Great predictions in military history.

[bigfngun]

To start the thread here's an oldy but goody from a reader of the The Globe and Mail in Canada:

 

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

 

January 5, 1980 Saturday

 

Afghanistan not a new Vietnam

 

BYLINE: Andris Lielmanis; GAM

 

LENGTH: 242 words

 

DATELINE: Bramalea ON

 

 

As Canadians observe the precise seizure of power in Afghanistan by the

Soviet Union, I am aghast at the naivete of some commentators who

gleefully state that the Soviets are now trapped in their own Vietnam.

 

The Soviet leadership, like a team of coolly-detached cardiac

surgeons, have not embarked on this campaign without carefully counting

the cost. Unlike the Americans in Vietnam, the Soviets follow the advice

of the ancient Chinese strategist Wu of Tzu, who stated that extravagance

is the unforgivable sin - the extravagance of waging an unnecessarily

prolonged and bloody war in which stupidity wastes lives and money,

brutality breeds enemies instead of eliminating them and barren victories

yeild ungovernable territory. Wu stressed the importance of the short,

sharp campaign. The Soviets know that a task must be executed with

absolute ruthlessness where necessary or not be undertaken at all.

 

Thus, having launched their campaign, it will be short and crushing.

As Mao once stated, War is a political action. The object is complete

victory since moderation in war is an absurdity. Thus the Soviets will go

about their business with no sense confusion, moral or otherwise. There

will be no hostile TV cameras or reporters following them in the field.

There will be no Russian Jane Fondas demonstrating in Moscow.

 

The Russians will show the United States how the Vietnam campaign

could have been conducted successfully.

 

Andris Lielmanis

Bramalea

 

 

You can count on it!!

[DesertFox]

Does anyone know when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began to unravel?

Was it from the beginning?

[BJE]

Does anyone know when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began to unravel?

Was it from the beginning?

As far as I remember, the invasion turned out just fine. It was the occupation afterwards that failed. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar somehow...

[DesertFox]

As far as I remember, the invasion turned out just fine. It was the occupation afterwards that failed. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar somehow...

 

Well, yes.....the latest installment of this I predicted when we first invaded......

[bigfngun]

Does anyone know when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began to unravel?

Was it from the beginning?

 

Not too long after that:

The Washington Post

 

February 25, 1980, Monday, Final Edition

 

Soviet Newspaper Acknowledges Widespread Unrest in Afghanistan

 

SECTION: First Section; A10

 

LENGTH: 480 words

 

 

 

The Soviet press, for the first time since Moscow's military intervention in Afghanistan two months ago, yesterday issued major reports of widespread unrest there and blamed foreign-backed "counter-revolutionaries."

In its report from Kabul, Pravda said, "Today Kabul has not yet returned to normal life. It is felt, however, that the peak of the insurgency has passed." Pravda added that "the army and militia are fully in control of the situation."

 

 

 

Clashes between opponents of the Soviet-installed Marxist government in Afghanistan and Afghan and Soviet forces have caused hundreds of casualties in Kabul and other cities in recent days, according to reliable but sketchy reports.

Journalists trying to fly to Kabul from Pakistan were barred from boarding the plane yesterday at the request, Pakistan airline officials said, of the Afghan government.

 

Meanwhile the Afghan government launched a vigorous campaign to persuade the public that Soviet troops were in Afghanistan because of a serious threat to that country's national security and would leave whenever the Afghan government asked them to.

 

A Soviet radio station added a new element to that campaign by charging yesterday that U.S. ambassador Adolph Dubs, killed in Kabul a year ago, was murdered by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of a plot to destabilize the Afghan government.

 

Dubs was killed when Afghan troops stormed a hotel room where he was being held hostage by unidentified Afghan gunmen. U.S. officials had pleaded with Afghan authorities and their Soviet advisers to refrain from such action.

 

Prava's account quoted Abdurrashid Aryan, the Afghan justice minister, as saying it was clear from violent demonstrations Friday that Kabul had been infiltrated with trained agents from abroad.

