From: Tom B <kaladorn@g...>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 21:32:46 -0500
Subject: Limited Info Wargaming
Reading Death Valley AAR and the comments from Roger about why he held back (not knowing that he had Chris on the ropes).... in an odd episode of synchronicity, I was watching TV last night and saw a really neat program on the battle for Goose Green. In it, they talked about the shortcomings of the UK commander (how he got sucked into the battle at A company's position rather than maintaining the big picture and ended up getting killed... think he still got a big medal though...). But one of the most interesting points they brought out was that when the Argentinians in Goose Green (the village) surrendered, they did so because they felt they had failed to hold some of the key objectives which the UK took and so they were defeated and surrender was the sensible course. After the UK commander was killed in the fighting, the Paras rallied and took some key objectives to allow them to surround Goose Green. But THEY thought they'd failed in their objectives (to capture Goose Green). They offered the Argies a chance to surrender out of moxie/bluff, and the Argentinians bit. Turned out to be a damn good thing too. Instead of finding 100 or so Argentinians, they found many times that number in Goose Green. Urban combat there would have been rather a shock for the Paras. So it just goes to show that where intel is limited, people make vastly different decisions about how to procede. T. PS - The doco was pretty well done and gave good credit to some of the Argentinian soldiers. And it had a soft spot in my heart because the Paras were all lugging SLRs (FN C1 to me.... the weapon I trained on!) and they had weight issues with weapons and ammo..... (something I can relate to, having carried FN C1/C2 and the 7.62 FMJ ammo)