The first volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931, offered readers a set of sixteen short tactical problems. On 8 June 2026, The Tactical Notebook published the fifth of these.

This article provides both the solutions published at the end of the problem, as well as an overview of the solutions offered by participants in on-line meetings (‘Zoomdezvous’) of the Decision Game Club. So, if you would like to play your way through the series, please engage that exercise before reading this post.

Like its predecessor, Short Problem Number 5 presented students with two similar situations, each of which differed slightly from the other. It also asked players to switch roles within the first of these situations.

(1) In Sketch C the fire distribution of the section at N is as follows. Each squad covers approximately one-third of the section target.

Within each squad each rifleman fires on that part of the squad target opposite him. He fires at places where he has seen or suspects an enemy. Both auto riflemen distribute their fire over the entire squad target.

(2) The platoon leader has the leading section continue to fire on M, while he advances the rear section from P in the western portion of the zone of the platoon to take M.

(3) In the situation in sketch D, the platoon leader advances the section at P to a firing position where it can fire on M, and thus enable the leading section to advance in the right portion of the zone and take M.

The rear section usually is the maneuver element of a platoon. It may be used on occasion to cover the advance of the leading section by fire.

When rifle units approach close to the enemy, supporting fire of machine guns and artillery has to lift. Rifle units therefore must usually cover their own advance to assaulting positions at the closer ranges.

Some men must fire while others advance. Squad and section rushes, however, seldom will be desirable.

On Saturday, 13 June 2026, participants in two on-line meetings of the Decision Game Club worked through all three parts of this problem.

Like the solutions published in the Infantry School Mailing List, most of the courses of action devised by participants in the Zoomdezvous involved the use of one section as a base of fire and the other as a maneuver element. One plan, however, made use of fire-and-maneuver within the squads of the forward section. That is, is anticipated the official adoption of the fire team by more than a decade.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 35 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

In 1855, the French army took a pair of prototype artillery pieces to a range near the seaside city of Calais. There they fired the new weapons at targets set at distances that ranged from one thousand meters (three-fifths of a mile) to five thousand meters (three miles).

Soon thereafter, Guillaume Piobert, compared the results of these trials with figures pulled from similar tests of cannon (bronze sixteen-pounder guns of the Valée system of 1827) that differed from the experimental equipment in one, and only one, respect. Where the cannon balls shot by the older pieces began their journeys by rolling along smooth passageways, the studded, pointy-nosed cylinders shot by their remodeled counterparts spun their way through rifled barrels before taking to the air.

General Piobert measured the accuracy of the two types of artillery pieces by comparing the ‘mean deviation’ (écart moyen) of each projectile fired. (The closer a place on the target struck to the point of aim, the lower the deviation, and thus the greater the precision of the shot.)

At a range of thousand meters, the rifled version of the sixteen-pounder proved twice as accurate (or nearly so) as its smoothbore sibling. At two thousand meters, this advantage quadrupled. That is, at a distance of one-and-a-quarter miles, the rifled piece achieved a degree of precision eight times greater than that of its competitor.

At 2,500 meters, the impressive advantage of the rifled piece diminished slightly. However, it managed to redeem itself by striking targets that had been well beyond the reach of the cannonballs fired by its smoothbore counterpart.

Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of Piobert’s original study. I therefore relied upon a précis included in an article from a desk-top encyclopedia. Charles Laboulaye ‘Boulets’ (‘Artillery Projectiles’) Complement du Dictionaire des Arts et Manufactures (Supplement to the Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures) (Paris: LaCroix, 1861), page 73.

In celebration of the two hundred and fifty-first birthday of the US Army, Clio has assembled a list of guides to relevant reading.

‘So, tell me, Melpomene, about these things called “staff rides” that Clio keeps talking about.’

‘In its original form, a staff ride occurs when people gather to hear an account of a battle, a true tale told in the place where the great event actually took place.’

‘So, it’s a history lesson told “on site”, so to speak.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So the historian uses the place to draw students into the story?’

‘And to help them appreciate factors that are hard to put into words. Things like the lay of the land and the character of obstacles.’

‘Xenophon would be good at that.’

‘I hope so. Clio has worked hard to inspire him.’

‘I wish I could inspire Xenophon. He’s dreamy.’

‘Thalia! Please! This is a serious conversation.’

‘Sorry, Sis.’

‘Anyway … some students like to increase the focus on terrain by conducting the staff ride in two parts. Before going to the battlefield, the students read about the battle, listen to lecture, or watch a video about events that took place there.’

‘Video?’

‘It’s a kind of play.’

‘I see. Like Oedipus Rex, but with more in the way of action?’

‘That’s one way to put it.’

‘Anyway, once they have developed a vision of the battle, the students walk the battlefield, looking for evidence that challenges their previous ideas.’

‘So, the ground itself takes on the role of teacher. I like it.’

‘I thought you might! I also suspect you will find much to admire in the third way to do a staff ride, one that belong’s to Thalia’s new realm.’

‘No more comedy for you, then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, but when I’m on the clock, I promote strategic simulation?’

‘People pretending to be generals?’

‘Or colonels, or captains, or corporals.’

‘So, you help people seek truth by looking at problems faced by others at particular points in the past.’

‘Yes, and attempting to solve those dilemmas.’

