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From: chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Low tech warfare
Message-ID: <12767@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 90 04:25:02 GMT
References: <12539@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12572@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: Irving Chidsey <chidsey@smoke.brl.mil>

In article <12572@cbnews.ATT.COM> jhamilto@ics.UCI.EDU (John Scott Hamilton) writes:
<
<
<From: John Scott Hamilton <jhamilto@ics.UCI.EDU>
<In article <12539@cbnews.ATT.COM> bxr307@csc.anu.oz writes:
<[Much fine argument deleted]
<>
<>I was not so much interested in what the US learnt politically as what 
<>it had learnt militarily.   We have been seeing for the last 15 years that 
<>the US government failed to learn any real lessons from it Vietnam experience.
<>What I was trying to find out was whether the US Army in particular, and the 
<>rest of the US military in general, had learnt any *tactical* lessons from 
<>Vietnam.  
<
<What I find incredibly ironic about this tactics issue, is that
<Americans fought their Revolutionary War based on guerilla tactics.
<Even though outnumbered and outequipped by a highly regimented British
<Army, the wanabee Americans managed to win.  
<

	Not really so!  The militia tended to break and run under fire!  The
farmers were used to shooting birds with shotguns! etc.

	The imported Gen Steuben from Germany, learned to fight like Europeans,
and beat the Brittish at their own game!  They were greatly helped by short
supply lines and Brittish officers who had inherited their positions.  The
Brits finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble and packed up and went home.

	At the start of the war, the population was divided just about
equally, 1/3 for rebellion, 1/3 loyalist, 1/3 indifferent.  The Brits quartered
their troops in private homes ( by force ), etc., and converted the indifferent
1/3 the wrong way.

	We didn't learn anything from that either, because we forgot it!

							Irv

-- 
I do not have signature authority.  I am not authorized to sign anything.
I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DOA, the DOD, or the US Government
to anything, not even by implication.
			Irving L. Chidsey  <chidsey@brl.mil>