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Jun 10, 2011 12:09:47 GMT -6
Post by montrose on Jun 10, 2011 12:09:47 GMT -6
1. Purpose. Discuss the use of lenses as an analytical tool for LBH.
2. Background. The term lens refers to the level of detail used in analysis. I will use leader, regiment, and army to illustrate the use.
3. Leader. Custer and his officers provide the leadership for the regiment. What has been critical to most theories on LBH involve Custer and his Battalion commanders. The 1876 Army had no institutional training except a brief orientation for 2nd Lieutenants. This officers were Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, with widely different skills, sets, and knowledge. The Army was riddled with discipline and personality conflicts.
a. Focusing on Custer, Benteen, and Reno: does it make a difference if we changed leaders around the various detachments? Meaning can individual skill and ability overcome the scattering of the regiment in widely separated locations, outside of mutual support?
b. My own hypothesis is that individual leaders do not matter. Changing leaders does not change terrain and distance.
c. A traditional argument is that Custer made no errors at LBH. The battle was lost due to the incompetence and/or cowardice of Reno and Benteen. Arguments in support of this argument are value laden. They depend far more on emotion than fact.
d. The critical element on evaluation Reno is at what point he moved the Regt (-) forward to find Custer. He did this after the trains arrived at his location, allowing him to mass force and move his wounded. The movement happened when it should have, when the regiment consolidated. I see the onus on folks arguing Reno's personality as to show he did not move after the linkup.
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Jun 10, 2011 12:59:57 GMT -6
Post by montrose on Jun 10, 2011 12:59:57 GMT -6
4. Regiment. Would it make a difference at LBH if a different regiment were there. To what degree were problems of the 7th a contributing factor?
a. Common issues. There were 10 cavalry regiments in the Army. 8 were white, and 2 were black. The Army had no basic training. You were expected to train with your unit. The Army also had no civilian support infrastructure. This means units spent a lot of their time and effort just supporting themselves and their posts. The recruiting pool was very weak. The Army was riddled with discipline issues, with a desertion rate of 25-30%. (Note the black regiments had a much better retention rate).
b. Evaluating Regiments. It is difficult to compare the white and black regiments. So let's look at the 8 white Cavalry regiments, which were numbered 1-8 (9 and 10 being the black regiments). Any impartial view would put the 7th in the second tier, say 3rd or 4th. The 4th Cav had a sustained performance in this period that is remarkable. On the flip side, the 3rd Cav had a disastrous performance in the field in Feb/Mar 76.
However, the experience of the regiments is very hard to compare. The nature of terrain and enemy has enormous differences. So to a certain degree, the abilities of the regiments is a function of location and circumstances. Some regiments were in the field every year under central leadership. Others had large gaps between campaigns, and were generally scattered out by companies.
c. Factors peculiar to the 7th.
(1) Leadership continuity. Custer was absent from the regiment for 9 months prior to the campaign. He was facing bankruptcy, and headed to NYC in an effort to save himself. He got involved in a congressional investigation when he told his political allies unsubstantiated rumors of corruption in the Grant family. (Belknap went down for bribery thru his frst and second wives that had absolutely no connection to Custer). Custer's eye was off the ball.
Reno had been absent for a year taking care of his son after his wife died. Custer chose to leave before Reno returned, so there was no handover between them. As Custer got wrapped up in his accusations against the administration, Reno actively lobbied to command the regiment in the campaign. (Stan McChrystal got relieved for behavior far, far less then Custer).
So leadership was unstable during campaign preparations. The most glaring error in the prep face was a failure to request enough horses. This cost the regiment somewhere between 50-100 combatants at LBH.
(2) Unit instability. The regiment was in 3 different locations. 3 companies were on reconstruction duty and arrived late in the planning/preparation phase. The scattering of the regiment in time and place means that they will be less effective than a unit located at the same place, able to train and operate together prior to a campaign.
(3) Experience. The 7th had limited Indian experience. They had a disastrous performance in 1867, followed by the Washita campaign. They had a creditable 1873 campaign. Overall, they had less experience than most of their peer regiments. There were many gaps of inactivity for the 7th.
