Can you explain how those functioned?Originally Posted by Ken White
Can you explain how those functioned?
Marching Fire
During the First World War in the U.S. Army suppressive fire had a precedent, marching fire. I'm not sure whether the term made it into official doctrine or if it was an innovation made on the spot. The Pedersen Device that converted the M1903 rifle into a semiautomatic weapon was intended to make marching fire possible but the device was only made in small quantities and not used in combat. Patton uses the term marching fire several times in his WW II memoirs War As I Knew It.
Sure...
Take about a square Kilometer of local terrain either with or modified to have some wooded areas, some scrub or low brush areas and some open gently rolling terrain and emplace at selected locations and various distances and angles from a base point or line silhouette targets and / or items to represent targets insuring that they range from little to much concealment and none to significant cover -- varied degrees of difficulty to locate being the object -- and, if available, firing simulators (or support personnel who can fire blanks) for some sets of targets. Ideally, a few buildings might be present, lacking them, CONEXs, MilVans or containers could be used.
Troops are placed on a base point or firing line like location and are tasked to locate a set number of targets. The training must be repeated a minimum of three times, more is better -- and it should be progressive. Start with 10 target fairly visible to be located, then got to fifteen with slightly more obscured targets, then 25 with about half being pretty well concealed. They should be shown targets they missed or did not report, particularly the ones that were most likely to be significant threats.
Even though it is a non-firing effort, the use of some covered targets is necessary so the Troops learn what cover looks like from their side and how difficult it can be to get to targets who have adequate cover. This integrates terrain appreciation, target detection, reporting, use of the map, observation and other skills.
That's the generic, peacetime training approach as it used to conducted. Obviously, if the training is to be theater specific as it should be in war time, then modifications for that theater and terrain set should be made.
After the minimum three repetitions a week or so apart, move on to a field firing range / trainfire like setup that combines target detection AND live firing. That also should be for a minimum of three repetitions. US Field Firing (prehistoric stuff, that...) preceded the Rhodesian developed Drake shoot (LINK). there are a lot of variants. Training requires only a little imagination and a lot of work.
Here's the Army's current Field Firing idea (LINK). It's okay but it should be preceded with the non-firing target detection effort -- it also should be conducted at least three times. My perception is that is done once and my suspicion is that a lot of the integrated training is often not conducted and the goal merely becomes to get the Troops to fire acceptable scores one time. I could be wrong and I hope I am.
This (LINK) may have some good info.
Pete:
Marching fire efforts are things that are beloved of Generals and movie makers because they look neat. It's really a holdover from an idealized and stupidly ultra romantic view of the wars of the early 19th Century. The US Civil War proved it to not be a good idea -- and yet as late as Viet Nam, some still tried it.
A long skirmish line of Infantry moving forward, firing from the hip or pausing briefly to aim (and get shot...) looks impressive, particularly if vehicles are in the line and also firing on the move (before there was Stab...
). Awesome. Also incredibly stupid, it only looks impressive, it is not actually so.
In practice, they're a huge waste of ammunition and are a really dumb attempt to tie mobility (marching) and mass (volume of fire) together and they do not impress halfway trained opponents even a little bit. Said opponents are likely to thank the idiot who orders it for the target array presented. Agility is greatly preferable to a blunt force frontal assault.
I haven't read about anything like marching fire in Civil War accounts, but Patton in War As I Knew It is emphatic about having all weapons firing at the objective during an assault. In a way he parallels what SLA Marshall said about soldiers not firing their weapons, even though what Marshall wrote was exaggerated. Had he lived longer I'm pretty sure Patton was enough of a master of his craft to have seen when suppressive fire reaches the point of diminishing returns.
This leads us back to the old FM 22-5 tactics drill tactics of the Civil War and First World War that nobody has ever been able to answer -- how do junior officers and NCOs re-establish fire control after the initial bursts of suppressive fire? What next after that? Find a flank? Call in artillery?
The Germans also experimented with all-assault rifle platoons and attacks using full auto assault rifle fire of the attack element. Some enthusiastic officers even asserted that success in battle showed no need for machine guns on the attack any more.
These reports were from about the same time when more normal mechanized infantry squads were strengthened by a second MG42...
It appears that the effect of suppressive fires is first and foremost dependent on the enemy. Late 1944 Germans attacking Russian infantry in a local surprise attack probably met much more brittle opposition than was usual in other conflicts.
