Amphibious Assault: Manoeuvre from the Sea. From Gallipoli to the Gulf - a definitive analysis
Edited by Tristan Lovering Published by Seafarer Books Comprehensively illustrated with photographs, maps, charts and diagrams 509 pages, glossary, bibliography and index Large, landscape format ISBN 978-0-9550243-5-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-9550243-6-8 (paperback with slip case) Cost: £35.00
Amphibious Warfare is at the scholarship level of military operations: a fact ignored by the non-cognoscenti who believe that myths are perpetuated to keep specialists in employment. True, infantry battalions land across beaches, but many confuse a sea-transported manoeuvre with the ‘real thing’ and the ‘real thing’ is what this impressive publication is about: with such clarity, even the cynics will be converted. Amphibious Assault dissects thirty-seven, mostly successful, operations and offers conclusions: operations that failed did so through miss-appreciation of the dangers, vagaries, complexities - and usefulness - of the sea flank; continuing proof that specialist ships, amphibious troops, continual training and experienced commanders remain vital for victory. Another conclusion: each generation ignores - then re-invents - the amphibious wheel when, in reality, there is little new. Only equipment and technology change - not principles - and yet governments and military staffs are often reluctant to accept Winston Churchill’s view that amphibious operations must fit together like a jewelled bracelet and, thus, tend to cobble together inadequate forces at the last moment to suit a current problem. The British Army, Lord Fisher said, should be a projectile fired by the Navy and Tristan Lovering's masterly, definitive compilation explains what happened - should have happened - once that missile was deployed. His contributors do not discuss pre-assault, maritime operations nor such imponderables as tides, surf, gradients and trafficability but they do highlight post-landing operations including area- and inshore-defence, sea-based logistics and maintenance, casualty handling, special forces, naval gunfire and carrier-based air support: quite so, for Amphibious Assault studies the ‘projectile’ rather than the ‘gun’ and naval personnel, too, must appreciate what happens to the force that they have nurtured and landed. Additionally, everyone needs reminding that, in peace and war, the weather-prone inter-tidal zone is dangerous, laden men drown in six feet of water and the ‘chop’ of command will always offer a fraught watershed. Before the second Gulf War a CGRM considered beaches to be passé but Amphibious Assault endorses why ports, airstrips and supply routes, even in this expeditionary, ship-to-objective era, will remain vital amphibious objectives themselves; especially as ‘host-nation support’ becomes less likely. In 2005 Amphibious Assault was issued to every Royal Marines officer: now commercially available all royalties benefit the Royal Marines 1939 War Fund. This is an invaluable book that discusses a complicated form of warfare and, in doing so, supports a very special charity. SES-T