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BurningStone posted:I shouldn't post things when I can't remember the source, but there was a British military historian who did a comparative study of Lee and Grant. Going in, he expected to find that Lee was the better general but ended up changing his mind. He pointed in particular to how they issued orders. Grant, he felt, gave very clear and easy to understand directions while Lee's were far more vague. That was fine when the subordinate receiving them was Jackson or Longstreet, who didn't need a lot of help, but not so good with lesser officers. Is that JFC Fuller? quote:I think we tend to underestimate how hard it was to command an army back then. With the communications available and the rough terrain they were usually operating across, it was challenging just to keep your units coordinated. All those Union generals didn't intentionally give Lee an exposed flank to smash into. Grant also made the most modern use of staff officers of any of the major Civil War generals (further reading here). It wasn't just in strategic and operational thinking that Lee comes across as fighting the last war. quote:For the Overland Campaign, both Lee and Grant were good enough they weren't going to get badly outmaneuvered by the other. And both were aggressive enough they were willing to keep their armies right next to each other, bashing away, for months. It's also important to realize that neither army was really capable of outmaneuvering the other, barring something crazy like building an ungodly long pontoon bridge over the James River. Neither army has really recovered from 1863, neither army has any outstanding corps commanders left (after Longstreet gets shot anyway), and the Army of the Potomac in particular now has an awkward high command structure on top of training itself for the better part of 3 years to act defensively.
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Nov 8, 2014 00:50
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Quick question in battles when beloved or charismatic leaders die how often is it that troops rout or flee, and conversely when said leaders do something amazing and tons of other troops follow "into the breach" in comparison to fiction books how true is it? Examples in history would be nice too.
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Nov 8, 2014 00:53
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Yeah you're probably thinking of JFC Fuller's book The Generalship of Ulysses Grant. Or maybe one his smaller writings, I think it might be called On Generalship or something like that? I can't find them right now but I have two short booklets by him, one is about generalship in general and the other compares Grant and Lee. I think it's his book on Grant though where he mentions going in thinking Lee was the superior general and quickly changing his mind. Pretty crazy that Lost Causers mythology can influence someone outside the US. Fuller was actually a general himself in the British army and a veteran of the Second Boer War and the First World War. He was also a bit of an eccentric with his interest in magic and the occult.
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Nov 8, 2014 01:51
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Mustang posted:
He was also an early pioneer in tank warfare, and vaguely a nazi. He's kinda a big deal.
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Nov 8, 2014 02:03
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I don't think I would consider the Overland campaign of 1864 a fine example of generalship by Lee or a poor one by Grant. Lee, for example, squandered valuable men in assaults in the Wilderness, while Grant was often the victim of bad luck.
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Nov 8, 2014 02:40
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Trin Tragula posted:The Department of The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same would like to point out that there are some Gurkhas at Armentieres right now who don't have any sandbags, so are building their parapet out of dead Germans instead. Were they dead Germans that were just laying around or did they go out and kill more Germans specifically to build entrenchments with? Normally I'd assume the former but, y'know, Gurkhas.
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Nov 8, 2014 05:26
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HEY GAL posted:I spoke poorly and should clarify. The flags thing is central for the identity of the company. The cannon/pontoon bridges thing is more important for determining who won after the battle. In case the outcome was unclear, people will bring up whether you took flags/cannon/pontoons, and how many, to help them figure out who won. All three of them are symbolic, but they're symbolic in different ways. So a refinement on the Greek system where whoever has to ask the other guy for their bodies back is the winner. I think my favorite story related to that is the daring and heroic raid in which an Athenian general struck a great blow to the Spartans, inflicted numerous casualties, had a heart pounding desperate scramble back to the boats as enemy reinforcements rolled in. Real Where Eagles Dare, Zero Dark Thirty stuff. But they pull out to sea, with Spartan ships on the horizon and do a head count. They're missing two dudes on the beach. So they call a time out turn around, get their corpses, and go. And they consider it a real shame because despite the success of the mission, they don't get to build the trophy and so it doesn't count. Doesn't matter that the general completed all his objectives and traded 2 men for 25 despite being extremely outnumbered, he wasn't there to collect those 2 dudes and the bad guys recovered all their dead so he lost. What really gets me is the whole desperate escape thing. Like, you have to prove that you could have gotten away, made an organized retreat, had a rearguard action, what ever, and then you call it quits, turn around, and just, you know, not get slaughtered.
