New D-Day vehicles for the Canadian army

[malcolm erik bogaert]

this is what makes the MLU furum best in the world....it gets down to the nitty gritty....best regards from a rather wet north-northumberland . malcolm

[Ed Storey]

Peter, please reread my posts. Nowhere did I say that Veterans were liars, that is your wordiong and your take on what was posted. As for using Veterans as sources, they are but one source, a human source.

With respect to Peter, I always find it strange that when people are challenged to support their statements and theories with some form of tangable proof, ie documents or at times even photographs they start with a 'smoke screen' in this case you work at the QOR Museum and then also fall back on how many years collecting they have. Both of those credentials are great, but where are the facts? Once the 'smoke screen' thins and they still cannot provide any supporting proff then it is the old story, of not ever going to post agian because the 'experts' are giving me a hard time. Peter, you work at the QOR Museum, you are sitting on what could potentially be a huge resource of information, mine it, find the answers and post them, don't run off.

[Ed Storey]

Damn I forgot to run it through spell check before posting, disregard the typos...

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

I work for a very large organization. Our head office routinely sends out directives, instructions and records the activities of the branch offices. In practice, 10% of it is followed, and even less of what goes on is recorded. Should someone want to study and analyze my employer's organization 60 years from now, and relied on the written record, they would get a woefully distorted picture of how things are today. There's a theory that says to understand the past, look to the forces that drive the present.

In my line of work, we rely on 'best evidence' when original evidence is not forthcoming. There's also a 'priority of evidence' rule: physical evidence is most reliable, followed by secondary evidence that reasonably dates to a time when original evidence existed and last, oddly enough, written records. The thinking is that you rely on those things humans are least likely to mistake. I haven't been fired yet so I must be doing something right.

And I don't think it's running off. It's more selecting where you choose to share your knowledge.

[servicepub (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Bruce Parker

I haven't been fired yet so I must be doing something right.

Actually, you just haven't been caught yet

[horsa]

One problem with written records and orders is they are a snapshot of what was in theory to take place at a given time. Without analysis of documents issued following that time and a study of the physical evidence including photographs, you won't know if a given set of orders were followed or the plan was revised or abandoned completely by later orders. Look at Army Council Instructions as an example of ever changing procedures to normal documented practices. And even then you can’t rely exclusively on the documents since the units may not have all received them or in some cases didn’t follow them for various other reasons.

Overall a tough forensic exercise.

[servicepub (RIP)]

David,
I don't disagree with this. Orders, and any written instructions, are there to give an overall direction in which to proceed. Good managers invariably implement these instructions taking into consideration the resources available to them, the manpower restraints, local conditions, etc... and this causes them to weave along the path - staggering from side to side but still moving in the general direction.
If everyone were to go in their own direction - which could be 180 degrees off-track, then there would be no order. The result would be chaos and armies are not generally know for that.
Clive
"No plan ever survives the Start-Line"