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Post by lew on Aug 25, 2012 16:59:53 GMT -6
Chuck, No. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of the exercise, but the reason I want E Company at the Ford is to have a prepared defensive position already established. I'm going to hit the camp with the remaining 7 companies. However I realize I don't have the strength to defeat the warriors yet. It's going to be a quick strike with handguns. I may not cause any casualties, but will stir up the nest. I'm hoping they will follow my retreat back to Ford A-where Benteen and the Pack train will be waiting.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 17:13:13 GMT -6
Larry: There is absolutely nothing wrong with controlling the key terrain. That is the essence of tactics. Following your plan you are bringing the hostiles further toward you.
1) Are you quite sure at this juncture that there is decent ground to defend at Ford A.
2) While you have provided time for one company to dig in for defense, you have allotted scant time for the hit and runners to get into position if they are closely followed, and no time for them to lay out a defense joining with Company E.
3) Now maybe the hit and runners will not be closely followed, but do you wish to take that risk? If they are you are in big trouble if there are a good number of them.
4) Hitting and running surrenders the initative to the hostiles. They can come after you, or sit tight and set up a screen, behind which everybody gets out of Dodge and there is not a damned thing you can do about it.
5) Do you really want to send seven companies, mounted, into the vill, with six rounds of revolver ammunition, a wish and a promise? If you do, and get bogged down which is highly likely, and forced to dismount, it is game , set, match, hostiles. Do you think E could hold that ford should such a thing occur? Defeat in detail, thy name is LEW
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Post by montrose on Aug 25, 2012 17:22:30 GMT -6
Great discussion so far.
Let's regard Ford A as our next decision point. As you get there, you will learn more about the vailisity of your assumpstions and plans.
So if Lew plants one company at Ford A, and attacks downstream he has an opportunity at Ford A to gain new information and adjust. If the village is 1 mile or so from Ford A, the regt (-) isstill within supporting distance of the Ford A company. If village farther away, you can make an adjustment.
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Post by montrose on Aug 25, 2012 17:38:32 GMT -6
So here is what I would do. Order the Reno Bn to advane toand across Ford Ato deleop the situation, movement to contact. Main body to go to Ford A. Send SGM Sharrow and a messenger back to find Benteen and McDougall.
Sharrow is oi find Benteen and lead him to Ford A. Benteen will go to Ford A where he will become the regimental reserve, and await further orders.
(Since he is heading into battle, I expect Benteen to balance speed with the ability to fight when he gets there. I don't need to tell an experienced officer like Benteen this. Only a complete fool would gallop an exhausted unit just to reach thebattlefield, and be totally blown. I feelembarrassed writing the totally obvious, but you al lknow why I have to.)
The second messenger will continue on to McDougall. The pack train will continue to Ford A, where they will form a hasty defense to await further orders. B Company will consolidate as a body in front of the train,screening their approach. Upon reaching Ford A, B Company joins Benteen as part of the reserve.
Now, I would send a patrol up the bluffs to see into the LBH valley. I would lead this myself. Crossing at Ford A puts you on flat ground in trees and shrubs. There is no guarentee anyone crossing there can see any distance ahead.I would havescouts on any elevation that lets them see down the valley.
If I didn't go myself, I would want a senior officer to go. CPT Keough is the next senior officer with me, so it would be him.
If the Indians are fleeing, I face little risk, and can determine pursuit plans. If there is a fight, you really have an urgent need to determine enemy disposition and strength. You are already going in halfassed, with only 3 of 5 Bns.
ANy course of action here is balancing aggression with the need to mass combat power.
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Post by benteen on Aug 25, 2012 17:39:59 GMT -6
Gentlemen,
I dont want to try your patience with me on this, but I have another question. Colonel Montrose set up a scenerio. I asked if I could start from scratch. No you have to start from where the scenerio starts. Thats fine and I said what I would do.Now from here, do I have to have a plan to attack the village, or can I do something else. What I mean is the blue commander is under no orders, or obligation, or mission task to attack this village. I wouldnt, I would do something else. Is that permisable under the rules or is the purpose of the excercise to see what you would do to attack it.
Colonel Q....I will amend my statement of not dividing my command unless I reasonable knew what I was up against, to read I wouldnt divide my command unless I knew what I was up against. Omit the reasonably Know.
