rebcav
Recruit (Brave)
Posts: 19
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Post by rebcav on Feb 18, 2011 20:04:54 GMT -5
O.K....As a casual student for years of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, then spending a few months reading these boards, (and reading some of the books mentioned) this is what I've been able to come up with...Like kind of a "simple" overview of the events of 25 June 1876. PLEASE FEEL FREE to comment, as any input will only help me understand what "actually" happened that day. (If THAT'S even possible.)
I'm going to try to keep it basic, kind of like an "overview", if you will. I will try and concentrate on just the movements (and since I was a Marine I won't even attempt all that crazy "hoofbeats per mile" math, it took me three tries to pass Algebra. That's one of the MANY places that you folks' depth of knowledge will be appreciated. Same goes for the geography; for some reason , like the battle of Vicksburg, the Battle of the Little Big Horn's geography/terrain is hard for me to wrap my brain arond) and leave the personalities/motives/rationale involved up for discussion. SO HERE GOES...
So Lt. Col. Custer sends Capt. Benteen on a sweep to the left, and then directs Major Reno to cross the creek and charge the village. (Major Reno with the understanding that he would receive some type of support) Lt.Col. Custer then moves along the ridges to "flank " the opposition.
Reno charges, halts and forms skirmish lines in the face of some type of opposition...(one point up for discussion) Was he expecting support immediately? He fights a while then retreats into the timber..(question: where was lt.Col Custer at this time?)
Feeling the timber inadequate cover, he bolts for the hills, finally establishing a defensive perimiter on Reno Hill.(Question: When Major Reno formed skirmishers, how far away was Capt. Benteen and was Lt. Col Custer aware of the charge being stopped, and Major Reno's subsequent retreat or was he already engaged?)
MEANWHILE over with Lt. Col. Custer's column...
As Major Reno charges, etc. Lt. Col. Custer sights the village, and sends his message "come quick" to Capt. Benteen...He then directs some type of recon down by the fords, and is either repulsed or does not like what he sees and decides to move on, leaving Capt. Keogh in that "swale" area as a reserve and or "liason" to direct Captain Benteen upon his arrival....
Meanwhile over on Reno Hill....
Captain Benteen Arrives and assists/directs the defense of the area....Stabilizing the situation...
All the while the opposition is consolidating their defense and either anticipates Lt.Col Custer's movements or is alerted by "pickets" located at the fords and move to react to Custer's movements...
After being repulsed or reconsidering his move at the fords, Custer continues along towards the far end of the villiage until just past Last Stand Hill were either opposition or attacks to the rear on Capt.Keogh cause him to order Yates to move agressively, relieving pressure off of Keogh ( or Calhoun?...Here's where it get's fuzzy) Warriors done fighting Major Reno are moving against Capt. Keogh and the others from the village cross the stream and come up Medicine Tail Coulee (?) and hit Calhoun as he attempts to move to Keogh's aid. Yates get repulsed (or is ordered back or?)and rejoins Lt.Col Custer who is now fighting warriors coming from Keogh & Calhoun's position and then gets hit by other warriors who looped around and hit him from the reverse side of LSH, wiping him out...Am I even CLOSE?
ALL INPUT IS GREATLY APPRECIATED, especially since it was y'all who; with your incredibly insightful discussions, who helped suck me in this deep in the first place...LET THE GAMES BEGIN MY FRIENDS...
Duane A. Brinson Key West, Fl.
