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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing story illuminates future as well as past, November 1, 2001
This absorbing history of the U.S. Army between the world wars and on into the Second World War illuminates not only the past but the present and future. As his title indicates, author David Johnson traces two main themes: the Army's responses to the challenges and opportunities presented by the airplane and tank. He shows that these responses, although very different, were both seriously inadequate in ways that proved very costly in the test of war -- and he shows why and how these inadequacies developed. Johnson, a former professional Army officer and National War College instructor, is not dedicated to any theoretical framework. He tells the story very clearly and directly, relying on deep research in primary sources, and draws his lessons from the events as they occurred. He understands the people and the institutions and organizations within which they acted, and he views them sympathetically but dispassionately and objectively. The story Johnson tells is not one of inevitable historical forces but of human decisions. The decisions were made under the influence of institutions and events, but were not determined by them. They were not catastrophic, but they were well short of optimum. Many Americans died as a result of deficiencies that could well have been avoided. Because it does not tie the story up in a neat theoretical package, Johnson's book offers no canned recipe for success in responding to present and future challenges and opportunities. Instead, it provides a rich source of inspiration and caution, and a stimulus to thought. There are a few disappointments, although minor in comparison to the book's strengths: (1) I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the part played by technological factors. While we are too often treated to on-dimensional purely technological approaches to such questions, I feel Johnson goes a bit too far in the other direction. (2) Johnson's citation system for sources, while adequate for a brief article, becomes frustratingly cumbersome at book length. It is too often a real struggle to unearth exactly what his source for a given point is. Another book that can profitably be read as a complement to this one is William O. Odom's _After the Trenches: The Tranformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918-1939_ (Texas A&M U. Press, 1999). Will O'Neil
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Failed Transformation, January 3, 2007
This review is from: Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) (Paperback)
This book provides a compelling and well researched account of how the U.S. Army interpreted its experiences in WWI and how it attempted to transform itself from an internal security force into a modern army ready for an other world war. The author does so by reviewing how the Army reacted to the new weapons systems that emerged from World War I (WWI) and were to dominate military operations for the rest of in the 20th Century. He wisely concentrates on two specific weapons systems: armored fighting vehicles (tanks and armored cars), and by extension mechanization in general; and military aircraft (bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft). The author discusses how U.S. Army attempted to further develop these systems and integrate them into its force structure and force planning. It quickly becomes clear that the unprepared state of the U.S. Army at the start of World War II was the direct result of misunderstanding the implications of these weapon systems for modern warfare and the faulty tactical doctrines that resulted form this misunderstanding. The author demonstrates that the extreme austerity imposed on the Army between the wars exacerbated this unprepared condition, but it was not the sole cause of it. In the end, lack of well thought out doctrines impeded not only the Army's efforts to prepare for modern war, but the development of the weapon systems with which to fight it. This reviewer would suggest that anyone interested in this book would be well advised to also read a second book, "Beyond the Trenches" by General William E. Odom (ret). In it Odom traces the development of U.S. Army doctrine between the wars and the factors preventing the emergence of a really sound set of doctrines and plans.
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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Study in Military Transformation, May 9, 2002
Words cannot do this book justice. This is one of the finest studies of military bureaucracies rejecting change and protecting the old order that has ever been written. Anyone who wants to know how big Rumsfeld's challenge is in trying to transform the Pentagon must read this book. Johnson was a career soldier before going to RAND. He has a deep sense of how military cultures operate. His portrait of the cavalry wing rejecting modernity is humorous and tragic simultaneously. It is a case study in how large bureaucracies protect themselves and their caste system from being threatened by new developments. Equally, if not more fascinating, is his conclusion that the Air Corps was equally one sided in favoring its theory of big bombers. While the cavalry drove out officers who believed the time of the horse was past, the Air Corps drove out officers who believed fighter planes were powerful opponents for bombers. In some ways the Air Corps self-blindness was as dangerous as the cavalry's total identification with an obsolete past. The refusal to recognize the vulnerability of the bomber meant that bomber crews in Europe would have the greatest risk of dying of any elements of the American military. Johnson also reports on the tankers fixation with lighter, less powerful "fast tanks" rather than the heavier, more powerfully armed versions the Germans settled on. The American fixation was on a fast tank that could break through and run amok behind enemy lines but was incapable of standing up to German tanks in one on one fights. The result was a tank that led to many more American casualties than necessary. Interestingly, all post World War II American tank designs have been based on the German model of heavy armor and heavy guns. This is a very thoughtful book filled with quotes from sincere, serious professional military men who were dead wrong but determined to protect their views and to use their position in the hierarchy to get the job done. It is a sobering story for anyone who would modernize a large, complex military bureaucracy.
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