Tactics - books

IanBruntlett

IanBruntlett

Emperor Mongoose
I'm looking forward for the new ACTA.

While I'm waiting for the stuff to be made available, I would like to improve my tactics. Years ago I read Sun Tsu's "The art of war". Are there any other books I should read?
 
So does von Clausewitz 'On War' or there's a very good bit concerning military strategy in Machiavelli's 'The Prince'.

However - if you want some reading that is a bit closer to ACTA - try looking for the old BabCom e-zines - they had some very good tactics articles primarily designed for the old fleet action games, but very applicable to ACTA.

This article here: ftp://ftp.grognard.com/download/games/board/tactics.txt is also very good.
 
For fleet stuff? Alfred Thayer Mahan, for strategy, or Eric Grove for History.

Clausewitz or Jomeni for land strategy in the Napoleonic period (or so), though these apply today.

Mitchell and... Lidell Hart are also good.

I'm honestly not doing a military history course :roll:
 
lastbesthope said:
IanBruntlett said:
BFalcon said:
Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings springs to mind...
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... right into my Amazon shopping basket :)
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There's the Book of the Samurai, I always liked, was read by Forest Whitaker's character in Ghost Dog way of the Samurai

LBH
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It's a good book, but it is less about tactics than it is about Bushido; as such it is a 'way' - Musashi's book builds on this and goes further into areas of tactics - he shows that there is no difference in the tactics used for defeating 1, 10 or 1,000 opponents (which should endear him to wargamers, lol!). Imho - Musashi's would be the superior book.
 
Rick: Musashi's book also applies, apparently, to business - I've heard that Japanese businessmen have successfully applied it to, shall we say, more aggressive business operations... eg the sticking sword = not letting up the pressure on a business opponent so he has time to think or do more than react to your own moves.
 
BFalcon said:
Rick: Musashi's book also applies, apparently, to business - I've heard that Japanese businessmen have successfully applied it to, shall we say, more aggressive business operations... eg the sticking sword = not letting up the pressure on a business opponent so he has time to think or do more than react to your own moves.
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It's not too difficult to make the crossover - business has always been seen as a sort of battle - and it has spread throughout the corporate world now, not just Japan. Musashi wrote about the psychology of the winning mindset (not in those sorts of words, of course!) centuries before it was recognised in the west - he called it the 'spirit' and wrote about a successful attack flowing from the strong (ie - confident) spirit through into contact with an opponent. If you can understand and apply his teachings, it can be a very good book on general strategies.

Btw - my book must be a different translation to yours - mine has that particular technique as 'to apply stickiness'. :twisted:

Actually - just to go off at a slight tangent; there are strong misconceptions surrounding both Musashi's and Machiavelli's books - and for slightly similiar reasons. Machiavelli has been reviled for just a small section in his book where he suggests that a strong Prince must be completely ruthless and devious in dealing with the competition (not bad advice given the context of the time it was written in). Musashi's book has been connected with some of the more aggressive dealings of Japanese business, when it actually can be read as a 'way' or guide to life. It's been used in Japan for a long time outside of the Samurai or Business classes as such and I've seen techniques such as the 'crossing at the ford' discussed in terms of guiding decisions in everyday life. Ok, I'll get off me soapbox now, lol! :roll:
 
I've noticed there are multiple different translated versions of the Five Rings book, is there any consensus on which translation is best?

LBH
 
lastbesthope said:
I've noticed there are multiple different translated versions of the Five Rings book, is there any consensus on which translation is best?

LBH
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It's the same with the Art of War - I've got 3 different translations! They don't seem to differ too much in translation - but the comments by different people are interesting. I wouldn't know where to begin by comparing the different translations of Musashi! :shock:
 
LBH: If I could find mine, I'd give you the ISBN, translator and publisher so you could get that one - it's a pretty good version.
 
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