S. L. A. Marshall (1900–1977)

A pretty good history of the first stage in Operation Overlord. Marshall had been an infantryman in WWI in France, and had been commissioned from the ranks. Between the Wars he had been a military analyst, and a relative pioneer in the field. Recalled to duty in WWII, he was a keen proponent of after action reports as a service to historians and analists. This is his account of an operation that is heavily interested in his areas of command and control, and of increasing firepower in actual combat. It has been cited a good deal since its publication, by the current authorities in the field. It is worthy of a read.… (altro)

A good psychological book about battle command, weak statistics

This book is a classic in military history — one of the most popular analyses of morale in the US WW2 soldier. Unfortunately some of the main statistics in the book (primarily that only 10-25% of soldiers fire their weapons in combat) were probably never true, and are definitely not true with current training systems, but the rest of the book’s insights about the psychology of both commanders and the commanded remain true.

It was interesting to me just how different WW2-style war is from the “low intensity conflict” I’ve seen up close — primarily in an urban environment, sustained for years, and without decisive force or the same kind of clear territorial objectives. While both kinds of war are terrible, I hope we never see total war of the WW2 style again.

Some of the insights from this book seem applicable to civilian leadership, but it probably isn’t a particularly good resource for that, being both very dated and kind of specific to a certain kind of challenge (even if it weren’t military).… (altro)