Hi Ken,
I remember reading some years back, that a science becomes a science when it drops static typologies and looks at change over time. Swarming, checkerboards, etc - any tactic really - can work if the factors limiting the situation are right. No tactic, however, is a Holy Grail; they will all fail if the situational limits are against them.
Hey, I resemble that remark !
More seriously, cherry picking historical examples of the success of a tactic (or strategy) is fine as long as it is designed to highlight the limiting factors. Unfortunately, the author in this article appears to be doing it for another reason. Swarming, as a tactic, seems to work best when there is limited capability for opponent identification and when immediately available defensive technologies can be breached quickly. It also seems to work really nicely when you have both of those conditions and the aim is actually to attack in some other area, usually moral via logistics (i.e. force the non-swarming group to invest heavily in infrastructure and logistical support). Probably the classic campaign along these lines, which, BTW, Arquilla does not mention, was Crassus' expedition against the Parthians.
Yup! That is the lesson he should have drawn from the legions.
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