the alert, on the lookout, all the
time, if you do he'll "get the drop" on you. Remember what Frederick
the Great said: "It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be
taken by surprise."

Do not separate your force too much; if you do, you weaken
yourself--you take the chance of being "defeated in detail"--that is,
of one part being defeated after another. Remember the old saying: "In
union there is strength." Undue extension of your line (a mistake, by
the way, very often made) is only a form of separation and is equally
as bad.

While too much importance can not be attached to the proper use of
cover, you must not forget that sometimes there are other
considerations that outweigh the advantages of cover. Good sense alone
can determine. A certain direction of attack, for instance, may afford
excellent cover but it may be so situated as to mean ruin if defeated,
as where it puts an impassable obstacle directly in your rear. And
don't forget that you should always think in advance of what you would
do in case of defeat.

What is it, after all, that gives victory, whether it be armies or
only squads engaged? It's just simply inflicting on the enemy a loss
which he will not stand before he can do the same to you. Now, what is
this loss that he will not stand? What is the loss that will cause him
to break? Well, it varies; it is subject to many
conditions--different bodies of troops, like different timbers, have
different breaking points. However, whatever it may be in any
particular case it would soon come if we could shoot on the
battlefield as we do on the target range, but we can not approximate
it.

There are many causes tending to drag down our score on the
battlefield, one of the most potent being the effect of the enemy's
fire. It is cited as a physiological fact that fear and great
excitement cause the pupil of the eye to dilate and impair accuracy in
vision and hence of shooting. It is well established that the
effectiveness of the fire of one side reduced proportionately to the
effectiveness of that of the other.

Bear in mind then these two points--we must get the enemy's breaking
point before he gets ours, and the more effective we make our fire the
less effective will be his.

Expressed in another way--to win you must gain and keep a fire
superiority.

This generally means more rifles in action, yet a fire badly
controlled and directed, though great in volume, may be less effective
than a smalle