 

Their task, Aryan said, had been to stir up unrest and religious strife, sabotage decisions of the government, wreck the economy and hinder Afghanistan's Marxist revolution.

 

The unusually detailed account of unrest contrasted with previous Soviet press coverage of Afghanistan, which has reported only sporadic violence and suggested that the new Marxist government of Babrak Karmal was winning increasing popular support.

 

Afghan sources in New Delhi said they received reports from Kabul yesterday that Soviet troops had blocked access to bridges over the river that dissects the city, splitting the Afghan capital in two in an apparent attempt to protect the Soviet Embassy and a Soviet housing area from demonstrators.

 

Meanwhile, reports circulated in India and Pakistan that two of Babrak Karmal's closest advisers, Vice President Sultan Ali Kishtmand and Mahmud Bariyari, have died in Soviet hospitals of wounds suffered in an unexplained gun battle in the capital Feb. 7.

 

The Afghan Embassy in Moscow denied the reports as "nonsense and absolute propaganda."

[konev]

Um, predictions that were dead wrong....

 

Nikita Sergeievich Khrusckev..."WE WILL BURY YOU"....[Did I offend members of Daily Kos????, TOO F BAD!}

 

konev

[Redbeard]

What about all the interwar hype about "the bomber will allways get through" and general overestimation of the effect of bombing?

 

Or Hitler's idea about kicking in the door to USSR, and the whole house will come down.

 

Or just about anything comical Ali said.

 

Regards

 

Steffen Redbeard

[DKTanker]

Ad nauseum, "The tank is dead".

[Jim Martin]

As far as I remember, the invasion turned out just fine. It was the occupation afterwards that failed. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar somehow...

 

 

Right, except that in both our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, our casualty rates are far lower than what the Sovs took, and would have been quite politically sustainable under their system.

 

As to great predictions, take a look at pretty much any British MOD White Paper.

 

Examples:

 

The interceptor fighter is dead, we only need SAMs now. (BOMARC)

 

and

 

The age of the aerial gunfight is over, aircraft only need AAMs now.

 

[Jim Martin]

Oh yeah--Gen Omar Bradley testifying before Congress, "I can foresee no circumstance in which an opposed amphibious invasion will ever be conducted again" (so kill the USMC, won't you please?)

 

2 years later, Inchon.

[swerve]

...

 

As to great predictions, take a look at pretty much any British MOD White Paper.

 

Examples:

 

The interceptor fighter is dead, we only need SAMs now. (BOMARC)

 

and

 

The age of the aerial gunfight is over, aircraft only need AAMs now.

 

 

The latter was believed by the USN, wasn't it? IIRC they had an F-4 model with no gun in the 1960s. At least the MoD waited until there were effective, reliable AAMs to try to kill the Typhoons gun, & (after some money & time-wasting) dropped the idea.

[Jim Martin]

The latter was believed by the USN, wasn't it? IIRC they had an F-4 model with no gun in the 1960s. At least the MoD waited until there were effective, reliable AAMs to try to kill the Typhoons gun, & (after some money & time-wasting) dropped the idea.

 

 

Actually, the MOD White Paper to which I refer dates back to the 1950's when they confidently proclaimed the death of the Age of Aerial Gunnery...

 

And yes, the USN fell victim to this delusion as well.

[harryRIEDL]

Right, except that in both our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, our casualty rates are far lower than what the Sovs took, and would have been quite politically sustainable under their system.

 

As to great predictions, take a look at pretty much any British MOD White Paper.

 

Examples:

 

The interceptor fighter is dead, we only need SAMs now. (BOMARC)

 

and

 

The age of the aerial gunfight is over, aircraft only need AAMs now.

 

the Royal navy has no need of an aircraft carrier as it feels that it would not be nessery in 1970 as Britain doesn't invade countries without allies

[p620346]

Didn't just about everybody predict that both the American Civil War and WW I to be over by Christmas??

