Customer Reviews

Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command

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First published in 1947, S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire" argues that in spite of long-range nuclear weapons, the next war of nations will not be a push-button war. Rather, individuals engaging each other on the battlefield will again provide the mainstay of a total war even more destructive than World War II. Obviously, Marshall did not foresee the advent of limited wars in Korea and Vietnam just around the corner. Nevertheless, Marshall poses some thought provoking questions of Americans in combat. In a highly controversial claim based on questionable research, Marshall concludes that in World War II, only one-in-four soldiers fired his rifle in combat. Marshall claims to have "personally" conducted mass interviews with approximately 400 infantry companies in the Central Pacific and European Theaters immediately following important battles (If you are doing the Arithmetic, approx. 200 men per company x 400 companies, you're getting the idea!). Not one platoon, company, or battalion commander, argues Marshall, was aware that only twenty-five percent of soldiers engaged in combat fired their weapons. As a result of his findings, Marshall then campaigned for the need of new training methods for infantry soldiers. He stressed, this individual training should be based on long-term psychological camaraderie, not the quick turnover replacement system that was utilized during World War II. Marshall's un-refuted claims (until recently) have influenced a generation of military historians including T.R. Fehrenbach and Russell F. Weigley. Marshall is quick to point out that the alleged seventy-five percent of those who did not shoot were not shirkers or meanderers. These men were on the front line with their assigned units and often performed other essential tasks relating to combat duty. When the confusion and chaos of a fire fight ensued, however, they just did not shoot their weapons. Marshall rejects the reason most often used for not firing, that of giving one's position away. Instead, Marshall contends it is just a gut-level fear that prevents these men from firing at the enemy. Fears of letting down one's comrades were also prevalent among the interviewees. Most importantly, however, Marshall found "that fear of killing, rather than the fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure in the individual, and that fear of failure ran a close second." Predictively, Marshall does not cite any of his evidence and his less than scientific methods have been widely refuted in recent decades. However, the questions that he poses about the psychological makeup of an American in combat have some merit. It is widely agreed by military professionals that two years is enough time to adequately train an individual for combat. Yet given the uniquely American dependence on the citizen soldier, is this time period sufficient to turn an ordinary civilian into an effective combat soldier? Is an American conscript morally and ethically suited for this role? Is there a solution other than Marshall's proposing that units train together and stay together with a tight knit cadre of officers and non-coms that would provide the basis of moral support all through training and eventual deployment in combat? In hindsight, one such inception, "Operation Gyroscope" in the late 1950s was a complete failure. It is the thought provoking answers to these questions that make S.L.A. Marshall's book a significant addition to any bookshelf, though its viewpoints are severely dated and controversial.

I love this book. I've quoted it in articles and still recommend it to anyone currently in Army leadership training, especially PLDC or OCS. It's on my shelf with Keegan's "Face of Battle" and Grossman's "On Killing."

The criticisms of Marshall are entirely baseless. One example: a critic here claims that in the 1970s, veterans retiring from service disagreed with Marshall, claiming that his statements about low rates of fire in WII ("only 15-25% of riflemen actually fired their rifles in combat") MUST be untrue, because... well, because the rate was over 90% in Vietnam (which is the conflict a soldier would have retired from in the 1970s). None of these critics seem to notice that they were the beneficiaries of a training system based on Marshall's book, precisely designed to raise their rates of fire!

The Army applied the lessons Marshall wrote down, and the result was exactly what Marshall predicted.

His observations seem commonsense, but we have to remember that WWII began with a US Army completely unprepared for modern combat. They were still making some things up as they went.

An example of his findings: four men in the dark, who stay in communication and coordinate their weapons, will not panic as often as four men in daylight who make no effort at teamwork. You can prove this to yourself playing paintball. In fact, there is no better predictor of small-unit success.

As for the supposed "lies," such as not being present at D-Day: these are based on flimsy paper evidence ("floaters" like Marshall can often out-travel their paperwork), as well as personal attacks (I'm thinking specifically of Col. Reeder, whose own observations emphasized tactical individual success - but interestingly enough, Reeder found an average of ONE such "pointer" per platoon, which suggests a fire rate LOWER than Marshall's!)

If you want to know how men act under fire, this is one absolute necessity for your bookshelf.

The negative review from "a reader in Boston" is misinformed. As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman puts it in On Killing (Little, Brown, 1996): "Some modern writers (such as Harold Leinbaugh, author of The Men of Company K) are particularly vociferous in their belief that the firing rate in World War II was significantly higher than Marshall represented it to be. But we shall see that at every turn my research has uncovered information that would corroborate Marshall's basic thesis, if not his exact percentages. Paddy Griffith's studies of infantry regimental killing rates in Napoleonic and U.S. Civil War battles; Ardant du Picq's surveys; the research of soldiers and scholars such as Colonel Dyer, Colonel (Dr.) Gabriel, Colonel (Dr.) Holmes, and General (Dr.) Kinnard; and the observations of World War I and World War II veterans like Colonel Mater and Lieutenant Roupell -- all of these corroborate General Marshall's findings. Certainly this subject needs more research and study, but I cannot conceive of any motive for these researchers, writers, and veterans to misrepresent the truth. I can, however, understand and appreciate the very noble emotions that could cause men to be offended by anything that would seem to besmirch the honor of those infantrymen who have sacrificed so much in our nation's (or any nation's) past."

