Enemy AI in Civilization: “your army is so weak compared to ours, prepare to be crushed” Me with my two archers and a scout: fends off a continent’s worth of soldiers with basically no casualties Enemy AI: “let’s not let war define who we are”
Same thing can be said for total war games. 5 armies attack you and the only troops you have is like 2 cavalry 5 infantry 3 ranged 1 skirmisher/light infantry. yet if you attack strategically you’ll win
You: Spread your army expecting the enemy to also spread so you can defeat them in detail Enemy: Does not spread out and attacks your spread out forces with one big force, defeating you in detail
But the objective is to reach the town. If they attack one group than the other three can take the town while the attacked group can retreat or stall for reinforcements that would come from behind enemy lines, crushing them in battle on two different fronts.
If you are in the enemy's land he has other things to worry about, like guarding resources, which you don't (except for guarding your supply lines). So if the enemy doesn't spread out, possibly you could take more prizes and achieve your objective in that way.
Also applies on the battle map, trying to pit 2 units or more against one, fixing and flanking, then moving on. This is by far the most common method of defeat in Total War: Arena as well, usually it cascades and you'll be left facing like 5:1 odds
The Germans used this extensively in the Second World War, specifically in the early phases of the war. It is great if you are attacking a fairly static enemy who is dispersed. Not so good if you are under attack, especially on a broad front.
Actually that (Edit: "that" here refers to a point from the original comment that polaris has since edited out as a reaction to this reply) is not really the case. Blitzkrieg was a way of creating defeat in detail situations specifically by not engaging in direct defeat in detail tactics. The obvious tactical answer to the scenario in the video is to place only a small portion of your force on the front and to keep the largest part of it behind the line as a strategic reserve. The front forces can be dug in into highly entrenched positions that, if engaged, are guaranteed both to inflict heavier casualties on the enemy than they take and to slow the advance providing enough time for the reserves to repel the advance and use the superior numbers in a counter-attack. Even better is to divide your reserve into fast-moving rapid reaction forces to slow the advance at the point of contact and a larger, heavier force for the counter-attack. The details are not so important as the concept of giving ground temporarily in order to slow the enemy down without committing serious numbers to the fight until it is to your advantage. What blitzkrieg did was to turn the prevailing military wisdom of the day on its head and have the initial overwhelming force ignore the enemy positions as much as possible. Their primary role was to create a breakthrough and stay mobile, thus depriving the defensive force of both the time it needs to bring up the reserve force and a single, static point of attack for the reserve forces to be deployed. And because the reserve force is not deployed to the front, this area becomes weak enough for a secondary attack force to advance and surround the strongpoint defences there, taking them at leisure while the defending army tries to deal with the breakthrough, which will by now have turned and be threatening the rear of the defending force and a larger encirclement. Most defending generals of the day felt their position at this point was too precarious and ordered a general withdrawal, thus leaving the isolated pockets of men to their fate. It is worth noting that the basic defensive ideas have not actually changed that much from that time - the foundation is still defence in depth - but modern day generals understand blitzkrieg and other breakthrough + encirclement strategies so much better now, compared with 1939, that they can react much more appropriately. In particular, counterattacking the flanks of the advancing force while adding even more defensive layers to the lines can slow the advance to a crawl, eliminating most of the dangers. The Allied forces essentially learned these lessons during the first half of WW2 and they have more or less been perfected since.
@@zelandakhniteblade5436 Noteworthy is that the German blitzkrieg was also quite effective thanks to incredibly well coordinated use of combined arms warfare. The Germans were very efficient at using the right tools for the specific job. For example, you wouldn't see many Tiger 1 tanks the vast majority of the time except for specifically the initial breakthrough. After that point you would primarily see Panzer 3s and the Tiger 1s would retreat for maintenance and be preparing for the next major initial phase of another breakthrough. Artillery was also used very effectively aswell as Luftwaffe bombings in order to create that initial opening. Motorized infantry would cover the rears as the punch consisting primarily of panzers pushed deeper and deeper. Later the regular ground infantry would reinforce and secure the new front, by which time the encirclement was already complete, allowing the ground infantry to take out the encircled enemies that was left behind. Problem of course during the invasion of the Soviet Union was that the Germans simply didn't have the oil nor infrastructure to supply their forces which would eventually lead to the failure of the Wehrmacht. Invading Poland or France is one thing, but the colossal size of the USSR was simply not feasible with blitzkrieg.
That's very true, French did not see that technology had shifted the war meta from a defensive one to a very offensive one. That and the Ardennes of course.
Your presentation, visuals, and editing are pretty damn good. I also like how you incorporated Google Earth into some of your videos. This is a channel worth keeping an eye on.
Rock-paper-scissor. Artillery (rock) can't kill enough of the horde (paper), but will wipe out the fast but small elite (scissor). Fast elite troops, in turn, will either outmaneouver hordes - if they concentrate their forces - or defeat them in detail - if they spread out to cover all objectives, but will be smashed by the artillery.
@@jintarokensei3308 So, the other way around? Artillery the scissor vs the paper of the horde vs the rock of the elite? I'm stretching the metaphor either way.