‘Fascinating. And I can see how engaging those challenges on the places where they took place can enhance that experience.’

‘So I have found.’

‘By the way, what does “on the clock” mean?’

‘It means “when I am attending to my official duties”.’

‘But why would you do that “on the clock”? Wouldn’t you block the sun?’

‘The expression refers to clocks of a different sort, machines that tell the time of day, even at night, or indoors. Some - but not all - look a lot like the pendants we wear - the insignia of our order.’

‘They remind us of our work along the great river of time.’

‘And the flowers in your hair?’

‘The forget-me-nots? Those, I think, speak for themselves.’

‘Of course. Anyway, I interrupted Thalia’s explanation of …’

‘… Socratic staff rides.’

‘Now you make me blush.’

‘I’m told I have that effect on men.’

‘Thalia!’

‘Anyway … these exercises require teachers who prefer the asking of questions to the provision of answers. Teachers like you, Socrates.’

‘Once again, it’s not the sun that’s making my face red!’

‘Such teachers should also resist the temptation to tie the loose ends of a staff ride into a nice, neat bow, the sort of compact conclusion that puts the human mind to rest. I want students to go home with a rich supply of conundra, fodder for their pondering - or, dare I say … musing.’

‘That’s why we adopted the motto “Always leave ‘em wanting more.”’

Milstack Saturday showcases the best articles on military subjects (more or less) that I read in the preceding week. Please note that, while I await the publication of additional articles about tactical aspects of the war in the Persian Gulf, Milstack Special has gone into occlusion.

In Shantytown, Monique Taylor tells the tale of a glider assembly base that glider assemblers made out of the crates that had carried disassembled gilders. (Please file under ‘interesting things that used to be trees’.)

In The Case for Belt-Feds, Captain Karl Flynn, of the American Marines, calls for the use of ‘constant recoil’ light machine guns to shoot at, among other things, unmanned aircraft and creepy-crawly robots.

In Abbiamo un Problema con i Deep Fires, Fabio Ruggio explains that, notwithstanding the proliferation of long-range munitions, they work best when their work complements the actions of forces in contact. He also reminds us that, thanks to the availability of translation programs, we can read articles in languages foreign to us.

In the most recent installment of his series on Reflections on Great Historians, Nick Lloyd (who may remember me from his days on the War Studies faculty at R.M.A. Sandhurst) celebrates the achievements, both literary and historical, of Shelby Foote.

In Wargaming Weekly #072, Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha shares downloadable copies of Assisting Security, a solitaire micro-wargame about (you guessed it) security force assistance.

In The Librarian of Celaeno’s Top 10 Underrated Stacks, The (You Guessed it) Librarian of Calaeno celebrates nine Substack authors who might be new to you. (The tenth walks the earth as the person I describe with the help of a perpendicular pronoun. Thank you, LoC!)

‘Milstack Saturday’ showcases the best articles on military subjects that I read in the preceding week. Please note that, while I await the publication of additional articles about tactical aspects of the war in the Persian Gulf, Milstack Special has gone into occlusion.

William Tecumseh Sherman devoted but one paragraph of his memoirs to his opinion on the subject of courts martial.

In camp, and especially in the presence of an active enemy, it is much easier to maintain discipline than in barracks in time of peace. Crime and breaches of discipline are much less frequent, and the necessity for courts-martial far less. The captain can usually inflict all the punishment necessary, and the colonel should always. The field-officers' court is the best form for war, viz., one of the field-officers -the lieutenant-colonel or major - can examine the case and report his verdict, and the colonel should execute it. Of course, there are statutory offenses which demand a general court-martial, and these must be ordered by the division or corps commander; but the presence of one of our regular civilian judge-advocates in an army in the field would be a first-class nuisance, for technical courts always work mischief. Too many courts-martial in any command are evidence of poor discipline and inefficient officers.

Apart from items printed in italic letters, the text of this post comes from: William Tecumseh Sherman Memoirs of William T. Sherman (New York: D. Appleton, 1875) Volume II, Chapter XIV (Internet Archive)

Librivox offers, free of charge, an audio version of the aforementioned chapter. The viva voce version of the paragraphs reprinted in this post can be found in the recording marked ‘Military Lessons of the War - Section 2’. (The Tactical Notebook salutes Librivox reader David Wells for the high quality of this program and thanks him for his support of this remarkable service.)

For a detailed description of the German system of recruitment of the early 1870s, see Gerald F. Talbot Analysis of the Organization of the Prussian Army (Berlin: W. Moeser, 1871) (Hathi Trust)

In the last chapter of his memoirs, William Tecumseh Sherman considers, among other things, the effect of trees, breech-loading firearms, and awareness of the ‘big picture’ has on infantry tactics.

Very few of the battles in which I have participated were fought as described in European text-books, viz., in great masses, in perfect order, manœuvring by corps, divisions, and brigades. We were generally in a wooded country, and, though our lines were deployed according to tactics, the men generally fought in strong skirmish-lines, taking advantage of the shape of ground, and of every cover. We were generally the assailants, and in wooded and broken countries the ‘defensive’ had a positive advantage over us, for they were always ready, had cover, and always knew the ground to their immediate front; whereas we, their assailants, had to grope our way over unknown ground, and generally found a cleared field or prepared entanglements that held us for a time under a close and withering fire.

