Opposing Combat Philosophies: Difference between revisions

* This came to the fore during the Second Punic War on the Roman side. With Hannibal smashing one Roman army after another in Italy, Quintus Fabius Maximus came to lead a new Roman army to oppose the Carthaginians. Fabius used his army to shadow and harrass Hannibal, refusing the open battle Hannibal desired and all the while reducing Carthaginian morale, numbers, and supplies. However, this strategy was time consuming and the Romans wanted to smash Hannibal once and for all, so he instead placed the aggressive Gaius Terentius Varro in charge. He gave Hannibal an open battle, outnumbering him nearly 2-1....and had his army annihilated at the Battle of Cannae. In the end, Fabius was proven correct, since he knew that Hannibal would never have the manpower or resources to ever try and capture Rome, and knew Hannibal grossly underestimated Roman resolve.

* The opposing ground forces during the [[Cold War]] in Germany. NATO's philosophy was to have individually highly capable, but expensive chess pieces whose loss could be crippling. The Soviet/Warsaw Pact, on the other hand by comparison, was deliberately limiting the capability, initiative and equipment of each individual chess piece, and instead investing a large percentage of its effort in raising a breed of grand masters who could play chess well, understanding and accepting the natural limitations of each piece. In other words, a rank of bishops and rooks against three or four ranks of pawns.

 

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[[Category:Combat Tropes]]

[[Category:Opposing Combat Philosophies]]