What do you think was the first war that dictated how we have waged and fought following wars to this day?

Napoleonic Wars - Organized firearm-weilding infantry revolutionized the battlefied, artillery tactics, guerilla warfare a major factor, huge national armies, conscription.

US Civil War - Railroads, rifles, steamships, Ironclads, global economic factors, photographs, telegraphs, first major war of the Industrial Age.

World War I - Submarine warfare, air combat, introduction of tanks, trench warfare, repeating rifles, machine guns, cavalry rendered useless, modern navies, the first war between major industrialized nations.

World War II - Total War, combined arms, aircraft carriers, unprecedented civilian loss, large-scale bombing, the blitzkrieg, Radar, computers, kamikaze, a true global war, the atomic bomb, the jet engine, squad based infantry tactics, committed peacetime restructuring(US in Japan).

Cold War - Economically focused. Small-scale engagements for political gain.

Vietnam - Large scale losses made unacceptable. Mobility the new doctrine. Infantry tactics once again re-defined. Army peacetime training increased drastically.

Gulf War - Technology the rule of the day. Smart bombs, air superiority paramount, large scale night combat, televised 24/7.

If you think I have left some important ones out, please say so. Personally, I think Vietnam caused us to change our military policies more than any other war.

EDIT - Damn, I was going to post a poll. Oh well.

WW1, because that was the first major war where the modern superiority of technology over human beings became reality.
By that I mean the mass killing of enemies (and often others) by technological measures (modern artillery, gas, etc.).

The technology did increase, but not by the leaps and bounds it did for WWII. But the tactics largely did not change. Masses of Infantry being thrown at each other following an artillery barrage. Air power was not much of a factor, and tanks were little more than lumbering pillboxes.

The biggest innovation, or at least the one with the greatest immediate effect, used in WWI was the machine gun. And to a smaller extent, mass produced high powered repeating rifles. That's what seperates WWI tactics from US Civil War tactics. If there had been an effective machine gun at the time of the Civil War, I have no doubt it would have become a trench war.

IMO, a large scale conflict today would be very much like WWII, but nothing like WWI.

I believe the American Civil War was the first "modern" war, for many of the reasons that you posted originally. However, I believe that the nature of future wars are difficult to predict... If forced to augur, I believe that the next war cannot be like WW2. No one would be willing to lose; nuclear weapons would be used. We like to pretend that we are above such things, but if Washington/New York/Detroit were seriously threatened, we would resort to a nuclear response. Same with London, Moscow, Beijing, et al. War on a large scale has become impractical. No one nation, even China or the United States, has the power, or the balls, to take on the world. I also doubt that the civilians of very many nations would allow "total war" to occur -- witness the vast protest at every single (regrettable) civilian casualty in Iraq. Britain alone lost more than 80,000 civilians in WW2. I foresee nations using many minor conflicts in the way they were used during the Cold War rather then any general conflagrations. Of course, there are always exceptions, one possibility revolving around the India/Pakistan situation...

edit: Can always count on Stones to pose interesting questions/dilemmas for discussion :cool:

i always thought the american civil war as the 1st modern war ( for the reasons listed above ) we can keep harping about the inventions that each following war produced (thus lessening the effect of the civil war ) but lets face it, no matter what war you chose, 50 years from now the next war maybe fought in space , on the moon and mars and those historisn's will point out how "primitive" ww2 and the gulf wars were:)

Thanks for the kind words, wolvie!

I almost went with the Civil War, considering the great leaps in technology that war saw. One thing I didn't mention about the Civil War was that it quickly knocked any glory out of combat. For Americans, at least. Before the horrors that the new photographs brought home, war was literally a picnic.

Did more people die in the Napoleonic Wars or our Civil War? If my memory serves me, about 700,000 soldiers died in the Civil War. Are there accurate numbers for the Napoleonic Wars?

I still think it's WWI, with tanks, cavalry obsoletism, units moving in a new fasion (not in lines) newer rifles, navies more modern (except without missiles) and the beginnings of aricraft warfare. The Spanish-American War comes to minds as well. Wolverine is right, this is a good topic. It would be nice to see a poll though, oh well. :)

Some historian called the army of Philipp of Macedon the "first modern army", and the battle tactics of Epameinodas even influenced those of Frederick II of Prussia, whose wars in turn influenced others.
So, to answer your question my way, I think it was the first guy who smacked his club on another one's head.

