Q & A.

This is coolbert:

Some questions and answers regarding prior blog entries. 

1. From that blog entry regarding Gallipoli:

"WHAT EXACT CAMPAIGN OF THE GREAT WAR WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS WENT ACCORDING TO PLAN! Most of the time events degenerated into the proverbial "senseless carve-up" without amelioration.

Those exceptions to include:

* Riga.
* Caparetto.
* Romania.

Riga and Caparetto decisive battlefield victories [a campaign consisting of series of battles as defined] but not resulting in a climactic end to hostilities against Russia and Italy respectively.

That Romanian campaign the only instance during the Great War where the calculations and plans of a General Staff [German] went as expected and hoped for. Those military forces of Romania thoroughly routed and annihilated.

2. As stated in the blog entry Waterloo QJM:

"It is reasonable to ask if the QJM method of calculation and analysis for combat as fought during the black powder warfare Napoleonic Era is a valid technique. In the opinion of Dupuy QJM legitimate at least from the time of the American Civil War onward!"

And here we have the answer. From "Lost Battles" by Philip Sabin.

"Dupuy has pushed his own quantitative analysis [QJM deriving from that analysis of the  data] of historical combat even further back to include data from the Napoleonic and American Civil"

During that period of the Napoleonic Era and the American Civil War NO use of indirect fire or automatic weapons. The two biggest killers during both World Wars being artillery [indirect fire primarily] and automatic weapons.

To the extent that QJM established from data of combat during both World Wars questioning QJM as is applicable to prior generations of warfare not out of the question?

As to Trevor Dupuy himself we have this interesting tidbit:

"Dupuy----the descendant of a French Huguenot who emigrated to Prussia after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The grandson of this emigre accompanied von Steuben to America during the revolution and stayed here when the war was over."

There are questions to be asked and now we have the answers. And are the better for it too.

coolbert.