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Post by quincannon on Sept 20, 2019 20:01:39 GMT
Yes, whenever I see one of David's or Carl's posts it makes me sad, but it also makes me grateful for having known them as they passed my way. Grateful beats sad hands down, and always will.
Running across those three, I would just as soon be spared the privilege, and I hold no illusions that all three share my view. At least on that we can agree.
Dark Cloud was another matter. He was mean as a snake in heat, but he stood and fought for what he believed, and that is something in him that I begrudgingly admire. His weakness of course is that he never took into consideration any view opposing his own. He was right and you were wrong, no matter what, in his eyes. I must tell you though that I saw a different side of him, even if just for a moment, receiving a warm personal message from him when I had my second heart attack. He was what he was I suppose, but I suspect under that despicable exterior, there was something down deep of good, which only rarely showed, and that only still in a private venue.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Sept 21, 2019 9:27:23 GMT
I had the same experience searching Ian. I just thought a pointer to that discussion here would be good one day for others. QC in the discussion of manoeuvres in response to the attack indicated by the W shaped field of cartridge finds there were suggestions by Colt and I think yourself of Custer sending a force down MTC and around into Deep Coulee. Am I recalling this correctly? Cheers
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colt45
First Lieutenant
Posts: 439
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Post by colt45 on Sept 21, 2019 14:56:35 GMT
Mac, I had theorized that Custer could have sent a couple of companies around his left flank to attack the hostiles who were causing the W to exist. He could have left several companies at the W to keep the hostiles busy while he executed a fire and maneuver plan to hit them in their right flank. This could have accounted for a couple of companies being in the area of the Butler marker and within 600 yards of ford B.
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Post by quincannon on Sept 21, 2019 18:02:50 GMT
Concur. Those were my thoughts as well. A mobile force never sits still, and tries to never engage in a slugging match of any great duration. They would instead try to unhinge the opposition.
Always remember that the horse's legs are every bit as much of a weapon, as saber, carbine, and revolver, just as tracks or wheels are the modern equivalent to the horse's legs.
Colt: As a sidebar I have been doing some extensive reading on Stryker Brigade operational methods, particularly the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Regiments which are Stryker Brigades known by us by a different name. I am struck in my reading how much that they are a direct throwback to the dragoons of the 19th Century, with nearly identical TTP. All these guys we read about here would be very much at home in a Stryker Brigade, even more so than they would in a modern armored brigade. Given the same situation at the W, the Stryker Company (or Troop in the 2nd and 3rd) would smother the opposition with their organic heavy mortars, and perhaps attached mobile gun systems, and then maneuver with all three platoons.
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Post by yanmacca on Sept 21, 2019 19:09:18 GMT
I think we have talked about this before;
One source says this;
The SBCT can be deployed rapidly and can be sustained by an austere support structure for up to 72 hours of independent operations.
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Post by quincannon on Sept 21, 2019 20:34:35 GMT
Ian I am in general agreement with the author of the linked article. What he is saying is a specific reminder that you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. You bring another far more capable gun. That however was not my point regarding the Stryker.
Going back to the thread here, you try to bring similar forces than those of the enemy. If the Indian is mounted on a horse, the school solution to the problem is to bring dragoons, that can fight mounted, consistent with the enemy's mounted ability, but also fight dismounted, which when examined encompasses most of the Army vs Indian fights. The horse for both sides is a means of battlefield mobility.
Let's go back to what Montrose said for a moment, that most wars are what we would call unconventional. That's true in that most of any army's history is taken up with the "petite guerre", the small war on the far frontiers where the enemy is fairly unsophisticated. For that type conflict the Stryker is the ideal platform, along with the helicopter, to achieve mobility superiority. The heavy armored brigade would not have these same advantages that the Stryker Brigade enjoys.
