Compass Points – Don’t Read this Book!

A controversial book on war

Compass Points – Don’t Read this Book!

A controversial book on war

August 1, 2024

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With this book review, Compass Points begins a series of reviews of some of the great works of military thought. These will be personal reviews by readers who have been influenced by a particular book. The reviews may be only a paragraph or many paragraphs, it does not matter. What matters is passing along the insights that can help a Marine today and tomorrow. Readers are encouraged to nominate books that have been important in their lives.

Compass Points salutes our guest reviewer who began reading today’s book as a Marine Corporal and who has continued to read the book again and again. One saved round. The reviewer’s original copy of the book is missing. A case of beer waits for the safe return of the dog-eared, underlined, and well annotated volume (see endnote ii for details).

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Compass Points Book Review

Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command

By S.L.A. Marshall

Reviewed by Paul K. Van Riper

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Don’t read this book!

Strange advice about a book I have read and re-read multiple times since I was a Corporal of Marines 64 years ago. 

Yet, that is what several friends who are well-schooled and experienced military professionals told me when they urged me not to write a review of the book.  However, I ignored what they said, re-read the book one more time, read other books and articles that assess Men Against Fire, and became even more determined to offer my thoughts.[i]

Why?

First, because what I experienced in numerous firefights during the Vietnam War matched what Marshall described in his classic work of men under enemy fire. 

Second, I made it a practice to re-read Men Against Fire before and after every conflict I experienced.  And in one of these conflicts the unit I led I employed many of Marshall’s recommendations to great effect.  I also used his interview techniques during after-engagement critiques where, along with those who participated, I learned much. 

Over the years my marginal notes in Marshall’s book grew as did my highlighting of key passages of text.  I prized my copy of the book and continued to recommend fellow Marines study it.  The book served me well.[ii]

Marshall wrote his book for two reasons: (1) He wanted to dispel the notion that technology would negate the need for large numbers of infantrymen in future wars, and (2) He was concerned that few military leaders truly understood human behavior in combat, and he wanted to share what he had learned as a close observer of rifle companies in World War II.  Regarding the latter, he ended his author’s note in the original edition stating, “. . . that there is more to be learned about men against fire than has ever appeared between the covers of books.”  I found this to be true.

In Marshall’s study of history, he had seen how the illusion that technology could replace men on the battlefield repeated itself after nearly every war.  In early 1945, two years before he wrote his book, he witnessed the European Theater of Operations, United States Army command, which had focused on mechanized operations, each month retrain tens of thousands of soldiers from other arms to infantry because of the dire need. 

In the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war we have seen both sides strain to recruit the needed numbers of infantrymen despite the emphasis on ubiquitous drones, loitering munitions, and precision munitions.  In light of such evidence, it is obvious that the Marine Corps’ reduction of 21 percent of its infantrymen under our previous commandant was particularly unwise.

Are there lessons a Marine might learn from Marshall’s observations?  Definitely.  What follows are several of the things I discovered in reflecting on his observations and from putting his ideas into practice when I led Marines under enemy fire.

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Marshall states unequivocally that “fear is ever present” on the battlefield. 

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I found this to be true, for I never lost my fear when bullets were cracking over my head, and I believe no sane person would.  That fear felt like a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach.  Most people have experienced this feeling at least once in their lives.  As an example, when they were unexpectedly startled walking alone on a dark night and heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind.  The difference is, if in the moment the threat turns out not to be real, the fear quickly vanishes.  In combat that heavy weight of fear stays with you until you are no longer under fire, which can be many hours or even days, you just accept and learn to function in spite of it.  It is not that you become accustomed to the fear of enemy fire, you just expect it and are not surprised by your physical and mental reactions.

Though I suffered a serious gunshot wound to the stomach while an advisor early in the Vietnam War, that did not lessen or increase my fear when I returned later as a rifle company commander, it simply caused me to be more aware of all that was happening around me as I moved about the battlefield.

