Kulak’s recent review of Infantry Combat: The Rifle Platoon: An Interactive Exercise in Small-Unit Tactics and Leadership, by John F. Antal, intrigued me enough to pick up a (digital) copy:
Infantry Combat: The Rifle Platoon is a simultaneous Military Tactics and Leadership crash course and semi-political argument about the wrong lessons that were learned from Operation Desert Storm (it was first published in 1995) in the format of a “Choose your own Adventure” novel.
And my god does it work. Its argument is incredibly well presented, its intangible concepts and ethos are really strongly conveyed, it teaches an impressive amount of theory and application despite NOT being a textbook of theory or doctrine…
And it just has no conceivable right to work as well as it works.
[…]
A choose your own adventure is just a series of binary choices, maybe a few 3 pronged choices to mix it up. That clearly can’t teach anything.
But Antal’s writing and veteran understanding of the concepts can, and he exploits the format perfectly to REALLY creates painful choices and moments of indecision. Your pre-knowledge of even very broad pop-military concepts, or study of history, is GREATLY rewarded. Your observing the map ever so much longer is rewarded. And your attention to detail is rewarded. Your intuitive understanding of leadership or your having read about the subject, or your complete lack of any such instincts, plays a shockingly impactful role for leading what are static words and binary decisions.
I’m certain there are skilled military officers and professionals who could go in this and get the best ending right, first try… But I doubt it’d be a majority of even actual infantry officers.
Likewise an attentive amatuer or student of history could probably do it…
But I died shot by friendly fire my first read/playthrough, so not me.
[…]
Life isn’t a videogame. There isn’t instant feedback when you’ve screwed yourself and everyone around you. The fatal decision can be 10 decisions back and every subsequent decision is just determining exact conditions and flavor text of how that failure will happen…
And absolutely all of it makes sense, is tied into the core principles Antal is teaching, and has a necessary logic such that once you see it you understand why that could only have ended that way.
I’m being incredibly vague because I don’t want to spoil the book. Failing and getting the bad endings is the real teaching part of the exercise, and if it is “Spoiled” the actual teaching value is greatly reduced.
That’s your cue to get your own copy and run through it.
Many years ago I (who have never been any kind of warfighter) tried to retrace classic old training manuals of warfare. Antal’s books, including Armor Attacks were the first on my list.
Others included:
Message to Garcia
Defence of Duffer’s Drift
Small Unit Leadership by Malone
I got lost in the weeds when I tried to read more deeply, but I was quite impressed by Hackworth’s books and website. William S. Lind commanded my attention for years, but the greatest teacher was W. “Pat” Lang, who sadly went to his eternal reward because he was given a faulty COVID shot some years ago.
My brother in law bought me a copy of Duffer’s Drift a few years ago (He’s currently serving as a Major in the US Army and has a love affair with military theory and strategy in his off time and thought I’d like it).
I treated it as a game and went through and wrote out my own responses and decisions, with explanations, in each section before reading more. I realized that while I had good grasp of some fundamentals, and my strategy could have worked, I had too many gaps in my understanding of the technical limitations of the weaponry of the time to optimize my decisions. I was treating everything with my practical understanding of mid 20th century weaponry and tactics.
This made me start paying closer attention to the sort of warfare taking place in Ukraine and Yemen, which is even more alien in some ways.
The recommendations are appreciated.
I might have to pick up The Portable Pat Lang.
I discussed The Defence of Duffer’s Drift ten years ago and recommend looking at the scenario and then stepping through the first “dream,” its outcome, the second dream, the third dream, its outcome, the fourth dream, its outcome, the fifth dream, its outcome, the sixth dream, and its outcome.
Major K.A. Nette of the Canadian Army wrote about The Rise, Fall, & Rebirth of the ‘Emma Gees’ — machine-gunners — in the style of The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, to explain proper tactics to a modern officer who hadn’t yet faced the “Fantasians” (Soviets). If Moses had been a machine-gunner, there would have been eight commandments instead of ten.
When I first read the Duffer’s Drift scenario and saw that the enemy had guns (field artillery), I immediately wondered, do I have to take the high ground?
Isegoria,
Ha! That’s hilarious since I also struggled with what to do with the Boer’s and black Africans. It actually consumed far more time/mental energy than it should have.
If I remember, my first solution, I ended up essentially kidnapping the women under the pretense of keeping them safe, while using any anticipated protestations about protecting their property to then call the matter settled: The Menfolk will remain at home to keep the farm safe, and the women will come to the camp with the youngest boy for their own protection.
As for the technical knowledge, that’s exactly the sort of gap that I had trouble with. I chose not to look up the answers at the time (I did afterward) to add a bit of challenge to it.