“There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted.The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people…Thus there is but one way to an understanding: scrutiny of domestic class interests, the question of who stood to gain.It was certainly not the Italian peasant…”
source: Heinz Norden's translation of Joseph Schumpeter's "Imperialism and Social Classes"
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Hannibal and the Punic Wars (Pachyderms across the Pyrenees and the Alps, poor animals!), the Battle of Adrianople (378)...
ReplyDeleteWe won't go thru the entire Encyclopaedia of Military History (+/- 15 volumes and 1,000s of pages of (more or less) fascinating pages; but some thousand-year-old tricks still work today (Trojan Horse, Plato's rhetoric, Berezina...)
Translations of ancient history by the Toledo School of Translation (The only school that translated our common history into our western culture since Ancient Greece), and who knows if the translators did their job right or not? Humans being humans, they are just as lazy as any other animal.
Otherwise, life would be too easy and would quickly become boring: taking the children to Disney Land, hearing all their musical laughter’s, sweets and sunny beaches, pina colada and sombreros [I still prefer that Disney Land life; I am a kid in Barbie Land!].
I am no artillery expert; I only notice that the 'Logistics' class in this blog is only 13/100s or 1,000s written articles, and military history (well before Sun Tzu) showed that Victory has a lot to do with the tedious and boring job of 'Logistics' (e.g. Vietnam).
I recall only one so-called Army that does go to the frontline with 3 rounds in their M70 magazine... it is always tragic.
Artillery - the Killer (BM-21 + D30)
The recent Battle of Ilovaisk (August-September 2014), which actually started with a skirmish in Krasnyi Luch with the anti-terrorist and police units; would tend to prove me wrong.
So, there is a lot of room for tactical warfare (effective anti and counter-blitzkrieg operations followed by counter-offensive encircling manoeuvres, counter-strike, diversion/disruptive operations...). It went well behind Mariupol (West of the Dnieper River, behind Crimea).
There were foreign advisers in Kiev, and they dramatically failed that offensive operation.
In Russian it is called Ilovaisky 'Kpax'.
‘… the exchange of prisoners was a sign of goodwill between the warring parties... and the Oder-Neisse remained the good old frontier…’
Source: thefrozenwatersfromthesteppes
Plenty other blog posts (hardware, procurement) take logistics into account, particularly truck convoy efficiency, fuel consumption, supplies volume and so on.
DeleteVery, very few mil blogs cover logistics to any noticeable extent (Think Defence being an exception), and my little effort on the topic was a conscious effort to write at least a bit about it.
Logistics ARE a dull topic; I've read books dedicated to logistics and the noteworthy content was so marginal I could scribble the keywords on my hand palm. Even van Creveld's famous books on logistics in mil history was a disappointment.
Thank you for your answer and the references.
ReplyDelete'Plenty other blog posts (hardware, procurement) take logistics into account,' seems an exaggeration to me, nobody likes LOGISTICS (they like big victories, not the big work behind), that is my (solo) impression; anyways.
Logistics, after a short ‘over flight’ of the documentation… seems to depend on the civilian industrial and logistic structures, already existing in peace time or its wartime copies/creation (e.g. Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk; Normandy corridor [was created]…, WWII).
Logistics? Let us put it next to ‘Military Tactics’, ‘Deception and Disinformation’ and ‘Flanking manoeuvres’; in the ‘Shipping’ folder (‘le mythe’ des Taxis de la Marne or the Vietnamese bikes?). LOL
Rommel and the Italians were deprived of their Logistics (this is a neutral discussion)?
If I am wrong tell me, so I can re-orient my research in the right direction(s).
So far, Logistics is a tedious, boring and stressful job for truck drivers, ship captains, and train drivers.
I did not forget the transport pilots, because there are ‘no fly zones’ in the world, so they are not concerned.
Satellites (and space warfare / star wars) fall, again, in another category.
Any documentation on that ‘logistic’?
I do take logistics into account on many blog posts. Examples;
Delete* fuel consumption and fuel capacity issues of land vehicles
* critique of choice of distant airbases + aerial refuelling instead of more close improvised airbases
* administrative marches (training, planning)
* standardisation issues; standardisation reduces the amount of spare parts a unit needs to carry
* land and maritime convoy security
* mention of very limited road capacity and in winter frozen ports in the Baltic
http://portal.liikennevirasto.fi/sivu/www/baltice/ice_reports
* MTBF issues, critique of cargo aircraft, critique of cost-inefficient transport helicopters, discontinuity of supply in mobile warfare, volume and weight inefficiency of MRL ammunition etc.
Logistics issues aren't exclusively about moving, storing and administration of goods. It's also about the end user's limitation of his demand for supplies as well as about recovery&repair.
The common attitude is that the log services need to provide. my attitude is that the demands to the log services need to be made reasonable, appreciating the scarcities and expenses involved.
That is a honest response and I appreciate it; I did not go that far into the blog history.
DeleteNow, how do you go unnoticed under air and satellite surveillance (without bursting those satellites out= declaration of war?)?
Well, if nobody knows that satellites were busted, there is no declaration of war, as well.) for the public.
We are still in conventional warfare.
At Tora Bora the combined recce power of all U.S. satellites wasn't able to detect more than 50% of AQ positions in a very small area.
DeleteSatellites and long range SAR/GMTI will be very limited in conventional warfare by work overload issues, ECM, terrain, noise caused by civilians, camouflage/concealment/deception and threats (AWACS/JSTARS iare badly threatened by long-range AAMs/SAMs and would need to stay far back for safety.
The long-range surveillance technologies are miraculous when everything works, but that's not even a fair description of many exercises, much less actual warfare against competents.