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This thesis examines the evolution of artillery tactics in World War II using General J. Lawton Collins’ U.S. VII Corps as a case study. This study first reviews artillery doctrine and tactics during World War I and during the 1920s and 1930s, in which time future leaders like General Collins were military students. In 1943, General Collins commanded an infantry division on Guadalcanal where he was one of the first American generals to implement the Army’s new doctrine of fire direction centers (FDCs) and massed fires using time on targets (TOTs). Collins then was selected to command the U.S. VII Corps for the invasion of Normandy and the subsequent breakout during OPERATION COBRA. From Normandy to the end of the war, Collins continued to hone his use of artillery based on his experience during the eleven-month campaign in Northwest Europe, contributing to his reputation as the best corps commander in World War II. This study looks at Army doctrine in 1944 to judge Collins’ artillery tactics and concludes that he used established doctrine and that his tactics are the foundation for today’s artillery tactics.
This monograph examines General J. Lawton Collins' career and argues that his command style was characterized by technical and tactical competence, the practical ability to lead from the front and sound judgment. This monograph examines these key factors in three subsections. General Collins gained his technical and tactical competence by theoretical preparation as a student and instructor. He first demonstrated the ability to position himself at the critical point on the battlefield as the commander of the 25th Infantry Division during the Guadalcanal Campaign in January 1943. As the commander of the VII Corps during the Allies' Campaign in northwest Europe from 1944 to 1945, he refined this ability. Finally, he developed sound judgment while performing key postings both during the interwar period and during the Second World War. This monograph shows how General J. Lawton Collins' command style translated into action and made him such an effective combat leader.
This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.
The Eastern Front, 1941-1945, is one of the biggest and most decisive theaters of operation in modern history, and was the largest theater of war in World War Two. A total force of 9 million Germans and Russians battled on both sides with a combined strength of 590 divisions. Military losses approached 5 million German casualties, and 17 million Russian casualties. Altogether, both sides had an active strength of 13,000 tanks, 18,000 combat aircraft, and 50,000 artillery pieces. With the exception of the massive Allied Combined bombing campaign, the Allied effort of ninety-three divisions in Western Europe against seventy German division pales in comparison. Another interesting point in the Eastern Front was initial nature of German operational maneuver, followed by the evolution of Russian operational maneuver. By 1944, the Russian Army had become experts on operational maneuver, and maximized the principals of war of mass, objective, offense, and maneuver. The German Army against an army four times its size eventually culminated, but not until after four years of intense fighting. Eighty percent of total German casualties were lost on the Eastern front, 4.7 million of 6 million casualties. Further, both sides lost an estimated 65,000 tanks and 60,000 combat aircraft, two-thirds being Russian. The methodology of this analysis is chronological, based on the successive operational campaigns from June 1941 through May 1945. Each campaign lists the order of battle, and then the combat power using Lanchester equations (Frederich W. Lanchester) of military combat. In studying modern war, the Eastern Front is a case study in a maneuver oriented army versus a large attrition based army. With almost six hundred years’ worth of German divisional combat on the Eastern Front, valuable lessons can be learned in studying this theater of war.
In an increasingly urbanized world, urban terrain has become a greater factor in military operations. Simultaneously, advances in military technology have given military forces sharply increased capabilities. The conflict comes from how urban terrain can negate or degrade many of those increased capabilities. What happens when advanced weapons are used in a close-range urban fight with an abundance of cover? Storming the City explores these issues by analyzing the performance of the US Army and US Marine Corps in urban combat in four major urban battles of the mid-twentieth century (Aachen 1944, Manila 1945, Seoul 1950, and Hue 1968). Alec Wahlman assesses each battle using a similar framework of capability categories, and separate chapters address urban warfare in American military thought. In the four battles, across a wide range of conditions, American forces were ultimately successful in capturing each city because of two factors: transferable competence and battlefield adaptation. The preparations US forces made for warfare writ large proved generally applicable to urban warfare. Battlefield adaptation, a strong suit of American forces, filled in where those overall preparations for combat needed fine tuning. From World War Two to Vietnam, however, there was a gradual reduction in tactical performance in the four battles.