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Nov 8, 2014 08:18
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the JJ posted:So a refinement on the Greek system where whoever has to ask the other guy for their bodies back is the winner. If we think about how much of this was symbolic/ceremonial/cultural for the Greeks or for the guys I study, maybe we start to think about how much of it is symbolic/ceremonial/cultural for us, although we take it for granted as functional and natural. Edit: Meanwhile:   we're in your town now lol (Cornelis de Wael) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 12:56
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So a random question provoked by nothing: Are there any countries with debts still outstanding from Lend Lease in WW2? Like, did the Soviets ever manage to pay up the debts (nominally) racked up by Lend Lease?
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Nov 8, 2014 14:32
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Spacewolf posted:Like, did the Soviets ever manage to pay up the debts (nominally) racked up by Lend Lease? They never had to pay a dime. It was agreed that Soviets had paid it in blood.
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Nov 8, 2014 14:39
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Spacewolf posted:So a random question provoked by nothing: Are there any countries with debts still outstanding from Lend Lease in WW2? Let's put it this way: It made the news recently when the Brits issued bonds to refinance world war one
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Nov 8, 2014 15:40
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Spacewolf posted:So a random question provoked by nothing: Are there any countries with debts still outstanding from Lend Lease in WW2? The American debt was never paid off. GDP has grown so much since it's insignificant.
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Nov 8, 2014 15:45
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HEY GAL posted:I spoke poorly and should clarify. The flags thing is central for the identity of the company. The cannon/pontoon bridges thing is more important for determining who won after the battle. In case the outcome was unclear, people will bring up whether you took flags/cannon/pontoons, and how many, to help them figure out who won. All three of them are symbolic, but they're symbolic in different ways. Never stop posting.
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Nov 8, 2014 16:04
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Never stop posting. Edit: To them, our armies would be this strange, this fascinating. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 17:35
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Cyrano4747 posted:Let's put it this way: Germany only paid of the last of the outstanding reparations for WWI in the early 2000s.
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Nov 8, 2014 17:42
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HEY GAL posted:
So this is basically the 17th century equivalent of a JESUS IS MY COPILOT bumpersticker? The more things change...
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Nov 8, 2014 17:50
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Nenonen posted:They never had to pay a dime. It was agreed that Soviets had paid it in blood. I could be misremembering this but I thought they sent the US a bunch of gold and stuff and were repaying cash until the 70s? The brits only recently finished repayment, like 2005 or something.
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Nov 8, 2014 18:03
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Agean90 posted:So this is basically the 17th century equivalent of a JESUS IS MY COPILOT bumpersticker? The more things change... One of my favorite flags has a caltrop in a wreath with the motto WHEREVER I AM PLACED (since a caltrop always has one point facing up no matter how you throw it). I wonder if this had anything to do with the part where Saxony changed sides three times during the war?  Edit: These are not the verses I would have picked, or that they would have picked, I think. Where is "the Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand and I shall make your enemies your footstool"? "The Lord is at Your right hand; He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations, He will fill the ruins [with corpses]"? The "light" motif is properly symbolic for a scope (and would have been considered auspicious, so that's good), but this is mostly pretty weak. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 18:12
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HEY GAL posted:It's still really funny to me how the Fendriches are supposed to keep the flags in their rooms. I mean yeah, where else are they going to keep them, but still. Frederick the Great's army this ain't. (They and the drummers and pipers are also supposed to live near one another.) Can you recall the giant turkish flag that we saw on the museum's ceiling? The museum labeled it as "Standard of the prophet". That standard was mentioned often in the book about the Janissaries. The Ottomans claimed that it's a relic of the prophet himself, whatever that piece in the museum is, it's huge. I'm not sure that the grand vizier would ever carry it on campaign, but the Sultan did when setting out to do something important. There's mention of the flag getting used several times after the battle of Vienna, the last time that I know of, when they wiped out the Corps.
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Nov 8, 2014 20:26
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dublish posted:Is that JFC Fuller? Possibly. Like I said, I don't remember the source. I've heard of Fuller, but I don't think I've read any of his stuff. dublish posted:It's also important to realize that neither army was really capable of outmaneuvering the other, barring something crazy like building an ungodly long pontoon bridge over the James River. Neither army has really recovered from 1863, neither army has any outstanding corps commanders left (after Longstreet gets shot anyway), and the Army of the Potomac in particular now has an awkward high command structure on top of training itself for the better part of 3 years to act defensively. Are you talking about the Army of the Potomac being structured around a bunch of little corps? Or Grant traveling with it, making Meade pointless? Didn't Lee go away from the big corp structure later in the war when his subordinates weren't as good? The South seems to have been lucky or skilled in identifying most of their talented commanders early in the war, while the North took quite a while. What if the initial fighting in Virgina had been Grant vs Johnson instead of McClellan vs Lee?
