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Slide 2a of 41
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Slide 2a of 41
"The ultimate objective of an army is to impose its collective will on the enemy. But its first mission is simply to exist. Its first problem is to feed and clothe and shelter itself, and to be able to move itself from one place to another. Most people think of an army as expending its energy in fighting the enemy. Actually, most of an army's energy goes into keeping itself alive and in being; and in getting itself to where a very small portion of its numbers can fight an equally small portion of the enemy's total army.
As soon as we won in Tunisia, we had no place for our army to fight the Reichswehr. But even when Rommel's armies were still terrible, a surprisingly small portion of the Allied "armed forces" in Africa was engaged in fighting it. And of those who are entitled to battle stars on their ribbons, only a small fraction were killing in the literal sense. And even the killers spent most of their time --I would guess an average of twenty-two hours out of twenty-four-- in house-keeping for themselves, and in moving from one place to another.
Yet the whole effect of the army is as integrated as the 'shaft and the head and the point of the tip of a spear.'
A human being is such a frail thing that he cannot live more than a few days without both food and sleep. Nature is still his real enemy even though he takes his eternal struggle with her for granted. So the army as a whole must survive against nature before it can harm a single enemy by surviving and moving itself from one place to another is ninety per cent of the army's business, and unless it does this well it is not an army.
The army solves its problems of surviving by two dull words: organization and standardization --and an enormous personal effort and submergence of the individual will to the collective welfare."
- Capt. Ralph Ingersoll, The Battle is the Pay-Off; 1943; pp. 84-85 Regarding operations of U.S. Army Rangers and the 1st Infantry Division near El Quettar, Tunisia in early 1943
Gallipoli = USMC FUBAR in the Straits of Hormuz?
Before we had arrogant marines being stupid we had arrogant British troops in WW1 trying to take-our coastal defenses so ships could pass. The USMC moron of today is little improved over the Tommy of 1915; both think blind obedience lemmings can overcome everything. Are we set to Deja Vu the gallipoli FUBAR all over again?
PART 1: its the terrain, stupid, 3 battleships sunk by seamines; straits blocked by guns troop amphib landings to clear guns so fleets can pass, turks hold high ground positions not viewable by line of sight terrain sketching from boats
PART 2
beaches covered in barbed wire with cores wire cutters couldn't snip, 3 foot mound saved hundreds of men, maps were wrong showing flat terrain, no humint recon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPV7Haa7rU
PART 3
steep depression after anzac beach traps them in, choked vegetation at bottom, wrong caliber bullets didnt fire, no protection from artillery fire from heights, sniper camouflage, periscope rifle
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvkEP5RozAE
PART 4
periscope rifle demonstration, MILES of tunnel warfare, limestone and sand means NO WATER, DRAGGED HUGE TANK TO HOLD WATER, no personal hygiene, decaying bodies, pole trench latrines, dysentery = flies = sickness = death, naval gun prep fire over the top assault failed
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWbx4X68epw
PART 5
Highest ground Atchi Baba never reached, guns protecting sea minefields at the straits; terrain won the battle for the Turks and lost it for the British, Churchill resigned in failure, no amount of FIDO "leadership" could have rescued a failure in GIDO leadership planning setting up the situation in first place
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6J60dNJ1Lk
Japanese in WW2 = U.S. in Iraq today?
U.S. Naval Aviation News, July 1, 1945 reports:
www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1945/1jul45.pdf
Another example of exploiting the earth battle against the enemy was the U.S. bypassing of Japanese islands in WW2 which made them to starve and weakened the Japanese home islands.
The inflexible, narcissistic Japanese refused to secure their supply lines to their over-extended island garrisons by placing seaplane fighters on their cargo ships and provide enough escort carriers/convoys with ASW means to defeat our air, surface and submarine attacks against them like the British did to defeat the German interdiction of their supplies to their island nation. In WW2, with mass mobilization, non-lifer adults were in the U.S. military who wanted to just get the job done and go home (Abel mentality). They saw through the Japanese Cain-like mentality and fought to keep it out of our own ranks, too.
The WW2 U.S. military cleverly let the Japanese stay on the bypassed islands to bleed them and use them as firepower magnets; we knew they were having a very hard time staying alive fighting the battle against the earth (TBATE) and would have no excess energy/means to threaten us with offensive action. So we would gleefully wait for their cargo ships and planes to show up so we could sink them and shoot them down, running up our kill scores and giving our mass-produced industrialized machine military targets to kill. The egomaniac who doesn't understand the operational art fails to realize war is not a test or validation exercise for penis size; its about whose WILL prevails; whose political or religious thinking dominates. The concept of REFUSING BATTLE that is based on HUMILITY and an understanding that war involves materiel loss (you are fighting TBATE, remember?) even when you win as taught us by Sun Tzu thousands of years ago is foreign to the Japanese who chose the BS Samarai narcissism over ninja humility and cleverness in WW2. Only fools accept battle on the enemy's terms, especially for no important moral goals or reasons (oil and business profits are not justification for shedding American lives) with the end result of just senseless attrition. America's military has its own BS samarai bravado of inflexibility that has resulted in us maintaining isolated land "islands" in Iraq (Forward Operating Bases) that we like the Japanese in WW2 refuse to secure their (road) supply lines. The Iraqi rebels gleefully blow up our predictable truck convoys just like our subs torpedoes the Jap cargo ships in WW2 since the military narcissist thinks supply line defense is beneath the "warfighter" to do.
Like the smart, practical-minded U.S. military in WW2 that allowed the stupid Japanese to stay in bypassed islands to bleed them, Iran wants today's stupid U.S. "volunteer" narcissist career military to stay in Iraq and bleed while providing live-fire and high explosives demolitions training for them. Its a win-win situation for the Shias in Iraq and Iran. How does it feel to be the Japanese, G.I. Joe?
Its high time we put professional adults once again in charge of our military and to nurture men of all ranks who think soundly about life and war. Sun Tzu warns us:
"What matters in war is VICTORY, not prolonged operations, however brilliantly executed"
American isolated, unsecure supply line FOB bleeding in Iraq is victory for the Shia factionocracy and their partners in Iran. What we should do is re-deploy our troops out of isolated "islands" and into rural bases with picketed and secure road/trail/air supply lines for quick reaction forces in armored tracks that can do unpredictable, off-road offensive actions to create security as required to support the weak Iraqi government not be over-extended bloody punching bags for religious and nationalists with no civilian life occupations.