(4) Fractured leadership. The 7th had a real problem with favoritism. Custer played favorites, and nepotism was a strong trait. He favored friends and family within the regiment to a great degree. He hired family members to positions they were not qualified for, including his father, brother, and nephew. The regiment was well known for its pro and anti Custer factions. The divde was so strong, it played out in the national media.
The problem here is the so what test. Did Custer's command climate become a causal factor in the unit's defeat. The Custer clan theorists claim that Reno and Benteen failed to support Custer, because Custer's lack of leadership skills created a lethally flawed command climate. This is leading back to the personality lens. I regard this argument as totally ridiculous.
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Jun 10, 2011 15:02:50 GMT -6
Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 10, 2011 15:02:50 GMT -6
See, when you lay it out like that, with just the known facts and no hysteria nor ripped seam from the last meal in your costume, it not only seems utterly understandable but understood. There isn't much mystery, and it isn't a unique type of action.
per paragraph:
3. What I think you mean to say is that the 1876 Army stunk, both as an Army and as a petri dish to grow one at need. The North had produced the greatest army ever, etc. etc. and just wearing similar uniforms would continue this excellence. See? Simple. Anyone who doesn't believe that is a traitor.
a. the 7th NEVER functioned as a complete unit in the field till 1876.
d. I would suggest that it needs to be established if the Reno command was looking or could look for Custer laden with wounded and infantry or was just heading for high ground that Custer might find them based on an assumption he had an interest in doing so. Is there a point where the 7th's mission somehow switched to Finding General Custer?
4. The black regiments, with worse everything at the end of the supply line and the least media sexy assignments, seem to have had the better of the enemy more often. There was certainly a esprit de corps lacking in, say, the 7th.
c. 1. Every once in a while the 7th acknowledged training and a certain level of competence might be handy and there'd be a flurry of activity, but there was little budget for firearm training, and that appeared most often in the nature of games, with races and stuff. Nobody except Crook seems to have viewed the pack trains as worth real concern and training and few except Custer thought the bauble of a bloody band with white horses in financially and horse taut times was a good idea in an Indian War.
(3) Exactly.
(4) Exactly. And I'd contend that - plausibly at least - the emphasis on nepotism had provided an actual vs. official command structure united at the top. IF Custer was early wounded and didn't surrender command, the actual and understood command under TWC would swing into the helm with a slightly different set of priorities.
No Custer would leave a wounded or dead relative for the Indians. Zip evidence, but it is built on fact and if it happened would explain the cessation of advance down MTC and the confused eventual arrival at LSH. TWC had to have brought the regiment forward that AM annoying Custer till the reason given......by TWC. Suspect he anticipated correctly Custer's wishes when TWC sent Kanipe (if THAT's true) and Custer may not have known Kanipe was sent when he sent Martin with essentially the same, bad, confusing, repetitive message about fifteen minutes later.
The location and peculiar number of officers' bodies on LSH folds in nicely. If true.
The problem is, we don't and cannot know, and it's just Fan Fiction after Custer crosses MTC.
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Jun 10, 2011 16:52:37 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Jun 10, 2011 16:52:37 GMT -6
William and DC: Bravo to both. At last someone is thinking about the real causal factors and not playing personalities for their own sake. This will take a bit of though on my part, but command climate, or BAD thereof, is the key to this whole fiasco.
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Jun 11, 2011 1:56:55 GMT -6
Post by wild on Jun 11, 2011 1:56:55 GMT -6
And yet none of these faults caused the disaster. In fact Custer came within an ace of victory. He could have placed 700 men on the doorstep of an unprepared undefended village. The Indians were not a force.They were not a formed body of men. The command was not under such stress that would show up the weaknesses in it's articulation. The regiment did have a tipping point beyond which it would fail to function.Custer placed it way beyond this point. And yet it did have enough cohesion and leadership to hang together under immense stress it did recover and defend itself.
b. My own hypothesis is that individual leaders do not matter. Changing leaders does not change terrain and distance Benteen did not fear Custer.Reno did? Two possibilities arising from this.Reno in Benteen's position might have gone valley hunting/followed Cook's instructions.