Rarely did the opposing lines in compact order come into actual contact, but when, as at Peach-Tree Creek and Atlanta, the lines did become commingled, the men fought individually in every possible style, more frequently with the musket clubbed than with the bayonet, and in some instances the men clinched like wrestlers, and went to the ground together. Europeans frequently criticized our war, because we did not always take full advantage of a victory; the true reason was, that habitually the woods served as a screen, and we often did not realize the fact that our enemy had retreated till he was already miles away and was again intrenched, having left a mere shirmish-line to cover the movement, in turn to fall back to the new position.

Our war was fought with the muzzle-loading rifle. Toward the close I had one brigade (Walcutt’s) armed with breech-loading ‘Spencer’s’. The cavalry generally had breach-loading carbines: ‘Spencer’s’ and ‘Sharp’s’, both of which were good arms.

The only change that breech-loading arms will probably make in the art and practice of war will be to increase the amount of ammunition to be expended, and necessarily to be carried along; to still further ‘thin out’ the lines of attack, and to reduce battles to short, quick, decisive conflicts. It does not in the least affect the grand strategy, or the necessity for perfect organization, drill, and discipline. The companies and battalions will be more dispersed, and the men will be less under the immediate eye of their officers, and therefore a higher order of intelligence and courage on the part of the individual soldier will be an element of strength.

When a regiment is deployed as skirmishers, and crosses an open field or woods, under heavy fire, if each man runs forward from tree to tree, or stump to stump, and yet preserves a good general alignment, it gives great confidence to the men themselves, for they always keep their eyes well to the right and left, and watch their comrades; but when some few hold back, stick too close or too long to a comfortable log, it often stops the line and defeats the whole object. Therefore, the more we improve the fire-arm the more will be the necessity for good organization, good discipline and intelligence on the part of the individual soldier and officer.

There is, of course, such a thing as individual courage, which has a value in war, but familiarity with danger, experience in war and its common attendants, and personal habit, are equally valuable traits, and these are the qualities with which we usually have to deal in war. All men naturally shrink from pain and danger, and only incur their risk from some higher motive, or from habit; so that I would define true courage to be a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to incur it, rather than that insensibility to danger of which I have heard far more than I have seen.

The most courageous men are generally unconscious of possessing the quality; therefore, when one professes it too openly, by words or bearing, there is reason to mistrust it. I would further illustrate my meaning by describing a man of true courage to be one who possesses all his faculties and senses perfectly when serious danger is actually present.

Modern wars have not materially changed the relative values or proportions of the several arms of service : infantry, artillery, cavalry, and engineers. If any thing, the infantry has been increased in value. The danger of cavalry attempting to charge infantry armed with breech-loading rifles was fully illustrated at Sedan, and with us very frequently.

The painting depicts an attempt made by French heavy cavalry at the battle of Sedan (1 September 1870) to charge German infantry armed with breech-loading rifles.

So improbable has such a thing become that we have omitted the infantry-square from our recent tactics. Still, cavalry against cavalry, and as auxiliary to infantry, will always be valuable, while all great wars will, as heretofore, depend chiefly on the infantry. Artillery is more valuable with new and inexperienced troops than with veterans. In the early stages of the war the field-guns often bore the proportion of six to a thousand men; but toward the close of the war one gun, or at most two, to a thousand men, was deemed enough.

Sieges, such as characterized the wars of the last century, are too slow for this period of the world, and the Prussians recently almost ignored them altogether, penetrated France between the forts, and left a superior force ‘in observation,’ to watch the garrison and accept its surrender when the greater events of the war ahead made further resistance useless; but earth-forts, and especially field-works, will hereafter play an important part in wars, because they enable a minor force to hold a superior one in check for a time, and time is a most valuable element in all wars.

It was one of Professor (Dennis Hart) Mahan’s maxims that the spade was as useful in war as the musket, and to this I will add the axe. The habit of intrenching certainly does have the effect of making new troops timid. When a line of battle is once covered by a good parapet, made by the engineers or by the labor of the men themselves, it does require an effort to make them leave it in the face of danger; but when the enemy is intrenched, it becomes absolutely necessary to permit each brigade and division of the troops immediately opposed to throw up a corresponding trench for their own protection in case of a sudden sally. We invariably did this in all our recent campaigns, and it had no ill effect, though sometimes our troops were a little too slow in leaving their well-covered lines to assail the enemy in position or on retreat.

Even our skirmishers were in the habit of rolling logs together, or of making a lunette of rails, with dirt in front, to cover their bodies; and, though it revealed their position, I cannot say that it worked a bad effect; so that, as a rule, it may safely be left to the men themselves. On the ‘defensive,’ there is no doubt of the propriety of fortifying; but in the assailing army the general must watch closely to see that his men do not neglect an opportunity to drop his precautionary defenses, and act promptly on the ‘offensive’ at every chance.

I have many a time crept forward to the skirmish line to avail myself of the cover of the pickets’ ‘little fort’, to observe more closely some expected result; and always talked familiarly with the men, and was astonished to see how well they comprehended the general object, and how accurately they were informed of the state of facts existing miles away from their particular corps. Soldiers are very quick to catch the general drift and purpose of a campaign, and are always sensible when they are well commanded or well cared for. Once impressed with this fact, and that they are making progress, they bear cheerfully any amount of labor and privation.