As a primer for military knowledge, SLA Marshall's Men Against Fire is recommended reading for both the US Army and the USMC. His information is regarded as factual and authoritative, because he "was there". The reality of SLA Marshall is a little different.

From Dave Hackworth's "About Face", the truth about SLA Marshall can be seen. Marshall wasn't present for D-Day as he claims, and wasn't present in the European Theater until July of 1944. His service in Korea covered exactly three months (Dec 1950- Feb 1951), and was as a historian only, not a combat soldier.

"Veterans of many of the actions he 'documented' in his books have complained bitterly over the years of his inaccuracy or blatant bias..," Hackworth writes. "He didn't seem to care that what he wrote was totally inaccurate and easily disproved." (pg. 584, About Face).

On Killing is a fine work that illustrates a different side of warfare, one more focused on the after-effects of warfare and the stress resultant from the taking life in the line of duty. Marshall's Men Against Fire is an important piece as well, if only for historical value, and as evidence of many of the lessons the Army has still not learned in the application of small unit tactics. However, for anyone to assert that SLA Marshall's information on fire volume is accurate or representative of careful fact-finding is doing a disservice to himself as well as other readers. SLA Marshall's work is sensationalized, and was designed to sell rather than inform or act as a foundation for further study.

S.L.A. Marshall claimed to have pioneered the technique of mass interviews of soldiers. Marshall's 1947 book "Men against Fire" argued that, in the American army, "not more than 15 percent of the men had actually fired at enemy positions or at personnel... during combat.... The best showing... by the most spirited and aggressive companies was that one man in four had made at least some use of his fire power." Marshall described this phenomenon as the "ratio of fire" and claimed it

provided a new way of understanding what happened when citizen soldiers gripped by "fear and inertia" enter combat. The ratio of fire, and Marshall's explanation of it were readily accepted by historians who lacked any experience of combat and who were anxious to distinguish their history from mere narrative. It was not until the 1980s, when combat veterans began to retire and learned what the experts were saying, that Marshall's evidence was challenged. When Harold Leinbaugh and John Campbell began the research for their historical memoir "The Men of Company K", they encountered books like John Keegan's "The Face of Battle", which relied on Marshall's statistics to argue that poorly motivated combat soldiers avoided action. They found that Weigley, an influential American military historian, accepted the validity of the ratio of fire and used it to bolster his argument that Allied infantry were overcautious and could not be relied upon to attack the enemy.

Harold Leinbaugh knew from experience that Marshall was wrong and the historians who relied upon him had been misled, but it was not until Dr. Roger Spiller, founder of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, re-examined Marshall's evidence, that the case for the ratio of fire fell apart. It turned out that the mass interviews of men fresh from combat had never taken place and Marshall's notebooks recording occasional interviews made no reference to how many men fired their weapons. Marshall had made it all up.

I have visited Civil War battlefields all over the south. At every battlefield museum, there is a rifle recovered from the battlefield with 10 to 20 bullets stuffed down the barrel. Also in all cases, the museum can't explain why. Of course, anyone having read Men Against Fire could explain this seemingly strange phenomenon: in the face of the enemy, when firing their weapons is the best thing they could do for their own survival, some soldiers only pretended to fire and kept loading cartridges so no one would suspect that they were not. This is a crucial insight into how American soldiers act under fire, and the development of training to overcome this tendency should always be a critical priority for anyone who cares about the survival and performance of American troops. All of the criticism of SLA Marshall's research techniques are mere quibbles which do not negate the critical and fundamental importance of his work.

Col. Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall's, former chief combat historian Central Pacific (1943) and chief historian European Theatre of Operations (1945), 1947 book, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, predicted that infantry would be essential in future conflicts despite the era's belief that machine-based warfare and atomic super weapons would render traditional warfare obsolete.

Marshall criticized 1940's doctrine as having adapting 20th century weapons to 18th century tactics and postulated that the most important factor in combat is the volume of lethal fire that can be directed onto the enemy. Thus all movement should be made with the intent of maximizing fire output. Logically, any troop refusing to fire at the enemy reduces the maximum achievable fire output. Marshall called the ratio of firers to non-firers, the Ratio of Fire. Marshall stated only 15 to 25 percent of individual infantry riflemen in close contact with the enemy would actually shoot unless compelled by an officer standing over them. Marshall felt the ratio of fire equation could be maximized by improving unit cohesion and by providing realistic training to educate soldiers on what physical and psychological conditions to expect on the battlefield.

