The first volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931, offered readers a set of sixteen short tactical problems. On 8 July 2026, The Tactical Notebook published the ninth of these.
This article provides both of the author’s solution published with the problem. So, if you would like to play your way through the series, please engage the exercise before reading this post.
PUBLISHED SOLUTION TO PROBLEM NO. 9
The battalion commander intends to place his remaining machine guns on the northwest part of Hill B and the cannon-company weapons in the vicinity of Hill C, and to direct the assault company commanders to use their support platoons and advance (that of the left company to move through woods north of B.)
There is no need for the battalion commander to use his reserve at this time; the utilization of the full fire power of the battalion, particularly the flanking fire effect of machine guns, should be sufficient to renew the advance.
Machine guns should be pushed forward into salients created by successful advances in order to get flanking fire on the enemy and assist the advance of adjacent troops. Maneuver elements still are at the disposition of company commanders. The battalion cannot push forward past such serious resistance without reducing it, and it may take all of the battalion to do it.
In the alternate situation the battalion commander renews the attack, employing the battalion reserve in a flanking movement through the woods north of B. In this case everything at the disposal of the battalion commander except his reserve has been used, and the battalion cannot get forward; the reserve should be used. The terrain and situation favor a flanking movement.
Sources
‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 43 (Internet Archive)
The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)
The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)
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