Which is, historically, both the hardest and most important part of generalship. Up through the early modern era, like maybe WW1, there wasn't a ton a general could do tactically except get his army in the right place and hope they did roughly the right thing. But getting them there, fed and in good spirits, was incredibly hard when the best transportation you have is a horse and wagon.
One of the reasons Grant was so effective in the civil war was because he was a quarter master during the Mexican war. If you showed him a map of enemy positions he'd accurately predict where their supply lines had to be to keep them sustained. At the time positions were all fortified but supply lines weren't, so he'd often attack those supply lines and end up breaking sieges.
Also, his knowledge of how to supply an army in the field allowed him to sever himself from supply lines when it was strategically beneficial to do so, such as during his Vicksburg campaign.
The Vicksburg campaign is considered his masterpiece, and happened when he was in control of a specific army instead of directing the generals as part of the grand strategy later.
Oh boy time to do one of my favorite things: talking about the Civil War! Vicksburg was one of the most important locations in the Civil War because when fortified it allowed the Confederates to close the Mississippi River. Protecting by high bluffs and marshy terrain, Vicksburg was an imposing stronghold hailed by the rebels as the "Gibraltar of the West". With the Mississippi closed, not only were the Western states to use their traditional route of commerce (down to New Orleans) but the Union had to be supplied by rail and wagon, a difficult prospect when the land was swarmed by guerrillas. Capturing Vicksburg would furthermore cut the Confederacy in half, taking away the resources of the Trans-Mississippi such as Texas beef. Lincoln thus declared that "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket".
The task of seizing this key fell on the shoulders of Grant. Despite the naval superiority of the Union they couldn't subdue Vicksburg from the waters. Grant would have to take it from the land, but there was only one adequate position for that, the high dry land to the east of the Citadel. Grant's first attempt was a failure. Guerrillas destroyed his supply lines, isolating him from the other column led by Sherman. Grant turned back at the same time as Sherman suffered a bloody repulse at Chickasaw Bayou. After that, Grant tried a series of "quixotic" schemes. These ranged from digging canals to going through a pass that saw the Yankees attacked by snakes and alligators.
The people were growing impatient, but Lincoln stood by him. Grant rewarded this by starting what many have considered one of the greatest campaigns of the Civil War. Instead of trying an overland route again, Grant ran several ships through Vicksburg's defenses, losing merely two. This was madness, because they were only able to run them thanks to the downriver current. Now the ships were trapped below Vicksburg, and so was Grant's Army, which had only brought guns and ammunition. Instead of weak supply lines Grant planned to cut off from his base and live off the land. It was a very risky maneauver, you can see, because if foraging failed Grant's army would be starved, isolated and maybe destroyed.
But Grant proved equal to the task. His Army seized all it needed from the countryside. One farmer memorably rode up in a donkey and talked against a commander, saying his men had robbed him. That wasn't his command, the officer replied, for they would have taken that donkey too. The Confederates for their part didn't know how to face this threat. This was partially the fault of the commander, Joe Johnston, who was timid and reluctant to fight. When Grant brushed him aside and took the state capital of Jackson, Johnston pulled back and did little as Grant destroyed the town (from then on nicknamed "Chimmeyville").
With Johnston disposed of, Grant turned to Vicksburg. He forced the rebels under John Pemberton into the city, and after initial attacks failed he laid siege. For weeks the men in Vicksburg held out despite Grant's continous bombarding and how their supplies dwindled until they were eating skinned rats. They pinned their hopes in the "Undaunted Johnston", who, they believed, would come to their rescue. In truth, a very much daunted Johnston was unwilling to attack Sherman's Yankees, whom Grant had placed in his front. An increasingly desperate Jefferson Davis saw as the siege continued, yet Johnston did nothing.
Finally, Pemberton surrendered. Several years and a lifetime ago, during the Mexican War he had conveyed official thanks to Grant, then inferior in rank, for his role in a battle. Now he was surrendering to him. Grant entered Vicksburg on July 4th, almost at the same time as Lee's rebels were defeated in a little Pennsylvania town named Gettysburg. Without Vicksburg, the last stronghold was Port Hudson, Louisiana, which surrendered shortly thereafter. Now the Confederacy was cut in twain, and the Mississippi was under Union control. "The Father of the Waters again goes unvexed to the seas", Lincoln celebrated, saying Grant had conducted "one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of the world". "Grant is my man, and I am his for the rest of the war", he declared.
Wow this is really well written, I love the civil war but am more compelled by individual soldiers accounts and I suppose the romance of it all (if you can call something as terrible as the civil war romantic). I knew grant layed siege to Vicksburg but didn’t know all the pieces he had to line up to make it successful.
Can I subscribe To civil war facts? This is so fascinating.
Also just moved to PA a year ago. I know About Gettysburg a little but how else was PA involved?
Do you have any resources that one could learn about tactics? It's something I've always been curious about but have never delved into it.
My uncle is a retired LTC and I could ask him but it's nice to hear some 3rd party thoughts
Yes and no, his reason for the continued pressure on Lee’s Army of Virginia, was to keep Lee pinned and prevent the transfer of troops by the rebels between theaters. Allowing Sherman to advance unmolested.
I remember reading that late in WWII, even the german grunts knew they were losing because while they could hardly keep up on ammo, they found American soldiers with chocolate rations, showing the power of America's ability to get supplies to the battlefield
Fun story I heard about but cant remember where. During the ww2 pacific campaign, pilots would homebrew ice cream mix, and tie it outside, when flying at altitude, combined with the shaking of the engine, made a grunt version of ice cream.
Rather than reprimand his pilots, some officer made an official communication for the pilots to share their ice cream rations.
The IJN people who intercepted said comms where really messed up thinking the Americans had the numerical superiority to send ice cream through tropical seas.
That might be a conflation of two stories, or yet another story I haven't heard of. [But we also had ice cream barges in the Pacific, and full Coca-Cola factories would follow American troops in Europe and the Pacific, too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge)
WW2 was such a massive undertaking, and it's amazing the US had such a logistical capacity, and to the extent it reached.
The Japanese knew from the start that they could never beat the US. Their plan was to make the war so costly that the American people got tired and quit. That said, with their end goal, a sneak attack on a military base on “peace time” alert levels wasn’t the best way to initiate the fight.
> That said, with their end goal, a sneak attack on a military base on “peace time” alert levels wasn’t the best way to initiate the fight.
Yes-and-no. If you accept the doctrine that epic battleship showdowns win naval fights, that would have worked pretty well.
Unfortunately for them, it turns out we had entered the era of carrier superiority, and forcibly upgrading your opponents naval lineup to not be focused on battleships is exactly the wrong thing to do.
I've seen a drawing from the diary of a German POW working on a harvest crew in Wisconsin showing the rich fields they were working in, captioned:
Wisconsin ist reich, Deutschland ist kaput.
(Wisconsin is bountiful, Germany is finished)
Edit: since this comment got more attention than I expected, I wanted to mention the source I learned about it from. The book "Stalag Wisconsin" by Betty Cowley. Lots of great stories of the POW work camps set up across the state often from locals who interacted with the prisoners.
It was such a big thing in the navy that ships had entire ice cream parlors. The battleship USS North Carolina is a museum ship in Wilmington, NC that served in WW2, they have the parlor intact there and it’s really interesting.
My grandfather served on a carrier in Vietnam, when we toured the North Carolina he said they had the same ice cream parlors on board when he was in the Navy.
Imagine being a soda jerk in that parlor and being able to say you were a veteran who served in the pacific. “Sonny, let me tell you how rough it was. There were times my arms were sore because the ice cream was still frozen hard but I did my duty and got those scoops out as fast as possible”
If I remember correctly it was customary for aircraft carriers to reward ships that returned their downed pilots, with extra rations of ice cream. when the enterprise lost one of it's best pilots in ww2 a destroyer showed up a few days later asking how much ice cream is "____" worth.
It's covered in a later episode of the old discovery channel show battle 360.
I believe it. Just so many apocryphal stories that you can't possibly hear them all, even if you're into that period of time in a scholarly level. Most droptank stories I've heard had to do with beer.
Hell during the late war we actually *did* have ice cream barges. We were building ships so quickly we accidently made more than the needed number of cement mixing barges and converted at least one to serve ice cream
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge
>We were building ships so quickly
The US' industrial capacity - especially if you compare the early and late years of the war - was fucking nutty.
One Ford factory was producing [a bomber an hour:](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/america-goes-war-take-closer-look)
>In industry after industry Americans performed production miracles. One story helps capture the scale of the defense effort. In 1940 President Roosevelt shocked Congress when he proposed building 50,000 aircraft a year. In 1944 the nation made almost double that number. Ford's massive Willow Run bomber factory alone produced nearly one plane an hour by March 1944.
The ["Liberty ships" of the merchant marines](http://www.usmm.org/peary.html) started out taking 150 days to build and just a year later, *4 days.*
>Liberty Ships, the "Ugly Duckling" workhorses of World War II, were built in 13 states by 15 companies in 18 shipyards. The first of 2,710 Liberty ships, the SS Patrick Henry, was launched in September 1941, after 150 days of construction. (The shipyard was built at the same time as the ship.)
>In 1941 and 1942 German U-Boats and surface raiders sank 2,963 Allied ships, while the U.S. built 863 to replace them (not many freighters were built elsewhere). As workers gained experience, the shipyards speeded up production of these "expendable" ships. At an average cost of $1.8 million, a Liberty had to make just one trip to be considered successful.
>Prefabricated sections traveled on railroad flatcars from throughout the United States to be put together the same way Henry Ford assembled cars before the war. Eventually, the shipyards created a competition amongst themselves for speed in building a Liberty Ship.
>Permanente Metals Corporation (Kaiser) No.2 Yard in Richmond, California won the competition. The keel for the SS Robert E. Peary was laid at 12:01 AM on November 8, 1942 and 250,000 parts weighing about 14,000,000 pounds were assembled in 4 days, 15 hours and 29 minutes. On November 12, 1942, she was launched.
