The Fall of France, 1940 - Strategy & Tactics Press

Paraguay War, 1865-70 • War in the Middle Ages
US Army &
Future War
Number 245
U.S. - $4. 99
CAN. - $6. 99
The Fall
of France,
1940
strategy & tactics 1

Decision Games… Games
publisher of military history magazines & games
Nine Navies War
Nine Navies War begins at the start of 1915, after a victorious Germany has
overrun France the year before. (Perhaps the BEF didn’t land on time or at all,
or they got bottled up in Mons, or the Germans kept to their full-blown, keep
the right super-strong and pull back on the left Schlieffen Plan scheme, thereby
bagging two French armies in the Rhineland, etc.) Italy, seeing the German victory
train leaving the station, joins the Central Powers, as do Spain and Greece. All of
which makes for a dreadnought showdown in the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean
and North Seas, as the avidly Mahanist Kaiser Wilhelm seeks to finally defeat the
Royal Navy and thus make Germany into a true global power.
It will be the battleships of Britain, Russia and ‘Free France’ versus those of
Germany, Italy, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and the captured portion of the divided
French fleet. (Each French ship is rolled for at the start of every game. Each can
be scuttled, go over to the British, or be captured by the Germans.) There will
also be the possibility of later US entry when/if the Japanese switch sides in the
Pacific and launch a dastardly surprise attack that finally draws in the Yanks.
Victory is determined on victory points awarded for controlling the various sea
zones around Europe. The geography thereby creates a kind of “two front war,”
one in the Mediterranean and one in the Atlantic. The Central Powers player is
also able to win a “sudden death” victory by controlling the waters immediately
surrounding the British Isles for one full year (three turns). If he does so, the
British have just been starved into submission.
All the battleships and battle cruisers afloat during that era, along with three
late-game British aircraft carriers, are represented in the various nations’ orders
of battle, as well as ships that were scheduled to be completed during 1919 if the
war had gone on that long.
Random events account for the larger developments taking place in the ground
war still going on in Russia, the Middle East and colonial Africa, as well as
accounting for capital ship losses due to mines, unexplained internal explosions,
as well as submarine, coastal artillery and land based aircraft attack.
A top of the line German battleship like the Baden has factors (attack-defensemaximum
speed) of 6-8-5, while the British battle cruiser Tiger is a 4-4-7. Topdown,
full-color, historic ship icons identify every ship.
The game uses a derivation of the classic Avalon Hill War at Sea. 9NW is
simple two-player game with a short three-turn “1915” scenario, which can easily
be finished in one sitting, as well as a 12-turn “campaign game” that will require
about eight hours to play.
Contents: 1 22x34" map, 492 die-cut counters, rules book. $50. 00
2 #245
3
Barham
6-7-6
Br
10
Borodino
6-5-7
RN
Fried.
der Grosse
4-8-5
Ge
10 * 10 *
C. Colombo
6-7-5
It
3-3-4
SP
2-2-3
GK
Indiana
7-9-5
US
Tegetthof
5-5-4
AH
Jean Bart
5-5-5
FG
QTY Title Price Total
Nine Navies War $50
Land Without End $50
Luftwaffe $50
Storm of Steel (pg 60) $140
Shipping ChargeS
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$8 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
17 2 Canada
21 4 Europe, South America
22 5 Asia, Australia
10 *
Sachsen
6-8-5
Ge
12
CV Vindictive
1-0-1-8
Br
4-5-6
Tu

Land Without
End
Land Without End: The
Barbarossa Campaign, 1941 is a two-player, low-to-intermediate
complexity, strategic-level simulation of the German attempt to conquer
the Soviet Union in 1941. The German player is on the offensive,
attempting to win the game by rapidly seizing key cities. The
Soviet player is primarily on the defensive, but the situation also
requires he prosecute counterattacks throughout much of the game.
Game play encompasses the period that began with the Germans
launching their attack on 22 June 1941, and ends on 7 December
of the same year. By that time it had become clear the invaders had
shot their bolt without achieving their objectives. The game may end
sooner than the historic termination time if the German player is able
to advance so quickly he causes the overall political, socio-economic
and military collapse of the Soviet Union.
Each hexagon on the map represents approximately 20 miles (32
km) from side to opposite side. The units of maneuver for both sides
are primarily divisions, along with Axis-satellite and Soviet corps (and
one army) of various types. The effects of the general air superiority
enjoyed by the Germans throughout the campaign are built into the
movement and combat rules. Each game turn represents one week.
Players familiar with other strategic-level east front designs will
note the unique aspects of LWE lie in its rules governing the treatment
of supply, the capture of Moscow, and the Stalin line.
Contents: 1 22x34" map, 700 die-cut counters, rules book. $50. 00
2 X X X
*
6-6
X X X
5-8
2 XXXX
6-
X X
X X
CSIR
HF
T
5-10
ICA
3
6-10
VIII
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is an update of the classic Avalon Hill game covering the US
strategic bombing campaign over Europe in World War II. As US commander,
your mission is to eliminate German industrial complexes. You
select the targets, direct the bombers, and plan a strategy intended to defeat
the Luftwaffe. As the German commander, the entire arsenal of Nazi aircraft
is at your disposal. Turns represent three months each, with German reinforcements
keyed to that player’s production choices. Units are wings and
squadrons, and they’re rated by type, sub-type, firepower, maneuverability
and endurance. There are rules for radar, electronic warfare, variable production
strategies, aces, target complexes, critical industries and diversion
of forces to support the ground war. The orders of battle are much the same
as in the original game, though the German player now has to plan ahead if
he wants to get jets.
There are also other new targets on the map, such as the German electric
power grid. In the original game the US player had to bomb all the targets
on the map to win. Given the way the victory point system now works, the
Americans need bomb about four out of the five major target systems to
win, thereby duplicating the historic result.
Contents: 1 22x34" map, 280 die-cut counters, rules and PACs. $50. 00
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strategy & tactics 3

editor-in-Chief: Joseph miranda
Fyi editor: Ty Bomba
design • graphics • Layout: Callie Cummins
Copy Editors: Ty Bomba, Lewis Goldberg, Paul
Koenig and dav Vandenbroucke.
map graphics: meridian mapping
Publisher: Christopher Cummins
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4 #245
coNTENTS
F E A T U R E S
6 The Guerra Grande: The War of the
Triple Alliance, 1865-70
Paraguay takes on South America in one of the 19 th century’s
bloodiest conflicts.
by Javier romero Munoz
20 The Fall of France, 1940: Myths & Reality
The story behind one of the most stunning campaigns of the 20 th
century.
by John Burtt

F E A T U R E S
RULES
R1 TRipLE ALLiANcE WAR
by Javier romero
coNTENTS
38 The Art of War in the Middle Ages:
A Survey
A millennia of mayhem from the Fall of Rome to the
Renaissance of Infantry.
by albert Nofi
50 Tactical File: Gonzalvo de cordoba
& the Battle of the Garigliano
The Spanish win a battle as a wily general takes his
place as a great captain.
by albert Nofi
54 US Army Transformation
for Future War
The Pentagon re-tools in order to fight both the next war and
engage today’s unconventional foes.
by William stroock
dEpARTMENTS
31 for your information
nuclear Winter Possibilities
by David Lentini
the 2006 War in Lebanon
by William Stroock
Siam in World War i
by Brendan Whyte
number 245
august/September 2007
36 ThE LoNG TRAdiTioN
37 WoRkS iN pRoGRESS
strategy & tactics 5

6 #245
The Guerra Grande:
The War of the Triple Alliance, 1865-1870
While the American Civil was coming to its
conclusion in April 1865, the Paraguayan
Army invaded the Argentinean province of
Corrientes, thus unleashing the most devastating
war ever seen in South America. This war
changed forever all the countries involved: Argentina
emerged as a unified nation; the Brazilian
Empire was put on the path to becoming
a republic, Paraguay lost an estimated 80% of
its male population, and Uruguay was forever
recognized as an independent country by its
neighbours. The war left a lasting impression
in the folklore and heritage of all involved,
especially among the Paraguayans, who even
today remember with pride the epic of their
Guerra Grande: “ Great War.”
By: Javier Romero Muñoz
Early Moves: The Matto Grosso Sideshow
In December 1864 a combined ground/riverine
Paraguayan expeditionary force departed Asunción
to conquer the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso, in
dispute between the two countries since colonial times.
The Paraguayans figured they could steal a march.
There were few Brazilian troops in the Matto Grosso
because reinforcements had to follow the Parana-Paraguay
riverine route and pass across the Paraguayan
port of Asunción. In fact, the Matto Grosso wilderness
was so remote from Brazil that, when the Brazilians
later sent an expeditionary force to march across the
land route it took them nearly two years to reach the
Paraguayan border.
The Paraguayan expeditionary force (3,500 infantry
embarked in five ships along with 2,500 cavalry
and 800 infantry going by land) quickly secured the
Brazilian post of Fort Coimbra and blocked naviga-

tion in the Upper Paraguay River. They also captured
the Matto Grosso’s capital, Corumbá. In April 1865
the Paraguayans reached Coxim, their farthest point of
advance. After leaving some 1,000 men in garrisons,
the expedition returned to Asunción by mid-1865.
The Matto Grosso expedition was useful for the
Paraguayans because they captured large numbers of
cattle (for feeding the troops) and also large quantities
of ammunition. The occupation seemed to have
settled all territorial claims by Paraguay. The next step
was to march to Uruguay and secure that country’s
independence. To do so, the Paraguayans needed Argentina
to grant passage for their army across roughly
100 miles of the Argentine province of Misiones. Paraguayan
President López asked Argentine President
Mitre, but Mitre, who had granted the Brazilians free
passage to blockade the Uruguayan ports during their
intervention in that country, rebuffed López’s request.
López, convinced that the rebel Argentine province
of Entre Ríos would support him against Mitre in case
of a war against Paraguay, declared war on Argentina
in March. In May, the governments of Argentina,
Brazil and Uruguay signed a treaty of alliance that included
a secret protocol that distributed large chunks
of Paraguayan territory between Argentina and Brazil.
The Triple Alliance War had begun.
The Invasion of Corrientes
The Paraguayans needed to act quickly before their
enemies could mobilize their vast resources. By May
the Paraguayan army had some 60,000 troops in the
field, of which some 30,000, forming the Army of the
South, were set to invade the Argentine province of
Corrientes. That army had two columns: the main
force (Division of the Paraná, with 14,000 infantry,
6,000 cavalry, 30 guns and the support of the Paraguayan
Navy), under Gen. Robles took the riverine
port of Corrientes and advanced down the Paraná
River. A supporting force, under Lt. Gen. Estigarribia
(Division of the Uruguay with 7,000 infantry, 3,000
horse, and five guns), would advance from Candelaria
to Uruguay.
Both columns advanced deep into Argentina hoping
to stir up a new provincial rebellion. The Paraguayans
planned to also enter Uruguay and revive the Blanco
cause there. Both Paraguayan columns followed the
course of the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, using them
as line of communication since the road net in the area
was abysmal and the ground was covered mostly by
marshlands called esteros.
When news of the Paraguayan invasion reached
Buenos Aires, Mitre immediately ordered mobilization.
He regrouped 30,000 men of the regular army
and the Guardia Nacional militia, sending all available
troops to the north to counter the Paraguayans.
Aside from a few local irregular militia, the only
sizeable force at hand to stop the Paraguayans were
the 17 ships (with 103 guns) of the 2nd and 3rd Divisions
of the Brazilian fleet; though in a campaign fought over
riverine lines of communication, the Brazilian fleet was a
force to be reckoned with. Another positive event for the
Argentines was that the often rebellious provinces of Corrientes
and Entre Ríos rallied to the cause. Despite López’s
hopes, they did not join the Paraguayan cause—though in
the event of a major Argentine defeat they might have been
convinced to switch sides.
Riachuelo and Uruguayana
After the Division of the Paraná advanced to the city of
Goya, the Argentines counterattacked by landing at Corrientes
and taking that city in a mere 24 hours on 25 May.
Corrientes was the main rear depot of the Division of the
strategy & tactics 7

8 #245
Geography of the Paraguayan War: The
Chaco, the Paraneña and the Matto Grosso
The Paraguayan War was fought over three main natural
regions: the Paraneña (the Paraguayan heartland), the
Matto Grosso, and the Chaco. The Paraneña can be generally
described as a mixture of plateaus, rolling hills and valleys,
with highlands in the east that slope toward the Río Paraguay
and becomes an area of lowlands and marshes (called esteros in
that region of the world). It is subject to floods along the Paraguay
River. The easier and most logical invasion route of the
Paraneña region was across the Paraná River at Itapúa and on
to the rolling hills to the east. The war, however, was fought in
the jungles and marshes around the junction between the Parana
and Paraguay rivers, the main transport and communication
routes in the area. Those two rivers were defended by the
Humaita fortress, called “the Sevastopol of South America.”
The Allies took the offensive there because it allowed them to
employ the support of the powerful Brazilian fleet, despite the
possibility of losing valuable ships running aground on shifting
sandbars.
The actual area of operations was basically an unmapped
swamp, infested by snakes, caymans and assorted other hostile
fauna. It had little in the way of trails, with little or no
grass that the cavalry could use for grazing. (The Allied cavalry
lost most of its mounts within months of operating in that
area.) There were also tropical diseases. The long duration of
the siege of Humaita caused the appearance of cholera that
caused thousands of deaths among the Allied troops. The Parana
and Paraguay Rivers and their tributaries overflowed during
the rainy season, causing severe flooding because of the almost
impervious clay subsurface that prevents the absorption of excess
surface water into the aquifer.
Across the western bank of the Paraguay is the Chaco. The
Chaco is an immense piedmont plain, almost perfectly flat,
with a few elevations of 125 meters and no more than 300.
The Chaco is a mixture of desert and jungle, with the worst
aspects of both. When the Allies decided to build a road on the
Chaco side of the Paraguay River, it took them three months
to build a five mile road. The Chaco has a hostile climate to
boot, with temperatures of up to 115º F in summer. In 1860 the
Chaco was inhabited by hostile tribes such as the Mocovíes
or the Guacurús, who had regularly raided Paraguayan settlements
since colonial times. They took advantage of Paraguayan
troops being deployed elsewhere to renew for those raids.
Just northeast of the Paraguayan heartland was the area disputed
with Brazil, the Matto Grosso. It is an immense plateau
formed by the highlands of the interior between the Amazonas
and the basins of the rivers running south (the Paraguay, Parana
and tributaries). Not unsurprisingly, “Matto” means “thick forest,”
and Grosso means “very big.” Like most of Amazonia,
the Matto Grosso is characterized by impenetrable forests and
all types of hostile forms of fauna, from snakes and disease
carrying mosquitoes to jaguars, caymans, etc. The primary
and usually only method of transport and communication was
(is) riverine craft. In 1864 the bulk of the Paraguayan invasion
forces arrived via riverines, with supporting forces entering
the area using the few roads. The Matto Grosso was so remote
that, when the Brazilians sent a small expedition from Río de
Janeiro to reconquer the region occupied by the Paraguayans,
it took them two full years to arrive.
Paraná. Seeing his lines of communication menaced,
an alarmed López ordered Robles’ Division to retreat
back to Corrientes. Before continuing the advance he
also wanted to secure control of the Paraná River by
defeating a sizeable part of the imperial Brazilian fleet
before it could unite with its reserves (seven warships)
still at the mouth of the River Plate.
On 11 June at Riachuelo, a Paraguayan squadron
of nine vessels with 30 guns (all but one ship were
unprotected armed merchants) and six chatas (armed
barges) tried to lure the Brazilian squadron (nine warships,
60 guns) into a trap where they would be forced
to fight within close range of a Paraguayan artillery
battery of 22 guns and 2,000 riflemen. That ruse, along
with Paraguayan boarding parties who stormed several
enemy ships, almost gave victory to López’s forces.
But almost wasn’t enough. The Brazilian armored
frigate Amazona decided the outcome by sinking several
Paraguayan vessels with its steel ram.
With the Paraná river secured by the Allies, the
main Paraguayan force had been halted in its tracks;
however, Estigarribia’s Division of the Uruguay continued
the advance, being harassed only occasionally
by some irregular cavalry militia. López probably
hoped the Blancos would rise in arms again if his
troops entered Uruguay, and he also expected a rebellion
of Brazilian slaves.
Estigarribia’s command was divided into two columns,
one west of the Uruguay river and one east of
it. His western force was defeated by the Argentine
1st Division reinforced by a Uruguayan brigade at the
Battle of Yataití-Corá (17 August). The defeat of the
covering force left Estigarribia almost isolated from
his base in Paraguay. Instead of retreating north (probably
because, like most Paraguayan commanders, he
was too wary of López to act without orders), he occupied
the Brazilian town of Uruguayana, where he
was surrounded by a combined Argentine-Uruguayan-
Brazilian force.
Starvation finally forced Estigarribia to surrender
on 18 September 1865. The fall of Uruguayana was
a major disaster for the Paraguayan cause, since the
troops lost there could not be replaced and would be
sorely needed during the upcoming Allied counterinvasion.
The Allied Counter-offensive: Plans for the
Invasion
Abysmal communications and rainy weather prevented
the main Allied forces from reaching the city of
Corrientes until November 1865. The Paraguayan Division
of the Paraná was now under command of Col.
Resquín—Robles had been recalled to Asunción and
shot on López’s orders. Resquín’s men managed an
orderly retreat back to Paraguay, bringing with them
all the cattle they could commandeer.
continued on page 10

March to War: Post-Colonial Río de la Plata
In 1807 insurrections broke out in the Spanish Empire’s
South American colonies. In accordance with the liberal and
nationalist beliefs of the day, those colonies demanded independence.
The insurrection was led by men such as Simon
Bolivar and José de San Martin, and by 1825 the colonies
had all established their indpendence from the once-mighty
empire.
The four-decade period that followed witnessed a slow
and often bloody process of nation building in the countries
that once formed the Viceroyalty of La Plata: Argentina, Uruguay,
Paraguay, and Bolivia. The criollo (American-born
Spaniards) elites from Buenos Aires, who led Argentina’s
revolt against Spain, saw themselves as the natural rulers of
the territories that once formed the viceroyalty; however, in
the provinces the local elites thought otherwise. They were
not eager to substitute Spanish domination for Argentinean.
Bolivia and Paraguay began to break away from the authority
of Buenos Aires as early as 1810, and the Banda Oriental
(“Eastern Side,” the Spanish territories East of the Río de la
Plata, later known as Uruguay) in 1816. In fact, the Paraguayans
had to fight for independence against Buenos Aires, not
against Spain. In January 1811, an Argentine force was sent
to Asunción to “invite” the Paraguayans to recognize Buenos
Aires’ authority. The Paraguayan militia routed that force at
the Battle of Paraguarí.
Argentinean nationalism, in the sense of the people believing
themselves to be all part of a single group, was not
well developed. The city and province of Buenos Aires included
almost half the Argentine population, and they saw
themselves as the rulers of the provinces. That was not too
far from the wars of German and Italian unification that were
happening at about the same time in Europe.
Brazil was a huge empire where national unity was weak
at best. The people spoke different dialects, had different traditions
and, despite the country’s huge wealth, could not mobilize
as a single entity.
The Hermit Kingdom: Paraguay, 1816-1864
Of all the territories of the former Viceroyalty of the River
Plate, Paraguay was the only one that could be described as a
nation-state in 1810. Its people had a strong sense of national
identity ever since colonial times, probably because they had
been a frontier zone continuously at war against both Portuguese-Brazilian
encroachments in the Misiones territory, as
well as having to fight against hostile Indians from the Chaco.
In Paraguay a different model of colonial society developed,
in a sense more Indian than Spanish. The Spanish established
a relationship with the local Guaraní peoples that was closer
to an alliance than to the usual colonial domination.
The Paraguayan political and economic systems remained
different from the Argentine during the post-colonial period.
After gaining independence, Paraguay, under the dictatorship
of Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, known as El Supremo
(1814-40), and later of Carlos A. López (1840-62), became
a “hermit kingdom,” a kind of semi-legendary landlocked
state, completely isolated from the outside world and hence
from the surrounding turmoil. Francia also eliminated all race
differences by forcing the criollos to inter-marry with Guarani
women, thus creating the most homogeneous population
Under Carlos A. López, Paraguay was opened to foreign
trade and the economy was strictly controlled by the state.
There was no free trade, nor liberal democracy, but many
contemporary observers favorably compared the peace and
stability of Paraguay with the chaos and civil war of its
neighbors.
Carlos A. López was succeeded by his son, Francisco
Sloan López, who decided to give Paraguay a proud place
among nations. The Uruguayan civil war was to be the opportunity
to become a power in the Plata.
The Uruguayan Powder Keg
Uruguay had been a war zone between the rival empires
of Spain and Portugal during most of the colonial era. The
Portuguese regarded it as a Spanish bridgehead in the eastern
River Plate. Until well into the 19 th century the Brazilians
claimed it as part of the their empire.
Like Argentina, post-colonial Uruguay was regularly
wracked by civil wars. The elites of Montevideo fought the
rural elites, represented by the Colorado and Blanco parties,
respectively. In 1864 the Colorados rose in rebellion against
the ruling Blancos. The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul,
a major force in Brazilian politics, as most of the empire’s
military officers came from there, supported the Colorados.
Since Brazil militarily supported the Colorados, the ruling
Blancos sought an alliance with López’s Paraguay.
It seems clear López was influenced by the European
concept of balance of power. He had travelled in Europe
in the 1850s, and was also a great admirer of Napoleon III,
then emperor of France. López probably saw the Brazilian
intervention against Uruguay as the first step to annex their
claimed “isolated province,” to be followed by the partition
of Paraguay between Argentina and Brazil. There were
also border demarcation issues between all those countries,
mostly because the colonial era borders were never clearly
defined.
All those factors led López to establish an alliance with
the ruling Uruguayan faction, and to issue an ultimatum to
Brazil that any intervention in Uruguay would be regarded
as casus belli. Despite the ultimatum, a Brazilian expeditionary
force entered Uruguay in October 1864 in support of the
Colorados. López retaliated by seizing a Brazilian merchant
steamer, the Marquis de Olinda, on 12 November, thus starting
the Triple Alliance War.
in all of South America. Contemporary picture of the tri-border area.
strategy & tactics 9

