Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Rate of fire: A Best Defense update

Studious little grasshoppers will remember that I’ve wondered aloud about the history of the rate of fire in combat.

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
031023-N-6967M-234
One member of Special Boat Team 22 (SBT-22) lays down cover fire with a minigun during a practice narrow river beach extraction.  

Photo by PH1 Shane T. McCoy
031023-N-6967M-234 One member of Special Boat Team 22 (SBT-22) lays down cover fire with a minigun during a practice narrow river beach extraction. Photo by PH1 Shane T. McCoy
031023-N-6967M-234 One member of Special Boat Team 22 (SBT-22) lays down cover fire with a minigun during a practice narrow river beach extraction. Photo by PH1 Shane T. McCoy

 

 

Studious little grasshoppers will remember that I’ve wondered aloud about the history of the rate of fire in combat. For example, the primary purpose of drill was to increase the rate of infantry fire at a time when reloading was time consuming, and gave time to enemy cavalry or pikers to cross the gap, with lethal results.

So I was interested to read that the turning point came in the mid-19th century, when militaries stopped worrying about organizing combat formations to increase shooting and instead began to worry about soldiers using up their ammunition too quickly. One of the jobs of officers became keeping an eye on men with repeating rifles expending their ammunition too quickly, according to a book I read recently about the Nez Perce “war.”

The less money a country had, the more its officers would focus on this new problem. Cathal Nolan writes that, for example, in the case of the Austrian army of the time, “A main worry guiding rifle procurement by Vienna was … that illiterate and poorly trained persons would exhaust their ammunition before the critical moment in the battle arrived.”

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

Read More On Military

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.