General Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox and Marine Corps Warfighting Doctrine

Abstract

In the late 1980's the Marine Corps officially adopted maneuver warfare theory as its institutional doctrinal philosophy. One of the main reasons the Marine Corps adopted maneuver warfare, as a Warfighting philosophy, was in recognition that on future battlefields it may be fighting outnumbered. By using maneuver warfare as its warfighting doctrine, the Marine Corps is able to generate more combat power with fewer Marines. The purpose of this paper is to provide historical relevance to current Marine Corps doctrinal concepts by examining the warfighting methods of General Francis Marion during the Revolutionary War. By studying the effectiveness of Marion's methods through the filter of current Marine Corps Doctrinal concepts, this paper contributes to the discussion of maneuver warfare as a viable warfighting doctrine.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA401254

Entities

People

  • Daniel H. Wilson

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • American Revolution
  • Civil War
  • Command And Control
  • Doctrine
  • Employment
  • Force Protection
  • Geography
  • Human Intelligence
  • Intelligence Collection
  • Military Operations
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • South Carolina
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • United States Government
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.