Probably not. The Napoleonic Wars were on a much larger scale than the American Civil War.

World War I probably defined the modern war, and took a lot of glory out of warfare. But I really don't think that war will ever be the same as it has been. None of the world powers will take on another world power, and if you're not a world power then the US takes you out. The next world war will probably plunge the world into anarchy, and new nations will rise out of the ashes just to repeat the same mistakes.

The Napoleonic Wars were indeed much larger, but the methods of killing weren't as advanced.

Civil War: Gatling Gun, grapeshot, and far more accurate rifles/muskets. More Americans died in the Civil War than in any other war we've participated in, but I don't know how that relates to the Napoleonic Wars...

Civil war. In cases where maneuver wasn't possible, it DID become a trench war. Where maneuver was possible, looked just like the Russian Front in WWI. Not a coincidence. :D

I am tempted to say WWI because it was the first war where it became obvious that the old style of war was obsolete. For Centuries armies simply smashed into eachother and fought it out. WWI changed all that.

But I would say todays wars more reflect the Cold War, Nukes changed everything. Two nuclear powers cannot go at it the way they used to it is just too risky for both sides, so it turns into economic competion and controll of non nuclear states.

So I say Cold War

Without a doubt WW1. It represented the industrialisation of warfare, and was fought between the most industrialised nations of the world on 'home' turf.

The first major war in my opinion could have been the Civil War. If not only about 70 years earlier, Napoleon had used nearly the same weapons, muskets, artillery, cannons, cavalry. The guns were upgraded but the battles still remained the same. WWI can't completely be the first major modern war because like others said, trench warfare is non existent these days. These days, you have bombs, tank rush, and infantry rush supported by radar artillery.

If you delve beneath the surface, you will find that the Civil War was also "industrialized." While the factories of the North always outpaced their "country cousins" in the South in terms of materiel production, other, less obvious industries also played key roles. For example: never before had railroads been key strategic objectives. Industry was everything. The South was so lacking in it, they had difficulty producing even mundane details. The battle of Gettysburg was fought where it was because Lee diverted his army in an attempt to raid a shoe (yes, the kind you put on your foot) factory in Cashtown, Pennsylvania. The reason the South could never have won the war was in fact because they lacked the industrialization possessed by the Northern states. The Civil War was the first war that was won or lost because of industrial capabilities.

changes brought by civil war--iron ships, repeating rifles, machine guns(gatling) rifled artillery,balloons,trench warfare, telagraph,railroads,massed factories(industry) massive changes over previous era.

p.s. forgot first submarine too

Originally posted by thestonesfan
The technology did increase, but not by the leaps and bounds it did for WWII. But the tactics largely did not change. Masses of Infantry being thrown at each other following an artillery barrage.
And that is exactly why I picked WW1. This war set the end of the tactics that had only marginally changed over many centuries. Sure rifles make a little difference to bows and axes, but the basic concept of fighting man vs. man was the same until WW1.
Within that war it became obvious that the times had fundamentally changed, when it began it stood in a long line of conflicts in the centuries before, when it ended it had set a new line for the conflicts to come.
The tactics did in fact change in and especially after this war because of this war. WW1 saw the transition from man vs. man fighting to technological mass annihilation.

Hitro has some good points - but I still say that the battles of WWI primarily consisted of hurling masses of men at the enemy after barrages of artillery. It was the first war where it became totally ineffective, but they still did it.

I would rate the Civil War higher than WWI.

I did a little checking, and I don't think the casualties in the Napoleonic Wars approached the Civil War. But in the Nap Wars, battles rarely lasted longer than a day, so a lot of men died in a very short amount of time. Horrible carnage. I really couldn't find any figures, though.

Stones,

One thing to remember about the Napoleonic Wars was that they lasted for almost 15 years (over 20 if you lump the Wars of the French Revolution in with the Napoleonic Wars). The Civil War lasted for four years. Also, with a few exceptions, most Civil War battles didn't last more than a day. Gettysburg was unusual in that it lasted for three days, but Shiloh, Antietam and Fredricksburg were all over in 24 hours.