It's supposed to be Artillery (Paper) destroys Infantry formations (Rock) which in turn destroys Cavalry formations (Scissors) which are used to flank enemy lines and 'usually' attack weak and vulnerable troops like Artillery (Paper)
Napoleon won at Austeritz by GIVING the high ground to the ennemy. :) - Sire, this is the best position. How can you leave it to the ennemy? - Mon general, if I would only stop the ennemy, I would keep this position. But I want to totally destroy them. By tommorrow evening, all those armies will be in my hands!
Even better. They can retreat and make that 5k follow them for days. They aren't the one defending, so they can retreat as much as they want to. And when the big bois battle is over, your big bois army comes and wipes that 5k that's been chasing you for a week.
This idea works if you can't let any of your soldiers die, in reality though if 5000 are chasing 500 then the 500 have already won, a numerically superior army chasing a small force as such means there are 5000 less men to face your larger army
To finish, that 5000 is going to be defeated in detail like the other soldiers. As well, that 500 men is on the defensive now, meaning they have a tactical advantage right from the start.
Yeah this works only if your opponents don't react to the attacker moving their forces around. Why wouldn't the defender also moves his soldiers to counter this strategy? Cause this implies the by the book scenario where the defenders are braindead.
@Fa Mulan total war time players have to differ, as whore hammer players just spam magic whilst we have to make the most out of every unit and fucking ability.
No, doomstack is just a loaded 20 stack. you can't really do defeat in detail anymore in modern Total War games because the game always requires troops to move under a general.
yes, nobody said it was easy or not risky. at marengo it nearly backfired, but the mark of a GREAT general is that he is able to break the rules of warfare repeatedly and achieve success repeatedly. there is a reason why there are rules of war at every given time period, to see through them, break them, and succeed more than once is beyond a fluke of luck. it's genius.
Seeing that outnumbered enemy has spread their forces, generals of bigger army launch simultaneous attacks on all fronts. *Directed by* *ROBERT B. WEIDE*
Then retreat back, when they will chase you, if they concentrate on one portion the others can quickly surround them. If they break off then just use the defeat in detail strategy
Then retreat. You are on the offensive in this scenario, meaning you should be able to instigate a fighting retreat, sacrificing territory for time. The further you go, the longer and more stretched your enemies' supply line will be, while yours will continue to strengthen. Then once the enemy exhausts their counter attack capabilities, you go on the offensive, with a renewed strength capable of crushing them while they're tjred
@@Micro0644This is actually exactly what happened to the Dominion in Star Trek. They invaded the Federation, who pulls back and sacrificed territory for time to reconstitute their forces, and by the time they arrived in the core systems, their supplies lines are already stretched insanely thin, and their advance is halted at the siege of Vulcan and the battle of Arcadia. So once the Federation Starfleet and the Klingon Defence Force regained the initiative, they launched Operation: RETURN, concentrated their faster units, aka frigates, destroyers, and light cruisers, into one big spearhead of around 3 fleets, then pushed back and utterly collapsed the enemy's line, winning back 3 to 4 entire sectors within a week. So yeah, don't overextend, people.
Playing paradox games is like this. The only difference is in Hearts of Iron where instead of attacking the different armies you just go around them and *encircle them.*
Well, you can eventually run out of manpower or money/resources in paradox games. This video is more true of Civilization where you don't have to worry about manpower, and troop maintenance is rather trivial.
this does work in eu4 i defeated a coaliton where i was outnumbered 3/1 using this stratagy by the end of it they had no navy and they only just outnumbered me in troops athough it doesnt work after focre mach is unlocked as well
2:15 Maneuver warfare is the most important component of concentration of force. Maneuver warfare is a fairly modern military concept. But the Mongols were probably the first to master maneuver warfare, defeating enemies in battle that were numerically superior time and time again
DiD is engaging larger army but by making the right maneuvres you keep a numerical advantage at each engagement. Blitzkrieg is engaging a frontline with concentrated amounts of armour to have a numerical advantage in armour, punch through the line, create chaos, disrupt supply lines and other logistics and push for encirclements and quick defeats of large parts of the enemy militairy. Depending on how concentrated, fast and effective the armour is, you either need numerical superiority overall or not.
The master of this were Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg were military disasters and humiliated two Union generals out of their top positions.
Not to take away from the accomplishments of Lee & Jackson but they'd never have had such success if the Union Army was competently commanded. Had McClellan understood that he outnumbered the Confederates, the war would have been over pretty quickly.
@ali akbulut The influence of winter is slightly over exaggerated and Russians aren't immune to cold either despite common myths. Besides winter seems to be unreliable ally since it decided to side with Finns during the winter war.
@@steirqwe7956 It actually helped Hitler to advance his armies. Dirt and rivers freeze in winter. General frost is just one of the generals' excuses for their military failures.
@@stepanov_architect true. What didn't work out was Hitler underestimating the length of the operation. Thus when the frost thawed. The wehrmach (sorry for the spelling) were stuck in muddy plains.
