Customer Reviews

Military Innovation in the Interwar Period

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This may be the one book Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld should read. It is a serious systematic look at military innovation between the first and second world wars and its ten chapters run the gamut from aircraft carriers to submarines to mechanized combined armed warfare (the Blitzkrieg) to the development of radar, the emergence of amphibious landing capability, and the evolution of strategic bombing campaigns. There is a wide divergence of patterns both between topics and between countries. The British led in aircraft carrier development but made a series of organizational and technological choices that left them far behind the Japanese and the Americans. The British also led in the development of the tank but then rejected it as a mobile warfare system and were rapidly supplanted by the Germans who used the 1920s British tests as a basis for their development of Blitzkrieg. The submarine was rejected politically by everyone but was then developed effectively by the Americans and the Germans. The American torpedo failures are a maddening study in bureaucratic rejection of reality and a sober warning to the current peacetime Pentagon.

This book captures the complexity and the lessons of peacetime military innovation as well as any that has been written. It should be required reading for everyone who wants to work on the current problems of transforming the Pentagon.

The acclaimed scholarly team of Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett have edited an anthology of essays encompassing the technological innovations in weaponry during the 1920's and 1930's. These innovations span the research and developments of all the major belligerents that play a major role in the coming global conflict. Each scholar was instructed to compare and contrast his or her topic country with two other countries making this work not only a significant contribution in and of itself, but also a vital comparative study as well. In addition, the researchers were asked to structure their essays around three concepts: the strategic framework of the period, the organizational factors of the institutions under study, and the doctrinal framework of the services. Many of the contributing factors to victory and defeat in World War II are covered within the pages of this important work. Williamson Murray takes a look at "Armored Warfare: The British, French and German Experiences," and "Strategic Bombing: The British, American and German Experiences." Richard R. Muller examines "Close Air Support: The German British and American Experiences, 1918-1941." Geoffrey Till discusses "Adopting the Aircraft Carrier: The British, American, and Japanese Case Studies." But perhaps the most important chapter is Allan R. Millett's "Assault From the Sea: The Development of Amphibious Warfare Between the Wars-the American, British, and Japanese Experiences." Millett compared the development of amphibious doctrine in Japan, Britain, and the United States. The author concludes the U. S. led the way in amphibious warfare doctrine, initiating combined arms operations between air, sea and land that would prove to be a critical advantage in the pacific campaign. According to Millett, Japan started out impressively as was evident by its ever-expanding Pacific empire in the 1930's. Since every landing force became an isolated island garrison, however, Japan's whole amphibious program literally faded away. Great Britain, on the other hand, never had the economic resources necessary to implement a successful amphibious program. Millett concludes that factors such as budget and innovative foresight are vital contributing factors in technological innovation. The author is also quick to point out that in many cases, new weapons become obsolete as soon as hostilities begin. Generally, books of essays are usually disjointed and inconsistent. The guidelines and structure the editors have chosen have tied all the chapters in this book together nicely. This is arguably the best work on the inter-war period to emerge in years. Highly recommended.

The book does provide detailed footnotes as it is a series of essays where the writer of each "chapter" presents their viewpoint and analysis. However, this book provides no tables or charts to support any of the analysis or discussions presented. It would have been very helpful if there were a table or chart comparing each nation's "innovation" in each category described in this book, examples: armored warfare, strategic bombing, carrier development, etc.

What is most lacking in this book it that it focuses primarily on the US, Britain, and Germany, limited on Japan (amphibious assault and aircraft carrier development but nothing on their armor and combined arms tactics) and nothing significant on France, Italy, and Russia, who are mentioned merely in passing. This is the most glaring weakness of this book. Russia developed the T-34 tank, had a sizeable navy, large industrial base, naval infantry, paratroopers, cavalry, and actually trained with the Germans in the 1930's. The Italians were on the winning side of World War One, developed a large navy, their own tanks, and an ambitious goal to dominate the Mediterranean Sea, but they too are not mentioned.

It is important to learn how each of these major combatant nations developed as each had their own policies that led to successes and failures. An example is in amphibious landings, where the writer presents a view that the US was the most developed in the world during the interwar period. If that is the case, then why didn't the US attempt an amphibious assault prior to 1943 and why were the casualties so high in the first assault experienced at Tarawa? If the US was amphibious warfare strategy and doctrine was the most developed, then why did the British conduct the disastrous raid on Dieppe in 1943 as a rehearsal, wouldn't the US have enough experience in northern Africa, Sicily, and Anzio in 1943? The writer's claim is not supported through citing successful battles or numbers of equipment produced.

