Progressive Training
Battalion Organization (Part IV)
This post continues the serialization of Battalion Organization, an article, published in 1912, in the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, that argued for the replacement of the traditional eight-company battalion with a unit made up of four much larger companies. A copy of the original article can be found here, at the Military Learning Library.
Links to earlier posts in this series can be found below:
The Impossibility of Progressive Training
I now propose to point out how we unconsciously organize in peace time for disorganization in war. Â In fact, those of us who have to go thoroughly into this question are compelled to realize that, except during the period of annual company training, captains of British infantry have not now got a fair opportunity of carrying out their programs of progressive training. Â This is a statement which an be substantiated by facts, and unfortunately the facts are painfully familiar to every infantry captain of theExpeditionary Force, and have been admirably set forth in the October number of the journal of this [Royal United Service] institution by Captain Scovell of the Cameron Highlanders. Â At the conclusion of company training and musketry, the program very properly lays down a course of battalion, brigade and higher training, terminating in army maneuvers at the end of September.
The program is excellent, and those who do not look beneath the surface are convinced that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.  Special correspondents wax eloquent in the Press, and Members of Parliament tell their constituents that the Army Council cannot discover a single item upon which another six penny bit could be usefully expended.
The voice of the company officer is hushed in the land, for no one seems wishful to hear his side of the story. Â But let us for a moment look at it from his point of view and try to realize how his company is bled during battalion, brigade, and divisional maneuvers - that is, during the period of its higher tactical training for war. Â Below is a list of the various calls made at different times and in varying degrees upon the best men in the companies. Â It is not a mere theoretical list, but is an example of actual demands which have to be meet year in and year out.
Instructors to drill recruits. I know of two battalions which had each 170 recruits and instructors on the barrack square when their brigade marched out to train last summer, and they were not peculiar.
Instructors for recruits at musketry
Acting bandsmen and acting drummers return to their music
Signallers return to their signalling
Machine gun men to their machine guns
Shoemakers and tailors to their work
Clerks to their offices
A party of men to a mounted Infantry course
A non-commissioned officer to a gymnastic course, or to [the School of Musketry at] Hythe, or to a garrison school, or to mounted infantry
Non-commissioned officers to mark at [the National Rifle Association shooting competition] at Bisley, as gatekeepers to tournaments, pageants, etc.
A provost sergeant, or sergeant’s mess caterer
Men to the Brigade Communication Section
Various garrison employments of a permanent nature
A subaltern to another employment, or to a course, or to India, etc.
The captain of the company to act as umpire, to be attached to artillery, to command the brigade machine guns, or to be galloper to the brigadier. About half the captains are thus withdrawn for one good reason or another.
Thus, instead of about 70 men on parade the company commander sees his number sink to about 40 directly after his month’s train-ing is over.  Then later on they begin to rise gradually, and he realizes that the newcomers are raw recruits totally ignorant of fieldwork, and with a large proportion of these he proceeds to army maneuvers.
The marvel is that the companies thus trained show up as well as they do, and this alone pro-claims the power of leadership of the officers and N.C.O.’s, and the adaptability of the men.  What company officer in a foreign army, where all recruits join the same day, has such a difficult task? Â
It is true that foreign recruits are enlisted for only three or two years, but they remain for the whole of that period in the same company, and under the same instructors who train them in peace and command them on mobilization for war. Â Our men enlist for seven years with the colors, but are shifted from the depot to the home battalion, thence to the battalion abroad, are then discharged to civil life and finally mobilized into the home battalion. Â This seems to emphasize the desirability of maintaining a war establishment of officers and non-commissioned officers in home battalions in peace time.
To be continued …
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Without power this is wishful thinking.
The concept of progressive training is solid. It is actually critical. The enemy is the manpower assignment process which is often divorced from reality. Ease for the personnel system trumps the requirements of the operational combat units. Over my 27 years in the Marine Corps we deployed with a mix of those who had been in the unit through the training progression, those who joined at various points and those who joined at the last minute. We repeatedly requested to be manned at 110% of the unit strength at the beginning so that we could deploy at 95% to 100%. In truth we got to 90% at the last minute and 20% of those in the last 60 days. Still better that individual replacement once deployed but far from ideal. No athletic team or business could prosper this way. It the operational units the price is blood and lives. Yet, it cannot be solved.