Re[4]: [at-l] OT Cowpens' lessons {WAS War but not THATONE!}

[thornel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (W F Thorneloe)]

I believe this is more consistent with mutiny, rather the extreme opposite
of military discipline.

The case in Cowpens and involved placing fresh troops with good fighting
ability in a situation in which they could not escape from the mounted
onslaught. This increased the likelihood of maintaining their firing lines
rather than flinching for a fearsome well armed cavalry attack. The Brits
were less successful in hand to hand combat with troops who were very
accustomed to such tactics. On both sides, the officer corps stayed in
relatively safe positions. The colonists were quite improper as they would
target opponent officers. Kings Mtn was one of the most demoralizing
results of such violations of the rules of war - in that day.

Fragging was an infrequent but equally demoralizing event in a more recent
war. Our memories and emotions are too raw for callous academic
consideration of this. I suspect this is one of the reasons that
conscription of civilians is avoided for current military manpower.

OrangeBug

At 04:07 PM 3/12/03 -0500, RCLI4@aol.com wrote:

>A variation of this tactic was used in Nam.  It was called fragging.  Most
>often happened to green officiers.