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Nov 8, 2014 21:01
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100 Years Ago The French try counter-attacks in the south of the Ypres salient, as well as an offensive north of Bixschoote. Zouaves from Morocco help defend the Menin Road. There's another MSPaint of the latest situation there. Also, the trials of a sergeant who just wants to divvy up some rations...
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Nov 8, 2014 21:58
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Nenonen posted:They never had to pay a dime. It was agreed that Soviets had paid it in blood. They didn't have to pay for equipment that was destroyed in battle or returned. They had to pay for everything else. Russia paid off a portion of the debt (Paris club), but I don't know if that was all of it.
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Nov 8, 2014 22:14
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JaucheCharly posted:Can you recall the giant turkish flag that we saw on the museum's ceiling? The museum labeled it as "Standard of the prophet". That standard was mentioned often in the book about the Janissaries. The Ottomans claimed that it's a relic of the prophet himself, whatever that piece in the museum is, it's huge. I'm not sure that the grand vizier would ever carry it on campaign, but the Sultan did when setting out to do something important. There's mention of the flag getting used several times after the battle of Vienna, the last time that I know of, when they wiped out the Corps. BurningStone posted:The South seems to have been lucky or skilled in identifying most of their talented commanders early in the war, while the North took quite a while. What if the initial fighting in Virgina had been Grant vs Johnson instead of McClellan vs Lee? 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 22:15
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HEY GAL posted:Grant vs. Longstreet If God didn't want us to engage in counterfactual history he wouldn't have made it so delicious. Like sex, beer or the Baconator. Gonna pour a bourbon and think on Grant v. Longstreet for awhile...
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Nov 8, 2014 23:01
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Wait, is all of the BEF at the Ypres right now? And yet the entire force holds less of the line than a single French division?
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Nov 8, 2014 23:55
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ArchangeI posted:Germany only paid of the last of the outstanding reparations for WWI in the early 2000s. If I remember right, they took a long break during the Cold War and only started paying again after reunification.
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Nov 9, 2014 00:20
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Half the BEF is holding the middle of the salient; the other half is holding a much longer section of line from (just west of) Messines to about Festubert, then the French take on again. I should probably get rid of at least one of those 7th Division labels, by now they've transferred men south who ten days ago were holding the Yser, which is why they're now trying to attack a few miles north (and going nowhere, natch). At one time that was an extremely weakly-held bit of line and the Germans somehow didn't notice because they were too busy bashing their heads against Dixmude. Kind of like how it took them far too long to attack Messines Ridge when it was held by a few cavalrymen and Territorials.
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Nov 9, 2014 00:29
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Another good flag was a hedgehog with the motto I AM ENFOLDED IN MY VIRTUE. All the company flags in that regiment had symbolic animals, but the hedgehog in particular is an old symbol of the landsknechts/reiselaeufer, and that may have been what they were going for.
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 00:57
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Nenonen posted:They never had to pay a dime. Nope. The Soviet paid for a sizable portion of the Lend-Lease aid they received. They paid in cash, post-war repayments, and payment in kind through Reverse Lend-Lease. Prior to the first protocol in October 1941, all US Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union was paid for in cash, gold, or raw materials. After October 1941, the US extended credit to the USSR. Much of this debt was written off, but Truman still asked for about $1B in repayment. The Soviet hemmed and hawed until 1972, when they agreed to pay about $700M (the US had threatened to stop shipping grain to the Soviets if the Russians kept dragging their feet). The Soviet also had some debt (about $2M) written off through Reverse Lend-Lease. Basically, the US gave the Allies Lend-Lease credits for services like letting American planes use Allied airfields.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:01
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BurningStone posted:The South seems to have been lucky or skilled in identifying most of their talented commanders early in the war, while the North took quite a while. What if the initial fighting in Virgina had been Grant vs Johnson instead of McClellan vs Lee? Yeah, Lee lucked into getting command of the Army of Northern Virginia. If Joe Johnston hadn't got hit at Seven Pines, he probably would have been forgotten by history.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:04
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Who was the fat confederate general that Sherman sniped with a cannon during the Atlanta Campaign?
