Combat Effectiveness Quotes

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

He who strikes first can defeat the enemy. He who strikes last will be beaten

I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.

To expect ... the same service from raw and undisciplined recruits, as from veteran soldiers, is to expect what never did and perhaps never will happen. Men, who are familiarized to danger, meet it without shrinking; whereas troops unused to service often apprehend danger where no danger is.

The cost of deploying one U. S. soldier is the equivalent to the cost of deploying 70 Afghan soldiers.

Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques which serve its end.

One cannot think that blind bravery gives victory over the enemy.

They were certainly not soldiers. They were as ignorant of the alphabet of obedience as their officers were of the art of commanding. And yet they acquitted themselves reasonably well, a fact which can be explained only by reference to the causes of their insubordination in camp. These men were the people of the South, and the war was their own; wherefore they fought to win it of their own accord, and not at all because their officers commanded them to do so. Their personal spirit and their intelligence were their sole elements of strength. Death has few terrors for such men, as compared with dishonor, and so they needed no officers at all, and no discipline, to insure their personal good conduct on the field of battle. The same elements of character, too, made them accept hardship with the utmost cheerfulness…

The worse the troops the greater the need of artillery.

We have the best military in the world.

The trouble with General Hooker is that he has his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.

In war, moral factors acount for three quarters of the whole; relative material strength accounts for only one quarter.

War is the great auditor of military institutions.

Drafted soldiers are far more likely to die in combat than long-service professionals. Military leaders know from painful experience that it takes years to produce a fully competent combat soldier.

During the first two months of the war it was the Anarchists more than anyone else who had saved the situation, and much later than this the Anarchist militia, in spite of their indiscipline, were notoriously the best fighters among the purely Spanish forces.

Superior numbers versus superior firepower. A recipe for unending slaughter.

All military history records the triumphs of discipline and courage far more frequently than numbers and resources

It's worth two divisions to me.

When our new armies are ready it seems folly to send them to Flanders, where they will chew barbed wire, or be wasted in futile frontal attacks.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

History tells us that a general can move and feed an army as efficiently as he likes, but the real litmus test is the battlefield.

In war, only the simple succeeds.

In military science there is a principle more important than "Forward": it is that the task should be proportionate to the means.

I dare say the men would fight very well if properly officered, although they are an exceedingly dirty and nasty people.