Solutions to Short Problem 5
From the 'Infantry School Mailing List'
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 June 2026, The Tactical Notebook published the fifth of these.
This article provides both the solutions published at the end of the problem, as well as an overview of the solutions offered by participants in on-line meetings (‘Zoomdezvous’) of the Decision Game Club. So, if you would like to play your way through the series, please engage that exercise before reading this post.
Like its predecessor, Short Problem Number 5 presented students with two similar situations, each of which differed slightly from the other. It also asked players to switch roles within the first of these situations.
Published Solutions to Problem 5
(1) In Sketch C the fire distribution of the section at N is as follows. Each squad covers approximately one-third of the section target.
Within each squad each rifleman fires on that part of the squad target opposite him. He fires at places where he has seen or suspects an enemy. Both auto riflemen distribute their fire over the entire squad target.
(2) The platoon leader has the leading section continue to fire on M, while he advances the rear section from P in the western portion of the zone of the platoon to take M.
(3) In the situation in sketch D, the platoon leader advances the section at P to a firing position where it can fire on M, and thus enable the leading section to advance in the right portion of the zone and take M.
The rear section usually is the maneuver element of a platoon. It may be used on occasion to cover the advance of the leading section by fire.
When rifle units approach close to the enemy, supporting fire of machine guns and artillery has to lift. Rifle units therefore must usually cover their own advance to assaulting positions at the closer ranges.
Some men must fire while others advance. Squad and section rushes, however, seldom will be desirable.
Solutions Proposed at Meetings of the Decision Game Club
On Saturday, 13 June 2026, participants in two on-line meetings of the Decision Game Club worked through all three parts of this problem.
Like the solutions published in the Infantry School Mailing List, most of the courses of action devised by participants in the Zoomdezvous involved the use of one section as a base of fire and the other as a maneuver element. One plan, however, made use of fire-and-maneuver within the squads of the forward section. That is, is anticipated the official adoption of the fire team by more than a decade.
Source
‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 35 (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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