Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Low Tech Warfare (1 of 5)
Message-ID: <12705@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 2 Jan 90 02:48:20 GMT
References: <11729@cbnews.ATT.COM> <11823@cbnews.ATT.COM> <11970@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12605@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 26
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025)

In article <11970@cbnews.ATT.COM> munnari!softway.oz.au!gary@uunet.UU.NET (Gary
Corby) writes:
>>It would be interesting to compile  a  list of battles that  were won by
>>one side doing  something the  other thought  was physically impossible.

The Isrealis made a critical advance in the 1948 war down an ancient Roman road
through the desert between two Egyptian strongpoints.  One of the Isreali
officers of an archeological bent remembered the road being there under the
sand and a major effort of engineers and civilians worked at night to clear
sand and repair the road to be able to carry a motorized formation.  The
Egyptians were surprised because they believed (reasonably) that motorized
formations would get bogged down in the sand in that area.  My father-in-law
has the book with the reference right now, so I can't cite it but 1948 was in
the title.

Desert marches have long been a staple of surprise movements that the enemy
didn't believe possible.  The early Arab conquests are full of examples.  A
British cavalry column made an important one in WWI in Palestine in an attack
that broke the Turkish defense line. (Beersheba?)  Wish I could remember the
pertinent names and dates.

Ed Allen (allen@enzyme.berkeley.edu)