What tactic has had the most influence on modern warfare?
- Thread starter DivljaJagoda
- Start date
Good thing this is the history instead of the OT section, or you would have just re-lit the human wave "discussion".
Uncle Anton
Lighthorseman
While your observations aren't completely inaccurate, they're not entirely correct either and you're operating under some common misconceptions. The Germans aren't the inventors of many of the aspects of modern warfare that they're credited with, although they did develop some of the concepts others came up with to great effect.
2. Infantry Assault - British commanders had by 1917 developed methods for pre-registration and precise formulas for artillery taskings down to how many guns per length of trench, with what type of ammunition, for what purpose (eg Counter-Battery or Rolling Barrage for supporting Infantry).
Indeed it was at Cambrai that the Germans first experimented with the stormtrooper tactics you refer to which were used to great effect by them in 1918, when they counterattacked after Byng's initial gains after the first 3-4 days at Cambrai. The British had also introduced Infantry tactics to complement the advances in Artillery use by 1917 also. That these tactics weren't as effective as they may have been in 1917 is due to the fact that German manpower had yet to be exhausted, and defence in depth limited British gains to "Bite and Hold".
These same infantry tactics, coordinated properly with Artillery, Tanks and air in 1918 were responsible for the spectacular successes the Allies had in the Fall of 1918. To say that the Germans invented these tactics by themselves just isn't true. If anyone created combined arms in WW1 it wasn't the Germans, it was men like J.F.C. Fuller, John Monash, Herbert Plumer, Arthur Currie and Henry Rawlinson. The Germans just took it to the next level and learned from those successes, whereas the British post WW1 did not.
3. a) Light Machine Guns were again, not a WW2 Invention. Indeed the British Lewis Gun is considered a "War Winning" piece of kit by many historians. Many 'British' formations, notably the Dominion levies, were using Lewis Guns at a deployment rate of one per section by the War's end. You're dead right about the MG42 being one of WW2's most effective machine guns though, unarguably so in terms of cyclical rate of fire. And the Germans did develop platoon firepower to the point where they invented the Assault Rifle - which was a massive innovation.
3. b) Motorised Infantry - The Germans weren't the kings of Motorised Warfare because of the number of vehicles employed. All armies in this war used Motorised Infantry to some degree. The US for example fielded the most mechanised and motorised force ever assembled on the Earth to date during that war. Indeed much of the German Army relied on Horse-drawn transport and logistics, throughout the entire war. Where the Germans excelled in Motorised Warfare was their doctrine, and even then it wasn't that they made sure their tanks were supported. All armies did that. What all armies did not do, especially at WW2's commencement was develop a doctrine wherein their supported tank units were deployed en masse. The British for example supported their tanks, but they dispersed their armoured units rather than concentrating them.
3c) I don't even know where to start with this one. To claim that ONLY the Germans trained their NCOs to lead large formations in the event of loss of Officers is literally ridiculous, ie a statement worthy of ridicule. Whilst the UK's armies suffered the most from a system where leadership came from a particular social class, this rarely stopped British units from operating without officers. If it only partially or occasionally affected the British or Indian armies, it never affected Canadian, New Zealander or Australian formations which had exactly the same traditions of training NCOs that you claim the Germans owned and propogated. History doesn't record that it affected the US forces much either. Indeed, the US Marine Corps is a spectacular example of NCO training and leadership. I can't comment on Soviet forces, except to say that their post-war doctrine indicates that battlefield actions are micromanaged from a senior army level all the way down. As they had a step by step doctrine for everything, in the event of a loss of all officers, an NCO would likely still know what drill or type of attack was required, because it was written in a field manual. Indeed, this Soviet response to doctrine which robbed field commanders of initiative has been widely covered in post-war fictional and non fictional literature.
You're operating on some real myths about 20th century German military superiority. They were good, but they weren't that good.
