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Old 08-02-2016, 04:31 AM
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gekkogecko gekkogecko is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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TB, it is interesting and in fact important to the situation: 4000 head of cattle can feed quite an army.
It also allows the generals at the front to claim some measure of success: it is all very well and good to say, "we are advancing", but without some tangible measure of advance, the phrase becomes meaningless. In the Vietnam war, for example, the US Army became nearly obsessed with body counts. Which, of course, were usually exaggerated, both to inflate their own egos, and convince the folks back home that "we" are winning.
It is for this reason that the details of the fighting on the Somme was reported in such detail: on the small-scale maps provided for public consumption, the gains often looked significant, whereas in reality, they were minor, at a huge cost in lives. Take for example, the note about the Thiepval Salient yesterday: 5 days to drive 1000 yards (about 2/3 of a mile). That's about 200 yards a day. During Operation Barbarossa in World War 2, the Germans thought they were doing well to advance 20 miles a day into the Soviet Union (and they were, by most measures): but even that wasn't enough to win the war for them.
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