[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

i believe that you will find that Hackworth was criticising WWII tactics that were used in Vietnam. For the record: Desert Storm WAS a WWII style conflict, and an anamolie (sp?) in modern warfare. So, you don't think the Air Force has an axe to grind against Hackworth? All he did was tell the truth about Desert Storm, namely that Buster Glossen promised a 50% destruction of Iraqui Republican Guards within five days, when in fact Air strikes only did 15% of them overall. Considering that Hackworth, as a combat commander in Vietnam had to coordinate airstrikes with arty, i would think he has a pretty good handle on combined arms action, in fact he has advocated for it and criticised closed-mindedness in the seperate services. i don't know what you've been reading, but it's not the same things that i have been reading. i do conceed that Hackworth is still hated by the military establishment, especially the Air Force who is likely to loose the most if there is a cut back on high priced, unneeded, expensive toys.

[Polybius]

I believe that you will find that Hackworth was criticising WWII tactics that were used in Vietnam. For the record: Desert Storm WAS a WWII style conflict, and an anamolie (sp?) in modern warfare. So, you don't think the Air Force has an axe to grind against Hackworth? All he did was tell the truth about Desert Storm, namely that Buster Glossen promised a 50% destruction of Iraqui Republican Guards within five days, when in fact Air strikes only did 15% of them overall. Considering that Hackworth, as a combat commander in Vietnam had to coordinate airstrikes with arty, i would think he has a pretty good handle on combined arms action, in fact he has advocated for it and criticised closed-mindedness in the seperate services. i don't know what you've been reading, but it's not the same things that i have been reading. i do conceed that Hackworth is still hated by the military establishment, especially the Air Force who is likely to loose the most if there is a cut back on high priced, unneeded, expensive toys.....Calvinist_Dark_Lord

Hackworth's pissing contests with the Pentagon, Air Force, Navy or the Camp Fire Girls are of no interest to me. What I am judging is the man's ability to give a credible opinion on the outcome of a theater wide operation.

I told you what I had read and was referring to and that was his predictions prior to Desert Storm. I still have copies of all the Newsweek magazines leading up to Desert Storm and I have pulled them out of their drawer for this reply.

The cover story for Newsweek magazine for the week of January 21, 1991 was “We Will Win, But…” by “America’s Most Decorated War Hero”.

Here are quotes from Hackworth’s January 21, 1991 Newsweek cover story article article:

“Casualties won’t be 200 Americans dead a week, as in Vietnam. They will be more than 200 dead an hour in the first round.”

“The aircraft arranged in the Gulf are the wrong mix of aircraft”

“The Iraqis should give a good account of themselves in air attacks.”

“The Abrams M-1A1 tank is a fuel guzzler and a real liability in a roadless terrain”

“For the most part, from rifleman to battalion commander, these dedicated (American) soldiers and Marines have never seen war. And in my judgment they haven’t yet been made hard enough physically and mentally to survive the horror of potential combat with Iraq’s veteran Army.”

As it turned out, Iraq was totally routed at a cost of 137 U.S. dead for the entire war.

You and Hackworth still seem to have no concept of modern airpower and still insist on focusing on the Billy Mitchell inter-service pissing contests of the 1930’s.

And, no, Calvinist_Dark_Lord, the Gulf War was not World War II style conflict. In World War II, the Luftwaffe and the RAF fought for weeks to try to gain air superiority during the Battle of Britain. In World War II, the Eighth Air Force lost 50,000 Americans during their campaign to bomb the German homeland. In World War II, the enemy had relative freedom of movement behind the lines.

During the Gulf War, total air supremacy was established from Day One, the Iraqi homeland was bombed with total impunity and the Iraqi Army could do little except bury themselves in the sand and cower. When they did move the Abrams M-1A1 tank that Hackworth thought were a liability slaughtered the remaining tanks, any Iraqis caught moving joined the Highway of Death bloodbath and the American troops that Hackworth believed to be “not hard enough physically and mentally to survive the horror of potential combat with Iraq’s veteran Army” proved Hackworth to be nothing more than a Chicken Little predicting that the sky was going to fall.

Hackworth is 50 years behind the times and you both seem to be more interested in fighting past wars and in fighting silly inter-service rivalries than in learning how wars are fought and won by the U.S. in the year 2002.