Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
and what he is presenting are the elements that ensure you are the winner in a very competitive environment.
I do not agree. I do not think Boyd accurately or usefully understood what creates success in combat. If he did, he could not explain it in a coherent way.
My only defense here is to review the bibliography of Patterns in Conflict…it is extensive.
For insurance purposes I have just had to catalogue my library. I have about 20+ meters of bookshelf space on military history, theory and thought. Not saying I know more than Boyd.
Surprise is very important but I see much more in that statement…it is an entire system that (by US organizational standards) encompasses everyone from the President and Combat Commander to the squad leader and down to the individual Marine/Soldier.
Yet from Korea to Somalia that coherency and understanding was noticeably lacking. I see no good evidence that Boyd really understood the linkage between Policy, Strategy and tactics.


Your right…and I should not use the term Boyd Theory, it is way too sexy and fashionable. Let’s call it what it is “A Discourse on Winning and Losing”.

Specifically, he observes that we went from a war of movement to stagnation and discusses the reactions to that stagnation, its exceptions and what worked and didn’t work in those reactions via infiltration and guerrilla tactics.
Yes but he cannot explain why, and his observations are inaccurate. He completely side steps why "infiltration" often fails, and why the British system of operations developed in 1917, persisted, successfully, into the 1950's.
Were you conned or did you have bad teachers?
Bad teachers, like Boyd. I was Boyd Groupie from 1985 onwards. In about 2004, I realised I had been conned.
It is exactly that statement that convinces me that attrition warfare does exist. In my mind, attrition warfare is trading resources with the enemy knowing (or at least hoping) you have more resources than you opponent.
That is merely mutual attrition symptomatic of any sustained engagement of closely matched enemies. It is not a "Style" of Warfare. The Battles of Trenton and San Jancinto leveraged surprise. They were not distinct in tactical style. Surprise works. Its not a style.
It does work…Grant in the Civil War and as you stated the British (and American) counter-attacks at the end of WW1…but I also think that the historians of Verdun would also think that it does not works.
Which credible historians? The MW crowd cherry pick history and ignore the any of the facts that undermine their theory.
MW contains no technique or idea that defines it as unique of distinct.
To do that it has to invent stuff that fails to withstand rigour - Recce Pull being a good example.