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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > Military tactics
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Command or Control? - Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (Hardcover, annotated edition)
Loot Price: R4,513
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Command or Control? - Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (Hardcover, annotated edition)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Statistical analysis in the 1970s by Colonel Trevor Dupuy of
battles in the First World War demonstrated that the German Army
enjoyed a consistent 20 per cent superiority in combat
effectiveness over the British Army during that war, a superiority
that had been asserted in the 1930s by Captain Graeme Wynne. In
attempting to explain that advantage, this book follows the theory
that such combat superiority can be understood best by means of a
comparative study of the armies concerned, proposing that the
German Army's superiority was due as much to poor performance by
the British Army as to its own high performance. The book also
suggests that the key difference between the two armies at this
time was one of philosophy. The German Army saw combat as
inherently chaotic: to achieve high combat effectiveness it was
necessary to decentralise command, ensure a high standard of
individual combat skill and adopt flexible tactical systems. The
British Army, however, believed combat to be inherently structured:
combat effectiveness was deemed to lie in the maintenance of order
and symmetry, through centralised decision-making, training focused
on developing unthinking obedience and the use of rigid tactics. An
examination of the General Staff systems, the development of minor
tactics and the evolution of defensive doctrines in both armies
tests these hypotheses, while case studies of the battles of
Thiepval and St Quentin reveal that both forces contained elements
that supported the contrary philosophy to the majority. In the
German Army, there was continual rear-guard action against
flexibility, with the General Staff itself becoming increasingly
narrow in outlook. In the British Army, severalattempts were made
to adopt German practices, but misunderstanding and opposition
distorted these, as when the system of directive control itself was
converted into that of umpiring.
General
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