Be Well Dan
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 25, 2012 17:47:32 GMT -6
Wait. I'm utterly confused on this. I realize that it's me.
Isn't the first thing that needs to be done is to state specifically what the command of blue is out to accomplish? Is it to destroy the village, corral the civvies, just inflict a battle defeat, what? Is it to drive them north? What is the specific thing to be accomplished?
Second, who exactly is them in the mind of the blue command at every point. A notional village? A notional assortment of villages? A war party of how many? An inert gathering or a one dispersing? What? Well, ya don't know, so.......
Third, nothing can be postulated for the east bank until it is seen, absorbed, and figured in. Nothing south of 3411 allows that, only Weir Pt. does. For all he knows, there is a large camp on the east bank out of sight down river.
Fourth, scrap that and explain to.......look at me.....explain to me what .....me, look at me....what a West Point officer or a Wichita NCO or a third grader picking his nose would think of the land looking north from Sharpshooter or Weir Pt., a projected advance track. (Hey! There's nothing out the window, nothing on your shoe, look at me......... ) What does that sight scream to an experienced officer? I want to see that in Arabic and/or hear it before the placement of forces.
Wha?
Fifth, how the hell is Benteen "WEST" of anything? Show me on a map where Benteen was EVER west of Custer and when. Has someone sent him west across the river? Missed that, if so.
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Post by montrose on Aug 25, 2012 18:03:19 GMT -6
Dan and DC,
Congratulations. I have been waiting for that question. What is the mission? Do you have to kill or capture every warrior, civilian, tepee and horse to win? What if you found an isolated village of 50 lodges at Ford A? Is destroying that sufficient?
Without knowing enemy location, strength,and actions: you don't know. As a commander you will have to determine victory conditions, and how you will employ forces to meet those conditions.
Dan, at the decision point that starts this scenario, you are not constrained. Go back to the 1874 rifle pits on the divide, if you think that justified. But you haven't been following the Indian trail to deliver Christmas cards.
DC,
You can't see 3411 from GACs location. Though I believe it ascertainable think you can get a good idea of what is in the valley from up the ridge somewhere.
My first time in this area, I was driving, with my maps in a pile beside me. I thought I was much farther from the battlefield than I was. I determined to go up that ridge for a map check, without knowing I was already there. For the record, I was using a military aviation map, which is not exactly 1:50 scale. And my knowledge of the battle 20 plus years ago was on the Little Big Man level, or the Budweiser picture.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 18:04:50 GMT -6
OK: Change west to left. My mistake. My west is actually south. . My north is actually north west. I am so confused. Really DC what I meant is skewing the map and viewing the field on an up and down axis up being north and down being south. Sorry for the confusion.
The objective is what you are getting at as the first order of business. The exercise assumes that setting objectives has been done before event one takes place 1.5 miles away from Ford A. At least that is what I have assumed. Will stated in the begining that was the point where the attack decision was made. The objective of any attack is to kill, wound, capture, incapacitate, destroy and/or disperse the hostile force. That is the tactical objective and as such the only thing relevant in this exercise. The things you list above are operational objectives and outside the scope of the exercise.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 18:21:52 GMT -6
Will: Why a patrol up the bluffs? Why go yourself? Seeing is important, but I think you have to trust your scouts. There will come a point where the bluffs are irrelevant. If you have made the decision to attack, and you have issued your orders or my orders or anyones order you are in for a penny, in for a pound as far as village size goes, and everyones basic assumption, including Custer's was the village being on the left side of the river and below the bluff. Once the decision to attack is made, seeing the actual extent of the village won't do a hell of a lot of good. You will find out soon enough how big it is.
You can also make some basic assumptions as to size from the size of the trail that has led you to this point. While that will not give you specific size by any means, at least you will know if you hit a camp of say two hundred warriors, it is but a preview of coming attractions.
You said this was mobile warfare. Speed, with due deliberation is of the essence. That is exactly why knowing that my information is incomplete I am prepared to fight for information, and that is just another reason I want to keep that back door at Ford A open, in case I find myself biting off more than I can chew.