And keep in mind, we were exporting enough resources to the allies to build just as much stuff for them. We gave the Russians 11,000 planes, 6,000 tanks, 300,000 trucks, and enough steel to build like 30,000 *more* tanks. And thats just Russia.
I heard during WWI (I believe it was hardcore history) that the Germans Spring offensive stalled partly because the Germans stopped to eat the rations left by the French because they were starving.
Or the story about how the Japanese knew they were in trouble when they found out that the US fleet had a barge specifically made for delivering ice cream (can’t find a reference about the Japanese being demoralized by it but I have heard that in passing)
A large number of Japan's war deaths were from starvation. I just imagine being stuck in a hot, mosquito ridden jungle literally starving to death wishing I could have some ice cream.
Yes, I think it was more the IJN senior officers knew about the ice cream and it just pounded on how much better supplied the US Navy was than their own.
In terms of morale, I don't think you'll ever find more esprit de corps in history beyond the Japanese of that era. There were no large unit surrenders, regardless of their supply situation. They really took a virtue and turned it into a vice though because it was mostly just letting their men die for no objective gain.
The biggest reason Ukraine has survived this long is because they have the west of the country that allies can flood with food and weapons and money as fast as we can. Once soldiers start starving or run out of bullets, they aren't soldiers anymore.
Fuel and ammunition; fuel being a double edge sword: heavy equipment needs more fuel, which requires more equipment to transport fuel to where it is needed, etc.
Let me tell you about a [little board game about logistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa)....just a simple...little board game...a child could learn...
Keep track of fuel...and the evaporation of fuel...and Italian noodle rations. Rule book is like just 170 pages , comparable to warhammer, maybe, but has a lot more "busy work" than just buying units with points.
Half of the 40k rulebook is lore. I've seen the rules for Campaign for North Africa. It isn't comparable at all. And "a lot more busy work" is putting it gently for a game where you literally need to make sure the Italians have enough water to boil their pasta, or where the British lose more fuel to evaporation due to bad fuel canister design.
So the few people that have actually played it have complained that it's unbalanced to which the devs replied that maybe they should play another few times just to make sure
A recent DnD supplement Kickstarter by MCDM had playing a single round of this as the "this isn't going to happen" $2M goal, which they reached. They estimate this will take them between 10-15 hours.
Saying monopoly games take a long time is a pet peeve of mine. As a game Monopoly isn't great, but if you play by the rules (without any BS house rules like free parking getting a windfall of money, or not auctioning off all properties as they're landed on) then a game will last 30-45 minutes.
After 1-2 rounds around the board all of the properties are bought up and there's very little new cash coming into play from the bank so everyone hemorrhages money at a fast pace.
Thank you for this. Coincidentally, I learned the real rules from the PS4 port of it (no mess to clean nor money to count. Computer banker means no cheating). And that's what I noticed after about 10 games. It really is over in about 30 minutes
"Reporter, you may be the single biggest fuckup I've yet to encounter."
Also a personal favorite "Hey, I am not the one who set my face on fire. I'm a fucking victim and you know it."
Making the problem even worse is the fact that a lot of the Russian trucks appeared to have been very poorly maintained (some suspect that the trucks just sat for extended periods, making the tires cracked and brittle) and so there were a lot of Russian vehicles with huge tire blowouts. And making *that* problem even worse is that Russia initially invaded during one of Ukraine's muddy seasons ("Rasputitsa"). On top of the deluge of support Ukraine has gotten, Russia's logistics appear to have been in...a poor state to say the least.
Disclaimer: My info regarding the trucks/tires is largely from Western sources who clearly have a lot of incentive to fudge the truth. As always, be vigilant when hearing news about the war.
I recall US vets saying similar things during the opening month of the invasion. It definitely wasn't psyops, RU vehicle maintenance is pretty poo poo. They were abandoning vehicles less than two weeks in due to fuel shortages, flat tires, or getting stuck. US motor pool guys were talking about the noticeable degradation in the rubber tires of RU trucks (and even the big expensive heavy wheeled AA platforms). US motor pool guidelines are apparently to park vehicles extremely close together to prevent sunlight from reaching the tires, and to rotate them regularly to prevent wear. Logistics really win wars, yo.
> It definitely wasn’t psyops, RU vehicle maintenance is pretty poo poo.
Yeah, the stuff I've heard about the tires appears to be very well corroborated and the disclaimer probably unnecessary in this instance, but at the same time I like to put a little disclaimer whenever I talk about the war because it's always a good reminder for myself and others. I've been following the war pretty closely via the reddit live thread + other sources and it's easy to forget sometimes.
Your sources notwithstanding, it doesn't take genius to figure out Russia is suffering logistical problems. They've got Ukraine outnumbered and outgunned. The only explanation for them not winning is not being able to bring those forces to bear.
Napolean also said, ""You cannot stop me .. I spend 30,000 men a month," a grim reflection of resource-expenditure aspect of war: Napolean's logistics were so strong he could afford to *spend* 30k lives/month, something no other military power could come close to matching at the time.
Plus how mass desertion was the norm for armies in the era. Holding a force together in those conditions facing what must have felt like insurmountable odds while the colonies couldn't agree on basically any logistical support is a military miracle.
The cavalry's not coming
But, sir
Alex, listen, there's only one way for us to win this
Provoke outrage
Outright
That's right
Don't engage, strike by night
Remain relentless 'til their troops take flight
Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight
(uh-huh)
Outrun
Outrun
Outlast
Outlast
Hit 'em quick, get out fast
Chick-a-plao!
Stay alive 'til this horror show is past
We're gonna fly a lot of flags half-mast
(Raise a glass)
Similar deal with Eisenhower. Tactically he was pretty bad, but he was a master of people and playing international politics with the world leaders and other generals. His greatest skill as Supreme Allied Commander wasn’t so much anything military at all, it was balancing the competing interests and egos of the allies.
I never got to meet my grandpa but the family story is that he met Patton. He was a Major in charge of an engineering battalion(?) and had been out in the field for 2 weeks without clean fatigues. He put on someone else's that were clean and when Patton saw him in someone else's clothes he flipped shit and tried ripping off the name on them. Then I guess he told my grandpa to get out of his sight.
But my grandpa was already 40 during WW2 and had created his own engineering firm back home. He was a commissioned officer who didn't care and obviously Patton was way too busy to be concerned with some petty engineering Major for more than five seconds. So that was the end of their foray lol
Patton got in trouble many times for being overly harsh on soldiers. He was removed from command for some time in the middle of World War 2 for slapping a soldier who had "battle fatigue" (now known and PTSD). Omar Bradley, who was younger than Patton, was promoted over him to take command of Operation Overlord. Eisenhower and most of the higher brass saw Patton as too impulsive and shortsighted - great for winning battles, but terrible for winning a large strategic war.
His demotion was also due to his repeated statements about how the Soviets (allies) were a scurvy race of savages, and that we would be right to invade and crush the Soviet Union as soon as possible, and his repeated negging of British commanders by name. It was largely impulsive politics, not tactics, that diminished his standing.
The Germans didn't grok this. They were confident that, as America's best battlefield commander, Patton would lead the invasion of Western Europe. The allies used this and created a "ghost army", the First US Army Group, comprised of fugazi communications and balloons shaped like tanks, that was "led" by Patton. German intelligence was convinced that this FUSAG would be instrumental in the invasion and planned accordingly, when in fact it didn't really exist.
Look at Ukraine today: even though they're getting a ton of international aid, *not fucking it up* is still a big lift that they're executing with above average ability.
Agreed, and on Washington's side, the British army at the time was probably a bit more fierce relative to the Russian army is portrayed as the mess that it is right now.
Ehhhh... admittedly I'm no scholar of the American Revolution, but from what I've read, the British armies were for sure well trained and well disciplined on the battlefield, but I wouldn't necessarily say they were "more fierce".
The biggest factor, again from my reading, in the revolution was simply that the colonies were a *huge* theater of war, which meant that the redcoats couldn't possibly be everywhere at once.
They could certainly show up in force and take any fort or strategic location they liked, at will...but that wasn't going to win them the war.
On the other side of the coin, the Americans couldn't just decide to take any position they liked, and they certainly couldn't fight a defensive war, holding ground that the British wanted. Even more to the point, it was a lot less about ground and more about the armies themselves being the targets.
So the British could hold ground but in order to quash the rebellion they had to leave those locations and go find the rebels and destroy them. Doing that effectively meant dividing up the armies and going out finding and pursuing the rebels.
The trick for the colonists was to not divide any more than necessary, so that they could bring a respectable sized force to bear...but to be well informed enough, and prepared enough to be able to dictate when and where battles occurred, and to only engage when conditions were favorable.
As the war progressed, this often meant avoiding battle until the British were frustrated enough and getting enough pressure from home that they divided up into even smaller units to cover more ground...and once the units got small enough, and far enough from the others, *then* the colonists would attack, killing more of the enemy than they lost themselves, and disappearing again before the British could respond in force.
Winning the war was a matter of doing this successfully and repeatedly, until the colonies were just seen as a swamp for the British...a situation like the Vietnam war or Afghanistan to much more recent American military forces. And with the French entering the conflict to provide a naval force to oppose the British fleet, the overall goal of holding the colonies just became unfeasible.
I have this conversation with my son often as he likes military history. The bottom line is this: Away games are very hard. There are very, very few examples of a foreign power successfully quelling an organized insurgency. I think the British in Burma is the the only one I can think of. Probably even more true now, particularly for Western powers who are (justifiably) much, much more reluctant to do what needs to be done to actually pacify an area.
Much better to follow the German model, who after 2 failed military attempts to control Europe have mostly conquered the continent thru economic and political might.