Great strategy for computer games maybe too ? One important detail is that Napoleon won the battles, but he lost the war in the end. The lesson from this is that *whoever wants to fight, must also be ready to lose.* Staying away from the fight is a victory, as long as the fight is not pushed upon you by time or similar forces. In the Napoleon example, the Chinese people or the Japanese did not participate, so they won by not fighting.
I do this strategy in total war lol. You can also do this on a more micro scale (if you play the game). You hide you main army in a forest/behind a hill, use a couple of cavalry units to harass the enemy bulk until you get them to chase you in different directions. You can now either herd the enemy into an ambush or march out your main army while keep harassing them with cavalry, so they cannot charge at your main force at full strength, ideally you wanna stretch them out while u pick their battalions out one by one.
I used to play strategy games. I think the historic battle strategies can be applied to the computer games too. Also, the modern *e-sports games can teach us* new strategies that nobody could have expected before.
@Andre Massena Hitler issuing the go at USSR, have some merits. The buffer state they created are meant to be temporary, and sooner or later they would clash for the control of the continent. Later, it has been uncovered that USSR have plans on invading Nazi Germany in '42, if things go south with their pact.
Great video! Though it is also important to emphasize that markedly superior leadership and troops are necessary to pull it off. In Waterloo Napoleon attempted the same feat, yet the Allied leadership and armies had improved to a point where it failed. After Blucher's Prussians were defeated, they evaded the small force sent to chase them off and reunited with Wellington's troops and crushing Napoleon's army. One of those things that sounds simple in theory but requires exceptional leadership and/or troops. When the leadership is not up to the task or the enemy is competent enough to foil your plans it could lead to disaster.
Same thing with the Battle of Tannenberg 1914, it worked because Germans had the intel on all Russian movement plans after an officer died with the note on him. After they confirmed the plans were true, the Germans were able to use it to their advantage rather than just using ''defeat in detail'' or ''concentration of force''. Sure, those two principles might have been present in the battle, but it was mostly due to the intel obtained, that the battle was such a success.
The thing about Waterloo is that Napoleon misread Blucher. He thought that he would fall back to cover his supply lines - but Blucher didn't cover them - he went to help Wellington. Napoleon's Marshal - followed his orders - which had been to "follow" the Prussians ... but instead of following the Prussians back towards Prussia - they followed the Prussians to Waterloo - where (The Prussians having gotten there first) the Battle was over by the time they got there. So - here - it was Wellington and Blucher that Concentrated their Forces and Napoleon who was Defeated in Detail because he had divided his army. This is one of the problems with the Napoleonic Management Model. Here the idea is that you have this genius running things and everyone else's function is to obey him. The problem with that is that it tends to make his subordinates less inclined to use their initiative. So - when Napoleon's Marshal is asked by HIS subordinates if they shouldn't "ride to the sound of the guns" (they being closer to Napoleon than Blucher) they were told that he, their Marshal - wasn't going to go against Napoleon's orders. .
A similiar one is of Maratha Peshwa Bajirao Ballal. Undefeated throughout his military career spanning 20 years. Believed in speed rather than numbers and would only use cavalry and outmanouver, the Brits and Mughals alike. Was almost always outnumbered. For those interested, Battle Of Palkhed is one of the most studied and flawless victories of Bajirao.
the big irony is the germans did the same thing in 1940. the sedan breach cut the allied armies in 2 with half the french army facing the maginot line doing nothing. that way they were able to route the allies at dunkirk fighting 2v1 and then turn their forces to face the rest of the french army. even though in paper their forces matched up, they always fought 2 to 1 on the ground.
The Germans did the same in 1941 during Barbarossa too. The Soviet line was staggered, so even though the Soviets had more men total the Germans outnumbered them in almost every single battle during the initial stages of the war.
No, blitzkrieg is different. Blitzkrieg involves fast moving armored divisions breaking through the line and grouping up behind enemy lines surrounding enemy army's as whole and many of them, in the Soviet Unioun for example. Surrendered resulting in little fighting. This strategy involves a front and simply having more troops then the other side at a certain point. Both effective military strategys
I always referred to this strategy as "Flank baiting" due to how you position troops to threaten the enemy flank, but then focus all your effort on attacking the main route instead. With the enemy still focused on the flank, they'll be caught off guard.
This is what I like to do in rts games. Scout a place where I see enemies, gather a small force that I try to get through the point and meanwhile collect a big army that I later just brute force through another place
Mere superiority of numbers is sometimes not enough. Other factors like terrain, weather, surprise, morale, troop quality, supplies, weapon quality, leadership and fatigue usually comes into play. Sometimes mere luck becomes decisive. But with all else being equal, numbers would be the decisive factor. Perhaps the only factor that would make a difference.
Wow, weird everyone is just now finding this video, google must be playing with it's metadata again, anyways this is great content, I hope you have more videos on the way!
bro, you can imagine my shock. a week ago i was at 4,000 views with the savo video, its now past 100k. I am amazed. and yeah, im working on one now, should be out end of the month!
