|
Steely Glint -> RE: Game Balance & Historical Accuracy (12/7/2006 6:35:50 AM)
|
Wow, talk about just not getting it.
Two sides square off for a battle. One side is much larger and very
well-off. The other side is smaller and poor. The larger side has far
more men, far better weaponry, far better logistics, far better
railroads, and control of the seas and rivers. The smaller side has far
fewer men, many of who are barefoot and many of whom are poorly armed
and poorly fed. The smaller side's logistics system is in tatters
because they have only a pathetic railroad system and because enemy
control of the rivers and the sea not only makes the use of shipping
impossible, it also strangles all imports and exports. The larger side
doesn't have a significant problem dealing with a foreign land, a
foreign language, or a different religion, either; the great majority of
the people in the major area of conflict speaks the same language, are
from the same culture and have the same religion, and some of the larger
side's units are from immediately adjacent areas.
Given this situation and any kind of parity in leadership, what results
can be expected? Clearly the smaller side will be steamrollered. When
the larger side has all the advantages and has adequate comparative
leadership, what can the smaller side do? If it goes on the offensive it
will take losses that it can't afford or sustain, and that will only
speed up the steamroller. The best that the smaller side can do is to
defend and to hope that the larger side will make a mistake that it can
jump on - but, if the leadership on the larger side is adequate in
comparison, that opportunity just won't happen. All that can be done in
the realm of civilized warfare by the smaller side is Fabian tactics;
they can harass and delay the larger side and pray that time is somehow
on their side - perhaps maybe they will be able to hold out until an
event such as an election might change the will to fight of the larger
side. The smaller side will do its best to damage the larger side's
morale. It will try to make the larger side at least work, if not bleed,
for every step. Which, leaving out the utterly uncivilized options such
as terrorism, assassinations/decapitation strikes, a scorched earth
campaign/total war, etc., is essentially that all the smaller side
really can do.
If the larger side's leadership quality is higher than the quality of
smaller side's leadership, the smaller side will be promptly blitzed.
If the larger side's leadership is comparable in quality to the smaller
side's leadership, the smaller side will be steamrollered in a timely
manner.
But, if - and only if - the larger side's leadership is significantly
poorer than that of the smaler side, then the smaller side will be able
to make the larger side really pay. Better leadership will allow the
smaller side to make effective countermoves and counterattacks, to steal
a march now and then, to strike behind the larger side's lines, to delay
and to deny. The smaller side may even win some battles. If the smaller
side's leadership is sufficiently better than the larger side's is, the
smaller side might even win thirty-three of them, where in theory it
should have won very few if any at all. The smaller side's better
leadership will certainly always delay the steamroller.
The remarkable thing about the Civil War in the West isn't just those
thirty-three amazing victories where the CSA David, instead of being
flattened, somehow not only knocked the USA Goliath down but sometimes
beat him like a dog; it wasn't that CSA forces could face five to one
odds in the open field and still triumph; it was that a campaign that
should have been long over by the end of 1863 was delayed to the point
where it was still incomplete in 1865.
There is only one variable that can account for what happened as opposed
to what should have happened given the force disparities, and that
variable is leadership. A novice looks at the Civil War in the West with
honest simplicity and falsely concludes that "The Union forces won, ergo
the Union must have had better generals." A professional looks at the
documented force disparity and the results and says, "If it took the
Union forces that long to do that little with that big an advantage in
everything then the only possible explanation is that the Union forces
were badly outgeneraled." This leaves two remaining options; either the
overall CSA generalship was above average and the overall Union
leadership was average or below average, or the CSA generalship was
average and the Union leadership was below average. An examination of
the leadership in the West makes it very clear that something along the
lines of the latter was the case. There were, of course, clearly
exceptions on both sides (Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Forrest,
Sidney Johnston, Joe Johnston et al as positive exceptions; Bragg,
Pemberton, Van Dorn, et al as negative exceptions) but overall the facts
demonstrate that the CSA in the West was sufficiently better led that
its leadership was able to prevent the CSA from being steamrollered by
vastly superior forces in the West. Looking at the force differentials,
that's actually quite an achievement.
When you throw in the thirty-three Union defeats - when there really
should have been very few or none - and, once you account for the few
exceptions, Union leadership in the West was clearly incompetent. This
should not come as a shock to anyone; with a few exceptions, most of
whom were already noted as exceptions above, the Union leadership in the
East was clearly incompetent as well.
|
|
|
|
