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Evolution of the Infantry
Squad 1914-1945
The basic unit of
maneuver in world's modern armies by 1939 was the squad - ten or so
men armed with rifles and usually a light machine gun.1
It was not always this way, however, and this organization
represented the end of an evolutionary process brought about by
technological change and tactical requirements during the First
World War.
1914
In 1914 the basic
unit of maneuver was the infantry company, 150 or 200 men strong.
They were sometimes subdivided into platoons of 30 or 40 men, but in
many armies - the British certainly - they were used mainly for
administrative purposes, often with no permanent leader. Pre-war
British Army manuals divided the company into a firing-line and
supports. The goal was not to win firefights, but “to bring such a
superiority of fire to bear on the enemy as to make the advance to
close quarters possible.”2 Battles were to be finished
with the bayonet, not the musketry that was the pride of British
Army.
One of the very
first board wargames on a tactical scale was
Soldiers:
Tactical Combat in 1914-15, released by SPI as a boxed
game in 1972 (collectors will note it was also shipped via
envelope, and there were three different box variants, the
most common actually being little more than a black counter
tray with clear plastic lid holding the contents inside.)
The game
accurately reflected the state of tactical training in this
period, and basic unit of maneuver in the game, as in life,
was the company. Also included in the game were machine gun
companies and platoons, cavalry squadrons, and artillery
batteries/platoons. In the early period of the war, artillery
doctrine was as firmly rooted in the last century as infantry
and cavalry doctrine, and guns were often sited in the front
line and expected to fire over open sights in direct support
of infantry. The onset of positional warfare in the opening
months of the war changed all that. But that was in the future
in 1914-15, and infantry doctrine remained rooted in
maneuvering entire companies at a time. |
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A classic example of
company level doctrine was Kitcheners' Wood on 21-22 April 1915. Two
Canadian battalions formed company waves on a frontage of just 300
yards as per their instruction manuals, each wave two companies
strong with two ranks twenty yards apart. Thirty yards separated
each of the four waves. They were trained to advance at walking
pace, arm's length apart; the company commander's whistle would
bring them shoulder-to-shoulder, firing "two rounds rapid" from the
hip before charging home with cold steel. They had practiced this on
Salisbury Plain for weeks. "No one questioned its practicality in
the face of massed machine-gun fire."3
They set off in
darkness over 400 yards of open ground. The advance stopped halfway
at a tall wire-strewn hedge. There had been no time for
reconnaissance, and now none for stealth. Noisily bashing through,
when alerted German machine gunners in the Wood opened fire, the men
charged. Both units intermixed in a frenzied assault similar to that
of the ill-disciplined Highlanders at Culloden 169 years before. It
was all over in under fifteen minutes. Both battalions had mustered
1600 men at the start line; six hours later, with the Germans driven
out and counter-attacks beaten off, only 461 were left able to
fight.4
At right is a
representation of this situation were it to be portrayed in
Advanced Squad Leader. Each counter represents a 10-man squad.
To achieve the necessary frontage, five such squads would have to be
stacked into each hex (representing 40 metres of terrain from side
to side). ASL players will recognize the dubious prospects of
facing an enemy armed with machine guns when your infantry is
overstacked five squads to a hex, two battalions compressed into an
area just 28 hexes in area. For those actually wanting to simulate
this in ASL, pre-1917 British tactics, would
likely
need to include Human Wave (A25.23) rules combined with a form of
Platoon Movement (D14.23) for infantry. It would not be fun to play.
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By late 1914 the Germans were
already feeling their way towards the all-arms teams they called
Stosstruppen, or "stormtroopers." So were some French divisions.
Unlike the German army, with its powerful tradition of
decentralization and individual initiative, the British Army
believed in centralization of tactical doctrine...headquarters
periodically reminded senior officers that the 1914 manuals were
still in effect.5
The Somme
Reluctance to change
was well-illustrated on 1 July 1916, and even though some divisions
performed very well on a day that 60,000 men were killed or wounded,
institutional resistance was still a force to be reckoned with.
On 17 May 1916,
Rawlinson issued a pamphlet, Fourth Army Tactical Notes, directing
that this be read by all ranks down to...company commander level.
