I think it’s worth noting that history is littered with examples of wasteful tactics. A common element is that often times technology advances while tactics do not.
For example, in the American Civil War, the tactics used of soldiers, marching into open fueled, and exchanging musket fire was not all that different than the tactics of the American revolution a little under 100 years prior. However, the rifles that infantry men were armed with were significantly more accurate. As a result, casualties, both in terms of lives lost, and soldiers, injured were horrific.
The concept of trench warfare in World War I was not all that different from wars, fought all over the continent in the century prior, and were designed to try and curb advantages of cavalry. But again, of mortars, more accurate, rifles, and chemical warfare meant that charging trenches resulted in truly grotesque numbers of casualties.
There is certainly evidence that World War I era generals were fairly callous when it came to casualty figures. They were more interested in territory gained. And it mattered very little how many lives that cost since soldiers were replaceable.
I agree that there should be some narrative coherence when protagonist squander advantages due to bad tactics, but when you look at actual history, it’s very clear that even if there are “good guys“ and “bad guys“ in war, there’s also just a lot of waste. That doesn’t make for a very sexy narrative, but it’s the nature of the beast. Militaries in particular are conservative institutions slow to change. you do things a certain way because that is the way they are done. That will always get people killed. But that’s also excepted as the way things are done.
At the end of the day, I’m just not sure there is a good way to organize two groups of people trying to kill each other.
I think the more interesting question is, should there be?
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