Vocabulary Questions for Terminology Grogs

[Philippe]

When exactly did the term "Overwatch" come into general use? I've always associated it with US military-speak from the late 'sixties, but I'm starting to get the impression that it is a bit older than that. (I have a sneaking suspicion that it was used once or twice in papers in the forties, but didn't catch on until twenty years later).

Similar question for "Bounding-overwatch". Now this one I'm sure dates to the Vietnam era.

In the late '40's, what were the normal terms used by the US Army for "Overwatch" and "Bounding-Overwatch" ? Covering fire and and advancing by fire and maneuver ? Leap-frogging ? What did they really say?

Same question as above for the Brits, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Poles.

And finally, what did the Germans call it back then, and what do they call it now ? And does anyone know Russian (and could they give a literal etymology for the terms that were used)?

And for extra credit, what does the difference in terminology tell us, if anything, about national military methods and thinking ?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Philippe:

When exactly did the term "Overwatch" come into general use? I've always associated it with US military-speak from the late 'sixties, but I'm starting to get the impression that it is a bit older than that. (I have a sneaking suspicion that it was used once or twice in papers in the forties, but didn't catch on until twenty years later).

Similar question for "Bounding-overwatch". Now this one I'm sure dates to the Vietnam era.

The fist time I met the term "overwatch" was in SPI's "Firefight" game, which was designed as a training aid during the big US Army reorg of the mid-1970s, with "new" tactics partly in response to the vicarious experience of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. I have never seen it used in any source materials earlier than that (which may, of course, just mean I haven't read enough).

Originally posted by Philippe:

In the late '40's, what were the normal terms used by the US Army for "Overwatch" and "Bounding-Overwatch" ? Covering fire and and advancing by fire and maneuver ? Leap-frogging ? What did they really say?

Same question as above for the Brits, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Poles.

[snips]

The British Army has spoken of "Fire and movement" at least since the 1930s, and employed the tactics since before WW1. A training pamphlet of 1919 mentions infantry getting forward by "manoeuvre (fire, movement and ground)", and the Kirke report (on WW1 experience) mentions covering fire and advance by a series of rushes.

In British Army usage, "leap-frogging" is when one element bounds past another to its next fire position, "stepping-up" is when it comes level with it. For some reason, recce units (and probably the Recce Corps before them) refer to the bounding of cars along a route as a "patrol snake".

Overwatch positions were never called anything other than "fire positions" until recently, but I have noticed American usage creeping in, in this as so many other things ("Line of Departure" instead of "Start Line", G1-G4 instead of A, G and Q, and so on).

"US Armored Infantry Battalion Tactics in WWII", the Nafziger reprint of FM 17-42, uses the term "Fire and maneuver" as the counterpart of the British English "Fire and movement".

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

<font size=2> Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Philippe:

When exactly did the term "Overwatch" come into general use? I've always associated it with US military-speak from the late 'sixties, but I'm starting to get the impression that it is a bit older than that. (I have a sneaking suspicion that it was used once or twice in papers in the forties, but didn't catch on until twenty years later).

Similar question for "Bounding-overwatch". Now this one I'm sure dates to the Vietnam era.

The fist time I met the term "overwatch" was in SPI's "Firefight" game, which was designed as a training aid during the big US Army reorg of the mid-1970s, with "new" tactics partly in response to the vicarious experience of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. I have never seen it used in any source materials earlier than that (which may, of course, just mean I haven't read enough).

Originally posted by Philippe:

In the late '40's, what were the normal terms used by the US Army for "Overwatch" and "Bounding-Overwatch" ? Covering fire and and advancing by fire and maneuver ? Leap-frogging ? What did they really say?

Same question as above for the Brits, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Poles.

[snips]

The British Army has spoken of "Fire and movement" at least since the 1930s, and employed the tactics since before WW1. A training pamphlet of 1919 mentions infantry getting forward by "manoeuvre (fire, movement and ground)", and the Kirke report (on WW1 experience) mentions covering fire and advance by a series of rushes.

