Grendel and Shock Troops

[Laura Blanchard]

Ellen Pinegar is temporarily unable to post to soc.history.medieval (her
system is being overhauled), but has given me permission to share this
bit from an e-mail.

Some of you may remember Grendel, the 26-pound cat whom Ellen hitched to
her vacuum cleaner with her reproduction of a Roman horse harness. Now
Grendel demonstrates shock tactics without any prompting. But let Ellen
tell it:

"Another personal observation of a topic under discussion - I got to see
shock tactics in action the other night. We had ordered a pizza
delivery and when the guy got there and we were doing the
money-for-pizza swap, Grendel _ran_ up behind him and took flight. He
crashed into the back of the poor guy's knees, dropping him prone on the
floor. Grendel had to stop and rest after all of that exertion so we
were able to show the poor guy that he had indeed been hit by only a
cat. We saved the pizza."

Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu

[Tony Jebson]

Laura Blanchard wrote (for Ellen Pinegar):
[snip]

> "Another personal observation of a topic under discussion - I
> got to see shock tactics in action the other night. We had
> ordered a pizza delivery and when the guy got there and we
> were doing the money-for-pizza swap, Grendel _ran_ up behind
> him and took flight. He crashed into the back of the poor
> guy's knees, dropping him prone on the floor. Grendel had to
> stop and rest after all of that exertion so we were able to
> show the poor guy that he had indeed been hit by only a
> cat. We saved the pizza."

In fact, through the wonderous magic of Usenet progagation,
this message arrived at a server in the late 9th century just
in time to become the inspiration of the dreaded monster in Beowulf.

Little did the poet suspect that his plaguarism would be
detected over a millenium later ;-)

--- Tony Jebson

99 Swa tha drihtguman dreamum lifdon,
eadiglice, oththaet an ongan
fyrene fremman feond on helle;
waes se grimma gaest D. Spencer haten ...

[Alex Milman]

Laura Blanchard wrote:

> Ellen Pinegar is temporarily unable to post to soc.history.medieval (her
> system is being overhauled), but has given me permission to share this
> bit from an e-mail.
>
> Some of you may remember Grendel, the 26-pound cat whom Ellen hitched to
> her vacuum cleaner with her reproduction of a Roman horse harness. Now
> Grendel demonstrates shock tactics without any prompting. But let Ellen
> tell it:
>

> "Another personal observation of a topic under discussion - I got to see
> shock tactics in action the other night. We had ordered a pizza
> delivery and when the guy got there and we were doing the
> money-for-pizza swap, Grendel _ran_ up behind him and took flight. He
> crashed into the back of the poor guy's knees, dropping him prone on the
> floor. Grendel had to stop and rest after all of that exertion so we
> were able to show the poor guy that he had indeed been hit by only a
> cat. We saved the pizza."
>
>

I must congratulate Ellen. What she described was not a simple headlong
shocktactics against enemy's front. It probably would not work against a
prepared and
well-organized pizza guy even if he did not form a square and faced Grendel
in a
linear formation.
Grendel rediscovered and performed one of the favorite maneuvers of Ghengis
Khan
("tulugma" or something like that): bypassed enemy's flank and attacked from
the rear.
While still falling into a broadly defined category of the shock tactics
(Grendel made
contact on a high speed) it demands more brains, discipline and courage (his
flank had
been exposed for a while and high speed had been crucial to minimize a
danger). He
obviously managed to perform this maneuver in a good order (I mean he came
behind
the pizza guy in one piece) and still had enough energy to deliver a blow in
the
opponent's weakest point: kick higher or lower would not be _that_
effective.
It's difficult to tell how well he would handle an independent campaign (why
Ellen don't
let him loose on her neighbours?), as a cavalry tactician he already rates
somewhere
between Murat (headlong shock attacks) and Seidlitz (delivered some
effective atatcks
against enemy's flanks and rear but most of his opponents were no match for
a pizza
guy). I have no doubts that with some practice he will easily leave Seidlitz
behind.

As a side (and a sad) note I must tell that Grendel's superiors (sorry,
Ellen, it's about
you) prevented him from a proper following of his success (happened quite
often during
the history when superiors had been less talented than their subordinates).
As a result,
they had been forced to pay for pizza which, if success had been properly
followed,
they'd get for free.

On a positive note, I'm happy that we now have an impeccable resource for
checking
various aspects of a historic information. With the proper settings and free
from an
incompetent interfering (sorry again Ellen, but keep your hands off this cat
!!!) he can
easily solve issues of, say Great Agincourt War or 100 Years Work Dignity
Debate
(BTW, what's his opinion about dignityof a work?).

[David N. Stapleton]

In article <3522555D...@gte.com>, am...@gte.com says...
(Speaking of Grendal the Cat)

>On a positive note, I'm happy that we now have an impeccable resource for
>checking various aspects of a historic information. With the proper
>settings and free from an incompetent interfering (sorry again Ellen, but

>keep your hands off this cat!!!) he can easily solve issues of, say Great

>Agincourt War or 100 Years Work Dignity Debate (BTW, what's his opinion
>about dignityof a work?).

I agree.

Grendal, being a cat, knows more about dignity than ant human possible
could, and less about work. We must use him to determine the dignity of
work, but how?

David Stapleton

[Alex Milman]

Laura Blanchard wrote:

> Ellen Pinegar is temporarily unable to post to soc.history.medieval (her
> system is being overhauled), but has given me permission to share this
> bit from an e-mail.
>
> Some of you may remember Grendel, the 26-pound cat whom Ellen hitched to
> her vacuum cleaner with her reproduction of a Roman horse harness. Now
> Grendel demonstrates shock tactics without any prompting. But let Ellen
> tell it:
>
> "Another personal observation of a topic under discussion - I got to see
> shock tactics in action the other night. We had ordered a pizza
> delivery and when the guy got there and we were doing the
> money-for-pizza swap, Grendel _ran_ up behind him and took flight. He
> crashed into the back of the poor guy's knees, dropping him prone on the
> floor. Grendel had to stop and rest after all of that exertion so we
> were able to show the poor guy that he had indeed been hit by only a
> cat. We saved the pizza."
>

> Regards,
> Laura Blanchard
> lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu

One more thing to notice about this outstanding account. It illustrates very
well my
point about the styles. Ellen's account qualifies as "Clausewitzian". It's
up to the
point, all movements are clearly described as well as their results
(regardless of thier
being unflattering for the author). Omman or Napier would produce something
like this:
"As a thunder brave Grendel descended on a trembling pizza guy who fall in a
confusion,
leaving himself and his posessions at a mercy of the victor." Does not tell
us anything
about Grendel's maneuver on a battlefield, the reasons why he was forced to
stop
(to get some rest and regroup) and about untimely interference of the family
with their
selfish goal "to save pizza" (as if he would eat _all_ of it; well, even if
he would, he
deserved it!!! OTOH, attempts to buy peace with money proved to be
uneffective
policy long ago).

[Abercjohn]

In article <3521A2...@pobox.upenn.edu>, Laura Blanchard
<lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu> writes:

>Subject: Grendel and Shock Troops
>From: Laura Blanchard <lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu>
>Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 21:11:58 -0500

Ellen Writes

>"Another personal observation of a topic under discussion - I got to see
>shock tactics in action the other night. We had ordered a pizza
>delivery and when the guy got there and we were doing the
>money-for-pizza swap, Grendel _ran_ up behind him and took flight. He
>crashed into the back of the poor guy's knees, dropping him prone on the
>floor. Grendel had to stop and rest after all of that exertion so we
>were able to show the poor guy that he had indeed been hit by only a
>cat. We saved the pizza."

Is there any chance of Grendel being induced to spend a short time in Hawaii?
:-)
Promises of lavish dollops of cream for success.
But meanwhile am deploying the reserve forces.

Regards

John G Harrison

John
>
>
>Regards,
>Laura Blanchard
>lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
>
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>From: Laura Blanchard <lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu>
>Newsgroups: soc.history.medieval
>Subject: Grendel and Shock Troops
>Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 21:11:58 -0500
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abercjohn