for combat (typically division and above). In addition to completing seminars on staff functions (G-1 for personnel, G-2 for intelligence, G-3 for operations and training, and G-4 for logistics), McNair and his War College classmates served on committees that studied war plans and suggested improvements, reviewed regulations and proposed updates, and studied and discussed strategic-level foreign and defense policy issues to improve their understanding. Among his classmates were several officers who became prominent during World War II, including: Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., Roy Geiger, Oscar Griswold, Clarence R. Huebner, Troy H. Middleton, and Franklin C. Sibert. Upon graduating, McNair received an evaluation of "superior", with a recommendation from the commandant that he be considered for high command or a senior staff position on the War Department General Staff. In addition, the commandant forwarded to the War Department McNair's final research project on ways for the department to maximize efficiency when allocating funding for unit training, calling it "a study of exceptional merit made at the War College". U.S. Army Field Artillery School After his War College graduation, McNair was assigned as assistant commandant of the Field Artillery Center and School. In this position, he worked with the school's Gunnery Department to address field artillery doctrine issues that had lingered since World War I, including limited mobility, inadequate communications, and overly detailed fire direction techniques. Successive Gunnery Department directors Jacob Devers, Carlos Brewer, and Orlando Ward recognized that continuing improvement to innovations including machine guns and tanks made the static trench warfare of World War I unlikely to be repeated. As a result, they experimented with new techniques, including increasing the speed of artillery support to mobile armor and infantry by empowering Artillery-qualified fire support officers attached to those formations to direct artillery fire. In addition, they pioneered techniques to enhance accuracy, including forward observers who could direct rounds onto targets based on seeing their impact, rather than the unobserved timed fire and rolling barrages that had prevailed in World War I. McNair supported these innovations, and prevented interference from senior officers who tried to block them. Devers, Brewer, and Ward also argued for directing artillery from the battalion level rather than the battery level. In their view, massing artillery and centrally controlling it from a brigade fire direction center enabled senior commanders to rapidly provide direct support to the areas on the battlefield where it was most needed. McNair had