doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Way OT -- General George S. Patton Jr.

Amazing how that circle kept repeating itself. During the late 18th century, heavy cavalry was often armed, in Napoleonic fashion, with relatively long, heavy sabers designed to stab. My 1815 dated cuirassier blade is longer than my leg with a straight fluted blade. Can't imagine trying to reach past a Brown Bess and bayonet with it to break a British square.

Effective in pursuit of broken formations, the saber, and cavalry in general, was of limited utility against troops who would hold their formations. In part, that is why Napoleon dictated that the cuirassiers also be armed with the model 1777 carbine.

Light cavalry, on the other hand was typically armed with slashing weapons, often with blades having a pronounced curve and of relatively light weight. The fashion is plainly seen in American revolutionary and 1812 era weapons and that clearly evolved into designs such as Civil War era light artillery, etc.

In many respects Paton's design was a hundred year reach back to the cuirassier. Thank goodness those troopers didn't have to actually try to break a German line manned by mauser and maxim armed infantry.

Larry Brown, I don't think that GSP Jr. used his cavalry saber in the 1912 Olympics. His event was the Modern Pentathalon, and I would imagine he used a generic fencing sword (Is that the correct term?)in the fencing subevent. He placed fifth overall for the five events.

I believe it would definitely change the tone of combat it you had to close with the enemy armed with a blade instead of relying on air power and other modern weaponry.

Joe- I belong to the Military Book Club- just loaned my copy of the history of the 2nd. Armored Div. (aka-Hell On Wheels) to a brother Vet who did two tours in 'Nam with that unit- but never met Patton's son- Col. George Patton (IV)- the British "racked up a huge 'Butcher's Bill' at the Somme in 1916" the old Sandhurst Officer Corps believed that enough troops "Over the Top" and the German Maxims would jam or overheat- sure- and the swagger stick and Webley .455 was real effective too- Kipling's only son was KIA in that "proof of the war of attrition stupidity"- Later, in the "BlitzKreig" tactics used in WW11- The Germans had the MG 34 and later the MG 43 and their theory was that the infantrymen supported the MG companies with their Mausers- whereas American and Allied theory was just the reverse weapons companies supported infantry or PIR companies- usual ratio was 1 to 4- varied of course depending on TO and casualty ratios- I am glad no one objected to my mentioning CSA Gen. Nathan B. Forrest as a brilliant tactician for his time in our country's history- as I also ascribe that leadership and tactical genius to FM Irwin Rommel- had Adolph H. made him his Chief of Ops. and then stood aside- well we'll never know- Rommel died by his own hand and the death of Patton will always raise questions- part of the interest in our past that may affect our future- A neighbor's Grandson in college has my Patton book- he's doing a grad paper on WW11 in ETO- and highlighting Patton-good choice!! RWTF

Tim- No "Romance" in this thread- "Rambo" also starts with R- What a Joke- as were all the 'Nam based movies with the possible exception of "The Deer Hunter"! "Rambo" knocks out a chopper-with the "bad cop" shooting at him with a rifle-by pegging a rock at the rear rotor- later- another 'chopper farce- Rambo fires off a LAW from inside the chopper cockpit- Batshit- the backblast from a LAW in an enclosed area would act like a giant concusion grenade- you might have scraped up "Rambo" with a putty knife- My former SF pal was saying, in his own way- that with a full ALICE pack- all the water and ammo you could "hump" plus an issue knife the extra weight of the Jimmie Lile "Rambo" knife was not into his "risk vs reward" equation. If, you are reading "romance" into the topic of Patton and War- there is NOTHING even remotely romantic about it- it is blood and sweat and mud and monsoons and death- no romance,. no glory, and for me and others, 58,238 names plus the MIA's and POW's unrecovered or unknown- all wasted thanks to McNamara, LBJ, Westmoreland- a piss poor CG at Ft. Campbell- then even worse field cmdr. in MAC/V in spite of his "Recondo" school "in country"! At least with Patton we had a war we won with some honor- albiet at a tremendous cost in lives on both sides, and we had a clear goal in mind. RWFT- All The Way!!

