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Post by Yan Taylor on Apr 25, 2013 9:10:03 GMT -6
Hi Richard, when you said in an earlier post that Custer came into contact with the enemy in overwhelming numbers. Did you mean around the MTC/MTF area?
Well going on the grave markers, there are only two around that area, now I know from a very reliable source that the distance from Ford B to FFR is 500 yards, and giving that there were only two markers in this 500 yard area, gives me the impression that there was only brief fighting here, so surly if Custer was overwhelmed there would have been a lot more markers, as far as I can see the markers start proper at FFR.
So either the Warriors decided to give the Cavalry a 500 yards start or there was not overwhelming numbers at the Ford when Custer first got there.
I just can’t see one of the Tribal Leaders saying ‘’no stop, let’s give a head start, wait till they get to that ridge then we will attack and kill them all’’.
Hi Chuck, when I said I was cooking the tea, I should have made myself clearer, to us Tea means Dinner,
Breakfast Dinner Tea Supper
That’s the order we use, the term lunch means Dinner to us lot, we do have a cup of tea with our tea, but I won’t go down that avenue, I bet you make a better cup of coffee than me; I use Nescafe Instant, lovely stuff.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 9:24:16 GMT -6
Ian: Actually I prefer tea.
For Richard's theory to have any validity, at least the way I read it, then the five companies of the 7th Cavalry would have to be in motion across the ridge in the order of march E-F (5 to 600 meter break) I-C-L. They would have to have come from either the L-N-C ridge complex or directly out of MTC and then onto the higher ground of battle ridge. Then, as if by magic, overwhelming numbers of hostile Indians would have to appear suddenly from out of the ground with no warning at all, do them unto death, and then scatter the bodies hither and yon to confuse the ages.
He does not or cannot answer for those on FF Ridge, that string of bodies extending from LSH to the river and ultimately where Kellogg was found, nor does he address the comingling of remains of members of one company found with another. Unless these three basic things can be addressed, no theory holds water.
I think you missed the Krag in your other post.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Apr 25, 2013 9:39:25 GMT -6
Hi Chuck, I just had a vision of some of the warriors saying to each other ‘’I don’t know about you but I am knackered, I have just had a fight with a bunch of white eyes over near the bend of river over yonder, let’s take a breather and then we can carry on killing’’.
Jeez, Chuck you are right, I better amend it quick style.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 9:47:32 GMT -6
Ian: Indians did not ride in circles around the wagon train either.
One cannot explain the position of the bodies on FF Ridge, regardless if you believe it to be a rear guard or an excursion to drive away hostiles, with the surprise and suddenness of catching a unit in column and immediately pinning them.
One must also find some means of explaining the gap between Yates and Keogh.
Further one must find a way of explaining away the comingling of bodies, if in fact each of these companies were pinned and surrounded, all at the same time or within mere minutes of one another.
Finally one must be of the mind that those found in Cemetery Ravine in a line toward the river were running toward the enemy instead of away from them.
None of these things compute.
It is all well and good to say Custer was defeated in detail, and ultimately by his own hand due to gross mismanagement and tactical failure. I think that to be a given. It is quite another to make the assumption, that he was a completely stupid man incapable of taking any action, even in light of the fact that those actions were ultimately wrong. No one knows what Custer saw, or led him to do what he did. As DC points out no one even really knows for sure if Custer was even in control. I disagree with that but I really don't know, nor does anyone else for sure. Further it is OK to say that no recon, or approach was made to the Ford D area. Good people can disagree. What is not OK is to assume that one has the answers to all these things to the exclusion of the rest of the human race. That is not opinion or scholarship. It is arrogance in the extreme.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Apr 25, 2013 10:03:55 GMT -6
Chuck, you have just destroyed my childhood memory of wagons forming a circle and the people inside shooting the warriors of their horses as they rode round and round whooping and hollering, you will be telling me next that the Indians didn’t fight at night and they couldn’t grow beards. Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 10:07:08 GMT -6
They did not take a tea and biscuit break at four in the afternoon either. I told you they were not civilized.
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Post by alfakilo on Apr 25, 2013 10:38:56 GMT -6
They didn't know how to make cucumber sandwiches either.
On the other hand, they may have known what a kipper was.
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Post by wild on Apr 25, 2013 10:58:22 GMT -6
Hi Ian Hi Richard, when you said in an earlier post that Custer came into contact with the enemy in overwhelming numbers. Did you mean around the MTC/MTF area? Custer enters Cedar coulee/Weir Coulee [or whatever]and emerges into MTC.The consensus has him turn towards MTCF.The consensus has him engaged in some light skirmishing in the vicinity and then turning away. That action minor as it might be brings him into contact with "elements"of a zillion Indians. They have a visual of him.That contact tactically limits his options.Everything he does is monitored.Maybe not formally or centrally but his presence and movements [bowel or otherwise] are now public knowledge among the residents of Littlebighorn Estate. The significance of this is that as soon as a mass takes on sufficant impetus his Goose is cooked. Fred gives him 40 minutes breathing space.This figure is plucked from thin air. The tactical question is "will I be attacked" not how much time have I got. Regards PS alfakilo Did you ever correct that map reading error or are sticking with blue on blue. Ian what was the armour the Yanks took out?Warriors?
