Every War Strategy Explained in 8 Minutes - The Paint Explainer Reaction

#reaction #history

[Gloria-victrix]

These are more akin to tactics rather than strategy. Strategy is more on the grand scale.

[pickle]

My only problem with the original video is that, as some people have mentioned, most of the methods presented are tactics, not strategies. However, some are neither. A Foxhole on its own is not a tactic. It can become an effective tactical asset in a defensive situation, but at it's core it's just a physical position.

[goji]

Reaction video - 20 minutes
Original video - 8 minutes
That's 12 minutes of new content right there!

[TheIrishNational]

I am going through quite an awful period now thinking about things no healthy person should be considering. I just want to say that these videos give me hope. God bless.

[Subutai_Khan]

Someone already said this but these are more tactics for sure than strategy. Still an interesting video without a doubt!

To add a bit to the conversation, the pincer movement was also used by Shaka Zulu effectively. Called the "Horns of the buffalo" The best men would fight in the vanguard (or the "chest" of the buffalo) and take the enemy on head on while the less experienced warriors would form the horns and quickly circle around the flank. The "loins" would form a fourth group as a reserve force to be used as necessary and would be made up of older warriors. Some people like to compare this to Roman tactics and I would be careful with such comparisons, but they certainly did come to similar conclusions in some respects and Shaka was without a doubt a great military mind. Shaka also would use the Horns of the buffalo as a way to force the enemy to surrender as he understood that it is better to offer the enemy a way out rather than to force them to fight to the death. Those who surrendered would join his ranks as fellow Zulu.

The best example of the feigned retreat we have is the Mongols I think since we know this was part of their battle doctrine. They would use their horse archers to harass, disrupt, and perhaps draw the enemy in (especially the enemy horsemen) and then the Mongols would swoop in with their heavy lancers to encircle the enemy and deal a decisive blow while the horse archers turn around and support. The Mongols would leave an avenue of retreat as a sort of false hope as well often times so they could kill the enemy while they are retreating. William the Conqueror as you alluded to is debatable. I am not convinced his army was disciplined enough such that a feigned retreat was part of the plan (few armies in his era and location if any were to be fair so this is not a criticism of William) but it isn't impossible either. Given what the source material seems to say though I think it is more of a case of William showing his army that he is still alive and rallying his men because he was quite charismatic and if I recall correctly at that very moment there was a rumor that William was dead which seems to make it more likely to me that it was a real retreat at first.

If I were to add a tactic to this list, I think troop rotation is a good one. The idea of rotating exhausted or depleted troops so they can rest so that fresh troops can resume the fight. This was allegedly done by the Romans and has been done by many others as well and even works on the larger scale in conflicts like WW1. A relatively obscure example I like was used by the Daimyo Uesugi Kenshin in Japan during the Sengoku period. He arrayed his men in a formation known as the "Rolling wheel". The way this worked was the vanguard would engage with the enemy quickly and inflict as many casualties as they could. Then the men would rotate so fresh reserves could immediately resume the fight. This would have the effect of wearing the enemy down, and winning through shock as it would seem like there was this endless wave of fresh, determined, and disciplined warriors. Often the Rolling Wheel has been compared to the ferocity of a tornado particularly when it was used at the 4th Battle of Kawanakajima. I highly recommend looking into this historical figure more as while he did not become Shogun, Uesugi Kenshin was perhaps the best tactician and strategist in his age. (I also recommend Extra Credits series on the Sengoku Jidai and videos from the channel The Shogunate if you want to learn a bit about him and other figures from the period)

EDIT: Apologies if I spammed a comment! I am having connection problems lol

[bradleyjohnson]

My great grandfather was apart of the 394th regiment and knew some of the guys apart of the I&R platoon you mentioned, he wrote an unpublished autobiography detailing some of the events surrounding Elsenborn Ridge (along with covering his whole life). I'm hoping to get his works published within the next year or two but life is very busy at the moment. Would love to send you an early copy of his story to read sometime if you're interested. His name was Kermit M. Ball and was apart of a mortar crew. He's even mentioned in 'The Key to the Bulge: The Battle for Losheimergraben' by Stephen Rusiecki. I have his presidential unit citation along with several other medals.

[paladinmacias]

Thank you for the Shout out and happy to finally be a Patron after I first discovered your channel during the pandemic.
And not surprisingly that we still use many of this strategies or tactics here in the Army and while training as an Infantrymen.

[Arigtos]

Not connected this topic.
I just have to let you know that IMO you are the best American historian I have stumbled in YouTube. Lots of respect.

[IwhowasdatXD]

This is one of those rare reactions where I’ve actually seen the video before the reaction.

[abcde_]

Since we're covering tactics here, I don't think Motti tactics were included. Used by Finns in Winter war, where long Soviet columns were made immobile by destroying first and last vehicle and then column was split into smaller pieces that were easy to destroy seperately.

[Edax_Royeaux]

In Total War I developed my own tactic of the asymmetrical pincer, the small pincer is suppose to force the enemy to deploy and be affixed into place while the big crab pincer is mobile and full of shock forces that are suppose to rapidly move onto the enemy flank and force them to try and redeploy while under fire from the small pincer, disintegrating their organization. Sort of an inversion of Alexander's hammer and anvil tactics by using the anvil to hit the enemy instead of the hammer.

[VictorBeckers]

Other great example of attack in detail is Jackson's campaign in the shenandoah vally in 1862 !

[JustAnotherAccount]

15:43 minor minor correction, assuming you're doing this via bombers, the first thing they tend to do is take out anti-air/airfields/hangars etc. Basically anything that can challenge air superiority. (i.e. what happened during desert storm)
I'm not sure if it always requires planes, but something I've seen by watching the Ukrainian war unfold is instead using sabotage to achieve the same goal, this way you don't need air superiority. A good example of this is what happened to the Kerch strait bridge.

[geraldmantanona]

I was commissioned as a US Army Field Artillery officer. “Creeping barrage” is not a technique our military uses (or any good Military uses now). If “Calling For Fire” (Artillery) we learned to Call For Fire by “bracketing”. This is shooting the artillery behind the enemy then in front of them (or Vice versa) and bracketing them in a kill zone before we “Fire for effect” with mass rounds of artillery.

[TheColoradoDude]

Finally got a chance to see you on the History Channel!! It’s been so cool watching your channel grow!

[blankspace]

hey Chris, you should definitely do more like this 8 minutes of things explained, I love how you put more context in the subject instead of just simple terms as explained by the guy, Great job Chris! Looking forward for more!

[bernardoalvarezdelcastillo]

You add so much value to a lot of videos which should be highly regarded in and of themselves! Thanks for all the knowledge that you kindly spread. This channel is a treasure.

[shishtaoukgainz]

The crescent formation was most famously used by Hannibal in the battle of canae.

[williamowsley]

That last one reminds me of the classic line from Princess Bride "never start a land war in Asia or match wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line."

[Thraim.]

14:25 This checks out. I once saw a video about riot police training together with policemen mounted on horses. They literally used the same movements to let the "cavalry" through their line as the Romans would have.