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Post by conz on Feb 19, 2011 11:03:39 GMT -5
Be glad to be your sounding board with my opinions (which is all my comments are!)... Reno charges, halts and forms skirmish lines in the face of some type of opposition...(one point up for discussion) Was he expecting support immediately? Reno's view seems to be that as the vanguard for the attack, Custer should have supported him directly so he could continue to attack the enemy...at least enough so that he wouldn't be surrounded by an overwhelming force. It's all about Reno...not about what the whole regiment should be doing. Quite ego-centric. But then, Reno did outrank Custer by USMA Class. <g> I think you're fairly safe modelling Custer's command down in the MTC, perhaps some climbing Luce Ridge, at the time Reno falls back into the timber. Not many other's models attempt anything different. The biggest issue here, though, is most models have Custer's command "dawdling" in MTC for a much longer time than it would take to simply ride from Sharpshooter's Ridge to Ford B. So what was Custer doing the whole time Reno was fighting? Have fun trying to unravel THAT mystery. <g> Those are all the right questions that you need to build a "model" for in trying to best guess what happened, since none of these have "factual" answers, regardless of what some may try to convince you. Careful...don't assume that Reno has actually begun any advance from Ford A when Custer first sights the village. Although you are quite safe in assuming Reno has advanced by the time he dispatches Martin on the far slopes of Weir hill, since Martin sees him dismounted on his way back. Be aware that there are some who think it is a big deal that the message actually reads "come on...be quick." I don't understand the difference, but some folks read something into this. Don't ignore indicators that the Warrior force moving to surround Reno north of him, on the bluff, directly saw Custer's column up north down in the MT Coulee, and they reacted from that direct observation to head him off at the ford. As for the details of the Custer fight, the models are literally and figuratively all over the place. You could easily develop a half-dozen main stream ones that are all very different, and many variations on those. I've never seen any two published models alike, and they range from a very quick and simple battle to an extremely complicated and long series of attacks and counter-attacks. This affair is one most up for grabs, so my advice is to embrace the wide range of different possibilities, and not to attempt to be wedded to any one (even though it is natural to have your favorite). Great start, Duane...glad to have you on board! Enjoy, Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 1, 2012 8:19:25 GMT -5
Ah, but did he really? I rather think his feeble effort evaporated about half way down the valley when he foolishly decided to deploy his columns into line formation to prepare for his dismounted skirmish line at least a mile before he even reached the Garryowen loop. It seems to me his 'good faith' ended just a few hundred yards beyond Ford A. I would agree with this. I think it is "highly improbable" that Reno had any thought of charging into the village when he ordered his battalion into line. Any cavalryman knows you don't use that formation to go through rough places. The RCOI testimonies reinforce this when a couple officers stated that the best formation for Reno to get through the enemy surrounding him was company column formations. Similar tactic problem. If Reno himself believed he was going to charge into a village, he would have stayed in column. High degree of certainty in this, I think. Now I don't fault Reno for dismounting, however. It is a valid tactical move at this point. Whether he did it using the right reasoning, I have my doubts, but I'll give him the benefit in my model. Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 1, 2012 16:10:03 GMT -5
Rosebud, I digg your independence. I try to be a Libertarian, myself. However it is one thing to be very aggressive, but you also have to be smart, tactically. You just don't "charge everything" as a Hussar. The key to hussar success is charging at the right time and place...timing is EVERYTHING, not bravado or aggressiveness. Custer does not halt because he is afraid of the enemy. He halts because he wants his inevitable attack to be as successful as possible. Custer is a brilliant tactician, as proven by his combat record. So you have to figure like he does (best as us mortals can  ). Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 6, 2012 8:53:00 GMT -5
