Marty Ringo send me the following comments on my paper on the (mis)application of the Prisoner’s Dilemma to trench warfare. I appreciate the comments, especially given that the closest I’ve come to military service was the Boy Scouts when I was 11, and the last time I was in combat was a fistfight in 7th grade. Anyway, Ringo writes,

As an ex-NCO (non-commissioned officer, i.e. sergeant) I have varying degrees of prejudice about academics writing about combat. This is, of course, self-contradicting since I am a semi-academic and most of what I know about combat has been acquired from reading in my post-military life.

S.L.A. Marshall’s famous study on combat fire found that few, maybe something like 20%, of the soldiers in WW II actually fired their weapons in combat. Marshall’s research methods have been since questioned, but the point he raised still lingers. A famous WW I joke pertains to this issue.

There once was the young enlisted soldier who had risen through courage and competence to sergeant and had been recommended for commission. To get his lieutenant’s bars, he had to pass a tough test of military knowledge. Despite is his lack of formal education, the young man got every answer correct but one. The examining colonel was delighted, and, hoping to assist this military prodigy, reviewed the one incorrect answer with the youth. The question posed a battle situation in which the company in question was pinned down on a rocky ridge by fire from a superior position, and then asked the how the officer should raise a flag to boost the company’s morale. The young man explained how this could be done with an intricate series of ropes hooked to the flagpole and thrown from one group of men to another without ever exposing anyone to fire. And then, everyone would pull together and up goes the flag. This was wrong. The correct answer was “Sergeant erect a flagpole!”

The point here is that commanders do not order the troops to fire; sergeants do, and the commanders who really thought that shooting rifles at entrenched positions made much of difference were seldom in contact with the sergeants, let alone the troops below the NCO ranks.

In infantry tactics there is a thing called suppressing fire or suppression. It is a wonderful thing in theory: the idea being your fire will keep the enemy from firing or at least from firing accurately. In Vietnam when patrols were hit–and since 80+% of combat incidents were enemy (NVA or Viet Cong) initiated, that was a standard form of combat–the lieutenants would yell out, “Return fire, return fire.” Sometimes men didn’t and got pinned down; sometimes men did and got pinned down, sometimes men didn’t and didn’t get pinned down and…. There are a lot of it-depends in trying to draw a conclusion. The Army today tries to draw conclusions from every combat action, but the extent such reviews are successful is more a matter of case study than paradigmatic analysis.

RIngo also points out that the “Tit for Tat” strategy comes from Anatol Rapaport, whom I did not reference in my article. Finally, he gives us the following “Murphy’s Laws for Grunts”:

Murphy’s Laws for grunts

- Murphy was a grunt.

– Tracers work both ways.

– Suppressive fire – won’t.

– Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on you.

– Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.

– Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder.

– If your attack is going really well, it’s an ambush.

– The retreating enemy that’s falling back is just trying to suck you into a serious ambush.

– Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.

– Don’t look conspicuous; it draws fire.

– If the enemy is within range, so are you.

– Incoming fire has the right of way.

– If the Platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.

– The most dangerous thing in combat is a Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass.

– Those who DO hesitate under fire usually DO NOT end up KIA or WIA.

– Walking point = sniper bait. [Actually in Vietnam is wasn’t true. Snipers on both sides primarily went after the officers or radio carriers. However, anti-personal mines, for obvious reasons, were another thing.]

Note [writes Ringo] there are many Murphy’s Laws for grunts that have the opposite message, e.g. “When in a fire fight, kill as many as you can, the one you miss may not miss tomorrow.” However, the “watch your rear end” messages appear to dominate by over 2 to 1.