Apart from items printed in italic letters, the text of this post comes from: William Tecumseh Sherman Memoirs of William T. Sherman (New York: D. Appleton, 1875) Volume II, Chapter XIV (Internet Archive)

Librivox offers, free of charge, an audio version of the aforementioned chapter. The viva voce version of the paragraphs reprinted in this post can be found in the recording marked ‘Military Lessons of the War - Section 2’. (The Tactical Notebook salutes Librivox reader David Wells for the high quality of this program and thanks him for his support of this remarkable service.)

For a detailed description of the German system of recruitment of the early 1870s, see Gerald F. Talbot Analysis of the Organization of the Prussian Army (Berlin: W. Moeser, 1871) (Hathi Trust)

‘My stars! Clio! I haven’t seen you in ages.’

‘It’s been ages.’

‘Far too long.’

‘What’s new with you?’

‘Well, as you can see, I’ve got a new job.’

‘I heard. You gave up on astronomers and navigators to inspire …’

‘Indexers! Librarians! The authors of search engines!’

‘How’s that going?’

‘Splendidly. The basic idea remains. I help the folks who help folks find things.’

‘That’s why I’m here. The historian I inspire has run into a problem.’

‘What sort of problem.’

‘Well, the back catalogue of his two Substacks has been growing like kudzu. It weighs in at … believe it or not … something like two thousand posts.’

‘Does he have a card catalogue for them?’

‘I’m afraid not. Mel, Thalia, Calliope, and I have been making some aggregators for him. But those can only go so far.’

‘I see. He wants readers to use the search features of Substack?’

‘Precisely. And that’s where you come in.’

‘So … I should tell readers about the little magnifying glass on the masthead. The one just left the Subscribe button.’

‘That’s right. Something tells me that you’d start with the magnifying glass.’

‘Well, I always keep one close to my heart!’

‘And then, you could explain The Gateway, which organizes articles by subject.’

‘Just like Topics and Themes.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Finally, you can remind them that most posts that feature pictures of us - the repurposed Muses - provide express lanes to articles of particular types.’

‘Like the one in which Thalia and Mel were …’

‘A little bit Country … and a little bit Rock-and-Roll.’

‘I love that song! One day, just for fun, I’m going to index the entire oeuvre of Donny and Marie.’

‘Finally, you can point out the archive feature on both The Tactical Notebook and Extra Muros.’

‘This sounds like fun, and right up my alley. When do I begin?’

‘Begin, Dear Urania? You’ve already finished the job!’

In the age of muzzle-loading shoulder arms, shooters could either shoot far or load quickly, but they couldn’t do both. Hunters, who enjoyed the freedom to load at leisure, usually took the time to ram (and, at times, hammer) tight-fitting bullets into the barrels of their weapons. Soldiers, however, often opted for musket balls that required less in the way of external encouragement to make the same sort of journeys.

A rifled barrel enhanced, by leaps and bounds, the performance of snuggly-seated spheres. Nonetheless, men armed with rifles would sometimes shoot somewhat smaller shot, thereby trading both range and accuracy for a higher rate of fire. Consider, if you will, this tale of Nathanial Foster (1766-1840), the American rifleman who may well have served as the model for Natty Bumppo, the fictional frontiersman frequently featured in the works of James Fenimore Cooper.

Foster’s quick shooting was in the days of flintlocks. He had a powder flask with a charger, and with six well-pared balls between his fingers, he would pour in the powder, drop in a ball that would just roll down without a patch, and striking the breech of his gun with his hand, it was primed; soon after which the bullet was speeding to its mark.1

These rapid discharges could only be made at a short distance, as to make long shots it became necessary to patch the balls and drive them down with a rod, the latter being dispensed with in the former case. Foster would make his six shots, so as to kill so many men, within one minute, at a distance not exceeding ten rods.2

Read more

‘So, Clio. Let me get this straight. You want Thalia and me to dress up like two very different singers from the 1970s in order to showcase the articles that The Tactical Notebook has published about the cannon companies of the 1940s?’

‘That’s right. You’ll be using double anachronism to make an important point.’

‘And what point is that?’

‘The short-lived cannon companies of the US Army, as well as their predecessors, successors, and counterparts in other forces, all of which lived liminal lives along the border that connects the realms of infantry and artillery, might well be described as … ’

‘… a little bit Country …’

‘…. and a little bit Rock-and-Roll.’

About The Tactical Notebook

The following problem appeared in the first semi-annual volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931. (This periodical, which might well be described as a journal in all but name, replaced the collections of mimeographed instructional materials that the US Army Infantry School sent out to subscribers in the 1920s.)

For the philosophy behind theses problems, please see:

The problem calls for players to step into the shoes of a lieutenant who finds himself leading his rifle platoon in two slightly different situations. In both of these scenarios, the platoon consists of two rifle sections, each of which contains three eight-man rifle squads.

Each of the rifle squads rates a leader, two scouts, two automatic rifleman, two assistant automatic riflemen, and a rifle-grenadier. Thus, each section weighs in at twenty-five combatants, six automatic rifles, and nineteen bolt-action rifles (three of which have been configured as grenade launchers.)

The rifles, automatic and otherwise, are effective at ranges out to five hundred yards. The grenade launchers can fire grenades as far as two hundred yards.

