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 Re: Technology vs Tactics
 
Finucane
1933 posts
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Joined
1/25/2006

Re: Technology vs Tactics
Posted: 30 May 06 4:32 AM
You have to make the distinction between tactics, which wins battles, and strategy, that wins wars.  Well, in VN we had the technology.  Do you realize that we dropped more bombs on VN than on Germany and Japan in WWII?  That's in the official USAF history.  And guess who was left standing on the battlefield at the end of the day?  That's because the enemy thought and planned strategically and we thought only in terms of tactics and technology.  In war you cannot let the enemy have the initiative.  We did that in VN with the doctrine of "gradual response."   You have to attack your foe with every weapon available, military, political, economic, psychological.  Instead of those four legs, we only had one, the military one, and while the enemy's military leg was weaker than ours, his others were stronger.  So we lost the war without ever losing a single battle.  Well, that's not to say we didn't have political, economic, and psychological initiatives, but they were employed haphazardly and ineffectively.  In war you must deploy all your weapons, full bore, and never let up until the enemy surrenders.

Dan
Tolt
31 posts
Joined
2/15/2006

Re: Technology vs Tactics
Posted: 31 May 06 10:33 AM
It should be interesting watching this line of thought get played out in the books.  How strategically is Billie planning?  Does he have the support of the other three "legs" in attacking the coalition?
DavidS
988 posts
www.novelier.com
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1/23/2006

Re: Technology vs Tactics
Posted: 31 May 06 7:55 PM Modified By DavidS  on 5/31/2006 7:58:40 PM)
Technology drives tactics--but only so far. In an asymetric war, the more advanced force has to adjust its tactics to those of the less advanced force--F117s and FA18s won't defeat the Iraqi insurgents any more than F4s and F105s beat the VC/NVA in Vietnam. Having said that, I must add that despite not fully adjusting our tactics to meet the enemy we faced in the RVN, we still beat them every time they stood and fought; not only did we have better tech, we had more ammunition and better medical care. Dan's right about strategy in Vietnam: the North Vietnamese Communists were prepared to spend a generation or longer, and absorb as many casualties and other damage as necessary to win the war. We weren't, we wanted the war done and over with fast.

I believed we were fighting the war the wrong way before I went there, believed that all the time I was there, and have learned nothing since to change my mind. The damage that war did to our national image, both at home and internationally, still hasn't been fully repaired. We have been royally screwing up in Iraq from day one, and I shudder to think of what will happen if we don't somehow manage to pull things off this time.

Tolt, having met Billie in Flashfire, just how strategically do you think he's capable of planning? As for a rule of thumb, let's go back to Sun Tzu: If you know yourself, you will win half of the time. If you know your enemy, you will win half of the time. If you know neither, you will lose all of the time. If you know both yourself and the enemy, you will win all of the time. In other words, when there is a difference in technology, adjust your tactical use of technology to meet your enemy's weaknesses. If your technology is helpless against your enemy's tactics, use different tactics that work. By and large, we didn't understand our enemy in Vietnam, and don't in Iraq either. Nor did/do we seem to know our allies/clients.

Don't get me started.
SouthWind
66 posts
www.19ag.com
Joined
4/22/2006

Re: Technology vs Tactics
Posted: 01 Jun 06 6:10 PM Modified By SouthWind  on 6/1/2006 6:35:43 PM)

I know you said not to get you started. But I can't let it rest, it runs through my head everyday. Politics are the cause of war and the cause of a failure in war. I wish politics would stay out of it. I also wish the public would stand behind the leaders they've elected and support the decisions. I believe it's too late to pull back now. We need to evolve our strategies and tactics in Iraq. We need politics out of it, we as Americans need to understand, that while some of us may have not voted for our imfamous President, the majority rules. It is as the same in nature, the stronger all ways wins out in the end. I believe as a nation we need to just support the decision. The public is too against war in these times, I think they fail to realize it will always be around. The one thing I stand most behind is that we need to support our troops over there. It does not help for them to come back with mixed reactions from the public. And I honestly hope no one would bash a soilder. Sorry, I had to get that out, I'm not trying to start an argument or anything. (I just thought to add, I didn't mean to imply that you were doing any of those things David, don't get the wrong impression, the war in Iraq just gets my unmentionables all twisted)

I'm not a military man, but I think without the tactics and/or strategy, the technology is useless.


barcelonablom
140 posts
www.4mardiv.com/index.html
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Joined
4/19/2006

Re: Technology vs Tactics
Posted: 01 Jun 06 10:43 PM
 SouthWind wrote

I'm not a military man, but I think without the tactics and/or strategy, the technology is useless.

 

If you wanna get Sci-Fi with the discussion... look at Earth's first engagement in  Starship Troopers. The Mobile Inf. had the tech... but no strategy and got the snot beat out of them... Then I notice they take a Nimitz/McArthur effect and start "Island-Hopping" their way to victory.

BTW re-reading Marine! by Burke Davis... I forgot how much of a tough-guy General Puller was...

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