MEN AGAINST FIRE

GROUND RULES
No One Set Out to Be Deliberately Stupid
Declining to Fight Is Not an Option They Couldnt Wait For Technical Breakthroughs

Napoleonic Combined Arms Equilibrium

Form Square

Paper
Rock

Fire Cannister

Scissors

Maneuver To Mask / Envelop Batteries

~1700 TO ~1850 Smoothbore Musket: Tactics and Technology

Attacking Forces Defending Forces Max Effective Range Smoothbore Musket

Smoothbore Ranges: 50 yards--Accurate 100 Yards--Max Effective Rate of Fire: 2 or 3 Rounds per Minute Speed of Advance: Infantry: 90 yds per Minute Cavalry: 200 yds per Minute

Result: Defender gets 2 aimed shots at an attacker before the range is closed.

Shell Fire to 1000 yards

Cannister

Double Cannister

Significance Fewer Casualties From Muskets Artillery Used in Offensive Role Attacker Has the Advantage
500 400 300 200

Max Effective Range Smoothbore Musket

100

By 1861

Rifle-Musket: Tactics and Technology

Attacking Forces Defending Forces Maximum Effective Range RifleMusket

Rifle-Musket w/ Minie Ball Ranges: 300 yards--Accurate 500 yards--Max Effective 1000 yards--Can Still Kill Rate of Fire: 2 or 3 Rounds per Minute Speed of Infantry Advance: 154 yds per Minute (Based on Double Quick in Hardees 1856 Manual)

Rifle-Musket Not Accurate, But Can Still Kill

Shell Fire to 1000 yards

Result: Defender gets 6 to 9 aimed shots at an attacker before the range is closed.

Cannister Double Cannister

Significance

More Casualties From Rifle-Muskets

Artillery Loses Offensive Role Defender Has the Advantage
1 Km
900

Rifle-Musket Not Accurate, But Can Still Kill

Maximum Effective Range RifleMusket

800

700

600

500

400 300 200 100

The Gilded Age

1875 - 1914

Economic Demographic Trends:

Industrialization Urbanization Colonialization Free Marketization

Political Social - Cultural Trends:

Nationalism Imperialism / Jingoism

Progressivism Socialism - Communism

Weapons Technology

Infantry Surge

(1850-1890) - Bolt-action, magazine fed, metallic cartridge rifle - Machine gun

Artillery Surge (1875-1900)

Rifled, Breech loading, HE, Controlled Recoil

Cavalry ?

Crossing the Deadly Ground

Infantry
Open order
Survival (good) C2 (bad) Mass fires (bad) Force structure (reconfigure) Social factor (empower NCOs)

Mass
(Obverse of the above)

Crossing the Deadly Ground

Artillery
Massed batteries (Corps)
Mass effect at decisive point / Miss Opp. Elsewhere Elaborate Fire Plans / High Shell Weight

Decentralized batteries (Div/Bde)

Responsive / Flexible Low Shell Weight

Crossing the Deadly Ground: Cavalry Mounted, steel

Spirit of offensive Turn enemy retreat into rout Survivability?

Dismounted, rifle
Corps of maneuver on huge battlefield

Elimination an option?
Most mobile element in era of declining mobility Who does Recon Security Pursuit?

Philosophical Dilemma

How Does a Nation Win a Defensive War?

The Four Principles of War

(1890s version)

OBJECTIVE OFFENSIVE
MASS MANEUVER

Tactics, Fear, and Organization

Tactics is an art based on the knowledge of how to make men fight with maximum energy against fear, a maximum which organization alone can give.
Charles Ardant du Picq Battle Studies, 1870

The Truth About the Bayonet

The shock is a mere term. The de Saxe, the Bugeaud theory: Close with the bayonet and with fire action at close quarters. That is what kills people and the victor is the one who kills most, is not founded on fact. No enemy awaits you if you are determined and never, never, never, are two equal determinations opposed to each other. It is well known to everybody, to all nations, that the French have never met any one who resisted a bayonet charge. - Colonel Charles-Ardent du Picq

Men Against Fire

A nations existence depends upon the uninterrupted continuation of trade and industry, and a quick decision is necessary to start the wheels of industry moving again. A strategy of attrition is impossible when the maintenance of armies of millions requires the expenditures of billions.
- Count von Schlieffen

F. Foch: Increased Rate of Fire Favors Attacker?

Net Advantage
Muzzle-loaders: 1 round/minute Net Advantage

Bolt action: 10 rounds/minute

Men Against Fire

The Empty Battlefield

4.

1.

2.

3.

4. Attack w/bayonet once strong enough 1. Enemy engaged by skirmishers 3. Small columns to feed in reserves gradually 2. Line of supports to feed the firing line to win fire superiority
Griffith, Forward into Battle

Psychological Battlefield
Heavy Casualties Expected Moral Ascendancy Decisive

Class Consciousness: Fear of the Mob

Battle As Clash of Wills, Not Numbers or Technology

Cult of the Offensive

Historical Lessons Learned Political Imperative Economic Imperative

RR Mobilization
Conscript / Reserve Armies: Mass, Morale Attacker Can Mass Firepower

Fear of Losses?
The dread of losses will always ensure failure, while we can assume with certainty that those troops who are not afraid of losses are bound to maintain an enormous superiority over others who are more sparing of blood.
General Theodore von Bernhardi

German General Staff Member and Military Theorist, 1912

Determination
In battle, two moral forces, even more than two material forces, are in conflict. The stronger conquers. With equal or even inferior power of destruction, he will win who is determined to advance.
Colonel Charles-Ardent du Picq

Tradition, The Bayonet, and the Price of Victory

OFFENSIVE a OUTRANCE:
the French Army, returning to its traditions, no longer knows any other law than the offensive. All attacks are to be pushed to the extremeto charge the enemy with the bayonet in order to destroy him. This result can only be obtained at the price of bloody sacrifice. Any other conception ought to be rejected as contrary to the very nature of war. - Ferdinand Foch

Tactics or Attitude?

it is more important to develop a conquering state of mind than to [quibble] about tactics. - Colonel Loyzeaux de Grandmaison

1914

The Generals Assumptions

War Is Inevitable We Can Win The War Will Be Short

Victory Will Go to the Attacker

Losses Will Be Heavy

Casualties (early WWI)

1914
France 950,000

1915
1,300,000

Britain
Germany (west) Germany (east)

64,000
700,000 200,000

551,000
652,000 600,000

Austria-Hungary
Russia

750,000
1,000,000

1,800,000
2,800,000

Why Stalemate in 1914?

All war plans failed!

Exhaustion of armies Exhaustion of ammunition Density of forces Lethality of Weapons

Limited heavy artillery

No assailable flanks