Quotes About Tactics

Be stern in the council-chamber, [Show no weakness, and insist on your plans being ratified by the sovereign.] so that you may control the situation.

When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream. It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

If his forces are united, separate them.

who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits

do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat

These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.

A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return.

Politics is merely war by other means.-an old Andorian saying

The classes were valuable, but the real education was the game.

Never diagnosed the enemy before.

Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.

it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

He wins his battles by making no mistakes.Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

A war without a strategy cannot be won. Then it is merely a battle where more lives are lost than necessary.

Man with a crossbow in the proper position at the proper time's worth a corps of heavy artillery half an hour late and ten miles down the road from where it should be.

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory is won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

In no other type of warfare does the advantage lie so heavily with the aggressor." James Franck, The Manhattan Project neatly summarize the atmic bomb.

The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.

When your enemy is tough make your actions rough, you will meet at the same point.

Never mind of what your enemy thinks of you, relax and think a head of him.