10 #245
By early autumn 1866 (remember, this is the southern
hemisphere, fall begins in March, winter in June)
the Allies were ready to invade Paraguay. They had
some 60,000 Argentine, Uruguayan and Brazilian
troops plus some 30 ships, four of them state-of-theart
ironclads. The Allies choose to cross at the junction
between the Paraná and Paraguay rivers because
it allowed them to fight under cover of the artillery
of the imperial fleet. Instead of following the more
logical route across the Paraná at Itapúa and over dry
ground on to Asunción, the same route followed by
the Argentines in 1811, the Allies planned to fight in
the unmapped swamps and marshlands of the Paraná
River area. They saw an advantage in using the Paraná
and Paraguay rivers as lines of communication. Via
the waterways they could bring up men and supplies,
as well as moving quickly via riverine shipping.
A major obstacle lay, however, between the Paraguayan
capital and the Allied forces: the massive
fortress at Humaitá, with some 180 guns, closing the
navigation of the river. There was also the defensive
terrain around Humaitá, with unmapped marshes, jungles
and swamps. The Allied plan was to take Humaitá
by land and then launch a secondary thrust across the
Paraná from Itapúa with some 13,000 troops—then on
to Asunción. An offensive away from the river could
exploit the better terrain for marching, but would lack
the support of the navy. Lines of communication would
be overland and vulnerable to enemy cavalry raids.
Troops in the field—Uraguay, 1866.
While the Allies continued their build-up, enthusiasm
for the war among the Brazilian and Argentine
people waned. The people of the provinces of Corrientes
and Entre Ríos, especially, saw a Paraguayan
defeat as consolidating the Buenos Aires hegemony
within the republic. Despite their eroding political
base, however, the Allies attacked.
Paso de Patria to Curupaytí
In April 1866, the Allied force marched into Paraguay
at Paso de Patria, embarked on 65 steamers and
50 sailing vessels. Thus began the long approach
march to the fortress of Humaitá.
During the initial stages of the campaign, López
squandered some of his finest troops by launching several
frontal attacks: at Estero Bellaco (12 May) and
First Tuyutí (24 May). The Paraguayans lost some
17,000 men killed or wounded, inflicting in exchange
only 5,000 casualties. The Allies showed that superior
firepower and modern artillery could overcome the
most fanatic of assaults. The Allies could replace their
losses, while López could not.
After fending off the Paraguayan attacks, the Allied
army faced the extensive earthwork system known as
the Lines of Rojas. They had been prepared by George
Thompson, among others. Thompson was a British
engineer in the service of the Paraguayan army.
During July the Allies lost more than 2,000 men
while trying to break the Paraguayan trenches. Finally,
Mitre deemed the Allied forces were not strong enough

to breach the Rojas Line, so he halted while waiting
for reinforcements. Given the superiority in cavalry of
the Paraguayans, Mitre had to order the Paso de Patria
encampment be fortified to protect the depot from
raiders and also to have a solid base in case of retreat.
The Brazilian II Corps concentrated at Itapúa for
a secondary thrust on Asunción and would reinforce
the Allied army in front of the Rojas Line. Other units
of that corps would land at Curuzú, south of Humaitá,
and advance on the fortress following the course of the
Paraná with the support of the navy’s guns.
In early September an Allied force landed at Curuzú,
taking it by assault. For the first and only time
in the war, a Paraguayan battalion, the 10th , fled, and
was disbanded and decimated on López’s orders. On
22 September, when 10,000 Brazilians and 9,000 Argentines
tried to take the entrenchments at Curupaytí
by frontal assault, as the last step before reaching the
outer ring of the Humaitá fortress, disaster struck. Despite
the support of 101 naval guns firing more than
5,000 shells, the Allies lost 4,000 men and failed to
take the entrenchments. The Paraguayans’ seven infantry
battalions and four cavalry regiments lost fewer
than 100 men.
After hearing news of Curupaytí, morale plummeted
on the Allied home front. The Argentine province
of Mendoza rose in rebellion against the Buenos
Aires government, followed by Rosario Province. The
already depleted Allied armies had to send 15 Argentine
battalions to quell the rebellion. Mitre himself
was soon forced to relinquish his command in order to
direct operations against the rebels. The Uruguayans
also had to face similar problems at home.
In sum, the fighting stalemated for nearly a year
while the Allies recovered from their losses and dealt
with their internal problems. Operating for so many
months in the marsh area was taking its toll in the form
of diseases such as cholera. Horses were also dying
for lack of pasture. To make things worse, the terms of
the Treaty of the Triple Alliance were made public, revealing
the dismemberment of Paraguay was an objective.
That revelation unleashed a diplomatic uproar, a
wave of sympathy for the Paraguayan cause in Europe
and America, and further stiffened the Paraguayans’
will to fight.
With the Argentines and Uruguayans busy with
their respective home fronts, the war was becoming
increasingly a Paraguayan-Brazilian affair. With all
that in mind, Brazilian Marshall Caxias took command
of the Allied army in February 1867.
Fall of Humaitá
In June 1867, the Allies renewed offensive operations
by launching the Tuyú Cué maneuver. Brazilian
III Corps had been raised to substitute for the Argentine
troops sent home to put down the provincial rebellions.
The Allied fleet was also reinforced to 10 iron-
Troops in the field—Uraguay, 1866.
clads plus 33 other warships, with 223 guns total.
The Allied plan for the 1867 campaign was to outflank
the Lines of Rojas from the east, thus isolating
the fortress of Humaitá. With the help of US observation
balloonists contracted by the Brazilians, the Allies
mapped the area, identifying weak spots in the Paraguayan
lines. In July, Allied forces (some 45,000 men,
all Brazilians save 5,000 Argentines and a few hundred
Uruguayans) attacked and outflanked the Lines of
Rojas. The Paraguayans, down to 20,000 men, abandoned
their positions and retreated toward Humaitá.
Finally, the Allies cut land communications and the
telegraph line between Asunción and Humaitá. During
September-November 1867, the Allies consolidated
their control of the eastern bank of the Paraguay.
The idea was to move the main line of communication
Wars of the Imperial Age, South American Style
The Triple Alliance War was a mixture of old and new. Like the
American Civil War, the Triple Alliance War was an early example of
total war. Though Paraguay was not an industrialized country, the war
effort required a massive mobilization of resources over five years. That
was possible only because Paraguayan nationalism generated an intense
will to fight to the finish.
The war saw some of the first examples of the emerging military
technology: monitors, armored ships, observation balloons, and above
all, trenchlines. As one author put it though, “The Paraguayan War was
[also] a war of poor old flintlocks against La Hittes and Withworths, and
of ironclads against canoes.” Certainly the same determination to fight to
the end regardless of cost would be seen again in the World Wars.
Increasing firepower began to dominate the battlefields. Despite the
élan and fanaticism of the Paraguayans, Allied weaponry often carried
the day. And when the Allies tried to attack Paraguayan trenches, they
also got shot to ribbons.
As in the American Civil War, military commanders on both sides
were equally shocked by the new military realities. The commanders
expected Napoleonic-like campaigns of movement with a few decisive
battles. South Americans were used to fighting battles in which lance-
and saber-armed cavalry were the decisive weapons. Instead, most commanders
did not have the capability to develop new tactics. Only the Brazilians,
who had a professional officer corps, showed some ingenuity.
strategy & tactics 11

12 #245
Military Commanders of the Triple Alliance War
Francisco Sloan López (1826-1870). Dictator for life of the
Paraguayan Republic, Sloan López was influenced by the
European concept of balance of power. He changed
the traditional Paraguayan foreign policy and tried
to intervene in the politics of El Plata, leading his
country into the Triple Alliance War. His conduct
of the war was a disaster: he squandered
Paraguay’s best troops during its early stages,
first during the invasion of Argentina and later
launching frontal assaults against the Allied
forces at Tuyutí and Estero Bellaco. He kept his
commanders on a short rein, and they did not
dare show initiative. Purges were rife in the Paraguayan
Army, especially toward the end of the
war. The Argentine press dubbed him “Tropical
Caligula” among other things. For instance, after
the 10 th battalion fled from combat, López ordered
the unit “decimated” and disbanded, the survivors being
distributed among other units. He also had his mother
and other relatives shot, fearing they would betray him.
Bartolomé Mitre (1821-1906). In 1862 Mitre was elected president
of the Argentine Confederacy after a long series of civil
wars. At the treaty of the Triple Alliance, Brazil and Argentina
agreed to give Mitre overall command of the Allied land
forces (the Brazilians would command the navy). After the
disaster at Curupaytí in 1867, however, internal unrest in Argentina
forced Mitre to leave that post. Also, the fact Mitre
was commander-in-chief caused no small amount of friction
with the Brazilians, because they were doubtful he could effectively
command large units in the field. In 1868 Mitre lost
the election to Domingo Sarmiento, who intended to reduce
Argentina’s participation in the war.
Marshall Luis Alves de Lima, Duke of Caxias
(1803-1880). After the disaster of Curupaytí,
Caxias took command of the Allied army in
Paraguay. His strategy was more methodical
and professional than that of Mitre. He favored
a slower approach, first surrounding
Humaitá before conquering it and continuing
the advance up the Paraguay River.
His brilliant manoeuvre at El Chaco
reduced Allied casualties. After the fall
of Asunción, Caxias deemed the war
over and resigned from command.
The last reserves:
Paraguayan child soldier.
from the Paso da Patria-Tuyutí axis to the Paraguay
River. Also, the forces north of Humaitá would have
to be supplied across the Paraguay, and therefore the
Allied fleet would have to force the Humaitá pass.
The besieged Paraguayans launched a spoiling attack
(Second Battle of Tuyutí, November 1867) that
managed to take the Allies by surprise. But precious
time was wasted while the troops looted Allied depots,
giving the Allies time to bring in reinforcements and
win the battle. The Paraguayans lost some 4,000 men
against some 2,000 Allied casualties.
On 15 February 1868 a Brazilian force of three
ironclads and three monitors, the latter built especially
for operations here, forced the Humaitá pass without
losing a single ship, even though they took some 350
hits. The Brazilian squadron shelled Asunción two
days later, prompting López to order the evacuation of
continued on page 14

The Opposing Armies
The Paraguayans
The Paraguayans (also known as “Guaraníes”) were (are) one
of the most integrated nations in all of South America. In the Paraguayan
Army there were no significant race or class differences. All
the population was formed by Guaraní Indians or people of mixed
Spanish-Guaraní blood. Also, all able-bodied men were required to
serve in the army, regardless of class or race.
All that gave the Paraguayans a sense of nationhood far more
developed than that of their enemies, and led them to fight fanatically
to the bitter end. Unlike the situation in most South American wars,
the Paraguayans were not fighting for control of one remote region in
the wilderness. They were fighting for national survival: what was at
stake was the existence of Paraguay as an independent nation.
At the start of the war, the Paraguayan army deployed 60-80,000
troops out of a population of some 800,000 people. That was virtually
every available man in the country. There was no reserve left. The
best men were assigned to the cavalry and artillery.
Infantry was organized into 48 battalions, numbered 1 to 48.
Some elite units received names such as the 40th “Asunción” Battalion
or the 6th and 7th Sapper battalions, the Ñembi-i. Each battalion
deployed from 720 to 1,000 men organized in eight companies (six
line infantry, one grenadier, one light infantry or “cazadores”—all
very Napoleonic sounding). Cavalry deployed 20 to 25 regiments.
The artillery was organized into 12 horse batteries and seven foot
batteries. There was also a small riverine navy. All ships but one (the
Tacuarí, armed with four 24 pounders and two 32 pounders) were
armed merchantmen. The Paraguayans made much use of chatas,
barges armed generally with a single 8” iron gun. The chatas were
usually deployed at the river banks, under cover of field/fortress artillery
and protected by “torpedoes,” that is boxes of explosives with
percussion fuses.
Weapons varied greatly in quality, but in general the Paraguayans
deployed obsolete cast-offs along with the occasional modern
weapon. The average infantry battalion used Brown Bess flintlocks,
though seven of the infantry battalions used more modern arms, such
as “Witon” rifles. The same thing can be said for the artillery: one
battery equipped with rifled steel guns, the remainder used muzzleloading
bronze guns, some dating back to the 18th century. Some of
those guns had arrived in Paraguay as ships’ ballast. The Paraguayans
also had a battery of Congréve rockets. Later in the war the Guaraníes
made much use of captured equipment, especially artillery. They were
also able to build some guns at their iron works. Of note was the massive
12 ton gun nicknamed El Cristiano (“The Christian”), because it
was cast with the bronze bells of the churches of Asunción.
The Brazilians
The Brazilian army was small at the beginning of the war. Out of
a population of 8 million people in November 1864, they mustered
only 18,000 men (in 14 infantry battalions, five cavalry regiments and
five artillery regiments) The Brazilian army expanded during the war
thanks to the Voluntarios de la Patria (Volunteers of the Fatherland),
with 56 battalions being raised. There were also the Guardia Nacional
battalions (citizen militias of little military value). However, the
Brazilians deployed a powerful navy (17 warships plus auxiliaries),
which grow to 94 ships of all types with 237 guns in 1870.
Aside from the navy, the other strong point of the Brazilian military
was its professional officer class. Its officers were among the
best trained in South America, with many of them having studied
at European military academies. That gave the Brazilians an edge
over most Paraguayan commanders, who were largely untrained
and inexperienced, and also too afraid of López to show initiative.
The Brazilian ironclad Bahía passes the fortress of Humaita.
Unlike their Paraguayan enemies, the Brazilian rank-and-file were recruited
from among the lowest elements of society. People with enough
money could avoid service by paying a substitute. That made the war less
popular among the Brazilian populace, making it the same old story of “rich
man’s fight, poor man’s war.” Given the lack of troops, the Brazilian government
offered the slave population the opportunity to serve in the army in
exchange for emancipation. In fact, some of the best Brazilian units, such as
the Bahiano Zouaves, were recruited among former slaves. There were also
many foreigners serving in the army. For instance, the 14 th Battalion was
recruited exclusively from German veterans out of Schleswig-Holstein.
In general, the Brazilians had more modern weaponry than the Paraguayans.
That allowed them to substitute firepower for what they lacked in
élan and morale. The line infantry (fusileiros) used Minié rifles, American
Springfields among others. The light infantry (caçadores) used carbine versions
of the Minié type rifle. In 1868 at least one battalion tried the Dreysse
“needle gun”, an early bolt-action rifle. The artillery deployed state-of-theart
weapons such as La Hitte and Paixhams rifled guns, plus muzzle-loading
Withworths of 90 to 130 mm calibers.
The Argentines
At the beginning of the war the Argentine Regular Army deployed
some 30,000 men. Most of the units were scattered on the
Indian frontier in the Pampas, while also keeping an eye on possible
rebellions in the provinces. It was the city and province of Buenos
Aires, (which contained about half of the 1,200,000 populace of
the Argentine Confederacy in 1865) which carried the main war effort.
The Argentine regulars mustered seven line infantry, nine cavalry regiments
and two artillery regiments at the beginning of the war. In 1864-1865,
eight additional line battalions were formed for the war against Paraguay.
Like the Brazilians, the Argentines deployed many troops of European
origin (Germans, Italians, Polish, Swiss, etc.). When
the war moved to Paraguayan territory it became less
popular in the provinces, who regarded it as a Buenos
Aires “private war,” so the Argentine government was
forced to recruit more Europeans. After 1866 some of
the Argentine forces were withdrawn to face assorted
rebellions in the provinces. Its organization and weaponry
did not differ much from the Brazilians.
The Uruguayans
Uruguay was just emerging from a civil war, so
it sent only a token force to contribute to the Allied
war effort, initially four infantry battalions, one cavalry
squadron and eight guns. The Uruguayan force
received virtually no replacements during the entire
campaign, being forced to recruit Paraguayan prisoners
to cover losses. By 1868 the Uruguayan contingent
had been reduced to some 800 troops.
strategy & tactics 13

14 #245
the capital. In March, a Paraguayan “commando” force
of some 240 men on canoes tried to board and capture
one monitor and one armoured frigate. They managed
to take control of the deck of one of those ships before
being riddled with grapeshot at point blank range.
With Humaitá surrounded from all sides, it was
only a matter of time before the fortress would fall.
An Allied probe on 16 July was bloodily repulsed despite
the garrison’s growing weakness. The Allies lost
some 1,500 men, the Paraguayans less than 150. On
26 July the Paraguayans abandoned Humaitá. Despite
the Allied naval superiority, they managed to evacuate
most of the garrison by crossing on canoes and
then re-crossing farther north. The remnants of the
Paraguayan army were redeployed to the line of the
Tebicuarí. Farther north, the Paraguayans started work
on their “last stand” position, the Pikysyry Line. They
were making their final mobilization, sending children
and old men to the front.
The Humaitá campaign had lasted more than two
years and cost both sides thousands of casualties. Now
an Allied victory seemed close. To the Allies’ dismay,
however, the Paraguayans were not yet ready to surrender.
The ruins of the fortress of Humaitá.
Dezembrada
The Allies reached the Tebicuarí line on 28 August,
only to discover the Paraguayans had already evacuated
it and retreated farther north, to the Angostura
position. Realizing a frontal assault on the Paraguayan
positions would be a bloody affair, Marshall Caxias
decided to bypass by building a road on the Chaco
bank of the river. To the surprise of everyone (López
and Caxias included), the road was finished by early
December. The Allies crossed to Chaco and again recrossed
the river into the enemy rear.
The Paraguayans, ordered by López to defend an
untenable position, were soundly defeated by the Allies
in a series of summer battles called by the Brazilians
the Dezembrada. At the Battles of Ytororo (6
December), Arroyo Avay (11 December) and Lomas
Valentinas (21-27 December), the remnants of the Paraguayan
Army (“spectral battalions” as one witness
put it), manned by emaciated children, convalescents
and old men, were destroyed. The last of the December
battles was 9,000 Allied casualties against 18,000
Paraguayan.
The road to Paraguay’s capital lay open, and final
victory seemed within grasp of the Allied armies. Once
more, though, the Allies were to be disappointed.

Endgame: the Fall of Asunción and the López
Manhunt
The fall of Asunción in January 1869 did not put
an end the war. López refused to surrender and instead
continued the struggle. At the end of January 1869 he
gathered some 13,000 convalescents, escaped prisoners
and stragglers at Cerro León in the highlands. López
set up his new capital at Pirebebuy, 37 miles North
of Asunción. The Brazilians attacked there in August
and destroyed the last organized Paraguayan units.
The war then degenerated into a manhunt for López.
Finally, on 1 March 1870 a force of 8,000 Brazilians
surrounded López and 200 of his last followers.
López refused to surrender and instead charged
against his pursuers, being badly wounded by a lance
thrust. Prompted again to surrender, he refused and
said, “Muero con mi Patria” (“I die with my fatherland”).
Then a Brazilian trooper gave him the coup de
grace. In that same action López’s son, a 16-year boy
already a full colonel in the Paraguayan Army, was
also killed.
With the war ended the final tally could be made.
Paraguay’s population had been reduced to some
221,000 people. Total war, indeed.
Artillery in the field—Uraguay, 1866.
strategy & tactics 15

The Battle of Curupaity, 22 September 1866
Orders of Battle
Triple Alliance Army
(Commander-in-Chief: Bartolomé Mitre)
II Corps of the Brazilian Imperial Army
(Gen. Antonio Paranhos -Viscount of Porto Alegre – 9,000/10,000 men)
16 #245
Caldas Division
2 nd Infantry Brigade 5 th Volunteer Battalion
8 th Volunteer Battalion
12 th Volunteer Battalion
11th Line Battalion
3rd Infantry Brigade 18th Volunteer Battalion
32nd Volunteer Battalion
36th Volunteer Battalion
7th Cavalry Brigade 7th National Guard Provisional Corps
8th National Guard Provisional Corps
9th National Guard Provisional Corps
Albino de Carvalho Division
Auxiliary Brigade 6th Battalion
10th Volunteer Battalion
11th Volunteer Battalion
20th Volunteer Battalion
46th Volunteer Battalion
1st Infantry Brigade 29th Volunteer Battalion
34th Volunteer Battalion
47th Volunteer Battalion
4th Brigade 1st Chaussers Battalion
2nd Chaussers Battalion
5th Chaussers Battalion
De Lima Division (Reserve)
6th Brigade 4th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
5th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
10th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
Light Brigade 13th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
14th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
15th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
8th Brigade 11th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
12th Cavalry Provisional Corps of the National Guard
II Corps of the Argentine Army
(Gen. Emílio Mitre)
1 st Infantry Brigade
2 nd Infantry Brigade
3 rd Infantry Brigade
4 th Infantry Brigade
5 th Infantry Brigade
6 th Infantry Brigade
7 th Infantry Brigade
8 th Infantry Brigade
1 st Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions
Two Infantry battalions
2nd Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions
Two Infantry Battalions
3rd Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions (Battalions Cordoba and San Juan)
Two Infantry Battalions (Battalions Mendoza and 2nd Entrerríos)
4ª Infantry Division (Col. Mateo Martinez)
9th and 12th line battalions, 3rd Entre Rios battalion)
1st , 2nd line battalions, 3rd National Guard Bon.
Paraguayan Forces at Curupaity
(Gen. José Diaz – 5,000 men)
Infantry
(Lt. Col. Luis Gonzales)
4 th Battalion
36 th Battalion
38 th Battalion
27 th Battalion
9 th Battalion
7 th Battalion
40 th “Asunción” Battalion
Cavalry reserve
(Capt. Bernardino Caballero)
6th Regiment
8 th Regiment
9 th Regiment
36 th Regiment
Artillery
Some 50 guns of assorted calibers, 13 of them
the advanced trench, the remainder in the main
position.

