Marshall's "Commentary on Infantry weapons"

[Woodard]

www.koreanwar-educator.org/topics/reports/after_action/commentary_on_infantry_weapons_korea_1950_51.pdf

SLA Marshall has been called into question by some, but he was a major figure in writing the Army story. This is a piece he wrote about infantry weapons useage 1950-51. Good resource, even though I hate reading PDF's.

[foxholetom]

I've read up to chapter 3. This is VERY good stuff.

[Woodard]

I skimmed it and read the parts that looked interesting. I guess it's sort of a history major habit. I found a whole page talking about Marshall (http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm), linked off of the Wikipedia page about him. I hate to think that his work is no good at all, but they do tear into his methods pretty hard. Sounds like you were right about the whole "ratio of fire" thing being a crock.

[foxholetom]

Personally, I think that its "cool" to bash his work right now. He may have been totally off base about the ratio of fire thing, however, I think it is very difficult to say that his work is worthless on the whole.

[Woodard]

I don't think it's worthless, but if I was doing anything academic I'd be hesitant to use his work. I think the problem is very similar to Stanton; He occupies such a specific niche that there isn't anyone else that compares. I found a page discussing how he conducted his interviews by a Lt. that had to escort him around for a few weeks in 1953. It was interesting what this guy noticed.

[foxholetom]

Very interesting.

In Stanton's case...most of his research is solid, but his other claims are specious to the point of being dishonest.

[Woodard]

I don't think anyone would challenge Stanton's uniform research. He also wrote a lot about SOG stuff, I would think that his personal claims may cast a shadow over this. One site mentioned some misleading claims that Marshall had made, but it was nothing like Stanton, who apperently even falsified a DD-214. With all the interviews Marshall did I think a work like "Infantry weapons useage" is probably still worth reading, even if he did get some particulars wrong about individual actions. It's interesting that the Army Historical program is quite active in the current war, we have some really good stuff at work. It seems like now the thing is to include the whole actual interview and just talk to senior people and key participants.

Not to mention the creedance the Army gave Marshalls work, and it's influence on doctrine and training.

[foxholetom]

I would argue that your last comment is probably the most relevant. If the academic community has discredited his work, but the Army continues to make doctrine based on it, is his work really discredited?

[Woodard]

How much does the Army still use him, though? (that's not rhetorical, I'm kinda curious now, I've been researching him all day instead of working) Most of the serious attacks on him came after he died. As lame as this sounds, a big part of the contraversy was that his papers did not include any of the vast amount of data he always referred to. The big article that started all the hullabaloo was late 80's. People started looking critically at how many people he claimed to have interviewed, when he claimed to have spoken to them, ect. During the 40's through the 80's his word was taken for granted. His influence on doctrine during that time can't be taken away, no matter what happens to his credentials.

Either way, I'll agree that if you want to understand the post-WW2 Army he's definately required reading.

[foxholetom]

Something interesting in this text...

Marshall says that a tracked personnel carrier (APC) would be of limited use in Korea, and perhaps a hindrance. Interestingly enough, recent scholarship done on the later battles for Pork Chop Hill (in the book "on Hallowed Ground") cites the introduction of the APC as being a factor in greatly reducing casualties during the advanced to hill positions.

Marshall makes some important points regarding APCs, that if the infantry do not dismount to engage, then the APCs can potentially become deathtraps. However, he goes much too far in arguing that they have no place in the Korean theater, when other accounts, published much later speak highly of them.

Obviously, the Army disagreed with Marshall on this one!


A more philosophical question...what can we as reenactors take from Marshall's account to use?

[Woodard]

Hmmm..... This reminds me of an incident a few years back at Military through the ages. During our public demonstration one of our guys, Chuck, was narrating a talk to the public about infantry weapons in Korea. He mentioned the criticism of the carbine lacking stopping power and malfunctioning often (I think both of those comments are in Marshall's report, and others). One of the Judges, who had been in Korea, stopped Chuck and made a big deal about how that wasn't true (All this in front of like 100 people). Chuch kept his cool (barely). Had we known something like that would happen, mabey we could have said "according to Marshall, other guy #1, and other guy #2, the carbine did this that and the other". Just like writing a paper, that way the guy is arguing with your sources instead of you. Despite all the work we'd done, we looked like idiots just because that guy's carbine happened to work fine 50 years ago. I'd say unless we have reason to not believe something (like "ratio of fire") and as long as we take it with a grain of salt, we can still use him for general research. Like one site dealing with him said "He'll continue to be used because his work is irreplaceable". but if there's a conflict between Marshall and another source I'd go with the other guy.

[foxholetom]

You know, if we want to be real jerks, we should have, in a general sense, our presentations outlined ahead of time, with bibliography cards.

"That's not true." "Well, according to Marshall, Bellanger, and Fehrenbach, who cites incidents on these dates...."

[Woodard]

It might honestly be handy to have a notecard or something with the sources we've used to get our info. The big problem with vets is that they may have had vastly different experiences and not realize that what happened to them is nothing like the bulk of guys. A Chosin Marine's Korean war was probably 100% different from a Pork Chop Hill vet's. Think of guys who were in Iraq in May and July of 03 when the biggest problem was looting.

PS: Apparently no one is sacred. I'm real encouraged about grad school now.
www.forbes.com/2002/05/10/0510ambrose.html

[foxholetom]

I was about to mention Ambrose! In fact, I was talking about it with someone the other day. I think the main reason why Ambrose books are still on the shelves, and the average person doesn't care, is that he died during the height of the controversy, and there is a moratorium of criticism after someone's death.

[yalu]

One thing that can't be ignored is how difficult it is to get meaningful stats since no two engagements will be alike.
I can't recall when the Army doctrine (In field manuals) really addressed suppression-shooting at suspect locations. The other problem is you can have great doctrine, but if the troops are not using it what good is it?
The problem that sort of supports SLA is the fire power of the Army Squad vs their opponets.
8 semi auto rifles and full auto rifle vs 7 bolt action rifles, a sub machinegun and a machinegun. On paper the Army squad should be able to suppress the bolt action squad.
Talked to a Okinawa vet in which he and his squadleader were the only ones to survive in his platoon after one fire fight with the Japanese. He stated they could not see where the Japanese soldiers were firing from. In case like that do you shoot supressive fire against the side of a mountain and hope someone ducks?
A side point on training-A SGM wrote an article how the infantry in Iraq had given the tankers BS dismount training. The problem was the infantry taught the tankers tactics the way they did in the US-with the enemy right on top of you because it is easier for OCs and AARs, and the tankers were getting pop'd out to 300+ meters.
Which the taliban have been reported to be doing here-engaging at long ranges and using a terrain feature to block manuvers against the amush force.

As for jamming weapons-the M1 rifle seems to have jammened all the time in the Korean winters. I don't know why it jammed more then in the ETO except that Korea is much colder.
Another reason could be the points system, so instead of having one soldier say this weapon sucks you get X-amount of rotations saying something does not work.
I guess in some way it is like the M16 which got a jamming charge hung on it which still has not shook lose. I talked with a guy who went over with the 101st when they deployed, and he said they never had a problem.
As far as what SLA wrote and what the Army adopted-He claimed to have changed the Army marksmanship program, which I don't know if that is something to be proud about.
As far as the combat load-Army blew that off in every war since that book was written.
If you study the material history of the Army, they attempted to set the combat load at a certain weight the M1910 and m1928 pack were designed to prevent commanders from overloading their troops-opps.

[Woodard]

That kinda goes back to the thread we were on earlier about night fire discipline, guys shooting furiously into the night and then running empty in like 10 minutes. It's surprising it took them as long as it did to use illumination to it's full potential, seems like that was one thing the Chinese feared. Korean War Educator.com has a report compiled from NK/CPV prisoners on what weapons they feared and thought did the most damage, but that would cover more of what worked than what guys were doing.
I'll agree about the M-16, That's why when I talk about small arms I always go on my own experiences rather than what I hear. Tom, I smell a sub-zero live fire training event coming on...

And as for Ambrose, I think he stayed popular by being able to sort of bridge the gap between Historian and popular writer (a big achievment for anyone). As interesting as all of us on this forum find Marshall, I seriously doubt he was ever on the bestseller list. I think the big trap is when you are expected to put something out at certian intervals, that seems to be where a lot of historians slip up.

[foxholetom]

Lets see if I can hit some points...

The argument Marshall makes about weapons jamming is not just which weapons jammed in actual practice, but which weapons were perceived to be deficient. According to his report, even though there were cases of M1s and BARs jamming in virtually every report, it was not considered a universal problem by the troops, and thus, the troops did not report disliking these weapons. The carbine developed a bad reputation for jamming, and the troops heavily reported problems. Marshall seems to concede that there is definitely a psychological bias at work.

On the temperature thing, check the Battle of the Bulge versus Korea. Reading "East of Chosin" for instance, does not describe winter conditions that are in fact, that bad. No worse than Europe or New England in a really cold winter. And this is in North Korea. Average temperatures during most of the winter battles did not drop below zero. So, why all the stories about jamming in the cold? Personally, Marshall does not adequately address this other than making the solid observation that cold weather cleaning/lubrication techniques were not standardized.

We definitely should try out a cold weather live fire.

[Woodard]

Yea, the not-standardized cleaning/lubriating thing set off alarm bells in my mind. Made me think of the last Louisa event, I went thru about 9 or 10 mags (M-16) during the final "night battle" without a problem. Every time the fire would die down I'd hear people all up and down the line clicking away with thier bolts, trying to get thier rifles to work. I use hardly anything on mine, and all my stuff runs well (knock on wood).

KoreanWar Eduactor.com has actual wartime temperture reports from various locations in Korea. A lot of gaps in it, though. I'm sure Ardennes 12/44 temp reports are out there somewhere. I would say to just compare the current tempatures right now on weather.com, but it was almost 80 degrees outside today.

[foxholetom]

Yes, but look at the midwest.

Also, something interesting, apparently snow was not that deep in Korea either.

Generally...it is worth noting that some of Marshall's work is open to question, and we should do just that...keep an open mind to it, but not take it as gospel. Its obvious reading it that there is at least SOME value in his work.

[yalu]

As it begins to snow here.....
I think the problem with carbines guys could be firing full auto they really noticed when the weapon malfunctioned to include magazines which may have been a major cause.
The BAR and other weapons may have been nursed more since they were so important to the squad-more folks get involed with making it work when it stops working.

Now for the always bad when I was there......
When I was in Korea (Camp Casey) we got some snow in late November and early December.
After that it did not snow. It was in either January or Febuary we went on a winter FTX in which the temps dropped to around -36 below in the day.
But you did not see snow any where, just frozen rice paddies and rivers.
Oh yeah our Brigade was getting (at least what I was told), 30 cases of frostbite a day so the FTX was indexed after about a week and a half.
As to worse on mechanical operation extreme cold or mud-got me.
Did not have much problems in Germany in October-November-it sucked but weapons operated in the rain and mud. I think we loss like 7 guys in our platoon to hypothermia(sp) after our first operation. I was in a weapons platoon in Korea so we didn't shoot our small arms much. Starting the tracks could be a pain and all the food froze to include eggs in their shells, so most meals were a chunk of meat and a cup of coffee at night and a cup of oatmeal and coffee in the morning.
I will say this going through winter in Korea, Fort Benning, Ft Polk, and Jackson; Korea was the worse. The effect on our platoon was really pronouced compared to other places I went.
It was like people just balled up and waited for death to end the pain.

As for SLA, good small unit stuff.