Chapter 1, "The Illusion of Power," highlights the need to integrate infantry into strategic plans. Examples illustrate how shortages in infantry reserves nearly crippled operations in Europe after D-Day. In Chapter 2, "On Future War," Marshall makes a projection as to the nature of future international warfare and mutual destruction. Projections echo the Cold War, but fail thereafter. Modern counterinsurgency roles and pinpoint strike capabilities were beyond Marshall's comprehension.

In Chapter 3, "Man on the Battlefield," Marshall explores battlefield neurosis. Differences between Hollywood's romanticized versions of combat and reality are examined and convincing explanations are offered as to how this affects soldiers fulfilling responsibilities on the battlefield. Chapter 4, "Combat Isolation," offers a powerful description of the phenomenon of battlefield isolation, the psychological experience that occurs when soldiers lose sight contact of comrades while under fire, and its effect on fighting spirit.

In Chapter 5, "Ratio of Fire," Marshall explains the concept of Ratio of Fire... clearly leaving no room for debate as to the importance of maintaining a high ratio of fire. However, Marshall fails to provide any collaborating documentation anywhere in Men Against Fire, to include a single named witness, to substantiate his statistics. Chapter 6, "Fire as the Cure," advances a non-traditional idea that even non-firing soldiers fulfill useful battlefield functions by reducing isolation, maintaining momentum, and holding ground as non-firers are reportedly no more likely to give ground than firers. The presence of non-firers is still demoralizing to enemies.

Chapter 7, "The Multiples of Information," insightfully explores the confusion inherent in military communications. The importance of small unit communications is clearly defined and concise explanations are offered as to why communications laterally disintegrate. Chapter 8, "The Riddle of Command," then explores the relationship between intelligence flowing rearward, and logistics and orders flowing forward. Common obstacles preventing each level of the command structure from receiving critical information are explored.

Chapter 9, "Tactical Cohesion," masterfully describes the familiarization process by which units become experienced in functioning under battle conditions. Verbal communication is stressed as critical in close combat and building unit cohesion. Chapter 10, "Why Men Fight," strongly emphasizes verbal communication as the primary means of initiating action, maintaining discipline and controlling emotion.

Chapter 11, "The Aggressive Will," quantifies the fighting spirit and makes a strong connection between morale and the Army's willingness to provide for soldier welfare. Chapter 12, "Men Under Fire," illustrates how combat morale ebbs and flows. Adaptable leaders must fit the situation and still focus on responsibilities.

Chapter 13, "Footnote to History," stands alone and applauds the decision to chronicle the fighting line as weapons alone are valueless.

Men Against Fire is very insightful. I highly recommend it anyone wanting to comprehend the psychological factors affecting infantry in close combat. Ratio of fire was very controversial in 1947, as it is today. The Army examined the issue and other evidence existed to support Marshall. French Col. Ardant du Picq made similar observations in Battle Studies in 1870 and Civil War battles historically showed disproportionate numbers of misses. The Army made dramatic changes to its training doctrine, adapting Marshall's recommendations.

Modern evidence suggests that Marshall may have indeed invented the specific numbers quoted in his ratio of fire statistics to add credibility to his claim, though evidence suggests he did genuinely seem to believe that the ratio of fire issue was very real.

S.L.A. Marshall spend a lifetime writing in and about the U.S. Army in conflicts from the First World War to Vietnam, and honed his writing skills as a journalist and historian between wars. 1947's "Men Under Fire: The Problem of Battle Command" was based on Marshall's observations of the behavior of soldiers under fire in the Second World War. It contained the controversial conclusion that some 75% of soldiers failed to engage the enemy in any given fight. He examined how fear, a sense of isolation on the battlefield, and a lack of leadership might cause this condition.

Marshall's observations might not pass muster today as systematic, but he put his finger on a real problem. The system of individual replacements used in the European Theater of Operations caused US infantry divisions to add new soldierts directly into units on the battle line. As other and later scholars have documented, these men were undertrained and given little chance to integrate into their squads and platoons, let alone get to know and trust their leadership. Add these condition to the normal stresses and horrors of combat and Marshall's observations are not far-fetched, if not necessarily universal.

The bulk of the book wrestles with how to provide better combat leadership. Here again, Marshall's observations are anecdotal but commonsensical; many have since been integrated into military practice. Units do best when they train hard and long with the leadership that will take them into combat. One of the biggest lessons of World War II was that citizen armies take time to achieve proficiency for combat; when they enter combat before achieving proficiency, the results can be wasteful of human life and sometimes unsuccessful in battle.

"Men Against Fire" is highly recommended as historical documentation of a mark on the wall in the US Army's eternal struggle to produce trained, ready, and effective combat units.

I was required to read this book as a student at the USMC Infantry Officer Course in 1987. At the time, I thought it a superb work, and revolutionary in its analysis of the behavior of men under fire.

But Marshall fabricated his data. (See the American Heritage article here: [...].)

How anyone can still recommend this book when his research has been so clearly discredited is beyond me.

Semper fidelis,
Pete Owen

Good explaination of how to lead under adverse conditions. Older book, but most of the lessons are still true.