Patton took the view that 'a good plan now, violently executed, is better than an excellent plan in a week's time'.
If the plan is 'good enough' it will move you - at a cost you can afford - towards the objective.
Historians have the luxury of hindsight, and they're not pressed by the same issues of time and resource as the man commanding the fight.
Hindsight is available to both historians and former military commanders. But my retrospective comment was not about hindsight.
The plan 'is good enough' is nearer my point.
No description of an event or situation can ever be complete. A description of 'What's happening now' can always be extended... Indefinitely.
Add to that, no rule dictates it's own application.
In other words, no matter the rule order, plan to do X ... one can posit myriad events as following THE rule or plan.
Which of those actions are deemed, for all practical purposes (Patton), as having followed THIS rule or plan CAN ONLY be decided in retrospect.
For example, the decision 'the plan was a success' is only one decision among many that could have been made at the time. Claiming the plan did not not succeed because people did not follow the plan is subject to the same consideration .
The plan was a success because the events and actions, seen in retrospect, constituted 'following the plan' .
Lesson: That what commanders and leaders do... right now... will come to be seen as having followed the plan all along. Or not. But they can't say 'I followed the plan!' as though it dictated what they did.
HB