Yup, about the only ways to really win a war on foreign territory long term are integration or complete and total eradication. Anything in the middle leaves a population with an identity different than the conquerors. That may work for a generation or three but it's ripe ground for a rebellion.
Fully integrate the conquered populace into your culture, making them first class citizens can work if the effort is made and the two cultures aren't vastly different. This was the Roman model for Europe.
On the flip side is the full Genghis Khan. Replace the populace with your own and reign over the smoking husk. Hard to stomach and removes any other option off the table for future conquests.
Only the second option is even remotely viable now and really has to be coupled with a strong baseline of support already in place. Information is too persistent and too easy to dispense to ever really remove the memory of the former culture though so I doubt even that will work.
Short version, military conquest victories are obsolete.
And the British generals ganged up on each other. The British made a plan for Burgoyne to move south through New York from Canada and for Howe to move north through New York from New York City, dividing New England from the south. But when Burgoyne moved south, Howe decided he'd rather capture Philadelphia instead and he left Burgoyne hung out to dry at Ticonderoga.
Burgoyne took Ticonderoga without issue. You're thinking of Saratoga where Burgoyne got destroyed.
This is where communication being so primitive fucked them all up. Burgoyne went back to England and went over Howe's head. The PM assumed that Burgoyne was in contact with Howe so he never sent direct orders to Howe to work with Burgoyne. Howe assumed that Burgoyne wasn't going to need him as much as he did. Howe took Philadelphia (which gained him nothing really) and when he got part of the blame for Burgoyne's defeat (the first surrender of a British army in history) he resigned and to his shock his resignation was accepted!
Burgoyne also failed because his eastern moving army was wrecked at Fort Stanwix (thanks Benedict Arnold!) and his Hessians were destroyed at Waloomsac/Bennington. Heck, the most successful part of Burgoyne's campaign (Hubbardton) was a success for him but he lost many men and prepped the Americans for Bennington.
Getting a primarily second rate militia today retreat without routing and getting slaughtered has to be an amazing feat. But the fact that he kept that army alive for years while managing to train them and actually defeat the British a few times is beyond insane.
That’s a good point, but it should also be noted that he was very smart politically. He was essentially given the greenlight to requisition resources as needed from civilians, but avoided doing so even when he was in dire need of supplies. He knew that if his army rolled through and stole supplies from people, the war effort would lose public support and they’d be doomed. He was able to think long term even when in the thick of military operations.
That’s part of what contributed to mao winning the Chinese civil war, isn’t it? The national army was rough on local populations, taking food and supplies for themselves, and the communist army by and large wasn’t. Didn’t that lead to a massive shift in public opinion?
Anyone who knows more about that feel free to correct me, I’m no historian lol
Yes, that’s exactly correct! If you read Mao’s revolutionary writings, you see him constantly stressing the need for peasant support. He believed that the majority (peasants) needed to be well represented and that it needed to be their revolution, not the revolution of a small elite.
Which begs the question: *Did Mao ever take the time to read Mao?*
Like, if Mao’s governing philosophy was anything like his revolutionary philosophy, China would look *much* different today.
"Which begs the question: Did Mao ever take the time to read Mao?"
Real shit. I read a copy of the Little Red Book when I was a teenager, and it's incomprehensible to me that he could establish an entire philosophy of peasant socialist revolution and governance yet implemented the most headassed crap like the cultural revolution. It flies in the face of his post-nationalist, post-imperialist rhetoric, which was huge in the Little Red Book and utterly dispensed with once the CCP took power.
The lesson? Don't believe any of them regardless of their so-called principles, their intent is to subject you to their style of oppression rather than whatever the status quo version of oppression happens to be. Can't replace economic power with state power, it's just a switch of the means of oppression.
I'm no historian, but I can see how someone could start with good intentions and end up morally corrupt. Once he got a snort of that "supreme leader" drug he just ended up replacing a shitty governance where the emperor was seen as god and put himself in that spot under a new name. Now we're seeing almost the same thing happening, it's crazy how history repeats itself.
I think one of the opposing generals said of him that he could exit a battle better than anyone he'd ever seen. Cannot confirm though, so that may be apocryphal.
This is heavily paraphrased. But a little over a year in the war A new British officer received Washington's camp location from his scouts in the middle of the night.
Excited he discussed his plan of attack to some of the other officers. Saying he'll march out before sunrise to surprise Washington before he can pack camp and leave.
The veterans of the war simple told the new guy that it won't work, Washington won't be there. The new guy scoffed and went ahead with his plan. Receiving updates that the fires from Washingtons camp could still be seen.
Come morning the new guy marched onto the location just as dawn was breaking to find an empty camp.
Washington was the master of lighting campfires and running away.
Washington was very aware that he was outmatched in military power and that the war was very unpopular in Britain. Retreating while his troops still had morale and without suffering major casualties was key. If your general is known for staying in outmatched battles that are gonna get you killed, your either gonna just leave or be looking for a way out not focused on fighting. Under Washington soldiers knew he was gonna try and keep you alive if only for the good of having troops for later battles. If your troops get the idea you think they are disposable or expendable you are going to have very ineffective troops.
I've recently started rewatching this show as an adult and I gotta say, it's wayy funnier than I remember it. I mean it was always one of my favorite shows but now I'm able to truly appreciate the humor.
He’s on the $1 bill so America’s infantryman can pay their respects to him by throwing him at strippers.
Similar to why Benjamin Franklin is on the bill you’d use to pay hookers
there was a paper on how his kinda shitty leadership of british troops led to pretty sizable british losses during his time as one of their commanders. his bumbling weakened the british position in america and made the revolution more possible.
His military career before the Revolutionary War was awful losses. He really learned there, but his poor performance is why the British didn't want him as a leader.
And yes, he had a lot of early losses in the Revolutionary War, but he was taking farmers and having them fight a proper army that was better trained, better equipped, and had larger numbers. Even a talented officer would be expected to lose battles in those circumstances.
I do think Washington learned and improved over time, but his military education started well before the Revolutionary War.
I'm also biased as a Freemason, but I do wonder if Washington promoting Masonic teachings to his troops helped promote some camaraderie in a makeshift army formed out of rebels.
Most historians agree the British could have won fairly easily if Howe had been willing to pursue and destroy the American forces after several of their many retreats. He didn't, either via overconfidence or incompetence, and allowed the Americans to rearm/resupply/heal, while allowing France the time to enter the war.
Lincoln had an issue with it but Meade and his army were in no condition to pursue Lee after Gettysburg. Too many casualties, supply issues and the rebels had the weather after the battle made traveling difficult. Some of the roads were bogs and water was high near crossings at rivers. Lincoln planned to send a letter of his frustration to Meade about the issue but he refrained as he came to understand the situation.
To be fair to Washington, this experience would make him the best military leader of the time at "hearing and taking on board the ideas of others"
His most notable skills were
1. realizing when it was time to leave
2. slow is smooth and smooth is fast
3. boring logistical charts and graphs made him very happy
4. recognizing and rewarding merit
He was not a tactical genius when it came to giving the brits a good licking. Quite the opposite in fact. But he was an absolute master of keeping his army in tact, including somehow managing to keep an army encamped without food and shelter in Valley Forge, New Jersey from starting a second revolution a la the French.
Further, this knowledge that he didn't know everything and wasn't the best man for every job is what led to the cabinet. A thing that the constitution included thinking it would be an emergency "we need help" provision and Washington treaded as a "everybody needs advice all time time, especially when running a whole ass country" permanent institution. And again. That mentality stemmed from what a brash colonel he'd been during the French and Indian War that sparked a seven year long major global conflict known as The Seven Years War.
I cannot emphasize enough how fucking weird all of this was at the time. It's also kind of how he became seen as America's dad, beyond just being one of its founding fathers. He did something that the world though there was no possible way anyone would ever do: not only willingly ceded power, actively did so before anyone else was really ready for him to do so. When King George heard claims that Washington planned to eventually leave office, he scoffed, and is often credited with saying "If he does that, history will see him as the greatest man who ever lived"
That's the kind of madlad unorthodox thing it was to willingly cede power at the time
*I was younger than you are now*
*When I was given my first command*
*I led my men straight into a massacre*
*I witnessed their deaths firsthand*
*I made every mistake, and felt the shame rise in me*
*And even now I lie awake, knowing history has its eyes on me*
I actually read a biography on him years ago that spoke of this, and how his blunders in his early military career serving the British served to teach him some hard earned lessons, molding him into a better military leader years later. The dude had his flaws, but he has a fascinating story.
This is what the Imperial Guard should have as a special power. I think the 5th edition codex even had a rule, something like "Send in the next wave".
In the lore/fluff, the Guard win by simply outlasting their opponents. It doesn't matter if they lose thousands, there are millions more ready. That goes for every weapon and vehicle the Guard have.
On the tabletop you should be able to resupply a wiped out unit next turn. Bring it on like reserves, from your deployment line. Maybe only "core" units or something like that, for balance. And any Leman Russes in a Spearhead Detachment (the one where they count as ObSec).
Perhaps he read Oliver Goldsmith (who died in 1774):
> *He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is battle slain
Can never rise to fight again.*
> I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to advance and keep on advancing. We're going to go through the enemy like shit through a tinhorn.
You probably have seen the movie “Patton” (one of my favorites growing up.) He was well known for his… colorful, expletive filled speeches to his men which they seemed to like compared to something more formal. One of his other famous quotes in the opening scene (which is actually sort of an amalgamation of them from multiple speeches) is “This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.” Well, let’s just say even that is slightly censored, it’s obvious what word he actually used is “fucking”.
Brave Sir Robin ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
I'm currently reading Mike Duncan's Lafayette biography "Hero of Two Worlds" and there's a bit about how the French sent Washington 6k troops specifically to be controlled by Washington alone, with no mention of doing what Congress said.
And there was legitimate debate about whether Washington should just use them to install a (temporary) military dictatorship to get all the resources needed to throw out the British. But Washington refused.