Edited March 10, 2008 by p620346

[KingSargent]

What about all the interwar hype about "the bomber will allways get through" and general overestimation of the effect of bombing?

The general over-estimation of the effect of bombing was inexcusable. There was nothing behind it except Douhetian fantasy, and no one bothered to experiment to find what the actual results of the bomb hitting would be - well, the navies experimented with effects of bombs on ships.

 

"The bomber will always get through" did have truth behind it before the days of radar and ground-controlled interception. IOW, without radar on the ground and small voice radios in the planes - both developments of the late 1930s - the chances of an intercept were slim. Unless a fighter patrol just HAPPENED to be in the right place at the right time the bomber was going to get to the target; it might not get away, but the target (theoretically) would be in no shape to care.

 

The USN, IJN, and RN all came close to abandoning fighters in the 1930s. The USN fighter squadrons were saved because they were useful as light-dive-bombers. The IJN didn't use their fighters as interceptors, but they found them useful as bomber escorts over China. Since the RN fighters had to be two-place anyway (to carry a navigator since the RAF-supplied pilots could not navigate), they were useful as fast recon - observation planes. Of course the Skua became a mediocre dive-bomber and a worse fighter.*

 

* I know, I know - the Skua scored the first air-to-air kill. And since a bunch of them attacked three lumbering German flying-boats and two of those got away, I am not horribly impressed. The Skua also scored the first dive-bomber kill of a major warship. Begging the question of whether a 6600-ton light cruiser is a "major warship," the CL in question had been immobilized by Norwegian coast gunners and may have sunk anyway without the bombs.

 

The fact that the RN chucked the Skua with indecent haste when USian carrier planes (and USian naval aviator training) became available should speak for itself.

[KingSargent]

Didn't just about everybody predict that both the American Civil War and WW I to be over by Christmas??

All wars will be over by Christmas, at least in Christian nations.

 

Of course it's always "I meant Christmas of NEXT year" until they finally get it right.

[swerve]

Actually, the MOD White Paper to which I refer dates back to the 1950's when they confidently proclaimed the death of the Age of Aerial Gunnery...

 

And yes, the USN fell victim to this delusion as well.

 

I stand corrected: they made the same mistake twice.

[DKTanker]

Didn't just about everybody predict that both the American Civil War and WW I to be over by Christmas??

Korean War was supposed to be over Christmas of 1950 as well. Also some idiots thought the European portion of WW2 would be over by Christmas '44.

 

What it really means is that stupid predictions always look stupid in hindsight.

[ShotMagnet]

...nuclear release authority devolved down to Sergeants was a good idea.

I was a sergeant. I wouldn't have let me loose with NRA. At that; while I might not have been the shiniest apple in the barrel, I wouldn't have trusted anyone else in my squadron and wearing stripes with nukes.

 

Favorite 'great predictions':

 

'Blacks can't fight as well as white troops'

'Gays can't fight as well as straight troops'

'Women can't fight as well as men'

 

And the notion that WWI was the 'War to end all wars'.

 

 

Shot

[Ssnake]

Korean War was supposed to be over Christmas of 1950 as well. Also some idiots thought the European portion of WW2 would be over by Christmas '44.

 

What it really means is that stupid predictions always look stupid in hindsight.

Well, had Patton had his way - early involvement with the landing, assignment to a push role and not to mop up Normandy, to complete the German encirclement at the Falaise pocket, to push deeply to the east and not the north during the battle of the bulge - the war in Europe might actually have been over much earlier, maybe even by Christmas '44. I don't think it was a total pipedream, though the personality conflict around Patton and his peers certainly makes it difficult to imagine an alternate history where he would have been given the necessary degree of freedom to act. You would have needed a different Bradley, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and a different head of Theater Supplies.

With a complete encirclement near Falaise the Wehrmacht could not have performed the orderly retreat/delay that it performed in France, so either it would have made it mandatory to pull many divisions from the east front to shore up the west (and hence the risk of a collapse there) - or the allied forces in France could have reached the Rhine within three weeks, not the five months that it took after those two weeks in August. Not closing the encirclement at Falaise really was one of the biggest possible blunders.