The movement happened when it should have, when the regiment consolidated I don't see consolidation here but further fragmentation,collaspe of leadership and confusion.
To what degree were problems of the 7th a contributing factor. Zero if you leave Custer out.
a. Common issues. There were 10 cavalry regiments in the Army. 8 were white, and 2 were black. The Army had no basic training Police action is the term often used hereabouts to describe the government's policy of land clearances. The whole grotty episode was akin to the sheriff arriving at your door to take possession of your house for nonpayment of taxes. You don't need the waffen ss for such a chore.
The forenics and points raised are very good but it was the lack of fieldglasses which sunk the boat not the position of the deck chairs
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Jun 11, 2011 8:10:22 GMT -6
Post by fred on Jun 11, 2011 8:10:22 GMT -6
It is copy, paste, and printing time! Good stuff to work on. Atta boy, Will. We even have "quincannon," aka, --------, involved. That is always good. Add in DC and Wild and we have a party.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Jun 11, 2011 9:13:03 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Jun 11, 2011 9:13:03 GMT -6
I just dug my party hat out of the closet, or was it a lamp shade? Did I really dance on a table with it on my head last New Years Eve? What is done in Colorado, stays in Colorado.
I am going to add the following to William's list, and see if any of this sticks:
I don't think the United States Army gave a whole lot of attention to serious war fighting in the 19th Century. The excepions were blips in 1812-1815, 1845-1848, and 1861-1865. All of the rest of the century the Army was in fact a constabulary force, that was also charged with coastal defense.
You will all recall the Founders suspicion of standing armies and a reliance (in fact over-reliance) on militias for defense. West Point was established early on as a school for engineers. Even Grant complained after the ACW that West Point did not teach enough of the tactical and operational skills required for officers leading units in the field. The skills learned in the field were quickly overcome by events, events such as the introduction of rifles replacing muskets, and the impact that had on such things as battle space expansion and tactical formations.
With the exception of West Point there was no schools system. Doctrine was developed by units based upon their employment, and there was no means of sharing this doctrine, save for the few military journals that may have existed at the time. There was no basic or advance course for officers in the various branches. No General Staff College for officers to learn the vital skills required in a staff assignment or in the management and leadership of units above the size of companies. In fact, except for a rudimentry staff at the regimental, and some higher headquarters there was not much of a staff at all.
Each of these things was addressed by the Root Reforms in the early 20th Century as a result of the poor overall performance of the U S Army in Cuba in 98. Poor training, poor logistics, inadequate or obsolete weapons, changing battlefield dynamics, and less than sterling leadership brought about primarily by the lack of institutional training.
All armies are evolutionary by nature. The nonsense promulgated that there are this or that "revolution" in military affairs is just that nonsence. We reformed because reform was forced upon us because of our nations emergence as a world power by the end of the 19th Century. We keep (hopefully) getting better, never perfect, for that is an unattainable goal. An army that stops learning from its mistakes is doomed to repeat them. An army that stands still is doomed to eventual defeat.
Now what does all this have to do with LBH? In 1876, in fact for the eleven years that preceeded 1876 we were standing still. We had morphed back into same old, same old, and as a result we got out butts kicked by people we underestimated, by people who we though did not have the capability to stand up to a regiment of United States Cavalry. We never thought, as my daughter tells my grandson, that it was time to pull up our big boy pants and face the prospect of combat head on with a clear eye to the possible.