Guess this is the resultant overlap of my shared interests in strategy games, military armaments and technology, or factoids with utility Their metadata profiling improved
That is what I have been doing in Total War, nice to know "Defeat in detail" is something I have been using instinctively. I also like using the Hammer and Anvil tactic, pinning the enemy with troops and then attacking from behind with cavalry / tanks so that the enemy is fighting a battle on two fronts, and therefore their manpower on each front is effectively halved. Shock and Awe is another good one, pound the enemy with artillery before the battle starts, then mop up when they're shell shocked and panicking. Mobility is key, and rapid guerilla-like tactics can allow a small force to overcome and grind down the larger force, and then win with morale shock, and on a macro-scale create war weariness as large, visible key targets get taken out.
I mean, it won't really work in HOI4 because if you do this, the ai will push behind your units and kill them. This would work better in VIC2 EU4 or CK3 where there's no advantage to spreading your force
@@hiddentreasure2161 No it works, this is what i do everytime i'm trying to push into a country. They can push your defensive units for a while but you should be able to encircle those units before they push you too far away.
One thing to remember is that in order for this to work, you also need a) a very good recon ability so that the weak spots can be found, and b) be ensured that the enemy commander won't move his forces around - this in turn makes it really important that the numerical inferior force is way too fast for the enemy to react to. The two best examples to this are first the Finnish Winter War in 1939-40, when Finnish troops would chop up Russian convoys in smaller parts and defeat each one in detail. Since the Russians were confined to their heavy and cumbersome equipment stuck on the narrow roads, they couldn't react fast enough to support the cut off portions of their forces, and since the Finns were on skis, they pretty much ran circles around the Russians all the time. A second example would be once again Rommel, who cut through the French forces during the western campaign in 1940. He was constantly outnumbered there as well, but managed to use his very fast units to really upset the Allies. One captured French officer told him, 'you are too fast for us'.
that is true but attrition warfare and knowing how to use it to your advantage can stop any and all speedy force in it's tracks if you can force them in to a attrition fight even when out numbered it will stop all of the speed that they will have. just one fight where you bloody the smaller force badlly enough will make it harder for that force to pull off any local supremacy attacks at all.
@Vincent Celeste: True - it happened at El Alamein and on a greater scale in the Soviet Union. However, a war of attrition is very unappetizing nowadays - very few countries would simply not accept the losses asociated with that.
yea once the war of attrition kicks in it is all over for everyone cause the only way out is to call it quits and leave. sadlly there is few who are willing to do places like china or india with deep population pools can afford to do it and will have the spines to pull it off and be better off for it to. more space to spread out and eventually replace the losses there.
I think an important aspect of all this is that the effectiveness of an attacking force increases disproportionally with its size, so that for example, if an army of 10 000 were to attack an army of 5000, they would be *more than* twice as strong and thus the battle would be very one-sided, with them losing fewer men than one might expect. This is why a locally superior force doesn't get slowly ground up by multiple attacks, but is able to maintain enough strength over time. The strategy of Defeat in Detail is really just this effect of numerical superiority put to good use. I just looked it up, it is called Lanchester's square law: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws
only if those countries posses nukes and only if it escalates to strategic (not tactical) nuclear war which is a pretty big risk for both sides in such a confrontation. In all other cases of conventional war, this pretty much applies.
This is what McClellan had a chance to do when the "Lost Order" fell into his hands. He was closer to the pieces of Lee's army than the pieces of that army were to each other. Instead, he vacillated and allowed Lee to regroup, resulting in the slaughterhouse of Antietam.
Helori Pascal Confederacy would have still collapsed. There is practically no realistic way in which the Confederates could have pulled off a decisive historic victory. Now, I'm no expert for the 19th century war strategy, but I'm pretty sure that diplomatically, the Confederate state wouldn't have survived the first four decades of its existence without breaking down. So anyway, the Confederacy was unstable and would have lost anyway.
Operation Werewolf I'm sure I'm not the "left wing" you are talking about, I'm actually quite traditionalistic, I'm not even American and despise regressivism. I was just being realistic. No, I'm not the kind of guys who cares about the strategy itself. I'm not a military expert or wannabe expert. But my claims on confederacy are unbiased. I wouldn't have anything against a confederate state today, but that seems like a stretch. It's possible the (a bit more powerful in this case) US would take the advantage of a failing agricultural economy, in the early 20th century. I know my comment was unnecesary, considering how the OP didn't really mention what would happen after the war, but still I wanted to say my opinion related to the subject.
Operation Werewolf Sorry, but the Federals had overwhelming advantages in naval, artillery, production, railways, and manpower. The only hope the Rebs had was to wear out the Norths will to fight, and they only ever got close to that because of a serous lack of competent federal leadership. The Continentals had both foreign allies acting as the life blood of rebellion and the fact the British were fighting across an ocean. Luxuries the South never had.
