VCSY .017. We've got them damn naked-shorting mm's on the run!
THE BARBARIANS ARE AT THE GATES! September 1944= March 2006
Lesson learned: Rush supplies and reinforcements to the brigades that have broken through enemy defenses instead of the brigades that have bogged down...
Patton: "I had a dream last night. In my dream it came to me that right now the German Reich is mine for the taking. Think, Cod, I was nearly sent home in disgrace. Now, I have precisely the right instrument, at precisely the right moment in history, in exactly the right place."
Codman: "The Saar?"
Patton: This too will change very quickly, like planets spinning off into the universe. A moment like this will not come again for a thousand years. All I need is a few miserable gallons of gasoline. Right now the weakness is here. In ten days we could be in Berlin!"
Codman: "What about the fortifications of Verdun and Metz." (Those strings of fortresses stood between Patton and the Saar.)
Patton: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, anything made by man can be overcome."
Instead of going to Berlin in ten days, the war in Europe lasted six more bloody months. While Patton's tanks were idle, the German army rushed reinforcements to their weak spot in the Saar district, and moved panzer (tank) divisions to the Ardennes Forest to prepare for the Battle of the Bulge. The brilliantly timed German offensive might have worked if it were not for Patton's swashbuckling relief of Bastogne. Unfortunately, many lives were lost because mediocrities in the allied command did not seize the moment in September 1944 and give gasoline to the rapidly advancing Patton instead of the slow-moving Montgomery.
The Russian army made a textbook case of the blunder of allowing Patton to run out of gas in September. For the next fifty years, they taught their generals to rush supplies and reinforcements to the brigades that have broken through enemy defenses instead of the brigades that have bogged down. Americans continued the mediocre policy of backing the weakest of their advancing columns and leaving the strongest columns to fend for themselves. Patton, the leading American theorist on the offensive use of armor, died before he could rewrite the military textbooks.
There is something in the heart of a mediocrity that panics when victory is at hand, and a bold move can seize the prize. The befuddled mediocrity grabs defeat out of the jaws of victory.
