Quote Originally Posted by Pete View Post
Fuchs, it has to do with how likely contact with the enemy is. The more probable it is the more important it becomes to have one's weapons able to fire at the enemy. When a traveling element makes contact it often has to change formation for fire and maneuver. There is also an advantage to being able to form without the need for detailed instructions about how to do it.
You're right -- and the key to ability to do that is to train units in varying situations against varying opponents. You need a book to tell you the basics -- and we have one -- but you need to practice doing it and you need to be able to do it in triple canopy rainforest, in a cottonwood thicket at Fort Sill or the bare hills of Camp Pendleton, in the river bottom of the Chattahoochee, in downtown Baghdad, in the bare desert of Fort Irwin or in the mountains of the Hindu Hush. Ability to do it in an open field at mainpost at Benning isn't adequate.

The book exists, it's adequate. Formations are known and taught -- they just are not trained or practiced adequately.

Ability to adapt a formation is present. What that does not cover goes back to your earlier question; suppressive fire? flank? artillery? The formation and what Joe needs to do are the easy part and really are not a problem -- what the Leaders do is the problem.