GUEST - 07 Dec 15 - 03:29 AM

Military anything is a sign of political and diplomatic failure.

Hence we gloss over how traditional military thinking, as taught at Sandhurst is as useless as it is increasingly irrelevant. It begins with admission of failure and has done ever since we were told Jesus wants us to exploit natives of far and distant lands.

That said, when you are called up as opposed to living the dream, your real life perspective can help. Hence so many Gung Ho officers in WW1 killed in action going over the top had bullet entries in their back.

Many WW2 memoirs mention that one reason that war was better planned and executed overall was that the top brass had been junior officers in the previous war and wished to ensure they didn't make the mistakes their leaders did. Mainly by ignoring what they were taught."

Hello Musktwat all of the above you have mentioned before in exactly the same words, more or less. You were wrong then you are equally wrong now.

Some facts for you to digest:

1: Percentage casualties in the British armed forces for the First and Second World Wars were almost identical

2: WWII was kept as a war of manoeuvre WWI was static - on the occasions during WWII where the fighting was static (El Alamein; Stalingrad; Normandy Landings) where no outflanking movement could be made the casualties were similar, or worse than those encountered during WWI.

3: It took the British in WWI two years to build an army and train it to fight the Germans on equal terms. The same thing took the British three years in WWII

So it looks as though your junior WWI commanders didn't really learn that much did they.

On the subject of military competence - down through the last couple of centuries very very few enemies have ever got the better of our allegedly "incompetent" military leaders - wish the same could not be said about their political masters.

Musktwat and the "usual suspects" are great believers in stereotypes which is natural I suppose they after all seem to be judging by what they write knuckle dragging union thugs who can only repeat ad nauseam what is written on the Party Sheet on any given day - their lack of originality and complete and utter inability when it comes to independent and original thought beggars belief.