Re: Use of Elite SF

At 04:01 PM 12/8/2002 -0500, Tomb wrote:
>John said:
>
> >1)If you have an elite commando on the
>table, you're using 'em wrong.  SOF do
>NOT belong at the FEBA where people
>drive tanks around.  They belong way
>behind enemy lines where the enemy
>doesn't have anyone capable of putting up
>a fight.
>
>[Tomb] Ignoring heavily armed MP formations,
>rear area security troops, and a chance
>encounter with a line formation rotated out of
>line or new to the area.

Then I said:

>Not necessarily.  Ranger companies were
>at D-Day, and the 1st Special Service Force
>held a chunk of the line at Anzio.  Even
>discounting any historical instances, well,
>needs must when the devil drives.  If you
>need bodies to fill a hole (Battle of the
>Bulge, frex), you get them where you can.

back to Tomb:

>[Tomb] True, but this would not be what I
>would see as 'using them right' as John
>suggests. This is 'using them wrong
>because you need to'. But every trained,
>expensive, experienced elite raider you lose
>while he fights to plug a hole in LoB is
>going to cost you several times the cost of
>a normal gropo to replace. So it is an
>inefficient use of elite resources.
>Sometimes inefficient is necessary, so rules
>would be handy. But just because you must
>do a thing doesn't mean it isn't 'using them
>wrong'.

Well, I disagree somewhat.  :-)  Regarding the Rangers, while their 
original purpose was raiding, if the invasion worked there wouldn't be
any 
more raiding.  Using elite forces to take targets that *had* to be
taken, 
even if they weren't hundreds of miles behind enemy lines is more or
less 
doctrine, though I guess you could argue Pointe du Hoc wrote that role
into 
Ranger doctrine.  In addition, I really can't agree with your last 
sentence.  "using them wrong" implies (to me, I hasten to add) that you
had 
a choice and picked the wrong one.  Doing something you must do removes
the 
possibility of it being either right or wrong;	it just is [1].  This
may 
very well be a personal definition thing, though.

Don
I haven't seen my post, just Tombs reply.  Weird.

[1]  It occurs to me that someone may read the above as a morality good
vs 
wrong issue.  I don't mean it as such, just a correct decision vs
incorrect 
decision issue.