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Nov 9, 2014 04:42
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Leonidas Polk. Supposedly the other generals with him legged it once the artillerist got their range, but he didn't.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:54
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BurningStone posted:Are you talking about the Army of the Potomac being structured around a bunch of little corps? Or Grant traveling with it, making Meade pointless? Didn't Lee go away from the big corp structure later in the war when his subordinates weren't as good? Long story short is that corps commands in the Army of the Potomac (and in other Union armies, though to a much lesser extent) were highly political. The original corps were created to give the administration a way to bypass McClellan, and McClellan made more so he'd have a couple of friendly subordinates. The command culture that these kinds of shenanigans encouraged had a huge impact on the AotP's high command throughout the war. Corps commanders found it very easy to bypass Burnside and Hooker, for example. Hooker even made it a condition of his promotion to command the AotP that he be allowed to bypass Halleck to talk straight to Lincoln. Meade, by virtue of being both competent (unlike Burnside) and not having schemed his way into command (unlike Hooker) was able to get that mess mostly sorted out, and reorganized the AotP into 3 corps. The command relationship between Grant and Meade during the Overland Campaign is complicated. The independent status of the IX corps didn't exactly make it easy for Meade to command the army, nor did Grant siding with Sheridan post-Wilderness and losing the army all its cavalry for a month. Grant took increasingly direct control until North Anna, then backed off and subordinated IX Corps to Meade. Grant soon had reason to regret easing off. Yes, Lee went from two to three corps commanders after Jackson died. I wouldn't want a new corps commander overwhelmed by being in charge of half my army either. Lee wrote at the time that he'd long thought that the army's corps were too big to be effectively controlled in rough terrain, though I suspect that until Jackson's death forced his hand he was unwilling to promote anyone he was unsure of. I disagree that the South was any better than the North at picking good commanders. Joe Johnston was the South's McClellan analogue, and it's not like Gideon Pillow and John Floyd were the second coming of Napoleon. The South lucked out in Virginia, but had personnel issues throughout the war in every other theater. Both sides put whoever had high rank in the pre-war army in command positions at the start, and both sides filled out their rosters with state militia commanders and political appointees. I think the North just seems to have more poor commanders because they just have so many more command positions.
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Nov 9, 2014 05:37
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Saint Celestine posted:Who was the fat confederate general that Sherman sniped with a cannon during the Atlanta Campaign? I just came across that little tidbit while reading Longstreet's wikipedia page. Not only did that artillery man manage to take Polk out with the shell, but he actually direct impacted him. drat near cut him in two apparently.
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Nov 9, 2014 06:27
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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sullat posted:Leonidas Polk. Supposedly the other generals with him legged it once the artillerist got their range, but he didn't. The man had a face that probably incited the rage of anyone with occasion to view it.
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Nov 9, 2014 06:33
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FAUXTON posted:The man had a face that probably incited the rage of anyone with occasion to view it. No, you're thinking of Ben Butler.
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Nov 9, 2014 08:42
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dublish posted:No, you're thinking of Ben Butler. Butler makes you think the last guy shot him in the face. Polk, though: 
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Nov 9, 2014 08:55
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dublish posted:No, you're thinking of Ben Butler. Was Butler as bad as he is remembered?
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Nov 9, 2014 09:05
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Mycroft Holmes posted:Was Butler as bad as he is remembered? Pro-Conferates hated Butler because he was a radical abolitionist, and his stint as military governor in New Orleans made him extremely hated in the South. So he gets a bad rep. As a military commander, he was somewhat mediocre but he managed to organize the occupation of New Orleans better than anyone else could have.
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Nov 9, 2014 10:31
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Mycroft Holmes posted:Was Butler as bad as he is remembered? He was a pretty big rear end in a top hat, from basically ordering his men occupying New Orleans to consider any woman who wasn't polite a whore, to blatant war profiteering, to being a bad general. I mean, in terms of non-war stuff I guess he wouldn't be considered a bad guy - asked the secessionist SC delegation to be arrested for treason, early to treat escaped slaves as contraband thus refusing to return them to their enslavers, saw the war coming and tried to get Buchanan to act, was somewhat charitable, but man he was a lovely guy in the war.
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Nov 9, 2014 10:32
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