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Jun 11, 2011 10:58:38 GMT -6
Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 11, 2011 10:58:38 GMT -6
Thank you. I leave it at that because I'm almost emotional. Were I subject to that sort of thing, of course. Sticks and makes all the sense in the world. I'm especially grateful for the mythic pivot kick to the Hussar nonsense and revisionism and the clearly stated fact that the Founders (and many into the last century) were (more than) suspicious of standing Armies, with evidenced reasons to be, and that the idea of a 'draft' or 'universal service' horrified many recent arrivals who came here to avoid just that very thing. When Berlin's Prussian ethos began to outshine Munich's and Austria's, the German immigration went way up. The existence of a standing, socialist (because it has to be) army/military politically supported by political conservatives who claim intellectual descent the Founders has always provided genuine and needed debate on the Right AND Left. It is one of the United States' greatest accomplishments to utilize both capitalism and socialism for the greater good, with an incredibly devout military - and far and away the best ever - able to re-enter civilian life and produce at a high level. It needs constant work, primarily because of the often childish ignorance of the civilian sector and - less often but more dangerous - sometimes because of the childish ignorance of some military officers. MacArthur, for example, knew what he knew well but had no sense of deficiency in what he didn't know and could not know. For it to work, it needs to be openly discussed. Rarely happens. I recall Mencken's happy surprise that WP turned out excellent writers in English. No doubt, this helps in writing orders. He has no comment on Cooke's note, of course. A few years back, we started a thread on "elite" units, and conz illustrates much of the problem with this. It's worth re-reading just to calibrate opinion and because it's informative. I thought, anyway. lbha.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=basics&action=display&thread=1066 Anyway, thank you again.
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Jun 11, 2011 11:20:16 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Jun 11, 2011 11:20:16 GMT -6
DC: ConZ is a prime example of a West Point trained purveyor of Pidgeon Poop. How he emerged from Beast Barracks with those attitudes intact is a contant source of amazement and not a little dismay. That said, ConZ is at the same time a ConA (con artist). Half of his slobber is said for effect, to start an argument, or tweak the beard of those he wishes to engage.
I once asked ConZ to answer my question as if it were one asked in his classroom, and the guy standing in the back of his classroom was the one to decide on his next OER or promotion. He would not answer, and the only conclusion I could then make is that he was a fraud caught up in his own rhetoric and hyperbole.
If you want, current, rational military thought turn to William.
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Jun 11, 2011 11:37:10 GMT -6
Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 11, 2011 11:37:10 GMT -6
After 71 days under kyhussar, he's averaging 12.6 posts a day. That's near hysteric.
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Jun 11, 2011 11:40:04 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Jun 11, 2011 11:40:04 GMT -6
Kentucky Hussar - Kentucky Bourbon. Both are overated. He is a legend in his own mind.
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Jun 11, 2011 12:01:03 GMT -6
Post by lew on Jun 11, 2011 12:01:03 GMT -6
The 12.6 post per day-just turns me off. It gets old quick. Reminds me the episode on the Andy Griffith show where Goober grows a beard and becomes a know-it-all. youtu.be/8SidUKRm6MQ
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Jun 11, 2011 12:36:17 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Jun 11, 2011 12:36:17 GMT -6
Lew: On the other board the number of posts equate to rank. Rank, and the mythical prestige that goes with it, for Clair is the end game. It lets him assume the mantle of someone he is not. It helps make up for the unfullfilled promise of his youth, promises most likely blunted by opening his big self styled hussar mouth at the wrong time and in the wrong places.
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Jun 11, 2011 17:24:49 GMT -6
Post by montrose on Jun 11, 2011 17:24:49 GMT -6
Continuing the discussion:
5. Army. The 1876 Army had many issues. It was one of the worst Armies ever fielded by the US. The recruiting base was bad, forced to recruit from marginal members of society. The Army was so unpopular among Americans that it was forced to recruit a high proportion of immigrants.
There was no initial entry training. There was no follow on individual training for sergeants or officers.
The Army was riddled with problems. Indiscipline and morale problems reached epic proportions. Desertion rate ran 25-30% a year, which is a mind boggling problem. So every year, one of a set of fours heads for the horizon.
This leads to instability. This Army had massive turbulence. Beyond the desertion, their was sickness, court martials, end of enlistment/retirements, etc. People keep coming and going, I see an overall turnover rate in the 40-50% range. In this environment, it would be extremely difficult to maintain an efficient and effective combat unit.
There was a core of officers and NCOs who stayed with the unit for extended lengths of time, into decades. If the individual was effective, this would be beneficial. However, if the individual lacked competence or had issues with alcoholism or indolence, you had a unit stuck in a rut for years.
Discussion.
a. From the perspective of using the Army as a lens, I believe Army wide problems were a causal factor in the US loss at LBH. Many Army leaders reacted to this issues with call for reforms.
