Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-08-18

u. 5. Army Will Use
Deadly Triangle
Drive in Next War
Fost New Army Division
Shows Its Destructive
Power at Oedensburg
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star stan CORRESPONDENT,

| Star stan Correspondent.
OGDENSBURG, N. Y, Aug. H.
In the next war there may be q bat
tie Of New England or q battle of
| Virginia.
American troops will engage in no
more such microscopic affairs as the
Meuse-Argonne offensive with
field Of conflict 30 small it could be
traversed by infantry in q five-day
forced march. Engagements OF that
sort belonged to a crude, rude age
and in the 20 intervening years the
science Of war has kept we'll abreast
OF other branches of human achieve
ment. even without the benefit OF
Hitler.
This is q lesson which National
Guard officers are learning here as
their old-fashioned square divisions
stack up against the new triangular
division OF the Regular Army, nearly
perfected after lot of experiment
tation, which promises to be the
most crushing instrument OF de-
struction ever to engage in battle.
1t has been an essential develop
ment OF the machine age but 1t has
required throwing aside age-old
military traditions which soldiers of
two decades ago regarded as equiva-
lent in authority to Holy Writ.
One such division is In operation
here. the 1st Division of the Regular
Army. 1t is not really showing to
| much advantage, say its officers.
when they are confined to q field of
operations not much bigger than
the District Of Columbia and need
100 miles to spread out when they
are on the road.
Completely Motorized Unit.
To these men the Battle of France
was not much OF . surprise. They
knew that battles must be fought
on that sort Of scale. The triangular
division, they say, comes about as
near being Germany's secret wea-
pom as anything that has been dis
played to date. 1t was evolved at
the same time in the United States,
probably In superior way. France
chung to the old style which, as one
LIST Division officer remarked, YOU
can read all about in Caesars Com
mentaries.'
The new triangular division is,
first OF all, completely motorized
division. This motorization has
involved changing almost every de-
tail OF operations. To have motor
lied one of the old World War d.
visions to the same extent would
have been like installing an 80
horsepower engine on one of the
lsO0-model hay wagons which some
farmers still use here in the fields
OF st. Lawrence County.
One great advantage sought was
mobility. This is attained Ordi-
narily the division can move farther
in day than an old-fashioned d.
vision, proceeding on foot. could
have covered in ten days. To take
advantage of this mobility required
giving up the age-hallowed square
tactics" which Caesar used against
the Gauls and which gained an al
most unsuitable authority from the
victory Of Wellington at Waterloo.
Everything from company to division
is built up in groups Of threes. Three
platoons continue to make a COM
pany as before but now three regi-
ments make q brigade and three
brigades make a division. Presum-
ably, when it is carried that far.
three divisions will make an army
and even armies themselves may be
built up in the form of the same
mystic triangle to constitute expe-
dictionary forces, etc.
Easily Maneuvered.
With this arrangement. it Is ex-
planned, all engagements will be tri-
angular engagements. The COM
manding general has many ways in
which he can dispose troops so con-
stituted. He can turn the point of
the triangle against the enemy for
blitzkrieg advances such as that of
the Germans through the low coun-
tries and Northern France or with an
easy maneuver he can switch the
base of the triangle to the fore to
crush stubborn resistance. He can
shift the scheme back and forth as
the tide of battle turns over a far
flung front. Always he has the point
OF triangle in three directions.
Hitherto the arrangement has
been In groups Of fours, usually ar
ranged two in front of the others.
1t was q clumsy arrangement for
maneuvering, but maneuvering with
foot soldiers, slow trucks and clumsy,
elephantine artillery was clumsy at
the best and the scheme probably
made little difference in days when
the idea was ito fight it out on this
line if it takes all summer" There
is not likely to be anything Of that
sort In this war or any future con-
f1ict in which the United States may
be engaged, as the French learned to
their sorrow. With triangular tao
tics, fitted to the remarkably in
creased mobility, you leave the des-
perately resisting enemy-that is, if
he clings to the old Notwithstanding
his guns on empty fields and pro-
testing ut amt fair" when you cut
his communications behind him.
In the triangular division nobody
walks if there is an possibility Of
riding. The single reconnaissance
troop attached to each division, the
present substitute for cavalry, car
ries about so horses-in trailers.
Bothering with them at all. say
some of the younger officers. prob
ably is a gesture to tradition but
they cannot absolutely prove that
some situation might not arise in
which horses could cover a rough,
tree covered countryside more eff
GENTLY for short time than trucks
Road Tests Successful.