Quotes About Tactics

Surprise is an event that occurs in the mind of an enemy commander.

up to the belly. When the attack starts I will let myself fall into the water, with my face as deep in the mud as I can keep it without suffocating. I must pretend to be dead. Suddenly

The essence of war is violence," he wrote, "and moderation in war is imbecility.

When you're in a pissin' contest with a skunk, make sure you got plenty of piss.

U-boats in fact traveled underwater as little as possible, typically only in extreme weather or when attacking ships or dodging destroyers.

expected, well suited to Germany's guerrilla

After noting that Germany's submarine campaign had sharply reduced traffic from America, Churchill told Runciman: "For our part, we want the traffic—the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better

Suddenly everyone began paying attention to the phases of the moon. Bombers could attack by day, of course, but it was thought that after dark they would be able to find their targets only by moonlight. The full moon and its waxing and waning gibbous phases became known as the "bomber's moon.

One cannot possibly get accurate bombing on a selected target in this way.

hit her where she least expects to be hit. There's only one way to fight, and that's to win. Never attack where the other man is expecting it, when the other man is expecting it. That's where he's prepared his strongest defense.

Coward," Pablo said bitterly. "You treat a man as coward because he has a tactical sense. Because he can see the results of an idiocy in advance. It is not cowardly to know what is foolish." "Neither is it foolish to know what is cowardly," said Anselmo, unable to resist making the phrase.

But those were Frenchmen and you can work out military problems clearly when you are fighting in somebody else's country. Yes, I replied, when it is your own country you can not use it so scientifically. The Russians did, to trap Napoleon. Yes, but they had plenty of country. If you tried to retreat to trap Napoleon in Italy you would find yourself in Brindiri.

For warfare, a man needs only his mind. But to win, it requires a talent and resources.

It was like mentioning one general favourably to another general. You could always mention a general, though, that the general you were talking to had beaten. The general you were talking to would praise the beaten general greatly and go happily into detail on how he had beaten him.

In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.

No plan survives contact with the enemy

It is often possible to decide the issue of a battle merely by making an unexpected shift of one's main weight.

Sweat saves blood.

Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning

It wasn't just 'divide and conquer,'" said Kazikhanov. "It was 'divide, conquer, and tie up in trouble.

He had that ruthless side without which great affairs cannot be handled.

he demonstrated a flexibility of principle that verged on opportunism.

There are two people who sink U-boats in this war, Talbot,' he said. 'You sink them in the Atlantic and I sink them in the House of Commons. The trouble is that you are sinking them at exactly half the rate I am.

Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre,' he wrote in The World Crisis. 'The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter.