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Tactics & Tacticians
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June 04, 2026
Forts and walls don’t protect you; vigilant sentries do
Fortifications create a false illusion of security, wrote Alistaire Horne, one of Europe’s finest war historians. Throughout history, rulers have erected castles, forts, fences and walls to safeguard their manors, fiefs, kingdoms and empires. But they have all been breached when the sentries left, slept or were compromised. In this 22nd instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we look at how some of the supposedly impregnable fortifications were easily breached
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May 28, 2026
Shots on the roof that persuaded a surrender
At times, unnerving the enemy with minimal force yields better results than killing him with massive force. Not only does it get you general goodwill, but also allows you to claim a clean victory. In this 21st instalment of 'Tactics and Tacticians', we look at how a neat surgical air strike on Dacca yielded India a clean victory in the 1971 war
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May 14, 2026
Battle of Assaye: Where Wellesley found two villages and a way
A smart strategist is also a sharp-eyed quartermaster. Arthur Wellesley was one such. In this 19th episode of ‘Tactics and Tacticians’ on the Battle of Assaye, we find out how his sharp eye found a crossing point in a flooded river which no one knew about.
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May 07, 2026
The unsettled affair of Sivaji’s claws
How would you describe the slaying of the Bijapur nobleman Afzal Khan by Sivaji? A battle? An assassination? A clever stratagem? In this 15th edition of ‘Tactics and Tacticians’, we examine the lesser-discussed battle doctrines that were relied on by both adversaries.
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May 07, 2026
Ride light and shoot straight: The Battle of Agincourt and the underdog's triumph
Ease of use is what matters in battle more than the technological quality of the weapon. Simple weapons have often prevailed over complex systems because they are user-friendly. In this 18th instalment of 'Tactics & Tacticians', we examine how the simpler English peasant-warrior’s longbow beat the advanced French crossbow in the Battle of Agincourt.
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April 30, 2026
Light as straw, on camelback: The tactical mastery of Nadir Shah's invasion
Very often, it is not the most powerful or sophisticated weapons that win battles, but smaller and less advanced ones. Put differently, it is not the size or superiority of a weapon that matters more; what matters is how the weapon is used. Military history offers several examples of this. In the 17th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, let us examine one such example from the Indian history.
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April 23, 2026
Alexander of Macedon's masterstroke: A little trick, and an empire falls
In the 16th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tactitians’, we examine the tactic Alexander of Macedon employed in his greatest battle
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April 09, 2026
Washington’s many ferries to victory
Armies never use the same tactics twice against an enemy who is likely to anticipate them. In this 14th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we will look at how George Washington defied this maxim of common sense and scored victories
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April 02, 2026
Humayun: Trapped by the rains and a river
A good understanding of the change of seasons, a close reading of the changes in weather, and an understanding of how these affect the land and the terrain can be of great help in battles. In the 13th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we will see how Sher Shah Suri made use of the change in seasons to defeat a much larger Mughal army of Humayun.
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March 26, 2026
Trap in a Delhi swamp, laid by Lake
In the 12th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, let's see how Lord Gerard Lake seized Delhi from the Marathas in 1803 by executing a calculated feigned retreat to lure the enemy into a deadly trap
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March 20, 2026
The grand deception behind D-Day landings
The Normandy landings, the largest amphibious invasion in world history, were an eminent success thanks to a grand deception plan that made the Germans look for the enemy in the wrong places. The 11th instalment of ‘Tactics &Tacticians’ unravels the massive deception plot.
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March 13, 2026
When media played a Yudhishthira trick in the Bangladesh war
In the 10th instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, let’s see how the Indian leadership employed the tactic of propaganda in the 1971 Bangladesh War
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March 06, 2026
How Napoleon lured an army to frozen death
In part 9 of 'Tactics and Tacticians', we will see how the hero of France scored a brilliant victory at Austerlitz by luring the Austrian and Russian armies to where he wanted them, and destroying them
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February 27, 2026
Prithviraj Chauhan, the braveheart who lacked tact
The Rajput warrior had defeated and routed Muhammad Ghori in the first battle of Tarain, but lost to him in the second battle. How and why did that happen? The eighth instalment of Tactics & Tacticians explains
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February 20, 2026
Operation Meghdoot: A German's map, a Pak blunder, and the Indian 'Bull' who secured the world's highest battlefield
In the seventh edition of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we meet mountaineer Narendra ‘Bull’ Kumar who played a major role in Indian troops occupying the strategic Saltoro Ridge in Siachen, gaining a crucial high-ground advantage over Pakistan that India has successfully defended ever since.
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February 13, 2026
Hemu & Nelson: Two heroes and two shots that felled them
In the sixth edition of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we look at two brilliant commanders from different eras—Samrat Hemu at the Second Battle of Panipat and Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar—and the single, avoidable mistake that led to their downfall.
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February 06, 2026
Nanda’s mantra: hit them at home
The fifth episode of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’ tells you the story of how the Indian Navy achieved complete surprise over Pakistan by destroying their entire fleet and port in two attacks using puny missile boats
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January 30, 2026
Gen. Snow, Gen. Mud, Gen. Zhukov- a deadly combination
In the fourth instalment of ‘Tactics & Tacticians’, we tell the story of how the Russians defeated the Nazis by cleverly using the weather as an ally
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January 23, 2026
Water as weapon: How Brig. Theogaraj bogged down Pakistani Pattons
In the third edition of Tactics & Tacticians, we bring you the story of how Brigadier Thomas K. Theogaraj outsmarted the superior Pakistani tanks by cleverly flooding fields in the village of Asal Uttar
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January 16, 2026
Sadat cried wolf-wolf; Israel turned a deaf ear
In this edition of Tactics & Tacticians, we bring you the story of how Egypt used strategic deception and psychological warfare to lull Israel into complacency, securing a decisive early advantage in the first phase of the 1973 Yom Kippur War
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January 09, 2026
Thimayya’s dare: The impossible story of India's first high-altitude tank attack in 1948
In 1948, Major-General K.S. Thimayya conceived a plan deemed impossible: deploying tanks at the 4,000-meter-high Zoji La pass
Results 1-21 for Tactics & Tacticians