Another question is why weren't the British, Germans, Italians, and Russians mentioned or compared to in amphibious warfare? If Italy wanted to control the Med, wouldn't they have developed some type of doctrine or equipment? The Germans thought about invading England, what kind of equipment did they have and how would they have executed the invasion? The Russian Naval Infantry, what was their doctrine? The Japanese amphibious landing is well researched and presented, but again, no tables or charts are presented to summarize the writer's viewpoint.

Russia's development during the interwar period is very critical as the equipment developed during the period was superior or at least equal to the German equipment. The T-34 tank's only weakness in 1941 was the lack of radio equipment along with the doctrine of dispersing the tanks instead of massing them into large formations. If one reads other WW2 history books, one learns that the Germans were only able to defeat the T-34 tank in 1941 with better unit maneuver and with greater numbers. German anti-tank weapons had no effect with the German tanks undergunned and under ranged. The largest caliber on a German tank in 1941 being the short barreled 75mm mounted on the Panzer MK IV and the StugIII (which was an assault gun found in anti-tank battalions).

Another glaring omission in this book is there are no discussions on anti-weapons or counter munitions designed to defeat the innovations being developed in the interwar period, the lone exception being the torpedo and US artillery proximity fuses. There are no discussions on the bazooka, anti-tank rifles, anti-tank guns, shaped charges, depth charges, or anti-aircraft guns. Obviously the Germans had planned for anti-aircraft defense, otherwise they would not have developed the 88mm gun nor would have the deployed it so close to the front line troops. Rommel was able to repulse the British armor counterattacks at Arras, France in 1940 only with the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. This experience influenced him to utilize this weapon in a dual purpose anti-tank role in the desert. The British had attacked him in Arras with heavily armored Matilda tanks, armed with a 2-pound anti-tank gun, but no high explosive rounds against infantry. These cases are extremely relevant and important discussions into the interwar period.

Why did the British choose not to equip their tanks with HE rounds? Why didn't the Germans equip their Panzer MKIV and StugIII tanks with long barrel 75mm guns from the start? Why didn't the Russians equip their early T-34 tanks without universal radios (only the platoon leader had a radio)?

How was the Sherman tank developed and doctrinally planned to be utilized, a vehicle with an underpowered 75mm gun, prone to catching on fire, and a narrow track base not suited for cross country mobility (as described in the book Death Traps, Belton Cooper)? At the end of WW2, the US might have gotten directly into war against the Russians? How would the Sherman tank fared in the vast Russian muddy steppes and marshes and no highways? The Germans learned the hard way fighting against the T-34 an incorporated many of the features (wide track base and sloped armor) into the Tiger and Panther tanks. Was the Sherman tank designed to be an infantry support vehicle with anti-tank battalions designed to defeat enemy armor? What calibers of weapons were they equipped with and how were they to be employed? None of these questions are answered in this book.

Overall the book does provide some information that is interesting, such as the German night bombing tactics, use of the Stuka dive bomber to provide precision bombing, and the lack of reliable and powerful aircraft engines that prevented German strategic bomber development. However, the lack of direct comparisons (such as comparing the T-34 vs the Panzer Mark IV vs the Sherman Tank in armor thickness and armament range, penetrating power), lack of tables (such as showing the range and capacity of the Japanese aircraft carrier vs the US and British), charts (comparing the number of tanks and tank regiments fielded by Russia, Germany, England, France, Italy, US, and Japan in 1939), and complete omissions of the Italians and Russians is glaring and detracts to what could have been a well rounded and educational book.

Given the Editors' strong professional and education backgrounds, expected a lot more information from this book. Recommend borrowing this book from the library rather than purchasing it.

It is a very good review on how things developed between world wars. It provides a good insight of the thinking of the different countries and how they coped with their doctrines and how much they took an advantage of the WWI experiences.
I am rating 4 stars because actually I would like much more information rather than 30 pages on each subject.

This is an anthology of various articles. Generally anthologies are the pits as they tend to lack a central them and the quality will vary. These articles are generally by the authors and as such they are of an even standard.

There are a number of chapters that discuss a range of issues from the use of Tanks to the development of the Aircraft Carrier.