The Russian Fleet was insignificant to the Civil War. Twelve ships in total did nothing to close any supposed gaps in the blockade line around the Atlantic and Gulf coasts which were covered by a force already 20 times the size of the two squadrons Russia sent to the American coasts in 1863 to keep them from being ice-locked during the winter that year at a time when a possibility of an Anglo-Russian war seemed to be looming on the horizon. As for "just surviving", the South wasn't even going to be able to manage that. While the world's attention was fixed upon Virginia, the far more significant strategic victories - the ones that would actually decide the outcome of the war - were being won by the Union in the western theatre: the steady seizure of the Trans-Mississippi, control of the Cumberland River valley and hence control of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Control of those two states gave the Union the perfect position to stage the eventual invasion of Georgia to cut the Confederacy into pieces, while the Union's control of the Mississippi River effectively neutralised Texas, Arkansas and Missouri and allowed Union riverine military and commercial shipping to flow unimpeded all the way to the Gulf. And what made things all the worse for Confederate hopes was that the necessity to defend Richmond effectively bottled up reinforcements that were far more desperately needed to thwart the Union advances in the west. One of the main drivers for Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania was the hope of drawing Grant's army away from Vicksburg to defend Washington D.C. It was a gamble with long odds and little logistical support behind it, and it failed because George Meade proved to be a far more effective commander than the men Lee had contended against up to that fatal battle at Gettysburg. But it was Grant's victories at Vicksburg and later that year at Chattanooga that sealed the Confederacy's fate.
Only stupid general would ordered cavalry to charge a large concentration of infantry from the front. But Daenerys was not a good general to begin with.
@@gloriabisco6148 ...and not taking advantage from a fortified defensive position, not creating proper "killing zones" (well, the enemy was already dead, but you know...) and traps all over the battlefield besides a weak barricade, not using efficently their "air force" supporting properly their land troops, and entrusting a bunch of archers to protect a VIP inside the walls, in a close space, instead of deploy them on the walls and entrust that mission to some heavy infantry.... that episode is a complet military nonsense...
@@isihernandez9752 Well they seemed to have too many soldiers to fit inside the walls so they kept a large base outside to get a sense of the enemy since they never fought them before and then retreat into the castle once they get more information on how to fight them and using fearless unsullied to make sure the retreat doesn't turn into a slaughter. As for the Dothraki Horde, they would assume that the enemy would completely surround the castle so the flank is denied, that leaves no other choice but to do a front charge and when the horde gets surrounded the remaining ground forces would charge forward and break open the horde from being circled and hopefully the charge would kill enough to be worth it but they severely underestimated the enemy which is why the horde died so quickly and the reinforcements could not get to them in time. Once inside the walls they used the fire traps to stall the enemy as their troops got into position to defend the wall after seeing how aggressive the zombies are. As for building more traps they did not have enough time, they were working 24/7 building the fire stall trap and making the dragon glass weapons. As for the air force, they just lost a dragon that joined the enemy side. They needed to be more defensive with the dragons because they could not afford to lose a second one. Also the snow storm messed them up a lot and could not light the trap or see the enemy. As for Bran, their plan was to have him out in the open with a weak guard hoping the Night King would drop in on his dragon to kill Bran and they could take him out in the trap. Not the best idea but not the worst either, it was a gamble, keep him somewhat protected inside the walls but still visible and out in the open to entice the Night King to come in and be over confident. It was not the best military defense but they were severely limited on time and faced like 5+:1 odds against an extremely aggressive and fearless enemy that they had never fought before on a large scale. They had to spend a lot of time training and arming the women and inexperienced fighters which took away from their manpower for the carpentry and forgers. All in all they did the best they could given the time constraints they had and that it was their first time fighting this enemy.
@@elivolpyansky Nah... the retreat covered by the unsullied is the only logic and well executed mouvement on that battle, but all the other, just makes no sense. 1st- they did actually already know the enemy and what they could expect from him. Jon knew them, Daenerys knew them, and definitley, the wildlings knew them. Also do Jorah, the Hound, Dondarrion, the remaining members of the Night Watch.... 2nd- they didn't set a base out of the walls, they just deployed their troops in combat order to prepare for an open field battle, wich ain't the same thing. Thay didn't build a fortified camp to protect the troops who didn't fit inside the walls. 3rd- I'm not sure that there was no room insde the walls for all of them, but if so, I don't think that sacrificing almost all of the Dothrakis was the best way to make some room. 4th- If despite it all, they decided to start the battle with a cavalry charge, doing it like that, frontally is stupid. It would have been much more effective to deploy the unsullied on the front (with some others to protect the flanks), hidding the cavalry and making them wrap the enemy charging from their flank or their rear. 5th- as for defending the dragons, well, it's true until a certain point, but that battle was all or nothing, it makes no sense to keep your reserves if you have no chance to escape and you know your enemy doesn't take prisioners and doesn't negociate a peace or a rendition. With other enemies, the Dragons may be used just as a deterrent weapon, with no need to really engage them in combat, like some sort of nukes, but not with this enemy. At some point you have to use all that you have and most of the battle the dragons were stupidly engaged in a nonsense "dog fight" (if what you pretended was to atract the Night King to a trap) or just inactive. One dragon would have done the job of distracting the Nigh King without really engaging with him as the other supported the troops on the ground. 6th- regarding the trap, the Night King wouldn't have stopped if Bran was better protected for some heavy infantry, he was confident enough and Bran was his main target. That weak deffense will only have led to Bran's certain death if it wasn't for Arya, who wasn't included in the plan at all. 7th- regarding the traps all along the battlefield, they had people more than enough to set a lot more of them. Thousands of Dothrakis and unsullied, + the Valley knights, + the Wildlings + the civil popultion of Winterfell, + some others, is people more than enough to make obsidian weapons, and prepare the defenses at the same time. Hey, at the end of the day, it's only fiction and fantasy, no need to break our heads, but for all the series (as in the books), they had kept a nice realism and some sort of "historical reference accuracy" (despite the dragons, white walkers, etc), and it's a shame that at the end they had just forgot how to do it.