Aftermath
Paraguay
Paraguay lost 60,000 square miles of territory to the
Allies: 24,000 to Brazil and 36,000 to Argentina. The territory
lost to Brazil was basically wilderness in the Matto
Grosso and the upper course of the Parana, while the territory
lost to Argentina included some Guarani-speaking areas
as well as part of the Chaco. Still, after the Triple Alliance
War the Paraguayan heartland remained untouched. The
other remaining Paraguayan border, that of Bolivia, remain
undefined until the Chaco War of 1932-35. That time the
Paraguayans won, bringing their borders to the gates of the
Bolivian highlands.
The Paraguayans lost around 70% of their male population,
with overall losses of 120-160,000, if we include civilians
and women who fought during the latter stages of
the war. The demographic losses were so severe, during the
following decades poligamy became a common practice
among the Guaranies.
The Republic of Paraguay had to pay a huge war reparation
to the Allies, and had to renounce sovereignty over their
navigable rivers (Paraguay and Parana). Their iron works
and military industries were destroyed, the army disbanded,
and fortifications dismantled. Finally, the Paraguyanas had
to endure long years of Brazilian military occupation. The
fanatic Guarani resistence during the war had shown the
Allied powers annexation of the entire country would have
meant years, if not decades, of guerrilla warfare.
During the postwar period Paraguay entered a spiral of
political instability not very different from that of their South
American neighbors, with more than 40 presidents over an
80 year period (1870-1954). The economy ceased to be selfsufficient
and became oriented toward exporting raw materials
to foreign markets. In sum, Paraguay ceased to be the
exception in the South American continent, and became just
one more republic complete with political inestability, foreign
debt and an economy that produced raw materials for
European industry.
I Corps of the Argentine Army
(Gen. Wenceslao Paunero)
1 st Infantry Brigade
2 nd Infantry Brigade
3rd Infantry Brigade
4 th Infantry Brigade
5 th Infantry Brigade
6 th Infantry Brigade
7 th Infantry Brigade
8 th Infantry Brigade
The Brazilian Empire
In order to win the war, the Brazilian Empire had to create
a standing army that, within less than 20 years, would destroy
the delicate balance of power in its own society. The intervention
of the army in Brazilian politics would ultimately lead
to the fall of the emperor and the proclamation of a republic.
Argentina
The war was the catalyst that helped Argentina forge a
nation out of a conglomerate of provinces. Of all the Allied
leaders, Argentina’s Mitre was the only one who had a clear objective
for the war, and he achieved it: to unify Argentina under
the political and economical leadership of Buenos Aires.
1 st Infantry Division
Period photo of militia—Triple Alliance War.
Two Infantry Battalions
One Infantry Battalion and the Military Legion
2nd Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions
One Infantry Battalion and the 1st Volunteer Legion
3rd Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions
Two Infantry Battalions
4th Infantry Division
Two Infantry Battalions
One Battalion and one the 2nd Volunteer Legion
strategy & tactics 17

18 #245
THE COST
Losses:
Allies: Some 100,000 deaths (civilians included).
Paraguay: 120,000 to 160,000 deaths (civilians included).
Main Battles of the TAW
Name Date Result Paraguayan force Paraguayan
losses
Riachuelo 11 June 1865 Allied victory 9 x ships (30 guns),
6 x armed barges,
22 x field guns
Yataití-Corá 17 August 1865 Allied victory 3,200 men (3 x
infantry bns, 2
cavalry reg)
3 x ships, 6 x
armed barges,
300-400
casualties
The entire
force killed or
captured.
Allied forces Allied losses
9 x ships
(60 guns)
1 ship, c. 250
casualties
4,350 troops c. 90 killed,
300 wounded
Estero Bellaco 12 May 1866 Allied victory 3,500 men 2,000 men 5,000 men 1600 men
1st Tuyutí 24 May 1866 Allied victory 20,000 men 12,000 men 35,000 men 7000 men
Curuzú 3 September
1866
Allied victory 2,500 men 800 men 14,000 men c. 750 men
Curupaytí 22 September Paraguayan 5,000 men 50 men 11,000 Brazilians, 4,000 men
1866
victory
7,000 Argentines
2nd Tuyutí 3 November
1867
Allied victory 8,000 men 4,000 men 13,000 men 2,000 men
Ytororo 6 December
1868
Allied victory 5,000 men 1,200 men 13,000 men 3,000 men
Avahí 11 December
1868
Allied victory 4,000 men 3,000 men 17,000 men 800 men
Lomas 21 & 27 Allied victory 6,000 men The entire c. 25,000 men 3,500 men
Valentinas December 1868
force killed or
captured
A Comparison
War Duration
(months)
Deaths Deaths per month
Triple Alliance War 63 210,000-250,000 3350-4060
American Civil War 48 600,000 12,500
Crimean War 29 510,000 17,590
Selected Bibliography:
Beverina, Col. Juan, La Guerra delParaguay, 1865-1870. Buenos Aires, 1943.
Resquín, Francisco I., La Guerra del Paraguay contra la Triple Alianza. Asunción 1996
Doratioto, Francisco, Maldita Guerra. Nova História da Guerra do Paraguai. Sao
Paulo, 2002.
López, Eduardo M., La guerra de la Triple Alianza o del Paraguay (1865-1870) Soldados
y Estrategia magazine, issues 2 to 4.
Thompson, George, La Guerra del Paraguay. Asunción, 2001 (First ed: London
1869)
Whigham, Thomas, The Paraguayan War. Vol. I, Causes and Early Conduct. Nebraska
2002.
Scheina, Robert L., Latin America’s Wars. Vol. I, The Age of the Caudillo, 1791-1899.
Washington, 2003.
Moyano, Dolores, A Sanguinary Obsession. Military History Quarterly Vol. 4 no. 4,
Summer 1992.
Stewart, David, The Paraguayan War, 1865-70.
El Dorado magazine, Vol. VII, #2.

Fight in the wild heartland of
South America.
The Triple Alliance War (TAW) is a two-player, low-tointermediate
complexity, strategic-level simulation of the
second-largest war ever fought in the New World (the largest
having been the American Civil War). The Paraguayan
player is attempting to hold off the onslaught of three allied
nations: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Allied player
is generally on the offensive, attempting to win the game
by invading Paraguay and seizing key areas on map within
that country. The Paraguayan player is primarily on the defensive,
but the situation also allows for his prosecution of
offensives, particularly in the early stage of the war.
Game play encompasses the period that began historically
in 1865 with the Paraguayans launching a pre-emptive
strike into Argentine territory. The game ends during the first
half of 1868 when, historically, the Allies broke through the
To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in
this issue send your name and address along with:
$24 US Customers
$27 Canadian Customers
$29 Overseas Customers
Paraguayan river forts and went on to seize their capital. That
advance signaled the ultimate doom of the Paraguayan cause
and, though the war officially went on for another year and a
half, that portion of it was more a rebellion-and-occupation
struggle than an actual war.
Each hexagon on the map represents approximately 15.5
miles (25 km) from side to opposite side. The ground units
of maneuver for both sides are primarily battalions, along
with some nominal “brigades” and “divisions,” which are
actually all really battalion-equivalents themselves. Each
riverine unit represents on naval combat vessel or several
armed rafts or transport ships. Game Turn 1 represents three
months, while each one after that represents half a year.
Playing time is approximately three to five hours. Designed
by Javier Romero; developed by Ty Bomba.
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strategy & tactics 19

20 #245

The Fall of France, 1940:
Myths & Reality
by John D. Burtt
WehrmachtSchwerpunktpanzerMyths
blitzkrieg Inferior French Armor
panzersnottooWehrmachtWehrmachtDivision Legere
Mechanique Division Cuirassee de Reserve Wehrmacht1st
Company, 41st Tank Battalion8th Panzer Regimentbataille
conduite panzerReichswehrBewegungskrieg—
Division Cuirassees de Reserve1st DCR1st Panzer Divisionpanzer regiment1st DCRFrench Defensive
Mentality
two
Preparation for the Wrong War
bataille conduite,a laoffensive a ‘outrance’ offensive a
‘outrance nation armee guerre de longue duree,le feu
tue WehrmachtBrittle French Morale
Fall Gelb FirstSeventhArmiesbattaille conduit •
• • tooSeventh ArmyAnd we will cover those factors
in a future issue of S&T.
strategy & tactics 21

22 #245
Crossroads of a campaign: German motorized column
drives into France.

Blitzkrieg! German panzer II tank.
continues on page 26
strategy & tactics 23

24 #245
France 1940: the Campaign
By all accounts, Hitler was surprised when Great Britain and
France declared war on Germany following his September 1939
invasion of Poland. The Fuehrer had expected the Western Allies
to simply acquiesce to the conquest as they had with his previous
aggressions. Facing a real war, he ordered his generals to plan
Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), an invasion of France to be initiated in
the fall of 1939.
The Wehrmacht’s planning of the attack was chaotic from the
beginning. The German generals were not at all comfortable with
taking on France and her formidable army. The initial plans were
similar to Germany’s World War I Schlieffen Plan—a strong assault
sweeping through Holland and Belgium, concentrating on
the northern flank. There was little blitzkrieg-type planning here:
the assault was to be pure infantry with armor in support. The
plans went through multiple renditions without achieving anything
that was acceptable to all. Weather and the divisive debate
kept Case Yellow from occurring in 1939.
In January 1940 a German staff officer carrying a copy of the
preliminary plans crash-landed in Belgian territory. Fearing Allied
intelligence had those plans, Hitler cast about for an alternative.
He was aware of one recommendation for an audacious
thrust through the Ardennes proposed by Erich von Manstein.
Hitler liked the idea, and so ordered it executed.
Enter Manstein
Manstein’s plan called for Army Group B, consisting of two
armies with 29 divisions, of which three were panzer, to assault
into Holland and Belgium. That “covering force” was to attract
the attention of the Dutch, Belgians, British, and French, who
were expected to deploy 60 divisions against it as the Allies were
expecting the Germans to repeat the Schlieffen Plan. But the real
attack would come further south.
Army Group A would force its way through the Ardennes,
cross the Meuse River, and flank the Allied forces. Army Group
A was made up of three armies and an experimental organization
called Panzergruppe Kleist, the latter named after its commander
Gen. der Cavallerie Ewald von Kleist. Panzergruppe Kleist
controlled three primary combat organizations: 41st PanzerKorps
(6th and 8th Panzer Divisions), 19th PanzerKorps (1st , 2nd and 10th Panzer Divisions) and 14th Motorized Korps (two motorized divisions).
In addition, Fourth Army contained 15th PanzerKorps (5th and 7th Panzer Divisions). Army Group A would be facing two
Belgian divisions, plus Ninth and Second French Armies.
Victory through air-landing: German seaplane in
the Low Countries.
On the other side of the frontier, the French were preparing
their own plans. Under Gen. Maurice Gamelin’s
leadership, the Allied armies were to move forward into
Belgium and dig in along the Escaut River. In early 1940,
Gamelin modified those plans to move farther into Belgium
to the Dyle River, to better link up with the Belgians. The
move was controversial because it would take several days
to complete the maneuver and it opened up the French to a
possible meeting engagement with the Germans, something
their doctrine tried to avoid. In addition, the new plan took
the Seventh Army, the primary reserve force for France’s
Northwest Front, and moved it forward and onto the front
lines as well. Later, Gamelin ordered Seventh Army to march
through Antwerp to Breda in Holland to connect with the
Dutch.
Crossing the Meuse
On 10 May 1940 the Germans invaded. Both German
and French plans went into motion as Army Group B opened
the campaign. Luftwaffe paratroopers landed on and captured
Fort Eben Emael, fracturing Belgium’s Albert Canal line.
Gamelin sent his troops forward upon Belgium’s formal request
for assistance. While Allied eyes focused on Holland,
the 41,000 vehicles of Panzergruppe Kleist rumbled through
the Ardennes Forest. Two days later, they emerged to face
the French defenses on the Meuse in three locations.
The first assault was by 15 th PanzerKorps near Dinant,
Belgium; that force included Gen. Erwin Rommel’s 7 th Panzer
Division. With the bridges blown as they approached,
the Germans had to scramble to find a way across the river.
They found it in a neglected lock system near Houx. Myth
has Rommel’s troops making this crossing the night of 12-13
May, but those men were actually from the 5 th Panzer Division.
Houx was on the border between two French corps,
which complicated the Allied response, and the French 18 th
Infantry Division had barely arrived from its exhausting 50
mile journey from the frontier without its artillery and only
half its infantry. The Germans managed to push out against
sporadic opposition. The main French counterattack was
limited to a single tank raid. By the end of the 13 th , the Germans
were some seven miles across the river.
French Ninth Army finally took the crossing seriously
and dispatched the 1 st Division Cuirassee de Reserve, and
other troops. After a delayed start, the 1 st DCR made it to
Flavion the evening of May 14, where it stopped to wait for
its tanker trucks to arrive so it could refuel. Many of the
vehicles fell victim to the marauding Luftwaffe, but some
showed up the following morning. In the middle of that refueling,
the Germans attacked.
Again, later propaganda had Rommel leading this battle.
Actually he bypassed Flavion and continued west, leaving
the 31 st Tank Regiment of 5 th Panzer Division to take on the
1 st DCR. By all rights it should have been a mismatch. The
31 st had 120 tanks, of which 90 were Panzer Is and IIs, generally
useless in a tank-on-tank engagement as anything other
than targets. The Germans pitted 30 Panzer III and IV tanks
against 90 H39s, and 65 massive Char-Bs. The deciding factor
was radio. The Germans had communications and used
them effectively to fight a coordinated action. The French
didn’t have radios. Their tanks consequently fought in a disjointed
manner and the 1 st DCR was shattered, dooming the
French right flank.

The second major assault on the Meuse line occurred
later on 13 May at Sedan, where Guderian had his 19 th
Panzer Korps. Assisted by a rolling bombardment from
Luftwaffe aircraft, he launched all three of his panzer divisions
against the Meuse defenses—and nearly failed.
The 1 st Panzer Division, augmented by the infantry of
the Grossdeutchland Regiment and the 43 rd Assault Engineer
Battalion, managed to get across at Gaulier and
Torcy. They used direct fire from 88mm antiaircraft guns
to destroy bunkers one by one on the west bank. The 10 th
Panzer’s crossings near Walincourt failed, except for a
group of 11 assault engineers who made it across and
began taking out bunkers. The 2 nd Panzer, delayed by
traffic jams in the Ardennes, launched its own attacks
late around Donchery and was stymied by enfilading
fire from the opposite shore until 1 st Panzer troops took
out the flanking bunkers.
By midnight, German engineers had a bridge across
the Meuse at Gaulier. Their crossing had been largely
the work of a mere company of infantry and engineers,
not the massed assault by armor that characterizes most
of the battles’ descriptions. Guderian didn’t get tanks
across the Meuse until 0720 on 14 May.
Despite the fact panzers did not cross until the following
day, rumors they had had a devastating effect
on French troops, already jittery from the daylong attentions
of the Luftwaffe. False sighting of German
tanks near the headquarters of the 55 th Infantry Division,
responsible for the sector defense at Sedan, routed
its defending infantry and artillery troops. The rumors
stopped a French regiment designated for a counterattack in
its tracks and caused the headquarters of the 55 th Infantry
Division to displace away from the “threatened” area, ensuring
coordinated defense against the German crossing was
impossible. Indeed, rumors were flying thick and fast. The
several German company and battalion-sized paratrooper
and glider landings in the Allied rear in Holland and Belgian
quickly multiplied into mass airborne landings throughout
the West.
Guderian Pushes Ahead
Nonetheless, French X Corps commander Gen. Grandsard
ordered a strong counterattack that started 0730 on the
14 th . The French ran into the Germans on the Bulson ridge
soon afterward, keeping the corps from reaching the bridgehead.
At this moment Kleist ordered Guderian to hold open
the bridgehead and wait for the follow-on infantry to cross
before attacking farther west with his tanks. Guderian sent
1 st and 2 nd Panzer west anyway, leaving 10 th Panzer and the
Grossdeutchland Regiment to hold the flank. Disjointed
French counterattacks led to a bitter battle at Stonne that
savaged the Germans but failed to seal the breach. Further
counterattacks were nullified when the 3 rd Division Cuirassee
de Reserve was penny-packeted across the southern approaches
toward Paris and the western end of the Maginot
line to contain an expected German advance. Unfortunately
for the French, the German advance was west, not south and
east.
The final breach in the Meuse took place at Montherme,
midway between Dinant and Sedan. Kleist’s other Panzer-
Korps, Reinhart’s 41 st , had been heavily delayed during the
trek through the Ardennes. While infantry crossed the Meuse on
the 13 th , they were contained by a valiant effort by 42 nd Colonial
Infantry, part of the French 102 nd Fortress Infantry Division. It
wasn’t until 15 May that Reinhart was able to put together a major
effort, spurred on by news his corps was being transferred to
direct control of the Twelfth Army because of their lack of progress.
Troops of 6 th Panzer Division fought through the immediate
defenses, and though ordered to sweep the west bank of the
Meuse and aid the oncoming infantry, the division commander
put together an unauthorized pursuit group and sent it into the
French rear, penetrating over 30 miles. That created a breach,
rupturing the French defenses and initiating the beginning of the
end of the campaign.
To the Coast
There were other battles as the Germans raced toward the
English Channel, closing the trap on the French and British
forces that had entered Belgium. Allied reactions were too slow
and their counterattacks uncoordinated. The commander of the
French First Army Group was killed in an auto accident on 22
May, and he wasn’t replaced for four days. Lord Gort, commander
of the British Expeditionary Force, had no contact with his
Allied superiors for eight days. Gamelin was replaced by 74-year
old Gen. Maxime Weygand, recalled to active duty to assume
command. Weygand halted all counterattacks until he assessed
the situation, by which time it was clearly out of control. A British
counterattack at Arras caused consternation among the German
senior staff, but ultimately did nothing but convince Gort the
British were on their own. The retreat to Dunkirk followed and
the main portion of the battle for France passed into history and
debate.
strategy & tactics 25

26 #245
Beachhead in reverse: Allied transport abandoned on the
Dunkirk beaches.

