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Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to the Near Future

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Over the years Griffith has established himself as a contraversial and insightful military theorist. His insight into the fundimental tactical principles of warfare, and thier application and mis-application under differing combat venues is an interesting read. He continues his discussion from his other books on the merits of shock verses skirmish tactics, and the effectiveness of stand-off assault verses direct engagement. While his opinions may be viewed as somewhat eurocentric, much of the history of the western method of war is europian based, and this historical perspective is necessary in order to understand the invariate human reaction to combat tactics.

His findings in this book are less contraversial than those of "Civil War Battle Tactics", but both books display brilliant insight and are well worth reading.

Paddy Griffith spent a decade and a half lecturing officer cadets at Sandhurst on tactics, and this book shows why.

After a brief introduction, an outdated narrative with the USSR attacking NATO, the book settles into four case studies.

The first study is that of firepower vs shock in the period 1808-1815, the Napoleonic wars, including the War of 1812. Griffith shows that earlier theories about the British lining up and pouring massed musketry into the French were wrong. Instead the British would use fire to disrupt the French long enough for a charge to be delivered. As an addition, Griffith studies a failure of the British system at New Orleans, showing that the rifle made effectively no contribution on the American side beyond sniping a single Colonel.

The second study covers the period 1815-1915 and asks whether the empty battlefield was a new phenmemon. In particular there are studies of whether the rifle caused a revolution in warfare during the American Civil War (later expanded into his book "Battle Tactics of the Civil War") and the French Army in 1914.

The third covers the relationship between Armour and Infantry, making a forceful argument that Armour did not replace Infantry. Parts of this chapter were later expanded into "Battle Tactics of the Western Front".

The fourth covers the Vietnam War and make another forceful argument that the Vietnamese simply outfought the allies on the ground, and achieved their objectives much more frequently than the allies. It is generally scathing of the US reliance on technology, and points out that the North Vietnamese were generally the tactical initiators and held the initiative. It also makes a forceful argument that what the allies needed was more tanks and heavy weapons to support the infantry instead of inaccurate artillery and airpower.

The final chapter deals with various changes in war since Vietnam.

In general the book is easy to follow, and it's arguments persuesive, and fully referenced. It is a book about the tactics adopted by a few scared men under fire rather and how the nature of war at a personal level has changed rather than a book on grand strategy.

If the Commandant General requires all his Majors to read this book who am I to argue?

Paddy Griffith argues that the importance of firepower has been overestimated relative to shock action. For instance, Griffith contends that Wellington's army was successful not simply because of its volley fire but more importantly from the subsequent charge. He argues that at New Orleans poor troops lacking discipline failed to take a fortified line that good troops could have taken. He details the rise of light infantry through the 1800s. Then he shows that the shock action of brief artillery bombardments and stormtrooper tactics broke through the trenches of World War I. With every technological advance and increase in firepower, people have prophesied an "empty battlefield" and neglected shock at their peril.

This is an incredibly bad book.

Paddy Griffith has a universal theory of tactics: you charge straight at the enemy, displaying your bravery. This causes the people on the other side get scared and run away. He also has a historical agenda: to convince people that British generals of the First World War such as Field Marshall Sir Douglas, Earl Haig, were not incompetent butchers, madmen, and liars.

Alas, the theory of tactics isn't true, and neither is the agenda. People in combat only get scared when they think they might get hurt. Even when they're scared, they frequently stick around and fight. As a result, a lot of people get hurt, or killed. As for WWI generalship, most British commanders were unfit to command anything.

But if Griffith dealt with these facts in a straightforward way, he'd have to explain that hundreds of thousands of British soldiers in WWI were REPEATEDLY ordered to march slowly toward the the enemy, creating not fear but just a large target, dying for nothing. Apparently this truth is too painful for him to acknowledge.

So instead, we get fantasy. In chapter two, for example, Griffith tells us that Wellington's troops typically fired their muskets at the enemy for the sole purpose of making a loud noise, did one volley only, then walked forward shouting and waving their bayonets in the air. Supposedly,this display panicked their opponents, despite the fact that no one had actually been hurt (Well, after all, they were only frenchmen, what would you expect?).

As evidence of this, Griffith shows the British officers arguing over what ammunition was the most effective (p42), but discounting mere noise as ineffective (p 25 & 27); presents data from 19 battles, in which AT LEAST 74% (14/19) featured more than one musket volley (p39); quotes eyewitnesses saying British musketry "carried destruction into the heart of the French line (p36)," or "produced a commencement of carnage and destruction (p18);" and by showing several cases where muskets alone broke the French (p23 & 25), but none where the redcoats used noise and swagger alone.

What, you say that evidence completely contradicts Griffith's claim of harmless scare tactics? Congratulations, you can read! Apparently, Griffith can't.

Such nonsense continues throughout the book. In Ch. 3, Griffith claims that battlefields from 1808 to 1915 were really much like WWII, with soldiers trying to be invisible, and anonymous firefights the order of the day. Thus, everyone could reasonably expect that the tactics of WWI would be rather like the tactics of the Napoleonic Wars. Aside from the fact that it completely contradicts the claims of Ch. 2, it's also false. In Ch. 4 we find out that tanks are almost harmless, and that what was really important in WWI was the new infantry tactics developed by all armies 'after the begining of the Battle of the Somme.' This contradicts ch. 3, and is also inaccurate (the new tactics were developed by the Germans in 1915, with the Allies acting later; tanks were what won the war for the Allies). In ch. 5, we hear how ineffective USAmerican technology was in Viet Nam, compared to N. Vietnamese guts. This undoubtedly explains why the U.S. won every battle, the Viet Cong guerillas were wiped out, and S. Viet Nam was conquered in 1975 by an armored force with more tanks than Hitler used to invade Russia.

And btw, although Griffith frequently cites original sources, he does so unreliably. When I checked some of them, they often said quite different things then Griffith wants you to believe they said. But that's not surprising, considering how often the evidence he reprints contradicts his own judgements.

We've only scratched the surface of Griffith's misrepresentations, but I don't have space to refute every page of the book. It's a pity, really. Griffith has read, or at least looked at, a great deal of material on tactics and combat. There are times it looks like he might have very interesting and important things to say about men in battle, if he allowed himself to think clearly. As it is, the only useful part of the book is the notes and bibliography. You can learn some truths about tactics from the information there. Pity that Griffith didn't.