Regular army

“ Large numbers of untrained men, without organization to embody them in, add little to actual military strength.
Armies of First Line
The Army which will take the field at the outbreak of war is the Regular Army, which is organized, kept up, and trained, year by year, in peace. The War Army will be this Peace Army mobilized, or brought up to war strength and completed in every essential, by calling up reserve officers and men to fill its ranks. ”

“ THE FANTASSIN, OR FOOT-SOLDIER. The fantassin, par excellence, is a soldier of the regular infantry. The cavalry pretend that the foot-soldier wears spurs on his elbows, but this is only a stale joke perpetrated before the bayonet came into general use.
The regular infantry is really the French army. It has shed its blood upon every battle-field, and has come off victorious again and again. It is the infantry that has carried the standards of France through conquered Europe. It is the regular infantry which, without shoes, provisions, or artillery, swept down from the Alps upon Italy. ”

“ The rejuvenated Territorial Army is to be in all respects a true second line of imperial defence, self-contained and self-supporting, while the regular army and its special reserve of militia battalions form the first line. ”

“ But more than grouping battalions of the regular army together is the uniting in one common bond the other parts of our fighting strength. The addition of militia to the regiment, and of the volunteers to the same, both promotes a real and wider esprit de corps, and facilitates recruiting in every way. ”

“ Once the nation actually went to war, the character of the latter element changed, for volunteering was scrapped except in the Regular Army and in the National Guard. The Volunteer Army became the National Army, which was raised by conscription. All in all, the wartime Army contained 297 infantry regiments of one kind or another and 165 machine gun battalions classed as infantry. Infantry regiments and machine gun battalions together totaled 462 in World War I, a figure which is dwarfed by the 1,700-plus infantry units that served in the Civil War. ”

“ Our battles have been almost universally fought in this manner. The rebels have probably used the formation in column more frequently than the Northern troops. The non-military reader can easily perceive that formations in mass are more subject to loss from the fire of artillery and from that of small arms even at considerable distances, and are less able to deliver their own fire.
Our old regular army consisted of ten regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, and one of mounted rifles, of ten companies each, and four artillery regiments of twelve companies each. ”

“ Every army at the present time is divided into regular troops, who are already organized in time of peace and are merely brought to full strength in war-time, and new formations, which are only organized on mobilization. ”

“ The New Army, consisting of the 'service battalions' of existing regiments, is a product of the war. When, on the outbreak of war, many new regiments were rapidly raised, they were affiliated to regular regiments with consecutive numbers after the territorial battalions, and this organization was continued and extended to cope with the personnel obtained under the Military Service Acts. ”

“ A light army, designed to maneuver in the rear of the Americans and in front of the pursuers, was formed out of Lee s legion, the regular battalion of infantry under Colonel Howard, the cavalry under Colonel Washington, and a small corps of Virginia riflemen under Major Campbell, in all about seven hundred men, the flower of the Southern army. ”

“ So attractive were their offers that many men enlisted in one unit, deserted, and enlisted in another just to collect the bounties. During the first two years of the war, the rule of service in the Union Army was to assign one or more regiments of cavalry to each division of infantry for such duties as the division commander might order. The regiments were then broken down into small detachments for use as orderlies and escorts for general officers, guards for division wagon trains, and pickets to protect the front of infantry lines. ”

“ Moreover, they supplied companies to special corps such as the legions of Henry Lee and Casimir Pulaski and the Corps of Light Infantry. An understanding of the internal organization of the Continental infantry regiments and their components requires a short explanation of infantry tactics in the eighteenth century. To begin with, the heart of a battle as fought in western Europe was the line of infantry. ”

“ Volunteer infantrymen, when associated with the compulsory militia, took the posts of honor and their units were consequently often referred to as flank or light companies. Sometimes they had special weapons and actually trained as light infantry. When war came they sometimes volunteered to go as units or they became a relatively trained cadre around which some provisional regiment was built. ”

“ Second, since it was becoming obsolete as a tactical unit, the regiment would no longer be subject to periodic reorganizations and could serve as a permanent vehicle for perpetuating unit lineage, honors, and customs without restricting future organizational trends. Consequently, a number of distinguished infantry, artillery, armor, and cavalry regiments were selected and designated as so-called parent units. Each infantry parent regiment was capable of providing a base for a variable number of tactical elements, which could be battle groups, battalions, or companies. ”

“ It is often said, and it may be true in the abstract, that the principles of war do not change. It is, nevertheless, absolutely true that methods do change and are constantly changing. We may study the great captains of the past to learn of their principles and, above all, of their character, but do not let us be tied too much to their methods. ”

“ Also, as armored units began more advanced phases of training with larger units of other branches, they were detached from the Armored Force. As units were deployed overseas, they were released from the control of the Armored Force. Hence, as the war progressed, the number of units directly controlled by the Armored Force greatly declined, and its attention became centered upon the training of replacement personnel, development of armor tactics and doctrine, and test and procurement of equipment- all functions requiring close and continuous coordination with armored units in combat overseas. ”

“ This included regiments of three battalions instead of one. Two battalions were supposed to take the field, the third to maintain a regimental depot for collecting and training recruits. Battalions of 800 men in eight companies were adopted as the most efficient fighting units because they were thought to be small enough to maneuver and to be controlled by the voice of the commanding officer, yet large enough to withstand attack by cavalry. A battalion in the French system was the fighting unit, a regiment the unit of administration. ”

