If The Balloon Goes Up: A History of U.S. Army Maneuvers and Their Effectiveness, 1902-1944

The historiography surrounding U.S. Army military readiness exercises and their effectiveness in improving or increasing the resultant fighting power of Army Ground Forces is an untouched field of study. This work fills that historical gap by exploring and analyzing a series of U.S. Army readiness maneuvers conducted for forty-plus years that sought to closely replicate the actual conditions of combat that Army Ground Forces were expected to encounter. In doing so, it reveals the criticality of ensuring effective military readiness exercises accomplish their primary intent, which is to use actual military vehicles, aircraft, naval vessels, weapons, and tactics to facilitate conditions that stress the participants to validate whether military forces are capable and prepared to project combat power when duty calls. Historically, the nineteenth-century Prussian army was likely the first military force that planned and executed military readiness exercises, or maneuvers as they are also known, which proved highly beneficial. The U.S. Army embarked upon a similar path of conducting readiness exercises shortly after their involvement in the Spanish-American War. From 1902 to 1944, the United States Army planned and conducted numerous readiness exercises to prepare troops for fighting in two world wars. The outcomes of those readiness exercises revealed that the United States Army was less than adequately prepared for the combat they encountered against the Imperial German Army and German Wehrmacht.