On the other hand putting a Stryker Brigade in Europe like the 2nd Cavalry Regiment is insane. It was the result of an agreement between the Army and Congress, saying that if you want another Stryker Brigade, you will give one to the National Guard (Senator Rick Santorum) and the other one will be stationed in Europe. The Stryker to Europe thing was an outgrowth of the extreme difficulty we had in moving heavy armored forces to Kosovo in the 1990's. That problem needed a solution but Stryker was not it.
So what is the bottom line. We need to be structured against three major national threats (the big Army mission) Russia, China (God forbid), and Korea.
Russia is not going away and the more aggressive they become the more we switch out Strykers and Light Infantry Brigades in the active force for Heavy Armored Brigades. Two such actions are currently ongoing, a brigade of the 1st Armored Division just turned in their Strykers to convert to Armor, and a light Infantry brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, here at Carson is preparing to do the same, starting this year.
China: Only a stark raving mad man would even contemplate a war on the vast Asian land mass. At the same time you are not going to see a Chinese armored division in San Diego any time soon.
Korea is a legacy. That little shit is not coming south. He would be whacked by his own generals if he did and he knows it. Accidents do happen though, but the South Korean Army is quite capable, and could probably handle the military side of things without our assistance. That is military reality, but political reality is that our enablers such as our Air Force and Air Defense assets make it easier for them, and that rotational armored brigade we keep there tells both sides that the US has the South's back.
That leaves the small threats, the Cheyenne and Sioux of the 21st Century to deal with, anywhere from Timbuktu to Zanzibar. That is the place for the Stryker, our other light Infantry forces, and the special operators.
It is all a matter then as to how you balance your forces by honoring the threat. Force structure is an ever changing issue, based on the political situation today, which may change before tomorrow's dawn. It is a intriguing subject, and an area of study all its own, which can redirect itself depending on the headlines in your morning paper.
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Post by yanmacca on Sept 22, 2019 18:49:12 GMT
I don’t want to distract too much from Macs question, but I think that any war with Russia or China has lessened more since the 1980s. Don’t rule them out though, but to me it looks as if the Russian and the Chinese, would rather somebody else do their dirty work, then get involved themselves.
That seems to me the way they work nowadays, with Russia and China attacking countries with cyber weapons rather than missiles. They would rather prop up scum bag nations like North Korea, Syria and Iran and let them cause world problems.
I don’t like the way the Iranians are acting; they have that part of the world under their control and can hit shipping and oil supplies without any care of being hit back. After that drone attack in Saudi, the Arabs and panicking, they told the USA not to hit back at Iran as this will place them in the firing line, so that is how much the region is scared of Tehran.
I don’t think that anyone wants to go to war with Iran, Moscow knows this and so does Tehran.
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Post by quincannon on Sept 22, 2019 22:07:32 GMT
Actually Ian the diversion to Stryker and associated material does not really stray from Mac's questions concerning the action(s) at the W.
What Colt and I both presented was the dragoon school solution, and as you know dragoons were mounted troops that could fight mounted, but preferred to fight dismounted or in a combination mounted/dismounted. Therefore the action at the W could only be performed by dragoons or more properly dragoon TTP which has always dominated American cavalry thought. Mac, when he asks WHAT, usually follows with WHY. In this instance the What was driven by the Why.
No other type of cavalry, those in the European mold of heavy or light, could have pulled the W off the way it was apparently done. The heavies and lights were both respectively wrong as a solution in that they could not fight dismounted. That then is the meat of the Stryker vs. Armor debate. The W is just and excellent example of the two concepts. As was pointed out in the link you posted, if the Strykers (read dragoons) fight in the way they are intended they can do just fine, while the Achilles Heel of the heavy force is that they never dismount out of choice. The only reason they have an Infantry component is to clear the brush away for the tanks, by getting in a digging the enemy out, but only when they must and have no other choice.
Back in the 1830's when we first fielded our mounted force on a permanent basis we purposely chose the dragoon, as the best suited type of organization for what we intended to do with cavalry. You won't find any lancers or hussars in our structure, except for a few idiots that tried both of those concepts in the ACW, and failed.
