> Unless you call shell a city to the ground a "plan". And now that is being abandoned.
Shelling cities to the ground is absolutely a plan A tactic.
Armor can't return fire at high azimuthal angles, to move it through a city without risk of ambush, they destroy tall buildings near the route. And to avoid giving away the route ahead of time, they cut multiple routes.
That in combat, it's never that simple. It seems like that, seems like the enemy has 100% information, or is 100% capable. And it's not (nor are we).
Everything is muddy, nothing is guaranteed to work, the environment is unforgiving, people react differently under stress. We, they, everyone KNOW this and it still doesn't work.
So, you plan, you test contingencies, develop capability, even if they're never used.
In Germany, they had plans to use shopping centers as ad hoc aircraft bases. Knock large holes into the store front (they tend to not be load bearing), shove out all of the shelves and what not with a bulldozer, clear the parking lots of cars and lights (bulldozers work well for this as well). Boom, instant hangar and tarmac.
But that's just it, just warplans. Think tanks thinking through potential problems and ways to solve them. They also had warplans to blow up dams to wash over a teeming Soviet advance. Seems, in the large, to be a bad idea. But, on the other hand, consider the events and thinking going on when someone chimes in "Hey, maybe we should blow up the dams...".
Combat is very messy. No plan survives first contact. Just ask the Russians.
The bit about the offensive strategy reminds me of the old city of Jerusalem. We visited the wall, and on the way passed though a new condo development, where I joked that the zig-zag streets would limit flanking fire. My hosts said the architects knew what they were doing, and pointed out various bullet holes around the rest of (their quarter of) J'lem the rest of the day.
> If there is even a slight or possible advantage to one direction then it would make sense to build it that way
If it's true that the battle at this point is lost for the defenders -- and known history indicates this is so -- then why would the builders choose directions based on this extremely unlikely scenario, instead of on just about any other consideration (aesthetic, practical, or even random)?
> Example: every bridge in Europe is 'pre-prepared' for demolition (..) the plans are already done. A combat engineer need only draw the plan for the database and execute one of the options.
You would think. But in reality, these one-off type preparations probably have a actual low chance of going as planned or being executed in a timely manner. The only exceptions being contingencies that are actively, regularly simulated by computer or otherwise. I don't think it'd be surprising to find that, bureaucracy & budgets working the way they do, no one there is simulating demolitions like that (at least not since the 50s or 60s).
> The quote that shows the futility of war games is “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” from German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke
How does that show the futility of war games? War games are one venue in which military leaders develop skill in adapting to the unexpected. The accuracy of von Moltke's quote certainly suggests that planning can't completely substitute for skill in execution, but it doesn't mean that planning is unnecessary or that war gaming is not valuable.
> No plan survives contact with the enemy.
I've also heard a variation like "It is certain that the plan will fail, however, without the plan everything fails."
> After 14 years in the military and experience with several armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters, I have seen that pretty much all your plans and preparation will go out the window, so you need to learn to move adapt and improvise.
Eisenhower said it best: Plans are worthless, but planning is priceless.
It is actually deviously brilliant. No one wants to shell the area because it would release all the dust and radionuclides that were buried during the cleanup.
It is a perfect staging area because the downside to attacking it is so high. No allied forces in Europe want to deal with the fallout - literally.
This is so genius I'm genuinely in awe. This is right out of Sun Tzu: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. ”
'No plan survives contact with the enemy', means you need an adaptable system to succeed. The way you use it though, it's like you are saying 'expect to fail'.
> we emphasise explaining the context two levels up. I may tell my soldiers to raid a compound, but I would also tell them that the reason for this is to create a distraction so that the Colonel can divert the enemy away from a bridge, and that the reason the Brigadier wants the Colonel to divert the enemy is so that the bridge is easier to cross.
many organizations could benefit from more of that.
Shelling cities to the ground is absolutely a plan A tactic.
Armor can't return fire at high azimuthal angles, to move it through a city without risk of ambush, they destroy tall buildings near the route. And to avoid giving away the route ahead of time, they cut multiple routes.
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