RWTF, you may not have the most posts on this forum, but I'll bet you've posted the most WORDS! No problem, your privilege...Geo

RWFT, I spent three decades in the Army, and like most senior guys have pretty strong impressions of George Patton - both positive and negative. I have read H on W, and in turn, I would stongly urge you to read the Patton Papers. It is a two volume set which is quite readable, and will give you an unfiltered window into his mind. There are both brilliant and inexplicable things to be found.

I am less anguished about our post Vietnam military actions, primarily I suppose, because I served in that volunteer army. It is the first truly professional Army in our history, and I am afraid that as a people we are still struggling with the difference between the citizen soldiers of WWI & II and the warrior class we are creating today. Their job, as Clausewitz put it, is to prosecute wars as "a continuation of politics by other means." In the larger scheme of things, I would prefer that prosecution take place on the marches of empire rather than the core. Those sorts of politics should, also, only be prosecuted after a full and cold-blooded analysis of our critical national interests.

I have little patience with the bunting we have tended to put up about our more recent actions. We are certainly not "preserving freedom" or any of those other patriotic slogans. What I would hope we are doing, is acting to safeguard our national interests. Sometimes we have.

Unfortunately, the use of a professional military in such a way requires civilian leadership of the first order. In the last forty years, I believe were abysmally served by two SECDEFs in particular - McNamara and Donald Rummsfeld. That doesn't let LBJ or Bush of the hook, but different vision and less arrogance in those cabinet posts could have led to far better decisions and outcomes.

Joe, good comments on cavalry. Effective (prior to the modern era) against fleeing troops, or even those advancing in line. But the British squares were almost never broken by cavalry. I think the Brits did break a few French squares during the Napoleonic era, including one at Waterloo, but the Brits in general were better at rapid fire with their muskets than were the French.

eightbore, you're correct. The "European dueling sword" was used in the modern pentathlon. In that particular event, Patton came out 3rd and gave the Frenchman who won gold his only defeat.

The problem I see with our current military, having served about the same length of time as Joe (but virtually all Reserve Components), is that it needs to be bigger. After Nam, the Pentagon decided we would never again go to war without the Reserve Components, but the situation has now evolved to such a point that we CAN'T go to war without them. And it's only right that Reservists should be prepared for callups. But we've reached a point where some Reservists are spending almost as much time on active duty as they are as civilians and part-time soldiers. That's at best a stop-gap solution. At its peak, we had 4,000 Guardsmen on active duty here in Iowa--just in response to our recent floods. We're probably lucky that the rotations were such that we had that many available at home, rather than in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Balkans.

Thank you George- spoken like a true Southern Gentleman- like my pal from just East of Atlanta, GA- ex- USA 75th Rangers- two tours in Vietnam- He has given me the "background" on General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his old-line family ties to the Deep South- even though I am a damn Yankee"- I spent most of my stateside duty in the South- and have learned to love the food and gentility that seems to be strangely missing from "The Heartland" today. I very much appreciate your comment that even though I am "long winded- and I will admit it freely. I suppose that is a major fault of mine- but as they say, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks- Patton holds a special spot in military history for me- I enlisted, when we had the draft in the 1960's- and like my buddy from Flowery Branch- went for the units that offered the best training for survival-and weeded out the "slackers and non-hackers"- also, my first wife's Father served with Patton's Third Army at Bastogne- received the bronze Star and a Purple Heart-so when I honor Patton's memory, to my way of thinking anyway, I also honor his- TAPS RWTF!!

RWTF, glad you took my comment in the spirit it was intended. Like you, my 1st father in law served with Patton in Europe. He flew a single engine forward observer aircraft, and may very well have ferried the general back to the rear as someone else posted earlier in this thread. He didn't talk much about the war, but did brag about the aircraft he flew; said it had redundant systems all around, so if one cable got shot away, another would serve. He certainly still respected Patton...Geo