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Post by Yan Taylor on May 21, 2013 3:31:32 GMT -6
Good morning to you all.
Just a few thoughts on Cavalry before I go onto the BLBH.
Cavalry from this period were considered a support role for the Infantry, the mounted charge was only used if the enemy broke or was in open order, Waterloo showed how even large bodies of Cavalry were shot up when faced with close order Infantry, things got even worse for the Cavalry when bolt-action rifles came into play, so apart from scouting, the role of Cavalry on the battle field as a sole attacking force decreased, you only have to look at all the major battles from the last 500 years to see that most engagements were fought with a combination of arms, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery. Even the Infantry trained there three main elements for different roles on the battle field, they used the light Infantry as Skirmishers and these would withdraw when faced with large columns of Infantry, the regular Infantry of the line would then take up positions when the Skirmishers had done their job and withdrew, once the Line Infantry had stopped the attack with the support of the Artillery, the elite Troops (Guards or Grenadiers) would move in and smash the floundering enemy assault, then when the enemy broke the Cavalry would deliver the ‘’coup de grass’’.
So when the 7th took to the field as a sole force armed with single shot carbines and six shot revolvers, they would be found wanting if confronted by large bands of Indians, now if the 7th was supporting an Infantry Regiment with light Artillery then things would have been different, but taking along such a slow moving column would give the Indians a chance to up sticks and disperse, so the only way this assault could reap results is with a Brigade or at least a full strength Regiment, and formulating a plan of attack which kept each Battalion or Squadron in mutual support of each other.
So the way the Indians had fought in the past gave Custer (or maybe the whole U.S. Army) a false sense of security, to repeat what has been said here many times ‘’the Indians would run when attacked’’ this must have been so ingrained in his mind that he broke his weakened Regiment into four, and this was showing no respect for the fighting capabilities of his foe.
Custer would have had a good idea that Reno would be first into action (the two couriers sent by Reno to Custer would verify this), so in Custer’s mind the Reno attack had changed from a frontal assault to a defense line, this would have changed Custer’s role as the main attack, he had the main body of five Companies to Reno’s three, but what I would like to know is this, did Custer split his Battalion into two wings before he went down MTC?, was there a trail that broke off to the right that could allow three Companies to move to the eastern ridges?, the point I am trying to make is this, if Custer’s Battalion split into two wings before they moved down MTC, then this would mean (in my view anyway) that the Yates Squadron was acting in a scout mode. Why I have come to this conclusion is this, Custer does not know for sure what lies down the bottom of this coulee so he sends an advancing Squadron first and has the main body (Keogh) move east and then north on to the high ground, so I think he was showing some caution by not letting his whole Battalion get caught moving in line with high bluffs on either side and any danger around the low ground at the mouth of the coulee.
I will add my thoughts too, along with Richard and Mac, tragic.
Ian.
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Post by wild on May 21, 2013 4:46:45 GMT -6
Hi mac To manage to work in a quote from your namesake bold Oscar in such a forum is a triumph! Well played! The user name I took from an early photo showing troops on the field among the wooden markers and one marker read "wild I" and I took it to refer to Keogh's company and indeed the famed Connell made the same mistake in his Book Son Of The Morning Star.It actually refers to Trooper Wild.So not Oscar who was more into pink carnations. I agree absolutely with you if you shake off the shackles of military logic you can have our heros do anything. But this is not what Fred does he sells Ford D as a viable operation. Though he has rowed back on that a bit suggesting Custer employed guesswork. Regards
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Post by fuchs on May 21, 2013 5:01:18 GMT -6
pick up Keogh and move back to ford D (which he had checked out while waiting) and take control of the women and children thus ending the affair. Uhhm , reality check anyone? Ballpark of 5000 "civilians" with 500 warriors (second rate) among them, with hundreds and hundreds of more (first line) warriors within a few minutes of response time. And you want to "control" them with 200 something second to third rate Cavalry? Even if the numbers were half that, still a suicide mission. Notes not here, but how many Cavalry charged into a sleeping village of 50 something lodges in the Reynolds fight? 50? Getting support within minutes of several hundred more soldiers for an enemy grand total of 1 killed, 1 wounded and 1 blind old woman captured. Now take the population of a 1000+ lodges village, not-so-surprised anymore, vs. 200 soldiers with effectively no support. Do the math. Even at the Washita it took a massive, massive numbers disparity the other way around, total surprise, and a troop disposition almost completely surrounding the village to capture maybe a quarter of the "civilians, and kill something around 20% of the warriors.
