Except for Beatty. That MF knew what he was doing when he left 5th Battle Squadron behind.
ArcWraith2000 on
Look. This side would’ve won if they knew literally everything in hindsight. It was actually really close
MaybeExternal2392 on
That’s sometimes true. It’s also sometimes true that people were idiots.
VonBombadier on
Nagumo at midway, arguably made the sensible choice with his aircraft, all of his training and experience told him it was the right choice, and 99 times out of 100 he would’ve been right.
tswaters on
Why doesn’t the bigger army simply eat the smaller one?
MinuteWaitingPostman on
The typical example would be falling for the feigned retreat. Each time the line breaks and the enemy seemingly routs, the units pursuing them seemingly inevitably get caught in a trap.
However, that ignores the hundreds of instances of a portion of the line breaking and actually causing a rout. If you don’t pursue, you give the enemy a chance to regroup, reorganize and reengage, so giving chase to prevent that makes sense and could cause the rout to spread. Most battles were won the moment a section of either sides’ line breaking.
And even then, a lot of routs were probably legit but reserves were in the right place to block the retreating troops, run down the pursuers and the wavering units on the sides of the routing units maintain discipling because that breakthrough got plugged fast enough.
I always imagine the Norman rout at Hastings, which drew out the Saxons far enough for the Norman cavalry to swing in, was an actual rout, but the cavalry happened to save the day and win the battle in a decicive moment.
ChronosBlitz on
Sometimes it goes the other way, and we recognize that Meade was absolutely correct in not pursuing Lee after Gettysburg.
7 Comments
Except for Beatty. That MF knew what he was doing when he left 5th Battle Squadron behind.
Look. This side would’ve won if they knew literally everything in hindsight. It was actually really close
That’s sometimes true. It’s also sometimes true that people were idiots.
Nagumo at midway, arguably made the sensible choice with his aircraft, all of his training and experience told him it was the right choice, and 99 times out of 100 he would’ve been right.
Why doesn’t the bigger army simply eat the smaller one?
The typical example would be falling for the feigned retreat. Each time the line breaks and the enemy seemingly routs, the units pursuing them seemingly inevitably get caught in a trap.
However, that ignores the hundreds of instances of a portion of the line breaking and actually causing a rout. If you don’t pursue, you give the enemy a chance to regroup, reorganize and reengage, so giving chase to prevent that makes sense and could cause the rout to spread. Most battles were won the moment a section of either sides’ line breaking.
And even then, a lot of routs were probably legit but reserves were in the right place to block the retreating troops, run down the pursuers and the wavering units on the sides of the routing units maintain discipling because that breakthrough got plugged fast enough.
I always imagine the Norman rout at Hastings, which drew out the Saxons far enough for the Norman cavalry to swing in, was an actual rout, but the cavalry happened to save the day and win the battle in a decicive moment.
Sometimes it goes the other way, and we recognize that Meade was absolutely correct in not pursuing Lee after Gettysburg.