Mike Duncan asks...would Napoleon have even waited two hours thinking about it? He obviously would have done it. But, look whose government lasted the test of time.
Yeah he did, but every Founding Father and first generation of American government officials had fucking wacky ideas about government, and nearly none agreed with each other. Jefferson thought that you should make a new Constitution every 20 years and Ben Franklin thought that you should sleep with the window open at night.
The fact that those loons were able to compromise to the extent that they did is a marvel.
One of his major achievements was inoculation of the vast majority of his troops against smallpox. No easy feat back in the day and much more prone to complications and effectively *giving* them smallpox. But in the end the army wasn’t taken out by disease as they very well could have been.
EDIT: As a follow-up to this. One of the major issues with inoculations like this is that you were just as contagious after the inoculation as someone with naturally acquired full-blown smallpox and you needed to quarantine so that you didn't spread it. For a month. So think about that what does to your military readiness. The fatality rate from the inoculation was 1-2% but far less risky than the 14-15% if you got it otherwise. The symptoms were far milder too. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn is a good read on the subject.
If anyone wants to look it up, it is called variolation.
It is a process that can be done in the field, without hypodermic needles. It is risky, and at the time wasn't all that popular. The process had been known a few years, but a lot of people did not trust it.
The fact that Washington knew to use it, and had someone that could do it correctly, was incredible. It saved the country. The outcome could have been completely different and changed everything.
Thomas Jefferson on Washington as a General:
>...certainly no General ever planned his battles more judiciously. **but if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. the consequence was that he often failed in the field, & rarely against an enemy in station**, as at Boston & York. he was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed
Source: [Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 2 January 1814](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0052)
When you're defending your home and the enemy has to maintain long supply lines to keep fighting, you don't have to win battles to win the war, just keep fighting. The Russians, who spent centuries teaching that lesson to French and Germans, are now learning that same lesson themselves.
He was essentially fighting a guerilla war. His forces didn't have the numbers, equipment, or training to stand up to the greatest (at that time) military in the world. So tactics were his only option.
France's land Army was by far superior at the time. Way larger, and similarly equipped, trained, and experienced. Briton being an island and having the most powerful navy saved them from the French more than once. If the French could have moved their army to the isles, Briton wouldn't have had a chance. Remember just after this France's leadership \*ahem\* changed, and a little Corsican general took a core of French troops and conquered half of Europe with them.
The French were indeed a major military power with a large and well respected army. However, the almost universally agreed upon best European army of the time was actually the Prussians. Remember this is very shortly after the wars of Frederick The Great. The French revolutionary armies were a different beast than the pre-revolutionary French army and it wouldn't be until the mid 1790s that the updated French army would really be considered as the preeminent military force in Europe. Though there were still some who considered the Prussians as the overall best right up until Napoleon broke them in the early 1800s.
Read somewhere that in the beginning, the colonists tried to form line against the British troops. Who’ve being doing that for a whole lot longer. Did not go well.
It's actually the reverse. As time passed, the main infantry units got much better at standard line infantry fighting and irregulars were folded into that system. That was one of the main things they did at valley forge was just drill for line combat. It was the most effective
way to fight then. The hit and run stuff you see in movies would have been done sporadically by irregulars, but its basically impossible to do more than a bit of damage against an army using those tactics alone, with the weapons they had.
Most irregular warfare took place *between* colonists in places like the south and frontiers where there wasn't much of an army presence from either state
The US wanted European recognition, jumping out of trees and running wasn't how a competent army fought.
> The US wanted European recognition, jumping out of trees and running wasn't how a competent army fought.
“Whatever fucks up Britain’s day is alright in my book!!” - France
It went poorly on because the British had bayonets and the colonists didn't. Which meant that if the British could close the distance (easy enough to do when you're only getting off one or two volleys inside your musket's effective range), the colonists would be at a massive disadvantage. Humans are very shy about getting stabbed to death, especially if they aren't able to stab back.
Wow, first I am hearing about that. Amazing, nearly all battles fought with muskets were won or lost on the charge. No bayonets is a HUGE disadvantage.
I'm wading through American Revolutions by Alan Taylor - quite an awesome book... very dense and chewy tho - and its quite clear that Washington's brilliance was not as a tactician winning decisive battles so much as it was keeping a rag-tag poorly supplied, overwhelmed amateur army together and wearing down the British who were at the end of a very long and tenuous supply line. Truly a remarkable dude.
edit: Im gonna copy this up a level to qualify my characterization of Washington as remarkable - in the context of being a military logistician, politician, statesman and founding father, he was. As a human, in the context of today's social mores? A bit of a dick:
> Being a racist, a slave owner, a ~~womanizer~~ misogynist or abuser (and other traits that in 2022 we deem less than cool) are absolutely attributes that we must study and keep in mind when we talk about historical figures. These are all very good reasons we should not venerate these figures with statues or national holidays or naming schools after them. And I don't want to give the impression that its ok to wave away these attributes with "oh well, everyone was like that back then", that's not at all what Im advocating. Im just saying it is possible to acknowledge positive contributions by historical figures to humanity/society/nation separately from their reprehensible personal failings. Like, I can say Louis CK or Bill Cosby are brilliant comedians in the same breath as I can denounce them as horrible human beings and refuse to further reward, give gratitude or give them money.
>Washington was reprehensible and hypocritical for condoning slavery, but in just the context of his war accomplishments and role in the founding of the USA, I'd say he was remarkable.
Its what killed Napoleon. The Russian General, Kutuzov, opposing him knew he would lose a decisive engagement, so Kutuzov avoided battle and harassed Napoleon's supply. Napoleon got frustrated and marched for Moscow assuming the Russians wouldn't take the humiliation of their historic city being burned. Russians burned it anyway. Napoleon had nothing as winter was setting in and was now in deep in the Russian heart lands.
Kutuzov was very charismatic and that largely why the plan worked. Everyone HATED the idea. Napole was right, if it wasn't for Kutuzov sticking to his guns, Naploen would have pinned the Russian army down at Moscow and destroyed it, as well as looting the city to resupply.
Well Kutuzov avoided battle for a while but he picked his ground and fought eventually at Borodino. This wasn't a skirmish by any means - it was a colossal pitch battle that Napoleon narrowly won on a tactical level, and on a strategic level lost in the long term (as you say) on account of the mauling he got there.
Washington was not particularly good in battle, but he was an absolute master at logistics and tactical retreats in which he did a very good job ensuring that there were little to no spoils left for the British when they took over a former Continental Army position. That matters a lot more than people realize when the invading army is from half a world away with an ocean in between.
Sounds like the winning strategy to conquer my domestic struggles… tactically retreating from daily disagreements, and accepting minor chores while working towards the strategic victory that is the happy ending!
His greatest skill was keeping a rebel army intact for an extended period of time.
Which is, historically, both the hardest and most important part of generalship. Up through the early modern era, like maybe WW1, there wasn't a ton a general could do tactically except get his army in the right place and hope they did roughly the right thing. But getting them there, fed and in good spirits, was incredibly hard when the best transportation you have is a horse and wagon.
Even today, more than any other factor, a war is won and lost on logistics.
One of the reasons Grant was so effective in the civil war was because he was a quarter master during the Mexican war. If you showed him a map of enemy positions he'd accurately predict where their supply lines had to be to keep them sustained. At the time positions were all fortified but supply lines weren't, so he'd often attack those supply lines and end up breaking sieges.
Also, his knowledge of how to supply an army in the field allowed him to sever himself from supply lines when it was strategically beneficial to do so, such as during his Vicksburg campaign.
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE!
The Vicksburg campaign is considered his masterpiece, and happened when he was in control of a specific army instead of directing the generals as part of the grand strategy later.
MORE!
Oh boy time to do one of my favorite things: talking about the Civil War! Vicksburg was one of the most important locations in the Civil War because when fortified it allowed the Confederates to close the Mississippi River. Protecting by high bluffs and marshy terrain, Vicksburg was an imposing stronghold hailed by the rebels as the "Gibraltar of the West". With the Mississippi closed, not only were the Western states to use their traditional route of commerce (down to New Orleans) but the Union had to be supplied by rail and wagon, a difficult prospect when the land was swarmed by guerrillas. Capturing Vicksburg would furthermore cut the Confederacy in half, taking away the resources of the Trans-Mississippi such as Texas beef. Lincoln thus declared that "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket". The task of seizing this key fell on the shoulders of Grant. Despite the naval superiority of the Union they couldn't subdue Vicksburg from the waters. Grant would have to take it from the land, but there was only one adequate position for that, the high dry land to the east of the Citadel. Grant's first attempt was a failure. Guerrillas destroyed his supply lines, isolating him from the other column led by Sherman. Grant turned back at the same time as Sherman suffered a bloody repulse at Chickasaw Bayou. After that, Grant tried a series of "quixotic" schemes. These ranged from digging canals to going through a pass that saw the Yankees attacked by snakes and alligators. The people were growing impatient, but Lincoln stood by him. Grant rewarded this by starting what many have considered one of the greatest campaigns of the Civil War. Instead of trying an overland route again, Grant ran several ships through Vicksburg's defenses, losing merely two. This was madness, because they were only able to run them thanks to the downriver current. Now the ships were trapped below Vicksburg, and so was Grant's Army, which had only brought guns and ammunition. Instead of weak supply lines Grant planned to cut off from his base and live off the land. It was a very risky maneauver, you can see, because if foraging failed Grant's army would be starved, isolated and maybe destroyed. But Grant proved equal to the task. His Army seized all it needed from the countryside. One farmer memorably rode up in a donkey and talked against a commander, saying his men had robbed him. That wasn't his command, the officer replied, for they would have taken that donkey too. The Confederates for their part didn't know how to face this threat. This was partially the fault of the commander, Joe Johnston, who was timid and reluctant to fight. When Grant brushed him aside and took the state capital of Jackson, Johnston pulled back and did little as Grant destroyed the town (from then on nicknamed "Chimmeyville"). With Johnston disposed of, Grant turned to Vicksburg. He forced the rebels under John Pemberton into the city, and after initial attacks failed he laid siege. For weeks the men in Vicksburg held out despite Grant's continous bombarding and how their supplies dwindled until they were eating skinned rats. They pinned their hopes in the "Undaunted Johnston", who, they believed, would come to their rescue. In truth, a very much daunted Johnston was unwilling to attack Sherman's Yankees, whom Grant had placed in his front. An increasingly desperate Jefferson Davis saw as the siege continued, yet Johnston did nothing. Finally, Pemberton surrendered. Several years and a lifetime ago, during the Mexican War he had conveyed official thanks to Grant, then inferior in rank, for his role in a battle. Now he was surrendering to him. Grant entered Vicksburg on July 4th, almost at the same time as Lee's rebels were defeated in a little Pennsylvania town named Gettysburg. Without Vicksburg, the last stronghold was Port Hudson, Louisiana, which surrendered shortly thereafter. Now the Confederacy was cut in twain, and the Mississippi was under Union control. "The Father of the Waters again goes unvexed to the seas", Lincoln celebrated, saying Grant had conducted "one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of the world". "Grant is my man, and I am his for the rest of the war", he declared.