Basically "divide and conquer". Divide the foe into smaller groups and then conquer each individually before they can regroup. Used by the Romans when they were conquering Italy. Stalin hoped to do the same thing WWII. He wanted to wait for the Germans and Allies to weaken each other and then conquer them individually before they could rebuild. Then Operation Barbarossa happened, allowing the Allies to effectively "defeat in detail" the Germans since the Germans now had to divide their forces between multiple fronts.
Theres is absolutely no detail in bombing cities to ashes. Take a look at the world map and point Russia and America out, yes these big places. Now look for Germany and Japan, two dots in comparison. We didn't even count other Allied countries like Britain and it's colonies in yet.
Bombing cities was a big waste of time, resources, and manpower. The problem is that cities are pretty big and bombing them will scare the civilians into supporting their war effort even harder. Germany's failure wasn't because they lacked heavy bombers, but because of poor strategy (and logistics). During the Battle of Britain, Germany almost annihilated the RAF. What happened was the leadership (likely mostly Hitler) ordered the bombers to focus on bombing cities. This gave the RAF enough time to rebuild. All attacking the cities did was anger the Brits further and allow the RAF to catch their breath. Heavy bombers can be useful for destroying vital infrastructure. Germany was already infamous for poor logistics. World War One could have turned out differently if Germany had rail lines that could extend closer to the front. Heck, the only reason the "Blitzkreig" was even a thing was because the Germans knew they could only win a short war. It's why France and Poland fell fairly quickly (it also helped that France was next door) while the Brits, Soviets, and Americans proved to be too much. Once you've survived the German attacks long enough, they start running into supply problems.
What if in the mean time those 3 groups of 5.000 soldiers defeat the enemy groups of 500 soldiers? Napoleon is left with 10.500 against 15.000 and problem not solved (?)
An interesting thing to note here. Starting at 1:40 you'll also notice the total of the forces left behind. Only 500 at each spot.. Even if the enemy decided to attack first. They would only destroy 500 troops. To a max of 1500 if they attacked all 3. While your forces still eliminate 5000 troops. Your enemy would still lose more troops overall. 500-1500 troops lost to 5000 enemy troops lost in any battle is a victory any general would take. Essentially, even if you lost 3 other battles, you still win. This is an essential part of warfare. To force your enemy to use as much resources as possible (men, equipment, food, etc) against you, while you use as few resources as possible against them. Essentially it's efficiency. Eventually this can wear down even the largest enemy. Rebellions/guerrilla warfare is another excellent example of this.
@@hzrvan7303 Depending the location of the battlefield, is it mountains, forest or plain field, or is it in the middle of a siege. And sure if you are playing on the easiest mode you can beat the opponent easily. Swadian Knights are no match against Rhodoks shield wall and Sharpshooters combination in mountains or sieges.
Wouldn't concentrating your troops at a key area while the (I guess you can say) 'decoy' armies stand halted, heavily outnumbered, leave your flanks and reinforcements extremely vulnerable to enemy flanking maneuvers? I mean, if 500 men stand guard against 5,000 men, the 5,000 men stationed in those locations can wipe out or rout the standing units hence exposing the flanks of the main attack, and leaving your army outnumbered.
Obviously. If your force is numerically inferior or otherwise outmatched by the opposing force, any brilliant moves always critically rely on the enemy making serious mistakes. If the other side has their own Napoleon, the brilliant-moves factor is canceled out and what remains is one side being outmatched by the other.
yea or a decent one for command can use this to force the smaller force to fight the larger one on one location with full strength to use regardless of tactical outcome to force your opponent smaller in number then you to fight you on your own terms that alone is enough to clame a symbolic victory and a mental one to boot since you force your foe in to a conror to fight anyway.
Yes, but those decoy forces (500 men stand guard) were initially 3000, as the attacker divide also his forces. This is the intel ennemy have. Thise 500 left guard had to simulate that large force, covering the withdraw of 2.500, so that the ennemy can't figure you're concentrating. And 5.000 foes would not easily challenging 3.000 of your own. All wars are based on deception (Sun Tzu). Those 500 men had just that task. To pretend to be 3000. :)
at 1:23 I'd like to refer to Sun Tzu, "In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power." Not to be petty but I was amused :3
Dante Howlstice well I'd like to share my view on this........ The overall commanders of large scale wars can only plan the very start(as in things shown in this video and other things) But when the battle actually starts, it is the various commanders and soldiers who have to adapt to the situation and attack accordingly... And also report correct information back to their superiors..... Sun Tzu is ryt, numbers alone don't really give much advantage unless the army works properly like the cogs of a machine. Their are many examples in history where overwhelmingly large forces lost to smaller forces due to various factors, many of such being in Indian history...
