On Infantry (The Military Profession Series) 2nd Edition

Books such as English's "On Infantry" are difficult to review because it is wise to examine source material in conjunciton with the text. I ordered this book a year ago and have been working on this review since.Due to the scope of this book, I'll only talk about the evolution of the infantry squad as English and Gudmundsson outlined throughout "On Infantry." Please note that there are multiple interpretations.The infantry squad had its roots in ancient times as an administrative unit, a sort of "family grouping" with a big brother serving to mold the younger soldiers. The authors pick this up in the first chapter, "The Open Order Revolution," in the period between 1854 the Crimean War) and 1914 (the outbreak of World War One.) A combination of rifling (extending range) and repeater mechanism (increased fire volume) rendered the earlier means of command, control, and concentration of combat power a certain means to defeat; the enemy would shoot the closed-ranks regiments to pieces in minutes. Dispersion while mutually supporting the rest of the regiment or brigade forced the very junior leaders to assume responsibility for what had been the regimental commander's decision-making, as the battlefield became "empty" in the face of the hail of accurate rifle bullets. Rapid fire weaponry, which included both the machine gun and the quick-fire field piece (one with a recoil mechanism that limited the necessity to relay the gun after each shot--and often used recoil energy to eject spent cartridge casings, increasing the rate of fire), only added to this revolution--and made the old Napoleanic tactics pure suicide.The squad (often thought of as an American invention) became a tactical unit during the Great War, and its evolution from administrative element (for guard duty, for fatigue details, for grouping into mess elements for distributing rations or for issuing supplies) into a tactical element possessing independant internal manuever and fire elements is spread out through "On Infantry"-- but the most important chapter is 7, "A Corporal's Guard." Oddly enough, the French Army almost got it right during the Great War, and was one of the three models for the modern infantry squad. The French put an automatic rifle in the squad and formally divided the squad into two elements--one grouped around the automatic rifle for fire support, and one for manuever with "ordianry riflemen." The French squad leader went with the maneuver element and the assistant squad leader stayed with the automatic rifle--but the French failed to exploit this innovation. French Army regulations stipulated that the squad was indivisible and that the smallest element capablie of being assigned an independant task was the platoon. The Germans did it right (funny about those Germans) by exchanging the squad's automatic rifle for a light machine gun, keeping the squad leader with the LMG and making that element the main killing system, with the assistant squad leader running a manuever/assault element of riflemen that supported the machine gun's tasks. The Germans called this universal squad the Einsheitsgruppe, and then proceeded to reinvent the wheel due to deterioration in their non-commissioned officer cadre due to casualties to form a second, "guerrilla" formation armed (on paper) with the assault rifle and grenade launcher. Simplified tactics also reduced the ability of the squad for independant action--for a single objective (ie, taking or holding a single small building) the minimum maneuver element was the platoon or even battalion. It should be noted here that even though--on paper--the 1944 German Volksgrenadier squad was supposed to have eight men, it was more common for the actual strength to be four, five, or six. There was no assistant squad leader, and Germany relied upon indoctrinating every soldier to take charge of the situation and continue the mission even when leadership personnel became casualties. The third squad formation is one I was most familiar with, the USMC's three fire team rifle squad standardized in March of 1944. Derived from the Chinese Communist practice of grouping three men around a single automatic weapon, this system was first tried out by the Marines in the Second Raider Battalion under Colonel Carlson. Three independantly-maneuvering four-Marine "fire teams," each organized around the Browning Automatic Rifle, achieved a balance of mobility and firepower which could be controlled under chaotic battlefield conditions that was hard to improve upon. Too bad that it was squandered in mostly frontal attacks against an enemy whose defense was basically an area ambush, a trap that sucked in attackers for annihilation. It is a credit to the Marines and their lowest-level tactical organization that they managed to prevail over the Imperial Japanese infantry's defensive webs--something like the fly overpowering the spider after getting entangled in its web.There are other subjects covered in "On Infantry," but for brevity, I've just covered the evolution of squad organization. This evolution was impacted by such things as changing American Army drill--instead of forming the squad as two ranks of four men, the "new" squad of 1940 formed as a single file of 12 men--or any other number. Another factor in the evolution of the squad was conversion from foot mobility to motorization--the twelve-man squad of 1940 became a six-Soldier dismount team aboard a Stryker or Bradley. Due to low priority given to "bayonets on line," these dismount teams may number a mere two soldiers at times. Infantry squads always suffer attrition-often administrative attrition (mess duty, guard details, "give me a guy for a patrol,") and frequently casualties due to non-combat accidents, illness, or combat injuries. This messes up tactics because it isn't unusual for a rifle squad to be missing as much as 2/3rds of its strength in combat. The American idea of men as interchangable cogs in a massive machine ignored the human element, but this has changed due to combat experience. When a bunch of "weekend warriors" who have limited training time, but have known each other for years and have built mutual bonds of confidence out-fight "better-trained" active-component soldiers in both war games and actual combat, something is obviously wrong with regarding the infantry squad as an ad-hoc grouping of individuals. Sports teams train together to develop team work. The best individual players tossed into a game as a mob will almost always lose to a team of mediocre players who are lead by a competent coach and who play as a team. Infantry combat is a "team sport" rather than an individual event, and the long-overdue recognition of this simple fact is one reason why American infantry out-fights the Iraqi "insurgents."An extensive bibliography and a very useable index enhances "On Infantry." This well-read book is an important part of my small unit tactics library.