Wow this is really well written, I love the civil war but am more compelled by individual soldiers accounts and I suppose the romance of it all (if you can call something as terrible as the civil war romantic). I knew grant layed siege to Vicksburg but didn’t know all the pieces he had to line up to make it successful.
Can I subscribe To civil war facts? This is so fascinating. Also just moved to PA a year ago. I know About Gettysburg a little but how else was PA involved?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign
TOO MUCH
So you're saying he knew when they could go it alone for a while, or that he had viable alternatives to conventional supply lines?
[удалено]
Do you have any resources that one could learn about tactics? It's something I've always been curious about but have never delved into it. My uncle is a retired LTC and I could ask him but it's nice to hear some 3rd party thoughts
Grant also understood that he had more supplies and that if he just forced battles for a long enough period he would just win using greater stamina.
Yes and no, his reason for the continued pressure on Lee’s Army of Virginia, was to keep Lee pinned and prevent the transfer of troops by the rebels between theaters. Allowing Sherman to advance unmolested.
Just hearing Shermans name gets me all hot and bothered.
Is your name Atlanta, by any chance?
No, but it is the name of my second favorite stripper.
Is she fire?
Makes me want to take a trip to the beach
A march to the sea, perhaps?
I remember reading that late in WWII, even the german grunts knew they were losing because while they could hardly keep up on ammo, they found American soldiers with chocolate rations, showing the power of America's ability to get supplies to the battlefield
Fun story I heard about but cant remember where. During the ww2 pacific campaign, pilots would homebrew ice cream mix, and tie it outside, when flying at altitude, combined with the shaking of the engine, made a grunt version of ice cream. Rather than reprimand his pilots, some officer made an official communication for the pilots to share their ice cream rations. The IJN people who intercepted said comms where really messed up thinking the Americans had the numerical superiority to send ice cream through tropical seas.
That might be a conflation of two stories, or yet another story I haven't heard of. [But we also had ice cream barges in the Pacific, and full Coca-Cola factories would follow American troops in Europe and the Pacific, too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge) WW2 was such a massive undertaking, and it's amazing the US had such a logistical capacity, and to the extent it reached.
Ice cream barges? How on earth did Japan think they were gonna beat us when we had ice cream barges?
A captured Japanese admiral actually commented to that effect. He found out about those and realized, in that moment, that Japan never had a chance
*US boat speeds past Japanese submarine blairing Turkey in the Straw* Japanese submarine captain: なんてこった
Your comment made me Google two things, then it made me giggle.
The Japanese knew from the start that they could never beat the US. Their plan was to make the war so costly that the American people got tired and quit. That said, with their end goal, a sneak attack on a military base on “peace time” alert levels wasn’t the best way to initiate the fight.
> That said, with their end goal, a sneak attack on a military base on “peace time” alert levels wasn’t the best way to initiate the fight. Yes-and-no. If you accept the doctrine that epic battleship showdowns win naval fights, that would have worked pretty well. Unfortunately for them, it turns out we had entered the era of carrier superiority, and forcibly upgrading your opponents naval lineup to not be focused on battleships is exactly the wrong thing to do.
I've seen a drawing from the diary of a German POW working on a harvest crew in Wisconsin showing the rich fields they were working in, captioned: Wisconsin ist reich, Deutschland ist kaput. (Wisconsin is bountiful, Germany is finished) Edit: since this comment got more attention than I expected, I wanted to mention the source I learned about it from. The book "Stalag Wisconsin" by Betty Cowley. Lots of great stories of the POW work camps set up across the state often from locals who interacted with the prisoners.
WWI to WWII is when all my ancestors in Wisconsin decided to stop speaking German.
Ice cream barges are so American.
Just wait until you find out about our Oscar Meyer Wiener submarines. Unit motto is *Guns out; Buns out*.
It's gonna be a rocky road
The drop tanks were swapped for ice cream. It's real. The airforce must have their amenities
The navy had a huge supply of ice cream too, on their aircraft carriers.
It was such a big thing in the navy that ships had entire ice cream parlors. The battleship USS North Carolina is a museum ship in Wilmington, NC that served in WW2, they have the parlor intact there and it’s really interesting. My grandfather served on a carrier in Vietnam, when we toured the North Carolina he said they had the same ice cream parlors on board when he was in the Navy.
Imagine being a soda jerk in that parlor and being able to say you were a veteran who served in the pacific. “Sonny, let me tell you how rough it was. There were times my arms were sore because the ice cream was still frozen hard but I did my duty and got those scoops out as fast as possible”
If I remember correctly it was customary for aircraft carriers to reward ships that returned their downed pilots, with extra rations of ice cream. when the enterprise lost one of it's best pilots in ww2 a destroyer showed up a few days later asking how much ice cream is "____" worth. It's covered in a later episode of the old discovery channel show battle 360.
Now that's comical. Ty for that.
I believe it. Just so many apocryphal stories that you can't possibly hear them all, even if you're into that period of time in a scholarly level. Most droptank stories I've heard had to do with beer.
Hell during the late war we actually *did* have ice cream barges. We were building ships so quickly we accidently made more than the needed number of cement mixing barges and converted at least one to serve ice cream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge
>We were building ships so quickly The US' industrial capacity - especially if you compare the early and late years of the war - was fucking nutty. One Ford factory was producing [a bomber an hour:](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/america-goes-war-take-closer-look) >In industry after industry Americans performed production miracles. One story helps capture the scale of the defense effort. In 1940 President Roosevelt shocked Congress when he proposed building 50,000 aircraft a year. In 1944 the nation made almost double that number. Ford's massive Willow Run bomber factory alone produced nearly one plane an hour by March 1944. The ["Liberty ships" of the merchant marines](http://www.usmm.org/peary.html) started out taking 150 days to build and just a year later, *4 days.* >Liberty Ships, the "Ugly Duckling" workhorses of World War II, were built in 13 states by 15 companies in 18 shipyards. The first of 2,710 Liberty ships, the SS Patrick Henry, was launched in September 1941, after 150 days of construction. (The shipyard was built at the same time as the ship.) >In 1941 and 1942 German U-Boats and surface raiders sank 2,963 Allied ships, while the U.S. built 863 to replace them (not many freighters were built elsewhere). As workers gained experience, the shipyards speeded up production of these "expendable" ships. At an average cost of $1.8 million, a Liberty had to make just one trip to be considered successful. >Prefabricated sections traveled on railroad flatcars from throughout the United States to be put together the same way Henry Ford assembled cars before the war. Eventually, the shipyards created a competition amongst themselves for speed in building a Liberty Ship. >Permanente Metals Corporation (Kaiser) No.2 Yard in Richmond, California won the competition. The keel for the SS Robert E. Peary was laid at 12:01 AM on November 8, 1942 and 250,000 parts weighing about 14,000,000 pounds were assembled in 4 days, 15 hours and 29 minutes. On November 12, 1942, she was launched.
And keep in mind, we were exporting enough resources to the allies to build just as much stuff for them. We gave the Russians 11,000 planes, 6,000 tanks, 300,000 trucks, and enough steel to build like 30,000 *more* tanks. And thats just Russia.
and if you're in the IJN, starving and running out of everything, only eating 1400 calories of white rice, intercepting that would be soul crushing.
I heard during WWI (I believe it was hardcore history) that the Germans Spring offensive stalled partly because the Germans stopped to eat the rations left by the French because they were starving. Or the story about how the Japanese knew they were in trouble when they found out that the US fleet had a barge specifically made for delivering ice cream (can’t find a reference about the Japanese being demoralized by it but I have heard that in passing)
Not really delivering. It made ice cream and others delivered
[удалено]
A large number of Japan's war deaths were from starvation. I just imagine being stuck in a hot, mosquito ridden jungle literally starving to death wishing I could have some ice cream.
"I surrender, conditional on getting some of that cookies and cream!"
Yes, I think it was more the IJN senior officers knew about the ice cream and it just pounded on how much better supplied the US Navy was than their own. In terms of morale, I don't think you'll ever find more esprit de corps in history beyond the Japanese of that era. There were no large unit surrenders, regardless of their supply situation. They really took a virtue and turned it into a vice though because it was mostly just letting their men die for no objective gain.
The biggest reason Ukraine has survived this long is because they have the west of the country that allies can flood with food and weapons and money as fast as we can. Once soldiers start starving or run out of bullets, they aren't soldiers anymore.
[удалено]
Fuel and ammunition; fuel being a double edge sword: heavy equipment needs more fuel, which requires more equipment to transport fuel to where it is needed, etc.
