Abstract
The load of the infantry soldier has remained steady through centuries of technological evolution—about 40 kilograms. The essentials: ammunition, food, and water are eternal. Yet, these are only part of the exhaustive ‘load list’. The author argues that logistic systems must be able to deliver resupply ‘just in time’ and commanders must rigorously enforce a weight limit. He presents his case for profound reform in what the infantry soldier carries into battle, leading to true ‘light infantry’.
Porterage. Platoons may be required to carry out porterage tasks, such as moving ammunition, explosives, rations and defence stores. Porterage is normally an administrative requirement and much greater loads will be carried than for patrolling.1
- The Rifle Platoon
Department of Defence
The light infantry unit is capable of being projected by a broad range of mobility assets and utilised for a large number of tactical tasks. While the light infantry unit must be sufficiently flexible to deploy via a number of platforms, it must also be able to self-deploy on foot in complex terrain if required.
The role of infantry has remained largely unchanged over the centuries. The tactical employment of infantry, however, has evolved and the technology and weaponry available to the infantryman have developed exponentially. Yet the infantry role has essentially remained the same.
I propose to examine briefly the way in which tactical loads have evolved and question the relevance of present practices to the modern battlefield. My argument will encompass the mechanics of the load list, the way in which logistics relates to infantry tactical load carriage, the light infantry and the nature of current practice.
The Load List: A Guide or Requirement?
The infantry soldier does not decide what to carry into battle. The soldier’s load is determined by his superiors who compile a list of what he is to carry, usually promulgated as a standing operating procedure (SOP), or a load list, for the unit. While this SOP is intended to act simply as a guide, more often than not it is used as a checklist of what the soldier must carry. A soldier who is missing an item on the list is expected to obtain that item immediately or face disciplinary action. With the evolution of technology and weaponry for the modern battlefield, the infantry soldier, now more than ever, is expected to be deployable for a wide range of tasks. As a result, the SOP/load list has evolved into a lengthy, drawn-out document covering the entire inventory of a soldier’s issued equipment.
I would argue that the infantry soldier should be given the basic load list purely as a guide. The only prescribed items should be ammunition, food and water. Specialist soldiers could be given the freedom to adapt their list, adding the equipment relevant to their specialisation, so that they have a reliable means of checking that they have all the equipment they require. In reality, however, the current practice is to conduct a check of the equipment carried by non-specialist infantry soldiers in accordance with the items on the load list. As a result, all too often soldiers are required to produce and carry equipment that they would not carry if given the choice. The policy of dictating what soldiers are to carry is arcane and incongruent with the concept of manoeuvre warfare that dominates today’s tactical thought.
The adaptability of the Australian infantry soldier is widely recognised and documented throughout Australia’s military history. The ability of soldiers to endure hardship in the face of insurmountable odds has become the hallmark of Australia’s veterans. Diggers are renowned for their ingenuity and resourcefulness in compensating for a lack of supplies and available equipment and improvising in times of desperation. Examples of these qualities litter the landscape of Australian conflict. In recent times, however, the ordering of soldiers to carry large amounts of equipment has turned them into packhorses, labouring across the battlefield. Too often, the infantryman is inserted rapidly by an array of modern transport platforms only then to be expected to take up his impossibly heavy pack and trudge towards the enemy. While battlefield tactics have evolved in quantum leaps, our soldiers carry the same load as a Roman centurion from 1000 BC.2
During Operation Citadel in 1999, soldiers were required to carry up to 10 litres of additional water to cope with the increased temperature and humidity. This comprised an additional 10 kilograms of extra weight with no compensatory decrease in their load. The load increase, in turn, resulted in an increased consumption of water, and so the cycle continued. The load list provided did not include the requirement to carry the extra water and therefore did not compensate for the extra load. Soldiers moved more slowly under the extra weight, and the incidences of heat-related illness increased—much to the concern of their commanders. Among the small amount of guidance provided to junior commanders in this situation is this advice from the handbook Junior Leaders on the Battlefield:
Regardless of technology and modern transport your soldiers, particularly in the Arms, must be prepared to carry exceptionally heavy loads on the battlefield ... There is always great danger that such immense loads will have an adverse effect on your ability to fight as a team. The burden it carries will impede movement, speed and above all cause physical exhaustion. It is, therefore, most desirable to rationalise loads and above all, when in heavy contact, to remove packs and provide more freedom of movement for the team to get on with the task at hand.3
It seems contradictory to issue junior commanders a word of warning concerning excess loads while, at the same time, advising them to rationalise their loads. Anecdotal evidence from previous conflicts provides some guide as to what ‘rationalising’ means in a combat situation. During the Vietnam conflict, for example, soldiers would jettison food so they could carry ammunition. On other occasions, only one man per section would carry a mosquito net so that, if a soldier were evacuated with symptoms of malaria, he would not be charged for not having a mosquito net.4
The rationalising of a soldier’s load should be the responsibility of all commanders. This means that, at the higher levels, tactical mobility should be re-examined and doctrine amended to reflect any change to the role of logistics. At the lower command levels, the load list should be minimised and consideration given to a move towards the concept of the ‘lightened fighter’. Equipping soldiers for every eventuality should be the responsibility of the logistics element that supports the infantry. The requirement for additional tasking and possible eventualities should be identified during the logistics planning cycle.