The book is interesting although the area covered is naturally enormous and the amount of space that can be devoted to complex subjects is naturally limited. Despite this most of the essays are interesting and not only for what they say. In the first essay about the development of armored warfare by way of an aside the writer attacks Gueridian as a sycophant and also as a person whose reputation was largely the result of self publicity. Later the English theorists Fuller and Liddell Hart are critiqued as presenting overly schematic histories of the First World War which warped the truth to fit in with their own theories. Interestingly the essay then goes on to suggest that the first world war infantry battles were so complex that even now we struggle to understand them and for that reason it was no surprise that Douglas Haig had the problems that he did.

All in all an interesting book although again very much a starting point for the issue it covers.

Perhaps the most important insight this book offers is that military innovation is considerably more complex than simply building better mouse traps. The authors clearly demonstrate that the research, development, testing and evaluation (RDTE) process needed to create a new or improved military system is only the first step in a complex process. For such a military system to be effective, there must be corresponding changes in the tactical and strategic doctrines, training, and organizational structures that reflect the capabilities and limitations of the new system.

The history of military innovation in the twenty year period between WWI and WWII then is a complicated one filled with successes, failures, missed opportunities and brilliant theorizing. To begin with few soldiers really believed that WWI was a "war to end all wars" as did some of the more idealistic politicians of the time. They therefore begin a scramble to understand the lessons and innovations that were the result of that war. Within the ground forces serious efforts were made to understand the implications of mechanization, especially armored fighting vehicles (AFV) and motor transport, for a future war. In a similar manner the air forces struggled to understand the demonstrated capabilities of the airplane for close ground support, air superiority, and most importantly strategic bombing. The navies of the world had to struggle with the role of submarines in future wars as well as the challenges and opportunities of naval aviation as represented by aircraft carriers, float planes and the need for long range reconnaissance. All services were deeply affected as well by the clear utility of wireless radio and soon other electronic breakthroughs.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter of the book is titled , "Assault from the Sea" which really concerns the efforts by the U.S., Japan, and to a lesser extent the UK to develop the doctrines, technology, and organizational structure to conduct large scale amphibious warfare. In this case the examples from WWI served only as the starting points for some very original work. And it was the U.S. Marine Corp that took the lead in this work, in spite of severe fiscal restraints.

In spite of some weak spots this book provides valuable information on the thinking of the military and civilian visonaries of the principal participants of WWII as they attempted to build modern military forces.

Williamson Murray (Editor), Alan R. Millet (Editor), combine again to publish a "must have" reference work for any serious military professional. The articles are universally excellent, well researched, and full of analysis. As military policy makers and strategists confront the ambiguities of the 21st Century, this work provides superb lessons learned from history. Buy the book and read it - it will be time and money well spent.

An excellent, multidimensional examination of a critical but usually neglected period of world military history, edited by two of the most clear-headed thinkers in military history today.

Every military historian should read this book. You cannot truly understand World War Two without understanding what happened in the interwar period, and this book will give you a good, thorough understanding.

This is required reading for Army Majors. Compared to many books like this it flows well and is easy to read. You might actually read more than is required with this one.

Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Edited by Williamson R. Murray and Allan R. Millett is a very interesting little book covering a variety of technical and doctrinal innovations that were pivotal in how WWII was fought. The book is essentially a series of essays, each of which forms a chapter of the book and provides a detailed analysis of one technical or doctrinal issue. Doctrinal topics addressed include: Armored Warfare, Amphibious Assault, Strategic Bombing, Close Air Support. Technical issues of RADAR, Aircraft Carriers and Submarines are also examined. Finally three essays on innovation in general tie the book together thematically.

Each of the essays is written by a historian and each provides a very thorough but concise examination of its topic. I was particularly impressed with the chapter on Aircraft Carriers and the one on RADAR. The Aircraft Carrier chapter examined the parallel development tracks of the USN, the RN and the IJN. The thesis of the chapter is that the different development path taken by the RN (heavily armored flight/hanger decks which resulted in restrictions on the number of aircraft the carrier could operate) while influenced by the expectation that British Carriers would operate within the range of land based air, was primarily driven by the fact that the formation of the RAF toward the end of WWI, stripped the fleet of "air enthusiasts". Once all of the air minded naval officers transferred to the nascent RAF, there was no one left in the fleet thinking about carriers as major weapons systems in their own right. Instead the carriers were relegated to scouting and air defense roles.

Similarly, the RADAR essay Illustrates how the Germans started with a substantial lead in RADAR technology, but lost it when they failed to undertake the technical research necessary to perfect centemetric RADAR.

All in all, this was a very interesting book on a series of topics that were vitally important to WWII. However, it is a bit dry and the topics are highly technical and fairly esoteric. Although I enjoyed it, you have been warned.