These notes called for an attack in extended line: 'the leading
lines should not be more than 100 yards apart and the men in each
line should be extended at two or three paces' interval, the number
of lines depending on the distance and the nature of the objective.6
But according to Martin Middlebrook,
the British were starting to learn by then; the following examples
all come from that same 1 July 1916 attack that had been so costly
over so much of the front:
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At Gommecourt...Attacking from the
south, the 56th (London) Division had performed brilliantly.
Making use of (a) new trench they had dug in No Man's Land and a
smoke-screen, four battalions had captured the whole of the German
front-line system...
and
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The leading battalions (of the 36th
(Ulster) Division) had been ordered out from the wood just before
7.30 A.M. and laid down near the German trenches...At zero hour
the British barrage lifted. Bugles blew the "Advance". Up sprang
the Ulstermen and, without forming up in the waves adopted by
other divisions, they rushed the German front line.....By a
combination of sensible tactics and Irish dash, the prize that
eluded so many, the capture of a long section of the German front
line, had been accomplished.7
Rediscovering
Platoons
Two and a half months
later, training memos still announced that the company was the basic
unit of attack. Even if the solution of smaller tactical entities
had been obvious, there was a severe shortage of leadership;
casualties among junior officers and senior NCOs were terrifiyingly
high. Nonetheless, in the months following the Somme, the British
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...rediscovered platoons.
Officially they had always been there, thirty or forty men
commanded by a lieutenant, with a couple of sergeants to assist
him. In practice, pre-1917 tactics and the lack of reliable,
experienced officers persuaded ...battalions to rely on companies,
with junior officers assigned duties at a company commander's
convenience.8
Companies were now
formed into four platoons on a permanent basis, further divided into
four squads. Officers, sergeants, and even corporal squad leaders
were permanently assigned. HMGs went into specialized units,
replaced in the infantry battalions by the Lewis Gun - one per
platoon by 1917. One squad in the platoon would carry the heavy
Lewis along with its bulky ammunition pans. The second squad
specialized in grenades, a third in rifle grenades, and the fourth
were riflemen.
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Instead of companies advancing in
line, halting until flanks were safe or the artillery had dealt
with a problem, attacking infantry could maneuver against an enemy
post that held them up. An infantry company would have four teams,
each capable of fighting its own small battle. Leaders and men
would know each other and, through briefings and rehearsals, all
would know what to do. It had taken a long time, but ... infantry
would be organized and trained to fight their own battles and not
to be patriotic automata.9
By war's end, the
British Army fought with true combined arms teams of tanks,
artillery, machineguns, and even air support, co-ordinated at times
by wireless, and at the centre of it all was the infantry.
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In 1914 it was an arm which had
prided itself on accurate rifle-fire which paved the way for
assault in line. By the war's end, if it could not perhaps produce
thousand-yard hits...it could generate a blizzard of close-range
fire...and develop attacks with platoons and s(quads) shoving
their way forward with fire and manoeuvre.10
The Germans had
lagged behind in developing a light machine gun adopting the MG
08/15 while the French and Americans adopted the lighter Chauchat,
with the Americans eventually implementing the excellent Browning
Automatic Rifle very late in the war. However, the Germans
re-organized their infantry by 1918, so that the machineguns were
part of combined-arms groups. Just as the British and French had
done, small assault detachments, as few as eight men with a
dedicated NCO to lead them, were being used with great
effectiveness.11
The Second World War
The mistaken belief
that the Germans invented modern warfare in 1939 ignores just how
good the 1918 British Army had been. Sadly for the British, many of their techniques
had to be relearned after the start of the Second World War. What was not forgotten
in the interwar period was the value of the LMG
and the organization of the squad. By 1939, however, the Germans had
taken the technological lead. The British had replaced the
cumbersome Lewis with a true LMG, the Bren, in 1937. The new Bren
was intended to provide their seven man squads covering fire. The Germans did things the other
way round, with riflemen of a 10-man squad supporting the LMG. For the Germans,
this weapon was the MG34, the first truly general purpose machine gun,
capable of sustained fire of between 600 and 900 rounds per minute and, with
the correct attachments (such as a tripod, telescopic sight, spare
barrels, "assault" ammunition drum, etc.), capable of use in light, medium, heavy,
vehicle mount and anti-aircraft roles. |
The MG34 as
configured for both the heavy and light role.
