Small Wars Manual

Description

Author: None cited (Corporate, United States Marine Corps)

Publisher: United States Government Printing Office

Pub Date: N.D. (1987?) (Reprint edition)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks.  Lower rear cover corner has approx. 2″ bend, affecting last dozen or so pages.  Numerous creases to front cover.  Edge and corner wear.  Smudging to bottom text block.

Notes:   Reprint of 1940 Edition.  This is a REPRINT, not a revision.  It’s good for things like small unit tactics, but totally unreliable for things like “March formation for a rifle platoon”–“three squads armed with bolt action rifles and two Browning automatic rifles or semi-automatic rifles,: an officer, a cook, and a hospital corpsman from company headquarters; a native interpreter; and a combat train of 10 pack mules and 1 riding mule (for wounded) and 3 native muleteers….”  I’d hazard a guess that not 10% of the modern Corps has even seen a live mule.  Logistics, training, staff, aviation, military government, withdrawal (or as Marines think of it “Advancing in a different direction”) among some of the topics covered.   The saying “We prepare to fight the last war” was never truer than in this volume.