Quick Watson! I need a quote.

[Baldrick]

Who gave us the chestnut about all our strategies going to pot in the face of the enemy? I need the real quote and the quoter.

My wife is doing a report on a forest fire and why it went wrong and she thought this would be perfect. me too.[&o]

[Greyshaft]

According to http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/q ... r/?view=uk

...the words of the great 19th-century Prussian soldier Helmuth von Moltke suggests that rules will take you only so far: "No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

[Baldrick]

Thanks. That's the one I needed.