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Date Posted: 08:08:06 10/29/05 Sat
Author: Sunshine
Subject: Wellington
In reply to: Celebaelin 's message, "Hard facts" on 09:31:17 10/28/05 Fri

Most battles are won from a start-point of military superiority, there are very few exceptions to this (and most of those were won by The Duke of Wellington).
Well to go completely off topic, I sense a certain British prejudice in this statement.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by battle superiority – is it just the number of men and armaments at the local scene of conflict or is it the size of the available army. The real issue, in my opinion, is not necessarily who has the bigger army but who manages to bring to bear at a critical point and time those resources that he/she possesses. In this light, I would suggest that Napoleon, at least until his disastrous foray into Russia in 1812, had considerable success in defeating armies that were superior in terms of raw numbers. He was the master of employing maneuver in order the fight the battle at the time and place or his choosing. One might say that defeating an opponent in detail would still involve local superiority at the individual points of battle, but it takes two to tango and knowing when and where to fight is certainly important (as I believe you note). Of course, given the choice, I think most generals would always prefer to have numerical superiority but it is not always the key issue. As a military genius, I think his legacy far surpasses Wellington. Of course, there was the small problem that he was a megalomaniac with serious inferiority issues (poor short little man)
Robert E Lee also had considerable success defeating numerically superior forces. Of course, his side eventually lost the war and I think here lays the key to military advantage. It is in the long-term conduct of the war where larger numbers usually come into play. Any time the conflict becomes one of attrition the side with bigger resources has a decided advantage (look no farther than WW II to see this in dramatic demonstration). What all this has to do with Buffy is certainly beyond me.

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