This is coolbert: I have made several posts recently that mentioned the practice of hunting down a person or a small group of persons with a large unit of troops.

How this is not the right procedure.

How the racket made by a large number of troops only goes to tip off the pursued that someone is after them. This tip off allows the pursued to go into further hiding and take measures so as to be less vulnerable to being found.

This very same thing was mentioned by a Norwegian Army officer who was one of the Norsk Hydro raiders.

During WW2, a band of from a half dozen to a dozen Norwegian saboteurs twice attacked successfully the Norsk Hydro facility, which was producing heavy water for German a-bomb research. Attacking this facility sent the German occupiers into a frenzy of activity to find the raiders. Send from one to two divisions in pursuit of the raiders . As I have said before, this beehive of activity tipped off the raiders and they were able to go further into hiding. None of them were caught during the war.

This Norwegian officer stated that if the Germans had done things right, they would have gone after the raiders with just a small platoon at most. Would have stood a better chance of finding the raiders.

The same situation seemed to have existed recently in the hunt for the Atlanta Bomber, Eric Robert Rudolph.

The survivalist hiding from the FBI in the Great Smokey Mountains. Rudolph was keenly aware that he was being searched for during a five year period. He took all sorts of protective measures to prevent capture. The FBI agents searching for him used helicopters, a small army of agents on the ground, tracker dogs, etc. Tipped Eric off and let him know enough so that he would not operate in a normal manner. Went into hiding where he was that much more difficult to find. Finally one cop got lucky and spotted him at a dumpster and apprehended the fugitive.

coolbert.