SLA Marshall vs. Reality

[Jeff White]

Cosmoline,
What passed for good science in 1944? I don't know, I'm not that old. I do know that right or wrong, many things in Army training methodolgy after Men Against Fire and no one can argue that we don't have a more effective force now then we did in 1944. There are a number of other sociological factors that would figure into this that aren't even being mentioned.

Our force is much more educated now. It's largely drawn from an urban population. The levels of physical fitness are higher even though soldiers may enter the force in worse shape then their 1940s counterpart. We're more physically fit then we were in 1970. The standards that COL Simons used when traianing the force that raided the Son Tay Prison wouldn't be high enough to even pass todays APFT.

All these things will have an effect on the ability of the soldiers to learn.

The antis are going to take anything they can to bolster their indefensible position. I don't think we should throw the entire training methodolgy that evolved from Men Against Fire out, because Marshall's data didn't meet modern standards. There is something right about the metodology that evolved from it or our force wouldn't be more effective then it was, even if we remove the education and physical fitness differences.

I don't believe anyone has made such a comparison, but judging from the slaughter the completely untrained insurgents in Iraq are doing to our troops and their fellow citizens, I'd say the training isn't really necessary.

What slaughter? We're killing the untrained insurgents by the score. Why do you think they are fighting their battles with far ambushes and IEDs? They can't stand against a trained force in a pitched fight. Perhaps we should just close all the training centers as a cost cutting method and just put our new enlistees on the battlefield?

Surely you don't really believe that the Infantry mission can be carried out by anyone who can point an automatic weapon?

Jeff

 

[JohnKSa]

He may have instituted some good training programs, but it would seem that he did so primarily on the basis of his own opinions, which he defended with what appears to be mostly fictional research.

 

[Cosmoline]

Jeff, I think we can agree that the military's technical training and the training given to front line infantry makes them far more effective in a fire fight. They can remain organized and assess threats quickly even amidst chaos. But what I don't see a need for is the "killer heart" training, including bayonet charging and dehumanization. I would argue that our infantry is better not because they have been made into mindless killing machines, but because they have been taught how to fight better as a unit. In other words, their strength comes from higher brain training not lower brain training. The killer instinct is inherent in all human beings at birth and is always there. Every one of us is a natural born killer. A training program that tries to give these reptile brain functions priority over the higher mind is extremely dangerous and completely unnecessary. As long as soldiers feel they will not face prosecution or other form of sanction for killing, they'll kill as the need arises. That's how all of us function.

 

[Elmer]

primarily on the basis of his own opinions, which he defended with what appears to be mostly fictional research.

It took a long time for it to sink in that Marshall's work shouldn't be used to shape our training and tactics -- for years, there were people who still believed in Marshall.

Ok, I thought that Marshall's work had been thoroughly and authoritatively debunked some time ago... Something along the lines of Marshall's conclusions being based on interviews that weren't performed in some cases, couldn't have been performed in others and that were very poorly documented in all cases

I have to keep re-reading this thread to know which "Marshall" you're talking about.... But I guess if it were the other one, the thread would be under ammunition, or "stopping power"......

Strange coincidence......

 

[benEzra]

You bring up Grossman. The more I've studied Grossman's work, the more I am convinced that much of what appears reasonable on the surface is actually revealed as BS if you examine more closely. I was an advocate of Grossman's position to start with, but have since changed my mind.

http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/Main-R.htm

 

[Pilgrim]

"I'm aware of a number of instances where police officers, even highly trained ones, were killed because they didn't fire when they could have, and should have. I don't think anyone can be sure of how they'll react, until they're faced with the situation. I think Marshall may have been at least partially right."

I think it is more a case they were completely surprised, or they were still looking for someone to come and solve their problem and ran out of problem solving time.

Pilgrim

 

[Vern Humphrey]

What passed for good science in 1944?

Well, within a few months, we were able to produce a working atomic bomb -- which is not something you do by making it up as you go.

He may have instituted some good training programs, but it would seem that he did so primarily on the basis of his own opinions, which he defended with what appears to be mostly fictional research.

Marshall didn't institute any training programs. And those programs based on his "research" didn't address the real problems we faced in combat.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Your company wasn't trained the same way the WWII Infantry was trained. As you stated, you didn't see the same problems Marshall's work led you to expect.

Isn't it possible that the changes in training methodology that Marshall's work brought about fixed many of the problems?

No. The problems that Marshall told us existed do not exist.

In the early 80s when the light Infantry divisions were created there was another Marshall book that was popular and led to the creation of doctrine. The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation is another slim volume that speaks volumes.