US
Army photo
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The British infantry platoon
had been reduced to three squads between the wars. Experience in
France and in North Africa led to the final squad organization; an
increase to ten men and the adoption of a submachine gun for squad leaders. But even as this
final structure evolved, the thorny problem remained of what the
squad was supposed to do, and how they should be trained. Revisions
to an official manual on tactics started in April 1942 were only
finalized by March 1944.12
What was clear was
that the specialist squad of 1918 was gone. The transformation to
all-purpose squads is evidenced by Battle Questionnaires completed
by company officers who describe a dizzying array of weapons systems
their men were expected to use. In addition to rifles, LMGs and SMGs,
each man took as many grenades (fragmentation and smoke) as he could carry.
While the rifle grenade was still on inventory, a platoon relied
instead on the 2-inch mortar for smoke, high explosive, and illumination, kept at
platoon HQ along with an anti-tank rifle (replaced in 1943 with the Projector,
Infantry, Anti-Tank (PIAT), which sometimes doubled as a mortar).13
In action, the new
squads rarely fought with more than six men. Aside from
well-documented manpower shortages, the Left Out of Battle (LOB)
system devised during the Great War was the main reason. Perhaps
another legacy of the Somme, this ensured key men sat out major
attacks to preserve a trained nucleus to rebuild on in the event of
a disaster. If a battalion, company or platoon commander personally
led an attack, his second in command remained back. Even individual
squads left one or two men behind.
Battle Drill
British infantry training was
revitalized in 1942 by their 47th Division, who adopted what they
called Battle Drill. In its most basic form, this taught infantry
squads how to react under fire. The new mantra became “Down, Crawl,
Observe, Fire”, the immediate actions for riflemen under fire. Basic
routines were developed for tactical situations, and the squad
leader found himself in a position of importance undreamed of by
1914 NCOs. He ordered basic maneuvers based on his own
assessments - usually a flanking by the rifle team with the Bren
providing cover. It was even simple enough to be taught as a parade
ground drill.14
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I found as a Section Leader, I had
to keep yelling at my men, "five yards!"...Most of our marches
were in single file, one-third of a Platoon at a time, with a
Section Leader, usually a Corporal, out in front. Each man in his
section was supposed to be five yards behind the man in front. But
nature being what it is, men were inclined to crowd up...When a
section Leader started the advance, he would say "follow me" and
at the same time he made a motion with one arm...What I didn't
figure out until years after the war was over was that the section
Leader was the most vulnerable position.15
This dispersal made
command difficult to exert; a 1914 company commander could control
tightly packed waves of men, but his 1944 counterpart would often
not be able to see most of his men at any given time. Much was left
to the squad leader to carry out on his own. The
British rifle squad historically divided into a Bren Team of three
men and a Rifle Team with the rest of the squad under the squad
leader. Battle Drill taught the squad leader what to do with his
teams, but it became much more. Obstacle courses, speed marches and
hardening training were added, including visits to animal
slaughterhouses to get men used to the sights of battle. Training
was done “at the double” with full equipment. Reactions at all
levels were mixed; some soldiers felt the lessons useless and
unrealistic. General Montgomery (and some noted historians) felt it
was a crutch preventing companies from perfecting company maneuvers
(the advance, the relief in place, the passage of obstacles, etc.)
by its focus on the platoon and squad. Battle Drill fell in and out
of favour during the war, as the British armies struggled to convert
largely civilian armies into tactical equals of the Germans.
Two methods of attack
crystallized in British battle schools; in October 1942 a handbook
outlined both the pepper-pot method, and the lane method. The former
involved splitting squads into three groups, one group moving
forward 20 yards while the other two covered their movements,
leapfrogging forward in this manner until on the objective. Critics
felt the Bren Gun remained too idle, and for this reason the “lane
method” of attack was developed, illustrated in ASL terms below.
