Tactical applications

[montrose]

Feral,

Oops. I corrected the post.

Thanks.

William

[Deleted]

Thanks tubman. I also make mistakes in directions.

On topic, does anyone have a specific reason why Custer took his men up those bluffs?

It wasn't a whim to my way of thinking. One doesn't simply make a move like that without knowledge.
Best,
c.

[Deleted]

No sweat William. I trust you'll question my posts.
Best,
Chris

[montrose]

Feb 9, 2014 16:56:03 GMT -6 @feral said:

Thanks tubman. I also make mistakes in directions.

On topic, does anyone have a specific reason why Custer took his men up those bluffs?

It wasn't a whim to my way of thinking. One doesn't simply make a move like that without knowledge.
Best,
c.

Assuming Little Big Man is not a documentary, he must have believed going that way would give him an advantage.

I go back to his initial decision to move right. This was in Ash Creek, so no one had seen the village yet. There were indicators that it was downstream of Ford A.

1. He had to have a belief in a ford. If he went up the bluffs and had no access to the river then the battle was lost and Reno was screwed. Custer was a gambler, but I do not believe he was a total idiot. S0 it is my belief that the scouts had told him there was a ford. There may have been signs that some Indians had gone that way on the ground. (I do not believe that the main Indian village trail went that way, this gets into the Indians being crazy, and our knowledge from Indian accounts that their initial LBH camp was upstream of Ford A).

DC pointed out that from 3411 you cannot see Ford B. I don't remember now, but I accept that. But the critical information is there any sign that the bluffs end, or the river moves away from the bluffs, so the unit can make an approach. This is kinda hard to describe. I started out as a mechanized scout, where I routinely had to make judgments like this. I wouldn't call it guessing, more like educated guessing. The terms I remember from Army schools is to never make a Wild Assed Guess (WAG). But sometimes you have to make a Scientific Wild Assed Guess (SWAG).

So Custer may have been making a SWAG. But he was right. The bluffs did end and there was access to a fordable river. I do not believe he was making a WAG, he must have had some indicators that there was a ford.

2. My own SWAG. I believe LTC Custer thought that the village was closer to ford A than it was. He believed that moving to Ford B would put him on the opposite side of the village than the Reno Bn.

When he got to Ford B and saw that the actual situation did not match his hoped for situation; he made a classic decision making blunder. He had mentally committed himself to get downstream of the village, so he continued actions trying to make his hoped for situation come true. What he should have done is say Oh, crap, and reassess the situation. It was time for an alternate or contingency plan. Instead, he stuck to his intended primary plan, even though conditions had eliminated it as a viable option.

[tubman13]

If he realized ha was that far north of Reno, why in hell would go farther north, if not pushed?

[montrose]

This is a sidebar on tactics and command.

Let's assume LTC Custer intended the Benteen and McDougall Bns to enter the valley. This means the valley is the main effort. The normal command and control procedure when you change your main effort is for the commander to move himself and his command post to that element. So GAC would have given orders to CPT Keough for whatever he intended that element to do, and then gone to take over the main effort.

I have done this at least 20 times, mostly in training, only twice in combat. I admit this is waay easier in a mechanized or motorized unit than in a snail unit with an 80 pound heater on your back.

I have enormous difficulty with any theory that says LTC Custer intended to make Reno the main effort. His actions in the north make no sense whatsoever if he was not expecting Benteen and McDougall.

Scouts Out.

[Deleted]

Thanks William. Appreciate your comment. Perhaps I'm too thick to understand but I'm still at a loss to understand the turn to the bluffs.

Something gave him the idea to go right from Reno Creek. What was it?

Best,
c.

[Margaret]

montrose...

..thank you for your reply... the scenario you envision taking place from the south end, is interesting to note from a cavalry perspective...

...as I understand it, it was standard military practice to attack from more than one direction... and he never did have a massed regiment at his disposal....did he..?

...I accept what you say about non combatants and that it cannot be regarded as a method of victory.. but I ask whether a point is reached whereby, it is seen that outright victory cannot be obtained, and the use of hostages, if enough could be corralled, and they might not need that many... could be a useful power base to fall back on...otherwise it becomes an all out fight to the death....

...If Custer's 5 Companies had forced a crossing at Ford B, pushing those few Indians opposite out of the way, and immediately raced to the north end to corral as many hostages as they could accommodate..... it's possible to speculate that most of these men would have lived to tell us all about it... the Indians would have been caught in a bit of a pickle.... he could possibly have destroyed the Cheyenne and Oglala villages down that end too... as they appear to have been separated somewhat from the rest... I could see it developing as a larger scale Washita....

[Margaret]

Tubman..

thank you for your reply....you present another informative scenario for me to ponder... and being USAF is perfectly fine with me....I'm sure their uniforms are better...

I should point out that.. I am not especially partisan to the 7th Cavalry but I have said before that Major Reno should be absolved of all blame for his part in this, from start to finish.... he was sent..perhaps unknowingly at the time.. like a lamb to the slaughter... I find it astonishing that he is still held to account, or ever was...

...a ludicrous... mission impossible...and actually this is where I feel sorry for Mrs Custer as much as anyone... as her husband must be accountable here.... I wouldn't like it to have been mine...

[quincannon]

Margaret: Victory at LBH can only be measured by attaining one objective, that being separating the Indians from their sustenance, the village and all the necessities of life it contains. To do that the warriors must be defeated to the point they are driven off. Once that is accomplished you have nothing in the way of the ability to make war remaining. I agree with Montrose, all of this hostages of non-combatants is late twentieth century ho ha cooked up by Indians who want Custer to be the lamb upon whom is laid the burden of the sins of western civilization in regard to native peoples.

As a soldier I cannot think in those terms. I must think in terms of how can I get at those people and kick the snot out of them, and end this war. The best way I know is to visit as much violence as I can muster against their combat force, and worry about everything else thereafter. Now I don't wish to portray myself as being in the body and mind of this man-child that was Custer. He was the bad exception to the good rule. I say this only to attempt to put an end to this nonsense of hostage taking. Killing and the complete destruction of resources is the objective, not particularly in killing and destruction of human beings, but in killing and destruction of the means to make war.

Had Custer done what McKenzie did that following November none of these issues would ever come up. McKenzie in case you are not familiar drove the Indians out of their village, destroyed the village and then said in effect, return to the reservation and live or stay where you are and see if hunger or frostbite gets you first. Simple as that. No hostages, no great number of casualties, just the proper application of fire and maneuver with one overarching objective in mind.

Feeling sorry for Mrs. Custer is like feeling sorry for a dope dealer or enabler of bad conduct in a child by a parent. She was as much a reason for him being what he was as he was.

PS: I think it necessary to differentiate between scattering and being driven off. It is often mentioned that scattering was the thing most feared that the Indians would do by US forces. Scattering means they retain the means to make war, fulfilling the principle disperse to feed, concentrate to fight. Scattering for the US forces meant that they would be engaged in a continuing, perhaps years long series of battles to reduce combat potential to zero. That is not a desirable situation. Driven off on the other hand means they leave with little more than the shirt on their backs. They are still dispersed, but the ability of them to make war has been eliminated. For them it means starting over to obtain the most basic of things, food and shelter. It sort of takes your mind off war, and you concern yourself with seeing to these most basic of needs for yourself and those near and dear. That village in military terms would be called a center of gravity, the destruction of which makes war impossible.

[alfakilo]

Feb 9, 2014 17:23:53 GMT -6 montrose said:

DC pointed out that from 3411 you cannot see Ford B.

Here's a Google Earth view of that, distance a little under two miles. It looks like the bluffs north of 3411 block a view of the ford. My memory of looking out from that point is that most of the valley floor was visible, can't imagine that Custer would not have seen enough to know what his odds were.