There's a further point. WWI was a first in that more soldiers died as a result of enemy action than died of disease. So when comparing deaths in one war to deaths in another, are we talking about combat deaths only or total deaths? The Grand Army's retreat from Moscow didn't involve much fighting, but there were a whole lot of people who died in the snow.

Originally posted by Hitro

And that is exactly why I picked WW1. This war set the end of the tactics that had only marginally changed over many centuries. Sure rifles make a little difference to bows and axes, but the basic concept of fighting man vs. man was the same until WW1.
Within that war it became obvious that the times had fundamentally changed, when it began it stood in a long line of conflicts in the centuries before, when it ended it had set a new line for the conflicts to come.
The tactics did in fact change in and especially after this war because of this war. WW1 saw the transition from man vs. man fighting to technological mass annihilation.

This may be true for European countries, but the Americans learned that lesson in the Civil War (look at Cold Harbor or Fredricksburg, or Gettysburg -- Pickett's Charge). When you study the independent actions by Americans during WW1 (i.e., Bellau Wood), you'll see changed, successful, strategies.

edit: Hitro -- are you planning on asking a q in the WW2 thread anytime soon?

Originally posted by YNCS
Stones,

One thing to remember about the Napoleonic Wars was that they lasted for almost 15 years (over 20 if you lump the Wars of the French Revolution in with the Napoleonic Wars). The Civil War lasted for four years. Also, with a few exceptions, most Civil War battles didn't last more than a day. Gettysburg was unusual in that it lasted for three days, but Shiloh, Antietam and Fredricksburg were all over in 24 hours.

There's a further point. WWI was a first in that more soldiers died as a result of enemy action than died of disease. So when comparing deaths in one war to deaths in another, are we talking about combat deaths only or total deaths? The Grand Army's retreat from Moscow didn't involve much fighting, but there were a whole lot of people who died in the snow.

Then there was the siege of Petersburg, that lasted 11 months... ;)

Curious: Where do you get your statistics? If a soldier gets shot in the leg, but later contracts gangrene, is his cause of death the enemy or disease? By disease, do you mean ailments like dysentary, or are you lumping in infections as well?

Im gonna go with The 30 years war, since it was the first war to really utilize artillery and abandon the old ways of fighting, and plus Gustavus Adolphus is called the father of modern warfare...

Wolverine, you are correct in that the Marines in the Argonne did use different tactics from their European allies.

There is a problem, however, with the idea that the Civil War affected the way they fought. Do you think a war that took place over 50 years prior affected their strategy more than 3 years of staff officers studying reports from the Western Front and seeing gains measured in feet and costing hundreds upon thousands of casualties and wondering if a headfirst charge into enemy emplacements is really a smart idea?

As for my opinion, I think the Civil War was probably the first modern war. War of maneuver, industry being harnessed for the war effort, early forms of trench warfare, and the introduction of true war in which civilians are targeted to achieve both strategic and tactical goals were in some way important during that conflict. Most of these were basic tenets of modern warfare in some fashion.

However, my thoughts on modern warfare have changed greatly in the past year or two. Is today’s style of fighting related to even the Vietnam conflict? I would argue not. The introduction of information technology has changed the armed services of the world so vastly in the past two decades that I would not lump the actions fought in recent years in with those of yesteryear. The watershed moment, for the US armed services, in my opinion, was the Vietnam conflict. Near the end of that conflict, there were early guided weapons and a re-learning of how to conduct small wars; both of which are hallmarks of today's wars. Although the process was halted somewhat by Reagan and the last years of the Cold War, the staff colleges started to consider a change from a European struggle (i.e. the Second World War) towards a lighter expeditionary force that used technology to replace warm bodies. This shift in strategy was tested in the First Gulf War, and continued to be refined to today’s Second Gulf War. Call it “21st century warfare” or call it “information warfare”, but agree that it is different.

Sorry if I've threadjacked

Originally posted by trevor
Wolverine, you are correct in that the Marines in the Argonne did use different tactics from their European allies.

There is a problem, however, with the idea that the Civil War affected the way they fought. Do you think a war that took place over 50 years prior affected their strategy more than 3 years of staff officers studying reports from the Western Front and seeing gains measured in feet and costing hundreds upon thousands of casualties and wondering if a headfirst charge into enemy emplacements is really a smart idea?