The post-war German army didn't even attempt anything like that, in fact it introduced the FAL and then the G3. These battle rifles were less well-suited for a high volume of fire and more generally combat out to about 200 or 300m (I forgot the exact figure from the relevant early 90's test which compared G3 and AKM) than the StG 44 and similar weapons.
With a Spencer armed unit it may have happened -- but I doubt it...
Not with muzzle loaders, of course not. The broader point though is that the power of the even poorly dug in defense and the relative rapidity of reloading with the Minie Ball plus the few repeaters made frontal assaults bloody as all get out.That's the issue isn't it -- assaults. They are a particularly poor way to do business and the Armed forces of the US use the and have used the 'techniques' entirely too often. Patton was almost as fond of them as Grant......Patton in War As I Knew It is emphatic about having all weapons firing at the objective during an assault.
T.J.Jackson, John Buford, Walter Kreuger and James Gavin had more sense.I wouldn't bet on that. He was a master at manipulating people. I'll give him that. Consider the fact that a good many Majors today have more combat experience than Patton had.Had he lived longer I'm pretty sure Patton was enough of a master of his craft to have seen when suppressive fire reaches the point of diminishing returns.It hasn't been answered to your satisfaction you mean? Colud that be because it, as you state it, is a big open ended question lacking in any context and specificity and -- wait for it -- METT-TC applies. Always.This leads us back to the old FM 22-5 tactics drill tactics of the Civil War and First World War that nobody has ever been able to answer -- how do junior officers and NCOs re-establish fire control after the initial bursts of suppressive fire? What next after that? Find a flank? Call in artillery?
Our marginally trained troops may seem to need such NCO / Officer control and do in some units. Realistically in combat they have to know what to do at first contact and most figure it out after a couple of contacts. After that first rattle, they must know to look for and keep an eye on their leaders to watch for hand and arm signals -- the advent of individual troopies having radios will not totally change that aspect. Any good unit will develop that capability internally and since all leaders are different, most will do it in different ways. As for flank, call for fire, etc. -- all very much situation dependent.
The real constant is proper training and response to fire while keeping an eye on the leaders for cues. For the leaders, it should all be about what they need to have done to keep people alive and get on with the job. That can entail anything from a rapid departure from the area; to just going to ground; to trying to flank left or right (left or right are bad ju-ju, leaders should always use Compass directions, N,E,S,W, NW, etc. to preclude confusion which is generally around when under fire); to establish a base of fire; to a suicidal frontal assault supported by three DS and two GS Arty units -- and everything in between. It's really simple...
The underlying Murphy problem
Suppressive fire doesn't.
Oh well, it seems that military leadership in the Infantry all boils down to bringing order out of chaos. It's almost as though because in combat they're all improvised solutions that are all unique, there are no larger lessons or solutions to be derived. Damn, all those Vu-Graph slides in '77-'78 in Infantry Hall were for nothing.
I thought that was true of military leadership in all branches...
In reverse order, probably true on the Vu-graphs as is true for most of the foolishness that comes out of Bunker 4.
Not just the Infantry. Armor and Cavalry have exactly the same sorts and sets of problems -- as do Attack and Scout aircraft crews and the Engineers on occasion. The other combat and combat support arms can have the same sort of problems every now and then but those are rather rare and they seldom train for such efforts. Thus they tend to be more orderly and less chaotic. They tend to seek and use checklists, metrics and can actually apply larger lessons effectively and can also generally apply derived or patterned solutions
Maneuver combat OTOH is indeed a series of really unique situations and essentially undiffrentiated chaos requiring rapid assessments and intuitive responses and thinking. The problems of leadership and command in combat are many for all branches -- but those problems are far less structured and much more diverse for the maneuver arms and they are ferociously exacerbated for those guys BECAUSE we foolishly try to encapsulate 'doctrine' in larger lessons and solutions derived from other situations that were just enough different to be problematic...
At about the time you were cruising the Snack Bar in Muskogee County, Georgia that is the meeting place of the Army, had you instead gone to Leavenworth the Tactics Department there would have informed you first thing something along this line: "What we are going to teach you will work in gently rolling open terrain on a mild June day against a peer competitor with approximately equal strength and equipment provided you have all your authorized personnel and equipment and they are trained and it is all operational. If any of those factors differ, you will have to adapt."
That means that if it is raining pitchforks, you've got a problem. If the opponent is a mess of Go-rillas instead of a generally like unit, you've got problems. If you are short 20% of your folks and have only a 70% OR, it's snowing and you have to fit those guerrillas AND a like sized and equipped opponent, you got bi-i-g-g-g problems. Like I said, it's simple...