And you're operating on some real myths about 20th century British and former British Imperial military superiority. Von Hutier wasn't copying, editing, and improving on Byng, Monash et al., he was copying Brusilov.
Uncle Anton
Lighthorseman
Touche.
Ok, I phrased my response badly and I stand corrected - you're quite right, I completely forgot Brusilov.
*Bows*But that doesn't change the fact that the notion that Germany invented combined arms warfare (not to mention some of the other misconcieved myths that peddle around) all by itself is basically a steaming load.
Well, it's certainly hard to support that anybody clearly had the first ideas about infiltration tactics - "combined arms warfare" is a weird label for that. Participants on all sides had inklings already in 1914 - you can really see this at First Ypres.
trickofthehand
Prince
- Joined
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- 310
Regarding original post, the aircraft is the dominant weapon on the modern battlefield, not armor. As far as most revolutionary tactic, well that's kind of vague so I'll take it to mean 'strategic or force-multiplier concept'. In that case, without a doubt it's American mastery of C4I systems.
Say what? In the traditional field battle, it's rare to see aircraft, and they don't always manage to do much - even helicopters are predominantly reconnaisance or transport jobs
Agent Cooper
Lynch's Creation
How about when infantry stopped just standing in lines (dressed in colorful uniforms saying "here I am!") while taking shots at the enemy and instead opted to take cover and conceal their position?
Those tactics always seemed bizar to me.
Those tactics always seemed bizar to me.
They worked great when a personal weapon was not accurate to anything meaningful and so the tactics meant that rather than firing individually as with modern weapons and probably not hitting anything an infantry unit could put out heavy firepower with pretty good accuracy (the innaccuracies average out when there's 100 of you so the bloke in charge can generally work out where the lead is going to go). Also, battlefields used to be very smoky and there was almost no communication beyond shouting range on a company to company scale so it was very important that you could tell that the block of men over there was on your side because they were wearing red coats and carrying a massive flag and so you didn't all start shooting each other. When there was less smoke around and 'blocks' disappered (as in the great war) it became far more obvious who was on your side because they were the ones not wearing spiked helmets and the ones who were pointing in the same direction as you. Nowadays with radio one section can easily tell where all friendly units are and if there is a friendly fire incident can quickly get on the radio and rectify the mistake.
I love british military education - it lets you rant at ignorant people
They still do. British doctrine has always been about controlling ground, and so the most effective way of doing that is having maybe one infantry company joined with one armoured troop (the same as a platoon, about four tanks) so that the infantry can do the donkey work of controlling ground and shooting people while the men in the cans can engage stubborn targets (for example, buildings and enemy armour)
If I throw my hat into the ring on revolutionary warfare tactics, I would say making everything into a drill has helped a lot. Just about every squaddie in the army can read off P(PAWPERSO)REW(or S)AR(PACESSDO) which outlines what would have been a fairly ingenious attack less than one hundred years ago. I'll write it all out if anyone is boring enough to want to know what it means
EDIT: I missed the end of it, so I'll write it out in shame now.
To Initiate an Attack at Section Level
Prepare for Battle (Protection [make sure nobody can shoot at you before you hold a meeting], Ammunition, Weapons, Personal Kit, Equipment, Radios, Specialist Kit [ie; mission specific], Orders)
React to Effective Enemy Fire [the famous dash down crawl observe sights engage]
Establish Enemy Location [that means the section IC tells everyone where they are in case someone hasn't spotted them]
Win the firefight (or Suppress the enemy [means the same thing])
Assault the enemy [half of you go round the side and beat them up, while the other half shoot where you expect them to run away to]
Re-Organise (Protection, Ammunition [re-distribute as needed], Casulties, Equipment, Searches [if needed], Sitrep [tell everyone that you are still alive and that they can talk to you again], Dig in, Orders)
Before anyone mentions OPSEC, this is on the internet a lot.
