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Post by crzhrs on Mar 25, 2014 11:15:42 GMT -6
Re: Lack of reconnaissance . . . probably true but I still say Custer and the military's fear of Indians running and getting away resulting in Custer looking like a fool played a big part of decision making once Custer felt his command had been spotted. In his mind he didn't have time for a full-scale reconnaissance (remember he sent Benteen on his scout BEFORE Indians were seen running, so he did have a larger reconnaissance in mind) but that changed once Girard made his famous and now-fatal comment about Indians running like the devil which got the snowball rolling until it melted (I love play-on-words!) In the end it was fear of Indians running that may have played a larger part in Custer's defeat forcing him to move along in a probe-type advance instead of a full-blown charge into the village to follow up Reno's attack.
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Post by fred on Mar 25, 2014 11:20:09 GMT -6
... you have stated an untruth and because you're too olde and incontinent you're somehow relieved from either stepping up to support it or apologizing? I apologize. Will you recognize it? I do... mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Do I get forgiveness? I am moving on. Now, does all this jibe with your feelings? Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fred on Mar 25, 2014 11:27:16 GMT -6
I believe Custer was probing for info and was not under any immediate attack from Indians. Why else would he leave Keough by himself...? I agree with this 100%... ... and this as well. Personally, I don't think the village was ever quiet and Custer never got to the end of it until he mounted Calhoun Hill. I believe the Cheyenne circle ended about 1/4 mile below Ford B. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 25, 2014 11:27:58 GMT -6
What were Benteen's orders? Was it a scout? Was he sent there to find and look at or sent there to find, engage and kill? If it was the former is was a scout. If the latter an attack. Words are important and the definition of those words more so. I suggest to you is was not a scout, but rather a continuation of the attack started earlier that morning. There was nothing wrong with it being an attack, and everything wrong with it being a scout.
Custer's reasons for haste have no interest for me. He was wrong to act in haste. He made a series of poor decisions. He altered his scheme of maneuver without communicating the fact. He was a little boy playing at backyard war games instead of being a competent commander, whose job it was to engage and destroy his enemy in so far as possible. In short he was a screw up and the very thing you point at Horse, is prima facie evidence of him being a screw up vice a competent commander who by necessity never loses composure or control.
He and he alone by action or inaction allowed his adversary to defeat him. Commanders don't react to the bullshit exclamations from scouts. Good ones don't anyway, proving once again he was more fit for short pants on a playground than leading soldiers, his soldiers, whom he had sole responsibility for in battle.
I am a very unforgiving man when the consequences of incompetence is needless death.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 25, 2014 11:36:48 GMT -6
Insufficient mumble, but to rise above, you are forgiven this heinous crime.
Hah! A GIBE! No, wait........wait.......
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 25, 2014 11:42:10 GMT -6
Fred, I agree, even though the majority of Warriors had gone to Reno, that village could have still contained enough Indians to outnumber Custer, if the village was as large as accounts say than these men could have been swallowed up within its size.
Chuck, I have always said that you don’t take around 120 men on a scout, yes you could if you had a Brigade under your command, but not a weakened Regiment, it doesn’t make any sense to me, unless it was a combat group, Custer may have took around 80 men with him up north, but this was a different kettle of fish, he was in a combat zone, Benteen was not.
Ian.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 25, 2014 11:55:00 GMT -6
Words are important. But I'd not known there was much debate over Benteen's putter. If to be titled, isn't it a recon in (relative) force? He was to see if any enemy in number existed and had enough force to extract himself or proceed to attack.
Still strikes me as logical that the literal absence of an attack by a unit is not proof of it being a notional attack or of moving on the offensive whatever, but of unwilling movement, which strikes me as the logical conclusion about Custer's ending position.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 25, 2014 12:07:43 GMT -6
Again Ian, words have meaning and the proper choice of words with their associated definitions are important to the proper understanding of events.
Reconnaissance is conducted in a number of ways.
It may simply be "scouting" out a piece of terrain for either information about that terrain, enemy activity on or about it or both. That is normally conducted by a patrol whose purpose is to find and report, and have no intent to engage. In fact in engaging they have to some extent failed in their mission.
Then there is an armed reconnaissance, usually associated with reconnaissance of a particular area. The purpose is to both find, and once found attack and destroy. I would suspect most of Andy's activities with A-10s were spent in armed reconnaissance missions. Benteen's movement was more like this than anything else, but make no mistake armed reconnaissance is still an offensive mission and as such an attack. Armed reconnaissance is utilized when the situation in a given area is uncertain.
Reconnaissance in Force may be conducted when the situation is uncertain as well, but it usually has some other objectives in mind other than reconnaissance. Many times that other objective is as a means of furthering a deception, or distracting attention away from something else.
Custer's reconnaissance efforts at both Fords B and D were point reconnaissance, where you wish to have a close look at something in hostile territory as a prelude to something else, normally offensive in nature. It requires that part of the total force look, part render close protection, and part render protection but further back, deeper, in case things go to hell in a hand basket and a secure point to rally on is required.
