Gung Ho: The Corps' Most Progressive Tradition

Don't confuse change with progress. Former Leathernecks will now have to take far more interest in the welfare of their modern-day counterparts. Here's why. The machinegun's terrible toll from WWI should have made every nation's small-unit tactics more surprise-oriented, yet most U.S. squads are still stuck with pre-machinegun maneuvers that only enhance parent-unit firepower and control. Until every American infantry and special-operations company is allowed to develop a few of its own more covert approach movements for squads and below, their junior enlisted will have to acquire healthier “tactical techniques” from their ancestors. Gung Ho! contains highly advanced (but then quickly forgotten) tiny-element “attack stratagems” from their own military heritage. The most action-packed of all the Posterity Press titles, it first shows how the fire team concept was copied from the Chinese by Lt.Col. Carlson in 1942. Then it follows his Marine Raiders (and their infantry successors) through some of the heaviest fighting of WWII and Vietnam. While many of their fire and buddy team “moves” are no longer in use, they should be. Without them, today's electronics-draped riflemen have little chance of unexpectedly assaulting any defender. While Carlson's Raiders were conducting Maneuver Warfare at the squad level on Guadalcanal, most contemporary U.S. troops are no longer allowed (nor prepared) to do so. 4th Raider Bn. (also Maoist in format) discovered howline infantry units needed no tanks, air strikes, or artillery to take advanced strongpoint matrices. Its redesignation--2nd Bn., 4th Marines--did so at the Sugar Loaf Complex on Okinawa. Only necessary was a staggered row of fire teams “working together” from within parallel lanes. With 111 illustrations and many firsthand accounts, this book is as fun to read as it is vital to the Pentagon's future success in war.