Custer Moves to Ford D with Five Companies Part A

[quincannon]

Don't know why not Mac

When a battalion moves there must be some distance between the component units, so if attacked or ambushed those companies can react, not get caught in the same firefight, then maneuver to address the situation.

I would sometimes have about half the distance indicated on that map between the bridge and the I90/US 212 interchange between my lead platoon and my company's main body.

When Colt deployed a tank company I wager the distance was even greater, and by a good bit.

[yanmacca]

In the British army during WW2, even an Infantry platoon was trained to keep a distance of 15 yards (minimum) 25 yards (maximum) between each ten man section, so taking this up a notch to company, I would expect this distance would increase further.

I wont go into supporting distances because I still bare the scars from the long winded and almost brutal debates about this on the Rini board, what did he say was supporting distance between cavalry companies Chuck, was it a couple of miles?

[azranger]

Three miles

Loading truck to head to Paulden AZ. Attending the Gunsite carbine class all week.

Regards

Steve

[quincannon]

Ian: You may support by fire, and you can support by maneuver then fire.

You can do neither if you are caught up in the same cone of fire that those you are trying to support are in.

There is no clearly defined measurement for what supporting distance is, not now, and not then.

Today support for the front line soldier can be rendered from ten thousand miles away, and still today, sometimes you can not render in from ten feet away.

[mac]

The archaeology showing warrior firing positions out along the highway now can be interpreted as being directed against elements of C, I , L as they move away from the river and back up onto BRE. It would be fascinating to know if there are weapon matches between that firing and the evidence of firing further south on BRE.
Cheers

[deadwoodgultch]

Steve,
kick some butt this week.
Tom

[Beth]

Dec 4, 2016 20:54:19 GMT mac said:

The archaeology showing warrior firing positions out along the highway now can be interpreted as being directed against elements of C, I , L as they move away from the river and back up onto BRE. It would be fascinating to know if there are weapon matches between that firing and the evidence of firing further south on BRE.
Cheers

I did not know or recall there was evidence of firing positions by the highway.  Where is it exactly and does it fit with our theory?

[mac]

At work having lunch Beth so no time to find it exactly, maybe someone will.
The archaeology we looked at earlier in this thread contained a find of a warrior shooting position in mounds along Highway 212. It has previously been attributed to Wolf Tooth's band, which is fair enough, but the notion expressed above satisfies me as well.
I also note that the natural flow of the terrain would seem to take warriors attacking along BRE out to the east of LSH matching the archaeology out there. When this happens no one is leaving LSH.
Cheers

[yanmacca]

Mac, I have some data with finds and such, but it is pretty vague and none of it extends out as far as BRE, I do have the one which I posted that shows the finds on BRE, but I don't think it would add much to what you already know.

[yanmacca]

Now taking into consideration the Keogh notion that a cavalry company can support another company at three miles, well how do the company that is doing the support role actually know that they are required, example company A is supporting company B and there is a distance of three miles between each company, now at three miles distance company B gets into trouble and requires company A to come to its aid, so how do company A know they are needed, they have no radio, in fact they have no way of communicating over that distance plus they cannot see three miles distance even if the ground was totally flat.

The only way B can contact A for help is to send a rider, but if he gets killed what then.

So my answer is no they cannot support each other at three miles, can anybody change my mind?

[quincannon]

Let's start with the basics. The uninformed miscreant that you refer to in your above post Ian, would not know support, as the term is used in military parlance, from a jock strap.

So no under the conditions you describe Company B had no hope of receiving any support from Company A, unless a rider is dispatched to obtain that assistance, and survives.

The prime requirement to obtain support is the means to transmit your need of it. Those means may be voice, message, radio, telephone, computer, or the means may be as simple as someone sees you are in dire straits, and takes action on their own initiative,

The other edge of the blunted sword that the above mentioned miscreant uses to impale himself is the operating distances which he both accepts as normal, and in fact advocates. I would not have a whole lot of problem with those distances in 2016, but I sure as hell do if we are talking 1876, or even 1945.

Generally speaking "to support" must be a function of the supporting unit being outside the cone of fire that effects the unit requiring support. If the situation is that the supporting unit is outside that cone of fire, and the distance is not too great they may render support by fire alone. If they are not close enough to render fire support from their present location, then the supporting unit maneuvers to a place where they can, then renders the support required.

All this then depends upon the distance between the units. Commanders take great pains to chose a formation and/or disposition which allows a separation between units, so if one gets hit, the others may render aid. In the time period that concerns us, that distance is limited by the requirement to retain visual contact. Then, you could only react to what you see. Today it is different.

Consider the size of one of our great historical examples. Gettysburg involved two field armies, something like a total of eight or nine army corps (I forget which). Today that same battle space would hardly warrant a battalion on battalion fight. So using that as an example you must ask yourself why the divergence. The answer is simple, battalions today can shoot, move, and communicate further, and faster over extended distances, than could be done in 1863. Today it is possible to render effective support to a unit on Seminary Ridge from the Devils Den. Then, not so much.

WE must also be well aware of how we are using the word support. It could rightly be said that A.P. Hill's division rendered support to Lee's right flank at Sharpsburg, coming up from Harper's Ferry. Yes and no. Did he (Hill) get there at the critical moment, and was support rendered? Yes it was. Given the choice again, would Hill have been at Harper's Ferry if Lee had known that the Army of the Potomac was coming across those hills to the Antietam, and after Bobby Lee's sweet ass? Probably not.

[yanmacca]

I get you Chuck.

When you look at it all of Custer's three battalions were unable to support each other, once GAC went over them bluffs he virtually isolated himself from Benteen and Reno, the same with Reno in the valley, as he was on his own. Benteen too could have been wiped out if he met any serious opposition as neither GAC or Reno could have supported him.

[quincannon]

All three could have been wiped out, with no problem at all which is the very reason that the Blathering Blunderbuss of Bull Excrement does not know what he is talking about, and why his hole card should be called at every opportunity, lest someone believes his bushwa.

When you are delving into such a mind as his, you do not need an historian or tactician. You need a geologist, assisted by a proctologist, the first to examine, after the second finds.

[yanmacca]

What made it worse Chuck, is that he was willing to argue the point to the extreme, in which time you just gave up, as he would always come back at you with some crap to aid his opinion.

Jeez you would think that the way he was going on, that the 7th was a motorised regiment, equipped with radios, instead we had a horse cavalry regiment with little to aid communications other that trumpets and vocal commands.

[quincannon]

Ian: Over the years I have read just about everything I can get my hands on about air combat. Included in that were all the greats, the Hat in the Ring, The Flying Circus, your guys from the Battle of Britain, The Tigers in China, the Navy and Marines over the breadth of the Pacific, and those early jet Aces in Korea. I am better read on the subject than most, and can discuss it with some authority, although I was never a part of it.

I can also don a flight suit, my A-2 leather jacket and white silk scarf and resemble the original.

None of this qualifies me to fly an airplane or engage in combat with six fifties a smokin. When I sit down at a table with a bunch of fighter jocks I do a hell of a lot more listening than talking.

It's the same thing when I sit down with a bunch of sailors, wearing my genuine pretend Don Winslow of the Navy sailor suit my mommy got me on sale at Woolworth's. I shut my mouth and listen, just as I did all those years ago to my dad's friends, over to the house for dinner and a card game, who actually fought at Midway, Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal.

There is reading books and dressing up, there is listening, and even learning, but nothing prepares one as much for discussing a subject such as this, than doing. When one thinks that reading, listening, and dressing up, makes you as qualified as those who do the doing, then that person, so afflicted, has crossed the Rubicon into the land of Never inhabited exclusively by fools.