Quote Originally Posted by Chris jM View Post
Wilf - at the very least, I think the 3-1 "idea" is a good sanity checking device for a conventional commander in a conventional battle to determine if he is walking to his imminent doom, or if he has weighted success in his favour. It provided a good conceptual basis when I started to be assessed tactically - if you find a section, put a platoon up against it. If I find more than a section, get on the means and hit up the Company Comd for some more resources. I wasn't the smartest tactically so any and every idea available to me to simplify my job did help.
Checks on sanity may be very necessary. 3:1 may not serve that purpose, and I believe we can do better. Essentially it MAY be an aid to planning, but after that it really fails the "So what" test of effectiveness, because it is at best simplistic and at worse very misleading.