SITUATION

A platoon in Sketch C is attacking northward. The leading section is firing from N at the enemy post at M. The rear section is in a depression at P.

REQUIREMENT

(1) What is the fire distribution within the section at N and within squads? (Please note the changed orientation of the map.)

(2) Enemy fire from M weakened and the section at N advanced as shown by the arrow. Its advance halted when it observed enemy machine-gun fire, source un- determined, as indicated on the sketch. What does the platoon leader do?

(3) The situation in sketch D is the same except that the machine gun fire is coming from the west. The section by moving forward to the right (east) can avoid this fire, but further advance has been stopped by (rifle) fire from M. What does the platoon leader do?

I invite paid subscribers to to use the comments section to share their own answers to the questions posed.

I will post the original (1931) solutions to the problem, as well as my own commentary, on Sunday, 14 June 2026.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 32 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

The quotation from Kipling appeared in the original version of the problem. The complete poem can be found on the website of the Poetry Foundation.

The first volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931, offered readers a set of sixteen short tactical problems. On 3 June 2026, The Tactical Notebook published the fourth of these.

This article provides both the solutions published at the end of the problem, as well as an overview of the solutions offered by participants in on-line meetings (‘Zoomdezvous’) of the Decision Game Club. So, if you would like to play your way through the series, please engage that exercise before reading this post.

Like its predecessors in this series, Short Problem Number 4 presented students with two similar situations, each of which differed slightly from the other.

The section in Sketch A occupies a firing position on hill Y. Attempts to build up the line of scouts in this situation probably would result in (either) heavy losses and destruction or material lowering of the section’s combat efficiency.

The section forms what may be called a firing line but no attempt is made to keep a straight line or regular intervals between men. In fact this is avoided. Advantage is taken of local cover.

The section in Sketch B builds up on the line of scouts. The firing position of the scouts in this case is suitable and can be reached without undue exposure.

Invariably building up on the line of scouts is faulty procedure as the scouts will usually be in an unfavorable locality when fired on.

Likewise, while the sketches show six scouts in each case, the invariable use of all the scouts of a section is an error. If two will suffice, only two should be used, and the strength of the section conserved.

On Saturday, 30 May 2026, participants in two on-line meetings of the Decision Game Club worked through both parts of this problem.

Most solutions to both parts of the problem involved variations on the theme of fire and maneuver, with some favoring a larger base of fire and others preferring a larger maneuver element. Participants also offered different ways to employ automatic rifles, with some placing both of them with the maneuver element, others placing both with the base of fire, and a few keeping them with their parent squads.

No participants raised the issue of the proper number of scouts to send out. I used this fact to spark a discussion about the purpose of the problem and, in particular, whether its author wished to give students an opportunity to question the frameworks of the problems they have been given.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 32 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

On Saturday, 13 June 2026, participants in the on-line meet-up of the Decision Game Club will work through a pair of exercises developed at the US Army Infantry School in 1931.

The first of these one-hour Zoomdezvous will take place at 1200 (Noon), the second at 2000 (Eight PM).

Please note that all times are those of great metropolises of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States - New York, Philadelphia, and Quantico.

For more information, please see …

The very first issue of the Infantry School Mailing List, which emerged from the print shop in 1931, included an anonymous article that described, among other things, a new type of rifle squad. Like the rifle squad authorized by the tables of organization approved on 27 June 1927, this ‘provisional rifle squad’ rated eight soldiers. However, rather than employing a single Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), the new squad sported two weapons of that sort.

This, explained the author of the piece, changed the role played by automatic rifles. Prior to this reform, he claimed, the fire of a single BAR supplemented the effects achieved by bolt-action rifles. After this reorganization, a pair of BAR gunners provided the lion’s share of the firepower produced by a rifle squad.

This assertion rested on the assumption that, in a given amount of time, one BAR sent as many bullets foewards as four rifles. Thus, while the single BAR of an old squad contributed a third of its firepower, the two automatic rifles of the new squad accounted for two-thirds of its output of flat-trajectory projectiles. (These calculations presumed that the squad leader was too busy directing the actions of his men to do much in the way of shooting.)

In keeping with this change, the four soldiers previously known as ‘riflemen’ received new designations. One traded his rifle for a BAR. A second became the assistant automatic rifleman. Two acquired the title of ‘scout’.

The author made no explicit mention of changes to the structure of sections or platoons. Nonetheless, circumstantial evidence, both within the piece and some of the problems published in the same issue, suggests that the new organization replaced binary sections (made up of two squads) with triangular ones (composed of three squads.)

The provisional reorganization of the infantry did not change the number of squads in a platoon. Thus, the old triangular platoon (of three sections) necessarily gave way to the new binary platoon (of two sections).

‘The Provisional Infantry Reorganization’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) pages 13-16 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

‘Milstack Saturday’ showcases the best articles on military subjects that I read in the preceding week. Please note that, while I await the publication of additional articles about tactical aspects of the war in the Persian Gulf, Milstack Special has gone into occlusion.

Wes O’Donnell celebrates the ‘soft-recoil’ mechanisms make possible the mounting of 105mm howitzers on light trucks of the HMMWV persuasion.

Jared Keller ponders the effectiveness of the anti-drone laser arrays deployed by the Russian armed forces.