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Post by fuchs on Apr 25, 2013 11:05:28 GMT -6
I am still wrestling with the term warrior. I am positive there were fit 18-25 year old males who never entered combat. This is human nature, and an understanding of so called warrior societies. And some where some crippled old dude got up his gumption and whacked a white guy. Don't fall into the trap of "universal human nature" here. Plains Indian society ticked completely different compared to what we are used to. A warrior in his prime would need a VERY good excuse to stay away from a fight like this, as long as there was a credible threat to the families. This wasn't a random skirmish where you could opt out if you didn't feel like it. You had at least to show up, even if you wouldn't get into the thick of it. If not, you likely would have to live with a tarnished reputation, for chickening out when the lives of the helpless were at stake, for the rest of your life. Yes, there would be a few cases, but no significant numbers. The inverted case is true for the older guys, your duty was to stay with your family, as long as there was even a remote threat. For halting the Reno attack everyone at that end of the camp would have fought, and maybe a few older guys were involved towards the end of the Custer fight. But the decisive actions would have been carried out by the active warriors in the 15-35 age bracket. More likely that a lot of the older guys would shove their good guns into the hands of one of their sons or nephews. End result would be similar, though: a disproportionate fraction of the firearms in the camp would be brought to bear against the soldiers. Thanks for pointing that out, by the way. I felt for a long time that the number of Indian rifles extrapolated from the archaeological findings was a bit on the high side, this mechanism would elegantly explain that. I still think you overestimate that effect though. Regardless of weaponry, if you were a young warrior you would have to show up. And everyone would have at least bow and arrow, knife and some kind of melee weapon. Obviously you couldn't effectively fight at long range without a rifle, but even by sheer presence you would influence the behavior of the opposition as well as that of your comrades. And the warrior/distance relation would likely resemble a step function rather than a smooth transition. Apparently pretty much most of the 15-35 cohort sallied out to intercept Crook, and less than one mile away from the camp those were still the vast majority of the active fighters. As soon as you get into rifle range of the families, you would automatically have to contend with the older warriors. Not much of a sliding scale, I would think. The one cohort I could imagine as a wild card would be the 10-15 year old boys, but there would be neither huge numbers nor much combat effectiveness to be had there. That's a point that I see seldom raised here, and it's an important one. The "number of warriors" to consider might have been quite different for the two questions - Could Custer have survived? (or at least suffer less disastrous losses) -Could he have "won" ?(obviously depending on what you would consider winning) If my ramblings on Indian population and demographics are even halfway correct, than this difference can be roughly quantified to about 500-1000 older warriors, and maybe 500 boys/very young men he would have to face additionally if he managed to get to the families. "Those counts were much more stringent than the usual "census" procedure employed by the civilian Indian agents, and we should expect fairly accurate results from those." In what way, Fuchs? In the most extreme cases likely the difference between counts almost at gunpoint and politely asking each band headman (via his preferred interpreter) about the number of people in his band (and than adding a few more for good measure). Imagine a sliding scale all the way in between, with the military counts tending towards the "at gunpoint" side, and the tendency for more relaxed conditions among the civilian counts.
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Post by bc on Apr 25, 2013 12:22:03 GMT -6
Hi Richard, when you said in an earlier post that Custer came into contact with the enemy in overwhelming numbers. Did you mean around the MTC/MTF area? Well going on the grave markers, there are only two around that area, now I know from a very reliable source that the distance from Ford B to FFR is 500 yards, and giving that there were only two markers in this 500 yard area, gives me the impression that there was only brief fighting here, so surly if Custer was overwhelmed there would have been a lot more markers, as far as I can see the markers start proper at FFR. So either the Warriors decided to give the Cavalry a 500 yards start or there was not overwhelming numbers at the Ford when Custer first got there. I just can’t see one of the Tribal Leaders saying ‘’no stop, let’s give a head start, wait till they get to that ridge then we will attack and kill them all’’. Hi Chuck, when I said I was cooking the tea, I should have made myself clearer, to us Tea means Dinner, Breakfast Dinner Tea Supper That’s the order we use, the term lunch means Dinner to us lot, we do have a cup of tea with our tea, but I won’t go down that avenue, I bet you make a better cup of coffee than me; I use Nescafe Instant, lovely stuff. Ian. I think you left out a few more tea breaks. It might be easier to keep track of when everyone is Not taking tea time. bc
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 13:12:36 GMT -6
OK Wild; lets take everything you say above at face value, and assume it happened just as you say it did, why then did Custer not consolidate his command and button up in a five company defensive posture, around the first defensible piece of terrain, good or not, that he came to? You say he made contact at MTC Ford. You indicate that this contact was not with a mass of hostiles, but rather hostile elements. You go on to say that as soon as sufficient mass was formed Custer was attacked. Certainly to go from elements to mass took some amount of time, amount uncertain. Custer would also be active during this time, and if this time was as short as you seem to indicate he would have been logical to go to ground and defended in one place. The outcome would likely have been the same. The leavings of the battle suggest he did something altogether different. In fact the leavings of the battle indicate no such clear eyed situational awareness you attribute to him if your scenario is anywhere near true.
