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Post by quincannon on Jun 12, 2017 17:14:41 GMT
To answer you larger question - could Custer be an effective counter-guerrilla fighter. There is no question in my mind that answer is a resounding no.
To be effective you just cannot go bashing about the countryside looking. That is true for fighting a Mosby, a Gideon, or in any other environment you wish to name. These people will only avoid you, run away if they have to, seek refuge in those places difficult for you to access. Like the Comanche seeking refuge in the Llano. Ask Colt what that area of Texas is like. He used to live very near there in Amarillo.
The counter-guerrilla must do the same thing as his conventional counterpart, shape the battle space. He must have an infinite amount of patience in the discovery process. He must identify all that needs identification, before he acts. It takes years, not hours, days, or weeks to successfully enable your future destruction a guerrilla force.
In the passage of time doing it you must also set the conditions for success, by turning the population to a better way. For instance, you don't burn every barn and crop in the Shenandoah Valley. You go in with your people take that crop from the fields and pay a fair market price for it. You do not burn their barns and homes. You let them maintain their property, and dignity. If you must take their livestock pay that same fair market price, and leave them enough to run their farms, plant and harvest in the coming year. You seek to at least make the population a neutral factor. Your actions portray that you are not as big a monster as you have been portrayed by your enemy. To do otherwise means that you will be in the field searching for that guerrilla until the Second Coming, because you will not catch or master him.
Custer had none of the tools to do what was required, and that has been well demonstrated elsewhere on this board.
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Post by Beth on Jun 12, 2017 18:06:54 GMT
To answer you larger question - could Custer be an effective counter-guerrilla fighter. There is no question in my mind that answer is a resounding no.
To be effective you just cannot go bashing about the countryside looking. That is true for fighting a Mosby, a Gideon, or in any other environment you wish to name. These people will only avoid you, run away if they have to, seek refuge in those places difficult for you to access. Like the Comanche seeking refuge in the Llano. Ask Colt what that area of Texas is like. He used to live very near there in Amarillo.
The counter-guerrilla must do the same thing as his conventional counterpart, shape the battle space. He must have an infinite amount of patience in the discovery process. He must identify all that needs identification, before he acts. It takes years, not hours, days, or weeks to successfully enable your future destruction a guerrilla force.
In the passage of time doing it you must also set the conditions for success, by turning the population to a better way. For instance, you don't burn every barn and crop in the Shenandoah Valley. You go in with your people take that crop from the fields and pay a fair market price for it. You do not burn their barns and homes. You let them maintain their property, and dignity. If you must take their livestock pay that same fair market price, and leave them enough to run their farms, plant and harvest in the coming year. You seek to at least make the population a neutral factor. Your actions portray that you are not as big a monster as you have been portrayed by your enemy. To do otherwise means that you will be in the field searching for that guerrilla until the Second Coming, because you will not catch or master him.
Custer had none of the tools to do what was required, and that has been well demonstrated elsewhere on this board. I believe that mlynn is working her way thought the board so perhaps a suggestion on where to look for further information on Custer's abilities would be helpful?
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Post by quincannon on Jun 12, 2017 18:48:35 GMT
In total they are contained in every thread dealing directly with the LBH battle. Specifically with regard to this particular subject, he lacked patience. Lacking that attribute leads you to all the rest of his battle evils.
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Post by yanmacca on Jun 12, 2017 19:05:03 GMT
Its hard to say if Custer was off his game that day, even if he was could this effect his performance. I know that some say [especially the French] that Napoleon was off his game at Waterloo and he was not feeling too well on the day, but I think that Wellington had a say in this his down fall too, much the same way as the Sioux and Cheyenne did with the BLBH.
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Post by quincannon on Jun 12, 2017 19:18:11 GMT
Ian the one prerequisite required to be off of your game is to have a game in the first place. Custer had no game, just as surely as the King had no clothes, and it was evident only to that little boy in the story.
Napoleon had a game. He did have some rather irritating discomfort the day of Waterloo. His irritated A hole though was not his problem. His problem was that Wellington had read the crib notes of Napoleon's game. Napoleon always played the same game. You do that often enough and someone is eventually going to beat you.
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Post by yanmacca on Jun 12, 2017 19:23:09 GMT
Chuck, I think I have said this before so forgive me, but Custer's game or plan or whatever you may call it, was so simple in the fact that it was let down by his inability to get behind the village. This was caused by a number of reasons; 1/ Reno didn't have the clout 2/ Custer missed judged the distance and the terrain 3/ The Indians could deflect his puny piecemeal attacks because they had the numbers
So I reckon that even a half-Witt with a bad dose of Delhi Belly could have come up with this plan of sending some forward and the rest go round the back.
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Post by quincannon on Jun 12, 2017 19:49:20 GMT
Generally considered what is meant in having a game is your ability. It really does not refer to any one plan only your ability to plan, to execute.
Custer did not have this ability, therefore he had no game.
Would you say a screw driver or paint brush has a game? Don't think so. The game is the guy who paints or drives the screw. Custer was the screw driver, or the paint brush, which by themselves are worthless. At LBH he had no painter, or someone who knew how to drive a screw.
Custer was an inanimate tool that could be used by someone who had a game, but he himself had none.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jun 12, 2017 20:12:28 GMT
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Post by mlynn on Jun 12, 2017 20:18:40 GMT
To answer you larger question - could Custer be an effective counter-guerrilla fighter. There is no question in my mind that answer is a resounding no.
To be effective you just cannot go bashing about the countryside looking. That is true for fighting a Mosby, a Gideon, or in any other environment you wish to name. These people will only avoid you, run away if they have to, seek refuge in those places difficult for you to access. Like the Comanche seeking refuge in the Llano. Ask Colt what that area of Texas is like. He used to live very near there in Amarillo.
The counter-guerrilla must do the same thing as his conventional counterpart, shape the battle space. He must have an infinite amount of patience in the discovery process. He must identify all that needs identification, before he acts. It takes years, not hours, days, or weeks to successfully enable your future destruction a guerrilla force.
In the passage of time doing it you must also set the conditions for success, by turning the population to a better way. For instance, you don't burn every barn and crop in the Shenandoah Valley. You go in with your people take that crop from the fields and pay a fair market price for it. You do not burn their barns and homes. You let them maintain their property, and dignity. If you must take their livestock pay that same fair market price, and leave them enough to run their farms, plant and harvest in the coming year. You seek to at least make the population a neutral factor. Your actions portray that you are not as big a monster as you have been portrayed by your enemy. To do otherwise means that you will be in the field searching for that guerrilla until the Second Coming, because you will not catch or master him.
Custer had none of the tools to do what was required, and that has been well demonstrated elsewhere on this board. Insightful
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Post by quincannon on Jun 12, 2017 21:37:09 GMT
ML: Key terrain is defined as that which possession of gives great to overwhelming advantage to he who possesses it.
You will often hear the term key terrain used on this board.
In the guerrilla/irregular fight the key terrain is the populace, not some hill or valley choke point. It is very simple. If you do not possess the support or at least neutrality of the people you do not win. That goes for both the guerrilla and the counter-guerrilla alike.
The best way to gain, regain, or maintain that support is to give the people something to live for. The side that does that is the side that wins.
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Post by yanmacca on Jun 25, 2017 14:45:18 GMT
Yes I can just hear Custer yelling "There are two kinds of people who are staying on this ridge: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here"
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