Patterns of Conflict
| The works of |
| Works of John Boyd |
|---|
OODA WIKI Edition
Quantico Transcription
Okay? Now if we tie it all together, the influence of Napoleon, Clausewitz and Jomini, plus 19th century technology, you see, boy, that really all comes together. It really denied any opportunity to exploit these kinds of things, like surprise. It was done in all these wars: American Civil War all the way down to the second half of the 19th century—American Civil War all the way down to World War I. The point I’m trying to make here is the evolution of tactics did not keep pace with the increase of weapons’ lethality produced by the 19th century technology. This raises a rather interesting question. Why were the 19th century/early 20th century commanders unable to evolve better tactics to avoid over a half-century of debilitating casualties? Now, I’m going to pretend we’re back in the 19th century and we don’t know that answer. We’re going to answer that question after we get up to World War I. Right now, we’ll play we’re all dummies. We’re going to answer that. I’m going to delay the answer.