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71	The Limits of Fire Support: American Finances and Firepower Restraint during the Vietnam War Hawkins, John Michael 16 December 2013 (has links) Excessive unobserved firepower expenditures by Allied forces during the Vietnam War defied the traditional counterinsurgency principle that population protection should be valued more than destruction of the enemy. Many historians have pointed to this discontinuity in their arguments, but none have examined the available firepower records in detail. This study compiles and analyzes available, artillery-related U.S. and Allied archival records to test historical assertions about the balance between conventional and counterinsurgent military strategy as it changed over time. It finds that, between 1965 and 1970, the commanders of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Generals William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams, shared significant continuity of strategic and tactical thought. Both commanders tolerated U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Allied unobserved firepower at levels inappropriate for counterinsurgency and both reduced Army harassment and interdiction fire (H&I) as a response to increasing budgetary pressure. Before 1968, the Army expended nearly 40 percent of artillery ammunition as H&I – a form of unobserved fire that sought merely to hinder enemy movement and to lower enemy morale, rather than to inflict any appreciable enemy casualties. To save money, Westmoreland reduced H&I, or “interdiction” after a semantic name change in February 1968, to just over 29 percent of ammunition expended in July 1968, the first full month of Abrams’ command. Abrams likewise pursued dollar savings with his “Five-by-Five Plan” of August 1968 that reduced Army artillery interdiction expenditures to nearly ten percent of ammunition by January 1969. Yet Abrams allowed Army interdiction to stabilize near this level until early 1970, when recurring financial pressure prompted him to virtually eliminate the practice. Meanwhile, Marines fired H&I at historically high rates into the final months of 1970 and Australian “Harassing Fire” surpassed Army and Marine Corps totals during the same period. South Vietnamese artillery also fired high rates of H&I, but Filipino and Thai artillery eschewed H&I in quiet areas of operation and Republic of Korea [ROK] forces abandoned H&I in late 1968 as a direct response to MACV’s budgetary pressure. Financial pressure, rather than strategic change, drove MACV’s unobserved firepower reductions during the Vietnam War. 11th marines 12th marines abrams air force allied american way of war ammunition army artillery attrition arvn australian b-52 birtle budget cap cea classical clausewitz clifford coled-v collins communist congress constraints conventional counter-battery counterinsurgency dollar expenditures filipino finances fire support firepower five-by-five free world military fwmaf h&i haines harold harrassment hunt hybrid interdiction johnson kalergis komer korean krepinevich laird leonard taylor lewy lyndon macv marines mcnamara mekong nagl new zealand nixon nva observed operations philippine preemptive preparatory resor restraint riverine rok savings sensors sorley south vietnamese strategy summers tactics thai third country trinity unconventional unobserved usarv van fleet viet cong vietnam westmoreland wheeler wise men
72	Latinský západ v zrcadle byzantského dějepisectví (6.-8.stol.) / Latin West mirrored by the Byzantine historiography (6th-8th centuries) Bakyta, Ján January 2014 (has links) The basic aim of the thesis is to investigate whether the Romans of the East (Byzantines) during the 6th to the 8th centuries were interested in the Latin west and the imperial rule over it. In the first part of the work, the various discourses concerning the origins of the Justinianic conquest or reconquest of Africa and Italy articulated in the contemporary sources are identified and evaluated; the only one which cannot be shown or supposed to have been officially articulated is the discourse of a source of Pseudo-Zachariah Scholasticus which makes African and maybe also Italian exulants complaining in the imperial court about the local rulers responsible for the Vandal and Gothic wars. After some other preliminary studies (e.g. concerning the so-called problem of Theodericʼs constitutional position), it is concluded that the emperor Justinian was not interested in an ideologically founded restoration of the empire, but made the western wars because of his contacts with western aristocrats. In the second part of the thesis, the presentation of the Justinianic western wars and western events or realities in the works of the Byzantine historians from Marcellinus Comes and Procopius to Theophylactus Simocatta (the 6th to the early 7th centuries) is investigated and an attempt is made to explore...

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The Limits of Fire Support: American Finances and Firepower Restraint during the Vietnam War

Latinský západ v zrcadle byzantského dějepisectví (6.-8.stol.) / Latin West mirrored by the Byzantine historiography (6th-8th centuries)