Strategic Offensive

'Better take a state intact than destroy it' will relate to don't mess with the locals' stuff if you don't need to. If you feel you need to, full speed ahead, but don't do it out of carelessness.

Master Sun says it excellently that one who knows himself but not the enemy will win some and lose some, one who knows neither will be destroyed, and one who knows both will be victorious. This is an excellent point to remember, and means that an officer really needs to study up on who the enemy is and how he thinks. Knowing himself and his own men is vital, but I feel like we often go in without trying to know the enemy.

His recommendations of odds remind me of how one should not seek to engage unless the odds are 3 to 1. He also has some underlying strategy in there (e.g. 'with two, split in half' aka flank).

His mention of defeating the enemy without fighting is applied in Iraq and Afghanistan in winning over the hearts and minds of the locals, and also in the sometimes-successful method of paying lower-level fighters to switch sides.

Waging of War (what is it good for?)

In short: War costs a lot of money. The longer you wage war for, the more money it costs and the more demoralized your men get (e.g. Alexander the Great's men demanding to go home). Don't wage it for longer than you can help it or you will go broke. Going broke is bad because you will need to raise taxes. Raising taxes will impoverish you country. Impoverishing your country will reduce its ability to wage war.

Even back in the day, Sun Tzu recognized that the daily cost of war was ridiculous.The amount of money being poured into Iraq and Afghanistan today is ridiculous. One sketchy site says that the state of Indiana alone has paid $15.9 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

Sun also touched on supply lines and shipping supplies. While it is much more speedy and streamlined nowadays, this still costs mucho dinero. The instruction of foraging off the enemy's food was all well and good back then, but somehow I don't think that stealing turnips from the local Iraqis will win us this war. A war against an insurgency plays by different rules, so the whole 'use the enemy's supplies' is more or less obsolete since cannot use the locals' supplies without their permission and we are more apt to destroy captured insurgency supplies than use them.

Making of Plans

Master Sun seems knowledgeable enough, and his simplicity is refreshing: do this and you will lose, do that and you will win. The choices that one can make to win or lose, though they appear simple because of his curt wording, are in fact complicated processes. For example 'If the enemy is full, be prepared' has many more implications than it is letting on. Thereby, most of what Sun Tzu says is more like an outline of an outline which must be applied.

The Five Fundamentals that Master Sun presents are:

The Way,
Heaven,
Earth,
Command,
Discipline

They way seems an awful lot like our definition of leadership, in that he who possesses the way is the one that men will follow without wavering. The Way is the most important among these for it determines Command and Discipline as well.

Heaven is the consideration of climate, weather, and season. It is not for nothing that we go over weather and temperature in OPORDs, if you're out in the middle of the desert for the entire day in the blazing sun you'd better be equipped to hydrate and have a plan on when and how to do it. Heaven does not mean mobilizing your troops during WWII in Russia so that they will be caught by deep winter and reduced to shreds because you are an idiot.

Earth affects all missions because all missions are terrain dependent. Move stealthily, keeping your head on a swivel through thick brush, and knowing how to navigate terrain by map is all essential. Using geographical features to your advantage or navigating by them falls under Earth.

Command is something that falls under The Way because it is part of what makes men follow a leader. It means knowing how to create and sustain the moral of an army.

Discipline is simple enough, your men should know their punishments and rewards and you should not shrink back from delivering either. Knowing the chain of command is something else that can be recognized in TLP and is presented in OPORDs.

The Sergeat and the Ghost/Escape and Evade

The battle at Albany was portrayed as a tumult of confusion, with men getting hit left and right. Probably the most disturbing instances mentioned were of men getting shoveled up into their ponchos after they'd been blown to pieces or of the sounds of American wounded being executed by the VC. Almost makes me want to become a pacifist.

Several times in the book, there are instances where the quoted words of individuals surprised me in registering these beyond-terrible acts to fellow human beings, but then continuing to function: "The enemy were killing our wounded. When the relief patrol came in it was from my south, I think." Many moments such as this shock me with the detachment through they regard these acts, yet they keep going. I'm starting to get the picture that there is nothing else to do but to keep going. Your duty is always the same. To disregard a portion of your humanity is the Faustian pact for military competence.