As for my opinion, I think the Civil War was probably the first modern war. War of maneuver, industry being harnessed for the war effort, early forms of trench warfare, and the introduction of true war in which civilians are targeted to achieve both strategic and tactical goals were in some way important during that conflict. Most of these were basic tenets of modern warfare in some fashion.

However, my thoughts on modern warfare have changed greatly in the past year or two. Is today’s style of fighting related to even the Vietnam conflict? I would argue not. The introduction of information technology has changed the armed services of the world so vastly in the past two decades that I would not lump the actions fought in recent years in with those of yesteryear. The watershed moment, for the US armed services, in my opinion, was the Vietnam conflict. Near the end of that conflict, there were early guided weapons and a re-learning of how to conduct small wars; both of which are hallmarks of today's wars. Although the process was halted somewhat by Reagan and the last years of the Cold War, the staff colleges started to consider a change from a European struggle (i.e. the Second World War) towards a lighter expeditionary force that used technology to replace warm bodies. This shift in strategy was tested in the First Gulf War, and continued to be refined to today’s Second Gulf War. Call it “21st century warfare” or call it “information warfare”, but agree that it is different.

Sorry if I've threadjacked


Even though the level of technology has gone up since information tech became widely used, it still does crap to guerilla forces. And that is one area of warfare that Vietnam modernized, who would have thought that little villagers with machine guns could take down a world superpower? Even today, guerillas are everywhere around the world, facing off superior forces yet still surviving. And Gustavus Adolphus could be called the father of modern warfare since he changed the normal way of fighting, i forgot how, in the 30 year war, 1618-1648. I still think the Napoleonic era is important. It was around this time that the French showed what nationalism could do. Also, the French showed how a million+ man army could take down multiple nations at once. At that time, Russia with the largest military in Europe, had a pitiful 360,000 men compared to 1 million + for Napoleon. Napoleon also introduced artillery and cannon tactics and barrages. Weaken the enemy and then route them.

Originally posted by wildWolverine
The Napoleonic Wars were indeed much larger, but the methods of killing weren't as advanced.


What ???
IMHO the Napoleonic Wars showed more "modern tactics" if not necessary weapons ...

But why don't include here the first positional war - the Crimeea War ? :confused:

Regards

By "methods of killing," I was referring to weaponry. The French armies still used poorly designed muskets and cannons -- in fact, some coalition forces considered using the longbow because it was more accurate and powerful at extended ranges than the muskets were...

Originally posted by ss3goku
And that is one area of warfare that Vietnam modernized, who would have thought that little villagers with machine guns could take down a world superpower? Even today, guerillas are everywhere around the world, facing off superior forces yet still surviving.

This statement is very accurate -- for more "local" info:

America in Vietnam (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58006)

Originally posted by trevor
Wolverine, you are correct in that the Marines in the Argonne did use different tactics from their European allies.

There is a problem, however, with the idea that the Civil War affected the way they fought. Do you think a war that took place over 50 years prior affected their strategy more than 3 years of staff officers studying reports from the Western Front and seeing gains measured in feet and costing hundreds upon thousands of casualties and wondering if a headfirst charge into enemy emplacements is really a smart idea?

It is difficult to gauge the completeness of the effect. Certainly, American commanders were more willing to adopt changes in strategy than their European counterparts, who continued to practice the "headfirst charge into enemy emplacements" for three years... I still think that the lessons learned in the trench warfare fought in several key sieges towards the end of the Civil War (which may have been forgotten between 1865 and 1914) were "remembered" when the horrors of the trenches in Europe.

Interesting aside: do we still live in a "modern" world, or are we "postmodern"? If the latter, then disscussion the wars of the future would be irrevelant to this discussion (including my own in earlier posts)...

YNCS - Yes, the Napoleonic Wars lasted much longer than the Civil War, but there were a comparable number of major engagements in both, as far as I know. I could be totally wrong about the casualties. It would be great if someone knew some figures.

Wolvie - I know the term "modern war" is very ambiguous. I would say that any way today is a "modern" war and the previous wars are pre-modern.

Johann - I almost included the 30 Years War, but I don't know all that much about it. I didn't think it had organized infantry tactics to the scale of Napoleon's battles, or armies nearly that size.