Fighting outnumbered requires speed and flexibility. If you lose either you are toast.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 19:16:51 GMT -6
DC: The hamburgers were ready and I cut my last to you short,
You have every right to ask what the operational objective was. Return to reservation, capture, kill, drive north, wipe them from the face of the earth at the extreme. I don't believe there is anyone here on this board who thinks that a complete victory to accomplish any operational objective could be achieved on one day in one battle.
You have said here many times, for the indians the result of victory would be the same as the results of defeat. No matter which way it came out, all, or the survivors, were going to scatter to the four winds anyway. That to me is a given. Any victory will be incomplete, any defeat just delays the inevitable. In the end its still going to be a matter of running them down as individual bands. The only question then is how much, how many, and how long.
That is why I did not ask the question. Had someone said the objective is to surround and capture them. I would have answered with what. If someone had said the objective was to kill them all. I would have said after you. If someone had said round them up and send them back to the reservation. I would have said your out of your mind. Therefore once I was turned loose, I would have done the only thing I know how to do, destroy, and keep on destroying them until they cried uncle or killed me.
The only people who pay any mind to the 7th United States Cavalry being able to accomplish the campaign's operational objectives as a result of one decisive battle are over in Neverland. You know their names. You know how they think You also know that they are divorced from reality, and about as clear headed as a mud puddle.
So forgive my directional error if you please. It was totally my fault for seeing what I considered the top of the field as north. I do know better.
And please forgive me breaking the First Commandment - Objective - I assumed and figured everyone else did too.
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Post by Gatewood on Aug 25, 2012 19:24:19 GMT -6
In regard to the question as to "what was the mission", that is one of the great enigmas to me. There are any number of people that will argue in favor of any of those that were postulated above, but the truth is that we really don't know. What I mean by this is that, although the ultimate goal was to force the Indians back to the agencies, we are left to theorize as to how that could best be accomplished. Unless communicated verbally, Terry's instructions to Custer made no mention as to what he was specifically supposed to do once he found them. On top of that, the real wild card to me is what was going on in Custer's mind in terms of his career, the recent trouble that he had been in with his superiors, etc. Regardless of what the mission officially was, did he feel that he had to do something really spectacular and achieve an overwhelming victory, in order to redeem himself, and therefore bite off more than he could chew? We can never know.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 25, 2012 19:28:41 GMT -6
The 'west' thing is NOT a big deal beyond the fact that there are those trying to imply there was a secret plan that Benteen was going to be the west wing, Reno the center, and Custer the heavy right wing (apparently like that Theban who broke the Spartans somewhere or other, except there was no compensatory Indian formation...) and if only Benteen hadn't been a traitor and Reno drunk, it would be studied to this day. But they won't admit it. It just reminds of that and sets me off. Enjoy dinner.
Great bike race in Boulder today. Local riders did well.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 19:37:31 GMT -6
Gatewood: I truely believe the operational objective was clearly understood by everyone on that campaign down to and including the lowest ranking private in the rear rank. Mission though is more of a tactical term than operational, therefore the mission, or missions are subsets of the objective leading to that end.
You raise a very good question. If Custer thought it was all on him, or if because of his other troubles he wanted it to be all on him, you have the makings of a complete disaster. Truth is we will never know. He could have looked at this thing as sober as a judge, and correctly estimated the situation, knowing full well he was just a player, although a prime player, on the stage. Anything, eliminating the discovery of a long lost document written from Ford A stating how he thought about it, therefore I think we must just assume that Occam's Razor is in play. He tried his best and screwed up.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 25, 2012 19:39:18 GMT -6
DC: You know damned well I am not into secret plans except the one I have to date Eva Longoria, or however she spells her name.
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Post by lew on Aug 25, 2012 20:37:23 GMT -6
Chuck, Here is my line of thinking. I realize that I'm out matched if I fight the hostiles mounted, as their horses are rested, and faster. I'm not too concerned if the village breaks up and flees,providing I can bring the warriors to battle. If I inflict enough casualties,rounding up the fugitives should be easy. When I make the charge at the camp-we need not enter. I'm only making a demonstration. I want to get their attention. Thus we should not be closely persued back to the Ford A area. After our return,and upon the arrival of Benteen, we make further plans. We should be able to determine their strength, their resolve and tactics. When Terry and Gibbon arrive, they can care for my wounded,while I'm free to persue.
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