My calendar tells me that John Schmitt will soon post a new tactical decision game. Until he does, you can enjoy the twenty games he has published in the last year or so.

Don Vandergriff announces the publication of the fifth novel in his Reforging the Sword series, Guardians of the New Dominion.

Ben Duval tells the tale of the third great campaign of the annus mirabilis of 1863.

This guide helps readers find articles – both problems and solutions – in the series about the short exercises published in the very first issue of the Infantry School Mailing List.

By the end of the summer of 2026, this guide will host links to all sixteen of the problems in this series. Thus, I intend to keep it pinned near the top of the webpage of The Tactical Notebook until the end of that season.

The very first issue of the Infantry School Mailing List contained a set of sixteen short problems, each of which consisted of a sketch map and a simple description of a tactical situation.

At the end of each problem, the anonymous author of the problems attached a ‘solution’. This, he stressed in his foreword to the collection, might not be the only acceptable response to the situation, let alone the best one. Rather, he asked that readers view them as ‘tendencies’ rather than ‘cut and dried’ commandments.

In keeping with this spirit, the ‘solutions’ posts in this series - which follow the ‘problem’ posts by several days - will usually provide both the solution included with the original version of a problem and the courses of action devised by participants in on-line meetings of the Decision Game Club.

This post, however, takes a slightly different form. As I decided to leave the second problem in the collection out of the roster of games engaged at meetings of the Decision Game Club, it consists only of my paraphrase of the solution published in the Infantry School Mailing List.

Before reading this solution, I recommend that you work through the problem that precedes it.

As Short Problem 2 builds upon one of the solutions to Short Problem 1, I recommend that you engage that exercise as well.

SOLUTION TO PROBLEM NO. 2

The company will move north, using the eastern part of the small wood at C to conceal its movement into the forest at the top of the map. Once in the forest, it will continue to move north until it reaches the unimproved road.

The company will move west on the unimproved road until it reaches the western edge of the forest, in the vicinity of E.

An advance guard, made up of a single squad, will march ahead of the company. Scouts will deploy on both flanks of the column.

The company will move in column of platoons. The platoons will move in columns of twos. The First Sergeant will bring up the rear.

As the company approaches the western edge of the forest at E, I will

• make a personal reconnaissance of the area

• observe the enemy position

• ask the platoon commanders to join me at my position

• issue orders for the attack

This solution places a high value on concealment. Thus, whenever possible, the company moves through wooded areas.

At the same time, however, woods might conceal enemy forces. Thus, the company moves in a column of platoons, which facilitates maneuver, control, and quick reaction to the unexpected.

If the company marched on a wider front, it might suffer from confusion, loss of direction, and the intermingling of units.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 27 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

In the last chapter of his memoirs, William Tecumseh Sherman shared some of his thoughts on the movement and feeding of forces in the field.

On a road, marching by the flank, it would be considered ‘good order’ to have five thousand men to a mile, so that a full corps of thirty thousand men would extend six miles, but with the average trains and batteries of artillery the probabilities are that it would draw out to ten miles.

On a long and regular march the divisions and brigades should alternate in the lead, the leading division should be on the road by the earliest dawn, and march at the rate of about two miles, or, at most, two and a half miles an hour, so as to reach camp by noon. Even then the rear divisions and trains will hardly reach camp much before night.

Theoretically, a marching column should preserve such order that by simply halting and facing to the right or left, it would be in line of battle ; but this is rarely the case, and generally deployments are made ‘forward’, by conducting each brigade by the flank obliquely to the right or left to its approximate position in line of battle, and there deployed. In such a line of battle, a brigade of three thousand infantry would occupy a mile of ‘front’; but for a strong line of battle five thousand men with two batteries should be allowed to each mile, or a division would habitually constitute a double line with skirmishers and a reserve on a mile of ‘front.’

The ‘feeding’ of an army is a matter of the most vital importance, and demands the earliest attention of the general entrusted with a campaign. To be strong, healthy, and capable of the largest measure of physical effort, the soldier needs about three pounds gross of food per day, and the horse or mule about twenty pounds’.

When a general first estimates the quantity of food and forage needed for an army of fifty or one hundred thousand men, he is apt to be dismayed, and here a good staff is indispensable, though the general cannot throw off on them the responsibility. He must give the subject his personal attention, for the army reposes in him alone, and should never doubt the fact that their existence overrides in importance all other considerations. Once satisfied of this, and that all has been done that can be, the soldiers are always willing to bear the largest measure of privation. Probably no army ever had a more varied experience in this regard than the one I commanded in 1864-1865.

Our base of supply was at Nashville, supplied by railways and the Cumberland River, thence by rail to Chattanooga, a ‘secondary base’, and thence forward a single-track railroad. The stores came forward daily, but I endeavored to have on hand a full supply for twenty days in advance. These stores were habitually in the wagon-trains, distributed to corps, divisions, and regiments, in charge of experienced quartermasters and commissaries, and became subject to the orders of the generals commanding these bodies. They were generally issued on provision returns, but these had to be closely scrutinized, for too often the colonels would make requisitions for provisions for more men than they reported for battle.

