the trunk is already showing.'

Not a sign of madness, but of a beer-belly and the ability to joke about it.

All the best

Andreas

[Grisha]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Over involved balderdash my friend.

Germany had plenty of depth of resources and knew how to use them. In WW I, they beat Russia, France, and would have finished England too (in 1918) had not the Americans arrived to bolster them. By attrition, not breakthrough.

Exactly. No arguments there.

In WW II, they did not plan for a war of attrition in the east and that is the only thing that saved Russia. Russia did not have greater industrial capacity than Germany, nor effectively greater depth than all of occupied Europe, nor access to considerably greater manpower, even, after losing a third of the country in the first six months. But they fully mobilized what they had, and the Germans did not, until late. The reason was not necessity, it was overconfidence. The Germans did not think they'd need it.

Again, no arguments. It was a choice made by the Germans. A belief in limited war over total war. Total war proved them wrong, because their concept of limited war had, well, limitations especially geographically.

Why? Because they thought their maneuver warfare advantages created by modern mobile combined arms used offensively, created unbounded quality multipliers in their favor, making numbers largely irrelevant. That was false. The thesis that total mobilization of all possible numbers is critical in warfare is not maneuverist anything. It is simply the corollary to the attritionist belief that numbers matter and running the enemy out before he runs you out is how you win. If you believe that, of course you drive your own numbers as high as possible.

This is a misconception--that the Germans practiced maneuver warfare. They did not. It was attrition, because the focus of their military theory was tactical. They weren't too concerned with the operational aspects--since for them--it was all about defeating the enemy in battle through brilliant tactics, combined arms, and training based on Aufragstaktik. Once that was done, it was a simple matter of moving on to the next 'target' enemy formation. They believed if they did that enough times, they would win. The Germans were right to an extent--but there were limits which they failed to recognize.

To notice that no, not everyone believes that, consider not only the overconfident Germans in WW II, but modern western doctrine and practice. We field very small professional militaries and do not totally mobilize for war. We expect technology and quality edges to count for more, in an unbounded fasion.

I agree as well. The US military seems to currently be putting themselves into a technological crutch. Future warfare as seen by the US is very dependent on information technology, to the point of eliminating heavy armor for things like strykers. A dangerous path to take especially since much of this 'technology' is not presently at even minimum requirements operationally.

Moreoever, the classics of maneuverism are quite explicit about their faith in victory by means other than running the enemy out of fielded forces. The "shot to the brain" was Fuller's formulation. Douhet thought enemy will could be broken on the home front. They are precisely trying to avoid force on force engagement because they expect enemy forces in the field to be tougher than any other target (an impression that is empirically erroneous, incidentally).

Well, maneuver theory at its core is more about how to conduct battles in the most favorable manner. Battle is a given, of course. The Soviets knew that, but they also knew there needed to be a method to the madness. The Germans figured if they could beat anybody on the field on any given day, they could, by default, win any war. That was incorrect. Maneuver warfare doesn't discount, or avoid, battle. It manipulates the setting for battles.

Want to remove a nasty enemy salient? Hit the weak flanks through superior numbers while pinning the forces in the salient, then secure logistical chokepoints that affect the entire salient. The forces occupying the salient have two choices: remain and be cut off from their logistical tether, or retreat. Either situation is an improvement for subsequent battles that will ensue.

Want to secure a region of the front that offers a more direct, open pathway to the enemy political core--a region the enemy has reinforced heavily? Start convincingly serious operations on the distant flanks for diversion, demonstrate exactly where you want to advance for further diversion, then conduct a massive operation in a flanking region. Once the enemy realizes they're getting hammered in the flanking region, all those reserves in the primary region will siphon off to try and stem the tide. That's when you hit the original region. Maneuver warfare.

Dazzling initial maneuver victories frequently transition to long slow attritionist slogs for a reason. The goals they are pursuing aren't as decisive as their ad copy pretends. Countries that lose battles through head fakes and baffling static on the command net have this way of coming back for more, not "satisfied" that they have actually lost. Countries that have their entire adult military manpower base shot to rags while under arms are not so uppity.

Only when they aren't thought through to the end. Planning for the final phase of an offensive operation is the most crucial part of an operation's success. This is the key to maneuver warfare, something the Germans did not practice.

Nobody much likes this conclusion because it makes war a much more serious thing than the clean pros would like it to be. But it is how most actual lasting victories are won. And in practice, excessive faith in maneuverism is a recipe for starting wars you can't finish in the belief they will be cheap, failing to prepare for them adequately, not mobilizing enough to win them convincingly, unwillingness to tolerate losses that exceed prewar ad copy, etc.

Total war is a requirement to be determined by the nation considering a military option while also assessing capabilities and characteristics of the nation under review of being the target for such military action. Hence, it depends. In Germany's case in WWII, well, it was a no-brainer but again so much for bravado.

In pure military terms, running risks with modest portions of one's forces for potential upside "multipliers" through maneuver success, is sensible. Everything beyond that is a species of military gambling, hiding behind flattery and self-aggrandizing "big talk". Sensible commanders prepare for the worst contigency, and have all necessary resources to meet it. And in practice that means the willingness to face every soldier the enemy can field, take all their firepower and all the losses it inflicts, and shoot them down to a man. Anybody not ready to do that, has no business getting into a war in the first place.

Only if one is incapable of planning for depth. If a military force can only truly plan ahead enough to the next tactical engagement, then I would agree with your conclusion. If, on the other hand, a military force can take effective measures to extensively assess their enemy, then much depth of planning and complexity of operations are possible. The Soviets proved that from mid-1943. Planning for the worst is a bad idea, because it leaves little room for creativity-and because it gives an excuse to rely less on intelligence of the enemy. Better to plan for the most probably or likely enemy action.

Know the enemy like you know yourself, and when the time comes to bring down the hammer the situation will be greatly in your favor.

[Grisha]

I should point out that initiative and creativity are vital qualities in war, but only at the proper level in the hierarchy. Initiative is of great value at the tactical level, since too much happens too quickly in battle to try and be 'cute'. Let good training accomplish that.

Creativity is the sought after quality at the operational level, since time is not so pressing, and complexity thrives throughout. This allows for the possibility of manipulating the enemy in many ways.

[zdenka]

interesting debate but i'm extremely surprised theres been no mention of the duke of marlborough or scipio africanus !

[Philippe]

I mentioned them both in passing several pages back.

What I find more surprising is that no one seems willing to discuss which ones you would want to have over for dinner, and why.

[zdenka]

sorry i'm a bit stoned at the moment and seeing this in triplicate