The poor state of marksmanship was addressed within the year by a massive boost in training ammunition, and mandatory marksmanship training. A development in thought led to serious study of how to train soldiers to shoot. This led to bullseye targets and knwn distance ranges, which is a heck of a lot better than the 1876 Army shooting at a sheet.
The Army recognized that officers needed training at the mid career mark. The Command and General Staff College was another post LBH reform.
Initial entry training was developed, though it was resisted and went by stop and go methods.
My point here is that LBH was a spark that helped the reformers start a movement to change the 1876 Army from rabble to a true professional force.
b. Counterargument. The counterargument is that US forces prevailed in the Indian wars with this flawed instrument, so therefore it was good enough.
There is a whole literature in military history on a theory that the American way of war is brute force. We use massive firepower to overwhelm our enemies, even though man for man and unit for unit our enemies are superior combatants. Our method also causes much collateral damage, and many civilians die.
I would say the post 1990 Army is on a glidepath to being what we jokingly called sophisticated killers. Our individual training costs have skyrocketed. Modern war is decentralized, and the decisions of a sergeant at a remote outpost can be the lead story on CNN tomorrow.
c. Sidebar. As an example, it takes 2 years to train a Special Forces soldier. Average cost is about $230,000. Attrition is high, if we start with 100 students at the front of the pipeline, we graduate 19. I attended an Ivy League college. Tuition back then was about $50k with a throughput rate of about 75%.
And comparing the course to college isn't a joke. We had our course reviewed for college credits. We teach languages, culture, political science, decision making. The smart guys decided our course was the equivalent of 2 semesters of college, 4 for the medics.
By the way, a graduate of the Q course starts with a salary of about $30k, which outperforms most college grads.
d. I think I will wait for feedback before I analyze the counterargument.
e. What they got right. I think this Army did miracles on their logistical planning and execution. I plan to explain this further in a separate post. I recommend people read any post by Ray: aka RCH. He is a remarkable man, with a wealth of knowledge of the inner workings of the 1870s Army.
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Jun 11, 2011 18:11:58 GMT -6
Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 11, 2011 18:11:58 GMT -6
The silent admission the army wasn't great was indeed forced by LBH, but it took a long time for it to sink in and, more important, elbow its way into the civilian sector and Congress to pay for it. We did not look good as an Army again till, really, WWII. But the myths of the CW endured.
I have found handy and remarkable syllogism to this with the Royal Navy. After Trafalgar, the RN had so impressed the world and itself it only had to say boo or drop anchor in some foreign port for good things to happen.
The problem was, of course, that the spit and polish RN stank to high heaven as a fighting force, couldn't hit anything which required ships to pull alongside the enemy into the age of steam, steel, and 12" naval guns. They didn't practice shooting because it stained the ship's paint. Really.
When the RN shelled some Egyptian forts it took solace in that they hit an intended target slightly more than the Egyptians did, and was therefore "good enough" for the old admirals. Their targets were stationary and the Egyptian targets were more or less moving, but good enough. This lasted past Jutland. What Jackie Fisher faced and overcame was far more entrenched and powerful than what the US Army had to deal with.
Ike was still muttering in the first years of WWII that the public didn't have a good - or sane - grip on what exactly was required and had to be done to win a modern war. They lived on Saturday Evening Post feel-good tales.
After the CW, the US was so impressed with its rapid construction of a huge, powerful, excellent Army with logistics down to the dot that it felt it could do it again if ever needed. Then we started blabbering about Empire and got humiliated by the Indians, Villa, Aguinaldo, and had to borrow everything to fight the Kaiser. Still, our myths kept up an image not reflected in the reality.
The Army of 1876 was 'good enough' for the Sioux, frankly, because they had a war 'season' and we did not, so they could never recover once under constant pressure, win or lose. But for some improved outlay and training the wars could have been done better if not entirely avoided which would cost the nation far, far less in the long and medium run.
Requesting "enough" horses is a good topic. Given their importance, surely the Army had many more than needed at the moment ready to go? Right? No, they didn't. Nor enough ammo to practice. There are many indications that even after LBH, the Army wasn't exactly hysterical about practice or training man or mount. While individuals certainly knew, institutions move at the pace of narcoleptic snails. That's in emergencies; normally much slower.
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