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Post by yanmacca on Sept 23, 2019 14:33:28 GMT
Chuck, the British had Dragoons well before the USA formed theirs, they probably copied ours. The exploits of the 17th Light Dragoons is well documented from its battles in the colonies and these and other British regiments, were trained in firing from the saddle and like all dragoons, could fight on foot.
The British army did however, decide to take away the carbine and replace it with a lance around 1820 and they became lancer regiments, 17th Light Dragoons became the 17th Lancers, however, by the time of the Zulu war [1879], these lancers received their brand new Martini Henry Carbines, which gave them multiply roles again.
These is many documents stating that French Dragoons often were used as Infantry when no horses were available,
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
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Post by azranger on Sept 23, 2019 14:39:26 GMT
Martin states he went within 600 yards of the ford which appears close to the maps. There is also an Indian drawing showing the gray horses moving across that western travel corridor.
Regards
Steve
Which drawing Steve?
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azranger
Brigadier General
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Post by azranger on Sept 23, 2019 14:51:22 GMT
Here is picture of my working map. It changes over time. While riding with my Crow friend we crossed MTC where every horse person that I have rode with egresses. My friend made a hard right turn and when we topped out we were on Luce.
The red is the running W that Chuck named. The blue line is what I have ridden many times and it continues to NC. The yellow is what I rode with my friend and it also joins the blue which you could continue to the Calhoun Area after crossing Deep Coulée.
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Post by yanmacca on Sept 23, 2019 14:56:28 GMT
Hi Steve, the drawing says that the grey horse company retreated up to LSH, in my mind a unit forced to retreat would be in some disarray, but according to the Indians, this company fought in skirmish on cemetery hill.
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
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Post by azranger on Sept 23, 2019 15:09:28 GMT
Curley states he watched the gray horses turn down MTC while others went straight across. Even those that don't believe everything Curley did or didn't say in later years it seem impossible to make that up and have others see the gray horse move toward the MTF. Martin states he rode to within 600 yards of MTF. The Indian drawing does not line up but it shows the gray horses moving toward MTF. That line fits what Colt was stating.
My question would be how would Curley know the gray horses moved down MTC if he didn't see it? How would Martin be sent back 600 yards from MTF if Custer was not there? So typical of everything we look at.
So another question why would an Indian drawing the Big Village show the camps from Ford B to Ford D during the battle? They could see the tipis and didn't have rely on circle counting.
Regards
Steve
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Post by quincannon on Sept 23, 2019 15:10:59 GMT
Yes Ian, I do know that the British had dragoons, and more than likely that is where we copied the idea from. The point though was that European cavalry including the British had several types of cavalry in their unit inventory, but when each was examined the dragoons were the type that best fit American requirements. We had a Regiment of Mounted Rifles too which differed from the dragoons only in that they carried a rifle instead of a carbine. All three fought mounted and dismounted in Mexico.
Steve, your working map, to my mind is spot on.
Ian, the drawing has Company E in retrograde up to Battle Ridge from Ford B. Retrograde does not necessarily mean retreat (although it can), and it does not always mean the retrograding force is in a state of disarray. The same drawing could easily depict Company E moving toward Ford B, not finding anything of interest, then continuing the advance northward.
Again words have meaning. Retrograde means moving away from the enemy. Retreat means being forced to move away from the enemy. Words and how we use them convey meaning.
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Post by yanmacca on Sept 23, 2019 15:19:51 GMT
I would guess that E Company made directly to cemetery ridge as LSH would be just a piece of ridge line at that time.
They must have been busy if they were singled out to ride down MTC, cut away from the ford and defend cemetery hill, which brings up the question, did the operate away from the main column?
I recall reading about the cartridge finds on the ridges on MTC [the W and others], and the author said that the finds came in two sizes, one sized fitted skirmish order and the other saddle fired shots, so we could have a single company tracing a route up hill and letting off rounds on horse back and then on the level ground, we could have a skirmish line. Now obviously we can't say that these finds were made by the same company of several.
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