Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Boy, I sure wish I'd learned all that stuff somewhere...Given the fact that I did the SF thing probably about the time you were born, good to know things haven't changed in that sphere.

I'll yet again point out that the issue to me is who got who to do what dirty work. As Tom says, I was painting that stuff on cave walls long ago -- and I distinctly recall that we in the form of Silas Deane and Ben Franklin conned -er, persuaded, Vergennes to convince a reluctant Louis and even more reluctant French Navy that even though there was a massive risk to France due to an already overburdened treasury the potential of an alliance of France, Spain and the new nation could offset British Naval superiority. An idea we had absolutely no intention of honoring.

So. Using your elastic definition was the UW practitioner France -- or the nascent US???
I started off with a reply to you, then switched gears into a tutorial for the broader SWJ audiance. Realized it looked like I was preaching to the choir, but certainly wasn't the intent. Doing pushup now....


As to your question though: Both. We absolutely wanted the French to renew their war with England so that England couldn't focus so much attention on us.

Goes back to mapping all this complexity out in the design process. A whole lot of time spent on understanding the problem saves a whole lot more time and energry pursuing sadly flawed COAs.

Back in the days before GPS I learned the hard way that spending at extra 5 minutes plotting my next move twice, and studying the map for the type of terrain and vegetation I was likely to encounter, looking for that creek or hardball road that would allow me to update my pacecount or varify azimuth, etc all saved me from potentially hours of frustration hunting for metal fence post in a dark patch of swamp 5 miles away. Yet I always saw other guys do a quick plot, ruck up and move out.

I also learned, that when you're lost in that swamp, its never too late to go back to your last known position, replot, and try again with a smarter approach.