According to Marshall, the only way to win a firefight is to suppress the enemy’s fire with supporting arms—mortars and cannon artillery—or by gaining fire superiority with your unit’s own small-arms.  This should not be a novel idea, but I have seen unit leaders fail to take the needed actions to overcome enemy fire for long periods.  The likely cause is that until they gain experience, Marines are often confused by the fact that they seldom see the enemy that is firing at them.  For this reason, Marines must be taught to quickly return fire at likely enemy positions—the edge of wood lines, the top of knolls, windows, edges of roofs, and other natural or man-made features which offer cover.  Controlled fire against these targets will invariably cause enemy fire to slacken.

I was with one of my rifle platoons surrounded by a Viet Cong Main Force unit at night where there were no visible targets.  The platoon only gained fire superiority and fought its way free after I showed the platoon commander how to move from Marine to Marine with a squad leader and point to where he wanted each one to fire and the rate at which he wanted them to fire. 

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Marshall writes, “that weapons when correctly handled in battle seldom fail to gain victory.” 

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Instructors certainly teach Marines how to employ their weapons during their initial training and unit leaders for the most part reinforce this training in field exercises.  Yet, for reasons that are not readily apparent, Marines often fail to employ basic techniques when they first enter combat.  What should be routine practice escapes notice.  In the offense it’s the proper placement of automatic weapons providing supporting fires, using a rate of fire to match the situation, and leaders directing the concentration or distribution of fire as appropriate.  In the defense it is failing to establish zones of fire for teams and squads, or principal directions of fire for automatic rifles, or final protective lines of fire for machineguns.

Often unit leaders can correct such lapses with in-the-moment orders; not infrequently it requires remedial training.  I found this to be the case in the rifle company I led in the Vietnam War.  The needed training began with the individual Marine and advanced to the team, squad, platoon, and eventually the entire company.

Marshall is accurate when he writes “weapons when correctly handled in battle seldom fail to gain victory” and that there “is no other touchstone to tactical success.”

Though he wrote his book well before the US military was aware of and endeavored to instill in soldiers and Marines the importance of intent, he inherently understood the concept as evidenced by these words: “we need men who can think through their situation and steel themselves for action according to the situation.”  He pairs this notion with what I found to be one of his most important observations, the need for men under fire to communicate with each other.

As a general rule, units moving to contact avoid making noise so as not to alert the enemy to their presence.  Unfortunately, most men continue to remain silent once they come under enemy fire.  Marshall observed that a few sniper rounds can cause an entire rifle company to go to ground and remain down for an hour or more because unit leaders are unaware of where the fire came from and consequently are unsure of what sort of orders to give.  Marshall urged that soldiers be trained to immediately tell others what they know about any situation.  He found that as information was shared leaders and men were able to more quickly gain situational awareness and take appropriate action.

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As a rifle company commander in the Vietnam War, I emphasized the need to communicate when the shooting started, in fact, I insisted upon it. 

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Marshall was right, this simple technique enabled squad leaders, platoon commanders, and me to gain situational awareness, make decisions, and give directions.

Marshall offers much more on the human factors in Men Against Fire than I have described though there is one flaw, that is, his assertion that only a fraction of infantrymen fire their weapons when their unit is engaged.  He claimed in the Second World War only 25 percent of soldiers fired and in the Korean War it was 50 percent or better.  I never observed this phenomenon.

The problem with “ratio of fire” did capture the attention of many readers soon after his book was published and led to some criticism, but for the most part his assertion was accepted for 40 years.

In 1988 and 1989 I read two articles criticizing Men Against Fire that troubled me greatly for they convincingly undermined Marshall’s ratio of fire claims .[iii]  My unease was put to rest, however, when I spoke to one of the critics, noted historian Roger Spiller.  He assured me although there is no evidence Marshall did any analysis that would support his assertion that only a small portion of infantrymen ever fired their weapons in combat, his basic premise about how men react under fire was correct.