Indians don't fight in formations and don't have flanks. Yeah, they still do. A "flank" is any direction the enemy doesn't expect you to come at from, and is not prepared for that. It is as much psychological as physical. The Oglala and Cheyenne villages were NOT empty while CH and his entourage were there, to be sure! But Sitting Bull's village was empty, as many Indians testify to, eh? And when CH left, his village was empty, too. It was a big group of villages. Operationally, sure. But as soon as he saw the tipis still standing within his sight, he was no longer worried about that. It was already too late for the property to move. All that was left was to occupy and burn it. At this point, the most important thing is to scatter the Warriors, killing as many as you can accomplish (not a great expectation). The outside of the circle, so that is all the way around...ANY direction is a flank when the target group is surrounding and focused on one geographic point. It is just like a siege. There are no indicators that ANY Indians actually rode through the trees of Reno's timber. I believe they just mean the "timber area." You can't charge through woods as thick as this. To be sure! It is a tactical error to allow any Warriors to get within 50 yards of your position, unless you are charging and intend to overrun them. Now you can still attack this way...by dismounting and advancing carbines, pushing the Warriors back as you shoot them down. So all the movements you want to model the cavalry doing should be done with this tactical parameter in mind. It includes how Custer would secure and cross Ford B. Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 9, 2012 20:25:32 GMT -5
Clair so attacking from the rear is the same as attacking a flank in tactics. Almost exactly, both in intent and effect. A bit different in the way it plays out, though... That's true...IF there is no opposition to its front, a linear formation, in an emergency, can just "about face" and fight directly to the rear much more quickly than to a flank. But command/control gets tenuous if you try to do any movement from here, since your right/left guides are reversed. To be sure. And being flanked is just one step from being surrounded. That's rather the angst of being flanked, beside the combat power thing. Yep...same as any formation. <g> Oh...except that a horse, I think, can "see" much better to its flanks and rear than most formations do. And definitely fight better to the rear! Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 10, 2012 9:06:45 GMT -5
True for a horse. Still think a flank attack can roll up a skirmish line and attack single troopers one at a time. Whereas from the rear you could have every other soldier to the rear and the force would be half the total of the men on a skirmish line. That is certainly true, physically. The bigger problem, though, is psychological. To have somebody coming at you from your backside is very dislocating, morally. Even if it is not always true, mentally the Soldiers of a formation think of the rear as "safe," and a place you can go to if you get into too much trouble. If the enemy takes that away, it greatly increases the stress. This is somewhat ameliorated if you are in "hedgehog" or square formation, but it is still stressful. As Napoleon said, in determining battles, the morale is to the physical "as three is to one." That is right, similar to the naval surface battle tactic of "crossing the T." Land warfare is a bit less clean, though. <g> But yes, for both moral and physical reasons, it is better to attack a flank...be it the left flank, right flank, or rear flank. The physical advantage of being attacked directly from the rear is usually negated by the psychological disadvantage. Clair |
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 10, 2012 16:36:02 GMT -5
Hmmm...you could say that he attacked out of what was formerly his left flank. But the use of the term "flank" in this context would be pretty meaningless.
Usually flank is used, in tactics, as an expression for a unit's vulnerable area if it is attacked (movement or fired upon). It is used in parade ground drill to describe a direction other than the formation's front, usually left or right.
Usually when attacking, you don't use "flank" as a description of your direction, because when you attack, you change your front, and so your front automatically is the way you are going. So you can't really "attack your flank," but if you are stationary, you might say that Reno, for example, attacked from his former left flank, or something like that.
As soon as Reno left the timber, his front was east, his left and right flanks north and south, respectively, and his rear was to the west. He was attacking to his front, then.
Clair
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Clair
1st Sergeant (Shield Warrior)
Benteen Doesn't Get Here Quick, I'll Have His Ass!