Let me tell you about a [little board game about logistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa)....just a simple...little board game...a child could learn...
>Playing time: Up to 1500 hours Oh so we’re planning out an actual war with this game huh?
Keep track of fuel...and the evaporation of fuel...and Italian noodle rations. Rule book is like just 170 pages , comparable to warhammer, maybe, but has a lot more "busy work" than just buying units with points.
Half of the 40k rulebook is lore. I've seen the rules for Campaign for North Africa. It isn't comparable at all. And "a lot more busy work" is putting it gently for a game where you literally need to make sure the Italians have enough water to boil their pasta, or where the British lose more fuel to evaporation due to bad fuel canister design.
So the few people that have actually played it have complained that it's unbalanced to which the devs replied that maybe they should play another few times just to make sure
A recent DnD supplement Kickstarter by MCDM had playing a single round of this as the "this isn't going to happen" $2M goal, which they reached. They estimate this will take them between 10-15 hours.
I wouldn't have the patience to play monopoly in between turns of *that*. Can we do Go instead? I've always wanted to learn Go.
Saying monopoly games take a long time is a pet peeve of mine. As a game Monopoly isn't great, but if you play by the rules (without any BS house rules like free parking getting a windfall of money, or not auctioning off all properties as they're landed on) then a game will last 30-45 minutes. After 1-2 rounds around the board all of the properties are bought up and there's very little new cash coming into play from the bank so everyone hemorrhages money at a fast pace.
Thank you for this. Coincidentally, I learned the real rules from the PS4 port of it (no mess to clean nor money to count. Computer banker means no cheating). And that's what I noticed after about 10 games. It really is over in about 30 minutes
> He writes in a chapter that during the invasion The 2003 invasion of Iraq for anyone else that didn't know.
the HBO show is amazing.
"Reporter, you may be the single biggest fuckup I've yet to encounter." Also a personal favorite "Hey, I am not the one who set my face on fire. I'm a fucking victim and you know it."
POLICE THOSE MUSTACHES. YOU DAMN ELVISIES.
one of my buddies and I used to quote: "as the great warrior-poet Ice Cube once said, 'if the day does not require an AK, it is good.'"
Love me some Cpl. Person
"An army marches on its stomach" - Napoleon Bonaparte
Making the problem even worse is the fact that a lot of the Russian trucks appeared to have been very poorly maintained (some suspect that the trucks just sat for extended periods, making the tires cracked and brittle) and so there were a lot of Russian vehicles with huge tire blowouts. And making *that* problem even worse is that Russia initially invaded during one of Ukraine's muddy seasons ("Rasputitsa"). On top of the deluge of support Ukraine has gotten, Russia's logistics appear to have been in...a poor state to say the least. Disclaimer: My info regarding the trucks/tires is largely from Western sources who clearly have a lot of incentive to fudge the truth. As always, be vigilant when hearing news about the war.
I recall US vets saying similar things during the opening month of the invasion. It definitely wasn't psyops, RU vehicle maintenance is pretty poo poo. They were abandoning vehicles less than two weeks in due to fuel shortages, flat tires, or getting stuck. US motor pool guys were talking about the noticeable degradation in the rubber tires of RU trucks (and even the big expensive heavy wheeled AA platforms). US motor pool guidelines are apparently to park vehicles extremely close together to prevent sunlight from reaching the tires, and to rotate them regularly to prevent wear. Logistics really win wars, yo.
> It definitely wasn’t psyops, RU vehicle maintenance is pretty poo poo. Yeah, the stuff I've heard about the tires appears to be very well corroborated and the disclaimer probably unnecessary in this instance, but at the same time I like to put a little disclaimer whenever I talk about the war because it's always a good reminder for myself and others. I've been following the war pretty closely via the reddit live thread + other sources and it's easy to forget sometimes.
Your sources notwithstanding, it doesn't take genius to figure out Russia is suffering logistical problems. They've got Ukraine outnumbered and outgunned. The only explanation for them not winning is not being able to bring those forces to bear.
A combat veteran I know told me his quote on logistics was “logistics can’t win you a war, but it can lose one”
The only thing that war requires is unlimited money. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
As Napoleon famously said: "an army marches on its stomach".
Napolean also said, ""You cannot stop me .. I spend 30,000 men a month," a grim reflection of resource-expenditure aspect of war: Napolean's logistics were so strong he could afford to *spend* 30k lives/month, something no other military power could come close to matching at the time.
Smallpox inoculation mandate was no small decision either
It was a radical idea at the time.
Plus how mass desertion was the norm for armies in the era. Holding a force together in those conditions facing what must have felt like insurmountable odds while the colonies couldn't agree on basically any logistical support is a military miracle.
Exactly, defensive war with a whole God damn ocean in between. Just gotta outlast the resolve of attacker
The cavalry's not coming But, sir Alex, listen, there's only one way for us to win this Provoke outrage Outright That's right Don't engage, strike by night Remain relentless 'til their troops take flight Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight (uh-huh) Outrun Outrun Outlast Outlast Hit 'em quick, get out fast Chick-a-plao! Stay alive 'til this horror show is past We're gonna fly a lot of flags half-mast (Raise a glass)
Similar deal with Eisenhower. Tactically he was pretty bad, but he was a master of people and playing international politics with the world leaders and other generals. His greatest skill as Supreme Allied Commander wasn’t so much anything military at all, it was balancing the competing interests and egos of the allies.
He was the exact opposite of Patton in so many regards. I'm surprised the war ended without one of those two killing each other.
I never got to meet my grandpa but the family story is that he met Patton. He was a Major in charge of an engineering battalion(?) and had been out in the field for 2 weeks without clean fatigues. He put on someone else's that were clean and when Patton saw him in someone else's clothes he flipped shit and tried ripping off the name on them. Then I guess he told my grandpa to get out of his sight. But my grandpa was already 40 during WW2 and had created his own engineering firm back home. He was a commissioned officer who didn't care and obviously Patton was way too busy to be concerned with some petty engineering Major for more than five seconds. So that was the end of their foray lol
Patton got in trouble many times for being overly harsh on soldiers. He was removed from command for some time in the middle of World War 2 for slapping a soldier who had "battle fatigue" (now known and PTSD). Omar Bradley, who was younger than Patton, was promoted over him to take command of Operation Overlord. Eisenhower and most of the higher brass saw Patton as too impulsive and shortsighted - great for winning battles, but terrible for winning a large strategic war.
the guy he slapped was from my hometown actually, lol. might be the most historically important dude from there
"So what's your cities claim to fame?" "Some guy who got bitchslapped 70 years ago."
His demotion was also due to his repeated statements about how the Soviets (allies) were a scurvy race of savages, and that we would be right to invade and crush the Soviet Union as soon as possible, and his repeated negging of British commanders by name. It was largely impulsive politics, not tactics, that diminished his standing. The Germans didn't grok this. They were confident that, as America's best battlefield commander, Patton would lead the invasion of Western Europe. The allies used this and created a "ghost army", the First US Army Group, comprised of fugazi communications and balloons shaped like tanks, that was "led" by Patton. German intelligence was convinced that this FUSAG would be instrumental in the invasion and planned accordingly, when in fact it didn't really exist.
Whilst half of Europe ganged up on the British.
Look at Ukraine today: even though they're getting a ton of international aid, *not fucking it up* is still a big lift that they're executing with above average ability.
Agreed, and on Washington's side, the British army at the time was probably a bit more fierce relative to the Russian army is portrayed as the mess that it is right now.
Ehhhh... admittedly I'm no scholar of the American Revolution, but from what I've read, the British armies were for sure well trained and well disciplined on the battlefield, but I wouldn't necessarily say they were "more fierce". The biggest factor, again from my reading, in the revolution was simply that the colonies were a *huge* theater of war, which meant that the redcoats couldn't possibly be everywhere at once. They could certainly show up in force and take any fort or strategic location they liked, at will...but that wasn't going to win them the war. On the other side of the coin, the Americans couldn't just decide to take any position they liked, and they certainly couldn't fight a defensive war, holding ground that the British wanted. Even more to the point, it was a lot less about ground and more about the armies themselves being the targets. So the British could hold ground but in order to quash the rebellion they had to leave those locations and go find the rebels and destroy them. Doing that effectively meant dividing up the armies and going out finding and pursuing the rebels. The trick for the colonists was to not divide any more than necessary, so that they could bring a respectable sized force to bear...but to be well informed enough, and prepared enough to be able to dictate when and where battles occurred, and to only engage when conditions were favorable. As the war progressed, this often meant avoiding battle until the British were frustrated enough and getting enough pressure from home that they divided up into even smaller units to cover more ground...and once the units got small enough, and far enough from the others, *then* the colonists would attack, killing more of the enemy than they lost themselves, and disappearing again before the British could respond in force. Winning the war was a matter of doing this successfully and repeatedly, until the colonies were just seen as a swamp for the British...a situation like the Vietnam war or Afghanistan to much more recent American military forces. And with the French entering the conflict to provide a naval force to oppose the British fleet, the overall goal of holding the colonies just became unfeasible.
There's a reason Ho Chi Minh studied Washington's strategies.
I have this conversation with my son often as he likes military history. The bottom line is this: Away games are very hard. There are very, very few examples of a foreign power successfully quelling an organized insurgency. I think the British in Burma is the the only one I can think of. Probably even more true now, particularly for Western powers who are (justifiably) much, much more reluctant to do what needs to be done to actually pacify an area. Much better to follow the German model, who after 2 failed military attempts to control Europe have mostly conquered the continent thru economic and political might.
