Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Came across this piece by Lind going back to february 2009.

On War #293: The Price of Bad Tactics



Then this issue will overlap with the issue of the type of aircraft used for CAS (close air support) which has been the subject of another debate.

Interested to hear from those who served as infantry in close combat as to this multi-faceted issue.
We are currently a long, LONG way from light infantry tactics, for a variety of reasons, most bad. Risk aversion and force protection are near the top of the list.

From my pretty limited perspective (five years as a USMC infantry officer, Afghanistan twice):

1. Don't agree with "sloth and hubris" at all. Anyone I've worked with who was any good despaired about how much better we could be, and didn't engage in a ton of pats on the back. Some of that stuff creeps into the service journals, definitely flows into political speeches, but I don't see a lot of it at the company or battalion level. Maybe higher up the ladder.

2. Dead-on about free play. I have done very little of this, and all of the bigger (division) exercises I have gone to are a non-dynamic rehearsal of live fire combined arms procedures. It is extremely frustrating, and a waste of valuable training time. Our Basic Officer Course has added a free play final exercise, but I have heard mixed reviews from guys teaching over there.

3. Could not agree more about our personnel system. Broken. Unit cohesion is an afterthought, guys are treated as interchangeable parts, and we lose many good officers and enlisted as a result. "Up or out" is a big part of the problem.