Range Cards might be one of those 1918 kind of things that remained in the manuals even after Machine Gun Battalions were abolished in the Army and Marine Corps before World War II. They seem like a good idea but they'd take several days to teach to privates, not just an hour or two.

A few years ago when I was looking at the unofficial British army Ar*se website I was struck by how detailed British army schools are for guys in troop units who attend them in temporary duty statuses. It seems as though in spite of all the force structure and funding cutbacks the British army doesn't want to part with its institutional training base. Up to a point I don't blame the Brits, but they seem to have more doctrine and techniques than can be taught during a reasonable period of time.

We dumbed down Infantry training in World War II to shorten things-- we taught that one element puts fire on the objective and another goes around and finds a flank -- because we couldn't afford to train people for longer periods of time. The Germans got fancy about tactics -- they had three-element attacks in 1918 but I don't know how long it took to teach them. My impression is that they used mobile training teams to teach combat units that were on rest breaks in rear areas.

Tactical training can reach the point where there simply aren't enough hours in the day, and something has to go.