Posts: 150
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Post by Clair on Mar 11, 2012 8:35:03 GMT -5
So once turned Reno charged to his front. Yes, and his "front" is to the "rear" of the regiment, and its mission.  A column was the perfect formation(s) to use in this situation...breaking through a light enemy force without knowing where you are going (so may need to turn), and you need to go as fast as possible. Clair |
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Post by keogh on Oct 28, 2014 11:36:08 GMT -5
keogh: The fact that some warriors were still in the village a half hour after Reno's attack does not change the plan. There was no great need for unnecessary haste. Benteen's arrival in the valley would draw the remaining lingerers off towards the south and Custer would be given a free hand to cross the river unopposed. Yes, there would be a plan B, but that plan would not need to be brought to play until it was learned that Reno had caught the next cab out of town, and taken his entire entourage along with him. ------------------------ Henk: Hmmm. "There was no great need for unnecessary haste" is an adequate description of Custer's complete lack of a sense of urgency - at least according to your model - from the moment he believed he caught "them" napping. Exactly. Since the village was still standing and not on the move, there was no reason for Custer's intended flanking detachments to make haste, especially when doing so would likely result in his being met at the river by 1000 or more warriors intent on preventing his crossing and subsequent envelopment. Not a wise plan to pursue. That would only end in another stalemate, as Crook found out to his chagrin at the Rosebud. Far better to let the warriors evacuate the village proper and converge on Reno's advance guard south of the valley. Good timing is the key to any successful fix and flank envelopment. The way I see it Custer wasted no time at all. During the necessary delay in initiating his envelopment Custer engaged in a leader's reconnaissance down to the river, as reported by Pvt. Thompson. He was scouting for a good crossing of the river close to where Reno had deployed to attack the village from the south. He was also able to evaluate the situation in the village to determine the best time to begin his attack across the river and on into the village. It is a mistake to assume that a delay in action is merely wasted time. The enemy must be positioned properly before one initiates a fix and flank tactical assault. To attack the enemy in force before the enemy has fully fixed itself on your holding force is a very poor plan indeed. You say that Custer was "waiting for something to happen that didn't happen" yet this is not at all true. Custer was waiting for the warrior force to fix its attention on Reno's threat to the south before he initiated his own envelopment of the hostiles. The hostiles were obliging him very well with most of them already at or riding towards Reno's position, and the rest preparing to do likewise, thus what Custer was waiting for was actually happening. What didn't happen was Custer crossing the river to envelop the hostiles at the Garryowen loop, and that was entirely due to the failure of Reno "to hold a leg, even if he couldn't skin", in the apt words of Lt. Godfrey. garryowen, keogh |
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Post by keogh on Oct 28, 2014 13:22:08 GMT -5
Sometimes you need to get into the battle and not wait for some ideal condition Agreed, but not at LBH. Imo, the village location stretched along the river for several miles and bottle necked at its southern end precluded any tactic other than a fix and flank envelopment from being successfully pursued. Yes, Custer could have brought everybody into the valley and tried to hammer his way through 2500+ warriors at the bottleneck at the Garryowen Loop, but its outcome would likely be a repeat of Crook's stalemate at the Rosebud. I think Reno's Grand Skedaddle is what allowed the Indians to fix and flank Custer. And yes, it is not a good plan to have your fixing force evaporate on its own just prior to the enemy being flanked and enveloped. Because the timing was not right to do so. If 800 - 1000 warriors were still in the village, then it would make no sense to do so at that time. Again, the idea is to draw the enemy force out onto your fixing force (Reno's) and to avoid the temptation to rush down and attack before that. That's what separated Gaius Flaminius from Hannibal. The difficulty with Thompson's ford was the abundance of timber and dense growth on the west side of the river there. Not good for Cavalry action or mobility. Yes, they moved down to MTF as a result of Reno's rapid departure from the valley. At that point, Custer's hand was forced and the recon would have to be performed there on the fly. The fix and flank was now doomed, as was any hopes of crossing the river before the regiment could be re-consolidated. garryowen, keogh |
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Post by keogh on Apr 30, 2015 19:07:45 GMT -5
wild, Again, you miss the point of this discussion. What did the Indians know of West Point combat theory? My guess is .....nothing...! It's okay to keep banging on that same drum, but all you'll succeed in doing is to make noise. Cheers, Robb Hi Robb. Of course, Indians would know little to nothing at all about West Point combat theory. That said, West Point combat theory is based in large measure on basic human behavior and reactions to certain stimuli. The battle tactics used by the Romans against the traditional armies of the Macedonians or Seleucids were very much the same as those used against the Celtic or German barbarian tribes, and even moreso effective. The less organized and conventional an opponent, the more effective these basic tactics usually are. Just look at the battles of Alexander, wherein his armies were greatly outnumbered in most of his early campaigns of conquest. If Alexander had been advised in his battles by the likes of Wild -- with his compulsive obsession with numerical superiority -- he would be known today as Alexander the Least. garryowen, keogh |
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Post by keogh on Sept 21, 2015 13:38:11 GMT -5
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Lt. Col. Harold Baker Jr.'s thesis on the Little Big Horn. Col Baker is a West Point graduate who has served as an officer in the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood. He is, imo, an example of a military officer with a classic cavalry mindset (what Clair would refer to as a Hussar mentality). We can clearly see this in his dedication, which reads:
DEDICATION
"To those military officers and men, past and present, who defy prudence and serve their country with dash, pomp, and bravado."
