Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 12:04:56 +0200 (CEST)
From: Joacim Persson <joacim-AT-ymex.net>
Subject: "A war? Ok. You go first."


On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Old Goat wrote:
> Other than that I buy your premise which may be a bit more likely than any
> of us would like to believe.  Adolf Busch was on telly tonight messing up
> the baseball schedule and preparing us to make the ultimate sacrifice.  Fuck
> 'im.  Let him and Saddam fight a duel -- winner take all.  Makes a lot more
> sense than having a bunch of folk who ain't mad at anybody kill one another.
> If Toney Blear wants in then mebbe they can make it a 3-way, di?

In a recent raid at my favourite second-hand book shop, I stumbled across a
rather odd-topic (but irresistibly cheap) little pearl published by the
Soviet Frunze War Academy: "Development of tactics in the Soviet Army
during the Great Patriotic War 1941-44." (transl. publ. 1960)

It mentions a peculiarity in the Soviet Army (early) regulations:

[Part I, Ch 9]
"/.../ According to these regulations, platoon, company, and batallion
commanders should stay ahead of their units during battle. As a result of
this, the troops had great losses of officers, which disorganised the
leadership. In the infantry regementees in the first echelon of the 61st
army on the west front, which participated in the main force during the
Bolchov operations, of the platoon, company, and batallion commanders 80%
were lost during the first day of battle. /.../ This practice was abandoned
in the autumn of 1942."  (no shit? ;)

I suggest this order of battle -- extended all the way up to generals,
politicians, oil company executives, ordnance industry shareholders,
newspaper editors and other warmongers -- is added to the Geneva convention
as an obligatory requirement for every army...

To make it more interesting, they (the warmongers in the first line) should
be armed with more manly weapons, like axes. Missiles are for sissies.
(Privates otoh should be equipped with an excess of hand grenades, for
cheering up their commanders with during advance; keep them fit and alert.)