Tag: trainwreck

I never stop finding it amusing how the File 770 idiots will defend literally ANY position rather than accept the fact that I am correct about anything, no matter how obvious. Aaron is reliably the least intelligent commenter there, as he demonstrates with this comment in defense of the tactical incompetence demonstrated by military commanders Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton on A Game of Thrones:

I wonder if Beale actually watched the show, or if he just had it badly recounted to him. Bolton sent his cavalry first after goading Snow into the open, clearly hoping to kill Snow before help could arrive. It was only because the Stark cavalry counter charged that there was a cavalry battle. There was never an option for Bolton to receive the Stark cavalry with pikemen, because the Stark cavalry weren’t going to charge them but for Snow being exposed. For their part, the Starks had no pikemen to deploy against the Bolton cavalry.

All of Beale’s complaints about the battle that follow assume that Bolton could have simply waited for the Stark forces to launch their cavalry at the Bolton line and stop them with pikes, which would have required abject stupidity on the part of Snow. The complaint about not being prepared for the Knights of the Vale to arrive assume that Bolton could see the future and predict the arrival of reinforcements that even Snow didn’t know were coming. To be fair, Bolton should have had scouts out to look for additional forces, but he thought he knew the entire disposition of the Stark forces already.

In short, it seems that Beale didn’t pay attention to what was shown on screen, and didn’t understand what was happening.

That conclusion seems entirely credible, as anyone who has ever read A Throne of Bones, read any of the books by Lind or van Creveld published by Castalia, or played ASL will no doubt agree.

1. Aaron is defending how Ramsay sent out his ENTIRE cavalry to ride down a single man on foot instead simply killing Snow with a single arrow himself, or having his entire archery contingent turn him into a pincushion with dozens of arrows. Bolton had absolutely no need to put his cavalry at risk, or even to issue an order to anyone at all, to kill the enemy general.
2. What competent general would fail to understand that the enemy cavalry might ride out if he was dumb enough to give up his tactical and numerical advantages advancing it while leaving his infantry behind? At least the British tank commander who drove past his American infantry screen into the sights of the German tank destroyer in Band of Brothers was obeying what he knew to be suicidally stupid orders.
3. There was an option for Bolton to receive the Stark cavalry with pikemen; all he had to do was order his cavalry to disengage and circle back as soon as the Stark cavalry charged while advancing his pikemen. Ancient and medieval armies did this sort of thing all the time, particularly experienced, well-equipped, well-trained armies of the sort Bolton was commanding. That would have actually been a barely credible ruse that would depend upon the Stark cavalry being dumb enough to a) believe Bolton was launching a cavalry-first attack and b) respond to it with their own charge.
4. First, Bolton could have simply waited for Stark to launch their cavalry, or their infantry, for that matter, at them. Stark was attacking, after all, and Bolton had the leisure to choose to engage or not, as he saw fit. Second, the statement that it was implausible because it would have required “abject stupidity on the part of Snow” is laughable, considering that Snow is observably dumb enough to single-handedly charge the entire enemy army by himself.
5. Bolton didn’t need to see the future to know the Knights of the Vale were on their way to the battlefield. As a West Pointer noted yesterday, this marks the fourth time on the show that reinforcements have unexpectedly arrived and saved the day, because apparently no one in Westeros has ever heard of pickets, patrols, or even establishing a command post on a hillside that provides good visibility of the surroundings in all four directions. And it’s not as if Bolton was unaware of the relationship between Littlefinger and his wife or should have failed to at least anticipate the possibility of the Vale’s intervention. Remember, Ramsay Bolton was the commander who beat the man lauded as the best general in Westeros.
6. And there it is. The Gamma tell: “it seems….”

It’s clear that neither the producers of the episode, nor Aaron, has any idea how cavalry was, and is, used on the battlefield. It is a secondary arm; it is the infantry that is “the queen of the battlefield”. Hollywood likes horses because they are exciting and dramatic, but one should never allow oneself to be misguided into thinking that the tactics one is seeing on the screen are even remotely reasonable, let alone realistic or historically plausible.

It’s too bad, because during the planning session, it sounded as if they were setting up for a recreation of the Battle of Cannae and its famous double-envelopment. I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t, though, as soon as I saw the cavalry being prominently featured. Contra Hollywood, cavalry is primarily used to launch flanking and rear attacks, to strike the killing blow, and to exploit the victory that the infantry has already won, not to play the primary role in the outcome of the battle.

Ben Shapiro’s defenders are more than a little sensitive to his hypocrisy and shameless, well-documented cowardice:

Ben Shapiro ‏@benshapiro
Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level. His WSJ piece is written at a ninth-grade level.

Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
And you went to law school instead of serving your country while calling for other Americans to go to war.

THE Chris Coon ‏@Coondawg68
these PC SJW Trumpkins are now yelling “Chickenhawk!!” “Bu$Hitler lied!!” FFS…

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
Now? I observed that the coward @benshapiro was the Littlest Chickenhawk back in 2005

From my August 29, 2005 WND column, The Chickenhawk Clucks

 I – like 62 percent of the soldiers and veterans who frequent Vox Popoli and Blackfive – am in accord with the notion that “chickenhawk” is an appropriate label for a warmongering young columnist who urges others to make sacrifices he has no intention of making himself.

    Most of us realize that during wartime, sacrifices must be made … But taking such a stand requires common sense and the knowledge that we are in the midst of the great battle of our time.
    – Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, July 28, 2005

I would be remiss if I did not note that many of these military men and women favored a different 11-letter word that also begins with “chicken.”

The genuine flaw in the use of the “chickenhawk” label is that in most cases it is being applied years, even decades, after the fact, and inherently attempts to equate two different historical situations. However, due to Mr. Shapiro’s precocious position in the national media, this common flaw does not apply. While his peers are dodging sniper bullets and IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Shapiro is bravely urging them to invade five more countries in the establishment of global empire from the safety of his Harvard dorm room.

    Did Iraq pose an immediate threat to our nation? Perhaps not. But toppling Saddam Hussein and democratizing Iraq prevent his future ascendance and end his material support for future threats globally. The same principle holds true for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and others: Pre-emption is the chief weapon of a global empire. No one said empire was easy, but it is right and good, both for Americans and for the world.
    – Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, Aug. 11, 2005

The America Bar Association already boasts more than 896,000 lawyers, America has no desperate need for another one. The U.S. Army, on the other hand, is currently 8,000 men short of its 2005 recruiting goals. I am only one of many non-pacifist, non-leftist Americans who believe that Mr. Shapiro would do well to heed his own words of Aug. 26, 2004. “Now’s the time: Either put up, or shut the hell up.”

And before you ask, on January 18th, 1991, my friend Big Chilly and I went to the Roseville, Minnesota recruiting office and attempted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. Our enlistments were not accepted, in fact, the recruiter ripped up the papers after reading them over and asking us a few questions, but he also shook our hands and thanked us for being willing to serve our country.

So we never served, but we were ready and willing to do so without being asked. And that is something that Ben Shapiro, for all his hectoring bluster about the pressing need for Americans to die in war, was clearly not willing to do.

As further evidence The Complete List of SJW is effective, several of Shapiro’s defenders are extremely intent on having him removed from it. But unless and until he recants his public statement about hunting down and disemploying racists, (and assuming no further evidence of his social justice sympathies is discovered) he quite clearly belongs on it.