French Infantry Division
75mm
105mm
+
155mm
French Light Cavalry Division
sapper pioneer
DLC
75mm
47mm
105mm
strategy & tactics 27

French Light Mechanized Division
28 #245
British Armored Division 1940
DLM
SG
75mm
Anti-aircraft
+
Anti-tank
105mm

Type Country Deployed May
1940 West
Weight
(tons)
Speed
(mph)
Armor
(max. in mm)
Armament
(main gun in mm
+ machineguns)
Heavy tanks
Char B1 France 274 32 17 60 1 x 75mm +
1 x 47mm + 2 x mg
Matilda
Medium tanks
Britain 319 27 15 78 2 x 40mm + 2 x mg
Somua S-35 France 300 20 33 56 1 x 47mm + 1 x mg
D2 France 100 20 20 40 1 x 47mm + 1 x mg
R35 France 900 10 13 45 1 x 37mm + 1 x mg
FCM-36 France 100 12 15 40 1 x 37mm + 1 x mg
Cruiser Mark III Britain 330 15 30 38 1 x 40mm + 1 x mg
Panzer III Germany 349 20 20 30 1 x 37mm + 2 x mg
Panzer IV Germany 278 20 25 30 1 x 75mm + 2 x mg
Panzer 38(t)
Light tanks
Germany 334 10 20 20 1 x 37mm + 2 x mg
Renault FT France 450 7.4 20 22 1 x 37mm + 1 x mg
AMR France 315 7 20 13 2 x mg
Panzer I Germany 523 6 22 13 2 x mg
Panzer II Germany 955 8 25 14.5 1 x 20mm + 1 x mg
strategy & tactics 29

30 #245
name
address
Bibliography
Boog, Horst (editor), The Conduct of the Air War in the Second
World War: An International Comparison (Oxford, UK:
Berg, 1988).
Chapman, Guy, Why France Fell: the Defeat of the French
Army in 1940 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1968).
Citino, Robert, The Path of Blitzkrieg: Doctrine and Training
in the German Army, 1920-1939 (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1999).
----, The Quest for Decisive Victory: Fronm Stalemate to Blitzkrieg
in Europe, 1899-1940 (Lawrence, KS: University
Press of Kansas, 2002).
Corum, James S. The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and
German Military Reform, Lawrence, KS: University Press
of Kansas, 1992).
Doughty, Robert Allan, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development
of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939 (Hamden, CT:
Archon Books, 1985).
----, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940
(Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1985).
Dutailly, Henry, “Weakness in French Military Planning on the
Eve of the Second World War”, Chapter 4, Military Planning
and the Origins of the Second World War in Europe.
Ellis, L.F., The War in France and Flanders, 1939-1940 (London:
HMSO, 1953).
Forget, Michel, “Cooperation between Air Force and Army
in the French and German Air Forces during the Second
World War” Chapter 21, The Conduct of the Air War in the
Second World War.
French, David, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and
the War against Germany, 1919-1945, Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
City/State/Zip
Country
V/mC # exp.
Signature
phone #
Frieser, Karl-Heinz, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the
West, (Annapolis, MD: USNI, 2005).
Gunsburg, Jeffery A., Divided and Conquered: French High Command
and the Defeat of the West, 1940 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1979).
Jackson, Peter, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Kiesling, Eugene, Arming against Hitler: France and Limits of Military
Planning (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1996).
May, Ernest, Strange Victory, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000).
McKercher, B. J. C. and Legault, Roch, Military Planning and the Origins
of the Second World War in Europe (Westport, CT: Praeger,
19xx).
Miller, David, The Illustrated Directory of Tanks of the World from World
War I to the Present Day, (Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing, 2000).
Mosier, John, The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread
the Strategic Realities of World War II, (New York: Harper Collins,
2003).
Powaski, Ronald E., Lightning War: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940 (New
York: John Wiley& Sons, 2003).
Shirer, William, Fall of the Third Republic.
Stolfi, Russel Henry, Reality and Myth: French and German Preparations
for War 1933-1940 (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University,
1966).
Author’s Note: The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the
critical and editorial assistance of Lt. Col. Robert G. Smith, US
Army, in the writing of the article.
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For Your information
Did you Know?
•
•
•
•
•
In 1990, the United Kingdom
had a total of 305,000 personnel
in its armed forces. Today
that number is down to 195,000,
which ranks it a mere 28th in the
world’s militaries in size.
At the end of World War II,
Canada had 1 million personnel
in its armed forces. Today that
number is 62,000.
Congress recently approved an
increase of 65,000 troops for the
regular Army, along with another
27,000 for the Marines. That expansion
is to take place between
now and 2012.
In 1914, of all European armies
only the Swiss didn’t trace its
origins back to a formation as a
royal guard force.
During the past three years the
US Special Operations Command
(SOCOM) has expanded
from 44,000 to 54,000 personnel.
During that same period its annual
budget has increased from
$4 billion to almost $7 billion.
Ironically, Army Special Forces
“Green Berets,” the original and
quintessential post-World War II
American “spec ops” soldiers,
now make up less than 10 percent
of SOCOM.
nuclear Winter
Possibilities
The implosion of the Soviet Union
ended most concerns of a nuclear war
and the associated “nuclear winter”—
a global climactic cooling resulting
from the smoke, dust and ash ejected
into the atmosphere following a massive
nuclear exchange. Of course,
the possibility of limited exchanges
between a variety of countries having
smaller arsenals, as well as acts of
nuclear terrorism, were seen as possibilities
minus the controls that had
been provided by a two-superpower
planet. The possibility, however, that
such limited exchanges could cause
environmental disaster weren’t widely
considered.
•
•
•
In March 2007, Japan and Australia
signed a mutual defense
pact similar to the one both those
governments already have with
the United States. At the time of
the signing, spokesmen for both
countries stated—repeatedly—
that the pact should not to be
interpreted as having been drawn
up for the specific reason of
thwarting possible future Chinese
aggression.
It’s estimated half of all US
troop deaths in Iraq have been
caused by explosives plundered
by the insurrectionists from the
huge caches left behind by the
Saddam Hussein regime.
During the last year of World
War I, the per capita military
spending of the major
belligerents, calculated in
1918 US dollars, broke out
like this, from highest to
lowest: France—$234.79,
United Kingdom—$187.96,
Germany—$131.40, United
States—$67.96, Austria-Hungary—$39.25,
and Italy—$6.31.
(Reliable figures for the Russian
Empire aren’t available.)
It now seems such fears were
dismissed too quickly. Researchers
from the University of Colorado,
Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins
University and UCLA reported in the
2 March 2007 issue of Science that
computer models of the climatic effects
following a limited exchange of
about 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons
(about 15 kilotons each), detonated
in urban areas, could create enough
atmospheric obstruction to reduce
the length of the growing seasons for
the US, South America, Europe and
Russia by 10 to 30 days. That would
in turn create a severe risk of global
famine that might last as long as 10
•
•
After the post-war demobilization
of 1865, an amazingly high
proportion of those serving in the
reduced US military were foreign-born.
In 1870, while only
14 percent of the entire populace
were foreign-born, fully 46 percent
of those serving under arms
fell into that category. Those two
figures didn’t come back into
balance until 1910, when both
were 15 percent.
The first battleship to entirely
abandon sails and rely completely
on steam for power was the
Royal Navy’s HMS Devastation
in 1873.
Attention S&T readers: We’re always
looking for authors for FYI. If you’d like
to try your hand at writing short (under
2,000 words), pithy articles for this column,
on virtually any aspect of military
history, contact Ty Bomba, FYI editor,
at: WhiteRook02@netzero.net.
years. The scientists estimated the
effects could be on the order of the
climate changes following the Laki
eruption (1783-1784) or the Tambora
eruption (1815), both of which
caused record-setting changes. The
number of casualties resulting from
such a shift in climate might climb
to more than 100 times the number
of casualties from the direct effects
of the original nuclear exchange. For
instance, the authors estimated an
exchange between India and Pakistan
could generate over 21 million casualties.
strategy & tactics 31

32 #245
“US-Japan cooperation will increase even more because the Japanese
have had significant emotional events [concerning North Korea].”
The risks of such
an exchange therefore
aren’t trivial.
Though only
eight nations have
acknowledged nuclear
arsenals,
some 32 more
countries, including
Iran and North
Korea, are on the
verge of acquiring
nuclear weapons.
Other countries
among the 32
include: South
Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Brazil, Argentina, and Japan. The
limiting factor is only the supply of
sufficiently pure fissionable material.
The steps involved in assembling the
actual bombs are well known and can
be found on the internet. The authors
therefore concluded that one or more
of those nations building an arsenal of
at least 50 nuclear weapons is easily
possible.
The major scenarios for limited
nuclear exchange come from regional
conflicts. Likely clashes include:
the Middle East (Israel versus Iran),
Japan or South Korea versus China or
North Korea, Taiwan versus China,
and India versus Pakistan. Of course,
the US might also be drawn in to any
of those scenarios as well. The growth
of trade in nuclear technology, especially
uranium enrichment, questions
about the security of former Soviet
weapons and technologies, and the
ability to make ever-smaller devices,
all further contribute to the danger.
Traditional concepts of deterrence,
such as mutually assured destruction
(MAD), are seemingly obsolete,
while state safeguards in countries
with newly minted atomic arsenals
are inadequate. In retrospect, the Cold
War doesn’t seem to have been so bad
after all.
⎯ David Lentini
the 2006 War in
Lebanon
In their 2006 incursion into Lebanon,
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
not only failed to land a knock-out
blow against Hezbollah, they didn’t
even deliver a good punch.
Led by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah,
Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim insurgent
organization militarily and financially
backed by Iran. Their goals include
the destruction of Israel and the
re-establishment of the Caliphate.
After Israel pulled out of Lebanon in
2000, Hezbollah moved in, creating a
state within a state. The approximate
northern boundary of Hezbollah’s territory
is the Litani River, the southern
boundary is the Israeli frontier. Their
unofficial capital is the centrally
located town of Beit Jubail. The
area is rough and hilly, with dozens
of villages located on hilltops and
nestled in valley floors. The Lebanese
government has no control over that
part of the country.
On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah
struck by attacking an Israeli outpost
on the Lebanese border, killing eight
soldiers and kidnapping two others.
Israel responded by bombing Hezbollah
positions and Lebanese infrastructure:
road junctions, bridges, a key
mountain pass along the road to Syria
and, most notably, Beirut International
Airport. While those operations
may have prevented Hezbollah
from spiriting the kidnapped soldiers
out of the country, they didn’t stop
them from deploying more troops or
launching Iranian supplied rockets,
over 4,000 of which rained down on
Israel during the course of the war.
Aside from a few raids, the IDF
didn’t send troops into Lebanon
until 22 July. Led by the elite Golani
Brigade, Israeli forces drove on Beit
Jubail, encountering heavy resistance
in the town of Mauron al-Ras. Beit
Jubail fell to the Golani in heavy
fighting on the 25th. Despite that
victory, a further drive into Lebanon
did not begin until 1 August, when
—USAF Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, Director,
Missile Defense Agency, February 2007
the IDF sent eight brigades forward
(about 10,000 troops) as deep as 3.75
miles (six kilometers) into Lebanon.
Instead of pushing on, the Israelis
waited, hoping their air strikes and
commando raids would win the war.
(There were raids on Baalbek, Tyre
and Ras al-Biyada.) Despite the incursion,
Hezbollah rockets kept coming.
As international pressure mounted
for a ceasefire, Israel’s cabinet voted
on 10 August to expand the offensive
to the Litani. That new offensive was
up against the time limit imposed by
UN resolution 1701, and saw heavy
fighting in the northeastern villages of
Rashaf and Marjayoun, where Israeli
troops sought to cut off Hezbollah
from its Bekka Valley logistics bases.
By the time the ceasefire took effect
on 14 August, the Israelis had managed
to clear most Hezbollah positions
south of the Litani.
The Israelis can point to several
successes in the campaign. As many
as 700 insurgents were killed, with
the IDF being able to identify 440
of them not only by name but by address,
strongly suggesting the Israelis
captured lots of valuable intelligence.
Most of Hezbollah’s long-range Fajir
and Zelzal 2 rocket launchers (50 or
so weapons systems) were destroyed,
as were 100 short-range launchers.
Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Beit
Jubail was gutted, and their headquarters
in Beirut was bombed to rubble.
Still, Hezbollah was not destroyed.
Hezbollah’s survival was a
consequence of indecision in Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert’s office, combined
with flawed doctrine in the IDF
high command. Israel’s response was
both muddled and slow: Nasrallah’s
headquarters was not bombed until
14 July. Olmert also didn’t call up reserves
until over a week after the war
began, on 21 July. He waited until 22
July to order a serious attack on Beit
Jubail. Even worse, he didn’t begin
the push to the Litani until 1 August.
The 4 August edition of the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz stated Olmert
was reluctant to order the IDF to the

For Your information
Litani, and that he instead favored a
limited incursion of only about five
miles (eight kilometers) in the hope
the air force would win the war.
There were also claims of lack of
well-defined objectives, troops not
being properly trained, and infighting
among generals.
Israeli shortfalls during the
war weren’t just the result of their
mistakes, but Hezbollah’s prowess as
well. During the previous six years
the IDF always outclassed its enemies
(Palestinian Authority security forces,
Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas), who
were little more than armed militia,
but that wasn’t so with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah fighters had been well
trained, some in Syria and Iran, some
by members of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Al Qods force, many
of whom had been in Lebanon for
over a decade. (Al Qods is responsible
for Iranian overseas operations,
including training of insurgents and
terrorism.)
Hezbollah fighters battled in
platoon and company sized units.
They wore body armor and used night
vision gear; they knew how to lay
down suppressive and covering fire,
and were able to infiltrate back into
villages the Israelis had believed to
be secure. For instance, after the IDF
took Beit Jubail on 22 July, Hezbollah
insurgents returned on the 26 th and, in
fierce fighting, killed nine Israelis and
wounded 27.
Hezbollah was also able to set
several deadly ambushes, as they
showed in their original attack on
12 July. Under cover of diversionary
artillery fire, Hezbollah unleashed a
mortar barrage on an Israeli outpost,
overran it and took captive two
soldiers. They then lured a pursuing
Merkava tank onto a landmine
and brought supporting IDF infantry
under fire. Another deadly ambush
occurred on 20 July, when Battalion
51 of the Golani Brigade was drawn
into a field outside the village of Maroun
al-Ras and brought under mortar,
machinegun and anti-tank missile fire.
Hezbollah made great use of old Soviet
and European anti-tank missiles,
firing over 1,000 and scoring 50 hits
on Israeli tanks, heavily damaging
half of them.
Hezbollah was also able to make
use of anti-ship missiles, firing a Chinese
made C802 radar guided missile
at an Israeli Saar-5 missile boat, the
Hanit, on 15 July, killing four sailors.
Another C802 was launched at an
Egyptian ship as well.
A third technological surprise was
Hezbollah’s unmanned vehicles. On
the last day of the war, Hezbollah
launched two drones at Israel: one
malfunctioned while the other was
shot down. Most critically, Hezbollah
has maintained absolute control
over its troops. In the past, Israeli
ceasefires with the various Palestinian
armed groups have been largely
meaningless, with rockets being fired
into Israel hours after truces were
announced, from the 14 August ceasefire
through the end of 2006 fighting
has not resumed. That points to a
high degree of discipline and central
control in Hezbollah.
Despite Hezbollah’s surprising
competence and the IDF’s shortcomings,
the Israelis won all of the
major actions of the war and inflicted
massive casualties on the enemy.
When Israeli troops took decisive
action and forced pitched battles,
they took a severe toll on Hezbollah.
As usual in unconventional conflicts,
simply winning battles doesn’t mean
winning the war. Hezbollah was able
to make considerable propaganda out
of simply proving able to engage in
sustained combat against the IDF, as
well as exploiting collateral damage
to civilians.
In response to what they’ve
learned about Hezbollah’s capabilities
and tactics, the Israelis are taking
several steps. First, both regular and
reserves units are seeing a 30 percent
increase in training. That includes a
heavy dose of urban warfare exercises
against a unit created to mimic
Hezbollah tactics. A mock enemy
town has also been constructed. It resembles
an Arab urban area of 5,000
people, boasts minarets, pock-marked
buildings and blaring music.
Second, the IDF is equipping its
tanks with the new Trophy Active
Protective System. That system has
a quartet of radar sensors and two
guns, one mounted on each side at
the turret. Once a threat is detected,
the guns release a barrage of pellets
that will break up an incoming missile
at a range of 10 to 30 meters. The
Trophy can auto-reload and engage
multiple targets and is stored behind
an armored shield.
Third, the Israelis have decided to
build an anti-Kassam missile system.
One possibility is the Sky Dome.
Also built by Rafael, Sky Dome uses
kinetic energy weapons to intercept
incoming short-range rockets before
they hit their target. The system has
a range of a few dozen kilometers,
giving the Israelis a short-range compliment
to their Arrow anti-ballistic
missile system deployed around Tel
Aviv. Another option is the Nautilus,
which is a laser system developed
in conjunction with the American
Northrop-Grumman company for
more than a decade. The Nautilus is a
tactical high energy laser (or THEL)
with a range of about six miles (10
kilometers).
The war was marked by irony.
In a television interview given on 28
August, Nasrallah admitted he hadn’t
believed the Israelis would respond so
forcefully to the 12 July kidnappings.
“You ask me, if I had known on July
11... that the operation would lead to
such a war, would I do it? I say no,
absolutely not.”
That statement suggests that while
Hezbollah forces may have been on
alert, they weren’t fully prepared to
repel an Israeli assault, nor was their
leadership in hiding. Had the IDF
strategy & tactics 33

34 #245
For Your information
launched a lightning air assault followed
by a quick amphibious and airborne
landing in Lebanon, the Israelis
may well have captured or killed
much of Hezbollah’s leadership and
dealt the organization a death blow.
Regardless, the 2006 Israeli war in
Lebanon demonstrates the shortfalls
in underestimating an enemy, as well
as the possible efficacy of military
force in unconventional warfare when
used properly.
Israeli Defense Forces Order of
Battle 2006 Lebanon War
Eastern Lebanon (Division 36)
Nahal Brigade
Armor Brigade 7
Central Lebanon (Division 91)
Golani Brigade
Armored Brigade 847 (reserve)
Brigade 300
Western Lebanon
226 th Paratroop Brigade
Tank Brigade 188
Brigade 609 (reserve)
Border Patrol
Barum Brigade
Special Operations
Flotilla 13 (raids on Tyre)
Sayeet Mathal (air assault raid on
Baalbek)
⎯ William Stroock
Siam in World War i
The outbreak of war in Europe
in 1914 was of interest to Siam only
in that it gave the country a respite
from a series of British and French
territorial annexations. King Rama
VI (1910-25) was pro-British due to
a British education and having served
in the Durham Light Infantry, but he
initially viewed the war as a chance
for Siam to gather strength before
peace renewed European imperial
rivalries in Asia. Siam thus remained
neutral, though national sentiment
was slightly pro-German, because
unlike Britain and France, Germany
had no imperial record in Siam.
Nevertheless, Siam’s position between
British and French possessions
(India and Indochina, respectively)
forced the king to be careful not to
provoke suspicions of non-neutrality
from those powers. The British were
particularly sensitive to rumors of
German incitement of uprisings in
India and Burma. In May 1915 the
king published an article condemning
the sinking of the Lusitania, and
in subsequent articles criticized other
German atrocities. In September
1915 he became the first Asian to
be granted an honorary generalship
in the British army, and he returned
the favor by granting an honorary
generalship in the Siamese Army to
King George V. He also sent money
to the widows and orphans fund of
the Durham Light Infantry.
In February 1917, Germany
resumed unrestricted submarine warfare.
The US severed relations with
Berlin and asked Siam to do likewise.
The Siamese Foreign Minister, Prince
Devawongse, discussed the issue with
his brother the king. Germany had
done nothing to warrant a declaration
of war by Siam, but if Siam were to
declare war, she could intern all the
German ships sheltering in Bangkok
as compensation for the inevitable
German confiscation of Siamese assets
in Germany. Some of the 200 or
so German men in Siam might pose a
threat to national security, especially
those building the railway to Chiang
Mai. Others might stir-up pro-German
elements in the Siamese military
or the local Chinese, of whom the
king had long been suspicious. An
outbreak of civil war wasn’t impossible,
especially given the failed coup
attempt by some officers in 1912, and
another in February 1917, aimed at
replacing the British-educated king
with his German-educated brother
Boriphat, the Minister of the Navy.
When the US declared war on
Germany on 6 April, then, the Siamese
government merely reiterated its
neutrality while continuing to debate
the issue internally. On 28 May the
king told his cabinet that, due to its
geographic position, Siam had never
had the option of joining Germany
but only of joining the Allies or
staying neutral. While neutrality had
been best while the outcome of the
war remained unclear, with American
involvement Germany was likely to
lose. So it was time to rethink Siam’s
position. Siamese neutrality would be
held against the country if the Allies
won. If she went to war, she could
revoke the unequal treaties with Germany
and Austro-Hungary that limited
Siam’s commercial and judicial
independence, and would thereby also
be in a better position to renegotiate
the remaining unequal treaties with
the Allied powers. Germany, though,
hadn’t attacked Siam or its shipping.
Without a genuine casus belli,
Siam risked being perceived as only
joining the Allies to gain political
favor. Additionally, the king couldn’t
see how Siam could realistically
assist the Allies. Therefore the king
decided to await the right moment
to declare war with honor, but the
country would meanwhile prepare for
active belligerency.
Ministry heads began preparing
detailed plans for the replacement of
German governmental advisors, for
the capture of German ships riding
out the war in Bangkok, and for the
imprisonment of enemy aliens. To
prepare the Siamese populace for the
policy change, the king published
a series of anti-German articles in
the Thai press between 7 and 21
July, declaring that, as Buddhists,
the Siamese couldn’t remain aloof
to the suffering of innocents caused
by German atrocities. Then, on 22
July 1917, Siam declared war, citing

