INFANTRY OBSOLETE

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1931, Page 8

INFANTRY OBSOLETE

NEW METHODS OF MOBILITY. The Southern Command Exercise brought to a close the training season cf 1931. It has been, above all. a reason of contrast between modern mobility and hopeless immobility (writes Captain Liddell Hart, the “Daily Telegraph” Military correspondent). The first reached its zenith with the exercise of the newly-formed Tank Brigade. The second was demonstrated through the oppoitunity of seeing two complete infantry divisions in operation. . The inevitable strategic sluggishness which was patent to anyone who analysed the moves of the 3rd Division in terms of modern warfare had been still more vividly displayed when, for the first time since the war, we saw a division, the Ist, mobilised at war strength. The sight of these interminable columns, with their mass of men and horse-drawn vehicles, slowly winding along the roads, gave one a shock when one thought of the development of new means of interference ail bombers, tanks, motor guerrilas. It amply confirmed the warning uttered by the Chief of the Imperial General Stuff in 1927, when he declared that “crowds of men are out of place on the battlefield in the face of such weapons. “Think again of the result of the destruction of their communications and supplies!” In the years since then we have seen infantry forces repeatedly paralysed, even under peace conditions, by the mere presence of such menaces. To move at all they have to take infinite precautions. In war, what is now a snail’s pace would become full-stop—and deadlock. And, while we have witnessed the growing moral and mobile domination of aircraft, tanks, and motor-cars, we have not seen the effect of another wartime check —mustard gas. It is well to recall that the C.I.G.S. said, “I don’t see how, in modern warfare, we shall be able to use enormous numbers of men and horses if mustard gas is employed to the extent that I imagine it will be.” Tho truth is that a large force of foot will not be able to arrive anywhere in the time necessary.

Yet these crowds of men and horses will make up the bulk of the army, and have not been cut down to provide the money for less important types of force. The cause no longer lies in an incapacity to recognise the facts, for I have never heard such concordance in criticism as occurred after the recent Ist Division mobilisation among tho military observers- The call for reform and progress seemed as .universal as it was urgent. =T-he pity is that, the awakening waited until the year when an economic crisis had not only made money tight, but curtailed the latitude in apportioning what there is.

It is argued that the military need to replace man-power by machine power must now yield to the need of keeping-soldiers in employment. The practical reply would seem to be that even the dole is but -a fraction of what an infantry soldier costs the hardpressed finances of the country. And all infantry beyond the proportion who can be provided with, and backed by, up-to-date armament are militarily superfluous. They are, indeed, merely a present charge on and a potential pension increase of the national debt in ease of war.

As for the proportion of infantry who remain, and are worth keeping, it is inconceivable that they will march, on foot as a normal thing. Those who .are used as guards and garrisons would be brought forward to their posts by rail or ’bus. The “light infantry” required for mobile operations meed special transport and training. I -foresee such unity being made up of a proportion of motor machine gunners in little armoured carriers, a larger proportion of skirmishers in "baby” cars and a reserve in sixwheeled lorries or ’buses.

The still prevailing practice of mixing motor vehicles and marching men in the same column obstructs mobility, increases wear and tear, and wastes petrol—with consequent waste of public .money. And the present numerical size of battalions is not attuned to the development of light machine guns and automatic rifles. Motorised battalions could, with advantage, be half the present strength in men. As regards the training of such modern infantrymen, the guerrilla schemes of the Guards’ Brigade and tho 56th Division this year pointed the only rational way to develop a ruseful and resourceful type of men. They call on and develop the intelligence necessary to combat machine-gun nests. But the brightest patch of 1931 has been the first trial of the Ist Brigade Royal Tank Corps, under Brigadier Broad.

Let us hope it is a first instalment of that progress forecast by the C.I.G.S. in 1927 when he spoke of creating “armoured and declared them to be the only means of making mobility possible on the battlefield and “to revive the possibility of the art of generalship.” With all the weight of his authority he then declared that the human race would not again stand such losses as accrued in the last war, and that civilisation itself would go to pieces if a war was fought on similar lines. Those who have long urged the formation of an allrarmoured force, freed of old-style impedimenta and given scope to practice fluid “Mongol” tactics, had their long-awaited justification during the past month.

The Tank Brigade proved capable of creating a new system of tactics suited to its mobility and promising an effective antidote to any immobile anti-tank agents. It proved capable of control, and attained a degree of control such as no other type of force can approach even.in peace exercises. I have seen the realisation of a dream and have few criticisms to offer. The ..tactics have truly fulfilled the Mongol ideatl. Perhaps in movement also, now that order 'has been obtained, it might be possible to go further and develop “ordered disorder.” Officers who -flew over the brigade sißPificqntly sjtfd tflat from the air it made a very. visible if fast-moving target so long ,as it kept in drill formations. But when the formation broke up as the attack progressed the tanks “simply disappeared” from observation. The moral, would seem to he the cul tivation of controlled irregularity’ in the approach as well as in the sue cessive wasp-like attacks.