Of course, there are always a good many non-combatants with an army, but, after careful study, I limited their amount to twenty-five per cent, of the ‘effective strength’, and that was found to be liberal. An ordinary army-wagon drawn by six mules may be counted on to carry three thousand pounds net, equal to the food of a full regiment for one day, but, by driving along beef-cattle, a commissary may safely count the contents of one wagon as sufficient for two days’ food for a regiment of a thousand men; and as a corps should have food on hand for twenty days ready for detachment, it should have three hundred such wagons, as a provision-train; and for forage, ammunition, clothing, and other necessary stores, it was found necessary to have three hundred more wagons, or six hundred wagons in all, for a corps d’armee.

These should be absolutely under the immediate control of the corps commander, who will, however, find it economical to distribute them in due proportion to his divisions, brigades, and even regiments. Each regiment ought usually to have at least one wagon for convenience to distribute stores, and each company two pack-mules, so that the regiment may always be certain of a meal on reaching camp without waiting for the larger trains.

On long marches the artillery and wagon-trains should always have the right of way, and the troops should improvise roads to one side, unless forced to use a bridge in common, and all trains should have escorts to protect them, and to assist them in bad places. To this end there is nothing like actual experience, only, unless the officers in command give the subject their personal attention, they will find their wagon-trains loaded down with tents, personal baggage, and even the arms and knapsacks of the escort.

Each soldier should, if not actually sick or wounded, carry his musket and equipments containing from forty to sixty rounds of ammunition, his shelter-tent, a blanket or overcoat, and an extra pair of pants, socks, and drawers, in the form of a scarf, worn from the left shoulder to the right side in lieu of knapsack, and in his haversack he should carry some bread, cooked meat, salt, and coffee. I do not believe a soldier should be loaded down too much, but, including his clothing, arms, and equipment, he can carry about fifty pounds without impairing his health or activity. A simple calculation will show that by such a distribution a corps will thus carry the equivalent of five hundred wagon-loads: an immense relief to the trains.

Where an army is near one of our many large navigable rivers, or has the safe use of a railway, it can usually be supplied with the full army ration, which is by far the best furnished to any army in America or Europe; but when it is compelled to operate away from such a base, and is dependent on its own train of wagons, the commanding officer must exercise a wise discretion in the selection of his stores. In my opinion there is no better food for man than beef-cattle driven on the hoof, issued liberally, with salt, bacon, and bread.

Coffee has also become almost indispensable, though many substitutes were found for it, such as Indian-corn, roasted, ground, and boiled as coffee; the sweet-potato, and the seed of the okra-plant prepared in the same way. All these were used by the people of the South, who for years could procure no coffee, but I noticed that the women always begged of us some real coffee, which seems to satisfy a natural yearning or craving more powerful than can be accounted for on the theory of habit.

Therefore I would always advise that the coffee and sugar ration be carried along, even at the expense of bread, for which there are many substitutes. Of these, Indian-corn is the best and most abundant. Parched in a frying-pan, it is excellent food, or if ground, or pounded and boiled with meat of any sort, it makes a most nutritious meal. The potato, both Irish and sweet, forms an excellent substitute for bread, and at Savannah we found the rice also suitable, both for men and animals. For the former it should be cleaned of its husk in a hominy block, easily prepared out of a log, and sifted with a coarse corn-bag ; but for horses it should be fed in the straw.

During the Atlanta campaign we were supplied by our regular commissaries with all sorts of patent compounds, such as desiccated vegetables, and concentrated milk, meat-biscuit, and sausages, but somehow the men preferred the simpler and more familiar forms of food, and usually styled these ‘desecrated vegetables and consecrated milk’. We were also supplied liberally with lime-juice, sauerkraut, and pickles, as an antidote to scurvy, and I now recall the extreme anxiety of my medical director, Dr. Kittoe, about the scurvy, which he reported at one time as spreading and imperiling the army.1

This occurred at a crisis about Kenesaw, when the railroad was taxed to its utmost capacity to provide the necessary ammunition, food, and forage, and could not possibly bring us an adequate supply of potatoes and cabbage, the usual antiscorbutics, when providentially the black-berries ripened and proved an admirable antidote, and I have known the skirmish-line, without orders, to fight a respectable battle for the possession of some old fields that were full of blackberries. Soon, thereafter, the green corn or roasting-ear came into season, and I heard no more of the scurvy.

Our country abounds with plants which can be utilized for a prevention to the scurvy; besides the above are the persimmon, the sassafras root and bud, the wild-mustard, the ‘agave’, turnip-tops, the dandelion cooked as greens, and a decoction of the ordinary pine-leaf.

For the more delicate and costly articles of food for the sick we relied mostly on the agents of the Sanitary Commission. I do not wish to doubt the value of these organizations, which gained so much applause during our civil war, for no one can question the motives of these charitable and generous people ; but to be honest I must record an opinion that the Sanitary Commission should limit its operations to the hospitals at the rear, and should never appear at the front.

They were generally local in feeling, aimed to furnish their personal friends and neighbors with a better class of food than the Government supplied, and the consequence was, that one regiment of a brigade would receive potatoes and fruit which would be denied another regiment close by. Jealousy would be the inevitable result, and in an army all parts should be equal; there should be no ‘partiality, favor, or affection’. The Government should supply all essential wants, and in the hospitals to the rear will be found abundant opportunities for the exercise of all possible charity and generosity.

