# The AEF in WW1



## tomahawk6 (14 Mar 2007)

While doing some research on the Army's unit manning plan I found this great article discussing some of the lessons learned by the AEF in WW1. Some of the key issues are noted below.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ww1/aef-wwi.htm



> By the fall of 1918 the problem of finding qualified officer candidates was threatening the program, and it is questionable whether the level could have continued through the winter had the armistice not intervened. Fiske mused after the war that by September the AEF had experienced “the practical disappearance of suitable officer material from the ranks of the divisions.” Enlisted men in the United States had been classified by their civilian backgrounds, and virtually all “above the grade of unskilled laborer” had been routed into various military occupational specialties. As a result, “the men of courage, intelligence, energy, education, and general capacity so desperately needed to lead infantry platoons were behind desks or mending roads or otherwise engaged” in areas of less need. AEF headquarters unsuccessfully protested the practice, and Fiske believed it “one of the most serious mistakes of the war.”39 With a vision to the future, he might have called it one of the most serious mistakes in the history of the U.S. Army in the twentieth century.





> The Americans adopted a huge division organization consisting of more than 28,000 men and approximating the size of a French, British, or German corps. Although part of the argument for such a large organization was the shortage of trained American officers required for divisions, the primary rationale was tactical. In keeping with the demands of trench warfare, American military leaders believed that larger divisions would have greater staying power on the battlefield, lessening the need for rotation in battle and simplifying both the training of staffs and division support units and the overall conduct of defensive operations. General Harbord explained that
> 
> we sought to provide a division with sufficient overhead in the way of staff, communications, and supplies to permit the infantry and artillery to continue fighting for some time. With the deep and very powerful defense developed in the World War, no decisive stroke could be secured in battle without a penetration necessitating several days of steady fighting. It was thus reasoned that the infantry of the division must be of such strength as to permit it to continue in combat for such a
> number of days that the continuity of battle would not be interrupted before decision was reached.





> Fiske managed training with an iron grip, as one might expect: “The prominent characteristics of training in France were a definite system, policy, and doctrine somewhat rigidly and uniformly prescribed by the highest authority, and a constant followup by inspector-instructors.”12 He demanded strict compliance with the principles Pershing set for training the AEF. They included a rigorous emphasis on the offensive, a stress on the rifle and the bayonet, and inflexible standards of discipline—“the standards of the American Army will be those of West Point.”13 General Robert Lee Bullard, one of the most aggressive and hard-driving field commanders of the war, characterized Fiske’s training as “the hardest, most uncompromising and intensive system of drill that the American Army has ever known or probably ever will know.”





> Rifle fire was used to its utmost; the men had been taught to fire as they advanced, stopping momentarily to fire while the line advanced continuously.
> 
> Automatic rifles were kept well to the front, small groups with automatic rifles penetrated between machine gun nests taking them from the flank or rear. Rifle grenades were effectively used to break up machine gun nests.
> 
> ...



Key point to cold injuries that was learned in WW1 and relearned in almost every war we fought.



> If commanders checked their soldiers’ feet for trench foot and ensured that they had proper clothing and equipment to keep warm, cold-weather injuries would not occur.



Shortages of infantry Lt's were a problem in WW1 and every war we fought thereafter up to Vietnam.



> Another lesson of World War I quickly forgotten was the shortage of infantry lieutenants caused by diverting to other uses all soldiers possessing any practical skills, already cited as “one of the most serious mistakes of the war.” The shortage of lieutenants was a significant problem in
> World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In World War II and the Korean War, the Army attempted to solve the problem by giving direct commissions to competent noncommissioned officers, thus directly creating a secondary problem of noncommissioned officer shortages.


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## 3rd Herd (14 Mar 2007)

"The chief of the Coast Artillery was, however, successful in persuading Congress to appropriate funds for railway artillery by asserting that it would enhance and supplement the forts and expand their ability to defend the coastal cities. Superficially, railroad guns for the Coast Artillery sounded like a good idea—even some die-hards in the corps could see that the fortifications would become increasingly vulnerable to bombardment from the air. Railroad guns, it was envisioned, would be able to range up and down the coasts at will, shelling a hostile fleet at any point. In practice, it was an impossible concept. The weight of the railroad artillery meant that most railroad arteries could not carry them without special reinforcement. The guns could not fire from any random point on the line, but had to have special reinforced concrete hardstands on railroad spurs. In effect, they were only a little more mobile than the fortifications, with all the same vulnerabilities to attack from air or sea. In the process of deploying, manning, and maintaining railway coast artillery, the United States squandered millions of scarce dollars during the interwar period, all to field a weapon that was unable to perform its mission of destroying enemy warships and was obsolete before it was built."

I think one or two of those ended up here in British Columbia. Next ,I wonder who they thought was going to invade their costal cities.
+1 on the link T-6


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## tomahawk6 (14 Mar 2007)

At the time I think they probably feared British invasion as they had the most capable navy. But it may have been a generic threat. We created a nation wide ADA system with Nike Zeus/Hercules to defend primarily against a Rusian bomber attack. With the small numbers of Russian bombers it was felt the USAF could defend the airspace with fighters and so the Nike battalions were deactivated. In many places their hilltop positions remain today.


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## 3rd Herd (14 Mar 2007)

T-6
Canadian Geographic just did an article on the clean up of the old lines, DEW, Pinetree and Mid. What was interesting is some of the buildings were painted with paint containing PCB's. The PCB's being used to prevent the paint from hardening in the extreme cold. Now Heritage Canada says they cannot be torn down as the are historic sites. I seem to remember seeing some of those missile sites back in the mid sixties or so in the Mich peninsula area?


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## tomahawk6 (15 Mar 2007)

Here's a pretty good web site with locations of missile batteries.

http://ed-thelen.org/loc-m.html#Michigan


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