Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2018/Op-ed


 * ''By Hawkeye7

When the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, the Great War had been going on for nearly three years. This gave the United States ample time to prepare its organisation, equipment and doctrine for the conflict. Much of this time was ill-spent, if not completely wasted. The National Defense Act of 1916 aimed to expand the Army, but it remained small by European standards, with just 220,000 active-duty soldiers and marines in April 1917. Many were veterans of the Spanish–American War (1898), the Philippine–American War (1899-1902) and the Pancho Villa Expedition (1916-1917), but these were very different in nature to the fighting on the Western Front.

A major reason for this was that the decades leading up to the Great War were a time of great technological upheaval. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, infantry were armed with smoothbore muskets. These were muzzle loaded, and reloading was a complex operation. Men massed together; reloaded together in drill movements, so no-one jammed his weapon or accidentally shot one of his comrades; and fired in volleys from as close to the enemy as possible, the weapon being most accurate at about 100 metres. If the enemy got much closer than that, then reloading was impossible. Disciplined bayonet charges usually carried the day.

This changed during the 19th century due to technological developments. Cartridges made the rifle quicker to load and more reliable. Conoidal bullets flew further and faster than musket balls. Rifling - the cutting of spiral grooves inside the barrel - increased the range and accuracy of the weapon. The effect was dramatic. During the 18th Century, some 40 per cent of casualties were caused by small arms fire; by the American Civil War (1861-1865), the proportion had shot up to 75 per cent. Rifles improved greatly over the next few years, with breech loading and bolt actions speeding up the reloading and firing cycle. By the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), small arms accounted for 90 per cent of casualties.

As a result, artillery went into decline, because the infantry now had the range to pick the gunners off. In the 18th century, 40 per cent of casualties had been inflicted by artillery; by the Franco-Prussian War, it was just 9 per cent. A technological breakthrough came in 1897 when the French introduced the Soixante-Quinze. It incorporated a hydrostatic buffer, which absorbed the recoil, and a recuperator to restore the firing position. Improved ammunition and breech loading allowed it to fire up to twenty rounds per minute. For protection against infantry, a shield was added to the front of the gun. Earlier guns lurched back each time they were fired, so the gunners had to stand clear.

American doctrine remained rooted in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars of the late 19th century. It stressed the primacy of offence over defence, the importance of manoeuvre by the infantry and cavalry, and the need for boldness and aggression. Artillery was regarded as a purely supporting arm, with no independent role, and regulations emphasised strict economy in the use of ammunition. Gunners would fire over open sights; indirect fire and night firing were frowned upon as wasteful. To mobilise enough batteries to support the Pancho Villa Expedition, the Army closed its only artillery school, the School of Fire at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and dissolved the Field Artillery Board.

Consistent with its doctrine, the US Army developed a fine rifle, the M1903 Springfield, but its design emphasised accuracy and range rather than rapidity of fire. The Army had no automatic rifles, hand grenades, rifle grenades, trench mortars, tanks or heavy artillery. Its tables of equipment provided for four machine guns per regiment. In short, the United States Army was small, poorly equipped, inadequately trained, lacking in recent relevant combat experience, and with doctrine completely at odds with the realities of warfare on the Western Front. While many other armies entered the Great War with outdated, inappropriate or inapplicable doctrine, the United States Army went one better by observing the conflict in Europe for nearly three years and making no adjustments. As historian Brian McAllister Linn put it: "the United States was founded on the rejection of the hard-earned wisdom of the Old World".

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) adopted a large "square" division. Companies had a strength of 240 men compared with the peacetime 50. Four made up a battalion, with a strength of around 1,000 men. There were three battalions in each regiment, with had a strength of 3,800, which was triple the peacetime strength, and two regiments in each of the division's two brigades. A division had an overall strength of nearly 28,000 men. By comparison, a British 1917 division had a strength of 20,000. Both had about 12,000 infantry in twelve battalions of similar size. The difference was in the additional supporting arms and services.

Despite the desire to economise on staff officers, who were scarce, the American division had six brigade and regimental headquarters, compared to the British division's three brigade headquarters. An American division had three artillery regiments, two equipped with 24 Soixante-Quinze field guns, and one with 24 Canon de 155 C modèle 1917 Schneider medium guns. Whereas a British division just had two artillery brigades, each with 18 18-pounder guns and 6 4.5-inch howitzers, and the medium artillery was pooled at the army level. The 13 lb shell of the Soixante-Quinze though, was lighter and did not have the power of the British 18 lb shell. Despite American doctrine, the infantry regiment was well-equipped, with 192 automatic rifles and a company of 16 machine guns. Each brigade had another four companies in a machine gun battalion, allowing each battalion to have its own company. Unfortunately, the Chauchat automatic rifle was decidedly inferior to the British Lewis gun. A superior, American-made weapon, the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, was developed, but did not reach the front lines until September 1918.

The AEF's commander, General John J. Pershing, arrived in time to witness the British Third Ypres offensive. He was appalled by what he described as a "cautious advance of infantry with prescribed objectives, where obstacles had been destroyed and resistance largely broken by artillery". What was required, he argued, was a more aggressive attitude by self-reliant infantry ,and a return to "open warfare". The paucity of ground gained at Third Ypres affirmed in his mind that the British had little to teach, and doctrinal differences provided a good excuse for placing the AEF under an independent command. Mitigating this, especially for the field artillery, was that much training was conducted by British and French instructors, who told the gunners in no uncertain terms that American doctrine was utter nonsense.

What "open warfare" meant was never rigorously defined, and the crux of the problem was officers at all levels paying lip service to the doctrine while gradually adapting to the grim reality of the fighting on the Western Front. Attacks by self-reliant infantry such as at the Battle of Belleau Wood on 6 June 1918, ran up enormous casualty lists with little to show for it. Experience soon demonstrated that even hastily improvised defensive positions could not easily be taken by unsupported infantry. Whereas limited, well-prepared offensives supported by massed artillery fire proved successful with more acceptable casualties. The tension between the two ideas would continue up to the 11 November 1918 Armistice, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive becoming the costliest battle in American history up to the time, with casualty rates that far exceeded that of Allied units.

American doctrine proved incapable of grappling with technological change and delivering what was required to wage the war it envisaged. After the war, the United States Army gradually adopted the concept of firepower as a decisive factor, and moved away from the ideal of the self-reliant infantryman, embracing a more managerial model of warfare. Echoes of the old doctrine remain to this day. With its huge population, American commanders would go on paying scant attention to casualties, but its industrial base would increasingly push a search for improved technology. The cult of the offensive remains alive, as does the concept of a war of annihilation.