“ The greater part of the Regular Army moved to the border area in March 1911. While most of the cavalry patrolled the border from the mouth of the Rio Grande to San Diego, California, other units in the area were organized into one division and two independent brigades for maneuver purposes. One cavalry regiment, the 3d, formed a part of the division, and the 9th and 10th Cavalry plus a signal company made up the independent cavalry brigade. ”

“ In all of the major wars of the United States from the American Revolution through the conflict in Southeast Asia the dominant combat arm of the United States Army has been the infantry. It was natural therefore in producing an Army Lineage Series to devote the first published volume to that arm. Appearing in 1953, the first infantry lineage book has long been out of print, and subsequent organizational developments have amply warranted a revised and enlarged edition and its publication in more durable form. ”

“ Once the nation had become a colonial power on account of the War with Spain, the study of war grew more important, and Americans turned to a review of what they had to fight with. It was clear that the Regular Army was too small to make up the whole defense and that stimulation of the militia was therefore necessary. As a result, one phase of the reform of 1903 was to replace the Federal militia law which had been on the books since 1792. This reform was particularly significant for the infantry because it comprised the bulk of the militia force. ”

“ The next year part of the cut was restored in an experiment that attempted to integrate Indian soldiers into Regular Army units. The primary object was to give employment to a considerable number of warriors from the most dangerous tribes. Troops L of the 1st through the 8th Cavalry were reactivated with Indian enlisted personnel drawn, as nearly as possible, from the area in which each regiment was serving. For example, Troop L, 1st Cavalry, in Montana was filled in a very short time by members of the Crow tribe. ”

“ The new plan called for 2 cavalry and 7 infantry divisions. A cavalry division consisted of a headquarters, 3 brigades (each with 3 cavalry regiments) , a horse field artillery regiment, a mounted engineer battalion, a mounted signal battalion, an aero squadron, and the necessary trains: ammunition, supply, engineer, and sanitary. The remaining 7 authorized cavalry regiments were assigned to the 7 infantry divisions, a regiment to each division, to provide a mobile force capable of performing reconnaissance, counterreconnaissance, and security missions for the division. ”

“ The cavalry force of our army being all required for active service of the same kind, there appears no propriety in making a permanent distinction in the designation and armament of the several regiments ”

“ It maintained that "As a rule, tanks are employed to assist the advance of infantry foot troops, either preceding or accompanying the infantry assault echelon." Upon adoption of the National Defense Act of 1920- which created the Army of the United States, to consist of the Regular Army, Organized Reserves, and National Guard- tank units allocated to the Regular Army were based primarily upon assignment of a tank company to each infantry and cavalry division. ”

“ Most commanders found the scouts to be excellent light cavalrymen. Among the peacetime problems the Army helped to solve, those occurring in the Great Plains and the Far West most needed the services of the mounted arm. ”

“ There were also peacetime volunteers- quite distinct from those raised for a war- at hand in the militia. In the large seaboard cities there were independent or chartered companies of citizen soldiers apart from the common or standing militia. They were composed of men who liked military exercise well enough to buy their own uniforms, drill regularly, and hold together in peace as well as war. These units usually received charters from the states, and they very soon constituted an elite corps. ”

“ In North America, the traditional cavalryman has ever been the light dragoon- a soldier trained and equipped to fight mounted or dismounted, to perform screening and reconnaissance, and to act as a scout or messenger. True heavy and true light horse have been rare. The Continental Army of the American Revolution was mainly composed of infantry, with very little artillery and cavalry. ”

“ Armor planners designed the armored division as a powerful striking force to be used in rapid offensive action against vital rear area installations. Those objectives were to be reached by penetrating weak points or enveloping open flanks, not by attacking enemy strongpoints. ”

“ Sent out on reconnaissance duty beyond their capabilities, the cavalrymen met the enemy in considerable force and were routed. Later, in the Meuse-Argonne action, the squadron with three troops maintained liaison between flank divisions and those on the front lines. ”

“ When the immediate danger subsided about five months later, the division and brigade organizations were broken up and the units comprising them returned to their former stations. One important result of the experiment was the decision to move cavalry to permanent stations in the southwest, and some outfits that had been employed there in mounted patrol duty remained in the area. When counterrevolutions occurred in Mexico in 1913, back to the border area went a large part of the Regular Army. ”

“ Other units, upon release from active military service, were not relocated in their former areas. In both instances, significant factors were the continuing changes in Department of the Army mobilization requirements for National Guard units and changes in the organizational structure for Regular Army units that were also applied to the National Guard. Although the Korean Armistice Agreement of 27 July 1953 ended largescale combat in Korea, military forces were still required in positions of readiness. ”

“ Most of the mechanized cavalry units fought in Europe, where, notwithstanding their prescribed general reconnaissance role, the types of missions assigned and the approximate percentages of their frequency of occurrence were: defensive combat, including defense, delaying action, and holding of key terrain until the arrival of main forces, 33 percent ”

“ The profession is naturally conservative, and does not care to try new armour unless it has proved it. But the story of the army tells this—that in two hundred years it has increased from 3000 men to nearly 667,000 putting aside local colonial troops and our admirable Indian army. This number is composed of
405 Of this force, about 110,000 of the regular troops are serving abroad and the remainder at home; while, though no new regiments have been added since 1870, the army has increased in number by 29,000 men, and this without the faintest opposition. ”

“ The Empire is divided into 16 army corps districts, each presumed to furnish a complete army corps of two divisions to the active army. Every infantry division is composed of two brigades of 8 battalions each, 1 artillery brigade and 10 batteries of six guns, a regiment of cavalry, and a rifle battalion. The army corps also contains a regiment of field artillery or howitzers, a pioneer battalion and a pontoon company, and numbers about 34,000 combatants. ”