02508nam a22001337a 4500020001800000082002100018100001900039245009600058260005100154300002500205504002500230520202800255650009102283  a9780198843771  a356.10904bKIN-C  aKing, Anthony   aCombat Soldierb: Infantry tactics and cohesion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries  aUnited Kingdom bOxford University Pressc2019  axiv,538p.b234x156mm  aInclude Bibliography  aHow do small groups of combat soldiers perform on the battlefield and maintain their cohesion under fire? Why are they willing to fight for each other? These questions have long intrigued social scientists, military historians, and philosophers. Based on extensive research and drawing on graphic analysis of close quarter combat from the Somme to Sangin, this book puts forward a novel and challenging answer to this question. Against the common presumption of the virtues of the citizen soldier, the author claims that, in fact, the infantry platoon of the mass twentieth century army typically performed poorly and demonstrated low levels of cohesion in combat. With inadequate time and resources to train their troops for the industrial battlefield, citizen armies typically relied on appeals to masculinity, nationalism, and ethnicity to unite their troops and to encourage them to fight. By contrast, cohesion among today's professional soldiers is generated and sustained quite differently. While concepts of masculinity and patriotism are not wholly irrelevant, the combat performance of professional soldiers is based primarily on drills which are inculcated through intense training regimes. Consequently, the infantry platoon has become a highly skilled team capable of collective virtuosity in combat. The increasing importance of training, competence, and drills to the professional infantry soldier has not only changed the character of cohesion in the twenty-first century platoon, but it has also allowed for a wider social membership of this group. Soldiers are no longer included or excluded into the platoon on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity, social background, sexuality, or even sex (women are increasingly being included in the infantry) but their professional competence alone: can they do the job? In this way, the book traces a profound transformation in the western way of warfare to shed light on wider processes of change not only in the armed forces but in civilian society as well.   aModern military historyvInfantryvArmed ForcesvEquipmentvInfantry drill and tactics