Maneuvering to War - The US 1941 Louisiana and Carolina Maneuvers

We are not seeking to rival the size of these possible enemy forces which surround us, but we wish an Army which in equipment, in training and in spirit, aided by an unsurpassed air force and the full efforts of our Navy, will be able to meet and conquer any attack which may be attempted against any part of our homeland.”—Except from national radio address by Secretary of War Henry Stimson concerning the upcoming US Army Maneuvers in Louisiana, August 16, 1941.

Historically the US had been ill prepared to enter into any war, including the War of Independence. It took nearly a year for the US to mobilize, equip, train and then transport to Europe an army after it declared war on Germany and the Central Powers in April 1917 when it entered the “War to end all wars”. However, by 1940 it was very apparent to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the various leaders of the US military, that America could not afford to wait until it entered the next conflict to raise and equip a modern army, and expect to emerge victorious from the conflicts raging in Europe and Asia. After initiating the first peace time draft in US history that same year, despite strenuous and heated debate and a very strong and wide-spread isolationist sentiment, Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall ordered two large scale military maneuvers to be held to test and train the new recruits, their weaponry and tactics in 1941. These maneuvers, the first two held in Louisiana and a third in the Carolinas, were concluded weeks before the attack at Pearl Harbor, and would prove decisive in determining what kind of forces the US would field, and the leaders who would command them, to victory in WWII.

Combat units are mostly regiments, brigades or their equivalent sized battle groups. Exception: A Paratrooper unit represents two platoons (Louisiana) or one company (Carolinas), and an AT unit represents a reinforced battalion. Each turn of the game represents 8 hours of time. Each hex on the Louisiana map is approximately a 5.5 miles across; approximately 4 miles across on the Carolinas map.