In this thesis, Col. Baker makes reference to Custer's mindset as he made his tactical decisions on how and when to attack the hostile village that day. I believe Baker's viewpoints correctly encapsulate the mindset of Custer's that day. My own interpretive annotations are in brackets. PART I
Why would Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer have attacked such a large concentration of Sioux and Cheyenne? How could an experienced commander with the perceived best Indian-fighting regiment on the Great Plains have been destroyed by an undisciplined, lowly touted band of hostiles? Some have argued, as General Samuel D. Sturgis did shortly after the battle, that Custer was "insanely ambitious of glory" and had "made his attack recklessly, earlier by thirty-six hours than he should have, and with his men tired out from forced marches." Over the years, others, among them [authors] Stephen Ambrose, Edgar I. Stewart, Fred Dustin, Frederick Van de Water, Earl A. Brininstool, C. E. DeLand, and Roger Darling, have echoed that view. They depict Custer as insubordinate, callous, egotistical, and tactically inept, and they underscore the overwhelming number of Indians and the village's immensity as proof that Custer acted rashly, ignoring common sense and his scouts' advice that the Seventh Cavalry could not possibly win on that day. [Note: This would reflect the more classic, conventional mindset analysis.]
On the other hand, while fully impossible to know the abstract thoughts [ie. mindset] that may have guided some of Custer's actions, it is feasible to study the prior events and tactical opinions that would have molded and shaped the officer's military mind[set]. Custer at times certainly displayed the aforementioned traits, but understanding what happened at the Little Bighorn requires assessment of what Custer saw and expected on the morning of June 25, 1876. Those perceptions and expectations [ie. mission command], more than careerism, political ambition, vanity, and inexperience, explain his conduct on that fateful day. In the context of his fifteen years of military experience and that day's events, Custer, justifiably confident of victory, launched his attack in an authorized and tactically sound manner.
Custer was popular, precariously involved in politics, but above all, a solid Indian fighter. Allegations about his inexperience fighting the Plains Indians are unfounded. Actually, only three other officers at the time, could rival him in that regard: General George S. Crook, General Nelson A. Miles, and Colonel Ranald S. MacKenzie. The former had won his reputation earlier against the Paiutes of Oregon and the Apaches of the Southwest, tribes whose fighting styles varied significantly from those of the Sioux and Cheyenne. In his initial efforts on the Great Plains, Crook failed miserably against the Sioux at the Rosebud, and, although he would receive credit for capturing Crazy Horse in 1877, his most notable fame would come from his failure to bring in Geronimo in 1886. This is not to say that Crook was not a great Indian fighter, but that he was no better than Custer. Miles, at the time of Little Bighorn, had performed only adequately during the Red River War of 1874-75 against the Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Comanche as had MacKenzie, whose most famous fight came in September 1874 at Palo Duro Canyon where he used the same tactics that Custer had employed at the Battle of the Washita in 1868 and tried to use at the Little Bighorn. With the exception of Crook, Custer had more experience fighting Indians than any other commander in the three columns that set out in 1876. He was, in fact, the only one who had faced Sitting Bull's Sioux before and won.
(to be continued)
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NeverEZ
Sergeant (Elk Warrior)
Posts: 129 
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Post by NeverEZ on Sept 21, 2015 18:00:50 GMT -5
I downloaded the Baker thesis, too, and found it pretty good. It certainly ties into the role of mindsets as we've been discussing them re LBH.
