Every so often an observer will encounter a war (the Ukraine conflict being the most recent) and then find that numbers, firepower, and the dreaded capital-A Attrition still matter, as they always have. Some of this is just seeing technological hype being inevitably worn down by realistic imperfection. But more of it is just because of the annoying way the Liddell-Hart/Boyd/Lind “MANEUVER WAR” crowd has wormed its way into military discourse.

Ok, so a lot of it is just WWII mythology of the Germans running circles around the French. But guess who’s amplified all that? Yep, the maneuverists. And in Liddell Hart’s case going all the way back to the first ever recorded battles where the “Indirect Approach” always won. So much as how people become legitimately shocked when, after a long dose of Pierre Spreyism, it turns out a new piece of military equipment actually works, they also become shocked when it turns out that fortifications are indeed viable if not essential, that the Big Breakthrough is hard, that maneuver has limits, and that there are few substitutes for force and attrition.

Studying actual doctrine even in maneuverist periods doesn’t make one surprised. After all, a Sov Kras Don Circ Heavy Opfor operational maneuver group gets going with a massive breakthrough concentration of firepower and stays going through mobile organic firepower. But going by popular media does.