Uncle Anton
Lighthorseman
I guess that's my fault Dachs. I was making a bit of a leap from the initial comments about infiltration tactics to also contextually include any of the supporting arms which assisted in developing Infantry tactics ala Operation Michael, ie combined arms (the Germans didn't use many aircraft, and certainly no tank force to speak of AFAIK)...
I suppose I should've qualified my comments to refer more to Combined Arms in specific as opposed to just Infantry infiltration... Although it should be noted that the use of Carrier Tanks were being used certainly by the Brits to insert Infantry where needed (albeit in small, and probably less than significant instances - at least it's a start).
But I'd agree with you... I don't think one particular army or group can take sole credit for it all.
BTW First Ypres, and indeed most of the 1914-15 stuff interests me the most these days... how different the experiences of every soldier in every army must've been in those first few 18 months, compared to 1916-18...
Uncle Anton
Lighthorseman
I wasn't going to whinge about OPSEC, but it's certainly...well.. interesting to get a different perspective on a Section Assault... I'd have certain responses to the above list, but to describe them here may breach OPSEC, and like most folk, I tend to be safer than sorry, so I'll simply keep my trap shut
Ruggerbunny
Chieftain
Maybe you can clear this one up for me.
While attending NCO training in the USMC, I was informed that the US adopted the basic premise of German WWII NCO training. What was taught to me, was that prior to that tim, most NCO's were not expected to think for themselves and to exactly follow orders and the plan. German NCO training was revolutionary because they punished NCO's for not making decisions as opposed to making the wrong ones. They wanted NCO's willing to make decisions on the battle field and follow them up. This is opposed to other militaries where the NCO's facilitated the communication between the officers and the men and up-held dicipline. Was I trained wrong on this issue?
If so could you relate some reading on this subject, NCO training is a topic near and dear to my heart.
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
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- 12,921
It's a simplification of the matter, which isn't exactly instructing you "wrong" because it's not pertinant to your training for obvious reasons. I mean, even German NCOs in stormtrooper formations during the first world war operated under what would be appalingly restrictive limitations by todays standards. I remember in Storm of Steel, it required orders from a divisional command to launch platoon sized trench raid, with lose objectives: Essentially for a few men to attempt to lob grenades into the enemy trench at night. Upon returning, Junger was criticized by staff officers because, in the dark of night in the confusion of combat, he had deviated from the plan outlined for him by that trenchraid. And he was a full officer by this time. Clearly the German "revolution in training" was a bit slow.
I'd also point out that from a long history perspective, the issue isn't really the independence of NCOs, but the 'emptying of the battlefield'. In the Civil War, for example, an NCO was simply a disciplinarian something he remained through much of the first world war. But for much of the first world war, and prior to that, an NCO was rarely out of site from an officer. An NCO was of course to differ to the officer, because the officer was supposed to be present. After/during WWI, we start tosee the battlefield "empty out" because bunching up is now a very, very bad idea since you're all likely to die that way. The result is that the NCO is now very important, because he's most likely the highest ranking man present. Now that I think about it this way, maybe it's not NCO training that revolutionized warfare, but warfare that revolutionized NCO training.
I'd also point out that from a long history perspective, the issue isn't really the independence of NCOs, but the 'emptying of the battlefield'. In the Civil War, for example, an NCO was simply a disciplinarian something he remained through much of the first world war. But for much of the first world war, and prior to that, an NCO was rarely out of site from an officer. An NCO was of course to differ to the officer, because the officer was supposed to be present. After/during WWI, we start tosee the battlefield "empty out" because bunching up is now a very, very bad idea since you're all likely to die that way. The result is that the NCO is now very important, because he's most likely the highest ranking man present. Now that I think about it this way, maybe it's not NCO training that revolutionized warfare, but warfare that revolutionized NCO training.
Ruggerbunny
Chieftain
You could say that about all tactics and strategy. Technology drives changes in tactics and strategies. Each new invention requires time for the leaders and visionaries to adapt to and use properly, as that happens tactics change.
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