It hardly matters if Marshall kept good notes or used methodology that no researcher would find acceptable in todays world, when the results were so striking.

What results are those?

You can't deny that much of the training methodology we use today were a direct result of Marshall's work. And for all the faults we still have in the way we train, we still produce the finest trained soldier in the world.

Sadly, much of Marshall's ideas linger on. But we produce good soldiers in spite of that, not because of that.

So if Marshall was a total fraud in that he made up all of his data, wouldn't the results make him some sort of genius? You really can't argue with the results.

What results? Wasted time and poor tactics?

If we decide that Marshall was wrong...what's right? And how would you judge since his work has guided our post WWII training strategies. Should we dust off the 1940 vintage manuals and train a unit that way to compare?

The current system is criterion-referenced, and includes stiff doses of collective training, where the followers of Marshall put their faith in individual training.

Have we built the post WWII Army on a lie?

To the extent we followed Marshall, we did. Thankfully, his influence is now waning -- if someone doesn't try to revive him.

 

[Jeff White]

Men Against Fire was published in 1946 and was accepted by the Army which at that time was filled with other WWII combat veterans. If the part about the number of soldiers who fired their weapons was so out of line, why wasn't it greeted with such skepticism then? Surely there would have been men who commanded at the company and battalion level who changed the training methodolgy based on Marshall's writings. Why didn't they screem BS?

Vern Humphrey said;

No. The problems that Marshall told us existed do not exist.

But, did they exist in 1944? Neither of us served then. I wasn't even born until 10 years ater Men Against Fire was published. Are you saying that the changes that were made in training after Men Against Fire fire had no effect on the quality of the force?

Your experience in the 1960s and my experience from 1974-2003 can't prove that Marshall was wrong because the soldiers we served with and trained were trained using the methodology that Marshall's work changed. We have no reference to judge from except for history books and the recollections of WWII veterans. We didn't serve in that Army. I entered a somewhat different Army in 1974 then you were in in the 60s. Yet both armies were influenced by Marshall.

What results are those?

All the battlefield successes since 1946. Although we still haven't learned all their is to learn from The Soldiers Load and the Mobility of a Nation, we still overburden our soldiers.

Sadly, much of Marshall's ideas linger on. But we produce good soldiers in spite of that, not because of that.

What would you change?

The current system is criterion-referenced, and includes stiff doses of collective training, where the followers of Marshall put their faith in individual training.

It's not like individual training doesn't exist. Individual training is still the main focus of the NCO corps. I think GEN Starry did a pretty good job of connecting individual and collective training when as TRADOC commander he implemented the Battalion Training Management System around 1980. For the first time we had a program that recognized that units had to be proficient in both individual and collective skills to be effective. BTMS rightfully gave the NCO responsibility for individual training and officers responsibility for collective training. Even though the initial program was unwieldy at first, what with NCOs keeping job books, and officers maintaining Task Lists and Mission Essential Task Lists these tools evolved into the Army Training Management System that exists today. We start deployment workups with the basic individual tasks required to perform the anticipated mission then work our way up from squad to platoon and company training at local training areas and brigade and division rotations at the combat training centers.

To the extent we followed Marshall, we did. Thankfully, his influence is now waning -- if someone doesn't try to revive him.

I don't see his influence waning. I did retire in November of 2003, but I still keep in contact with some people. It's my understanding that it was Marshall's influence that led to the development of Trainfire Ranges, would you go back to Bullseye shooting?

Jeff

 

[jaysouth]

I have talked to WWII vets who thought SLAM was the most godawful liar.

All the infantry vets that I talked to agreed that the biggest problem facing a platoon or company commander was fire discipline. That it, getting their troops to quit shooting when no more shooting was needed.

The first open questioning of Marshalls theory that only a handful of troops will fire their weapons came from an FBI agent who was an infantry company commander in WWII. His personal experience was at odds with marshall's findings. The CO's biggenst prolem was 'fire discipline'. Getting his troops to quit wasting ammo. His views were reinforced by discussion with other former commanders. He then began an investigation of marshall and exposed his fake WWI record, from there on it became fashionable to debunk SLAM.

On a personal level, I was in a unit in vietnam that SLAM followed around. His notes on our action and campaigns became his book, Battles in the Monsoon. His notes must have gotten smudged in the rain, because he got a lot of 'facts' just flat wrong.