For Your information
German “contempt for all principles
of humanity and all respect for small
states, flagrantly disregarding international
rights and agreements,” and
affirming Siam’s duty “to uphold the
sanctity of international rights.”
As part of the ceremonial rites
of declaring war, the king publicly
conducted the first symbolic step
toward the destruction of Siam’s
new enemies. He ordered a specially
planted tree representing the enemy
be disgraced by being doused with
dirty water from his footbath, and that
it then be chopped down. Once the
declaration of war had been delivered
to the German and Austro-Hungarian
legations, all male enemy aliens were
interned.
Detailed plans had been prepared
for the seizure of German merchant
ships at Bangkok port. Naval personnel
used specially built ladders
to board the German vessels from
launches. Taken by surprise, all 25
vessels were seized intact, including
nine merchant ships and several lighters,
tugs and barges. The ships were
repaired, renamed and put to use by
the Siamese government.
By 8 August all German and
Austrian women and children had
also been arrested, and all those
internees were eventually transported
to British POW camps in India. By
removing the Germans from Siam,
with the intention of repatriating them
to Germany after the war, the British
hoped to replace the German role in
Siamese commerce themselves. The
British also occupied Delisle Island
(Ko Phayam) near Ranong as part of
a chain of signal stations along the
Indian-Burmese coast. A lookout and
radio station was maintained there
until mid-1919.
Siam hadn’t intended to send
troops to Europe, but Prince Charoon,
ambassador to France, suggested
Siam dispatch a contingent of pilots
and ambulance personnel to “make a
bit of a show.” Ambulance and aviation
units were considered the best
because, though small, they would
be highly visible and prestigious.
Devawongse felt the idea was unrealistic,
due both to the expense and
the likely lack of volunteers, but other
ministers felt the cost would pay off
politically and the units would gain
invaluable military experience. Thus,
in September 1917, it was decided to
send an expeditionary force of 1,300
men, consisting of motor transport
drivers, aviators and a medical team.
That decision caught the British by
surprise, with one of their officials
complaining Siamese troops “on a
modern European battlefield would be
a source of embarrassment rather than
an advantage to the Allies.”
For the Siamese, however, service
in the Siamese Expeditionary Force
(SEF) was declared a special honor.
Enlistment was voluntary and open
to servicemen and civilians. To set
an example, several princes enlisted
as ordinary soldiers. So many men
volunteered, the king had to suspend
recruitment after only two weeks. Because
so few recruits were trained, it
was several months before they were
ready to sail for France. Meanwhile
a military mission led by Brig. Gen.
Phraya Pijaijarnrit left for France in
January 1918 to prepare for the SEF’s
arrival.
The 1,284 officers and men of the
SEF embarked at Bangkok on 19 June
1918, arriving at Marseilles on 30
July. Prince Charoon ensured the SEF
were treated as equals with European
soldiers and weren’t confused with
Chinese and Vietnamese labor battalions.
Of the airmen, 106 were pilots
who trained at French flying schools
at Istres and Avord. About 95 qualified
as pilots, and the best 28 were
sent to pursuit school at Pau. The
remainder, being mechanics, were
taught aircraft construction, engine
repair and maintenance at the Breguet
and Spad aircraft factories and the
Gnôme-Rhône and Hispano-Suiza
engine factories near Paris.
On 14 October, after training
in convoy driving techniques in
European conditions, the Siamese
motor transport unit arrived at the
front, serving with the French Army
under heavy shellfire, and taking part
in the final offensives in Champagne
and Argonne, for which the unit was
awarded the Croix de Guerre.
Germany capitulated and signed
the armistice on 11 November 1918,
an auspicious day for Siam, as it
was the anniversary of the king’s
coronation in 1910. On 14 December,
Siamese transport units advanced
into Germany to a base in Neustadt,
where, together with 24 Siamese
pilots attached to French air units,
they assisted in the supply of French
occupation forces. The rest of the
aviators received advanced training
at French air schools before 340 of
them left Marseilles on 31 March
1919, returning to Siam to three days
of public celebrations on 1 May. The
SEF’s transport and ambulance units
remained in Europe to take part in
victory parades in Paris, London and
Brussels in July, when a number of
Siamese officers were awarded the
Légion d’honneur.
Those troops all returned home to
three days of celebrations in Bangkok
on 21 to 23 September. The final
day of the celebrations saw the ashes
of the 19 SEF casualties interred in
a memorial near the Royal Palace.
None of them had died in combat,
but rather of accident or disease.
Nevertheless all were treated as
heroes, and wreathes are still laid at
the monument on 11 November each
year. Additionally, a roundabout near
Bangkok’s railway station was named
“22 July Roundabout” to commemorate
the declaration of war.
Prince Charoon led Siam’s delegation
to the Versailles Peace Conference,
the main intention being to
revoke the unequal treaties with Western
powers rather than to obtain war
indemnities. Eventually Articles 135-
137 of the Versailles Treaty of June
1919 secured official international
recognition only of Siam’s unilateral
revocation of Germany’s treaty rights.
Similar revocations were also inserted
in separate treaties with Austria and
Hungary. Siam also joined the League
of Nations as a founding member in
1920.
US President Woodrow Wilson
supported Siam’s desire to revoke all
the unequal treaties, and in December
1920 the US agreed to surrender its
fiscal and extraterritorial rights in
Siam. Japan followed suit in 1923,
but Britain and France proved reluctant
to even begin negotiations. In
strategy & tactics 35

the Long tradition:
36 #245
50 issues ago, S&t 195:
Borodino & friedland. Two big battles of the
Napoleonic wars, designed by W. Dippel and J.
Werth. The games used the ever-popular Napoleon’s
Last Battles system. Elsewhere, Bill Gray
analyzed Napoleonic command control, and Brian
Train took a look at the Commonwealth Division
in the Korean War.
100 issues ago, S&t 145:
trajan. Joseph Miranda design covering the wars of
the Roman soldier-emperor, Marcus Ulpius Nerva
Traianus. Trajan was the first in a series of four
S&T ancient warfare games that used interlocking
maps to give an ancient’s eye view of the world.
Dan Verssen did a quick and dirty guide to naval
warfare in the 1990s. Matt Caffrey wrote about
applying wargaming to the real world with the
TWX/Agile theater air warfare game. Finally,
Al Nofi continued the FYI tradition.
150 issues ago, S&t 95:
Soldiers of the Queen. Richard Berg and E.
Sollers design covering two of the more famous
battles of the British Empire, Isandlwana 1879 and
Omdurman 1898. Dr. David G. Martin wrote the
lead, covering the age of imperialism. Richard also
helmed the Berg’s Review of Games, and did the
Forward Observer column with advice to designers
on publishing games. Then Ian Chadwick took a
bite into the emerging world of computer games
with a review of SSI’s products. And the issue
closed out with the MOVES gaming section.
200 issues ago, S&t 45:
operation olympic. This was touted as
something of a science fiction issue, with the lead
article and wargame covering the planned but never
executed Allied invasion of the Japanese home island
of Kyushu. The wargame was designed by the prolific
team of Jim Dunnigan and Redmond Simonsen, while
the accompanying article was penned by Frank Davis.
Operation Olympic was one of the few wargames to
appear in S&T purpose-designed to be solitaire. Stephen
B. Patrick, John Boardman and Redmond Simonsen
wrote the issue’s other feature article on science fiction,
including some of the rationale behind SPI’s Star
Force universe. The Outgoing Mail section commented
this issue initiates a New Look for S&T. Among other
things, a Footnotes section brought mini-articles on
SPI’s games into the pages of the magazine, and there
was a designer’s notes piece on SPI’s Seelowe (Operation
Sealion). The issue also included a chart that rated
89 wargames, which was probably most of the games
in print in 1974.
September 1924, Rama VI therefore sent his political
advisor, Harvard law professor Francis B. Sayre,
to Europe where, by August 1925, the remaining
10 powers (Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and
Norway) all agreed to rescind their treaties. Rama VI
thus achieved his war aim of having Siam recognized
as an equal of other nations.
Though it had proclaimed a moral reason for
declaring war, Siam’s real reasons were otherwise.
First was a foreign policy aim of increasing Siam’s
international standing, and to increase the country’s
leverage to revoke the many unequal treaties with
foreign powers. Second was the king’s domestic aim
of increasing Siamese nationalism, to strengthen the
country internally, and to help ward off future foreign
aggression. Third was to obtain combat experience
for the country’s troops. While the Siamese military
didn’t obtain combat experience, their training in
France was still valuable, and their visible presence in
Europe gained them kudos. Siam’s foundation membership
of the League of Nations and the subsequent
revocation of the humiliating treaties showed that
Siam’s participation in the war earned it the prize of
treatment as an equal by the Great Powers.
The last surviving member of the SEF, mechanic
Yod Sangrungruang, was made a Knight of the
Légion d’honneur by the French government in 1999.
Promoted to 2 nd lieutenant by the Thai government in
2000, he died on 9 October 2003, aged 106.
Composition of the Siamese Expeditionary
Force Command:
1 colonel, commanding
3 subaltern officers
2 warrant officers
6 soldiers
Aviation Squadrons (pilots, mechanics and small
medical teams)
1st Squadron
19 officers, 117 warrant officers and men
2nd Squadron
20 officers, 117 warrant officers and men
3rd Squadron
18 officers, 117 warrant officers and men
Motor Transport & Ambulance Corps
10 officers, 864 warrant officers and men
Total: 71 officers & 1,223 men.
⎯ Brendan Whyte
Next issue
Manila ’45: Stalingrad of the Pacific: the US Army
versus the Imperial Japanese in one of the bloodiest
battles of the Pacific Theater of Operations. The issue
wargame features a fast and furious system for simulating
urban warfare.
Future articles: Alexander the Great takes on Afghanistan,
the Luftwaffe plans to bomb New York City,
and the Ethiopians defeat Al Qaeda.

Works In Progress
the Holy roman Empire:
Wars of the reformation, 1524-1538
appearing in issue 247
Holy Roman Empire: Wars of the Reformation, 1524-38
(HRE) is a wargame of intermediate complexity intended
for play by four, three or two. The era it covers—from the
Peasants Revolt to the Truce of Nice—was one that proved
decisive in shaping what has since come to be known as
‘modernity.’ On one side was the Holy Roman Empire, the
(theoretically) Europe-wide polity under control of the Hapsburgs.
Contending against it were the Kingdom of France,
the Ottoman Empire and miscellaneous minor states, as well
as the rising tide of Protestantism.
HRE is primarily intended to be played by four, each representing
a different major power: the Hapsburgs, France, the
Ottomans, and the “League,” the latter representing assorted
minor power coalitions that came and went. Each player has
a variety of military and political instruments with which he
can attempt to gain control of Europe. The rules are written
with procedures for four-player games in mind; however,
games with three or two players can also be managed by
using the altered framework provided for such contests.
Minor powers may be controlled by the major power
players or they may be neutral. Rebels are generally treated
as minor powers, but they’re not actually controlled by any
player. Elite mercenary units may be controlled by any player
who recruits and pays them.
Each maneuver unit represents a combined-arms force
to one degree or another, but ones in which certain tactical
types generally predominate. The types included in the
counter-mix are: garrison (militia and other static troops);
levy (late-feudal-era mixed light troops); professional infantry
(regulars, usually based around a single tactical system,
such as Swiss pikemen or Ottoman Janissaries); gendarmes
(heavy cavalry); tercios (well balanced combined-arms
forces using the most recent shock and firepower tactics of
the era); reiters (light cavalry); fleets of ocean-going naval
vessels, and leaders (strategic-level commanders plus their
staffs and household troops).
Each game turn represents one year. Each maneuver unit
represents 5,000 to 15,000 combatants along with sundry
camp followers and hangers-on. Each square on the map is
approximately 50 miles across. The game uses an evolution
of designer Joseph Miranda’s well-liked Charlemagne system.
The word-count in the rules, including 10 sections of
optionals, comes to just under 20,000. Four gamers experienced
with the system can expect to complete HRE’s single
grand scenario in about 12 hours.
Special rules cover: off-map areas, mercenaries, imperial
diets, Martin Luther, gold, random events, and much more.
The Ottoman player has the potential to upset all the other
players’ strategies at any time by seizing Vienna and thereby
winning a sudden death victory (easier said than done).
Two-player and three-player matches will inescapably
be more an anti-Hapsburg ‘crusade’ than will be the case in
four-player matches. That’s balanced by the fact the typical
wargamer will be much more strategically savvy in play than
was his historical counterpart Charles V in reality.
S&t upcoming features
#246 Manila 45: the US Army versus the Japanese at the Philippine capital during the return to the Philippines.
#247 Holy Roman Empire: Wars of the Reformation, 1524-38. Two to four players battle it out across a
square-grid map of Central Europe during the Renaissance and Reformation.
#248 First Blood: Second Marne, 15 July 1918. Tactical level American Expeditionary Force against German
stosstruppen.
#249 Forgotten Napoleonic Campaigns: The Russo-Swedish War, 1808 & The Egyptian Campaign, 1798-99.
#250 Cold War Battles II: Modern Battles system for Wurzburg 1950s and the Soviet seizure of Kabul in 1979.
Visit www.strategyandtacticspress.com for previews of these issues.
strategy & tactics 37

38 #245
The Art of War in the
Middle Ages: A Survey
by Albert A. Nofi
In early western military history the infantry was “Queen of Battles,” forming the backbone of armies. The
Greek hoplites, the Macedonian phalangites, the Roman legionaries, they were all hard-slogging and harderhitting
foot soldiers. To be sure, the infantry on occasion was eclipsed by other arms—usually cavalry—due
to peculiarities of environment or enemies. The Parthians, for example, gave the Romans a run for their
money with their cataphract armored cavalry and lighter horse archers. But even in Western armies that secured
their victories by mounted action, such as the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander, it was the infantry who did
most of the fighting. That situation changed radically in the millennium called in the West “The Middle Ages”
(roughly from the fall of Rome to the fall of Constantinople), when cavalry became so dominant in warfare the
very word milites—“soldier”—came to denote only the mounted warrior. What caused that radical change? And
how did the infantry ever regain its place on the battlefield?

Adrianople
In the late 4 th century AD the Roman Empire was
beset with tribes of migrating barbarians pressuring the
defenses along the Rhine and Danube while the Sassanid
Persians were aggressive in the east. Still, the
Empire was holding its own, largely due to the superiority
of its army. By that time the classic Roman legions
had long since changed into a new organization. The
frontiers were held by the limitanei (“borderers”), a militia
of farmer-soldiers. Backing up the limitanei were
the comitatenses (“companions”), mobile field armies
situated in central locations that could act as strategic
reserve or take the offensive for expeditions beyond
the frontier. The emperors also had their armies of elite
guards, called scholae (“schools” from the design of
their barracks). Those formations included numerous
cavalry units, from fully armored types down to horse
archers. But the cavalry was not considered to be the
primary battle-winning arm. The infantry would still
hold the line in the field and deliver the telling blow.
In 357 AD at Argentoratum, the Emperor Julian
fought the Alemanni, a Germanic people who had
crossed into imperial territory. The battle opened with
a barbarian charge that routed Julian’s heavy cavalry
from the field. But the Roman infantry closed ranks and
broke the invaders, throwing them back over the Rhine
in a bloodbath.
In 376 AD the Goths were on the move. The Goths
were a Germanic people who had learned to use the
horses for war. Gothic warriors frequently rode to battle
mounted, though they would, if the situation called
for it, dismount and fight on foot. Horses provided the
mobility needed in the vast steppes and plains that
stretched from the Rhine to the Urals. Under pressure
from the savage peoples to their east, such as the
Huns, the Goths had crossed the Roman frontier and
moved into the lower Danubian regions of the empire.
They were accompanied by other nomadic peoples,
also horsemen, as well as dissident Romans.
The presence of such large numbers of barbarians
within the Roman frontiers led to friction with the locals,
friction that soon turned into open warfare. And
the newcomers proved capable of challenging the empire’s
armies. By the 4 th century, the Goths had learned
many of the ways of civilization and were much better
organized than their Germanic ancestors who had previously
confronted the Roman Empire.
In the summer of 378 the Emperor Valens, ruler of
the East (the West was ruled by his Co-Emperor Valentian),
gathered together a field army and marched
from Constantinople to meet the intruders who were
encamped near the Thracian city of Adrianople. Esti-
strategy & tactics 39

40 #245
mates of Roman strength range from a low of 20,000
men up to 60,000. The lower figure is more realistic
given the logistics of the campaign, though the higher
may include the usual support troops and barbarian
mercenaries who accompanied a Roman army in the
field.
On 9 August the Roman army assaulted the Gothic
camp, which was fortified with wagons and defended
by the Goth infantry, perhaps 5,000-15,000 men (no
exact order of battle exists), supported by their women
and children. The Goth cavalry, including Huns and
Alans, perhaps 10,000-14,000 horsemen, were off
raiding and foraging.
Valens deployed his forces in traditional Roman
fashion, with the infantry in the center and the cavalry
on the flanks. He opened the battle with cavalry
attacks against the Goth flanks, and then sent in his
infantry. As luck would have it, just as Valens’ troops
became entangled with the enemy wagon fortress, the
Goth horse arrived on his left. The Goths hit the Roman
left flank “like a thunderbolt,” in the words of
Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman officer turned historian
who may have been there. The Roman cavalry
on the left was driven from the field, and the Goths
smashed into the exposed flank of the Roman infantry,
pressing it to the right and causing a crush. After
that fiasco the battle degenerated into little more than
slaughter, as the Romans found themselves jammed so
tightly against each other they were unable to wield
their swords and spears. Most of the Roman army fell
on the field alongside Valens. It was one of the worst
Roman disasters since Cannae six centuries before.
The defeat of the Romans at Adrianople was not
inevitable. Indeed, Roman armies had met with and
defeated mounted enemies in the past. At Adrianople,
however, Valens committed his forces without ascertaining
the whereabouts of the enemy’s main body,
and without adequate provisions for the security of
his flanks and rear. The Goth horse was, for the most
part, not as heavy as the Roman, the latter having
some units of cataphracts, but what the Goths did have
was the advantage of position. The Romans lost due
to poor leadership and bad luck, the latter due to the
fact the Goth horse was away from the battlefield during
the initial engagement, showing up just at the right
movement to hit Valens’ flank.
Adrianople had immense strategic significance.
The well trained and disciplined infantry cadres of
the Roman army were destroyed. To make up those
losses, the empire would increasingly rely on mercenary
warbands and the personal retainers of generals
and warlords. They were often composed of cavalry,
either the heavier cataphract type, or light horse archers
recruited from nomadic peoples. The horsemen
could move faster and hit harder, a necessity now that
the empire’s territorial integrity had been breached
and Roman lands were being overrun by invaders. The
Western Empire would struggle on for several generations
more, yet with the back of its army broken, barbarian
invaders, who were as often infantry as cavalry,
found the going easier. By the end of the 5 th century
the empire was but a memory in the West, the “Fall of
Rome” usually being given as 476 AD, when the last
Western emperor was deposed by a barbarian general.
The eastern portion of the Roman Empire, though
badly battered, managed to survive, due partially to
its greater wealth, and particularly to the impregnable
defenses of such great cities as Thessalonika, Adrianople
and, most particularly, Constantinople. Eastern
emperors managed to divert some of the worst of the
barbarian invaders westward and rebuild their military
system into a superbly trained combined arms force.
Central to that new army were the cataphracts, heavy
cavalry who were equipped with bow as well as lance.
Light horse archers provided skirmishing and screening,
while the infantry were relegated to second-place
status. Later historians would call the post-476 empire
the “Byzantine empire,” and in that form it went on to
become the regional superpower for the next several
centuries.
The Byzantines made one last effort to restore
the Roman Empire in the 6 th century AD. Two of the
emperor’s great (if forgotten by later ages) generals,
Belisarius and Narses, led the reconquest of North
Africa, Italy and southern Spain. Two of those battles
were typical of that era.
In 533, Belisarius was on the offensive in North
Africa against the Vandals. He had some 5,000 cataphracts,
1,000 light horse (mainly Hunnic mercenaries)
and 10,000 infantry. At Tricameron, Belisarius
charged and routed a much larger Vandal host with his
own cavalry. The Byzantine infantry had little part in
the battle other than storming the enemy camp.
At Taginae in 552 (sometimes called Busta Gallorum),
Narses awaited the attack of the Ostrogoths in
a battle that decided the fate of Italy. He dismounted
some of his heavy horse and had them form a phalanx
in his center. Infantry archers were thrown forward on
his flanks, while more cavalry waited in reserve. The
Ostrogoths charged straight into his position. They
were first decimated by archery fire from the flanks,
then broke against the spearmen. A counterattack by
the Byzantine cataphracts finished the victory, breaking
the Goths forever. Narses then took Rome.
While Byzantine armies could defeat in battle the
barbarians—who were rapidly becoming civilized—
they could not hold their new territories. In the following
decades, new waves of invaders, Arab Muslims in
the east and Lombards in the west, would push back
the empire to its core regions of the Balkans and Asia
Minor. With the last chance for restoration of the Roman
Empire gone forever, new kingdoms rose in the
west.

