Chapter 2551 Mess

Faced with such a predicament, General Nathaniel Green, the quartermaster of the Continental Army, could only laugh at himself bitterly:

"From the perspective of saving bullets, the fact that our army is equipped with too few guns is not all a bad thing."

It's okay to have a disorganized army and outdated equipment. What worries General Vasa even more is that there is a serious "regional bias" within the army, which is also reflected in the senior officer class.

The three colonies on the east coast of the New World, Jotunheim in the north, Midgard in the middle, and Alfheim in the south, from geography, climate, products, customs and traditions, eating habits, dialect accents to ways of thinking There are great differences. The Continental Army is composed of officers and soldiers from the three colonies. Southerners and northerners get together and often dislike each other. Sectarianism is inevitable.

From the first day the Continental Army was created, the topic of "North-South balance" cannot be avoided.

The Continental Army mainly comes from the north. In order to balance the forces between the north and the south, the Continental Congress specially appointed George Vassar, who was born in the south, as the commander-in-chief. I was wronged.

In order to appease the officers of northern origin, the Continental Congress appointed George Vassar a deputy commander in chief, General Benedict Laval.

Before Vasa took office, General Laval was the de facto commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. This person's ability to lead troops in battle is undeniable, but his reputation is mixed.

The nickname "Butcher" is not a good word, and Laval is too close to the "Conquer Order", and has used the power of demons on the battlefield more than once, which has attracted a lot of criticism.

The reputation is not good or bad. What is more troublesome is that Laval is a man with high self-esteem and narrow-mindedness. He has always been worried about the Continental Congress choosing Vassar instead of him as the commander-in-chief. It is difficult to expect him to assist wholeheartedly George Vassar.

Before accepting the letter of appointment, Laval also issued a list of more than 30 old subordinates, and asked the Continental Congress to add officials and titles to his old subordinates one by one.

Considering that these officers are the backbones trained by General Laval himself, and they are indeed outstanding, the Continental Congress agreed to General Laval's request.

However, in the eyes of the southern representatives, General Laval's actions are clearly self-serving, forming cliques, forming small groups in the army, and trying to establish another hill.

Most of the middle and high-level officers in the army are Laval's old subordinates. If Laval intends to evade George Vassar, the latter will become a "bare commander" and will not be able to exercise his power.

In order to eliminate this hidden danger, it is still necessary to strike a "balance" among the officers, so the Continental Congress appointed a large number of middle and high-level officers from the south, and added a deputy commander in chief and chief of staff, whose status surpassed that of Laval. One head, second only to Vasa.

The general who served as the deputy commander-in-chief and chief of staff is not a "fuel-efficient lamp", but George Vassar's old boss, General Charles Gates.

The Ashan Empire belonged to the colonial era, and Charles Gates served as the commander of the garrison of the Alfheim Colony. George Vassar was a subordinate of General Gates from the day he joined the army. It was not until after the Continental Congress that he became the boss of his old boss. This made the arrogant and conceited General Gates feel very embarrassed. It was also lukewarm.

In fact, long before taking office, Vassar and Gates quarreled over how the Continental Army should fight.

General Gates insisted that due to the lack of guns and cannons in the Continental Army, most of the soldiers were rural farmers and dock workers, who seriously lacked military literacy and actual combat experience. Confront the Fizhen army head-on on an open battlefield, avoiding large-scale group battles.

"The correct approach should be to break up the Continental Army into parts and disperse them into company-based mobile units, make full use of the complex environment of the mountainous jungles in the Jotunheim area, and fight 'guerrilla warfare' against the Feiren."

"The enemy army left the city and the fortress, and exposed itself to the ubiquitous guerrilla guns, constantly harassed and pinned down, exhausted in the long and hopeless security battle, and exhausted their vitality , can only give up military conquest in the end.”

Vassar admitted that General Gates' strategic approach centered on "protracted warfare" and "guerrilla warfare" had merit, but he absolutely did not agree with breaking the Continental Army into pieces and turning it into a force scattered across the countryside, lacking Presence of Armed Forces.

Yes, Vasa is very concerned about the "presence" of the Continental Army.

Although the current Continental Army is actually a group of mobs, and it does not have the strength to confront the Feizhen Army at all. It is true that, as General Gates said, it is more suitable to be dispersed into small units and fight guerrilla warfare, but more than 30,000 people gather together. Quite huge, looks like a regular army.

Vasa was eager to train the "grass team"-like Continental Army into an Old World-style regular army, not only because he himself preferred upright tactics, but also because of two practical factors that forced him not to disperse the troops.

First of all, the soldiers of the Continental Army are all "contract workers". When they serve in the army, they sign a contract.

The biggest problem with this kind of short-term mercenary is that they have a bad mentality. They regard the commander as an employer, do as much work as they get, and even do nothing with money.

Vasa brought these mercenaries together, trained them and strictly restrained them. He strengthened the cohesion of the troops by appointing officers at all levels and strengthening ideological education. If the troops were dispersed, these militias would immediately become a mess and let go No, where can I find it?

The commander issued an order, God knows if it can be conveyed to the guerrillas everywhere, let alone how many guerrillas will strictly implement the order, the generals don't know the soldiers, the soldiers don't know the generals, it's completely muddled!

Fighting guerrilla warfare requires strong organizational capabilities and a sound communication network. The current Continental Army does not have such conditions. The commander still lacks effective control over the troops concentrated in the barracks, so there is no need to disperse the troops to fight guerrilla warfare.

If Vasa agrees to do this, he will really become a polished commander.

Of course, he did not completely deny General Gates' proposal.

Guerrilla warfare would have a place in his operational plan, but only as a supplement to the conventional operations of the Continental Army.

The top priority is to strictly manage the army and train a regular army capable of fighting tough battles. Only in this way can it attract the attention of the Fizhen military and gain more space for the guerrillas to infiltrate behind enemy lines.

...

·Historical material: Strategic differences between Washington and Lee ("A Brief History of the American Revolutionary War" [British] Stephen Conway))

In the first months of 1776, as the British government continued to prepare for that year's fighting, the Americans prepared for the coming offensive.

The arrival of a powerful Royal Navy meant that the entire coastline of the rebel states was exposed to attack. In the provocative words of another former British officer in the Continental Army, Charles Lee, "the enemy [with canvas wings] can fly from one place to another".

When the British landed, Lee believed that the only way the Americans could win was by radical measures. He believed that rebels without combat experience could not compete with the British in conventional warfare. On the contrary, he suggested that the U.S. military should continue to exist as a form of militia force, and should not confront the British army head-on, but should conduct guerrilla warfare with the British army.

Washington, on the other hand, is determined to build a European-style army and carry out frontal combat. Early in life he aspired to be an officer in the regular army. His personal temperament and social background determined that he didn't like that kind of decentralized combat, because he and other senior generals didn't have much control over this kind of combat.

Guerrilla warfare would have a place in Washington's operational plans, but only as a supplement to the Continental Army's conventional operations.