The Raid on Trenton

Abstract

The battle for Trenton during the Revolutionary war has been on many Hallmark cards and in many a painting, as General Washington crossed the Delaware River. The battle turned the war and warranted study for its applications in raid operations. William McRaven studied many raids in his development of his model. He studied smaller scale raids from many nations. He didn't use any raid operations from the Revolutionary period for his model, and with the implications of Trenton on our sovereignty as a nation; I felt it warranted a detailed look. I will use McRaven's Model as the foundation in my analysis of the raid on Trenton. The analysis will begin with the background leading up to the raid on Trenton and a description of the area of operations. Identifying the forces and leaders involved and then a description of what took place on 26 December 1776 will follow it. Upon completion of the description of the raid, I will analyze the raid according to McRaven's Model to uncover the principles, which made the raid successful and where they fell short. The conclusion will provide the insight to its study by Marine Corps forces in raid application today.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA403700

Entities

People

  • James D. Christmas

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Artillery
  • Artillery Ammunition
  • Bridges
  • Climate Change
  • Cyclic Rate
  • Delaware River
  • Friction
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Operations
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Rifles
  • River Crossings
  • Small Arms
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.