Gung Ho: The Corps' Most Progressive Tradition

America will always need Leathernecks. Here's why. The machinegun's terrible toll from WWI should have made every nations' small-unit tactics more surprise-oriented, but U.S. squads are still stuck with stock maneuvers that only enhance parent-unit firepower and control. Until American infantry and special-operations units are allowed to develop a few of the less predictable (nonstandardized) kind, their junior enlisted will have to learn about better "tactical technique" from their ancestors. "Gung Ho!" contains highly advanced (but then quickly forgotten) tiny-element actions from their own history. The most exciting of all the Posterity Press titles, it first shows how the fire team concept was copied from the Chinese by Lt.Col. Carlson. Then it follows his Marine Raiders (and their infantry successors) through some of the heaviest fighting of WWII and Vietnam. While most of their buddy and fire team "composite moves" are no longer in use, they should be. Without them, today's electronics-draped riflemen have little chance of secretly assaulting any defender. The Pentagon's new plan to use tiny groups of GIs as force multipliers worldwide will not work without this kind of light-infantry expertise. While Carlson's Raiders were conducting Maneuver Warfare at the squad level on Guadalcanal, America's most elite special operators still cannot. 4th Raider Bn. (also Maoist in format) discovered how line infantry units needed no tanks, air strikes, or artillery to take advanced strongpoint matrices. Its redesignation--2nd Bn., 4th Marines--did so at the Sugar Loaf Complex on Okinawa. Only necessary was a staggered row of fire teams "working together" from within parallel lanes. With 111 illustrations and many firsthand accounts, this book is as fun to read as it is crucial to America winning another war.