He also got involved in some issues the should have stayed out of. After interviewing a young soldier after a very fierce fight, he told the Division Commander that this young man deserved a MOH. The Division commander ordered our battalion commander to write this man up for a Medal of Honor. the citation was duly written up based upon testimony from those in the fight. The testimony of the men who fought this battle were opposite of what SLAM wrote up. The citation acknowledged that this young man was indeed brave and fought well but did not elevate his actions to the level of a MOH. The citation wound up being written up by a staff officer at division and presented to the Battalion commander for signature.

At our reunions we do not ever mention the name of the CG or the man who subsequently got a Medal of honor he did not deserve. We have forgiven the battalion commander who violated his sacred oath to sign that citation. He was such a good commander that his loss of command would have been a greater evil that lying under oath.

If in fact, TrainFire was invented by mashall, it began the demise of marksmanship training in the army. The USMC never got away from marksmanship training that starts with shooting at round targets at known distances. When they become proficient at KD, they move on to more realistic training. The army, however, moved straigth to trainfire without teaching basic marksmanship.

 

[Texian Pistolero]

Not that this is a definitive response,

But the fact is that,

In his autobiography,

"War As I Knew It",

General George S. Patton, JR,

expressed the opinion that he wished that the Garand-firing infantry soldiers,

Had capped off a lot more rounds than they did.

 

[hillbilly]

jaysouth wrote:

"If in fact, TrainFire was invented by mashall, it began the demise of marksmanship training in the army. The USMC never got away from marksmanship training that starts with shooting at round targets at known distances. When they become proficient at KD, they move on to more realistic training. The army, however, moved straigth to trainfire without teaching basic marksmanship."



Combine Jaysouth's statement with the two links below, and, um, well........uh......go see for yourselves.


http://www.odcmp.org/0505/?page=SDM


http://www.michrpa.com/PDFS/2005 SDM_MRPA.pdf


And yes, I've volunteered to serve as an instructor. Don't know if I've been accepted as such, but I've sent in the application.

hillbilly

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Men Against Fire was published in 1946 and was accepted by the Army which at that time was filled with other WWII combat veterans. If the part about the number of soldiers who fired their weapons was so out of line, why wasn't it greeted with such skepticism then?

"Men Against Fire" wasn't "accepted by the Army." The Army has no mechanism to "accept" books and articles. Some people in the Army training establishment used the ideas, but that isn't "acceptance." Then, as now, most training programs are written by people awaiting attendance at schools, platform instructors and so on -- who are chosen for their availablilty, not their expertise.

But, did they exist in 1944? Neither of us served then.

As has been pointed out, actual combat footage shows men shooting. Accounts by other arthors, such as Richard Tregasis, make it plain that most men in combat DID fire.

All the battlefield successes since 1946.

That would be true IF battles were won by individuals. They aren't -- they're won by units. In examining unit performance, you can see again and again where Marshall's influence was a detriment to success.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I think Marshall's basic premise was correct and that the problem comes from people broadly applying it. Even if we discredit everything Marshall ever wrote, there are still ample other sources that would lead you to the same conclusion.

Just to use one example, we can look at the relatively small number of pilots who accounted for the majority of kills in air-air combat. The same lopsided ratio also showed itself in tank crews.

As for the argument that people are incapable of pulling the trigger, that isn't what Marshall said and I think Grossman does a good job of explaining what we all know - different circumstances lead to different results. Grossman has a formula for what he calls "target attractiveness" that he uses to predict how likely someone might be to fire in a given circumstance.

As common sense would have it, the degree that the specific target presents an immediate threat to one's life is a big influence on that. I've seen a lot of antis use Grossman and Marshall to make an argument that the average person is incapable of self-defense. This is simply not true and is nothing more than a bad understanding of the arguments these two men put forth.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I think Marshall's basic premise was correct and that the problem comes from people broadly applying it. Even if we discredit everything Marshall ever wrote, there are still ample other sources that would lead you to the same conclusion.

Just to use one example, we can look at the relatively small number of pilots who accounted for the majority of kills in air-air combat. The same lopsided ratio also showed itself in tank crews.

Marshall's premise was wrong.

Even if you take what you have offered, a closer look shows it isn't a vindication of Marshall's theory. Successful aces and super aces are physically superion in key ways -- for example, they fall into the 99.999 percentile in vision acuity. They also have long careers compared to other fliers, with time to improve.

Tank engagements are generally dictated by deployment. A well-placed tank will get many targets, other tanks will not get so many chances.

 

[richyoung]

What passed for good science in 1944? I don't know, I'm not that old. I do know that right or wrong, many things in Army training methodolgy after Men Against Fire and no one can argue that we don't have a more effective force now then we did in 1944.

