Maneuver And Firepower

CMH 60-14. Army Lineage Series. Traces the evolution of divisions and brigades in the United States Army. Gives a systematic account of the way these two organizations evolved, highlighting the rationales behind that evolution and the many factors that played a part in bringing those changes into reality. L.C. card 94-21031.

Maneuver and Firepower, the companion volume to John B. Wilson's Armies, Corps, Divisions, and Separate Brigades, traces the evolution oftwo unique and complex U.S. Army organizations-divisions and separate brigades-that combined combat arms, combat support, combat service support units into well-oiled engines for war. The Army has used divisions and brigades since the colonial era, but the national leadership did not provide for their permanency in the force until the twentieth century. Wilson has prepared a detailed systematic account of the way these two organizations developed, highlighting operational art rationales and broad but interrelated technological, political, and economic factors that played a significant part in bringing the structural changes into reality. As Wilson shows, both organizations have played a pivotal role in the American military experience, and their exploits form the core of the Army's history in the twentieth century. Force planners today will find the challenges of making these military formations responsive to the ever-changing and unpredictable global dynamics affecting power and security relationships highly relevant today. This groundbreaking volume is an invaluable reference source for those involved in the ongoing Army Transformation.

Fairly or unfairly, the stalemate on the First World War’s Western Front is often attributed to the intellectual stagnation of the era’s military officers. This paper traces the development (or absence of development) of combined arms and fire & maneuver tactics and doctrine in the period prior to WW I, focusing on the Russo-Japanese War. The Western armies that entered the Great War seemingly ignored many of the hard-learned lessons and observations of pre-war conflicts. Though World War I armies were later credited with developing revolutionary wartime tactical-level advances, many scholars claim that this phase of tactical evolution followed an earlier period of intellectual stagnation that resulted in the stalemate on the war’s Western Front. This stalemate, they claim, could have been avoided by heeding the admonitions of pre-war conflicts and incorporating the burgeoning effects of technology into military tactics and doctrine. Some go even further and fault the military leadership with incompetence and foolishness for not adapting to the requirements of modern war. The Russo-Japanese War showed the necessity for combined arms techniques and fire and maneuver tactics on the modern battlefield. Specifically, the war showed the need for: (1) the adoption of dispersed, irregular formations; (2) the employment of fire and maneuver techniques and small unit-tactics, including base of fire techniques; (3) the transition to indirect-fire artillery support to ensure the survivability of the batteries, and; (4) the necessity for combined arms tactics to increase the survivability of assaulting infantry and compensate for the dispersion of infantry firepower.

"FM 100-5 explains how the Army must conduct campaigns and battles in order to win. It describes US Army operational doctrine involving maneuver, firepower, and movement; combined arms warfare; and cooperative actions with sister services and allies. It emphasizes tactical flexibility and speed as well as mission orders, initiative among subordinates, and the spirit of the offense. Specific operational details appear in other field manuals and regulations."--Page i.