I gave the matter no further thought over the next 35 years, that is, until, as I noted, I mentioned to several professional friends that I planned to do a review of the book for Compass Points.  And they said they no longer referred to it because scholars had discredited Marshall’s work.  This, of course, is not the case.  But their mistaken belief caused me to change my approach to this review.  I knew I needed to set the record straight.

Most prominent among several critics were Spiller, whose article, “S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire” appeared in the Winter 1988 edition of RUSI Journal and  Fredric Smoler whose article, “The Secret of the Soldiers Who Didn’t Shoot,” was in the March 1989 American Heritage. 

In searching thorough Marshall’s voluminous papers, these critics found no evidence to support his assertion that on average only one in four soldiers fired his weapon during combat in the Second World War.  (After interviewing soldiers during the Korean War, Marshall asserted the average had increased to over half.)  Nor did they locate many of the hundreds of notebooks in which Marshall said he recorded data.  Furthermore, in their questioning of several officers who accompanied Marshall when he interviewed soldiers after a battle, none recalled him focusing on ratios of fires or collecting detailed information about such ratios. 

As these critics state, the absence of evidence is not proof that something did not happen.  Nonetheless, I agree with their conclusion that Marshall did not derive his ratio of fire numbers from an analytical effort. 

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It is far more likely that he made intuitive judgments based on his intimate familiarity with how soldiers act in close combat. 

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Spiller, Smoler, and other Marshall detractors also point to his many character flaws of which he had many.  Among these were an oversized ego, an exaggerated story of his life, and a tendency to browbeat those who questioned his theory.  However, none of these flaws affected his ability to describe clearly what happens to a soldier on the battlefield

To close my case, I must point out that the discussion of ratio of fire was featured in only one of 13 chapters in Marshall’s book and also note Spiller’s words from his 2010 book, In the School of the Soldier:

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S.L.A. Marshall was one of the most important commentators on the soldier’s world in [the 20^st]century.  . . .  Marshall’s insistence that modern warfare is best understood through the medium of those who must actually do the fighting stands as a challenge to the disembodied, mechanistic approaches that all too often are the mainstay of military theorists and historians alike.  “That lesson,” Marshall wrote in Men Against Fire, we are “at the point of forgetting.”  Forty years later [now 77 years], as the quest for universal laws of combat continues unabated, Marshall is still right.[iv]

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If Marines are ever talking about S.L.A Marshall’s great book and one of them says, “Don’t read this book!” do not listen to them. I continue to believe that every Marine must read Men Against Fire, it is a classic!

-- PKVR, 2024

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Endnotes

[i] Among the books and articles, I reviewed were: F.D.G. Williams, SLAM: The Influence of S.L.A. Marshall on the United States Army (Fort Monroe: Office of the Command Historian US Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1999); William E. DePuy, “Battle Participation and Leadership,” Military Review (July 1989), pp. 96-97; and William J. Davis, “evaluating S.L.A. Marshall,” Marine Corps Gazette (September 1989), p. 30.

[ii] Sometime in the early 1980s I loaned my original copy of Marshall’s book to a person who failed to return it.  Weeks later when I realized it was missing, I had forgotten who had borrowed the book, so it was lost forever.  From that day on I rarely loaned a book.  When I did, I placed a note in the empty spot on my bookshelf with the name of the person to whom I lent it.

[iii] Fredric Smoler, “The Secret of the Soldiers Who Didn’t Shoot,” American Heritage, 40 (March 1989), pp. 40-45; Roger J. Spiller, “S.L.A. Marshal and the Ratio of Fire,” RUSI Journal, 133 (Winter 1988), pp. 63-71.

[iv] Roger J. Spiller, “S.L.A. Marshal and the Ratio of Fire,” In the School of War (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), p. 61; John W. Chambers II, “S.L.A. Marshall’s Men Against Fire: New Evidence Regarding Fire Ratios,” Parameters (Autumn 2003), pp. 113-121; and Kelly C. Jordon, “Right for the Wrong Reasons: S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire in Kores,” The Journal of Military History 66 (January 2002), pp. 135-162.