German Influence in the US Army
(US National Archives) On Sunday, 13 May 1894, eighteen men – fourteen soldiers of the US Army and four civilians – assembled under a...
Read More
Tactical Problems
James Carson Breckinridge Commissioned in 1899, James Carson Breckinridge (1877-1942) served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps for...
Read More
The Paradox of the Five Paragraph Order
Eben Swift In 1897, the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States published a substantial essay under the title of “The...
Read More
Naming the Drone Mavens
Oscar Wergeland The Norwegians Land on Iceland in the Year 872 (1877) The people who employ commercial drones for warlike purposes frequently festoon...
Read More
Infantry Squads & Platoons
A non-commissioned officer directs the fire of German infantry squad in training (circa 1914) (US National Archives) Thanks to the good work done by...
Read MoreGoing Full Tilt: Tilting Rotors are Poised to Disrupt the Aviation World
After 75 years of steady, systematic innovation and product development – and some very tough lessons learned about design and operation of a...
Read More
The French Infantry Company of 1914
The article that follows is an improved version of a piece originally published in January of 2023, when The Tactical Notebook was knee high to a...
Read More
Portable Armored Shields
Men of a Stoßtrupp train with portable shields (Summer 1916) (US National Archives) In Storm Troop Tactics, I characterized the use of portable...
Read More
The Origin of the Term "Stosstrupp"
Every now and then, The Tactical Notebook will pull an old article out the attic, knock the cobwebs off of it, and share it with present-day...
Read More
Regimental Histories on Line
Georges Scott Soldats de Foch (1918) (detail) In the two decades that followed the end of the First World War thousands of regimental histories...
Read More