Correlation does not equalcausation. The force might have been even MORE effective had not Marshall's bogus claims influenced training methods and equipment selection decisions.

There are a number of other sociological factors that would figure into this that aren't even being mentioned.

You ain't just whistling Dixie...

Our force is much more educated now. It's largely drawn from an urban population. The levels of physical fitness are higher even though soldiers may enter the force in worse shape then their 1940s counterpart. We're more physically fit then we were in 1970. The standards that COL Simons used when traianing the force that raided the Son Tay Prison wouldn't be high enough to even pass todays APFT.

We have a "parade ground" army that looks good, and we throw out trained soldiers NOT based on an inability to fight or to do their combat missions, but due to failure to make an arbitrary tape/weoght standard, or to run two miles in the alloted time. The "cult of running" has long taken over the military, in part because some senior officers were heavily into it, and in part because it requires little in the way of expensive equipment. Rather than PT tailored toenhace the soldier's ability to perform his job, such as humping shells or breaking track, we do running, situps, pushups, etc - simply because its easy to measure, and requires no expensive gear.

All these things will have an effect on the ability of the soldiers to learn.

...and NONE of them die to SLAM...

The antis are going to take anything they can to bolster their indefensible position. I don't think we should throw the entire training methodolgy that evolved from Men Against Fire out, because Marshall's data didn't meet modern standards. There is something right about the metodology that evolved from it or our force wouldn't be more effective then it was, even if we remove the education and physical fitness differences.

Correlation and causation again - they are NOT the same!

Quote:
I don't believe anyone has made such a comparison, but judging from the slaughter the completely untrained insurgents in Iraq are doing to our troops and their fellow citizens, I'd say the training isn't really necessary.

What slaughter? We're killing the untrained insurgents by the score. Why do you think they are fighting their battles with far ambushes and IEDs? They can't stand against a trained force in a pitched fight. Perhaps we should just close all the training centers as a cost cutting method and just put our new enlistees on the battlefield?

Surely you don't really believe that the Infantry mission can be carried out by anyone who can point an automatic weapon?

For the bulk of the world, including almost all of the third world, that is indeed the criteria - and they seem to have NO PROBLEM with killing.

 

[richyoung]

Just to use one example, we can look at the relatively small number of pilots who accounted for the majority of kills in air-air combat. The same lopsided ratio also showed itself in tank crews.

In any type of combat, you have "killers, fillers, and victims" - not because of any "unwillingness to shoot", which is even LESS prevalent when shooting at a tank or airplane, but rather due to experience, vision, coordination, etc. Should one survive long enough, one's odds of graduating to "filler" or "killer" status improve.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

In any type of combat, you have "killers, fillers, and victims" - not because of any "unwillingness to shoot", which is even LESS prevalent when shooting at a tank or airplane, but rather due to experience, vision, coordination, etc. Should one survive long enough, one's odds of graduating to "filler" or "killer" status improve.

Very true -- and it points up some of the damage Marshall did.

Soldiers fight as members of a unit. If you look at a combat-experienced unit, you see there are three groups in each unit. There are the "Old Timers" who are closely banded together, who cooperate with virtually no need for communication, and who look out for each other. Then there are the "Youngsters" who have been around a while. They are starting to form a clique like the "Old Timers" and sometimes the "Old Timers" will mentor them.

Then there are the "F*cking New Guys"who are shunned and who have a fairly low life expectancy if the unit sees heavy combat in their first month or two.

None of that is part of Marshall's observations, though. So in Viet Nam, we had things like the Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School (SERTS.) There, scared newbies were terrorized by "combat veterans" (who were the NCOs the combat units wanted to get rid of) and spent a miserable two weeks before being sent to their units. Once in the unit, they got no special training or consideration ("They got all that sh*t in SERTS.") This made assimilation into the unit more difficult, and resulted in more casualties among newbies.

The British, not being cursed with Marshall's nonsense, had a different policy. They trained newbies in England in units affiliated with the regiments they were to join in combat, sent them to the unit in packets, and stood units down after receiving a packet to allow time for training and integration of the new troops.

 

[another okie]

Marshall was a journalist and an advocate, not a social scientist. His point was that men in combat fight for one another, not for some abstract cause or for the flag, and that training should encourage and use that. That idea has changed training and tactics.

It may seem obvious today that men fight for their buddies, but it wasn't obvious in 1939 or 1945. That is fate of many new ideas - fifty years later people say "everyone knows that."

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Marshall was a journalist and an advocate, not a social scientist.

