Quote Originally Posted by UrsaMaior View Post
With all respect Wilf it is Ursa Maior, the stellar constellation meaning big bear. Being 190 cms with 130kgs it is my nick since ages.
Apologies. I just assumed the spelling was for the constellation - Ursa Major - Maj, and me having studied Latin for 8 years! My mistake.

I was told by a senior hungarian (70+) general that between 1973 and 1982ish it was common belief that WP can break through the Fulda-gap.
Cannot speak for the Fulda Gap. My turf was the 1 BR Corps area and his views were not shared by the GSGF/WGF planing Staff between 1985-1991. The Soviets had very real concerns about 3 Shock Army even being able to reach the Rhine, without pre-emptively using nuclear weapons (x 48-9 in the 1 BR Corps area alone) - not sure where this gets us?

I can put something valuable on it that your "semi-competent clowns" will not be a regular army....
With respect, I doubt your powers of prediction. You simple cannot tell me "who, why, when or where." My guess is that High explosive, and small arms rounds will be what will cause the most casualties.
Of course ICBMs, YAL-1s, MLRSs and JDAMs and F-22s are good against some future advesary once in a decade, but it won't be a littoral combat ship or a Stryker MGS that will save your
F-22, MGS, and Littoral Combat ship = massive waste of time and money. Read my last 2 years of posts.
MLRS and JDAM are good. Tanks are always good. Well trained infantry are always good. Thermobaric is always good.
/ our ass, but determined, creative, well educated and at last but not at least well paid grunts who will know what to do at the right time at the right place,
...and that won't happen if all his skill sets and combat applications have been eroded by silly ideas and concepts. What you are saying works, worked in Korea.
much rather a well placed video in a filesharing site or one single shot through a window by a good ol' 7,62×51 NATO round put into the right person and not into some bystander or even a one line news on the stock exchange billboard heralding the untimely death of an overzealous broker.
Tom Clancy School of Military Thought? Sorry, but do you want to train for that or another Rwanda, Somalia, or Korea ?

Sorry Wilf these are the words of Echevarria, col. Gentile and others who say 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!'. Well it is broke.
So what you are saying is do not listen to military historians? - and neither man is saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it!' - and if they are, I certainly am not!

All your SODs, EBOs, MW, 4GW and "Complex adaptive" stuff is a bunch of folks pumping personal agendas for their own sake to sell books, get PhDs whatever. Personally, I only see Tom Hammes as well intentioned. They all rely on a child like understanding of military history.

As concerns "Hybrid," I do not doubt the sincerity of my friend Frank Hoffman. I know why he came up with Hybrid. I just think it's a very bad solution to the problem, because like MW is has damaging flow down effects!

The rest is the worst kind of Snake Oil, "claiming to cure all known ills." - on the basis of no evidence. I have watched first hand, all these wooly ideas get one army in deep trouble. Rejecting them has done it no harm.

Why seek to be clever and inventive, when the entire history of warfare shows that simple and effective works better than all else?

There is nothing in Warfare we do not know how to do better - we just choose not to do it because in making that choice, a lot of human organisational and bureaucratic needs get trampled.

We can have serious, useful and detailed debate about future doctrine, training and equipment, but that cannot start until basic, fundamental, and enduring aspects of warfare are recognised. If it is a more dangerous world it's because we are becoming stupider.