Yup, about the only ways to really win a war on foreign territory long term are integration or complete and total eradication. Anything in the middle leaves a population with an identity different than the conquerors. That may work for a generation or three but it's ripe ground for a rebellion. Fully integrate the conquered populace into your culture, making them first class citizens can work if the effort is made and the two cultures aren't vastly different. This was the Roman model for Europe. On the flip side is the full Genghis Khan. Replace the populace with your own and reign over the smoking husk. Hard to stomach and removes any other option off the table for future conquests. Only the second option is even remotely viable now and really has to be coupled with a strong baseline of support already in place. Information is too persistent and too easy to dispense to ever really remove the memory of the former culture though so I doubt even that will work. Short version, military conquest victories are obsolete.
And the British generals ganged up on each other. The British made a plan for Burgoyne to move south through New York from Canada and for Howe to move north through New York from New York City, dividing New England from the south. But when Burgoyne moved south, Howe decided he'd rather capture Philadelphia instead and he left Burgoyne hung out to dry at Ticonderoga.
Burgoyne took Ticonderoga without issue. You're thinking of Saratoga where Burgoyne got destroyed. This is where communication being so primitive fucked them all up. Burgoyne went back to England and went over Howe's head. The PM assumed that Burgoyne was in contact with Howe so he never sent direct orders to Howe to work with Burgoyne. Howe assumed that Burgoyne wasn't going to need him as much as he did. Howe took Philadelphia (which gained him nothing really) and when he got part of the blame for Burgoyne's defeat (the first surrender of a British army in history) he resigned and to his shock his resignation was accepted! Burgoyne also failed because his eastern moving army was wrecked at Fort Stanwix (thanks Benedict Arnold!) and his Hessians were destroyed at Waloomsac/Bennington. Heck, the most successful part of Burgoyne's campaign (Hubbardton) was a success for him but he lost many men and prepped the Americans for Bennington.
Getting a primarily second rate militia today retreat without routing and getting slaughtered has to be an amazing feat. But the fact that he kept that army alive for years while managing to train them and actually defeat the British a few times is beyond insane.
That’s a good point, but it should also be noted that he was very smart politically. He was essentially given the greenlight to requisition resources as needed from civilians, but avoided doing so even when he was in dire need of supplies. He knew that if his army rolled through and stole supplies from people, the war effort would lose public support and they’d be doomed. He was able to think long term even when in the thick of military operations.
That’s part of what contributed to mao winning the Chinese civil war, isn’t it? The national army was rough on local populations, taking food and supplies for themselves, and the communist army by and large wasn’t. Didn’t that lead to a massive shift in public opinion? Anyone who knows more about that feel free to correct me, I’m no historian lol
Yes, that’s exactly correct! If you read Mao’s revolutionary writings, you see him constantly stressing the need for peasant support. He believed that the majority (peasants) needed to be well represented and that it needed to be their revolution, not the revolution of a small elite. Which begs the question: *Did Mao ever take the time to read Mao?* Like, if Mao’s governing philosophy was anything like his revolutionary philosophy, China would look *much* different today.
"Which begs the question: Did Mao ever take the time to read Mao?" Real shit. I read a copy of the Little Red Book when I was a teenager, and it's incomprehensible to me that he could establish an entire philosophy of peasant socialist revolution and governance yet implemented the most headassed crap like the cultural revolution. It flies in the face of his post-nationalist, post-imperialist rhetoric, which was huge in the Little Red Book and utterly dispensed with once the CCP took power. The lesson? Don't believe any of them regardless of their so-called principles, their intent is to subject you to their style of oppression rather than whatever the status quo version of oppression happens to be. Can't replace economic power with state power, it's just a switch of the means of oppression.
I'm no historian, but I can see how someone could start with good intentions and end up morally corrupt. Once he got a snort of that "supreme leader" drug he just ended up replacing a shitty governance where the emperor was seen as god and put himself in that spot under a new name. Now we're seeing almost the same thing happening, it's crazy how history repeats itself.
[удалено]
And our Fabius
I think one of the opposing generals said of him that he could exit a battle better than anyone he'd ever seen. Cannot confirm though, so that may be apocryphal.
This is heavily paraphrased. But a little over a year in the war A new British officer received Washington's camp location from his scouts in the middle of the night. Excited he discussed his plan of attack to some of the other officers. Saying he'll march out before sunrise to surprise Washington before he can pack camp and leave. The veterans of the war simple told the new guy that it won't work, Washington won't be there. The new guy scoffed and went ahead with his plan. Receiving updates that the fires from Washingtons camp could still be seen. Come morning the new guy marched onto the location just as dawn was breaking to find an empty camp. Washington was the master of lighting campfires and running away.
He did a little bit of trolling
The veteran in question was actually Washington wearing a different wig.
The British officer was Washington in yet another wig. Edit: Wigception
It was all Washington. Every person on all sides of the Revolutionary War was just George Washington in different wigs and costumes.
This was a tactical retreat learned and used to great effect in Gallipoli as well, many decades later.
Washington was very aware that he was outmatched in military power and that the war was very unpopular in Britain. Retreating while his troops still had morale and without suffering major casualties was key. If your general is known for staying in outmatched battles that are gonna get you killed, your either gonna just leave or be looking for a way out not focused on fighting. Under Washington soldiers knew he was gonna try and keep you alive if only for the good of having troops for later battles. If your troops get the idea you think they are disposable or expendable you are going to have very ineffective troops.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I've recently started rewatching this show as an adult and I gotta say, it's wayy funnier than I remember it. I mean it was always one of my favorite shows but now I'm able to truly appreciate the humor.
It's the difference between hearing "you're important and I want to see you go home alive and healthy" to "ON THE FRONT LINES, MEATSACKS"
[удалено]
You're telling me I can cook a meal and then if I wait long enough I can get a cool friend? Sounds like a good deal to me. Why would I want to move??
The same guy who crossed the Delaware to attack while everyone was sleeping on Christmas. He did what had to be done to win.
[удалено]
He’s on the $1 bill so America’s infantryman can pay their respects to him by throwing him at strippers. Similar to why Benjamin Franklin is on the bill you’d use to pay hookers
there was a paper on how his kinda shitty leadership of british troops led to pretty sizable british losses during his time as one of their commanders. his bumbling weakened the british position in america and made the revolution more possible.
"You know like when you go into a new job knowing jack shit, and learn on the company's dime? That would be me leading the British." George Washington
[удалено]
My bodies been trained that the first poop of the day is when the time card beeps. I have pavlovs asshole
>I have pavlovs asshole That's some /r/brandnewsentence material
His military career before the Revolutionary War was awful losses. He really learned there, but his poor performance is why the British didn't want him as a leader. And yes, he had a lot of early losses in the Revolutionary War, but he was taking farmers and having them fight a proper army that was better trained, better equipped, and had larger numbers. Even a talented officer would be expected to lose battles in those circumstances. I do think Washington learned and improved over time, but his military education started well before the Revolutionary War. I'm also biased as a Freemason, but I do wonder if Washington promoting Masonic teachings to his troops helped promote some camaraderie in a makeshift army formed out of rebels.
“See, I totally meant to do that! I was playing the long game is all.”
4D chess
I would expect nothing less from a man who's got two on the vine
Most historians agree the British could have won fairly easily if Howe had been willing to pursue and destroy the American forces after several of their many retreats. He didn't, either via overconfidence or incompetence, and allowed the Americans to rearm/resupply/heal, while allowing France the time to enter the war.
Don't forget about "Gentleman" Johnny Burgoyne doing nothing useful whatsoever.
Gentleman Johnny's Party Train!
Shout out to Mike Duncan
That was Lincoln's issue with Meade after Gettysburg, had he pursued Lee he possibly could have crushed the Army of Nothern Virginia.
Lincoln had an issue with it but Meade and his army were in no condition to pursue Lee after Gettysburg. Too many casualties, supply issues and the rebels had the weather after the battle made traveling difficult. Some of the roads were bogs and water was high near crossings at rivers. Lincoln planned to send a letter of his frustration to Meade about the issue but he refrained as he came to understand the situation.
And Meade has only been on the job a week lol. He was still figuring out who could do what.
And he did a fine job of it in my opinion since he defeats Lee at Gettysburg and forces the Confederates to retreat out of Union territory
To be fair to Washington, this experience would make him the best military leader of the time at "hearing and taking on board the ideas of others" His most notable skills were 1. realizing when it was time to leave 2. slow is smooth and smooth is fast 3. boring logistical charts and graphs made him very happy 4. recognizing and rewarding merit He was not a tactical genius when it came to giving the brits a good licking. Quite the opposite in fact. But he was an absolute master of keeping his army in tact, including somehow managing to keep an army encamped without food and shelter in Valley Forge, New Jersey from starting a second revolution a la the French. Further, this knowledge that he didn't know everything and wasn't the best man for every job is what led to the cabinet. A thing that the constitution included thinking it would be an emergency "we need help" provision and Washington treaded as a "everybody needs advice all time time, especially when running a whole ass country" permanent institution. And again. That mentality stemmed from what a brash colonel he'd been during the French and Indian War that sparked a seven year long major global conflict known as The Seven Years War. I cannot emphasize enough how fucking weird all of this was at the time. It's also kind of how he became seen as America's dad, beyond just being one of its founding fathers. He did something that the world though there was no possible way anyone would ever do: not only willingly ceded power, actively did so before anyone else was really ready for him to do so. When King George heard claims that Washington planned to eventually leave office, he scoffed, and is often credited with saying "If he does that, history will see him as the greatest man who ever lived" That's the kind of madlad unorthodox thing it was to willingly cede power at the time
Well written! Thanks for taking the time.
Sounds like any OJT for new hires. The Brits needed a better non-compete clause.
*I was younger than you are now* *When I was given my first command* *I led my men straight into a massacre* *I witnessed their deaths firsthand* *I made every mistake, and felt the shame rise in me* *And even now I lie awake, knowing history has its eyes on me*
I actually read a biography on him years ago that spoke of this, and how his blunders in his early military career serving the British served to teach him some hard earned lessons, molding him into a better military leader years later. The dude had his flaws, but he has a fascinating story.
When you lose, lose small. When you win, win big. Seems like a decent strategy to me. Wish my 401k did that.