And that in itself ought to tell us something -- to defend Marshall we have to use the Dan Rather approach. "The document may be bogus, but what it says is true."

His point was that men in combat fight for one another, not for some abstract cause or for the flag, and that training should encourage and use that. That idea has changed training and tactics.

That men in combat fight for each other was known long before SLA Marshall came along. The Spartans knew it (which is one reason why they encouraged sexual relationships between boys and older men, to make bonds between the seasoned warriors and the unblooded boys.)

Marshall's falacy was that he failed to understand the complexity of unit cohesion. He thought men were interchangeable cogs, and could be bolted into the machine at will. That thinking plagued the US Army for decades. The British knew better, and had a better system as a result.

 

[NMshooter]

In Marshall's Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea Winter of 1950-51 he recommends replacements be trained and assigned in four man teams to fix that problem.

I recommend reading that commentary, I think the information contained has some bearing on this discussion.

Perhaps if the two major sides here could state their positions we might be able to better understand the argument.

If I am intruding where I should not be let me know and I will stop.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

In Marshall's Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea Winter of 1950-51 he recommends replacements be trained and assigned in four man teams to fix that problem.

Which is dead wrong and reflects a serious failure to understand combat psychology and social dynamics.

The problem ISN'T intgrating the replacements with THEMSELVES, it's intergrating them with the UNIT. Marshall's idea has two bad effects:

1. It leaves the final pre-combat training in the hands of someone OTHER than the unit NCOs and officers. In his model, this training is done outside the unit.

2. It deepens the isolation of the replacements by forming them into their own team, not integrating them with the veterans.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Like I said, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting people are reluctant to fire weapons unless they perceive an immediate threat to their own well-being. If you don't like the example of aces in aerial combat or tank aces, then there are certainly more to draw from in history.

You could look at John Keegan's research where they took period weaponry and drilled in formation using the same manuals from the Napoleonic era and fired at targets the same size and distance as the massed formations in various battles of that era. The results should have been devastating to an enemy formation based on the number of holes in the target and yet the historical record shows casualties were a fraction of what you might expect based on Keegan's research.

You can also look at muskets recovered from Civil War battlefields that had been loaded multiple times but had never been fired.

Grossman did a pretty decent job of examining these and other anecdotal evidence in support of Marshall's theory in "On Killing".

 

[Cosmoline]

I'm afraid I don't put any credence in a man who makes a living by creating his own "science" of "killology" and blames video games for raising a generation of killers.

You can also look at muskets recovered from Civil War battlefields that had been loaded multiple times but had never been fired.

Um, I 'm aware that they've found many LOADED rifles on the battlefields, not that they found many loaded multiple times without being fired. When you have one shot, you want to make it pay off. Sometimes that means the other guys get you before you can fire. Please cite the specific examples of rifles found with ball after ball being loaded and never fired.

You could look at John Keegan's research where they took period weaponry and drilled in formation using the same manuals from the Napoleonic era and fired at targets the same size and distance as the massed formations in various battles of that era.

Yeah, and I could nail a six inch circle at four hundred meters with my old 96/11 Schmidt-Rubin, but that doesn't mean I could hit a MOVING target that was shooting back at me at that range with anywhere near that level of accuracy.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Like I said, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting people are reluctant to fire weapons unless they perceive an immediate threat to their own well-being. If you don't like the example of aces in aerial combat or tank aces, then there are certainly more to draw from in history.

Let's draw form the personal experience of men who saw hard combat in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. Throw in the combat film footage of troops actually in acton.

You could look at John Keegan's research where they took period weaponry and drilled in formation using the same manuals from the Napoleonic era and fired at targets the same size and distance as the massed formations in various battles of that era. The results should have been devastating to an enemy formation based on the number of holes in the target and yet the historical record shows casualties were a fraction of what you might expect based on Keegan's research.

There were three reasons for that -- troops in the Napoleonic wars in general did not aim, and had little knowledge of marksmanship (see below.) Troops in the Napoleonic wars were not paper targets -- they tended to do things to reduce vunerability. And finally, Keegan's experiment was not conducted by men who were themselves under fire.

Keegan, of course, has no combat experience himself.

You can also look at muskets recovered from Civil War battlefields that had been loaded multiple times but had never been fired.

Which shows that even poorly trained men under great stress will TRY to fire.

Now referring to Keegan's experiments, do you suppose failure to prime was limited to percussion arms? Napoleonic troops under fire were probably MORE likely to fluff the reloading sequence, since it was more complicated in their day.