Thread by @usacac

INFANTRY (Part II)

One of the major changes stemming from the National Defense Act of 1920, as we’ve mentioned, is the reassignment of all tank units to the Infantry Branch.

This meant that for the 20 years or so of the Interwar Period, the Chief of Infantry would be responsible for all development of tank materiel and doctrine. And tank units would be referred to as “Infantry (tanks)”.

The Tank School and other assets were also transferred to the Infantry Branch in 1920. @ArmorSchool

As with the rest of the @USArmy during the Interwar Years, Infantry suffered from significant cuts to personnel and funding.

Knowing another war was going to happen sooner or later, because of how the First World War ended, and recognizing that funding and people were going to be in short supply, the Infantry Branch engaged in “more careful planning and study than ever before.”

“The Chief of Infantry, the Infantry School, the Infantry Board, the Department of Experiment (which was attached to the Infantry Board), the Tank Board, and the Tank School engaged vigorously in the development of Infantry.”

“Their earliest contribution was a complete revision of the tables of organization. In this alteration, made during the 1920s, the square division survived but some of its infantry components were modified.”

“The most extreme change took place in infantry battalions, where one rifle company was eliminated and replaced by a machinegun company. This corrected the confusion of WWI in the use of machineguns by placing heavy machineguns under the control of Infantry battalion commanders.”

The number of platoons in each rifle company was cut from four to three – and “both of these changes were in the direction of what was later called ‘triangularization’ although it was not yet accepted as a broad principle.”

Part of the rationale for removing one rifle company was that during WWI, experience showed that “the number of rifles in a regiment was close to impossible to control.” But also, the Army was being downsized after WWI so it made sense to shrink with it.

In the revision of the tables of organization, the Infantry Branch developed two types of tables: one for wartime, and one for peace. We retained this “dualism” right up until the eve of WWII.

Experimentation and improvements to Infantry weapons increased in the 1930s. Not all of these improvements were great.

One source talked about correcting known weaknesses in the Browning Automatic Rifle, but the corrections added 5 lbs to the rifle’s weight. It was later removed from Infantry squads because “the added weight… put it out of the class of arms to be carried forward by riflemen.”

The M1 Garand, which we talked about in earlier threads, was developed during the Interwar Years, and “by 1934 there were 80 M1s on hand, and by the fall of 1938 they were replacing the 1903 Springfield at a rate of 150 per week.”

The development of the M1 Garand had a significant influence on fire tactics. “Notwithstanding that arms like it were known and used in Europe, they did not affect doctrine the same way as in this country.”

In Europe, “firepower was increased principally by augmenting the number of light machine guns, while in the US the increase came principally from the faster shooting shoulder arm of the individual rifleman.”

“Thus in Europe, fire superiority depended on a gun served by a crew; in the United States it depended on the individual... and his weapon.”

The weaknesses and limitations of the weapons we used during WWI “provoked much research to develop a suitable light machine gun.”

By February of 1940, thanks to the influence of the Chief of Infantry, “a true light machine gun appeared for the first time in the table of equipment. As this weapon was in very short supply, the improved BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) was made the official substitute.”

In 1939, the Infantry introduced the concept of a “weapons platoon” which “was part of a trend to integrate all necessary weapons except artillery and tanks into the basic tactical unit, the battalion.”

(We'll get back to tanks in a bit)

This change, however, made every part of the Infantry battalion more complex than before but it also “vastly increased its firepower.”

“The heightened complexity… brought with it the need for better communications, better training, and above all better leadership.”

And while Infantry was doing a good job improving Infantry doctrine, organization, and weapons, the changes outpaced production.

“All the changes in organization and all the vigorous experiments with arms did not actually produce the weapons that were needed for training. Everything was in short supply.”

“As late as 1941, mortar crews went through maneuvers with stovepipes and the crews of light machine guns set up and aimed broomsticks.”

Stovepipes and broomsticks. 👀

“These harsh facts caused the Chief of Infantry to state on the eve of war that a consciousness of obsolescence in all their arms had seriously damaged the morale of American infantrymen.”

In other words, the soldiers were aware of how outdated and ineffective their weapons were and, when facing another war in Europe, morale was suffering greatly. Something had to change, and fast.

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