WWI and the AEF

[Firn]

I've noticed some similarites between the procedures used by the British army for its conduct of trench raids during 1916-18 and current U.S. Army guidance for patrolling, especially as it is taught by Rangers. The areas where the procedures overlap concern the things leaders are supposed to do in the preparation phase before the operation -- junior officers and NCOs checking the amount of ammunition carried by soldiers, insuring that things like wire cutters, extra MG ammo, and so forth are being carried by designated personnel, and making sure things that could identify the raiding unit -- ID cards, documents, insignia, etc. -- are left behind for the operation. This is one of those little intuitions I occasionally have when reading military history that I have not followed up on with research that might prove that it's true. However, I suspect that parts of our patrolling doctrine came from things the British taught us in 1917-18.

At least the Americans distributed British manuals on sniping, scouting and patrolling in that 1917-1918 timeframe. I have one somewhere. A lot of "SF" stuff goes back to WWI, both from the allied and central power side.

I also suspect that the US army WWII squad was heavily influenced by the British, as well as by the French. For example two soldier per squad should be trained according to the British manual as scouts and used in the roles of sniper, scout and observer. Close cooperation between a sniper/observer and a scouting team was also trained, and the manual showed at least one example of the close cooperation between the three or four scout pairs of the platoon.

The French were the first to use automatic rifles and grenade rifles on a large scale, using them in a interesting manner.

BTW there is a WWII German wartime training movie which is rather interesting, and certainly contains a lot of similarities with WWI actions.