Luck was also a notable presence on the battlefield. Braveboy's story of survival after several days, or Sergeant's Kluge's men not getting shot up while they were carrying wounded with their rifles on their backs were undeniably lucky. No matter how good or bad a soldier you are, blind luck will have a good say in what happens. So, in that case, there is no need to worry about what you can't control. The last thing I want, however, is for something bad to happen that I could have controlled but wasn't competent enough to do it.

Hell in a Very Small Place...Death in the Tall Grass

Confusion is always the bane of all fighting forces. Disorganization and panic fragments and disperses a unit's fighting effectiveness substantially, and men are much more likely to die needlessly as a result.

Every plan looks nice and simple on paper, but out on the actual battlefield things are bound to become much more convoluted and complicated. Factors such as terrain and temperature have massive impacts that are easy to forget about if doing planning in an air-conditioned room talking about formations. This became apparent on the FTXs, where even though the mission was cut-and-dry and centered in a small area, confusion nevertheless took place. People became lost as a result of blind travel, and sometimes the objective itself would be completely bypassed. These situations slowed down operations significantly and slowed momentum down. And this was only on a mock training mission...

The sister battalion's experience at Albany also showed that American forces are by no means indestructible or untouchable. It is vital to understand that there is no built-in superiority that makes us invulnerable and victorious, and that the enemy is very capable of destroying you if you let him.

pg. 185-229

9 Principles of War
-Objective
-Offensive
-Mass
-Economy of Force
-Maneuver
-Unity of Command
-Security
-Surprise
-Simplicity




Both forces, whether they were aware of it or not, utilized the 9 principles of war in Ia Drang. It is easy to sit back, years later, and disseminate what happened and how well they performed in respective principles, but things get immeasurably more complicated on the ground. Therefore, criticism must be given with that in mind.

When they were rescuing the Lost Platoon, the U.S. forces were going on the offensive. They advanced well into hostile territory, noted by the grenading and preparatory artillery strikes, and they reached their objective of reaching their stranded soldiers. However, it was the NVA who maintained the offensive the rest of the battle, predominantly because of their far superior mass.

The NVA used mass to their advantages, albeit under very heavy casualties. Waves of soldiers were advancing in straight lines, allowing them to be cut down, but their size, combined with a noteworthy ferocity with which they fought, made them a formidable enemy. Overall, though, the NVA did not were not able use mass and concentration of forces effectively, especially because of the artillery capabilities of the U.S.

The main power of the U.S. was concentration of mass, which was a byproduct of overall excellent communication. Artillery was designated where it was supposed to go, Hueys were buzzing in an out, and the companies were able to advance or set up security under unity of command.

Security along Diduryk's portion of X-ray was described in detail, and used as an example of how security should be. The MGs had proven their worth in the previous engagements, and were placed with interlocking fields of fire. The captain was aware that the NVA would probably be coming again, which negated their power of surprise. Thrown against an especially tight security, NVA forces would be prevented from bringing the full weight of their numbers to bear and quickly overrunning the position.

pgs. 128-155

The situation at LZ X-ray was undoubtedly bad. It seems like the then Lt. Col. Moore mentions that the 7th Cavalry was sustaining casualties almost every other line. The infantry on the ground were facing fierce resistance from a numerically superior enemy, and this was eroding their combat effectiveness in a noticeable manner.

From what one reads in the book, the Hueys were doing exactly what they needed to be doing. A substantial number of wounded were being succesfully evacuated with lifesaving effects, and apart from the Lost Platoon, ammunition and water sounded like they were being resupplied in a timely manner, which seems like a precious silver lining in the engagement. One medic reporting that he had a superflous amount of morphine seemed like a rarity on a battlefield that was generating so many wounded.

The communication of the American forces played an enormous role in fueling their engagement of the enemy. The rear HQ at Falcon was useful in coordinating supplies and evacuations into X-ray, although the situation with the Medvac choppers seems be screwy for lack of a better word. Keeping the choppers out at a time when they were needed the most is just plain bad practice, which meant that the Hueys now had to take over medical duties as well. The ability to radio in for artillery, and the fact that the artillery seemed to be well munitinoed with diverse fire capabilities such as flares and WP shells, came off as immensely helpful. The presence of artillery played a very heavy role in the battle, yet the enemy kept coming. If the capabilities of artillery fire had not been there, the situation would've been very different indeed.

Shows how important it is to coordinate the forces around the actual boots on the ground and enable them to succeed. The infantry are doing the actual fighting, but their effectiveness in enhanced a thousandfold by the Hueys and artillery batteries.