The Logistical Push or Pull?
All commanders are aware of the requirement for rapid replenishment of their soldiers. While the Air Force relies on midair refuelling and the Navy on replenishment underway, the infantry has its own system of rapid replenishment. Or does it? Well, actually no, the Army still uses the same system it always has. The Army relies on the minimum number of people possible located to the rear of its formations to provide its infantry with vital ammunition and food. These supplies are moved forward packed on to two or three vehicles per manoeuvre element. These vehicles are not capable of deploying their own security so the unit at the forward line must deploy elements rearward to bring forward its resupply. The only way to ensure that this does not happen on a daily basis is to allocate each soldier sufficient ammunition and food for three days. Thus, a logistical and doctrinal problem is solved by what is referred to in a time-honoured adage, ‘just make them carry extra, if they don’t use it they can keep it for later.’
Such practices should be the result of unforseen circumstances caused by the uncertainty and chaos of battle, rather than the rigid requirements and outdated practices of commanders. Because of the lack of doctrinal shift in logistics, the infantry soldier still suffers at the hands of the same practices that underpinned the previous two world wars. Commanders at all levels need to critically assess the logistics elements of SOPs and provide advice to those who can implement change. Instead of the traditional infantry readiness to respond, whatever the circumstances, infantry commanders must learn to ask for improved logistics that operate further forward—that are proactive rather than reactive. Alternatively, commanders have to be ready to relieve their men of equipment that they do not believe is necessary to achieve the mission. Instead, that equipment should be carried by the logistics tail and be available as required.
Commanders should be lightening their soldiers’ loads and placing the equipment onto a platform capable of being brought forward when required. Such a platform should be crewed by a highly mobile group of logisticians capable of self-protection—not by two people responsible for a company-sized group. The modern infantry battalion’s logistical capability is vastly overstretched. A more self-sustained soldier has replaced the extra time taken to push forward a more frequent resupply. The soldier carries more equipment to make up for this logistical shortfall and, with the equipment, comes extra weight. The carrying of three days’ rations and water for the first seventy-two hours of an operation is clear evidence of this. If this practice were reviewed critically it would be obvious that, while soldiers do not consume all their rations during this time, they almost always drink most of their water. A resupply is often required at the thirty-six-hour mark solely for water. Once again, soldiers are required to carry extra weight as a safeguard against exceptional circumstances rather than as appropriate to their normal requirements.
Economy of effort as a principle of war is not applied to the individual soldier; it is applied at the national level and eventually determines the manning of an infantry unit. This principle dictates that only two soldiers per rifle company can be employed in a logistical role—little wonder that the ‘logistical push’ of a rifle company almost becomes a chain around its soldiers’ necks. The modern infantryman needs to be given the lightest possible loads to carry so that he is prepared to carry the heavier loads as the exception, not as the rule.
The Light Infantry?
Historically, the load carried by a soldier should weigh approximately one-third of his body weight. This has been the case in the British, American and Australian armies during the last one hundred years. Of course, this weight varies according to the soldier’s weight and is often exceeded to comply with the load carriage list and because of operational or exercise requirements.