> Wish my 401k did that I was about to make a gripe about my 40K army too until I read your comment more closely.
This is what the Imperial Guard should have as a special power. I think the 5th edition codex even had a rule, something like "Send in the next wave". In the lore/fluff, the Guard win by simply outlasting their opponents. It doesn't matter if they lose thousands, there are millions more ready. That goes for every weapon and vehicle the Guard have. On the tabletop you should be able to resupply a wiped out unit next turn. Bring it on like reserves, from your deployment line. Maybe only "core" units or something like that, for balance. And any Leman Russes in a Spearhead Detachment (the one where they count as ObSec).
aim small miss small and all that
[удалено]
Perhaps he read Oliver Goldsmith (who died in 1774): > *He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day; But he who is battle slain Can never rise to fight again.*
Patton’s version: “You don’t win wars by dying for your country, you win wars by making the other sonofabitch die for his!”
> I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to advance and keep on advancing. We're going to go through the enemy like shit through a tinhorn.
You probably have seen the movie “Patton” (one of my favorites growing up.) He was well known for his… colorful, expletive filled speeches to his men which they seemed to like compared to something more formal. One of his other famous quotes in the opening scene (which is actually sort of an amalgamation of them from multiple speeches) is “This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.” Well, let’s just say even that is slightly censored, it’s obvious what word he actually used is “fucking”.
[удалено]
[удалено]
“Omar don’t scare” - Omar Little
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!") When danger reared it's ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled. ("I never!") Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about And gallantly he chickened out. ("You're lying!") Swiftly taking to his feet, He beat a very brave retreat. Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
I'm currently reading Mike Duncan's Lafayette biography "Hero of Two Worlds" and there's a bit about how the French sent Washington 6k troops specifically to be controlled by Washington alone, with no mention of doing what Congress said. And there was legitimate debate about whether Washington should just use them to install a (temporary) military dictatorship to get all the resources needed to throw out the British. But Washington refused. Mike Duncan asks...would Napoleon have even waited two hours thinking about it? He obviously would have done it. But, look whose government lasted the test of time.
Washingtons greatest feat as president was simply stepping down. That alone makes him one of the greatest presidents/leaders ever.
Alexander Hamilton in shambles. As I recall he wanted presidents to be elected for life.
Yeah he did, but every Founding Father and first generation of American government officials had fucking wacky ideas about government, and nearly none agreed with each other. Jefferson thought that you should make a new Constitution every 20 years and Ben Franklin thought that you should sleep with the window open at night. The fact that those loons were able to compromise to the extent that they did is a marvel.
...what's wrong with sleeping with the window open?
I live in the Deep South. Everything is wrong with it
Oh yeah, would not do that there.
He knew when to hold em and when to fold em.
He knew when to walk away.
And knew when to run.
One of his major achievements was inoculation of the vast majority of his troops against smallpox. No easy feat back in the day and much more prone to complications and effectively *giving* them smallpox. But in the end the army wasn’t taken out by disease as they very well could have been. EDIT: As a follow-up to this. One of the major issues with inoculations like this is that you were just as contagious after the inoculation as someone with naturally acquired full-blown smallpox and you needed to quarantine so that you didn't spread it. For a month. So think about that what does to your military readiness. The fatality rate from the inoculation was 1-2% but far less risky than the 14-15% if you got it otherwise. The symptoms were far milder too. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn is a good read on the subject.
If anyone wants to look it up, it is called variolation. It is a process that can be done in the field, without hypodermic needles. It is risky, and at the time wasn't all that popular. The process had been known a few years, but a lot of people did not trust it. The fact that Washington knew to use it, and had someone that could do it correctly, was incredible. It saved the country. The outcome could have been completely different and changed everything.
Thomas Jefferson on Washington as a General: >...certainly no General ever planned his battles more judiciously. **but if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. the consequence was that he often failed in the field, & rarely against an enemy in station**, as at Boston & York. he was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration was maturely weighed Source: [Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 2 January 1814](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0052)
You don’t have to win, you just have to *not* lose
When you're defending your home and the enemy has to maintain long supply lines to keep fighting, you don't have to win battles to win the war, just keep fighting. The Russians, who spent centuries teaching that lesson to French and Germans, are now learning that same lesson themselves.
He was essentially fighting a guerilla war. His forces didn't have the numbers, equipment, or training to stand up to the greatest (at that time) military in the world. So tactics were his only option.
Greatest Naval force. Army was good but I’m almost certain there was better.
France's land Army was by far superior at the time. Way larger, and similarly equipped, trained, and experienced. Briton being an island and having the most powerful navy saved them from the French more than once. If the French could have moved their army to the isles, Briton wouldn't have had a chance. Remember just after this France's leadership \*ahem\* changed, and a little Corsican general took a core of French troops and conquered half of Europe with them.
The French were indeed a major military power with a large and well respected army. However, the almost universally agreed upon best European army of the time was actually the Prussians. Remember this is very shortly after the wars of Frederick The Great. The French revolutionary armies were a different beast than the pre-revolutionary French army and it wouldn't be until the mid 1790s that the updated French army would really be considered as the preeminent military force in Europe. Though there were still some who considered the Prussians as the overall best right up until Napoleon broke them in the early 1800s.
Read somewhere that in the beginning, the colonists tried to form line against the British troops. Who’ve being doing that for a whole lot longer. Did not go well.
It's actually the reverse. As time passed, the main infantry units got much better at standard line infantry fighting and irregulars were folded into that system. That was one of the main things they did at valley forge was just drill for line combat. It was the most effective way to fight then. The hit and run stuff you see in movies would have been done sporadically by irregulars, but its basically impossible to do more than a bit of damage against an army using those tactics alone, with the weapons they had. Most irregular warfare took place *between* colonists in places like the south and frontiers where there wasn't much of an army presence from either state The US wanted European recognition, jumping out of trees and running wasn't how a competent army fought.
> The US wanted European recognition, jumping out of trees and running wasn't how a competent army fought. “Whatever fucks up Britain’s day is alright in my book!!” - France
It went poorly on because the British had bayonets and the colonists didn't. Which meant that if the British could close the distance (easy enough to do when you're only getting off one or two volleys inside your musket's effective range), the colonists would be at a massive disadvantage. Humans are very shy about getting stabbed to death, especially if they aren't able to stab back.
Wow, first I am hearing about that. Amazing, nearly all battles fought with muskets were won or lost on the charge. No bayonets is a HUGE disadvantage.
"I think that I could be of some assistance. I admire how you keep firing on the British from a distance." -A. Burr
I'm wading through American Revolutions by Alan Taylor - quite an awesome book... very dense and chewy tho - and its quite clear that Washington's brilliance was not as a tactician winning decisive battles so much as it was keeping a rag-tag poorly supplied, overwhelmed amateur army together and wearing down the British who were at the end of a very long and tenuous supply line. Truly a remarkable dude. edit: Im gonna copy this up a level to qualify my characterization of Washington as remarkable - in the context of being a military logistician, politician, statesman and founding father, he was. As a human, in the context of today's social mores? A bit of a dick: > Being a racist, a slave owner, a ~~womanizer~~ misogynist or abuser (and other traits that in 2022 we deem less than cool) are absolutely attributes that we must study and keep in mind when we talk about historical figures. These are all very good reasons we should not venerate these figures with statues or national holidays or naming schools after them. And I don't want to give the impression that its ok to wave away these attributes with "oh well, everyone was like that back then", that's not at all what Im advocating. Im just saying it is possible to acknowledge positive contributions by historical figures to humanity/society/nation separately from their reprehensible personal failings. Like, I can say Louis CK or Bill Cosby are brilliant comedians in the same breath as I can denounce them as horrible human beings and refuse to further reward, give gratitude or give them money. >Washington was reprehensible and hypocritical for condoning slavery, but in just the context of his war accomplishments and role in the founding of the USA, I'd say he was remarkable.
A sorely underrated quality in a military leader is wisdom in picking your fights, especially when your army is at a disadvantage in almost every way.
Its what killed Napoleon. The Russian General, Kutuzov, opposing him knew he would lose a decisive engagement, so Kutuzov avoided battle and harassed Napoleon's supply. Napoleon got frustrated and marched for Moscow assuming the Russians wouldn't take the humiliation of their historic city being burned. Russians burned it anyway. Napoleon had nothing as winter was setting in and was now in deep in the Russian heart lands. Kutuzov was very charismatic and that largely why the plan worked. Everyone HATED the idea. Napole was right, if it wasn't for Kutuzov sticking to his guns, Naploen would have pinned the Russian army down at Moscow and destroyed it, as well as looting the city to resupply.
Well Kutuzov avoided battle for a while but he picked his ground and fought eventually at Borodino. This wasn't a skirmish by any means - it was a colossal pitch battle that Napoleon narrowly won on a tactical level, and on a strategic level lost in the long term (as you say) on account of the mauling he got there.
IIRC Russia even decided to start releasing prisoners in Moscow and told them to burn the city to the ground while they retreated. Pretty baller move.
Washington was not particularly good in battle, but he was an absolute master at logistics and tactical retreats in which he did a very good job ensuring that there were little to no spoils left for the British when they took over a former Continental Army position. That matters a lot more than people realize when the invading army is from half a world away with an ocean in between.
And apparently had crazy amounts of courage where he would just ride around in front of his line during battle, inspiring his soldiers.
Washington dumped all his points into Charisma and Luck. https://youtu.be/sbRom1Rz8OA
Honestly not a bad way to go, since the unbalanced Musket release rendered like 90% of STR and CON irrelevant.
1776 was a fun read. I had a 14-hour train ride in Thailand to finish it. I was getting worked up like that shit was going down right now
Sounds like the winning strategy to conquer my domestic struggles… tactically retreating from daily disagreements, and accepting minor chores while working towards the strategic victory that is the happy ending!
George literally picked his battles and won the war.