Short Rounds

The American War Machine

In 1941 an inventive young officer at Headquarters, Army Ground Forces created a machine that was supposed to simulate the sounds of combat, so as to add some verisimilitude to training exercises and maneuvers. The device consisted of a number of turntables, and other noise making devices, with several amplifiers and loudspeakers, all mounted on a truck, which would, when switched on, emit "assorted screams, whimpers, explosions, metallic clangings, groans, and rumbles."

Now, by chance the commander of an infantry regiment in the 32nd Division who happened to be planning an exercise at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, that would have two of his battalions attack the third. This office learned of the devices and decided that it would be the perfect supplement for more conventional noise-makers used by the umpires, such as firecrackers, blank ammunition, and flash bombs. So he arranged for the "battle sounds truck" to be hidden in "no man's land" prior to the deployment of the opposing forces.

As the attacking troops went into action, the machine was turned on. It was wonderfully loud. In fact, within a few minutes all of the troops had stopped firing, to listen in amazement.

Brig. Gen. Paul B. Clemens, assistant division commander, chanced to be nearby, and was attracted by the odd noises emanating from the maneuver area. He found many of the defenders doubled over in laughter in their fox holes, while the attackers were doing the same amidst the grass and brush. Curious, the general asked a young captain with the attacking force what was going on. The reply came quickly, "The umpires have not agreed as to which side the mobile juke boxes are fighting for. If all that noise is killing them, we'll capture the objective standing up. If it's them killing us, the umpires will soon flag all of us survivors into a running retreat that will not stop short of the river."

That was the last time the army made use of the "battle sounds truck," or, as the young captain aptly dubbed it, the "mobile juke box."

Short Rounds

Alfred Lord Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Crimean War (1853-1856) was characterized by bungling on a truly heroic scale. And perhaps no event in this notoriously mismanaged war was more imbecilic that the "Charge of the Light Brigade" during the Battle of Balaclava, on October 25, 1854, when nearly 600 British light cavalry undertook a frontal attack down a narrow, mile long valley, an action that had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the battle, while leaving literally hundreds of the troopers dead or wounded.

The courage and the stupidity of the charge prompted Alfred Lord Tennyson, the greatest English poet of the age, to pen "The Charge of the Light Brigade."