In British Army usage, "leap-frogging" is when one element </font><font color="purple">bounds</font> <font size=2>past another to its next fire position, "stepping-up" is when it comes level with it. For some reason, recce units (and probably the Recce Corps before them) refer to the bounding of cars along a route as a "patrol snake".

Overwatch positions were never called anything other than "fire positions" until recently, but I have noticed American usage creeping in, in this as so many other things ("Line of Departure" instead of "Start Line", G1-G4 instead of A, G and Q, and so on).

"US Armored Infantry Battalion Tactics in WWII", the Nafziger reprint of FM 17-42, uses the term "Fire and maneuver" as the counterpart of the British English "Fire and movement".

All the best,

John.</font> </font>

[flammenwerfer]

Mike, rush out and get yourself a good dictionary.

[Philippe]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

[/qb]

The fist time I met the term "overwatch" was in SPI's "Firefight" game, which was designed as a training aid during the big US Army reorg of the mid-1970s, with "new" tactics partly in response to the vicarious experience of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. I have never seen it used in any source materials earlier than that (which may, of course, just mean I haven't read enough).

[/QB]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Flammenwerfer:

Mike, rush out and get yourself a good dictionary.

No, he's quite right. Until fairly recently a native speaker of British-Armish would invariably have uttered some sequipedalian circumlocution like "move to the next bound" in preference to verbing the noun "bound".

All the best,

John.

[tar]

Bound as a verb meaning to leap or jump is actually quite old, having been used at least by Byron and Pope.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bound :

bound

intr.v. bound·ed, bound·ing, bounds

To leap forward or upward; spring.

To progress by forward leaps or springs.

To bounce; rebound.

n.

A leap; a jump.

A rebound; a bounce.

[French bondir, to bounce, from Old French, to resound, perhaps from Vulgar Latin *bombitre, from Latin bombitre, to hum, from bombus, a humming sound, from Greek bombos.]

bound

\Bound\, v. i. [F. bondir to leap, OF. bondir, bundir, to leap, resound, fr. L. bombitare to buzz, hum, fr. bombus a humming, buzzing. See Bomb.] 1. To move with a sudden spring or leap, or with a succession of springs or leaps; as the beast bounded from his den; the herd bounded across the plain.

Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds. --Pope.

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. --Byron.

2. To rebound, as an elastic ball.

[MikeyD]

1590 SHAKESPEARE. Midsummer Night's Dream. N. V. i. 373, I feare we shall out-sleepe the comming morne, As much as we this night haue ouer~watcht.

So 'overwatch' in the military sense of standing guard over your forces in the nighttime is old indeed. The CM sense of the term 'overwatch' for putting a tank off in the distance to defend his fellows may be turning a general statement into a particular. But 'overwatch' was an effective Russian tactic for their big assault guns, just like in CM, setting them off from a distance to overlook their lighter forces in the advance. Egypt used the tactic to good effect in the '73 war.

[Philippe]

I think we are straying from the point. We aren't concerned with the philological or etymological history of the words bound and overwatch. What is needed is a concordance of military english, which (I hope) doesn't exist. More to the point would be parallel usages from 1944 to 1975 with quotes showing the context in which they were used (which is how a dictionary writer determines meaning).

What we want to know is when did these words come into general usage. Does the December 1944 overwatch quote really exist, and if it does, was it an isolated occurence or was it followed by a stream of overwatches that built themselves up to a dam bursting onto the linguistic consciousness during the Army reforms of the 1970's. If you stop and think about, this niggly little point has some interesting implications for the historiography of military science. You could probably get a master's thesis out of this one, if not more.

Simple definitions of words lifted from a dictionary without indications of the frequency of occurrence in the period under consideration don't address the question. You need to see something that indicates that it was rarely if ever used in this sense pre-war, was first used in [???], shows up in 1944, and gets used sporadically after that.

Perhaps the use of overwatch in the '70's was a linguistic resurrection of something obscure someone noticed when doing research. Or perhaps it was getting used all the time and filtered into some military bureaucrats consciousness. The answer will be found in someone's familiarity with military literature from 1944 on.

And I'm sure, by the way, that any word with Anglo-Saxon roots is probably a bit older than Shakespeare.