Dark Ages
The barbarian kingdoms erected on the ruins of the western portions of the Roman
Empire—Ostrogoth, Visigoth, Vandal, Burgundian, Frank, Saxon, etc.—treated
all free adult males as equals in the law, with an equal obligation to render military
service. That universal military obligation remained in force over the next few centuries,
even as the barbarians became increasingly civilized. During the early Dark
Ages, roughly from the fall of Rome (476 AD) to the rise of Charlemagne (c. 768
AD), most of the troops were infantry, each man being required to bring his own arms
when called. Mounted troops were present, but often the horses were used to provide
transport for the foot soldiers. There were exceptions, such as in the short-lived Vandal
Kingdom in North Africa, but by and large the age of heavily armed and armored
knights was still centuries in the future. The armies themselves were militia in nature:
warriors who served when called up and peasantry pressed into service. The economy
could not support much more, though the king might have a small band of full-time
retainers who may be considered professional soldiers. One example of the latter
were the Anglo-Saxon Housecarles.
This system adequately provided for defense in terms of the types of threat confronting
the various western European kingdoms of that period. At Tours (10 October
732), Charles Martel’s well placed army of Frankish infantry, dismounted men-atarms
and militia inflicted a severe defeat on an Arab army, the latter composed mainly
of light cavalry and mounted infantry. But by the mid-8 th century new threats began
to beset western Europe. Out of the north came the Vikings by longship, out of the
south the Arabs by felucca and horse, and out of the east the Hungarians (or Magyars)
by horse, all at first seeking plunder but then quickly territory as well. Those peoples
moved too swiftly for the warrior-militia levies. Moreover, European infantry lacked
the discipline to cope with cavalry, which could exploit gaps in enemy ranks.
The new centurions: Soldiers of the
Carolingian empire.
strategy & tactics 41

42 #245
Only forces of comparable mobility, that is forces
on horseback, could gather and move with the necessary
to intercept Viking and other raiders before they
were away; however, such mounted forces were difficult
to sustain. To begin, the full kit of a cavalryman—
armor, weapons, horses—plus equipment for additional
retainers (who would later become squires and
pages), easily ran to more than £300 at a time when
three or four pounds a year was a good income. All
that equipment had to be mastered, requiring considerable
time. One impetus toward feudalism was the need
to create a system that could support a class of professional
soldiers.
Under feudalism the king would endow a vassal
with lands (or fiefs) so he could have the wealth to procure
suitable mounts and equipment. The vassal was
then obligated to recruit, train and maintain a number
of warriors in readiness for military service. Each vassal
would, in turn, grant portions of the lands entrusted
to him to sub-vassals in return for their services. A
complex system of duties and obligations rose up surrounding
all that. For example, the king could require
vassals to take the field, but only for a certain number
of days each year. If extended service was required,
the king had to come up with the currency to pay the
troops.
The early feudal military system proved successful
because it allowed for the creation of large mobile
forces that could take the field to deal with threats. On
10 August 955, Otto the Great led an army of German
cavalry against the Magyars and inflicted a decisive
defeat on them at Lechfeld. The light Magyar horse
was no match for the heavier armed and armored and,
in this case, more disciplined, Franks.
Vassals increasingly fortified their lands with palisades,
towers, and castles, further enhancing the defenses.
As a result, Viking, Arab and Hungarian threats
were largely beaten off by the end of the 10 th century.
The success of the mounted armies reduced the status
of, and the necessity for, the old freeborn militia infantry.
It became increasingly rare for the commoner
militia to be called on to render military service. The
superior fighting qualities of the professional mounted
warriors, as opposed to the relatively amateurish militia,
further enhanced the status of the horsemen.
The levy of all able-bodied adult males disappeared,
and with its disappearance also went the concept of
the freeborn commoner. Serfdom became enshrined in
both custom and law. The mounted soldier— armored
knight or man-at-arms—had become the undisputed
master of the battlefield, able to sweep all before him
in one mighty charge. (The word “knight,” or knecht,

originally referred to a male servant. It was not until
the 11 th century that “knight” came to have its modern
meaning.)
High Middle Ages
It was not so much that infantry was ineffective in
the face of cavalry as that good infantry was hard to
find. Indeed, foot soldiers never fully disappeared from
the battlefield, and on numerous occasions farsighted
commanders in the west made effective use of infantry.
At Hastings (14 October 1066), an army of Saxon
axe-men and spearmen stood up to a day long assault
by the army of William of Normandy (later known as
the “Conqueror”). The Anglo-Saxons were posted such
that their flanks were secured from flanking. They were
only finally defeated when William resorted to coordinated
attacks by his men-at-arms, archers and spearmen,
(combined arms tactics), as well as using a feigned
flight tactic to disrupt the Anglo-Saxon shield wall.
The Crusades also saw Western armies using combined
arms tactics against Muslims. At Ascalon (12
August 1099), for example, a Christian army composed
of men-at-arms, foot archers and spearmen in roughly
equal numbers defeated a Muslim host composed entirely
of foot archers and light cavalry. The foot archers
could keep the enemy horsebowmen at bay; the spearmen
could fend off the charges of lighter Muslim horse
and foot, and the heavy Christian cavalry delivered the
decisive blow. The Crusades would later see the Christians
employing their own horse archers.
In the east, the Byzantines maintained disciplined
infantry well into this era. Byzantine fortunes took a
sharp decline in the 11 th century, however, owing to a
combination of factors: penurious governments that cut
military expenditures, infighting among nobles, and the
depredations of the Seljuk Turks, which culminated in
the disastrous Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
Fortifications
This era also saw the rise of fixed fortifications. To
besiege and take fortifications required good infantry.
After the Fall of Rome all manner of sturdy structures
from castles to amphitheaters and from palaces
to watchtowers were pressed into service as fortifications.
That enabled many people to survive the barbarian
storm, for the latter were inept at siegecraft. The use
of fortifications multiplied in the centuries following
the Fall of Rome, particularly as siege techniques were
rudimentary in the west, given the decline in engineering
skills that accompanied the collapse of large-scale
organized government. Fortified places were an inherent
part of the new defense system that developed to
meet the Viking, Arab and Hungarian threats. In the
event of a raid, the populace could flee to the nearest
strongpoint—perhaps a castle, well-built manor house
or fortified church—where, under the direction of the
local lord, they could attempt to hold until the regional
contingent of men-at-arms rode to their relief. Medieval siegecraft: an army assails a castle.
strategy & tactics 43

Clash of arms: medieval soldiery engage in hand
to hand combat.
44 #245
Initially such strongpoints were simple in construction, sometimes
no more than a mound of earth with a moat and palisade, and perhaps
a tower of heavy timbers. One was generally safe in a “motte-and-bailey”
castle, for raiders usually had little time to starve out such a place
and might not be inclined to pay the price of taking it by storm. However,
siege techniques became more sophisticated. After all, wooden
palisades and towers can be burned, and siege engines could be built
for hurling fire and rock into them. Stone therefore again began to
become common in fortifications.
By the height of the Middle Ages (1000-1300) Europe was dotted
with fortified places. In the 14 th century an area of some 1,050
square kilometers just south of the forest of Fontainebleau in France
contained 55 fortified places, roughly one for every 19 square kilometers,
so that few people were more than six kilometers from a place of
refuge. Such extensive defenses were costly. A stone tower at Dover
(built 1180-1190) cost about £4,000, at a time when the Crown’s annual
income was no more than £20,000. An elaborate installation, such
as Chateau-Gaillard (1197-1198), built by Richard the Lionhearted to
dominate the Seine above Rouen, cost £21,203, through some of the
expense was due to the king’s rush to get the place built. A century
later, when Edward I bound Wales to England with a chain of 10 of
the greatest castles ever built (1277-1302), he spent something like
£150,000. Still, money expended on castles was money well spent,
for they were long-term investments in military security. Castles were
nearly impregnable, since the art of siegecraft did not keep pace with
that of fortification.

During the height of the feudal age, military activities
were characterized by two basic factors: heavily
armed professional cavalrymen and the fortified place.
Both of them were relatively unbeatable, the former
on offense, the latter on defense. Yet infantry continued
to exist, generally in the form of militia. Given
situations in which the training and discipline of foot
was adequate, the infantry could indeed still shine.
New weapons were also being deployed that would
make all the difference.
New Weapons
The longbow was a Welch invention. It proved so
effective that after Edward I subdued Wales he adopted
it as the English national weapon. Its first test in “English”
hands—even though most of the bowmen were
still Welch—came in 1298, when it encountered yet
another “new” weapon, the pike (a very long spear),
which had been adopted by the Scots. Determined to
put an end to the interminable border warfare between
England and Scotland, Edward invaded his northern
neighbor with perhaps 16,000 men-at-arms, spearmen
and longbowmen, a considerable host for the period.
Near Falkirk, on 22 July, the English army encountered
some 10,000-14,000 Scots under William Wallace,
mostly armed with pikes. The Scots deployed
in four massive circular divisions called schiltrons
on a hillside that had boggy ground to its front and
some protection on the flanks. The English deployed
in three divisions, each of 2,500-3,500 men-at-arms,
with their longbowmen and spearmen on the flanks
and in the rear. The English cavalry charged and easily
scattered the handful of Scottish horse, but could not
make headway against the solid wall of pikes. After a
couple tries, Edward pulled back his men-at-arms and
sent in his longbowmen. Under a shower of tens of
thousands of arrows, the densely packed schiltrons began
to crumble.
When the Scots attempted to retreat, thereby losing
cohesion, Edward sent his men-at-arms into the
fray, forcing the enemy to reform, thereby making
them once again vulnerable to the longbowmen. The
result was a shattering defeat for the Scots, who suffered
enormous casualties. Edward’s combination of
fire and shock won the day. Of course, the battle was
against infantry, which in normal circumstances was
not expected to stand up to a knightly army. Nevertheless,
at Falkirk a new military system was born,
though it would be some years before its importance
was demonstrated to the rest of Europe.
In 1302 the Flemings, burgers and nobles alike, revolted
against their French overlords, who promptly
sent a large army of men-at-arms, javelinmen and
crossbowmen to bring them to heel. On 11 July 1302
the French host under the Count of Artois, came upon
the Flemish army under the Count of Dampierre,
deployed before Courtrai in southern Flanders. The
Flemings numbered about 12,000-13,000 men, mostly
militiamen armed with pikes, plus about 24 men-atarms
who fought dismounted. They deployed
in a solid mass on a front of
1,000 yards, with some hundreds
of crossbowmen posted forward.
The position was well chosen,
with the flanks protected by
numerous watercourses and
marshy ground to the front.
Artois, whose troops are
recorded as having been in the
tens of thousands, but may actually
have numbered no more than
about 5,000 men-at-arms and
3,000 missile troops, realized the
Flemish position was a difficult
one. He believed, however, a
show of force was all that
would be needed to scatter
the low-born rebels.
He attacked, sending in
his crossbowmen and javelinmen
as skirmishers. Outnumbered,
the Flemish archers
gave way.
From the French point of view, that movement suggested
that the Flemings were retiring. Artois ordered
his missile troops to pull back and his men-at-arms to
attack. His timing was bad, and the retiring foot became
entangled with the advancing horse, spreading
confusion and breaking the momentum of the French
attack. That, in combination with the bad ground,
caused the charge to falter. As French commanders
tried to restore order the Flemings advanced, smashing
into the disorganized men-at-arms. The result was
a terrific slaughter, with some estimates placing the
French dead at as many as 4,000: fully 700 pairs of
knightly spurs were collected from the field. Infantry
had won the day.
Or had it? Rather than credit the low-born burgers
with defeating the knightly host of France, most
contemporaries argued the Flemish victory was due to
their excellent choice of ground. So perhaps the battle
was a fluke. Much the same thing would be said of the
next victory of infantry over men-at-arms, little more
than a dozen years later, at Morgarten in Switzerland.
In 1315 the Swiss mountaineers revolted against
the Duke of Austria, who promptly dispatched an
army of 2,000-3,000 men, mostly feudal men-at-arms.
On 15 November, as that force was negotiating a defile
near Morgarten, it was ambushed by some 3,000-
4,000 Swiss, armed mostly with halberds (short pikes
topped off with axe blades). The Swiss swept down
from the hillsides in a solid mass, smashed into the
column of men-at-arms, thoroughly routing it and offering
no quarter. It was another massacre of chivalry.
strategy & tactics 45

46 #245
100 Years of War
Once again, the question was: was the military system at
fault or was it simply that the circumstances unfavorable?
The general weight of opinion came down on the latter side.
Social inertia was at work. Nevertheless, the evidence of
the increasing prowess of infantry accumulated inexorably.
Perhaps the most decisive event occurred during one of the
earliest campaigns of the Hundred Years War, a protracted
struggle in which the kings of England attempted to assert a
claim to the throne of France.
In 1346 King Edward III of England undertook an expedition
to France. Aside from the usual noble cavalry, he
had a sizeable contingent of infantry raised by the indenture
system, in which paid soldiers were raised by contract to
form companies. Landing in Normandy, Edward’s army was
initially successful, but he soon found himself the object of
the attentions of France’s King Philip VI. Edward attempted
to retire northwards towards Flanders.
After considerable maneuvering the French brought the
English to battle on 26 August 1346 near a village called
Crecy. Greatly outnumbered—perhaps 10,000 men against
30,000—Edward selected a position which had considerable
natural supports, being covered on the flanks and atop a
modest rise. He posted his small contingent of men-at-arms
on foot in three battalions, filling the spaces between them
and on their flanks with bowmen. The latter covered their
front with sharpened stakes and other obstacles.
The French army consisted of 10,000-15,000 men-atarms,
a similar number of militia spearmen en route, and
some thousands of mercenary Genoese crossbowmen. Philip
only had to wait out the English, since the latter were running
out of supplies. Instead, the French chose to attack.
Philip opened the fight properly, by sending in some mercenary
crossbowmen from Genoa to skirmish and screen.
The firepower of the latter was no match for that of the
English longbowmen, however,
and the mercenaries soon fell back.
Deployed behind them were the
French men-at-arms, mounted and
in full regalia. Eager to get into
the fight, the French chivalry put
spurs to horse and charged through
the Genoese, but they did not even
get close. Repeated French charges
over several hours were broken by
heavy English archery fire. There
was practically no hand-to-hand
combat. When the French threw in
the towel, they had lost some 1,500
killed to less than a hundred English
dead. Crecy set the pattern for most
of the battles of the Hundred Years
War over the next several decades.
The French figured the
English victory was due to Edward
dismounting his cavalry to fight on
foot, so at Poitiers (19 September 1356) they tried the
same. That led to another bloody repulse. At Agincourt
(25 October 1415), the French tried a combination of
dismounted and mounted men-at-arms. The results
were still the same: an enormous slaughter and stunning
English victories.
Renaissance of Infantry
The 14 th century saw the reemergence of infantry
as the arm of decision. The English perfected their
bow-and-pike tactics. (The pikes were often provided
by dismounted cavalry, or consisted of men armed
with shorter halberd-like weapons, such as bills.) The
Swiss also improved their phalanx in several important
battles (Laupen, 21 June 1339 and Sempach, 9 July
1386) and were noted for the ferocity with which they
slaughtered their foes. By that time, the Swiss were
armed mainly with long pikes, though they retained
contingents of halberdiers and two-handed swordsmen
for close-in work. They also employed crossbows and
a few cavalrymen.
The Swiss seemed unstoppable, but their system
had flaws. On 30 June 1422, the distinguished Italian
condottiero (mercenary captain) Francesco Bussone
“Carmagnola,” in the service of Milan, confronted
some 4,000 Swiss at Arbedo, in what is now southern
Switzerland. Carmagnola had about 4,000 men-atarms
and 2,000 crossbowmen. He initially attempted
to smash the Swiss phalanx with his men-at-arms. The
first charge resulted in some 400 piked horses, with
little loss among the Swiss. Thinking fast, Carmagnola
pulled back. Dismounting his horsemen, he let
his crossbowmen shoot up the Swiss pike squares for
a time, and then sent in his men-at-arms on foot. The
heavily armed dismounted troopers hacked their way
into the Swiss ranks. The slaughter was tremendous.
The Swiss asked for quarter. Dryly replying that men

who gave no quarter could expect none, Carmagnola
refused. A few of the Swiss managed to escape, having
lost perhaps three-quarters of their numbers.
Arbedo was a unique battle. Carmagnola successfully
changed tactics in the middle of a fight. Even so,
until the advent of gunpowder weapons the Swiss still
maintained their general tactical ascendancy.
Firearms had been around since at least the 14 th
century. Though their tactical effect was insignificant
at the time, Edward III had some cannon at Crecy, as
did the French at Agincourt. Firearms, nevertheless,
began to take on some importance, since they were
enormously valuable for reducing castles. The impact
of cannon rounds could shake and destroy the high
walls of European fortifications. As the 15 th century
began with more wars, firearms also began to play a
role on the battlefield.
The Bohemians were the first to show what gunpowder
could do on the battlefield. In 1420 the pope
proclaimed a crusade against the Bohemian Hussites.
The Holy Roman Empire responded to the call. This
Empire was actually a successor to the old Frankish-
Carolingian Empire, founded by Charlemagne and
Otto the Great in the Dark Ages. By the 15 th century,
while claiming the right to rule all Christendom, it
consisted of a dispersed array of lands in central Eu-
rope and adjoining regions. The Bohemians were upstarts
and had to be put in their place. So the emperor gathered a
large army and invaded Bohemia. His army was promptly
defeated by an innovative military system, the Wagenburg
(“wagon-fort”), a product of the military genius of Ian Zizka,
the first general to win battles using gunpowder.
Zizka’s system was based on the use of large, stoutly
built wagons—a technique he had learned in eastern Europe—supplemented
by extensive use of firearms, including
both cannon and infantry small arms, plus a discipline
Mobile fortress: Bohemian wagenburg.
strategy & tactics 47

48 #245
Instrument of war: an early gunpowder weapon.
not seen in Europe since Roman times. His strategy
was to move offensively but fight defensively.
The Bohemian army advanced across country in
parallel wagon columns, covered by a small contingent
of cavalry. When a suitable defensive position
was found, the wagons were chained together into a
kind of fort, with the cavalry and draft animals held
in the center. While some of the troops dug a ditch
around the outer perimeter of the wagons, others used
heavy timbers to close all the intervals, including the
spaces under the wagons. Zizka’s artillery, which was
mounted on wheeled carts, was sometimes placed between
wagons, but more frequently held in the interior
of the position, emplaced on mounds of earth so they
could fire over the wagons. Pikemen, crossbowmen,
and gunmen filled the wagons and the intervals, firing
their weapons through loopholes. A wagon-fort had
the added bonus it could be erected in short order.
To open a battle, Zizka’s cavalry would sortie, provoking
the enemy
to attack. The
Bohemian horse
would then beat a
hasty retreat back
into the safety of
the wagon-fort. As
the enemy closed,
Zizka’s crossbows,
handguns
and cannon would
let loose, keeping
up the fire until
the attack faltered
or smashed up
against the wagon
wall, where the
pikemen confronted
them. At
that point, Zizka
would counterat-
tack with his pikes and cavalry. The usual result was
the enemy would be driven from the field.
Zizka campaigned extensively in Bohemia, Moravia,
Hungary and eastern and southern Germany, at one
point reaching the Baltic. Victory followed victory, as
his armies, composed primarily of peasants and burghers,
repeatedly defeated knightly hosts many times
their number. Zizka’s enemies were never able to cope
with his tactics; his military system seemed unbeatable,
but it did have weaknesses. The moving columns
of wagons could be attacked by raids and ambushes
prior to their deploying. The wagenburg itself was vulnerable
if attacked before it was properly established,
and once established remained vulnerable to artillery
fire. In addition, the system was unsuited to the tactical
offensive. In order for it to work, the enemy had to
attack. Finally, the entire system was unsuited to any
terrain that was not a relatively open plain.
That the foes of the Hussites never defeated them
had much to do with their unwillingness to change
their tactics, for they relied almost exclusively on the
charge of the men-at-arms, which was the least effective
way to cope with the wagenburg. When Ziska
died, his successors engaged in fratricidal civil wars;
and the Empire exploited that infighting. By 1436 the
Bohemians were firmly back under the control of the
Holy Roman Emperor and the Church.
Guns
In most of Europe the 15 th century demonstrated
the increasing importance of infantry, along with the
rising utility of field artillery. At Formigny (15 April
1450), the French, with two light cannon, inflicted a
stunning defeat on an army of English men-at-arms
and longbowmen. That time, it was the French who
provoked the English into making a frontal attack by
harassing the English line with cannon fire. The infuriated
English soldiers rushed forward to silence the
guns and were cut down by French archery and cannon
fire.
Cannon became increasingly important on the
battlefield through the century, though not always decisive,
due to their slow rate of fire. Thus, at Granson
(2 March 1476), Morat (22 June 1476) and Nancy (5
January 1477), the Swiss defeated Burgundian armies
well provided with artillery, which proved unable to
fire fast enough to destroy fast moving Swiss pike columns.
Individual firearms had been used for some time,
being a prominent feature of the Hussite military system,
however, they were hardly portable weapons.
In effect they were small cannon, weighing about 40
pounds, which could not be fired from the shoulder.
The first useful portable military firearm was the arquebus.
A comparison between the arquebus and the
other infantry missile weapons of the period is of interest.

