John Gruden, Dreadnoughts, and the Army of the Potomac

[Cyanatic]

So I turn on the tv the other night, flip through the Comcast channels looking for something to watch…

NFL Game…hmmm, okay! I hate preseason, but wtf, it’s football. So it’s the Browns v Redskins game, 0-0, and the first words I hear spoken when I tune in:

“Washington has some big guys up front, I love those 300 pound chunk blockers…”

Gruden, you nostril-fucking, obnoxious, Captain Obvious, shit-spouting mother-fucker! Months of no NFL action and yours if the first voice I have to hear when I tune in to a preseason game!? Fuck you…beeeyotch! I should have put up an anti-Gruden post for Hammer right then and there.


I turned the tv off pretty quick.


Meanwhile, there are those who still question British Admiral Beatty’s deployment of his Dreadnoughts and Batttlecruisers during a crucial phase of the Battle of Jutland:

“Beatty's conduct during the next 15 minutes has received a great deal of criticism, as his ships out-ranged and outnumbered the German squadron, yet he held his fire for over 10 minutes with the German ships in range. He also failed to use the time available to rearrange his battlecruisers into a fighting formation, with the result that they were still manoeuvreing when the battle started.”

Of course, this doesn’t even compare to the fatal hesitation made by Union General Hooker during a critical point in the Battle of Chancelorsville:

“Despite being in a potentially favorable situation, Hooker halted his brief offensive. His actions may have demonstrated his lack of confidence in handling the complex actions of such a large organization for the first time (he had been an effective and aggressive division and corps commander in previous battles), but he had also decided before beginning the campaign that he would fight the battle defensively, forcing Lee, with his small army, to attack Hooker's larger one. At the [First] Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862), the Union army had done the attacking and met with a bloody defeat. Hooker knew Lee could not sustain such a defeat and keep an effective army in the field, so he ordered his men to withdraw back into the Wilderness and take a defensive position around Chancellorsville, daring Lee to attack him or retreat with superior forces at his back. He confused matters by issuing a second order to his subordinates to hold their positions until 5 p.m., but by the time it was received, most of the Union units had begun their rearward movements. That evening, Hooker sent a message to his corps commanders, "The major general commanding trusts that a suspension in the attack to-day will embolden the enemy to attack him.

Hooker's subordinates were surprised and outraged by the change in plans. They saw that the position they were fighting for near the Zoan Church was relatively high ground and offered an opportunity for the infantry and artillery to deploy outside the constraints of the Wilderness. Meade exclaimed, "My God, if we can't hold the top of the hill, we certainly can't hold the bottom of it!" Viewing through the lens of hindsight, some of the participants and many modern historians judged that Hooker effectively lost the campaign on May 1. Stephen W. Sears observed, however, that Hooker's concern was based on more than personal timidity. The ground being disputed was little more than a clearing in the Wilderness, to which access was available by only two narrow roads. The Confederate response had swiftly concentrated the aggressive Stonewall Jackson's corps against his advancing columns such that the Federal army was outnumbered in that area, about 48,000 to 30,000, and would have difficulty maneuvering into effective lines of battle. Meade's two divisions on the River Road were too far separated to support Slocum and Sykes, and reinforcements from the rest of the II Corps and the III Corps would be too slow in arriving.”

CONCLUSION: Both Beatty and Hooker would have been far more successful had they trained their forces to provide the kind of wham blocking that would have gained them chunk yardage in open space.

[Tobywan]

It is amazing that the Union prevailed with the likes of Hooker, McClellan, Burnside, Hood and Bragg.

[Cyanatic]

Hood and Bragg were Confederate. Just sayin...

[schisno]

stop talking like you know anything about history you punk kid.

[Tobywan]

I got Hood mixed up, but Edward Stuyvesant Bragg was part of the debacle at the Battle of Chancellorsville, though to a lesser degree than Hooker.

[Mach]

hammer likes hookers.

[Cyanatic]

I got Hood mixed up, but Edward Stuyvesant Bragg was part of the debacle at the Battle of Chancellorsville, though to a lesser degree than Hooker.

My bad. I was thinking of Braxton Bragg, the Confederate General with the monster eyebrows.

[Tobywan]

Funny, you should mention that Mach. While Gen. Hooker is not the original source of the term supposedly his "recruitment" of "ladies" at his headquarters and encampments led to the term becoming more popular.

[Tobywan]

Well, Braxton Bragg was pretty inept for the Confederacy, too.

[Tobywan]

Oh, to touch on the monster eyebrows, what about the beards and 'staches of those men? They put any today to shame, some of them were masterpieces.

[RF34]

Now we're getting somewhere...

[Cyanatic]

McGloin. Just sayin...

[Lynch]

Oh, to touch on the monster eyebrows, what about the beards and 'staches of those men? They put any today to shame, some of them were masterpieces.

In the immortal words of ol Abe...





Of course, there's a clause in there for women from Wisconsin and Italy

[Howie Felterbush]

My wife's from Wisconsin you fuck!! Just sayin.

[Tobywan]

Hey Lynch, I resemble that remark!