During the war, I several times gained the ill-will of the agents of the Sanitary Commission because I forbade their coming to the front unless they would consent to distribute their stores equally among all, regardless of the parties who had contributed them.

Apart from items printed in italic letters, the text of this post comes from: William Tecumseh Sherman Memoirs of William T. Sherman (New York: D. Appleton, 1875) Volume II, Chapter XIV (Internet Archive)

Librivox offers, free of charge, an audio version of the aforementioned chapter. The viva voce version of the paragraphs reprinted in this post can be found in the recording marked ‘Military Lessons of the War - Section 2’. (The Tactical Notebook salutes volunteer reader David Wells for the high quality of this program and thanks him for supporting this remarkable service.)

In the last chapter of his memoirs, William Tecumseh Sherman offers both a critique of the methods that the Union Army used to obtain recruits and some ideas for ways an American army of the near future might improve on them.

But the real difficulty was, and will be again, to obtain an adequate number of good soldiers. We tried almost every system known to modern nations, all with more or less success – voluntary enlistments, the draft, and bought substitutes and I think that all officers of experience will confirm my assertion that the men who voluntarily enlisted at the outbreak of the war were the best, better than the conscript, and far better than the bought substitute.

When a regiment is once organized in a State, and mustered into the service of the United States, the officers and men become subject to the same laws of discipline and government as the regular troops. They are in no sense ‘militia’, but compose a part of the Army of the United States, only retain their State title for convenience, and yet may be principally recruited from the neighborhood of their original organization.

Once organized, the regiment should be kept full by recruits, and when it becomes difficult to obtain more recruits the pay should be raised by Congress, instead of tempting new men by exaggerated bounties. I believe it would have been more economical to have raised the pay of the soldier to thirty or even fifty dollars a month than to have held out the promise of three hundred and even six hundred dollars in the form of bounty. (During the Civil War, a private in the Union Army earned thirteen dollars per month.)

Toward the close of the war, I have often heard the soldiers complain that the ‘stay-at-home’ men got better pay, bounties, and food, than they who were exposed to all the dangers and vicissitudes of the battles and marches at the front. The feeling of the soldier should be that, in every event, the sympathy and preference of his government is for him who fights, rather than for him who is on provost or guard duty to the rear, and, like most men, he measures this by the amount of pay.

Of course, the soldier must be trained to obedience, and should be ‘content with his wages’, but whoever has commanded an army in the field knows the difference between a willing, contented mass of men, and one that feels a cause of grievance. There is a soul to an army as well as to the individual man, and no general can accomplish the full work of his army unless he commands the soul of his men, as well as their bodies and legs.

The greatest mistake made in our civil war was in the mode of recruitment and promotion. When a regiment became reduced by the necessary wear and tear of service, instead of being filled up at the bottom, and the vacancies among the officers filled from the best non-commissioned officers and men, the habit was to raise new regiments, with new colonels, captains, and men, leaving the old and experienced battalions to dwindle away into mere skeleton organizations. I believe with the volunteers this matter was left to the States exclusively, and I remember that Wisconsin kept her regiments filled with recruits, whereas other States generally filled their quotas by new regiments, and the result was that we estimated a Wisconsin regiment equal to an ordinary brigade.

I believe that five hundred new men added to an old and experienced regiment were more valuable than a thousand men in the form of a new regiment, for the former by association with good, experienced captains, lieutenants, and non-commissioned officers, soon became veterans, whereas the latter were generally unavailable for a year. The German method of recruitment is simply perfect, and there is no good reason why we should not follow it substantially.

After praising the perfection of ‘the German method of recruitment’, General Sherman changed the subject. Thus, we cannot know which aspects of the manpower policies of contemporary German armies recommended themselves to him. I suspect, however, that, rather than calling for peacetime conscription, Sherman had in mind the German custom of linking each regiment on active service to a home-based replacement depot.

Known as an Ersatz battalion, this depot provided an organizational home for recruits, trained men surplus to the needs of the regiment, and men recovering from sickness or wounds. It also served as a link between a regiment and its home community, the place where the unit had been based before the outbreak of war, the locality to which it would return at the end of hostilities, and the region that provided the vast majority of its members.

Apart from items printed in italic letters, the text of this post comes from: William Tecumseh Sherman Memoirs of William T. Sherman (New York: D. Appleton, 1875) Volume II, Chapter XIV (Internet Archive)

Librivox offers, free of charge, an audio version of the aforementioned chapter. The viva voce version of the paragraphs reprinted in this post can be found in the recording marked ‘Military Lessons of the War - Section 1’. (The Tactical Notebook salutes volunteer reader David Wells for the high quality of this program and thanks him for his support of this remarkable service.)

For a detailed description of the German system of recruitment of the early 1870s, see Gerald F. Talbot Analysis of the Organization of the Prussian Army (Berlin: W. Moeser, 1871) (Hathi Trust)

On Saturday, 6 June 2026, participants in the on-line meet-up of the Decision Game Club will engage a decision-forcing case that puts them in the shoes of American soldiers who, while serving in Siberia in 1919, find themselves facing foes à tous azimuths.

The first of these one-hour Zoomdezvous will take place at 1200 (Noon), the second at 2000 (Eight PM).

Please note that all times are those of great metropolises of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States - New York, Philadelphia, and Quantico.

For more information, please see …