This is not directed at you, because as you know you and I have discussed these finer points until our fingers wore off. It is meant only as general information with the idea of using proper terms to describe what we mean for all.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 25, 2014 12:26:44 GMT -6
From RCOI regarding Benteen's "scout"
Benteen: . . . to pitch into anything I came across. Edgerly: . . . ordered . . . to pitch into anything he came across. Wallace: . . . I don't know what orders were given . . . Benteen moved to the left. Reno: . . . (I) asked him (Benteen) where he was going and what he was going to do. His reply . . . he was to drive everything before him.
Wallace & Reno apparently didn't hear any direct orders. The two sources of what Benteen's orders were Benteen & Edgerly. Funny they both basically said the same thing. I wonder if Benteen was the only one who was given the orders and repeated it to Edgerly while the other two probably heard later.
One would think that someone other than Benteen and the above witnesses must have heard what orders were given to Benteen but apparently no one stepped up to admit it.
So from these accounts it was more of an attack than a scout. So why did the word scout come from?
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Post by quincannon on Mar 25, 2014 12:35:12 GMT -6
Where did it come from. Who the hell knows. Maybe it was more of that Victorian Era nonsense we have to deal with, or better said, cut through, in our discernment efforts. A scout may very well have been the Victorian Era term. If that is so I see why that word scout has been further divided. Maybe all reconnaissance in those days were termed "a scout", but I think you can see from that rendered above the term must be more clearly defined to determine exactly what the purpose was. I think of all the modern terms "armed reconnaissance" is the most recent addition in that regard.
Looking at those orders you presented to us, there can be no doubt, at least not in my mind, that the intent in modern terms was armed reconnaissance (a form of attack), designed to both seek out and destroy.
Don't know if you read the book, or saw the movie, but the action at LZ XRAY in We Were Soldiers was an armed reconnaissance. Find, and when found kill.
What you do not see in the movie or really pick up in the book, is that C Troop 1-9 Cavalry had detected activity in the area, and in fact captured a regimental aid station. Other factors prevented them from expanding their reconnaissance efforts, so 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division was tasked with conducting an armed reconnaissance of the entire Chu Pong Massif. 1-7 Cavalry was the unit assigned the mission. Turned out there was the best part of an NVA division in the area.. If interested further I highly recommend "Pleiku" by J.D. Coleman.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 25, 2014 12:47:23 GMT -6
A little more digging into Benteen's "orders"
From Centennial Campaign (Gray): Lt. Gibson, (Benteen's subaltern wrote a letter to his wife) Benteen's battalion was sent to the left to see if the Indians were trying to escape . . . after which we were to hurry and rejoin the command as quickly as possible.
Benteen's official report of July 4: "to send well-mounted officers and 6 men to our left & right with instructions to report to me if anything of Indians could be seen . . . if there was nothing to be seen of Indians, valleys, etc . . . to return with my battalion to rejoin the command." (Sounds like just a scout to me if Benteen's orders were to report to me (Custer) if anything could be seen)
From both accounts it appears Benteen was to see what was there and to return ASAP.
Benteen only years later said: "He was to pitch into anything I came across."
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Post by quincannon on Mar 25, 2014 12:53:12 GMT -6
You don't send that amount of men out there if information is all you desire. Moving into an area on an armed reconnaissance mission is not an unlimited adventure. Were it he would still be out there finding absolutely nothing. It has points of limitation. It is further defined as being limited to a specific area of interest. If Benteen did not find anything in Custer's area of interest it is more than logical that these would be the exact orders given. If you don't find anything after doing such and such and going so far, return and you will be employed elsewhere. He did not need 120 sets of eyes for finding, and he was not given that amount of men to play patty cake. Benteen did nothing more than further define the mission he was given in later years
This is yet another reason why we must clearly define terms, followed by opening our minds and using our brains for what they were meant for - to discern - rather then take what some doofus LT wrote to his wife as the complete and total gospel. The place for that nonsense is elsewhere not here.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 25, 2014 13:04:46 GMT -6
Not the total gospel but all bits of info could lead to finding out just what Benteen was ordered to do. In addition if this was a combat mission why no medical personal?
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Post by quincannon on Mar 25, 2014 13:12:15 GMT -6
And where was he to get those medical personnel? To my knowledge all of them had been previously assigned to other elements. Lord was with Custer. DeWolfe with Reno. I can't remember where Porter was, maybe with the trains.
Who were the orders given to - Benteen. Was he in the best position to know what they were both specifically and intent, or was that knowledge better known by one of Benteen's subordinates. Does this one snipit of information jibe or jive or shim sham shuffle with all the other information out there about this event, particularly what the commander said about it. It is insightful only as far as a verification of the limitations that were placed on the mission, and not the overall intent or conduct of the mission itself.
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Post by tubman13 on Mar 25, 2014 13:12:42 GMT -6
That scout or any scout, or any 2 scouts, even to overlook the village using the ridges as a screen, could have been accomplished, with one company or 1/2 that accompanied , by 5 top NA scouts. Regiment should have been within supporting distance of those scouts.
Regards, Tom
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