The Biggest Challenge of the 21st century : The battle between POS & ????

[Mad Russian]

[quote=Mad Russian]
Ummm...no.

Unless you just showed up in an area 5 minutes ago you have a real good idea what your enemy has. You have a real good idea what's important to him. You know where most of his troops are. You have a good idea of how competent the troops and the commander are.

QB's are nothing like a real life situation.

Good Hunting.

MR

Actually I vehemently disagree with this. Maybe under ideal circumstances, in situations where troops had been in place for some time, and they had won the battle of the patrols or had enemy positions under reasonable observation.

My point exactly. If you have been in this position for more than 1 single day you start patrolling. You start probing. You start having the little firefights or attacks and counterattacks. You do not dig a hole and go to sleep and let the world pass you by.

But my reading of WWII is full of examples of mounting full scale attacks with no real idea, in the tactical sense, of what lay ahead of them.

What situations are they discussing when this happens?

A situation when, for example, you crack the front line and keep advancing....practically anything you run into from then on will be completely unknown to you. Or where you've advanced to the enemy the day before, halting when the lead scouts get scythed down by an MG, and then mounting a hasty attack or a formal attack the next day. Fast moving columns....no way they know accurately what's in front of them other than maybe "enemy troops there".

Ah, I see. Fluid battles of motion. Not the instances I quoted of your being in the vacinity long enough to start gaining intelligence about your enemy. AND my lead scouts being scythed down by an MG tells me where that MG is. Not complete ignorance and living in the dark ages now am I? I now have useful information about enemy OOB strengths. I am not ignorant of his capabilities...

I can't imagine battalion commanders routinely having the info you describe unless they'd been in static positions for quite some time.

Bn commanders are in the information business. Information is crucial. They will do anything in their power to get it.

I'm not saying that you will ever know the enemy's positions, disposition and strength 100%. What I'm saying is that everyday you learn more. Do you think that WWII armies were in constant motion? If that were the case how were the Allies stopped at Normandy for MONTHS? How was the Siegfried Line not broken in a few hours? How as the Hurtgen Forest such a dismal place? You attack over the same ground 4 or 5 or 6 times and you begin to learn some things.

I think if you read the soldiers personal stories you will see that they tell about the MG in the church. Or snipers that harass them. They know quite a bit about their enemy.

Good Hunting.

MR