If you dont think that Altman has a flair for narrative, I would refer you to his ensemble dramas "Nashville" and "Short Cuts". Both movies deftly weave in interweaving and interlocking characters and story arcs, to capture a certain time and place in America.

i don't like "MASH"
but i love "Short Cuts".
"Short Cuts" is so much better than "Magnolia",
and the last one is somewhat a copy of the first.
Altman is very good in ensemble-films.
don't judge about a director just because of some movies,
he has made very much films.
though i also dislike MASH a lot
(and i am not a blockbuster-kid, just if someone likes to insult on others who don't agree with their opinion)

Did you miss the part where Hot Lips had started sleeping with Duke, OP? I think so. And I think along with missing that you also missed a lot more about the movie. For example how the doctors of MASH are under extreme amounts of pressure and have to treat mangled soldiers under circumstances that could be considered fairly primitive, so their reaction to the incredible stress of their jobs is to act ridiculously everywhere but in the operating room.
And as for Altman being "a terrible director with one shot in his bag of tricks," I don't even know where to begin. Have you ever seen The Player? It starts off with one of the most intricately designed shots this side of Touch of Evil. Have you ever seen McCabe & Mrs. Miller? No less an authority on shot composition than Stanley Kubrick telephoned Altman after watching the film and asked him how he got the shot of Keith Carradine's theater crossing a bridge. Have you ever seen The Long Goodbye? Roger Ebert in the years before his death did a series of lectures where he provided shot by shot analysis of the entire film to highlight how brilliantly composed it is. In summation, you're completely ignorant about the subject at hand and should try paying better attention to the things you watch so that you might be able to discuss them intelligently instead of completely and totally misunderstanding and misrepresenting them.

IGNORE

I think Robert Altman's a brilliant director.

I think the real point of this film is that people gripe about the "N" word (actually they DID use "coon" if you recall) and Hotlips' cheerleading while millions die in Korea and (contemporaneous with this film) Vietnam. Kind of like Borat outing the idiots who take the bait in his films.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Hollywood (;-p)

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And Painless was going to kill himself because he was afraid that he was a "Fairy", and thus was going to perform some "mortal sin".
Virtually every stereotype was displayed.and then skewered in this movie.
Lighten up, Francis!
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

Its ok you can hate himhe told me he thinks youre a beep

Apparently, he made the movie the way he did because he went to Saigon and was "disgusted" at what he saw.
What did he see? Ground troops for the first time ever?
Because he was a co-pilot of a B-24 Liberator and flew over Dutch East Indies and Borneo.

Altman was a commie athie prick who hated the country in which he made millions of dollars.
"They sucked his brains out!"

I finally read Lardner's screenplay yesterday, and I think Altman did him a big favor. I found it pretty stodgy and dull compared to Altman's loose improv approach which breathed life and vitality into the story.
hkfilmnews.blogspot.com
porfle.blogspot.com

Altman has said that the screenplay convinced him to make the picture. So he has given
Lardner due credit. And if Ring was so upset about the changes he could have refused
the Oscar.

Frankly, I could give a rat's patooty about Altman's style or abilities. This film was about the characters and actors, as someone else pointed out.
I don't know factually (apart from what I'm guessing as true from the above post) how much was ad-libbed, but the film certainly felt like there was a fair amount of improv. Sutherland and Gould are certainly capable of good improv (as are a few other actors). Duvall, of course, has serious acting skills and likabilityalthough I don't recall any particular improv history.
Although Kellerman's character (and/or her) got on my nerves early on, I ultimately enjoyed the character in the end. Maybe she just has one of those faces and styles you grow into.
I've watched this film many times over the last 2 decades. It seems that with each watching (and as I age), I find different things funny. The humor is not simply slapstick and crude. There's is actually some quick wit that some might not pick up on.

Interesting, never heard the 80% before, although it is clear with the overlapping dialogue much is ad-libbed.
From Wikipedia, although without citation:
The screenplay, by Ring Lardner, Jr., is radically different from the original novel; in the DVD audio commentary, Altman describes the novel as "pretty terrible" and somewhat "racist" (the only major black character has the nickname "Spearchucker"). He claims that the screenplay was used only as a springboard. However, the screenplay itself reveals that, while there is some improvisation in the film, and although Altman moved major sequences around, most sequences are in the screenplay.
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

About 80% of the movie was ad libbed.

If the Academy voters didn't like the movie version, whether it "stuck" to the screenplay or not, Lardner would never have won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.
It is pretty common for authors of novels to not be happy with how Hollywood has turned their baby into a movie: they didn't stick to the story, they trimmed parts of the book that don't translate well to the screen, etc
It is also fairly common that there is often tension between screenwriters and directors, in that the ultimate vision for a movie is in the hands of the director, not the screenwriter. Also, many directors are also themselves screenwriters, so will then apply their own "edits" to a screenplay, whether they wrote it or not.
Here is what the author of the book MASH Richard Hooker had to say in April 1977:
I thought the movie was great but the television thing isn't my kind of humor. It's someone else's idea of what medical humor is supposed to be.
So apparently the author of the original material that the screenplay was based upon, thought it was great.
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

Indeed. It was the only aspect of the movie that won an Academy Award.
Lardner disowned the movie for how little they stuck to it. Wonder if he accepted the Oscar.

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What irks me is that Altman went against Ring Lardner's screenplay, and it was a good screenplay too, and just let the actors ad-lib to their hearts' content. He just set up the cameras and said, "say whatever the hell you want."
"It's a loosely weaved bunch of slapstick skits where misogynistic guys sexually harass every female in sight, tell dick jokes and treat a young Korean boy as a slave. If they had only dropped the N word the rainbow of racism and sexism would be complete."
To be fair, that wasn't all Altman's idea, it came from the MASH book where, believe it or not, Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke are even bigger scumbags than they were in the movie.

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The movie was about the people; not about gunfire and explosions which, so some people, are the only mark of movie making.
"we'll make our own tripods ours will have four legs" - Oliver, Scary Movie 4

We did hear some bang from the loudspeakers, too, didnt we?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

What war? We don't even hear a bang for the whole movie (besides the one during the boring football match)
'What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.' (Euclid)