The average load carried by an American G.I. in the Second World War was approximately 36 kilograms, with a BAR gunner’s load approximately 45 kilograms.5 During the Vietnam War, a rifleman and a machine-gunner carried that same weight, although for some soldiers the load increased to 54 kilograms.6 These loads have not changed in the post-Vietnam era. During Operation Citadel, soldiers carried loads in excess of 45 kilograms with gunners and signallers carrying loads in excess of 50 kilograms.
Current policy allows the carriage of a minimum of 20 kilograms on a 25 kilometre approach march.7 A combat fitness assessment (CFA) for combat arms units requires a load configuration which does not exceed 35 kilograms.8 The CFA is one of the infantryman’s indicators of combat fitness and readiness. The expectation is that a soldier, as part of a cohesive warfighting unit, is able to march 15 kilometres to battle within an allocated time. Realistically, his load should be 35 kilograms—indicative of a combat load—with revised timings to allow for the heavier load. Once again, policy needs to reflect reality and, in the short term, I would expect that the time allotment would be increased accordingly. A more effective approach would be a review of the load-carrying policy to decrease the soldier’s load to a more manageable 20 kilograms.
There is a clear case for the adoption of an attitudinal approach to load carrying. Instead of enforcing a minimum weight for infantry by way of inspection and weighing, the opposite should be adopted. If the infantryman were set a weight limit which was rigorously enforced, the result would be a lighter, more mobile infantry soldier, one capable of deploying with loads closer to those weights against which he was assessed during the CFA.
Conclusion
While modern technology and the modern battlefield have changed the way that we conduct warfighting, the infantry load has remained unchanged. Armed forces are now capable of rapid deployment across continents to conduct a range of tasks utilising complex weaponry and capabilities. Precision-guided munitions can be employed with lethal accuracy and large amounts of data transmitted in a matter of seconds; yet we have not managed to reduce the infantryman’s load in almost 3000 years.
A systematic change is required at all levels so as to lighten the soldier’s load. Ultimately, the load will need to be moved from the soldier to a different platform until resupply is deemed necessary. This will require a review of transportation and logistical load data and will only take place once a shift in doctrine and policy is mooted at the higher echelons of the Army.
We are loading our soldiers with large quantities of equipment and using exhaustive load lists to ensure that this equipment is acquitted. We do this to allow for the inadequate logistical system that is so overstretched it is on the verge of pulling us backwards. Our soldiers carry an excessive amount of equipment so as to provide our logistical system sufficient time to react to a demand for resupply which, in turn, ensures that the system becomes less reliable, rather than proactive and accountable. Is it any wonder that the light infantry has almost become a contradiction in terms? In fact, it is our mechanised infantry that goes into battle carrying only what it needs to fight.
Perhaps we should leave the final word to Brigadier S.L.A. Marshall:
I well recognise that the suggested changes are much easier said than accomplished. To say what the soldier should carry into battle to be able to fight and to remain mobile is the work of but a few minutes. But to weigh what has to be done by the Army to make possible such a reform requires consideration at almost every aspect of the Army’s policy, including its training doctrine, its procurement program and its budget.9
Endnotes
1 Department of Defence, MLW 2-1-1, The Rifle Platoon, Headquarters Training Command–Army, Georges Heights, 1996.
2 S.L.A. Marshall, The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation, The Marine Corps Association, Virginia, 1950, pp. 26–7.
3 Department of Defence-Army, Junior Leadership on the Battlefield, Headquarters Training Command–Army, Doctrine Branch, Georges Heights, 1994, p. 32.
4 Robert A. Hall, Combat Battalion, The Eighth Battalion in Vietnam, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, Australia, 2000.
5 Infantry Load, 70th Infantry Division, www.trailblazersww2.org/foster_infantry.htm.
6 Hall, Combat Battalion, p. 87.
7 C.A. Field, Commanding Officer’s Directive 2004/2005, p. 13.
8 Land Headquarters signal TRG BAA OU02042/99 of 180146Z MAY 99.
9 Marshall, The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation, p. 72.