Why never? Never say never! You can try to bait the enemy with a defending position that would let them think you could be defeated in detail, but once they try to take advantage, you counter with hidden defensive lines and fast shifts of your troops, which the enemy not expect. Half of your troops will be send to defend the main line, the rest will launch counter-attacks on the weakened frontline spots of the enemy, so that the enemey main line is in danger of getting flanked. Now you are outnumbering the flanks and it will only be a matter of time until the enemy is forced to retreat from the mainline to avoid getting wiped out!
The enemy can encircle your whole army if you concentrate it in one area just like what happened in the battle of Ulm by Napoleon or just like in ww2 by encirclement.
The entirety of warfare can summed up as a a struggle for better information than your opponent. As long as you know more about your opponent than they do about you, any fight is winnable.
Or like the portuguese did everytime they got invaded by Spain, Burn everything around the spanish troops, let the armies starve themselves and the ocasional guerrilla strategies.
Defeat in Detail refers to field armies. Fixed fortifications or even well dug in troops could nullify it. For instance, it was not successful against Roman legions since their camps were like forts.
That is quite a statement. I wonder if it is true, or does it just mean that the design and nature of defensive fortifications would be different?? Radar and AEW assets would be key to the defense of any base today, and therefore the defense of those assets would also be key. But, these assets are not fixed, and move with the army. Look at how combined forces recently severely defeated Russian mercenaries that attacked an American base in Syria. In that, fixed fortifications were not a factor, as you assert. So, I think you are right.
Napoleon would just go around fortifications and go capture cities of fool who tried such strategy. They didn't fight battles for the sake of fighting they had goals...
PS. One thing more! As I've written - this "strategy" was at best RISKY when Bonaparte took over the "Army of the South" (that would be known as the "Army Of Italy"). TODAY - with XXth century intel-gathering gathering modern technology (and the extremely brief "time of decision" factor), all ranging from "mere" scouting units to radar - radio's - drones - SATELLITES - nowadays opposing forces have practically such an almost TOTAL "OVERVIEW" of the battlefield that it isn't anymore possible to concentrate forces WITHOUT being noticed, therefore this strategy is doomed to fail. I'm not saying it is IMPOSSIBLE to somehow STRATEGICALLY surprise your enemy - but it is very difficult. You still may rely upon that "strategy" but you'd have to (...SOMEHOW!...) "FOOL INTO" it your enemy - make him believe you'll attack in point "A" while you'll attack in point "B", but it's more trouble than gain. Nowadays it is VIRTUALLY impossible to surprise an Army - especially a BIG one (meaning - an Army with an advanced militar, industrial and technological back-up).
very true then you have to rely on strikes to blind the foe first take out his recon and all things that can detect by any means nessicary then attempt to pull off what the vid shows.
Good points but I also think its a question of scale. Today with all the intel - well that would have to be smaller units that would move in and out of position in hours or minutes instead of days. Information travels faster so they have to zoom down. But at that micro scale the same concepts could still be effective.
Enemy can still miscalculate even with perfect informaton. Many games without fog of war are still competitive. In that case you hide your true intentions. Chess etc. Even if enemy can read your mind he still can react poorly.
@@tvinforest5255 I watch sc2 witch is a competitive strategy game. A good player will not lose as long as he gets the information he needs, obviously everybody under the absolute top of the game can lose. In a real war I would not be comfy taking that risk
@@vinnieg6161 I have watched countless hours of GSL and Tastosis! ))) I´m gold league but it´s still fun try to implement some historical starts from rl. So strange to see satellite images from real war - looks like a deadly game. Like liveuamap.
Not rocket science of a strategy to come up with.I'm sure it was used as a base tactic for many historical engagements long before Napoleon.Great video.
The entire strategy depends on the enemy not being able to recon your movements otherwise you're still fucked. It's a hail mary not sound strategy which is why napoleon ultimately lost the war.
@@tothere8314 Not really, it is a sound strategy because at the time, communication between forces are usually limited only to messengers, they only seldomly use wire telegraphs(I think they only use that for long distance) and there's no such thing as radio. And even if they do recon your forces, he would still need to report back to his commander, the commander needs to interpret the information, he needs to order his men and he'll likely send another messenger to call for reinforcements, since the commander ordered his men to spread out, that is if they get there in time. Its a sound strategy for that era and Napoleon executed it so well that it took all of Europe just to beat him and his army.