[KingSargent]

Well, had Patton had his way - early involvement with the landing, assignment to a push role and not to mop up Normandy, to complete the German encirclement at the Falaise pocket, to push deeply to the east and not the north during the battle of the bulge - the war in Europe might actually have been over much earlier, maybe even by Christmas '44. I don't think it was a total pipedream, though the personality conflict around Patton and his peers certainly makes it difficult to imagine an alternate history where he would have been given the necessary degree of freedom to act. You would have needed a different Bradley, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and a different head of Theater Supplies.

With a complete encirclement near Falaise the Wehrmacht could not have performed the orderly retreat/delay that it performed in France, so either it would have made it mandatory to pull many divisions from the east front to shore up the west (and hence the risk of a collapse there) - or the allied forces in France could have reached the Rhine within three weeks, not the five months that it took after those two weeks in August. Not closing the encirclement at Falaise really was one of the biggest possible blunders.

The only problem with giving Patton his head is where was he going to go?

 

Sure he could have crossed the Rhine - in South Germany.

 

Monty was at least correct that the North German plain was the area to go for. Too bad he wasn't the guy to do it.

 

What I think would have worked is:

 

1] Let George close the Falais Pocket and close up on the Seine;

 

2] Let Hodges grind the Pocket up and clean out SW France and link up with the DRAGOONs. He can have Paris to salve his pride.

 

3] This leaves us with Monty and Georgie on the Seine. Tell them "Go North, young men!" and watch the race. This concentrates the punch, prevents supply lines scattered all over France, and gets us at least to the Rhine in Holland before we run out of gas. Gas resupply would come quicker with an earlier opening of Antwerp. Hodges and 6thAG draw supply from Marseilles after the linkup.

[BansheeOne]

Best non event predicted was by JC Fuller, who won a prize in the 1920s predicting a giant fleet of submarines that could surface off an enemy coast, and unleash a torrent of amphibious tanks to take the enemy by surprise. He was never strong on naval matters apparently....

 

A-ha! That was the reference I asked for in the submarine carrier thread. Unfortunately Google yields no further results, but thanks anyway.

[BansheeOne]

Much appreciated, TIA.

[lastdingo]

The general over-estimation of the effect of bombing was inexcusable. There was nothing behind it except Douhetian fantasy, and no one bothered to experiment to find what the actual results of the bomb hitting would be - well, the navies experimented with effects of bombs on ships.

 

Douhet and the likes actually expected the use of poison gas in bombs. So they were somehow never proved to have misunderstood effectiveness - just what types of munition would be employed.

 

 

 

"Great" predictions:

 

- Iraq's oil revenues would pay its reconstruction phase (Wolfowitz and other Neocons)

 

- Submarines would kill surface ships with immunity (Jules Verne, ok, does not really fit the topic)

 

- Missiles will make manned airplanes obsolete quickly (50's Brits, and probably even more people today)

 

- Imperial German "risk fleet" would deter the British

 

- French expectations for a trench war in 1940

 

- Domino theory (ok, it's a more political than military)

 

- "American" 21st century (same)

[Rocky Davis]

Favorite 'great predictions':

 

'Blacks can't fight as well as white troops'

'Gays can't fight as well as straight troops'

'Women can't fight as well as men'

 

Shot

 

Those are not “predictions,” those are personal opinions with no basis of thought or empirical analysis when the opinions were made by whomever made them.

 

And, being that the title of this thread is “Great predictions in military history., Predictions that were DEAD WRONG,” then I am assuming that the three “predictions” you list above have been proven to be “dead wrong.”

 

Please post empirical data, studies or whatever proving that the “predictions” you list above have been undeniably determined to be “dead wrong.”

 

Don’t spend a whole lot of time doing it, because there are none.

 

Every group or sub-group within the ranks has its heroes and its zeroes. So, please spare us from further pseudo-sociological, feel-good crap.