Gung Ho: The Corps' Most Progressive Tradition - Softcover

H. John Poole

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0981865941 ISBN 13: 9780981865942

Publisher: Posterity Press(NC), 2012

Synopsis

Don't confuse change with progress. Former Leathernecks will now have to take far more interest in the welfare of their modern-day counterparts. Here's why. The machinegun's terrible toll from WWI should have made every nation's small-unit tactics more surprise-oriented, yet most U.S. squads are still stuck with pre-machinegun maneuvers that only enhance parent-unit firepower and control. Until every American infantry and special-operations company is allowed to develop a few of its own more covert approach movements for squads and below, their junior enlisted will have to acquire healthier “tactical techniques” from their ancestors. Gung Ho! contains highly advanced (but then quickly forgotten) tiny-element “attack stratagems” from their own military heritage. The most action-packed of all the Posterity Press titles, it first shows how the fire team concept was copied from the Chinese by Lt.Col. Carlson in 1942. Then it follows his Marine Raiders (and their infantry successors) through some of the heaviest fighting of WWII and Vietnam. While many of their fire and buddy team “moves” are no longer in use, they should be. Without them, today's electronics-draped riflemen have little chance of unexpectedly assaulting any defender. While Carlson's Raiders were conducting Maneuver Warfare at the squad level on Guadalcanal, most contemporary U.S. troops are no longer allowed (nor prepared) to do so. 4th Raider Bn. (also Maoist in format) discovered howline 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 vital to the Pentagon's future success in war.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"Anyone interested in the history of WWII, the Marine Raiders, Unconventional Warfare or light-infantry tactics will find Gung Ho! fascinating. Company grade officers and NCOs in Western infantry and special-operations units will find Gung Ho! to be a valuable manual for [the] agile, initiative-based tactics [to which] they have not been properly introduced."--Chris Graham (former editor of "The Counter Terrorist," founding member of USMC Anti-Terrorism Battalion)

About the Author:

Through an inverted military career, John Poole has discovered a few things that more promotable people miss. After spending 2 of his first 4 years as a combat commander, he did his last 7 as an enlisted tactics instructor. That allowed him to see why U.S. troops have always had so much trouble with counterinsurgency, and short-range combat in general. Their tactical techniques are quite simply outmoded--so unlikely to surprise a woods-wise defender as to be "premachinegun" in format. This little oversight on the part of their commanders and how to correct it forms much of the framework of Poole's work. Since retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1993, Poole has has traveled extensively in both Communist and Islamist worlds and written 15 other tactics/intell. supplements. He has also conducted multiday training sessions for 41 U.S. battalions, 9 schools, and 7 special operations units. As most U.S. intelligence personnel know too little about the Eastern thought process and evolution of squad tactics, these supplements provide currently deployed GIs with a rare glimpse into their enemy's intentions. Just since 2000, Poole has gone to Russia, Mainland China (twice), North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India (3 times), Pakistan (twice), Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Tanzania, Venezuela, Zambia, and South Africa. Over the course of his lifetime, he has further traversed most of the world. He has lived (or been stationed) in Mexico, Panama, Vietnam, and Japan. Between early tours in the Marine Corps (from 1969 to 1971), Poole worked as a criminal investigator for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation (IBI). After attending the State Police Academy for several months in Springfield, he worked out of the IBI's Chicago office on general criminal and drug cases.

About this edition

• Publisher: Posterity Press(NC)
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0981865941
• ISBN 13: 9780981865942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 398
• Illustrator: Edward Molina