Originally posted by thestonesfan
YNCS - Yes, the Napoleonic Wars lasted much longer than the Civil War, but there were a comparable number of major engagements in both, as far as I know. I could be totally wrong about the casualties. It would be great if someone knew some figures.


If I'm remeber well the loses ( deaths only ) of French army during the napoleonean wars was between 900.000 - 1.100.000 soldiers ...

I try to found more here but now I don't have enough time ... :(

http://www.napoleonguide.com/battle.htm

Originally posted by thestonesfan
YNCS - Yes, the Napoleonic Wars lasted much longer than the Civil War, but there were a comparable number of major engagements in both, as far as I know. I could be totally wrong about the casualties. It would be great if someone knew some figures.


I too am having a hard time finding any definite casulties figures for the whole of the Napoleonic Wars, but here is some info to act as a guideline:-

Napoleon took some 600,000 men into his Russian campaign of 1812 (of which about a third were Frenchmen)....and less than 30,000 came back.
A year later he lost the massive 4 day battle of Leipzig, with casulties on both sides estimated at between 90,000 & 120,000.
Add to this the 20,000 to 40,000 French being lost each year in the Peninsula War in Spain, and the French casulties of Austerlitz/Wagram/Friedland/Ligny/Waterloo/etc....
....I wouldn't be suprised if the total French loses alone exceeded those of the American Civil War.

But if we now add on the total casulties suffered by the Austrians, Russians, Prussians, British, Swedes, Spanish, Polish, Italians, Portuguese, and the various German States....these probably exceeded even the French.

Now IF the American Civil War had lasted for 20 years instead of 4, then maybe the casulties in that war would have been the greater (although I doubt that America had the population to sustain such a heavy loss of life).

Yikes - looks like I was way off. I wonder if western nations will ever have another war with that kind of loss of life.

What YNCS said - medical facilities being what they were in the Napoleonic era, the wounded were far more likely to die after a battle. Also good data by Kryten (although I think the casualties of the Grande Armée in Russia were somewhat overstated - desertion was rampant along the French allies, and the Austrian and Prussian troops IIRC turned around earlier and abandoned the French without doing a lot of fighting vs the Russians.

I'd still vote for the ACW as the first modern war - the industrialization of war being a more important feature for calling it 'modern' than tactics used, IMHO.

I reckon ww2. Mass use of radio, airpower and armour. Also smarter tactics than previous wars.

the thirty years war had a lot of carnage, mostly in germany, or the Holy Roman Empire where most of it took place. in that war germay lost over 2/3 of the population. a lot of those died of starvation

Hmmm....it all depends on what your criteria of 'modern' is.

The Napoleonic Wars
---------------------
On the battlefield = the same lines & columns of the 18th century, but organised into 'corps'.
Off the battlefield = mass conscription, and mass workshops to supply the shoes/uniforms/muskets/powder.
A hint of the future = rifles replacing muskets.

The American Civil War & Franco-Prussian War
------------------------------------------------
On the battlefield = the same lines and columns as the Napoleonic Wars, but better weapons.
Off the battlefield = the telegraph, stream trains, ironclad ships, and factories to supply everything.
A hint of the future = some trench/defensive warfare.

The First World War
--------------------
On the battlefield = no more lines & columns, everone in 'skirmish' formation, and even better weapons (forcing trench warfare).
Off the battlefield = early aircraft, early radio, battleships, submarines, and even more factories.
A hint of the future = early tanks, and hitting the enemys population with aircraft.

The Second World War
----------------------
On the battlefield = motorised infantry, tanks, and tactical air support.
Off the battlefield = carriers, and deliberately targeting the enemy's factories and civilians with heavy bombers & early missiles.
A hint of the future = nuclear weapons.

The Next World War
---------------------
On the battlefield = as WW2, but far more automation ('a war of machines').
Off the battlefield = killing the enemys population is more important that killing their soldiers (nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical warfare).
A hint of the future = .....er....what future!

Originally posted by wildWolverine
If a soldier gets shot in the leg, but later contracts gangrene, is his cause of death the enemy or disease? By disease, do you mean ailments like dysentary, or are you lumping in infections as well?
Death due to infection caused by wounds is considered to be a death caused by enemy action (if they hadn't shot you, you wouldn't have died).