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Post by keogh on Sept 21, 2015 20:49:05 GMT -5
In this thesis, Col. Baker makes reference to Custer's mindset as he made his tactical decisions on how and when to attack the hostile village that day. I believe Baker's viewpoints correctly encapsulate the mindset of Custer's that day. My own interpretive annotations are in brackets. PART II
Custer's tactics stemmed from his and other officers' experiences on the Great Plains; no school or field manual existed to guide them on how best to wage Indian warfare. Although it faced Indian opposition on the Plains for almost fifty years, the United States Army never developed a formal set of instructions for battling these nomads. Fighting the Indians was a "long-running police action" with the army's task understood but not exactly defined; hence, Army leaders paid little attention to strategic and tactical theory. "Organization and tactics were always directed toward possible wars with conventional, European-style military powers, and tactical manuals and West Point teaching described this kind of warfare," wrote historian Thomas W. Dunlay. "Indian fighting, it was assumed, would soon be a thing of the past; conventional warfare would become the army's principal responsibility in the future." Although the War Department did not authorize a manual on Indian fighting, officers did recognize a theory in the absence of doctrine.
One portion of the theory was the strategic concept of winter warfare. This time of cold, snow, and ice gave the army the best chance of finding the Indians and negated the Indians' advantages of mobility, their grass-fed ponies being weaker than the cavalry's grain-fed horses, and of evasion, since the severe weather locked the hostiles in their camps. If the village fled under the attack, the Army could bring "total war" by destroying the remaining supplies and lodges. A second concept was that of converging columns from three or more directions in an effort to trap the Indians within an area. Commanders applied this same technique at the tactical level by striking an Indian village from two or more directions, effectively encircling it and preventing the escape of its inhabitants. Dawn was the preferred time of attack.
With these loose tenets of warfare, officers received wide latitude and operated on an almost ad hoc basis, attacking when they deemed necessary. General Sheridan reflected in 1876 on what guidance he could have provided his subordinates. "No specific directions," he explained, "could be given as no one knew exactly, and no one could have known where these Indians were, as they might be here to-day and somewhere else to-morrow." The Indians thrived on unconventional tactics, often employing decoys, ambush, and evasion. "Strategy loses its advantages against an enemy who accepts few or none of the conventionalities of civilized warfare," stated Edward S. Farrow, a veteran of the Indian Wars. "The Indian is present one day and when next heard from is marauding in another state or territory...."
The one constant that the officers on the Plains recognized was the flight of a village [before or] after an attack; hence, finding their elusive quarry obsessed officers more than fighting them. "The hardest task in Indian warfare was catching the Indians, not defeating them once caught," wrote historian Robert Utley. "Given the chance, Indians would almost always flee, especially if their families were threatened. They rarely fought unless clearly favored to win, and even then not if casualties seemed likely. For the soldiers, victory, even battle, thus depended on surprise."
Custer's first experience with Indians confirmed this mindset. In the spring of 1867, he commanded the Seventh Cavalry on the expedition led by General Winfield Scott Hancock against raiding bands of southern Oglalla Sioux and Southern Cheyenne. To his chagrin, the enemy was far from conventional, difficult to find, capable of practically disappearing almost without a trace, prone to mount ambushes, and rarely willing to fight unless he dramatically outnumbered the opponent. It took months before Custer's first confrontation against Pawnee Killer's Oglallas, and the fight was not decisive. Recalling one of his fruitless pursuits, Custer concluded that the greatest task in Indian fighting was locating the prey before he fled.
from Custer: My Life on the Plains
"So long as they kept united and moved in one body, their trail was as plainly to be seen and as easily followed as if made by a heavily laden wagon train. We were not called upon to employ time and great watchfulness on the part of our scouts to follow it. But when it was finally clear to be seen that, in the race as it was then being run, the white man was sure to win, the proverbial cunning of the red man came to his rescue and thwarted the plans of his pursuers. Again dividing his tribe, as when first setting out from the village, into numerous small parties, we were discouraged by seeing the broad well-beaten trail suddenly separate into hundreds of indistinct routes, leading fan-shape in as many different directions. What was to be done?"
(to be continued)
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A column was the perfect formation(s) to use in this situation...breaking through a light enemy force without knowing where you are going (so may need to turn), and you need to go as fast as possible.