That's all well and good except that is beaten by a defence in depth and a backhand blow, you let the enemy strike your lines with a spearhead, your attacked units fall back and your units along the rest of line begin enveloping the spearhead and cutting it off from command. At this point the Attacker has the majority of his force committed to a fight on all sides, with his only hope being that his lieutenants in the spearhead force can see what is happening and can make a breakout before it is too late (more often then not the breakouts have failed.)
Of course this tactic can be beaten if the defender keep a strong reserve in a central position. Even if the attacker manage to concentrate and attack a chosen spot, this reserve can move to this point and check the attack at least till defender's forces can concentrate too. Then superior number of defender have the last word.
yes but some of the tactics you all say can't be efficently performed with napoleonic technology. But of course in the modern days almost all strategy has a porpouse in different situation, sence all can be performed with the right equipment. Now it's not the question of how good you are at performing one or even all of these tactics, but will you be able to find out enough information about your enemy to counter their positioning . The USA and other major nations have advanced spy satalites. They can outmanouver anyone that's why the Middle eastern factions were and are easily beaten by Western and Russian forces (Iraq, ISIS etc...). Russia knows most of the ISIS positions (and other rebel groups as well) only secret bunkers can hide from satelites. This is also the reason why many opressed groups turn to terrorism. You cannot fight a force so impossibly wich is advantagous, not even with guerilla tactics anymore. The only thing they could do is terrorism, and even that is not wery efficent as sooner or later the Terrorist leaders are found and captured. Meanwhile Advanced militaries do not engage each other, not just becouse of the nukes but no modern military have ever attacked another yet, no one can predict how a war like Russia vs USA or China vs USA would go down, with both sides having acces to a great arsenal of high tech weapons, jets, guided rockets, special forces, drones you name them.
Before I watch the video, I've always figured it was key to not focus so much on numbers but to analyze as any factors as possible, I.E; morale, terrain, training, weather etc....Then keep in mind Napoleonic divide and conquer philosophy... I look forward to learning more here.
Most of these older battle strategies, especially this one, are thwarted by modern communication and surveillance technology. It would be logistically impossible to concentrate forces converging from multiple fronts into one area without your strategy being found out. Modern war isnt so easy anymore.
This still applies because war theaters became wider, reinforcements come from further distances and results can be achieved too quick even for modern logistics to react. See in Ukraine how the UKR side was able to source materiel and reinforcements faster than the RUS side. Russians probably have a vast arsenal and personnel but it's somewhere else, not trained for the war or tied to other duties without a strategic plan to afford to take them away.
I doubt ISIS has or has ever had the strategic and theoretical knowledge and skilled leadership necessary to pull of any sort of impressive military feats
You should learn about wingged hussars example 500 hussars vs 2500 tatars? 23 wounded hussars 3 killed 2300 dead tatars left were wounded or taken prisoner Tatar rebelion near region of kiev 1602
Or the Caroleans. 10,500 Swedes vs 40,000 Russians? 667 Caroleans Dead. 1247 Caroleans Wounded. Over 9000 Russians killed/dead, over 20,000 Russians captured. The Great Northern War, The Battle of Narva, 1700
Yeah, good point, under the condition that on the other side you have fixed Positions of non cooperative forces and no reactive military commanders. There are many more parameters, still what you say is tactically and even in an operational point of view correct.
Part of any strategy is to know the enemy. If I know that they will place a premium on defending every little town and village, I can use that to my advantage by threatening everything at once. All I have to do is maintain even a vaguely credible threat.
@@svensken2452 What the fuck are you talking about? Napoleon defeated first the Prussians and then turned to the anglo-allied army. That's a perfectly executed "defeat in detail" maneuver. He did what he had to do and it was his only chance to win as he was outnumbered 2 to 1, yet the campaign was still a close run even if he lost. Prussians managed to reach the battlefield because Grouchy failed to keep them apart, not Napoleon.
@@salviniusaugustus6567 yea thats true but napoleon should have done a massed attack on le haye sainte if he knew that wellington wont reinforce hougomount
I'm not gonna lie, this is my entire tactic in EU4. It was how i defeated 50k men when i had only 30k, and the enemy had 100k in total, i did lose, but barely, only giving two tiles away.
What the video describes is not a straightforward job. There are a lot of details left out. First you need competent subordinate commanders and staff so they can carry out their tasks well and act upon their judgement if a need arises. Then you need good intelligence on the enemy and terrain so you can choose the point and time of attack. Then you need to mask you intentions by disinformatiom and tricky maneuvers so your enemy thinks you are doing something else than what you are really doing. Then you need to move and act fast and decisively, to break the enemy point before the commander of the enemy force can figure out what is happening and do the correct countermeasures. That is just a couple of broad points.
@St. Petersberg From the time of the Byzantine general Belisarius' tactics in the gothic wars to the American ghost army's tactics in world war 2 you are wrong. A big part of modern shock and awe is loudly attacking many areas at once to give the illusion of overwhelming superiority.
Even if they figure out that you've moved, which they may not, they can only capture 500 men, meanwhile they will have moved 5000 out of position to do so.
If one is that much afraid of losing a war, then the best one can do is to avoid it to begin with. War after all is one great journey of risk and sacrifice.