Weapon Weight
(kg)
Proj Wt
(grms)
“MV”
(m/sec)
KE
(jls)
RPM Range
(m)
Rounds
per 3 kg
Longbow 3.0 75 45 76 2 - 6 50 40
Crossbow 3.5 125 45 127 1 - 2 50 24
Arquebus 6.5 45 30 20 1 25 50
Notes: As there was no standardization, all figures are approximations. Weight is that of the weapon
proper, in kilograms, without ancillary equipment, which in the case of the arquebus often
included a light stand. Proj. Wt, weight of the projectile, in grams. “MV” is the “muzzle velocity,”
the speed of the projectile as it leaves the weapon, in meters per second; The higher this figure is,
the more accurate the weapon is likely to be. KE, kinetic energy possessed by the projectile as it
leaves the weapon, expressed in joules. RPM, the number of rounds per minute, with the lower
figure being the sustainable rate of fire and the higher, the maximum. Range, the distance that an
ordinary archer or arquebusier might expect to hit something at which he had aimed, expressed in
meters; Maximum range was much greater. Rounds per 3 kg is the number of rounds which a man
could carry assuming he had three kilograms of ammunition.
Late 15th Century Infantry Missile
Weapons
From the statistics, one would be forced to conclude
the arquebus was in every way inferior to archery
weapons. Technically, that was the case. The arquebus
was heavier, slower firing, and had much less range
and accuracy, however, the arquebus also possessed
several important advantages. Relatively speaking it
was cheaper than both the longbow, which had to be
meticulously handcrafted from yew, or the crossbow,
which required equally meticulous workmanship and
expensive steel as well. The arquebus could be mass
produced by a foundry in cheap cast iron. Further,
while the range, accuracy and effectiveness of an arquebus
round were all inferior to those of the longbow
and crossbow, an arquebusier could carry more ammunition
than either of his competitors and could keep up
his fire longer. In addition, despite the inferior technical
performance of the arquebus ball, it was superior
as an armor smasher. Rounded lead bullets were less
likely to be deflected by the polished curved surface of
armor than were arrowheads.
The critical element in determining the value of
the arquebus was probably the fact arquebusiers were
easier to recruit and train than either crossbowmen or
longbowmen. A few weeks training was all that was
required to turn out a capable arquebusier, while it took
years to properly train an archer. Longbowmen had to
develop considerable musculature before being able to
use their weapons to their fullest capacity, while crossbowmen
had to care for a delicate instrument. Indeed,
it often took years to train a longbowman.
The first infantry to win battles using firearms
were the Spanish arquebusiers of Gonzalvo de Cordoba.
1494 saw the beginning of the Italian Wars.
The reasons for the wars are complex, but basically
both France and Spain coveted the wealthy Italian
city-states, as well as gaining the considerable influ-
ence control of the Papal States and the Vatican would
bring.
The Spanish Crown sent Gonzalvo de Cordoba
with an army to counter a French invasion of Italy.
Cordoba had won his spurs in the final wars against
the Muslims of Spain. He secured a series of striking
victories against the French in the mid-1490s and early
1500s. His infantry consisted of pikemen, sword-andshield
men and arquebusiers, all integrated into the
same units, called colonellas (“small columns”). The
pikes kept the enemy cavalry at a distance while the arquebusiers
shot the enemy pikes to pieces. The swordand-shield
men provided the close-assault troops. Cordoba
also had a small number of cavalry, including
light horse, useful for skirmishing. Cordoba’s greatest
victories, at Cerignola (28 April 1503), Naples (13
May) and the Garigliano River (28 December), were
the first battles gained primarily by infantry firepower.
They also gained him the title of “Great Captain.”
The 16 th century would see professional infantry
taking to the field and becoming the arm of decision.
Spain pioneered that move with its colonellas and later
its tercios (a brigade of three colonellas). Other European
powers followed suit and, by the end of the
century, firearms had come to dominate warfare.
strategy & tactics 49

50 #245
TACTICAL FILE:
Gonzalvo de Cordoba &
the Battle of the Garigliano
By Albert A. Nofi
In 1501 King Louis XII of France and Ferdinand of Spain
(Isabella’s husband) ousted the incompetent King Federigo
of Naples. Federigo was a cousin of King Ferdinand, but the
two victors still divided the kingdom between themselves. It
was at best a temporary arrangement, and one France did not
want to keep. The Kingdom of Naples was, at the time, one
of the more wealthy states in Europe as well as in a position
to dominate the sealanes of the Mediterranean. Among other
things, the French were thinking of a new crusade to free the
east from Muslim rule, and southern Italy was as good a base
as any from which to launch such an expedition.
With all that in mind, by the spring of 1502 the French
had deployed over 20,000 troops in their part of the kingdom,
including some 3,000 Swiss mercenaries and about
10,000 allied northern Italian and Neapolitan troops. Soon
the French were violating the terms of the partition. Shortly
afterward war broke out. With only some 2,000 regular
troops and a handful of local levies on hand, the Spanish
commander, Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba y Aguilar threw
most of his men into fortresses and withdrew the remainder,
including contingents commanded by the great Condottiere
(mercenary commanders) Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, to
Barletta on the southeast coast while sending for help.
The French went over to the offensive, but Cordoba put
up stiff resistance. Some of his outlying garrisons held off
superior numbers of the enemy. One of those garrisons, commanded
by Pedro de Navarro, put up such a stout resistance
that when it surrendered the French were amazed at how few
the defenders there were, until told the dead outnumbered
the living.
Rather than trying to take all the small fortresses still
held by the Spanish-Italian army, which would have cost
much in men and materiel, the French merely blockaded
Combined arms: a Renaissance army deploys.
them and pressed on to invest Barletta. The siege of Barletta
dragged on through the winter. Since the Spanish controlled
the seas, the city was never completely cut off from outside
communication. Cordoba was reinforced by 6,000 men from
Spain and another 2,000 sent by the Holy Roman Emperor.
Cordoba subjected his men to iron discipline and hard
training in new tactics that combined the use of pikemen,
swordsmen, cannon, heavy and light cavalry and, in a major
innovation, a proto-musket called the arquebus.
To sustain the army’s morale and disrupt the French
investment, Cordoba often launched raids against the besiegers.
The tedium of the siege resulted in one of the most
celebrated feats of arms of the Renaissance, the famous tournament
of Barletta on 13 February 1503.
To relieve the boredom of the seemingly endless routines
of siegecraft, the French challenged the besieged to a contest
of arms. The ensuing joust pitted 13 French knights against
13 Italian knights in the service of the Spanish crown. They
fought for six hours, until the judges, from neutral Venice,
declared a draw. The “Battle of the Thirteen against the Thirteen”
was celebrated throughout Europe.
Cerignola
By the spring of 1503 the French were having trouble
keeping Barletta under siege. Cordoba broke out, and the
French fell back. The two armies maneuvered for a time,
but then Cordoba offered battle at Cerignola, about 20 miles
east of Barletta, on 25 April 1503. He made careful preparations
for a defensive fight, and made full use of his two most
capable subordinates, the Colonna brothers.
Prospero laid out a careful system of fieldworks in a
vineyard. Cordoba placed his infantry—Spaniards, Italians,
Neapolitans and Germans—into those trenches, with the
idea the pikemen and swordsmen would protect the arquebusiers.
Those early firearms were powerful but also clumsy.
He also held a strong reserve under Fabrizio.
The French went forward in a frontal attack when they
might readily have attempted some elaborate maneuvers. As
a result, they were shot to pieces by Prospero’s arquebusiers.
As the French began to fall back, Cordoba threw in Fabrizio
and the reserve, thoroughly routing the enemy and capturing
their artillery. As the remnants of the French army fled,
Cordoba pursued.
With the French fleeing northward, town after town voluntarily
opened their gates to admit Cordoba’s army. Naples
was taken in May, by which time the French were confined
to some isolated fortresses, as well as Gaeta, the “strongest
fortress in the kingdom,” on the coast about 60 miles north of
Naples. The French had reinforced Gaeta with fresh troops
from France and Genoa under the Marquis of Saluzzo. Cordoba
attempted a siege, but the defenses were too strong.

Though Cordoba’s military engineer, Pedro
de Navarro, was skillful, the naval situation had
turned around. The French had command of the
seas after their victory over a Spanish squadron
in the Bay of Naples. Thus the siege proved
fruitless. After several weeks, Cordoba pulled
back about five miles to Castellone, a village
just west of Gaeta, from which he could keep the
fortress blockaded. One of the Spanish casualties
during the siege was the elder brother of St.
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.
French March South
Word soon arrived Louis XII had dispatched
a relief army of 20,000, which by August was
at the town of Parma. By September that army
reached Rome and was allowed free passage by
the Pope, Julius II (Michaelangelo’s patron, and
a staunch enemy of Spain; among other things,
Julius would found the Vatican’s Swiss Guards
in 1506). By the end of the month, French patrols were skirmishing
with the Spanish along the border of Naples and
the Papal States. With the threat of a French army moving
behind him, on 6 October Cordoba pulled back. After some
maneuvering and skirmishing, both armies settled into winter
quarters on opposite sides of the River Garigliano, about
a dozen miles southeast of the important crossroad town of
Itri.
The French had a largely mercenary force of French,
Swiss, German and Italian troops under Ludovico de Saluzzo.
In order to better feed and shelter them through the winter,
Saluzzo dispersed his men over a wide area to the north
and northwest of the river. There were small detachments
at all bridges and fords across the Garigliano, swollen by
winter rains, and in addition detachments were established
at virtually every crossroads, village and town. He placed
a substantial contingent at Itri, which secured the Gola di
San Andrea, the pass by which the Appian Way crosses the
Auruncian Mountains, to protect critical crossroads there.
In contrast, Cordoba, who had some 10,000 Spanish
troops and 5,500 Italians, kept his men concentrated. Though
he too made provision for his troops to endure the winter, he
kept most of them in entrenched positions on a narrow front
just south of the Garigliano, with the largest body near its
mouth, for he planned to undertake a winter offensive.
Cordoba Strikes
Shortly before Christmas, Gonzalo declared a holiday to
last for several days. Learning of that, Saluzzo did likewise,
but then Gonzalo reneged. On 27 December he quietly began
shifting his troops. On 29 December he attacked. While
his forces at the lower end of the river made a frontal attack
to pin the French attention in that direction, other troops
threw pontoon bridges across the Garigliano at unguarded
sites upstream. Soon Cordoba’s troops had penetrated the
French rear. The French army rapidly disintegrated.
In fact, there was no “Battle of the Garigliano.” It was
more like a series of desperate rearguard actions by the
French, the largest of which was at Mola, a small village
just east of Gaeta. There the French made a desperate stand.
It was at Mola there occurred one of the last famous feats of
arms of the age of chivalry, when the chevalier de Bayard—
reputedly the greatest knight of the age—took charge of the
French rearguard, just 15 knights supported by a few pike-
men and archers. Samuel Shellabarger, in The Chevalier Bayard: A
Study in Fading Chivalry, described the action:
... in charge after charge, a plyìng of lance, ax, and sword,
they checked the Spanish advance. Bayard’s horse went down.
He swung himself clear, and landed on foot surrounded by enemies,
but refused surrender, continuing the fight. The Bâtard
de Sandricourt charged, cut him free, and gave him another
mount. The battle went on. Behind them the hurrying columns
struggled forward encumbered with baggage and artillery,
and reached at length the bridge of Mola di Gaeta, a choked
torrent of men striving to pass and in utter rout. Here the mélée
rose to its fiercest, the tenuous rear-guard alone standing
between this disorganized mass and the driving pressure of
the enemy. Once more Bayard’s horse was killed, and once
more he swung to another saddle. Others of the fifteen were
taken or slain. Bellabre, at his side, hurled a Spanish knight
from the bridge into the river. Around the artillery bedded in
mud and blocked by the swarm of fugitives, the royal Swiss
guard fought to the last, but vainly. Threatened by a detachment
of Spaniards, who had crossed below and strove to cut
off retreat, the guns had to be abandoned and the bridge-head
surrendered. Another wave of attack swept against what remained
of the fifteen defenders, but they still held firm. Bayard’s
third horse, mortally wounded, managed to stagger
with him to the doors of Gaeta before collapsing.
Meanwhile, a force of French cavalry at Fondi set out to reinforce
their troops fighting before Gaeta. As they advanced south on the Via
Appia they were ambushed by Spanish light cavalry, who had taken
a rough trail over the hills to fall on them at the Gola de San Andrea,
just north of Itri. On 30 December 1503, Gonzalo invested Gaeta,
capturing Monte Orlando, the key to the defenses, with a small column.
The French, demoralized, surrendered on 3 January 1504.
French losses in the campaign were severe, 3,000 to 4,000 killed,
with many thousands more captured, including one party taken by
the women of Itri. With the French driven out of Naples, the main
seat of the war shifted to northern Italy. The ensuing Treary of Blois
gave the Kingdom of Naples to Spain. The Garigliano was Gonzalo’s
greatest and final victory, a confirmation of his nickname El Gran
Capitan—the Great Captain.
strategy & tactics 51

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52 #245
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strategy & tactics 53

54 #245
uS army transformation
for future War
By Will Stroock
Two US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters blow clouds a of dust as they come into a landing zone in Samarra, Iraq, to pick
up soldiers on 3 March, 2007. The soldiers are from Delta Company, 3 rd Battalion, 8 th Cavalry Regiment, 1 st Cavalry Division.
DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Molly Dzitko, US Air Force.
The United States of America is now waging its War on
Terror on no fewer than four battle fronts—Iraq, Afghanistan,
South Asia and the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile, the US
Army is in the midst of what it describes as the Future Force
“transformation.” That transformation is a massive reorganization
of the Army into brigade-centric modular units, or
Brigade Combat Teams (BCT). The new BCT are independent
from one another, containing all of the elements necessary
to fight a sustained battle. The transformation to the
Future Force is the most radical change to come to the Army
since World War II.
units of action & future Combat Systems
As the 21 st century dawned, the US Army was still organized
along a model that originated in the Second World
War. The primary combined arms unit was the division.
Each division had 18,000 or so soldiers, organized into three
maneuver units (regiments, later brigades), an artillery command,
a support command, plus assorted armored cavalry,
engineer, aviation and other units. Divisions were grouped
into corps to fight big battles in a European or otherwise conventional
environment.
In 1991 there were 18 regular Army divisions and another
10 National Guard divisions. They were organized
into corps of three to five divisions. Corps also included a
helicopter/air cavalry brigade, as well as an armored cavalry
regiment, and various air defense, engineer and other
formations. The Army had six different categories for its brigades
and regiments: armored (heavy), mechanized infantry
(heavy), cavalry (heavy), light infantry (light), airborne infantry
(light), and air assault (light).
As part of the current transformation, brigades are being
reclassified into three kinds of “Units of Action” (UA):
armored, infantry and stryker. When the transformation is
complete, there will be 43 to 48 Brigade Combat Teams. The
primary tactical units of the BCT are two to three maneuver
battalions supported by organic reconnaissance, artillery,
and logistics battalions and companies. BCT are to be capable
of fighting independently for up to 72 hours without
additional logistical support.
Armored BCT will number between 20 and 22 regular
Army UA and as many as 10 National Guard UA. They will
each number 3,800 soldiers organized into seven battalions:
one armored reconnaissance, two combined arms, one fire,
one brigade troop, and one support.
Infantry BCT number 3,000 soldiers and will number 20
to 22 regular Army UA and five National Guard UA. Infantry
BCT are being organized into six battalions each: one armored
reconnaissance, two infantry, one strike, one brigade
troop, and one support.
Another five regular Army UA and one National Guard

UA will be Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT). The
SBCT organization is unique, numbering 4,000 soldiers, a
headquarters company, three Stryker motorized infantry battalions,
one reconnaissance and surveillance battalion, an artillery
battalion, an engineer company, an anti-tank company,
and a support battalion. The Army says the Stryker brigade
“deploys very rapidly, executes early entry and conducts effective
combat operations immediately on arrival to prevent,
contain, stabilize, or resolve a conflict through shaping and
decisive operations.”
Support elements are being organized into brigades
called Support Units of Action (SUA) or Support Brigades.
The five types of these brigade are artillery, aviation, sustainment,
maneuver enhancement, and reconnaissance, surveillance,
and target acquisition.
The 10 current division headquarters are being formed
into “Units of Employment X” (UE), each capable of commanding
at least six brigade combat teams. Corps and army
HQs are being re-designated “Units of Employment Y.” The
Army’s Addendum D: Naming Conventions for Headquarters
and Soldiers states the terms UA and UE are intended for
conceptualization only, not long-term use. Brigade Combat
Teams will perpetuate the lineage and honors of a divisional
or separate brigade. Famous divisions like the 101 st Airborne
(Screaming Eagles) and 1 st Infantry Division (Big Red One)
will still exist, but with individual brigades independent of
one another.
In order to facilitate the new brigade-centric force, the
Army will have to grow by about 31,000 soldiers, adding
one brigade to each division. Many of the Army’s rear echelon
functions will be outsourced to civilian contractors. The
transformation will also require the addition of thousands
of wheeled vehicles such as Strykers and Humvees. More
Bradley infantry fighting vehicles will be needed as well. Interestingly,
a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report
predicts a surplus of M-1 Abrams tanks. There will also be
a significant decrease in air defense weapons systems, since
the Pentagon expects to maintain air superiority over any
battlefield.
To manage this complex force, the Army is designing
what it calls the Future Combat Systems Family of Systems
(FoS). Essentially, FoS is a system of integrated computer
networks: Battle Command (BC); Communications, Computers,
and Intelligence (CCI); Intelligence, Reconnaissance
and Surveillance (ISR); and System-of-Systems Common
Operating Environment (SOSCOE). The SOSCOE is the
glue that holds together the other three systems, using commercially
available off the shelf hardware to link the other
systems regardless of their location and design. The idea is
command control and intelligence networks enable soldiers
to perceive, shape and dominate the future battlefield. That
makes for a high-tech approach to the battlefield.
new Capabilities: Deployability,
Lethality & Jointness
Even under the best circumstances, the Cold War era
Army was a complex organization that took months to fully
deploy to a battle area. During Operation Desert Shield
(1990-91), six months was needed to position half a million
troops into Saudi Arabia, including the entire XVIII Airborne
Corps (101 st Airborne, 82 nd Airborne, 24 th Mechanized Division,
1 st Armored Cavalry Division, 3 rd Armored Cavalry
Regiment), VII Armored Corp (1 st Armored Division, 3 rd Ar-
An Apache Longbow helicopter from the 101 st Combat Aviation
Brigade provides air support near Tal Afar, Iraq. By Air Force Staff
Sgt. Jacob Bailey.
mored Division, 1 st Infantry Division, 2 nd Armored Cavalry Regiment),
and the US Marine Corps Expeditionary Force (1 st Marine
Division, 2 nd Marine Division). Had Saddam Hussein followed his
occupation of Kuwait with an invasion of Saudi Arabia, Operation
Desert Shield might not have been possible. American planners
cannot count on the luxury of six months to deploy in the future.
By shifting to a brigade-centric modular force, the Army believes
it is enhancing deployability. That is its capacity to get combat
units into a theater of operations quickly and then maneuver
them on the tactical level. The Army hopes to deploy its new Stryker
Brigade Combat Teams anywhere in the world within 96 hours.
While M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles weigh 33 tons, and
M-1 Abrams tanks weigh 55 tons, the new Stryker weighs only 19
tons, making it easier and less costly to transport.
Another important Army concept is lethality. Smaller BCT will
be more mobile, while the FoS computer network will give commanders
a more complete picture of their units’ current status and
the surrounding battlespace. Also, by giving the BCT their own organic
reconnaissance and artillery assets, the Army hopes to make
them better able to locate and deliver devastating fire against an
enemy.
Armor screen: a Stryker IFV with anti-RPG protection.
strategy & tactics 55

future Combat Systems
Non Line of Sight Launch System (NOLS-LS): The Army is developing
a remote control missile launcher called a Non Line of Sight
Launch System (NOLS-
LS). The NOLS-LS is
armed with 15 Precision
Attack Missiles (PAM)
which are capable of destroying
tanks and other
moving vehicles. The
PAMs’ trajectory can be updated in mid-flight in order to adjust to
enemy movements. The MOLS-LS can function on automatic settings
or be remote fired.
Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS): Unattended Ground Sensors are
capable of detecting, categorizing and imaging enemy formations,
and then transmitting that information to commanders on the ground.
Two types of UGS are envisioned: Tactical UGS adapted to open
field operations, and Urban UGS specially tailored to monitor streets,
buildings, tunnels and other urban terrain. UGS can be deployed by
soldiers or remote control vehicles.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV): Following up on the success of the
Predator, the Army is working on the next generation of UAVs. The
Class I UAV will fulfill the Army’s need for a small, mobile reconnaissance
drone that can also be used as a communication relay for
troops in mountainous terrain. The class I UAV can be deployed at
tactical level, is suitable for all combat and terrain environments, and
weighs less than 20 pounds. Supporting the Class I UAV is the larger
Class IV. Linked directly to the Brigade Combat Team commander,
the Class IV has a more sophisticated sensor suite that includes
WMD detection equipment. The Class IV will be capable of vertical
takeoff and landing.
Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) Vehicles:
These are large unmanned vehicles
(weighing 2.5 tons), which can be
dropped into combat zones via helicopter.
Missions include transport
(with a maximum load capacity of
nearly 2.5 tons), countermine, and
armed robotic assault (ARV). A
smaller and more mobile version of
the ARV for reconnaissance is being
designed as well. There is also
a Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle
(SUGV) for reconnaissance, surveillance
and ordnance detonation
in tight spaces such as caves and
tunnels. The SUGV weighs less
than 30 pounds.
Manned Vehicles: The next generation
of manned combat vehicles is being designed. This includes:
a new tank called the Mounted Combat System (MCS), armed with
a 120 mm gun; a new Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV) that will have
a 7.62 machinegun and a 30 mm cannon; a new fire support system
called the Non Line of Sight Cannon (NLOS-C) mounting a 155mm
self propelled gun; a Non Line of Sight Mortar (NLOS-M) carrying
a 120mm tube; a Reconnaissance and Surveillance Vehicle (RSV)
that will carry Unmanned Vehicles and Unattended Ground Sensors;
a Command and Control Vehicle (C2V), Medical Vehicles for Treatment
(MV-T) and Evacuation (MC-E); and a Recovery and Maintenance
Vehicle (RMV).
Centralized Control (CC): The Centralized Controller is the final component
of FCS doctrine 14+1+1. The CC is a hand-held device that
will enable soldiers to operate all of the above mentioned weapons
systems. The soldier operating the CC is fully connected to the FCS
Family of Systems enabling him or her to receive data and act on it.
56 #245
The third concept is jointness, the ability to work together to
achieve a common objective with the Air Force, Navy and Marines.
The Army envisions BCT as being able to easily combine
with or detach from other formations and services. In theory,
theater commanders will be able to select as many different BCT
from different divisions, in whatever combination they feel is
necessary, to accomplish their missions. Consequently, BCT
have larger staffs to foster coordination between UA. A standard
set of operating procedures is also being developed, as are massive
training exercises and command control procedures.
The Army has a long-term plan to acquire new weapons systems,
called the Future Combat System (FCS). It places a new
emphasis on unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, building a
more sophisticated communications network, and using equipment
to better protect soldiers on the ground. That aspect of the
transformation is not expected to be complete until 2032. Future
Combat Systems is organized around the idea of 14 + 1 + 1, defined
as 14 new systems, plus a network linking those systems,
plus the soldier. The new combat systems are currently in development.
The Army hopes to have one complete Brigade Combat
Team outfitted with the FCS by 2015.
21 st Century Leathernecks
Like the Army, the Marine Corps (USMC) is reorganizing.
The Marines are refining their doctrine of maneuver warfare
with the idea of distributed operations. When discussing distributed
operations, Marine literature talks extensively about the
new tactical independence of companies, platoons and squads.
Says a Marine paper titled Concepts for Distributed Operations:
“The essence of this concept lies in the capacity for coordinated
action by dispersed units…ordered and connected within an operational
design focused on a common aim.” That said, Marine
Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) will remain the organizing
principle in distributed operations.
Under distributed operations, tactical units will have enhanced
capabilities. Individual Marines and small units will have
greater access to intelligence data than ever before, and will also
be given broad authority to act on it. Those units will have more
vehicles so they can maneuver against an objective, and greater
artillery capability to bring the enemy under fire. Units will be
large enough to engage the enemy, but small enough to break off
if outnumbered.
To facilitate action, a state of the art communications network
is being developed that will provide commanders with the
ability to coordinate the actions of dispersed units. The enhanced
communications capabilities will allow small units to self-organize
for mutually supporting tactical actions. Because semiindependent
units may be cut off from their supply lines, Marine
units will carry, among other things, their own water purification
equipment as well as power sources for electronic equipment.
the middle East
While the Army adopts a new philosophy of war and builds
a force to execute it, the battle for Iraq rages. BCT from at least
five divisions comprise the American “surge” of 2007. Stryker
BCT have been involved in several fierce battles and at least
two more are joining two already there (3 rd SBCT 2 nd Infantry
Division and the 1 st SBCT, 25 th Infantry Division). As the surge
unfolds, hostile forces will surely try to adapt. Iraq is therefore
becoming the testing ground for the Army’s Future Force.

