Close Combat Warfare

Close combat is one of the oldest and most difficult subjects in the study of warfare.

Across centuries, armies have changed their weapons, formations, communications, transportation, protective equipment and methods of command. Yet beneath those changes remain problems that are remarkably persistent: uncertainty, fear, fatigue, incomplete information, leadership, cohesion, terrain, communication, adaptation and the consequences of decisions made under pressure.

This book begins with that observation.

Close Combat Warfare is not intended to be a catalog of weapons or a manual for conducting violence. Its purpose is to examine the human and organizational dimensions of close combat and to understand why military organizations succeed, fail, adapt or become trapped by their own assumptions.

The battlefield is frequently described in terms of forces and equipment. Such descriptions are necessary, but they are incomplete. A military organization is also a human system. It contains leaders who must make decisions, people who must interpret incomplete information, teams that must maintain cohesion, medical personnel who must preserve life, logicians who must sustain operations and institutions that must learn from experience.