Posted on 01/05/2018 9:50:10 AM PST by C19fan
Like Hannibal, I wanted to rank powerful leaders in the history of warfare. Unlike Hannibal, I sought to use data to determine a general’s abilities, rather than specific accounts of generals’ achievements. The result is a system for ranking every prominent commander in military history.
(Excerpt) Read more at towardsdatascience.com ...
If you read the thoughts of non-French writers of the period you get the same idea. Napoleon was considered in his day every bit as bad as Hitler later on. Which is not to say that the “Final Solution” was not uniquely evil. Just that it was largely unknown/unacknowledged (take your pick) until very late in the war.
“A very small percentage (<5%) was attributed to airplane. The effect was more psychological”
The most important tank is the one you don’t have. Tanks have cross-country mobility, but their supply trucks largely do not, so tank formations are tethered to the road net such as it is. A flight of Ja-Bos is better off going after the tank column’s fuel tankers and ammo train. The tanks they are supporting will run out of fuel & ammo in a very short period of time.
So yes, the airplane destroyed very few tanks until the advent of the guided missile. But the aircraft has blunted many massed armored thrusts.
Napoleon existed at both levels: tactical and strategic. His plotting of entire campaigns created a recognition of a third level of warfare — the operational level. So, in effect, Napoleon operated at all 3 levels of warfare while his opponents continued to think in terms of 2-levels.
Grant also cleared middle Tennessee before the Vicksburg Campaign. His use of the Union Navy along the western rivers was a huge force multiplier.
Lee at Gettysburg was at a tactical disadvantage. He was locked on opposing ridge lines with an opponent who had a secure flank, and sufficient cavalry to guard the other. He couldn’t just withdraw without giving up a chunk of his baggage train & artillery park, so Pickett’s Charge was his solution. But many people forget that there was a large confederate cavalry assault that punched through the union right and attempted to meet Pickett’s men from the opposite direction. If those cavalrymen had succeeded...
Yeah that never get any “play”!
“Daniel Morgan”
I’ll raise you a Nathaniel Greene. Did more with less than any of his contemporaries with the exception of Washington himself.
Dunno... Alexander was a collector of sorts. Once he knocked off the local king-pin he usually designated him a satrap and levied the former-king’s army for troops. The further Alexander went into the Orient, the less ‘Greek’ his army became.
I think Grant was smart enough to know that northern Virginia as a theater was a lot more constricted than was northern Mississippi. If he made a mistake against John Pemberton, no big deal. If he made a mistake against Robert E. Lee, you get Cold Harbor. I think Grant had the measure of his opponent in both cases.
In the alternative, after failing to break Meade's position, Lee might have accepted that there was no victory to be had and disengaged at the end of the second day, using Stuart's newly available cavalry. More speculatively, Lee might have disengaged and begun a mock retreat hoping to lure Meade out of position into an ill-organized pursuit so he could be ambushed and destroyed in detail while en marche.
As it was, Lee attempted a frontal assault over a long open field against a prepared position. Lee -- seemingly blind to his casualty lists -- did not fully accept that such a Napoleonic tactic was no longer viable due to the increased effectiveness in firepower over maneuver that became evident during the Civil War.
In fairness to Lee, he and the South realized that the North's growing strength and battlefield success were grinding the Confederacy down. Ultimately, the air of desperation about Lee's decisions at Gettysburg was rooted in the Confederacy's declining strategic position. Again, winning battles but losing the war results in getting demoted down the list of great generals.
The author makes your distinction. He rates them as tactical, not strategic, generals. IMO, Grant ranks very high as both. Washington as a strategist. OTOH, Lee is underrated as a strategist.
I’m sure other, more knowledgeable, folks will pick this apart.
There was no large cavalry assault punching though the Union right and attempting to meet Pickets men. Gregg’s Union cavalry stopped Stuarts 3 brigades in the battle of the East Cavalry field. There are no records of any communication between Lee and Stuart after their meeting the evening of the second day at Gettysburg. In Lee’s Gettysburg Campaign report to President Davis, Lee details the assignment and objective of each major command in his army, except Stuarts cavalry. In this report he praises Stuart for defending the left flank of the Army. The East Cavalry field would be on the East flank of the Army. Stuarts orders to protect the Left flank of the army were probably given to him by Lee verbally the night they met.
Lee mentions nothing about ordering Stuart to use his cavalry to attack the Union rear during Pickett’s Charge.
Lee attempted a frontal assault over a long open field against a prepared position. He did exactly the same thing at Malvern Hill in 1862. The results were exactly the same as with Pickett’s charge.
The clear implication is that Lee did not fully embrace the lesson of Malvern Hill, which led him to repeat the error by ordering Pickett’s charge.
pretty much the case, IMO
bttt
“Lee foolishly thought Pickett’s men could deliver the impossible, that Southern muskets and bayonets could redeem the mess of a battle that Gettysburg had become. Lee would have been better served by either withdrawing or maneuvering into a better position so as to force Meade into a disadvantageous attack.”
I’ve often thought that Pickett’s charge was a hopeless gesture by a strategist who knew the war was over (as of the time he ordered the charge because the Pennsylvania campaign had failed) absent a miracle. Hoping that a boneheaded tactical move would somehow change that has always seemed like a last gasp hope for that miracle.
"At about 11:00 a.m. on July 3, Stuart reached Cress Ridge, just north of what is now called East Cavalry Field, and signaled Lee that he was in position by ordering the firing of four guns, one in each direction of the compass. This was a foolish error because he also alerted Gregg to his presence. The brigades of McIntosh and Custer were positioned to block Stuart. As the Confederates approached, Gregg engaged them with an artillery duel and the superior skills of the Union horse artillerymen got the better of Stuart's guns."
There would be no need to signal Lee if he weren't expected to coordinate movements.
A lot of fine French & German infantry went to their deaths in 1871 because the lesson of massed rifle fire hadn’t been absorbed there either. This despite all the major European armies having staff officers traveling with either the Union or Confederate forces and sending dispatches home.
Pickett’s bitterness toward Lee is easy to understand: “That old man killed my boys.”
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