A native of New Orleans who graduated from West Point in 1917, General J. Lawton Collins was a division commander and later a corps commander in World War II, US Army chief of staff during the Korean War, and US special representative in Vietnam following the Geneva accords. “General Collins was one of driving forces in our military leadership during World War II and the postwar period. His autobiography, Lightning Joe, is a fascinating and dramatic account of those critical years, as well as a warm, personal story.” — W. Averell Harriman “The route to leadership in combat is long, tedious, competitive and difficult. General Collins’ splendid record indicates that he understood and mastered the challenge. Attaining the highest commands and acquitting himself in magnificent style, Joe Collins added brilliant pages to the already bright history of the United States Army.” — General Mark W. Clark “Lightning Joe is a remarkably interesting book. It is packed with statistics, dates, and places, and certainly will be an essential reference book for anyone interested in World War II in Europe and the years immediately following that war.” — General James M. Gavin “Anyone who has wondered how the small Army officer corps of the 1920s and 1930s was able to produce so many effective and often brilliant commanders in World War II will find an answer in this autobiography of General J. Lawton Collins. General Collins recounts his varied experiences in war and peace with exacting accuracy of fact and in an interesting and lucid manner, which makes his book most valuable reading both for the historian and the lay reader wishing to learn more about what it takes to make a successful modern general.” — General Maxwell D. Taylor “In this autobiography, General J. Lawton Collins exhibits the qualities of mind which won him the reputation as one of the brainiest of American combat commanders: clarity, judiciousness, incisiveness, and realism... a book which should prove valuable to both historian and the general reader... [an] admirable book.” — Ronald Spector, Military Affairs “[H]ere is a soldier-memoirist grappling earnestly to convey the possible benefits of his own tactical experience to future tacticians, as well as to contribute to the historian’s more forthright quest for as true as possible a reconstruction of the past. Collins is a candidly self-critical memoirist... As a memoirist, Collins has met a standard comparable to that of his exercise of command — which is saying a great deal.” — Russell F. Weigley, The Review of Politics “The picture that emerges from [the book]... is that of a man of extraordinary good judgment who as a combat commander was neither rash nor overly cautious, an officer who was at once modest and serenely confident of his skills, one who had no time for military posturing... in sum, here is a sharply written and fast-moving account of the life of a man who was intimately involved in some of the most important happenings and with some of the most important people of the present century. It is a book that will appeal to scholars and to general readers alike.” — John Edward Wiltz, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “J. Lawton Collins was one of the most important and influential American military leaders of the twentieth century... His descriptions of the fighting in France, the Battle of the Bulge, and the ultimate conquest of Germany offer important insights for anyone interested in the Second World War... Lightning Joe is the candid, thoughtful appraisal of world-shaking events by a man considered to be one of the most innovative, aggressive, and effective generals the United States has ever produced.” — Midwest Book Review
Faced with severe budgetary constraints, a radically reduced force structure, and a crippling intellectual dogmatism, the American Infantry struggled throughout the interwar years to modernize its doctrine. Finlayson examines these difficulties, beginning with an overview of the experiences of the primary combatants of the First World War, comparing their battlefield doctrines with that of the American Expeditionary Force. The brief American appearance on the battlefield did much to shape the convictions of those men assigned the task of developing doctrine after the war. The findings of the post-World War I Superior Board provide valuable insight into how institutional conservatism and the dogmatic approach to new ideas that existed among senior Army leaders stymied possible doctrinal advances. The Army would suffer greatly in the post-war demobilization and the subsequent ravages of the Great Depression. With little money and few soldiers spread around far-flung posts, little advancement in terms of doctrinal development was possible. As the likelihood of war became more imminent in the 1930s, a concerted effort to modernize was made; however, the magnitude of the task made success virtually impossible-a situation that was evident in the Infantry's poor performance in the early battles of the war. The U.S. entry into World war II would, unfortunately, find the infantry branch only partially prepared for the battle field of 1942.
The American Heritage History of World War II was first published in 1966. At the time, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist C.L. Sulzberger received widespread praise for his authoritative account of the six-year war that involved more than fifty-six nations, resulted in the death of some 22 million people, and shaped the course of history. His work became a standard reference on the war.Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the most highly regarded historians of our time, oversaw a major revision of this classic work. Seamlessly incorporating new material and insights, Ambrose produced a comprehensive and riveting account of the war's key characters and events.