At the centre are
extra Bren Gun teams, either from supporting rifle platoons, or in
this case dismounted Brens drawn from the Carrier Platoon. On the
left flank (at the top of the illustration), the Platoon Sergeant keeps the PIAT under command while
the Platoon Commander prepares to lead his squad, with 2-inch mortar,
forward. On the right flank (at the bottom of the illustration), the other two squads of the platoon
also prepare to advance. The manual gives a frontage of 250 yards,
which is accurate in our example, but gives 600 yards from the LMG
teams to the objective. In support are three-inch mortars, not
visible here, and sited off map to the left.
The first image shows how the attack was supposed to develop, according to
the manual. The leading squads would move forward and deploy, with LMG teams and
mortars providing cover (and smoke). In the second image, we see
the LMGs have moved forward so that all LMGs are on line and
firing. Infantry from follow up platoons advance from behind to
exploit the successful assault indicated by red arrows.16
Unfortunately, the
lane method was almost impossible to co-ordinate effectively; one
historian knows of but a single instance of it being performed
successfully in an actual battle.17 No matter what method
was employed to get infantry forward, a major concern was that once
the individual soldier had done his drills there was often nothing
to be seen to shoot at, with entrenched German soldiers all but
invisible. There also continued to be an over-reliance on artillery
support - a holdover attitude from the First World War - with wide
belief that heavy guns made infantry tactics a non-issue.
One British General,
writing in 1948, felt that the infantry should advance under
covering fire and defeat the enemy at close range, with any and all
covering firepower generated by the artillery and separate MG
battalions. He felt that “the (squad), platoon and company
fire-and-movement tactics comprehended in battle drill were wrong in
principle, and that the role of the infantry should be little
different from the role they had been intended to perform on 1 July
1916.” He further suggested equipping infantry with a bayonet and
rifles sighted out only to 200 yards, leaving all other types of
weapons in the hands of specialists. His model was not adopted, but
there is some irony in that it was the Somme that precipitated major
changes in infantry organization in the first place!18
In the end, while the
importance of the squad as the basic unit of maneuver was well known
by 1944, the best methods for training and utilizing those squads
were never fully realized by the British. The United States Marine
Corps pushed forward based on tactical requirements in the Pacific,
and broke the squad down even further, in some cases to three
separate teams, each with its own Browning Automatic Rifle. The US
rifle squads in both the Army and the Marines were equipped
completely with semi-automatic and automatic weapons by 1944, and
numbered twelve or thirteen men. Games like Close Assault and
its contemporary-era sequel, Firepower, sought to examine the
nitty gritty of actual man-for-man organizational schemes. The great
irony of the most successful of all the tactical board games,
Squad Leader, is that it is so inaptly named given that the
player never actually commands any squads. But these are all topics
for future articles.
Notes
- In actual fact,
the British squad has always been called a "section"
but for purposes of this article "squad" is substituted.
- Holmes,
Richard. Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front
1914-1918 (HarperCollins UK, 2005 ISBN
978-0007137527) p.381
- Dancocks, Daniel G. Gallant Canadians: The Story of the
Tenth Canadian Infantry Battalion 1914-1919 p.27
- Ibid, pp.33-34
- Morton, Desmond. When Your Number's Up: Canadians in the
First World War, p.164
- Neillands, Robin. The Great War Generals, p.240
- Middlebrook, Martin. First Day on the Somme
- Morton, Ibid, p.164
- Ibid, p.164
- Tommy p.394
- Bull, Stephen. World War I Trench Warfare (2) 1916-18
(Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2002)
- Place, Timothy Harrison. Military Training in the British
Army, 1940-1944 From Dunkirk to D-Day, p. 9
- Original Battle Questionnaires on file in
The Calgary Highlanders Regimental Archives.
- Hogg, Ian V. and Mike Chappell. "The Bren Gun", article in
Military Illustrated
- Unpublished memoir of Acting Corporal Bill Powell, Calgary
Highlanders 1944-45.
- The Instructor's Handbook on Fieldcraft and Battle Drill
(GHQ Home Forces, 1942), pp 164-166
- Place, Ibid, p.69
- Ibid, p.79
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