According to the Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (Patricia L. Faust, ed.), the Confederate Army's Adjutant General claimed losses of 52,954 killed in action, 21,570 died of wounds (including infections caused by wounds), and 94,026 dead of disease. Union losses were given as 110,000 killed in action or died of wounds and 249,458 died of disease.

Typus, cholera, disentery, small pox and malaria were the main diseases that killed Civil War soldiers. Syphilis and gonorreha were also quite prevalent, but took longer to kill.

By WWI, both medical treatment and field sanitation had improved to the extent that more soldiers were killed by the enemy than died of disease.

I believe the American Revolution should be noted that it revolutionized tactics, but perhaps is not a modern war. It saw the first use of "hittitng below the belt" as the americans would not follow classic rules of engagement as walking in straight lines or making formal annoucements of your arrival. Also this is the beginning of Guerilla war style and hit and run (Although naitive Americans had done it for sometime it was not formally accepted by an actual power). Also the targeting of officers with sharpshooters or snipers was very new. This was all new and could therefore be considered to be perhaps a major change in tactics but not quite yet modern as they still needed to come into close proximity to fight.


You might consider the civilwar to be the first modern war due to the great increase in technology. This is true and many of the weapons used in the civil war were refined into 21st century weapons that are still used today such as 1 piece cartridges, automatic fire, rifling, grenades, balloons, armored ships, telegraph, etc. etc. But the tactics used were still the same tactics as those used in napoleonic wars of slow moving marching brightly dressed infantry firing volleys at each other standing up and glorious calvary charges with sabres. There is still visual contact with the enemy at all times during fighting exept perhaps in the trenches of Petersburg and Vicksburg. We see in the civil war the evolution of warfare into what it is today but we aren't quite there.


WW1 brings a whole new dimension to combat, airplanes. This is the first time they are used in combat. We also see indirect fire and more modern firing systems. The bolt-action and machin-gun rifles lets an untrained soldeir still be able to kill tens of people. Now we also see more fighting out of visual range espeacialy with german supercannons like Big Bertha and the Paris Gun. Gas brings about WMDs which further change war. But we see again old tactics like trech warfare. Most fronts are not fluid but slow moving and dull. This war is unlike anyother in that factor although it bares resemblence to some of the civil war. This is also one of the first wars where there is no winter breack from fighting but it is year round.


WW2 finaly a "modern" war. We see all the weaons we see today exept for smart bombs and stealth. They even had guided missles and jet engines at the end of it. We see amphibious assaults and paratroopers, guerrila warfare and resistance movements, nuclear bombs and V2 missles. Also the airplane plays a much more important role as the side with air superiority generaly won the battles. This was a very fluid war like those that we see now with island hopping and blitzkrieg advances were made in weeks rather then months or years. We also see more covert ops and spec. forces such as the SAS, SS, Rangers, Marine Scouts and Raiders, and the Ghurkas. It ends with the nuclear bomb that launches the world into a whole new age. This is indeed the first modern war.

actually Frederick The Great employed that tactic against the Austrians, Russians and french during the seven years war. and anyway it didn't help us out too much as the minuet man lost us more battles than won. Gren. Washington counldn't stand them because of their poor trianing.

I think that the 30 Years War was the first modern war in terms of tactics and stufff, but the American Civil War was in terms of technology, with the first widespread use of metal ships (rionclads), machine guns, and railroads. World War One replicated the American Civil War alot, and with World War Two came more modern technology such as rockets, missles, jets, modern weapons, etc.

The use of effective artilleries "modernized" the engagement of war. Up to mid-seventeenth century the defender could simply stay behind the city or castle walls and siege warfare was a norm. The cannons along with the muskets made siege warfare and hand-to-hand fighting obsolete. Heavy armour, swords, pikes, and many other medieval war gears became decoration after their introduction. Not sure when people started using it in large scale but they were already in use in the English revolution at 1643.

WW1 for the reasons listed above.

Many unqualified history teachers would say that World War I was the first modern war, but that is absolutely not how historians view things. Like a bunch of you said, the Civil War was the first modern war because it was the first war where widespread use of mechanized and electrified devices like railroad trains, aerial observation, telegraph, photography, torpedoes, mines, ironclad ships and rifles occurred.