[Dark Cloud]

Well, what I posted was I didn't think a fording place could be confirmed from 3411, not that you couldn't see what would turn out to be it. And in any case, the access to it could not have been all that clear and its population of Indians with cover would be unknown. Although with smoke and dust I don't think the view was as clear to him as it seems today. My guesstimate of mileage was wrong, though, it is closer than I thought.

He couldn't see or know if there were camps on the east bank further north absent a trip to closer and higher ground, which I'd hope would concern him, so I don't think 3411 - absent the fact in may clear up references to the high ground from which someone was seen waving by Reno's guys - is the cure all that Weir Pt. is. For all the good it did, of course.

[alfakilo]

Four views from 3411 (or close to it, I think)
Looking south to north.

[alfakilo]

This shows the approximate view directions of those pictures.

[Margaret]

Chuck,

Referring to your earlier post above.... I disagree that this talk of hostages is in any way late 20th C..hoo ha.... Custer proved it himself at Washita.... he needed those hostages...they safeguarded him as it turned out...and they would have been no use dead.... why didn't he just finish them off in that case... like he did with the pony herd... don't tell me Custer had compassion...this is 1868 we're talking about....
... anyone today trying to figure out Custer's moves to the north is fully entitled I think, to suppose he had a similar train of thought in mind, or at least to regard the taking of hostages as an essential requirement along the way....

...the trouble with this battle at Little Bighorn I find today, is that Americans are so patriotic to the military cause of the time, that they are forever determined, one way or the other, to find ways that Custer could have won the battle.... you said so yourself just a day or two ago... any number of ways he could have won.... he should have done this, or that... gone here... not there... Reno should have done more..Benteen where was he... you know..all the usual talk... no one likes to admit that Custer could not, at any time, have won that from the moment he decided to attack from the divide onwards..... that is a cruel truth Americans on these boards refuse to admit..... I ask you Chuck..... tell me please....give me one single way Custer could have won....I want to know..... but to do so, I think you are going to have to make some highly controversial and inflammatory statements regarding some of his troops and their movements in order to give Custer the outright victory you propose he could have won here......

...in my view... I think I am right... Custer never had a chance from the moment he made that decision at Crow's Nest...

however, what he could have managed, I think, is compromise.. a stalemate... that would have given many of his troops a better chance of survival...and that would have meant rounding up non combatants and use them as a bargaining tool... a powerful weapon and if taken from the north end where most were.... it would have split the Indian force between the Reno Hill siege, and the north.... not only would Custer's men have mostly survived I think... but more of Reno's on that hill might have too....something I believe he could have achieved by barging across Ford B and taking hold of that area to the right and west... would it have been any worse than what he ended up doing...? obviously not I would say....

..an outright victory was unobtainable with what he had with him....to thoroughly defeat - i.e. slaughter or put on the run.. over 2000 male Indians of fighting age... impossible, and an uncomfortable truth for military people...

Mackenzie in November got lucky in that the Indians believed too much from their medicine men to stay and fight.. they were also caught out by the speed that he got to them.... initially he aimed for the Crazy Horse village but they got wind of it and upped and fled... he also had over 1200 men with him, and 100 Indian scouts...and it is considered that if he had less troops.... Custer's total.... they would all have been wiped out the same way.... [Henry Bellas, 4th Cavalry]...
...I personally don't believe this claim.. I think it's nonsense..

...the Cheyenne lost about 10 percent casualties but they didn't give up straight away... Mackenzie also had to kill over 600 ponies and many of his own worn out mounts on the retreat.... do you think Custer could have killed let's say 20,000 ponies... or 10,000 even...? he would have had to have done something like that for a total war victory.... the whole thing was beyond him.... and he should have opted for something less..... that was fundamentally his fatal mistake...

...yes I still have feelings for Mrs Custer... even though she worked things around to salvage his name... I sympathise with village women who lost their husbands and sons... other women at Ft Lincoln.... I'm bound to feel for them....it would be callous of me not to do so...

..personally... from my observations... I think most writers on these boards look at it from only one angle....that of a possible Custer victory.... and that's not good enough for me....