WORLD WAR 2 MANEUVERS FOR AIR COMBAT MANUALS
WORLD WAR 2 MANEUVERS FOR AIR COMBAT FULL

His numbers were eventually decisive here, however, and Lear had to give ground (Map 2 below). On day three, he launched an assault on Lear’s VII Corps along the Red River, which, after a promising start, settled down into a slugging match rather than a dramatic breakthrough. Krueger, meanwhile, spent the first two days of the maneuver carrying out a by-the-book advance by three corps abreast: VIII, IV, and V, moving from left to right (Map 1 above). Due to limited bridging capacity, he had to send his 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions on a wide sweep north to cross the river at Shreveport and Coushatta. Lear soon found that even getting across the river was tougher than he expected. Essentially, the mission for both sides amounted to a large-scale advance to contact, the most basic of all military maneuvers, but one perfectly suited for this brand-new army and its green commanders. The Blue side was big, but ponderous Red was smaller, but equipped with two tank formations (the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions). Blue 3rd Army (Lieutenant General Walter Krueger) would move north to intercept the invaders and drive the Red force back across the river. Red 2nd Army (under Lieutenant General Ben Lear) would cross the Red River on September 15 and invade the Blue homeland. In Phase 1 of the exercise, both sides were given offensive missions. “The field,” in this case, was the district bounded by the Sabine and Red Rivers to the west and east and the city of Shreveport to the north. The Louisiana Maneuvers, for example, were essentially a teaching tool in battle management for an officer corps that had virtually overnight been tasked to lead mass armies in the field. It was one that would have been familiar to previous generations of US field commanders, especially Union generals in the Civil War. In operational terms, all three of these great maneuvers featured a similar approach. World War II was racing to a climax, in other words, and not only had the United States missed out on the action, it remained to be seen if it would see any action at all. Japan had already overrun much of China, and the Wehrmacht had smashed one opponent after another in Europe and was even then in the midst of the greatest land campaign of all time: the opening drive into the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa.

WORLD WAR 2 MANEUVERS FOR AIR COMBAT FULL

The war had been raging for two full years.

WORLD WAR 2 MANEUVERS FOR AIR COMBAT MANUALS

Manuals and training help, but any officer will tell you that the best way to get ready for the real thing is to plunk down your formation in real terrain and let your personnel see how challenging even the simplest march or maneuver can be.īy the time the US Army gathered for its first great field maneuvers in the fall of 1941-in Arkansas in August, Louisiana in September, and the Carolinas in November-it was high time for a test. The field is where armies hone their craft, commanders learn to command, and soldiers learn to fight. The military budget for 1940, about $9 billion dollars, exceeded all the military budgets combined dating back to 1920.Īs force levels exploded, big open-field maneuvers became possible for the first time.

By the end of 1940 there were 630,000 men in the army (13 divisions), and six months later (June 1941) there were 1,400,000 (36 divisions). Some 16 million men registered for the draft that fall.

In September 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Selective Service Act into law, the first peacetime draft in US history. The country had made great strides, certainly. It wasn’t until 1940, when the Wehrmacht overran France and drove the British off the continent, that the United States began actively preparing for war. Of seven campaigning seasons, the United States missed the first three and was active only in the final four. US participation spanned less than four years of that total, a little over half the war. Think of it: by the usual reckoning, World War II lasted six years, from the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to Japan’s surrender on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. Americans like to think of World War II as a “great crusade,” but if it was, the country certainly didn’t seem all that fervent about rushing into it.

World war 2 maneuvers for air combat