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Post by mac on May 21, 2013 5:21:32 GMT -6
Point taken fuchs! Presumably Custer is aware of Washita odds; but still, he is there! I didn't put him there, he did. So presumably he thinks he can do something. Reality got him too though eh! Cheers
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Post by wild on May 21, 2013 7:34:03 GMT -6
Uhhm , reality check anyone? Well the Lord be praised;there is someone else who sees the king has no clothes. Nice one Fuchs.
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Post by quincannon on May 21, 2013 7:51:16 GMT -6
Fuchs: Fred or no one I know argues that what happened was smart. They only argue that the basic scenario laid out by Fred, the U S Army, The National Park Service, and nearly every author who has written on the subject in the last fifty years, was what happened. Arguing that something was done is far different than arguing the wisdom of the action. If there are those that can't differentiate between what happened, and the wisdom of what happened, that is their problem, the lacking of sufficient intelligence and the ability to comprehend, once informed, not the fault of those who report on events.
If you were hammering a nail, and in the process hit your thumb with a hammer, the fact that you hit your thumb is evidenced by the swollen thumb. No one argues that hitting your thumb with the hammer was not a stupid, careless thing to do, brought on by haste and inattention. But to argue that it did not happen because it was stupid, careless, and points to complete lack of attention and focus on the job at hand, is rather stupid, when you can point to the bruised, swollen, and bleeding thumb, isn't it?
The only reason this battle is studied by the U S Army, is not that it is an example of our finest hour. It is because this one small, insignificant in itself, action is the poster child on what not to do. That runs all the way from the concept of the campaign to the sending of eighty men to do the job of a complete regiment or perhaps a brigade. You don't learn lessons of what not to do, by examining your victories in detail. You learn them by the disemboweling of your defeats.
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Post by Yan Taylor on May 21, 2013 8:07:17 GMT -6
Hi Richard, if Custer did go to Ford D, he may of not gone there to capture anyone, kill a few maybe and retire once he knew the score, but trying to round up hundreds of people with 80 men would be impossible, so by the looks of it this jaunt would be for weighing up the options and causing a little mayhem in the process. I remember Chuck mentioning that Custer could have been out of his depth commanding a Regiment, there is a team for this and it’s called ‘’The Peter Principle’’. Hi Dan, I forgot to post this thread when you asked Richard about using Mortar rounds ‘’aka Saving Pvt Ryan’’. Scroll down to ‘’Medal of Honor Citation’’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauford_T._Anderson#Medal_of_Honor_citationNow I don’t know if these were actually 60mm Mortar Rounds or not, maybe they were 81mm, but wiki doesn’t mention the calibre. Ian.
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Post by Gatewood on May 21, 2013 9:03:44 GMT -6
Either way, he couldn't toss them very far, indicating that it was a close order, desperate thing.
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Post by Yan Taylor on May 21, 2013 9:35:20 GMT -6
Yes Gatewood, that scrap must have been short but desperate, I don’t know how far any of you military guys could toss a Hand Grenade so here is some stats;
60mm M49A2 Round 1.33 kg (2.15 lb.) 81mm M43A1 Round 3.11 kg (6.87 lb.) Mk IIA1 Fragmentation Grenade 595g (1.5 lb.)
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on May 21, 2013 9:48:38 GMT -6
Ian: The original question concerned an incident in Saving Private Ryan. The technical advisor of that movie was Dale Dye, and generally speaking anything he is associated with is pretty accurate when it comes to military detail.
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Post by Yan Taylor on May 21, 2013 9:58:56 GMT -6
Hi Chuck, when I search around for this data I came across a site that claimed it was 75mm Recoilless Gun Rounds that the actors were tossing, but I reckon that this was too early because the first U.S. Recoilless Gun was the M18 and that never reached Europe till 1945, there are a few other discrepancies in the movie, the German beach defences, and the appearance of Tiger Tanks so early on the American sector, the only German Armour available in the first few days on the Cotentin Peninsular was Reserve Panzer Battalion 100, and they were equipped with Ex- French Hotchkiss and Renault Tanks and maybe one or two worn out Pz IIIs. Ian.
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Post by quincannon on May 21, 2013 10:08:02 GMT -6
Ian: I have heard that the 60mm mortar round could be used as described. Was never around 60's at all, only 81's and 4.2's, but if I remember correctly the 60mm round is in the shape of a large raindrop with fins.
Don't you know that every American soldier thought every German tank to be a Tiger. If the German Army had as many Tigers as American soldiers thought they had we would still have our face in the sand on Omaha Beach.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 21, 2013 10:19:13 GMT -6
The Peter Principle is not exemplified by Custer. The PP is that everyone rises to the level of their incompetence. Custer had risen well beyond regiment command successfully. This is a great example of a handy but not entirely true theory being misapplied.
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Post by fuchs on May 21, 2013 10:37:54 GMT -6
I would like to suggest that if a plans doesn't make any military sense, and the commander in charge has shown on other occasions that he isn't completely incompetent, than it might be a good idea to look for something other that might have been the plan. I can buy a plan that looks reasonably from the outset getting overtaken by events, or backfiring badly because of assumptions made that turn out to be incorrect. But massive cognitive dissonance or denial of reality from the get go? No, sorry Custer was on the trail of a large camp that stayed together for weeks. At the oldest camp sites Reno found, they were already about 400 lodges. At the latest from the sundance camp forward, this number started to grow, and this would have been visible. Still one single, compact camp (1-2 miles extension at the max). Boyer estimated the older camps to be weeks old, Gibbons scouts knew them to be weeks old, and this was at the latest communicated to Terry at the Terry/Gibbon linkup. So Custer knew that there was a large, steadily growing camp that was together for at least one month. In the light of this knowledge, how anyone can propose that he planned on the assumption that he would find a widely distributed camp, unable to lend mutual support for the initial fight, is beyond me. This would paint Custer as unbelievably incompetent. Not someone who rose to the rank of general based on success (at least that's what I assume). Another point I cannot swallow is the notion that he would have been surprised that MTF turned out to be near the middle of the camp. Didn't Custers command moved along the crest of the heights above the camp, locations from where supposedly the guys around Reno/Benteen were able to see the entire camp and count/estimate the lodge number?Either you can see the whole camp from there or you can't. So at the latest here he HAD to be aware of the full size of the camp, and proceeded accordingly. Or did I only imagine reading things like that here? (Honest question, it sounds just that far-fetched, that I almost had to have imagined this.)
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 21, 2013 11:17:42 GMT -6
A large unit of the Army had NEVER been proactively attacked by Indians until the Rosebud, which nobody knew yet. This would have abolished the 'they always run' motif.
At the Washita, if you consider the long string of circles down and up the river as one 'village' or 'camp', then he conceivably could have imagined a similar thing at the LBH. But, there are so many differences between the two events that this is almost the least. In summer, support not possible in winter is easy in June, so even if he thought they were separated camps, he'd take no solace.
He also had no clue if there were another series of camps north on the east side of the river till he got to Weir.
I still think that careless usage of language abetted the Army's problems with Intel and decisions. Small circles of one tribe or sect can react quick and move out quick. Large gatherings got increasingly immobile with size, because they couldn't keep the mass of ponies nearby the lodges. To call Black Kettle's circle a village and the throng at the LBH also a village puts too much strain on the word. A village always ran? Didn't at Killdeer Mt. because they couldn't move that quick, partly because of weather and partly because everything took longer even without being under attack.
I'm not sure your summation of the camps in the Rosebud valley is correct. At the time, some thought that the circles represented different postings of the same group. But, as was pointed out, the distance between indicated such a short journey it hardly made sense. Some of the scouts, I recall, correctly thought these were different groups camping at some distance from each other as the Rosebud couldn't support a clump of that size together.
Atop that, there was the trail heading north along the LBH of which nobody was aware yet.
The accounts of the 'high ground' from which thus and so was done is confusing. It was majorly hurt at the RCOI because Sharpshooter is not on the map and the river was notional and not accurately drawn, among many other things. From what is not referenced as 3411 you can today see a great distance but you cannot see MTCF, and this is without dust or smoke. You could see near everything from Weir Pt., though. I suspect that, because it didn't seem to matter, people said 'high ground' that we've come to believe was the same 'high ground' but was not.
I further think it important to realize the green, green, and solid growth on the battlefield was not there in 1876 because it was chomped down by game and ponies with regularity. The brown soil would conceal coulees and gullies a lot more than today with different texture and moving grass giving visual help. Looking north from Weir then could have been much less informative than now, but even so experienced western eyes could see how dangerous the ground was.
The size of the pony herd and the campfire smoke had to be solid indications of camp size. The total lack of smoke in Tullucks would have voided that need to search.
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