The advantages of supports are, that they increase the number of targets offered the hostile artillery; that, by reason of their small size, they can utilize every accident of the ground; that they can be kept close enough to the firing line to reinforce it in case of sudden emergency; and that they allow companies in the second line to be kept farther to the rear. A battalion, when part of a larger force, need not keep formed bodies as supports; but a few platoons, following the firing line in close order on the flanks, are an advantage. The drawbacks of the _petits paquets_ would appear only if every company were to preserve a support up to the decisive stage of the action. 11. COMPARISON BETWEEN CLOSE AND EXTENDED ORDER. In =close order= the men are placed so close together that they can be led by word of command and directly influenced by their officers. The position of the individual soldier is fixed; the men on either side of him interfere with his utilizing cover or his weapon. On terrain devoid of cover, close order formations present such large targets to infantry fire, that their employment, when exposed to the unsubdued fire of the enemy, is impossible and must lead to annihilation. Thus the hostile fire compels the most extended deployment.[102] [102] Even during the Franco-German war it was impossible to employ close order formations in the first line, when opposed by an unshaken enemy, although this was still prescribed by the regulations. Whenever this was attempted tremendous losses resulted. In the battle of Vionville the 5th and 8th Companies of the 35th Füsilier-Regiment, formed into a half-battalion, and following the other companies of the battalion, which were pushed forward as the first line, suffered in five minutes a loss of 9 officers and 150 men (out of a total of about 400 men) from infantry fire at 1000 to 1200 m. “The impression produced was so overpowering that the commands for extending and deploying could not be executed at all and that the half-battalion had to be withdrawn in rear of the cemetery where it was assembled by the three officers still remaining.” _Geschichte des Regiments Nr. 35_, p. 23. In cases where troops appeared in close order each losses were not at all exceptional. On August 18th, 1870, the Füsilier-Battalion of the 85th Infantry, advancing from Vernéville, at first in double column, then in half-battalion column, to within 400 paces of the enemy, lost 12 officers, 32 non-commissioned officers, and 437 men killed and wounded (52%) in 20 minutes by the cross-fire of hostile artillery and mitrailleuse batteries. At 800 paces from the enemy the fragments of the battalion were assembled in three platoons. _Gen. St. W._, II, p. 724. _Der 18. August_, p. 152.