united States Ground forces, order
of Battle
Following is a listing of US major combat units as of early 2007,
excluding schools and training commands
US Army
Active Divisions
1 st Armored Division, Wiesbaden Germany
1 st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas
1 st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas
2 nd Infantry Division, Camp Red Cloud, Korea
3 rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia
4 th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas
10 th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York
25 th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
82 nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
101 st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky
Integrated Divisions
Composed of an active Army headquarters and three National
Guard brigades
7 th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado
24 th Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas
Army National Guard Divisions
28 th Infantry Division, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
29 th Infantry Division, Fort Belvoir, Virginia
34 th Infantry Division, Saint Paul, Minnesota
35 th Infantry Division, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
38 th Infantry Division, Indianapolis, Indiana
40 th Infantry Division, Los Alamitos, California
42 nd Infantry Division, Troy, New York
49 th Armored Division, Austin, Texas
United States Army Special Operations Command
United States Army Special Forces Command
75 th Ranger Regiment
160 th Special Operations Aviation Regiment
Special Operations Support Command
4 th Psychological Operations Group
95 th Civil Affairs Brigade
United States Marine Corps
First Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA
1 st Marine Division
3 rd Marine Aircraft Wing
1 st Marine Expeditionary Brigade
11 th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU)
13 th MEU
15 th MEU
1 st Marine Logistics Group
Second Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, NC
2 nd Marine Division
2 nd Marine Aircraft Wing
2 nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade
22 nd MEU
24th MEU
26th MEU
2 nd Marine Logistics Group
Third Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan
3 rd Marine Division
3 rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade
31 st MEU
3 rd Logistics Group
United States Army and Marine Corps Deployments in Iraq
(early 2007)
Multi National Forces Baghdad
1 st Cavalry Division
2 nd BCT, 1 st Infantry Division
4 th BCT 1 st Infantry Division (February)
2 nd BCT 2 nd Infantry Division
3 rd SBCT, 2nd Infantry Division
4 th SBCT, 2 nd Infantry Division (April)
2 nd Brigade, 3 rd Infantry Division (May)
3 rd Brigade, 3 rd Infantry Division (June)
3 rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division
2 nd BCT, 10th Mountain Division
4 th BCT (Airborne), 25 th Infantry Division
2 nd BCT, 82 nd Airborne Division (March)
2 nd BCT 101 st Airborne Division
Multinational Forces North Central (Balad, Kirkuk, Tikrit,
Mosul, and Samarra)
25 th Infantry Division
Multi National West (Anbar Province)
US Marine I Expeditionary Force
US Marine II Expeditionary Force
1 st BCT 3 rd Infantry Division
At Large
1 st BCT, 34 th Infantry Division, Minnesota National Guard
organizations
Marine Infantry Battalion
Headquarters & Service Company
3 x Rifle Companies
Weapons Company
Army:
Infantry battalion:
Headquarters, Headquarters Company
3 x Infantry Companies
Armor battalion:
Headquarters, Headquarters Company
3 x armored companies
1 x engineer company
1 x infantry company
Cavalry squadron:
Headquarters, Headquarters Troop
2 x armor troops
1 x infantry troop
1 x fire support company
Artillery battalion:
Headquarters Battalion
3 x fires batteries
1 x service battery
strategy & tactics 57

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64 Raid! 35
67 Stonewall 50
68 Kharkov 40
69 Tannenberg 40
70 Crusades 55
71 Cassino 35
72 Armada 40
73 Panzer Battles 35
75 Napoleon’s Art of War 45
76 China War 35
77 Paratroop 35
78 Patton’s 3rd Army 45
79 Berlin ’85 35
80 Wilson’s Creek 40
81 Tito 40
83 Kaiser’s Battles 40
84 Operation Grenade 30
85 Fighting Sail 30
86 Cedar Mountain 40
87 Desert Fox 60
88 Baor 40
89 Sicily: Race to Messina 40
90 Monmouth 50
92 Iwo Jima 75
94 Nordkapp 40
95 Soldiers of Queen 50
City, stAte Zip
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VisA/mC (oNly)#
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96 Singapore $55
97 Trail of Fox 60
98 Central Command 40
99 Thunder at Luetzen 50
100 Super Powers 50
101 Cromwell’s Victory 45
102 Monty’s D-Day 50
103 Road to Vicksburg 65
104 Colonies Revolt 60
105 Ruweisat Ridge 45
106 Pleasant Hill 50
107 Warsaw Rising 60
108 Remember The Maine 75
109 Target: Libya 45
110 Hastings, 1066 55
111 Korea 50
112 Patton to War 30
113 Battle of Abensberg 40
114 Battle of Eckmuhl 40
115 Kanev 35
116 Manchu 35
118 The Tigers are Burning 50
119 Horse Soldiers w/Brice's 75
120 Nicaraugua 25
121 Indian Mutiny 25
122 Pegasus Bridge 30
124 Fortress Stalingrad 60
126 Beirut ’82 25
127 Rush for Glory 20
128 Africa Orientale 30
129 Harvest of Death 30
130 Tsushima 30
131 Donau Front 25
132 Iron Cross 30
133 Baton Rouge 20
134 Anzio Beachhead 45
Games
SUB To Ta l
TaX (Ca. RES.)
$
S&H
$
ToTal oRDER
$
135 Sideshow $60
136 Borodino: Doomed Victory 50
138 Eylau 25
139 Arabian Nightmare 30
140 Objective Tunis 20
141 Hannibal 80
142 Red Beach One:Tarawa 20
143 Rio Grande:Valverde 15
144 Chad: The Toyota Wars 15
146 Italian Camp: Sicily 25
147 Holy War: Afghanistan 35
148 Cropredy Bridge 15
149 Franco-Prussian War 75
150 Italian Camp: Salerno 50
151 Vittoria/Friedland 20
152 Case Green 25
153 Felix/ZAMA 25
154 Russo-Turkish War 75
155 Italian Camp: Anzio 20
156 White Eagle Eastward 25
159 Zeppelin 30
160 Italian Camp: MedWar 16
162 Clontarf/Saipan 25
166 Savage Station 40
168 Operation Shock Troop 30
169 Battles of Atlanta I 25
170 Battles of Atlanta II 25
171 On to Moscow 60
172 Molotov’s War 25
173 30 Years War 75
174 Indo-Pakistan War 75
176 Blood on Tigris 75
177 Hundred Years War 80
178 Fist Blood: Guadalcanal 50
179 First Afghan War 20
180 Reinforce the Right! 25
updated and detailed list of
games available.
Shipping ChargeS
1st unit Type of Service
6 Magazine USPS Priority Mail
(1-2 copies)
10 Magazine Canada Priority Int'l
Mail (1-2 copies)
12 Magazine World Priority Int'l
Mail (1-2 copies)
Desert Fox Games • PO Box 21598 • Bakersfield CA 93390 • 661/587-9633 • Fax- 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com

A FA s t & EA s y Pl A y i n g sE r i E s o F CA r d gA m E s
Wa r o n Te r r o r
Fight the war on terror with America’s cutting edge weapon systems! You have been
charged with hunting down terrorists aiding regions around the world and toppling
their corrupt governments. To accomplish this, you have been given command of the
latest weapons and best personnel America has to offer. You get to command elements
of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Special Forces and Propaganda Warfare.
War on Terror is an ultra-low complexity card game for all ages. The focus is
on fast card play, strategy, and fun interactive game play for 2-4 players.
D-Day
June 6, 1944, the day that decided the fate of World War II in Europe.
Now you command the Allied and Axis armies as each struggles
to control the five key beaches along the Normandy coastline. If
the Allied troops seize the beaches, Germany is doomed. But if the assault fails,
Germany will have the time it needs to build its ultimate weapons. You get to
make vital command decisions that send troops into battle, assault enemy positions,
and create heroic sacrifices so others can advance to victory!
MiD W a y
From June 4 th to June 6 th of 1942, a massive battle raged around the tiny
Pacific island of Midway that changed the course of World War II. The
victorious Imperial Japanese Navy was poised to capture the airfield on
the island of Midway and thus threaten Hawaii and the United States. The only obstacle in their
path was an outnumbered US fleet itching for payback for Pearl Harbor. You get to command
the US and Japanese fleets and their squadrons of fighter planes, torpedo bombers and dive
bombers in this epic battle!
north africa
Covering the great battles of Erwin Rommel from 1941 to 1943, as he fought his way back and
forth across the deserts of North Africa. LNA uses cards to represent the military units, supply
convoys and objectives of the historic campaign. To win, you must consider your units’ combat power
and maneuver options as well as their supply situation. The game features: the Afrika Korps, Tobruk, the
Desert Rats, Malta, anti-tank guns, resupply from Europe, minefields and more. LNA is based around
a new combat system that makes maneuver and planning as important as brute force. That approach
is faithful to the historic events, in which smaller forces were often able to defeat and rout larger
ones by using better tactics and planning. In LNA, battles can be won not only by overwhelming the
enemy with firepower, but also by out-thinking and bluffing him. The dynamic game system puts
you in charge of one of the most famous theaters of WWII.
QTY Title Price Total
Lightning North Africa $19.99
Lightning War on Terror $19.99
Lightning midway $19.99
Lightning D-Day $19.99
Special Price! All 4 games
Shipping ChargeS
$60.00
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$8 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
17 2 Canada
21 4 Europe, South America
22 5 Asia, Australia
SUB To Ta l
TaX (Ca. RES.)
$
S&H
$
All games include 110 full color playing
cards and one sheet of rules.
ToTal oRDER
$
F O R C E
4TH INDIAN DIV.
Starts Game in
WESTERN DESERT
MOTORIZED ADVANCE
MOTORIZED
Play if your Attack Plan was
successful. Inflict one extra
loss for each motorized force
you had committed to the
battle.
SIEGE
PO Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390-1598
• (661) 587-9633 •fax 661/587-5031
www.decisiongames.com
037
009
strategy & tactics 59

60 #245
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Storm of Steel
Storm of Steel (SoS) is a simulation of World War I. Its three
34x22” maps cover Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals
plus the Mid-East. The maps can be combined for one grand
game of the Great War, or they may be used separately for
campaigns of the eastern, western and Mid-East. The rules use
an approach that allows players to play using the level of complexity
they desire. Turns represent three months. There are
scenarios for each year and each front of the war, as well as a
“what if” scenario for 1919.
Units represent land, naval and air forces. Ground forces are at
corps-level. Corps include infantry, shock, mountain infantry
and cavalry. There are also specialized armored car and tank
brigades, as well as tank corps for 1919, plus the planned-for
American airborne division. Each country has its own unique
order of battle. Land combat uses three different combat results
tables to model different tactics.
Naval units are at the squadron level for capital ships, and flotillas
for cruisers and destroyers. There’s also a complete submarine
warfare module. Air warfare is represented by strategic
and tactical wings. Players can improve their aerial warfare capabilities
by increasing their air doctrine level. As air doctrine
improves, players can employ interception, aerial supply and
aircraft carrier operations. On the political side, players can
utilize agents to conduct propaganda and sabotage operations.
An industrial production module gives players the capability
to produce different types of forces. Production is tied to morale,
and winning great battles will enhance your side’s output,
while a disastrous defeat may lead to strikes on the home
front.
SoS uses cards to recreate major operations by granting additional
move-fight impulses, combat bonuses and extra reinforcements.
Players choose which campaigns they will implement
because some cards will provide for more maneuver,
while others will enhance combat.
Contents: 3 22x34" maps, world display, 1400 die-cut counters,
14 asstd displays/charts, 32 page Rules, 22 Scenarios. Ships as
4 units. Order form on page 2. $140. 00
1
AvAilAble Now
XXX
2
10-3-2
Q
A 4
gent X
1-3-4
X
1-1-3
USMC
XXX
2
14-4-2
1
3
XXX
2-1-3
1
1-3-1
23 XXX
8-3-2
2
2
14 Res
XXX
4
8-2-2
X
1-3-2
BMB
2
1-3-10

Another Classic Game from Decision Games
War in the Pacific
On Sunday, 7 December 1941, the US naval
base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by
Japanese aircraft. For the next four years, Allied
task forces engaged elements of the Imperial
Japanese fleet throughout the ocean. Marines
and army units began their program of islandhopping,
wresting from the Japanese the empire
that they had expanded in every direction.
War in the Pacific is a multi-level simulation
of the Pacific theater of operations during
World War II. The game enables players to recreate
the entire course of the war, form the opening
Japanese attack on 7 December, 1941 to the
climatic Allied assaults in the closing days of 1945. Representing some 30%
of the globe, the strategic maps let players move and engage in combat on all
levels: air, ground and naval. War in the Pacific is the most detailed board
game of the Pacific Theater ever created. There are a number of rules and
concepts that will, at first, be unfamiliar to a majority of players. But playing
through smaller map sections and scenarios enables the player to become
familiar with the mechanincs of the game.
Components: 7 full size strategic maps in full color, new tactical maps with
nearly 340 individual islands for new ground units to fight over, 32 die-cut
counter sheets, nearly 9,000 counters showing all types of units from the
Pacific Theater, rule books and assorted displays and player aid charts. Ships
as 10 units.
$420. 00
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addreSS
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phone email
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PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Shipping ChargeS
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$8 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
17 2 Canada
21 4 Europe, South America
22 5 Asia, Australia
strategy & tactics 61

62 #245
SPI Classic Games
EmPIrES of thE mIddlE AGES
Between the glories of Rome and the rise of national states came an age in which each
land was defined by the virtue and failings of its monarch. Empires of the Middle Ages is
a multi-player game of diplomacy in which up to six may act as dynasts and attempt to
build their historic kingdoms into vast realms. The period covered in the game spans from
AD 771, the time of Charlemagne’s reign, to 1465, the time of the final collapse of the
Byzantine Empire. The game is played on a map of medieval Europe on which the players
record the power of their kingdoms. Playing cards resolve the basic actions of the game,
while random event cards
add period flavor, such as
plagues, crusades and heresy. Six scenarios
are included, from a solitaire game
to a grand scenario covering the entire
Middle Ages.
Components: 1,120 counters,
(2) 22" x 34" mapsheets, 220 full
color playing cards, 40-page rule book,
and player aid cards.
$100.00*
SUB To Ta l
TaX (Ca. RES.)
$
S&H
$
$
*ships as 3 units on ship chart.
Drive on Stalingrad
Drive on Stalingrad is a two-player strategic-level simulation of Fall Blau (Operation Blue),
the German attempt to conquer Stalingrad and the Caucasus area of the southwest Soviet Union
in 1942. The German player is on the offensive, attempting to win by seizing key areas on the
map. The Soviet player is primarily on the defensive in the first scenario, but he is also given
the chance to run a full-blown counter-offensive in the second, “Operation Uranus,” scenario.
Game play of the main scenario encompasses the period that began with the Germans’ launching
of “Operation Blue,” their offensive toward Stalingrad and the Caucasus on 28 June 1942.
That scenario ends on 15 September, after 11 weekly game turns. The second scenario starts on
19 November 1942, with the launching of the Soviet “Operation Uranus” counter-offensive, and
continues for six weekly turns to the end of December, when historically the German attempt
to free their encircled 6th Army at Stalingrad ground to a halt.
Each hexagon on the map represents approximately 16 miles (26 kilometers) from side to opposite side. The units of maneuver for
both sides are primarily divisions, along with what were actually similarly sized Soviet tank and mechanized “corps.” Air power is represented
abstractly.
Components: 2 34 x 22 inch mapsheet, rules booklet, 420 die
QTY Title Price Total
cut counters, storage bags and 1 die. $48.00
Empires of Middle Ages $100
Drive on Stalingrad $48
USN Deluxe $70
War Between the States $110
Shipping ChargeS
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$8 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
17 2 Canada
21 4 Europe, South America
22 5 Asia, Australia
PO Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390-1598
(661) 587-9633 •fax 661/587-5031
www.decisiongames.com

from decision Games
USN DelUxe
Refight the greatest naval-air-land war of history. USN Deluxe is an update of
the classic SPI game on the War in the Pacific, 1941-45. While maintaining the
original game’s basic systems, the new design includes rules for a comprehensive
simulation that includes the entire war, extending the game from Hawaii to the
Asian Mainland. Scenarios include the first year of the Japanese offensive, as well
as 1941-43, 1943-45 and 1941-45. There are also mini-games for Midway, the
Solomons, Burma, China, the Philippines, Manchuria and others. Included is a War
Plan Orange scenario for a “what-if” naval war with the US and Japan squaring off
in the 1930s.
Naval forces are at the squadron level, except aircraft carriers, which are each
represented by individual counters. Air units are in groupings based on
squadrons. Land units are regiments, brigades, divisions, corps and armies.
The game system uses an interactive sequence of play in which both sides
can launch strikes, exploit errors and win great victories. New rules include
kamikazes, armored divisions, task force markers, Soviet intervention,
MAGIC, special operations forces, the China front, strategic bombing, and
yes, the atom bomb.
Contents: 2 22x34 inch maps, 840 die-cut counters, rules book and assorted Player Aid cards. $70.00
War Between the States, 1861-1865
War Between the States, 1861-1865, simulates the American Civil War from the
opening shot at Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, using three maps to
cover the major theaters of operation from Galveston, Texas, to St. Joseph, Missouri,
and from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Jacksonville, Florida.
Game turns represent the passage of a week, with intervening “cycles” during which
players carry out such routines as production, blockade, construction and politics. Each
game turn is divided into two player turns,
during which one player or the other may
move his ground and naval units on the
map and attack his opponent.
The game can be played as a
campaign using all three maps and simulating the entire war from beginning to end. Alternatively,
six scenarios are also offered, covering the eastern campaigns of 1862, 1863 and
1864, along with three others covering the western campaigns of those same years. The
scenarios vary in length from eight to 24 game turns. The scenarios are played on just one
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or two maps. Expanded and optional rules have been added to this new edition of the game,
which work to enhance the role of headquarters, allow for variable
leader entry into play, give more detail to naval and riverine combat,
as well as more fully integrating the era’s politics into play.
more accurate representation of the actual terrain fought over and
the addition of more counters including set of counters for the
variant leaders.
Contents: 3 22x34 inch maps, 1400 die-cut counters, rule book
and player aid cards. $110.00*
*ships as 3 units on ship chart.
strategy & tactics 63

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