Big Guns, Big Mistakes: Million Dollar Barrage: American Field Artillery in the Great War by Justin G. Prince

It was a nice coincidence to finish this book on Armistice day. I wish I could say that I intended it, but that would be inaccurate, it was a nice coincidence that I was about done with the book and I had today off. It is nice to work at a company that recognizes holidays with time off. I got to enjoy some hot chocolate and a good book. 

I really love the color choices on this cover.

I really enjoyed reading Million Dollar Barrage by Justin G. Prince. The subtitle is not especially accurate. With a subtitle like American Field Artillery in the Great War, I would have expected it to cover the whole experience of American field artillery units in combat, but it instead did something much more reasonable. Justin Prince tracks the evolution of American Field Artillery (as opposed to coastal artillery a different branch) equipment and training before the war, how that translated to fighting the first world war, and what lessons they took from it after the war. There is one chapter examining the battle of the Meuse-Argonne as a case study but most of the book is on training and equipment. The author manages to make that interesting, helped massively by the short-sighted views of American leadership, and how unprepared they were for the type of war they were fighting. Incompetent fumbling can be a pretty entertaining read. 

Blurb is pretty standard.

Million Dollar Barrage has also got me thinking about great man history, which might seem a little strange. After all, this is not a book about a "great man", but a book about training systems and equipment acquisition. There are "trends and forces" going on that shape these systems, but the great men shape them too. That comes up here with General Pershing and others in the American Army's leadership, who wanted to train the American Expeditionary Force for open warfare, with an emphasis on open warfare, the light artillery piece, and the rifle rather than the aspects of trench warfare that the AEF would need to succeed in the trenches like indirect fire and modern combined arms. Many hours of training were wasted on training techniques that would not help on the battlefield, and that had to be made up for by training and experience in the field. But it was made up for. A "great man" made bad decisions, but the individuals that made up the AEF adapted, and eventually turned themselves into a modern army. The individual is important, but individuals in numbers are more important. No man is truly capable of being a force all in themselves. They can attempt to, but that relies on others accepting their will. Truly charisma is the most dangerous stat. 

Would I recommend it? Yes, I would. It is a bit specialist, but it is a good read, and it has some relevance to the inertia of modern bureaucracies. I could be entirely off the mark, as I am deep into World War 1 tactical minutia. It is well-written, and it was easy to keep up the momentum while reading it. If you are interested in how the AEF fought pick it up.

I have a note, too much yellow.

As for the next book, I am continuing to work my way through my recent purchases. I will be reading Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber support campaign by Martin Streetly. I picked it up after I saw a passing reference to British night fighters operating over Germany during the combined bomber offensive. Imagine my surprise that after studying World War 2 for my whole life there was something I had missed. So I ran off to Amazon to find a book about it, and Confound and Destroy was the only book I found. So I am reading that next. See you then.