Pick up your cheeseburger and 'Follow Me'
We are the Building Four Infantry
Patton was a cavalryman at heart, which during WW II meant he'd get there "the fastest with the mostest" during breakthrough and exploitation operations in places where the enemy wasn't. He did that in Sicily during his advance up the western part of the island, during the breakout from Normandy across France, and also after the Bulge when the Wehrmacht was on the verge of defeat.
However, during the Lorraine Campaign in September-December 1944 he made little progress in the area of Metz and Nancy in the heavily fortified part of France that had been German from 1870 to 1918. The Germans were masters of tactics and their reconstituted army had its fields of fire and artillery fire planning all worked out during that campaign. That was also when the Allied armies had outrun their logistic support from the Normandy beachead and fuel and ammunition had been diverted for the Market Garden operation in the Netherlands. Patton and Third Army also had to contend with heavy rains which flooded the rivers and led to the writing of the famous "Weather Prayer" later published during the Bulge as a Christmas card to his troops.
During the First World War Patton saw only one week of combat in command of troops before he was wounded, although he had been in-theater since Pershing had arrived in 1917, which is to say he'd spent a lot of time in combat zones but not very much in close combat. One might be able to add a few more days of combat to his resume from his Pancho Villa-chasing days in Mexico, but that fighting was more like Wild West gunfights against bandits rather than hard-core combat.
The point I was making about movement drills is that they should be trained often enough that they become second-nature -- perhaps saying "by the numbers" was a poor choice of words, but guys tend to remember things that have been taught that way. The idea is to be able to assume one of perhaps four or five formations instantly without the need for lengthy discussions about what needs to be done on the radio. It goes without saying that METT-TC will modify any and all template solutions the schoolhouse might devise. In schools we might also teach that fully automatic fire is to be discouraged except for certain Hail Mary situations.
I think Patton was one hell of a combat leader, and I'm unwilling to downgrade his accomplishments in order to compensate for the near-divinity some admirers have accorded him. I'm glad he was on our side.
Last edited by Pete; 12-29-2010 at 10:06 PM.
I'm beginning to form the opinion, based on a good bit o first hand observation, and followed by spending a whole day watching youtube videos of US, Brit, Canadian, and Dane forces in Afghanistan, that there are two constants we can see.
The first is that maneuver under fire is easier to the rear, especially if it is along a covered and concealed route.
The second is that a massive amount of "suppressive" fire, applied at the enemy as you are about to conduct an assault or otherwise maneuver forward, provides a moral effect more than anything else. It may keep the enemy's head down, but that is not what provides the impact...it is the notion in the head of the man moving forward, that the enemy has his head down in the first place. As it gives him comfort the enemy is going to have less effect on him, he pushes forward.
That's an interesting thought.
Now add two ingredients: The morale effect of NIJ level IV plates and the incompetence of the opponent (inability to exploit the potential of modern infantry arms to inflict devastating casualties even when most troops are suppressed).
A really capable opponent could inflict so much damage even with a fraction of his forces and against hard body armour-equipped opposition that I decided to seek refuge in dreams of near-perfect self-discipline, camouflage, concealment (incl. obscuration) and deception years ago.
Armour battles and armour insights of the Cold War period might lead the way: It was understood back in the 70's (before Chobham armour gave some confidence in passive protection) that tanks that are being seen will be shot at. Tanks that get shot at will be hit. Tanks that get hit will be destroyed.
The armour community understood this, but also kinda threw this overboard asap in order to be able to keep at least some offensive tactics.
These offensive tactics rested heavily on a combination of casualty tolerance and combined arms efforts.
Good units do that.
Bad units have little to no idea what you're talking about...
That has to be a unit thing because many different approaches to the issue are available and used; the 'one size fits all' school model doesn't work well.Can't speak to today; we used to do that but poorly trained -- and not really well selected -- junior leaders allowed it anyway and their bosses had other, weightier things on their minds so the proscription was ignored. Apparently still is...In schools we might also teach that fully automatic fire is to be discouraged except for certain Hail Mary situations.
Again, that's a unit thing. Too much time usually elapses between institutional training and combat application.
I think the the opposite is true, as the plates in fact cause greater fatigue, and fatigue tends to weaken morale for the most part.The morale effect of NIJ level IV plates
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