So just how long was it between the time of discovery and massing to sufficient impetus?
Where does Fred state that Custer had 40 minutes unencumbered to play with? I have read what he writes, the opinion he states several times, and I do not believe there is any forty minute period therein that is without contact by someone, and in some form? So clarify this for me, and perhaps for Fred.
I certainly hope you are not suggesting that units in contact cannot maneuver. It does not matter what you may think of such maneuver, or whether the maneuver turns out to be wise or doomed to failure. Good, bad, or indifferent, they still retain that ability to the moment of decisive engagement, when all maneuver is stopped for the side being decisively engaged. So what I am asking you to determine is the amount of time in your opinion, and not pointing to anyone else's in a attempt to get off the hook, was the period where you say first discovery was made at MTC Ford until Custer's command was totally and decisively engaged. Was it two minutes or twenty minutes, or forty, or an hour? Any credibility you might still retain is hanging in the balance here.
The last remark you made to AK is a positive indicator that you are a SWINE, that wallows in slop. There was absolutely no reason for that, and you should be ashamed of yourself, if shame is among your few capabilities.
We did not have the advantage you had you know, that being serving in an army that only has two chapters of tactical doctrine, Chapter 1:Headlong Flight In The Face Of The Enemy, and Chapter 2: Negotiation Of Surrender. Yes, I can hear that famous battle cry as it echoes over the bog, even from this great distance "Please Don't Shoot I Beg You" Is that not exactly what your army did in the last battle it fought at the Boyne. You have not had the guts for a stand up fight in 400 years and you make a remark like you did, and you expect not to be called on it.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Apr 25, 2013 15:14:47 GMT -6
Chuck, you are the first American I have ever know who says he prefers Tea, yes I had a brew with a couple of chocolate biscuits around 3 o’clock, I am on a course at the moment which will hopefully result in me taking my City & Guilds, and they served tea at the afternoon break.
AK, I have never eaten a cucumber sandwich in my life, but I do enjoy a kipper on a Saturday morning whilst enjoying the papers, with a pot of tea of course.
Britt, I know some Women over here who must drink a gallon of tea each day, it must help to lubricate their jaws whist they ‘’chew the fat’’.
Richard, are you trying to start WW3 on this board, blue on blue my god man, we have more trouble with green on blue with those insurgents joining up and shooting our men when they are feeling safe and off guard, blue on blue are accident’s, green on blue is just bloody murder.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 15:29:38 GMT -6
I hate to break it to you Ian but I love tea and cucumber sandwiches. For the latter I have my own concoction. Take an onion roll, toast it, then place upon it thinly sliced cucumber, salt, pepper, and Thousand Island dressing. Joan makes hers on party rye, with a cream cheese and instant onion soup mixture, They are quite good as well.
Ignore him Ian. He had his feelings hurt, and is being the petulant child he reverts to at such times. Come to think of it he is a petulant child at all times. Somebody wipe Baby Snooks tears away, and blow his nose before he gets snot and slobber all over his shirt AGAIN.
I must admit though that I did miss chapter three of tactical doctrine entitled --- How To Shoot Someone In The Back, Then Run Like Hell In The Event You Missed.
He states that British Soldiers were intentionally killed by Americans. You Richard are a bag of cowardly lying horse dung, unfit to call himself human. You are a disgrace to civilized humanity, and ought to be horsewhipped for your arrogant insolent, vile smelling mouth.
And the cowardly swine will not face up to and admit these charges I place against him. Instead he turns and runs from them true to form, and I know he has read them
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 17:09:19 GMT -6
Yes; I am waiting for you Richard, horsewhip in hand. Come on you lying dog, make my day.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 25, 2013 17:18:11 GMT -6
Come on Richard. Try to lie you way out of this one. You wanted to pick a fight now you have got one and forever more you will not be able to hide under the bed and deny you said this. Come on you coward. Come out and fight.
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