This is an excellent discussion (historical and schematic) of what goes on at the nitty-gritty level of infantry combat; the squads, platoons, companies, and battalions. It shows how various systems succeed or fail at tasks such as flexibility, manouver, combat cohesion and morale, and why the German army was generally qualitatively superior to both Western and Eastern rivals in both world wars.That being said, the authors tend to overemphasize the capabilities of infantry on its own -- particularly unsupported light infantry, and particularly in the theoretical section which concludes the book.While rightly critical of the excessive logistical tail some modern "armies of drivers" drag around, they lose sight of the fact that foot infantry by itself totally lacks operational mobility -- 20 miles a day vs. over 200 for forces with their own organic transport. And they neglect the degree to which infantry alone lacks even tactical mobility on a battlefield saturated with automatic weapons.It's no accident that the armies which actually do a lot of fighting -- the Israelis, for instance -- structure combined-arms teams around honking great monster tanks like the Merkava III or the M1A2 Abrahms, 70 tons or so of massively protected lethality.Mobility means the ability to move, but tactical mobility means the ability to move _under fire_.This poses a genuine strategic dilemma; forces light enough to move rapidly _strategically_ are often too heavy to be mobile in the tactical and operational sense -- you can fly light infantry quickly to the other side of the world, but they can't move when they're actually fighting.Still, an excellent book on the whole.

Great book that outlines the history and evolution of infantry tactics dating back to the times of the Civil War. Great for any military member interested in going into Infantry or just a history buff to see how things changed over the years.

Excellent!

A really good survey of the evolution of infantry tactics, particularly at the section and platoon levels, over the course of the C20. It examines both the general historical progressions and some representative individual armies, including the US (both Army and Marines), WW2 Russians, WW2 Japanese, WW1 and WW2 French, British & Germans, WW2 and post-war Chinese and the IDF. It looks at the different ways platoons and sections were organized and equipped, and how they were employed. It examines the potential for the infantry in the future (i.e. now, since the book was written in the 1980s), especially in terms of anti-tank and IFV/APC capability and urban fighting. Such an examination is quite timely now, given the current struggles against ISIS in the cities of Iraq and Syria.I think most of the key points that I am aware of are covered. All the notable infantry theorists of the C20 seem to have their views and influence represented. The book is perhaps a little too generous to foes of the Western Allies and a little too hard on them: perhaps this is reflective of the concerns and fashions of the time, since the effectiveness of the German soldier in WW2 and the potential effectiveness of the Soviet soldier were chief concerns - even though this is slightly illogical, since the measure (Dupuy's effectiveness ratings) which really rates the Germans reflects really poorly on the Soviets, who seem to do better in memoirs. Similarly, SLA Marshall's fire ratios are used, and yet again the suggestion is that better German infantry performance was a result of a better fire ratio, although there is no evidence I am aware of for this having been the case. Although not a criticism of this book on its own terms, it does perhaps show that the future of analysis will require a more statistical approach.Interestingly, the perennial problem of Western infantry - its overloading - is also covered, in terms familiar both to readers of SLA Marshall's A Soldier''s Load and to those aware of current debates about exactly the same phenomenon today. It truly seems that sometimes Western militaries are genuinely incapable of grasping very simple points. However, the writing of many of the theorists used still seems fresh and valid.The book is very well written and keeps the attention, even when drilling down into the detail. Highly recommended for those with an interest in the subject, as professionals, historians or enthusiasts.

Few have analyzed the role & evolution of infantry like John English & Gud us song. Strongly recommend for any serious student of military studies.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and tried to sum it up briefly through the review title. It is not surprising, as Col English has sterling experience and qualifications in both the Infantry world and in academia as well. Anyone seriously interested in the evolution and rationale behind infantry tactics (and indeed strategy)would be well advised to read this.

Very important work

An excellent book. Recommended for all soldiers and wannabe soldiers