Edit: Oops, pawpaw already covered the things I listed. Smart guy. :p

Originally posted by Sodfather


Edit: Oops, pawpaw already covered the things I listed. Smart guy. :p

as long as you recognized it:D

I’m afraid that I find myself disagreeing with everybody.
(“That makes a change Kryten!” :lol: )

Just what is ‘Modern War’?
Is it new concepts and new ways of waging war, or is it simply old tactics and strategies but with more sophisticated devices?
I maintain that it is the former and not the latter.
Some examples:-

Railways: a new concept? Not really. Ancient Sumerians and Old Kingdom Egyptians had to walk to battle. With the domestication of the horse about 2000BC they could now be carried to battle in carts and chariots. Once horses were bread to be large enough about 1000BC, they could now ride to battle. Trains are obviously much faster than horses, but motorised transport is even better because it is much more flexible as it doesn’t require a fixed rail network.
The concept of getting troops to the battlefield as fast as possible is nothing new....it’s just that things have improved and got faster.
(Why did the Romans build all those roads for example)

The Telegraph: ancient soldiers had to shout at each other, or wave flags about, or send runners. Later, horsemen could carry messages. Then came the telegraph, then the telephone, and then the radio.
Communication is not a new concept; it has just got better.

Iron Ships, Torpedoes, and Submarines: all new ways to destroy an enemy fleet or merchant navy. But is naval supremacy a new concept?
Not really. These are just improved ways of achieving the old aim of dominating the sea.

Aircraft: in earlier times cavalry was often used to scout and make deep penetrations into the enemy’s territory, to cut off their supplies or to disrupt the ‘soft’ rear areas.
Aircraft do the same thing, but in three dimensions.
A new way of achieving the old objectives? Yes. But not a new military concept.

Combined Arms Tactics: nothing new here. Just about every army in history has made use of this concept. Think of a Napoleonic battle; you threaten the enemy infantry with your cavalry, they form square to protect themselves, and you then blast their nice big stationary target with cannons.

Mobile Warfare: it's been done before, by the Scythians, Huns, Parthians, Mongols, Native Americans.....
It's just that the mounts are faster today. Not a new concept.

Tanks: ....well, all I can say is think of ancient Cataphracts, or Medieval Knights.

Now none of the above would have been inconceivable to Caesar, or Alexander, Or Hammurabi. Oh, they would have been amazed at how things have improved since their day……but the concepts and use of these new devices would have easily been understood, and used by them if they had been given the chance.
So just what is it about ‘Modern Warfare’ that IS new, and would have been incomprehensible to them?
I think the answer is....
....the deliberate annihilation of the enemy’s civilian population!

Yes, many armies in history have massacred civilians. The sacking & pillaging of a defenceless city has always been a welcomed event by victorious soldiers, and some conquerors have made this their aim. The Vikings for example certainly didn’t care about the villagers they had to kill in order to gain their valuables and loot. But what they WOULD have found inconceivable is ignoring the loot and just killing the entire population.
THAT is the ‘new concept’ of modern warfare; the use of nuclear/biological/chemical weapons to totally annihilate the entire enemy population....not to capture their valuables, or their gold, or their cities, or their territory, or their resources, but to just KILL THEM ALL!.

Of course, all this only applies to a global world war, not to small contained regional ‘police actions’.
Perhaps there will never be another ‘world war’....
....but the phrase “the war to end all wars” has been used before.... ;)

The American Civil War is widely believed by most historians to be the first modern war. However the first major modern war between nations is the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.

WW2 probably, due to massive civilian losses. Before that, war was usually 'courteous (except for WW1), each side meeting to discuss when to begin battle, no dirty tactics. WW1 changed all that, but WW2 implemented them to the fullest.

Originally posted by Kryten
I’m afraid that I find myself disagreeing with everybody.

So does that mean you have no opinion on the subject?

I would say something in between WWI and WWII ... what about spanish civil war?:D

The first modern war would logically depend on what's your definition of 'modern'. As we move deeper into the future, I think even WW1 and WW2 would look increasingly archaic. :p

I wonder what our far off descendants, assuming that they had created an interstellar empire or federation, would think of the intra-planetary WW1/2 etc. :crazyeye:

It's amazing how far this discussion has gotten without anyone actually being able to define a "modern war"! :lol: