1.
War
–
War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, as concerns a belligerents losses in proportion to its prewar population, the most destructive war in modern history may have been the Paraguayan War. In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths, down from 72,000 deaths in 1990, in 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years. Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in the conflict, the word is related to the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren, meaning “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”. In German, the equivalent is Krieg, the Spanish, Portuguese, the scholarly study of war is sometimes called polemology, from the Greek polemos, meaning war, and -logy, meaning the study of. Studies of war by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Biological warfare, or germ warfare, is the use of weaponized biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, chemical warfare involves the use of weaponized chemicals in combat. Poison gas as a weapon was principally used during World War I. Civil war is a war between forces belonging to the nation or political entity. Conventional warfare is declared war between states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or see limited deployment, cyberwarfare involves the actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack and attempt to damage another nations information systems. Information warfare is the application of force on a large scale against information assets and systems, against the computers. Nuclear warfare is warfare in which weapons are the primary, or a major. War of aggression is a war for conquest or gain rather than self-defense, the earliest recorded evidence of war belongs to the Mesolithic cemetery Site 117, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare
War
–
The War by Tadeusz Cyprian (1949), a photograph in the collection of the
National Museum in
Warsaw showing ruins of Warsaw's Napoleon Square in the aftermath of
World War II.
War
–
Mural of War (1896), by
Gari Melchers
War
–
Ruins of
Guernica (1937). The
Spanish Civil War was one of Europe's bloodiest and most brutal civil wars.
War
–
Japanese
samurai attacking a
Mongol ship, 13th century
2.
Military history
–
On the other hand, Just War Theory explores the moral dimensions of warfare, and to better limit the destructive reality caused by war, seeks to establish a doctrine of military ethics. The discipline of history is dynamic, changing with development as much of the subject area as the societies. An important recent concept is the Revolution in Military Affairs which attempts to explain how warfare has been shaped by emerging technologies and it highlights the short outbursts of rapid change followed by periods of relative stability. In terms of the profession in major countries, military history is an orphan. William H. McNeill points out, This branch of our discipline flourishes in an intellectual ghetto, the study of military history in universities remains seriously underdeveloped. Indeed, lack of interest in and disdain for military history probably constitute one of the strangest prejudices of the profession, historiography is the study of the history and method of the discipline of history or the study of a specialised topic. In this case, military history with an eye to gaining an accurate assessment of conflicts using all available sources, Military historians use Historiographical analysis in an effort to allow an unbiased, contemporary view of records. Historians utilize their knowledge of government regulation and military organization, and employing a targeted, despite these limits, wars are some of the most studied and detailed periods of human history. Military historians have often compared organization, tactical and strategic ideas, leadership, in the early 1980s, historian Jeffrey Kimball surveyed the ideological preferences of 109 active diplomatic historians in the United States as well as 54 active military historians. He reports that, Of historians in the field of history, 7% are Socialist, 19% are Other, 53% are Liberal, 11% are None. Of military historians, 0% are Socialist, 8% are Other, 35% are Liberal, 18% are None, the documentation of military history begins with the confrontation between Sumer and Elam c.2700 BC near the modern Basra, and includes such enduring records as the Hebrew Bible. Other prominent records in history are the Trojan War in Homers Iliad. An approach centered on the analysis of a leader was taken by Xenophon in Anabasis, the records of the Roman Julius Caesar enable a comparative approach for campaigns such as Commentarii de Bello Gallico and Commentarii de Bello Civili. New weapons development can dramatically alter the face of war, the cost of warfare, the preparations, a rule of thumb is that if your enemy has a potentially war winning weapon, you have to either match it or neutralize it. The chariot was an effective, fast weapon, while one man controlled the maneuvering of the chariot and these became crucial to the maintenance of several governments, including the New Egyptian Kingdom and the Shang Dynasty and the nation states of early to mid Zhou dynasty. The infantry started as opposing armed groups of soldiers underneath commanders, the Greeks and early Romans used rigid, heavily armed phalanxes. The Macedonians and Hellenistic states would adopt phalanx formations with sarissa pikemen, the Romans would later adopt more flexible maniples from their neighbors which made them extremely successful in the field of battle. The kingdoms of the Warring States in East Asia also adopted infantry combat, in the Sicilian Expedition, led by Athens in an attempt to subdue Syracuse, the well-trained Syracusan cavalry became crucial to the success of the Syracusans
Military history
–
Relief of
Ramses II located in
Abu Simbel fighting at the
Battle of Kadesh on a
chariot.
Military history
–
A
Greek trireme
Military history
–
A small
English Civil War -era cannon
Military history
–
A 155 mm
M198 howitzer firing a shell.
3.
Prehistoric warfare
–
Prehistoric warfare refers to war that occurred between societies without recorded history. Kellys Warless Societies and the Origin of War, for the purposes of this article, prehistoric war will be broadly defined as a state of organized lethal aggression between autonomous preliterate communities. According to cultural anthropologist and ethnographer Raymond C, Kelly, the earliest hunter-gatherer societies of Homo erectus population density was probably low enough to avoid armed conflict. This behavior may have accelerated the migration out of Africa of H. erectus some 1.8 million years ago as a consequence of conflict avoidance. Of the many paintings of the Upper Paleolithic, none depict people attacking other people. The only rock art that depicts violence between hunter-gatherers comes from a unique Northern Australian sequence that began approximately 10,000 years ago, skeletal and artifactual evidence of intergroup violence between Paleolithic nomadic foragers is absent as well. The most ancient archaeological record of what could have be a massacre is at the epipaleolithic site of Cemetery 117. Nearly half of the bodies are female, who generally do not believe would have played an active role in violent skirmishes. It has been noted that the violence might have occurred in the wake of an ecological crisis. The initial report concluded that the bodies at Nataruk were not interred, Early war was influenced by the development of bows, maces, and slings. The bow seems to have been the most important weapon in early warfare and these figures are arrayed in lines and columns with a distinctly garbed leader at the front. Some paintings even portray still-recognizable tactics like flankings and envelopments, a Neolithic society is defined as a society that cultivates domesticated plants and manufactures tools only from natural materials. Evidence indicates that warfare was present in many Neolithic societies, for example, the Talheim Death Pit and Crow Creek Site are sites of Neolithic massacres. The Māori of New Zealand are notable for the thousands of fortifications constructed to enhance a groups standing in the fighting on their islands in the South Pacific. These substantial fortifications show that there was considerable social organization in the societies of prehistoric peoples and this is indirect corollary evidence for them also having been capable of conducting organized warfare. The onset of the Chalcolithic saw the introduction of copper daggers, axes, for the most part, these were far too expensive and malleable to be efficient weapons. They are considered by scholars to have been largely ceremonial implements. It was only with the development of bronze that edged metal weapons became commonplace, continued excavations in 2008 and 2010 expand on that
Prehistoric warfare
–
Quartzite hand axe
Prehistoric warfare
–
Bronze swords from the
Museum of Scotland.
4.
Ancient warfare
–
Ancient warfare is war as conducted from the beginnings of recorded history to the end of the ancient period. In India, the ancient period ends with the decline of the Gupta Empire, in Japan, the ancient period can be taken to end with the rise of feudalism in the Kamakura period in the 12-13th century. The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is one of technology than of organization. The development of first city-states, and then empires, allowed warfare to change dramatically, beginning in Mesopotamia, states produced sufficient agricultural surplus so that full-time ruling elites and military commanders could emerge. While the bulk of forces were still farmers, the society could support having them campaigning rather than working the land for a portion of each year. Thus, organized armies developed for the first time and these new armies could help states grow in size and became increasingly centralized. Early ancient armies continued to use bows and spears, the same weapons that had been developed in prehistoric times for hunting. The findings at the site of Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, have interpreted as evidence of inter-group conflict and warfare in antiquity. Early armies in Egypt and China followed a pattern of using massed infantry armed with bows. Infantry were at time the dominant form of war, partially because the camel saddle. This infantry would be divided into ranged and shock, with shock infantry either charging to cause penetration of the line or holding their own. These forces would ideally be combined, thus presenting your opponent with a dilemma, group your forces and leave them vulnerable to ranged, or spread them out and make them vulnerable to shock. This balance would eventually change as technology allowed for chariots, cavalry, no clear line can be drawn between ancient and medieval warfare. The characteristic properties of medieval warfare, notably heavy cavalry and siege engines such as the trebuchet were first introduced in Late Antiquity, as states grew in size, speed of movement became crucial because central power could not hold if rebellions could not be suppressed rapidly. The first solution to this was the chariot which became used in the Middle East from around 1800 BC, First pulled by oxen and donkeys, they allowed rapid traversing of the relatively flat lands of the Middle East. The chariots were light enough that they could easily be floated across rivers, improvements in the ability to train horses soon allowed them to be used to pull chariots, possibly as early as 2100 BC, and their greater speed and power made chariots even more efficient. The major drawback of the use of chariots is similar to one of its advantages, the lack of armor causes it to be extremely vulnerable to spears, pikes, etc. The power of the chariot as a device both of transportation and of battle became the weapon of the peoples of the Ancient Near East in the 2nd millennium BC
Ancient warfare
–
The Egyptian
siege of Dapur in the 13th century BC, from
Ramesseum,
Thebes.
Ancient warfare
–
Roman bronze figurine depicting a Germanic man adorned with a
Suebian knot engaged in prayer. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)
5.
Medieval warfare
–
Medieval warfare is the European warfare of the Middle Ages. Technological, cultural, and social developments had forced a dramatic transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics, in terms of fortification, the Middle Ages saw the emergence of the castle in Europe, which then spread to Western Asia. Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus wrote De re militari possibly in the late 4th century, described by historian Walter Goffart as the bible of warfare throughout the Middle Ages, De re militari was widely distributed through the Latin West. While Western Europe relied on a text for the basis of its military knowledge. According to Vegetius, infantry was the most important element of an army because it was compared to cavalry. One of the tenets he put forward was that a general should only engage in battle when he was sure of victory or had no other choice, as archaeologist Robert Liddiard explains, Pitched battles, particularly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were rare. Historian Michael Clanchy noted the medieval axiom that laymen are illiterate and its converse that clergy are literate, so it may be the case that few soldiers read Vegetius work. While it is uncertain to what extent his work was read by the class as opposed to the clergy. In Europe, breakdowns in centralized power led to the rise of a number of groups that turned to large-scale pillage as a source of income, most notably the Vikings raided significantly. As these groups were small and needed to move quickly, building fortifications was a good way to provide refuge and protection for the people. These fortifications evolved over the course of the Middle Ages, the most important form being the castle, the castle served as a protected place for the local elites. Fortifications were an important part of warfare because they provided safety to the lord, his family. They provided refuge from armies too large to face in open battle, the ability of the heavy cavalry to dominate a battle on an open field was useless against fortifications. Building siege engines was a process, and could seldom be effectively done without preparations before the campaign. Many sieges could take months, if not years, to weaken or demoralize the defenders sufficiently, Siege techniques also included mining in which tunnels were dug under a section of the wall and then rapidly collapsed to destabilize the walls foundation. A final technique was to bore into the walls, however this was not nearly as effective as other methods due to the thickness of castle walls. Several of these techniques were used by the Romans but experienced a rebirth during the Crusades. Advances in the prosecution of sieges encouraged the development of a variety of defensive counter-measures, arrow slits, concealed doors for sallies, and deep water wells were also integral to resisting siege at this time
Medieval warfare
–
Battle of Crécy (1346) between the English and French in the
Hundred Years' War.
Medieval warfare
–
Château de Falaise in France
Medieval warfare
–
The
Walls of Dubrovnik are a series of
defensive stone walls, never breached by a hostile army, that have surrounded and protected the maritime
city-state of
Dubrovnik (
Ragusa), situated in southern
Croatia.
Medieval warfare
–
Hungarian raids in the 10th century. Most European nations were praying for mercy: "Sagittis hungarorum libera nos Domine" - "Lord save us from the arrows of Hungarians" [
citation needed]
6.
Early modern warfare
–
This entire period is contained within the Age of Sail, which characteristic dominated the eras naval tactics, including the use of gunpowder in naval artillery. In the Horn of Africa, the Adals conquest of Ethiopia and the involving of the Ottomans, Mamluks, the earliest surviving bronze hand cannon, dates to 1288, during the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of China. Gunpowder warfare was used in the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, Japanese scrolls contain illustrations of bombs used by the Yuan-Mongol forces against mounted samurai. In 1326 the earliest known European picture of a gun appeared in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete, in 1350, Petrarch wrote that the presence of cannons on the battlefield was as common and familiar as other kinds of arms. Early artillery played a role in the 100 Years War. The period from 1500–1801 saw an advance in techniques of fortification in Europe. Whereas medieval castles had relied on high walls to keep out attackers, to do this, engineers developed a style of fortress known as the trace italienne or Italian style. These had low, thick, sloping walls, that would absorb or glance off cannon fire. In addition, they were shaped like stars, with bastions protruding at sharp angles, the reason for this was to ensure that every bastion could be supported with fire from an adjacent bastion, leaving no dead ground for an attacker to take cover in. These new fortifications quickly negated the advantages cannon had offered to besiegers, a polygonal fort is a fortification in the style that evolved around the middle of the 18th century, in response to the development of explosive shells. The polygonal style of fortification is described as a flankless fort. Many such forts were built in the United Kingdom and the British Empire during the government of Lord Palmerston and their low profile makes them easy to overlook. In response to the vulnerabilities of star forts, military engineers evolved a much simpler but more robust style of fortification. An example of style can be seen at Fort McHenry in Baltimore in the United States of America. The power of aristocracies vis à vis states diminished throughout Western Europe during this period, aristocrats 200- to 400-year-old ancestral castles no longer provided useful defences against artillery. The nobilitys importance in warfare also eroded as medieval heavy cavalry lost its role in battle. The heavy cavalry - made up of armored knights - had begun to fade in importance in the Late Middle Ages, the English longbow and the Swiss pike had both proven their ability to devastate larger armed forces of mounted knights. However, the use of the longbow required a lifetime of training, making it impossible to amass very large forces of archers
Early modern warfare
–
"Attack of the Prussian infantry", 1913 historical painting by
Carl Röchling depicting the
battle of Hohenfriedeberg of 1748
Early modern warfare
–
An early depiction of artillery, in an illustration of the
Siege of Orleans of 1429, by
Martial d'Auvergne (1493).
Early modern warfare
–
Model of city with polygonal fortifications
Early modern warfare
–
Assault on a town, early 17th century
7.
Modern warfare
–
Modern warfare is warfare using the concepts, methods, and military technology that have come into use during and after World War II. War in modern times has been the inclusion of civilians and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying the enemys ability to engage in war, the targeting of civilians developed from two distinct theories. The first theory was if enough civilians were killed, factories could not function. The second theory was that if civilians were killed, the enemy would be so demoralized that it would have no ability to wage further war. However, UNICEF reports that civilian fatalities are down from 20 percent prior to 1900 AD to less than 5 percent of fatalities in the beginning in the 1990s. It includes the environment, factors, and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force and this includes enemy and friendly forces, facilities, weather and terrain within the operational areas and areas of interest. Some argue that the forms of third generation warfare represents nothing more than an evolution of earlier technology. Aerial warfare is the use of aircraft and other flying machines in warfare. A military situation in which two belligerents of unequal strength interact and take advantage of their strengths and weaknesses. This interaction often involves strategies and tactics outside the bounds of conventional warfare, biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. It is meant to incapacitate or kill enemy combatants and it may also be defined as the employment of biological agents to produce casualties in man or animals and damage to plants or material, or defense against such employment. Chemical warfare is warfare using the properties of chemical substances to incapacitate or kill enemy combatants. Electronic warfare refers to mainly non-violent practices used chiefly to support areas of warfare. Fourth generation warfare is a concept defined by William S. Lind and expanded by Thomas X. Hammes, the simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent ideological network. Fourth Generation wars are characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians, conflicts and peace, battlefields and safety, while this term is similar to terrorism and asymmetric warfare, it is much narrower. Classical insurgencies and the Indian Wars are examples of pre-modern wars, fourth generation warfare usually has the insurgency group or non-state side trying to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the one currently running the territory. The blurring of lines between state and non-state is further complicated in a democracy by the power of the media, ground warfare involves three types of combat units, Infantry, Armor, and Artillery. Infantry in modern times would consist of Mechanized infantry and Airborne forces, usually having a type of rifle or sub-machine gun, an infantryman is the basic unit of an army
Modern warfare
–
Major wars - 1000+ deaths per year
8.
Industrial warfare
–
The era featured mass-conscripted armies, rapid transportation, telegraph and wireless communications, and the concept of total war. One of the features of industrial warfare is the concept of total war. There are several reasons for the rise of total warfare in the 19th century, as countries capital and natural resources grew, it became clear that some forms of warfare demanded more resources than others. Consequently, the greater cost of warfare became evident, an industrialized nation could distinguish and then choose the intensity of warfare that it wished to engage in. Additionally, warfare was becoming more mechanized and required greater infrastructure, combatants could no longer live off the land, but required an extensive support network of people behind the lines to keep them fed and armed. This required the mobilization of the home front, modern concepts like propaganda were first used to boost production and maintain morale, while rationing took place to provide more war materiel. The earliest modern example of war was the American Civil War. They believed that to break the backbone of the South, the North had to employ scorched earth tactics, or as Sherman called it, Shermans advance through Georgia and the Carolinas was characterized by widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure. In contrast to later conflicts, the damage done by Sherman was almost entirely limited to property destruction, in Georgia alone, Sherman claimed he and his men had caused $100,000,000 in damages. Conscription is the enrollment of civilians into military service. Conscription allowed the French Republic to form La Grande Armée, what Napoleon Bonaparte called the nation in arms, for instance, during World War I, bitter political disputes broke out in Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and New Zealand over conscription. Canada also had a dispute over conscription during World War II. Both South Africa and Australia put limits on where conscripts could fight in WWII, similarly, mass protests against conscription to fight the Vietnam War occurred in several countries in the late 1960s. Russia, as well as smaller nations such as Switzerland. Prior to the invention of the transport, combatants were transported from by wagons, horses. With the advent of locomotives, large groups of combatants, supplies, to counter this, an opposing force would destroy rail lines to hinder their enemies movements. General Shermans men during the American Civil War, would destroy tracks, heat the rails, the mass transportation of combatants was further revolutionized with the advent of the internal combustion engine and the automobile. Combined with the use of the machine gun, the horse
Industrial warfare
–
American
B-24 Liberator bombers under construction during
World War II.
Industrial warfare
–
Soldiers engaged in trench warfare during the American Civil War.
Industrial warfare
–
The advent of railroads (such as this one during the American Civil War) allowed armies to cover larger distances in shorter times while suffering minimal fatigue.
Industrial warfare
–
An American
M4 Sherman in action during the
Korean War.
9.
Fourth-generation warfare
–
Fourth-generation warfare is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. The term was first used in 1989 by a team of United States analysts, including paleoconservative William S. Lind, to describe warfares return to a decentralized form. In terms of modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces. The simplest definition includes any war in one of the major participants is not a state. Classical examples of type of conflict, such as the slave uprising under Spartacus. In 2006, the concept was expanded upon by USMC Colonel Thomas X. Hammes in his book, The Sling. The generations of warfare described by authors are, 1st Generation, tactics of line and column. Lind describes First Generation of warfare as beginning after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and establishing the states need to organize, 1GW consisted of tightly ordered soldiers with top-down discipline. These troops would fight in order and advance slowly. This began to change as the battlefield changed, old line and column tactics are now considered suicidal as the bow and arrow/sword morphed into the rifle and machine gun. 2nd Generation, tactics of linear fire and movement, with reliance on indirect fire and this type of warfare can be seen in the early stages of World War I where there was still strict adherence to drill and discipline of formation and uniform. However, there remained a dependence on artillery and firepower to break the stalemate, 3rd Generation, tactics of infiltration to bypass and collapse the enemys combat forces rather than seeking to close with and destroy them, and defence in depth. These aspects of 3GW bleed into 4GW as it is also warfare of speed, however, it targets both military forces and home populations. The use of warfare can be traced to the Cold War period, as superpowers and major powers attempted to retain their grip on colonies. Many of these occur in the geographic area described by author Thomas P. M. Barnett as the Non-Integrating Gap. Fourth-generation warfare has much in common with traditional low-intensity conflict in its forms of insurgency. As in those wars, the conflict is initiated by the weaker party through actions which can be termed offensive. The difference lies in the manner in which 4GW opponents adapt those traditional concepts to present day conditions and this amalgamation and metamorphosis produces novel ways of war for both the entity on the offensive and that on the defensive
Fourth-generation warfare
–
Guerillas in
Maguindanao, 1999
10.
Aerial warfare
–
Aerial warfare is the use of military aircraft and other flying machines in warfare. Modern aerial warfare includes missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, surface forces are likely to respond to enemy air activity with anti-aircraft warfare. The history of warfare began in ancient times, with the use of man-carrying kites in China. In the third century it progressed to balloon warfare, airplanes were put to use for war starting in 1911, initially for reconnaissance, and then for aerial combat to shoot down the recon planes. The use of planes for strategic bombing emerged during World War II, ballistic missiles became of key importance during the Cold War, were armed with nuclear warheads, and were stockpiled by the superpowers to deter each other from using them. Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft and this role can fulfil a variety of requirements, including the collection of imagery intelligence, observation of enemy maneuvers and artillery spotting. Air combat manoeuvring is the art of moving, turning and situating a fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. It relies on offensive and defensive basic fighter manoeuvring to gain an advantage over an aerial opponent, airborne forces are military units, usually light infantry, set up to be moved by aircraft and dropped into battle, typically by parachute. Thus, they can be placed behind enemy lines, and have the capability to deploy almost anywhere with little warning. The formations are limited only by the number and size of their aircraft, so given enough capacity a huge force can appear out of nowhere in minutes, an airstrike or air strike is an offensive operation carried out by attack aircraft. Air strikes are delivered from aircraft such as fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft. The official definition includes all sorts of targets, including enemy air targets, weapons used in an airstrike can range from machine gun bullets and missiles to various types of bombs. It is also referred to as an air raid. In close air support, air strikes are controlled by trained observers for coordination with friendly ground troops in a manner derived from artillery tactics. Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as all designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action. They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and it may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence, NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight, in modern usage, a missile is a self-propelled precision-guided munition system, as opposed to an unguided self-propelled munition, referred to as a rocket
Aerial warfare
–
Prof. Lowe ascending in Intrepid to observe the Battle of Fair Oaks
Aerial warfare
–
Battle of Fair Oaks with one of Lowe's balloons in the background
Aerial warfare
–
A 1910 French experimental design by
Voisin, featuring a
mitrailleuse gun fired by a passenger
Aerial warfare
–
Italian dirigibles bomb Turkish positions on Libyan territory. The Italo-Turkish War was the first in history to feature aerial bombardment by airplanes and airships.
11.
Naval warfare
–
Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years, even in the interior of large landmasses, transportation before the advent of extensive railroads was largely dependent upon rivers, canals, and other navigable waterways. Prior to 1750, materials largely moved by barge or sea vessels. Thus armies, with their exorbitant needs for food, ammunition, the oceanic influences throughout pre-recorded history, and classical works such as The Odyssey underscore the past influences. The Persian Empire – united and strong – could not prevail against the might of the Athenian fleet combined with that of city states in several attempts to conquer the Greek city states. Phoenicias and Egypts power, Carthages and even Romes largely depended upon control of the seas, so too did the Venetian Republic dominate Italys city states, thwart the Ottoman Empire, and dominate commerce on the Silk Road and the Mediterranean in general for centuries. For three centuries, the Northmen raided and pillaged and went where they willed, far into central Russia and the Ukraine, many sea battles through history also provide a reliable source of shipwrecks for underwater archaeology. A major example is the exploration of the wrecks of various warships in the Pacific Ocean, the first dateable recorded sea battle occurred about 1210 BC, Suppiluliuma II, king of the Hittites, defeated a fleet from Cyprus, and burned their ships at sea. In the Battle of the Delta, the Ancient Egyptians defeated the Sea Peoples in a sea battle circa 1175 BC, no written mention of strategy or tactics seems to have survived. Josephus Flavius reports a battle between Tyre and the king of Assyria who was aided by the other cities in Phoenicia. The battle took place off the shores of Tyre, although the Tyrian fleet was much smaller in size, the Tyrians defeated their enemies. The Greeks of Homer just used their ships as transport for land armies and it seems unlikely that all this was the product of a single mind or even of a generation, most likely the period of evolution and experimentation was simply not recorded by history. After some initial battles while subjugating the Greeks of the Ionian coast, the Persians determined to invade Greece proper. The first Persian campaign, in 492 BC, was aborted because the fleet was lost in a storm, attacks by the Greek armies repulsed these. The third Persian campaign in 480 BC, under Xerxes I of Persia, but the defeat on land at Thermopylae forced a Greek withdrawal, and Athens evacuated its population to nearby Salamis Island. The ensuing Battle of Salamis was one of the engagements of history. Themistocles trapped the Persians in a too narrow for them to bring their greater numbers to bear. Aeschylus wrote a play about the defeat, The Persians, which was performed in a Greek theatre competition a few years after the battle and it is the oldest known surviving play
Naval warfare
–
A painter's depiction of the French (left) and British (right) lines at the
Battle of the Chesapeake
Naval warfare
–
An
ancient Greek trireme vessel
Naval warfare
–
The naval
battle of Sluys, 1340, from
Jean Froissart 's Chronicles.
Naval warfare
–
A
Song dynasty naval river ship with a Xuanfeng traction-
trebuchet catapult on its top deck, taken from an illustration of the
Wujing Zongyao (1044)
12.
Space warfare
–
Space warfare is combat that takes place in outer space, i. e. outside an atmosphere. Space warfare therefore includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth, as well as space-to-space warfare and it does not include the use of satellites for espionage, surveillance, or military communications. For example, one might describe a system in which troops are deployed from orbit as space warfare. In the early 1960s the U. S. military produced a film called Space, from 1985 to 2002 there was a United States Space Command, which in 2002 merged with the United States Strategic Command. Only a few incidents of warfare have occurred in world history. In the mid-1980s a USAF pilot in an F-15 successfully shot down the P78-1, in 2007 China used a missile system to destroy one of its obsolete satellites, and in 2008 the United States similarly destroyed its malfunctioning satellite USA-193. As of 2016 there have no human casualties resulting from conflict in space. International treaties governing space limit or regulate conflicts in space and limit the installation of weapon systems, similar planning in the United States took the form of the Blue Gemini project, which consisted of modified Gemini capsules that would be able to deploy weapons and perform surveillance. The result was a deactivation of many then-orbiting satellites, both American and Soviet, the deleterious and unfocused effects of the EMP test led to the banning of nuclear weapons in space in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Through the 1970s, the Soviet Union continued their project and test-fired a cannon to test space station defense and this was considered too dangerous to do with a crew on board, however, so the test was conducted after the crew had returned to Earth. Space warfare strongly influenced the design of the United States Space Shuttle. The distinctive delta wing shape was needed if the shuttle were to launch a military payload towards the Soviet Union, both the Soviets and the United States developed anti-satellite weaponry designed to shoot down satellites. While early efforts paralleled other space-to-space warfare concepts, the United States was able in the 1980s to develop ground-to-space laser anti-satellite weapons. None of these systems are known to be today, however. The Peoples Republic of China successfully tested a ballistic missile-launched anti-satellite weapon on January 11,2007 and this resulted in harsh criticism from the United States of America, Britain, and Japan. See 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test, the U. S. developed an interceptor missile, the SM-3, testing it by hitting ballistic test targets while they were in space. On February 21,2008, the U. S. used a SM-3 missile to destroy a spy satellite, USA-193, Japan fields the U. S. -made SM-3 missile, and there have been plans to base the land-based version in Romania and Vietnam. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s the Soviet Union, Space warfare was seen primarily as an extension of nuclear warfare, and so many theoretical systems were based around the destruction or defense of ground and sea-based missiles
Space warfare
–
A
USAF F-15 Eagle launching an
ASM-135 ASAT (anti-satellite) missile in 1985.
Space warfare
–
A SM-3 missile is launched from a U.S. ship to intercept a failing spy satellite
Space warfare
–
A
Trident missile launched from a
Royal Navy Vanguard class ballistic missile submarine.
Space warfare
–
German
Luftwaffe Tornado ECR.
13.
Weapon
–
A weapon, arm, or armament is any device used with intent to inflict damage or harm to living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, self-defense. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, something that has been re-purposed, converted, or enhanced to become a weapon of war is termed weaponized, such as a weaponized virus or weaponized lasers. The use of objects as weapons has been observed among chimpanzees, however, this can not be confirmed using physical evidence because wooden clubs, spears, and unshaped stones would not have left an unambiguous record. The earliest unambiguous weapons to be found are the Schöninger Speere, the first defensive structures and fortifications appeared in the Bronze Age, indicating an increased need for security. Weapons designed to breach fortifications followed soon after, for example the battering ram was in use by 2500 BC, although early Iron Age swords were not superior to their bronze predecessors, once iron-working developed, around 1300 BC in Greece Alex Webb, Metalworking in Ancient Greece. Domestication of the horse and widespread use of spoked wheels by ca.2000 BC, led to the light, the mobility provided by chariots were important during this era. Spoke-wheeled chariot usage peaked around 1300 BC and then declined, ceasing to be militarily relevant by the 4th century BC. Cavalry developed once horses were bred to support the weight of a man, the horse extended the range and increased the speed of attacks. Ships built as weapons or warships such as the trireme were in use by the 7th century BC and these ships were eventually replaced by larger ships by the 4th century BC. European warfare during the Post-classical history was dominated by groups of knights supported by massed infantry. They were involved in combat and sieges which involved various siege weapons. Knights on horseback developed tactics for charging with lances providing an impact on the enemy formations, whereas infantry, in the age before structured formations, relied on cheap, sturdy weapons such as spears and billhooks in close combat and bows from a distance. As armies became more professional, their equipment was standardized and infantry transitioned to pikes, pikes are normally seven to eight feet in length, in conjunction with smaller side-arms. In Eastern and Middle Eastern warfare, similar tactics were developed independent of European influences, the introduction of gunpowder from the Far East at the end of this period revolutionized warfare. Formations of musketeers, protected by pikemen came to dominate open battles, the European Renaissance marked the beginning of the implementation of firearms in western warfare. Guns and rockets were introduced to the battlefield, firearms are qualitatively different from earlier weapons because they release energy from combustible propellants such as gunpowder, rather than from a counter-weight or spring. This energy is released very rapidly and can be replicated without much effort by the user, therefore even early firearms such as the arquebus were much more powerful than human-powered weapons. During the U. S. Civil War various technologies including the gun and ironclad warship emerged that would be recognizable and useful military weapons today
Weapon
–
An array of
Neolithic artifacts, including
bracelets,
axe heads,
chisels, and polishing tools.
Weapon
–
A four-wheeled
ballista drawn by armored
cataphract horses, c. 400.
Weapon
–
This picture shows medieval weapons utilized by the
Mughal Army.
Weapon
–
Ancient Chinese
cannon displayed in the
Tower of London.
14.
Armoured warfare
–
Armoured warfare, mechanised warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units. Under these conditions, any sort of advance was very slow. Tanks were first developed in Britain and France in 1915, as a way of navigating the barbed wire, British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on 15 September 1916, but did not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare. The first French employment on 16 April 1917, of the Schneider CA, was also a failure, in the Battle of Cambrai British tanks were more successful, and broke a German trenchline system, the Hindenburg Line. Despite the generally unpromising beginnings, the military and political leadership in both Britain and France during 1917 backed large investments into armoured vehicle production and this led to a sharp increase in the number of available tanks for 1918. The German Empire to the contrary, produced only a few tanks, twenty German A7V tanks were produced during the entire conflict, compared to over 4,400 French and over 2,500 British tanks of various kinds. Tactically, the deployment of armour during the war was typified by an emphasis on direct infantry support. The tanks main tasks were seen as crushing barbed wire and destroying machine-gun nests, theoretical debate largely focussed on the question whether a swarm of light tanks should be used for this or a limited number of potent heavy vehicles. Though in the Battle of Cambrai a large concentration of British heavy tanks effected a breakthrough, the manoeuvrability of the tank should at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank enemy lines. Following the First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought, during the 1920s, only very few tanks were produced. There were however, important theoretical and technical developments, various British and French commanders who had contributed to the origin of the tank, such as Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, B. H. Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller, theorised about a future use of independent armoured forces, containing a large concentration of tanks. Especially Liddell Hart wrote many books about the subject, partly propagating Fullers theories, such doctrines were faced with the reality that during the 1920s the armoured vehicles, as early road transport in general, were extremely unreliable, and could not be used in sustained operations. Mainstream thought on the subject was more conservative and tried to integrate armoured vehicles into the infantry and cavalry organisation. To save weight, such designs had thin armour plating and this inspired fitting small-calibre high-velocity guns in turrets, J. Collins, after Fuller refused the function. The unit carried out operations on Salisbury Plain and was observed by the major nations, the United States, Germany
Armoured warfare
–
Modern American and French armoured vehicles during an exercise
Armoured warfare
–
A
Renault FT tank with 37mm cannon
Armoured warfare
–
A
German Tiger I tank in combat during the
Battle of Kursk in 1943
Armoured warfare
–
A T-34-85 tank on display at
Musée des Blindés in April 2007.
15.
Artillery
–
Artillery is a class of large military weapons built to fire munitions far beyond the range and power of infantrys small arms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach fortifications, and led to heavy, as technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery developed for battlefield use. This development continues today, modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility providing the largest share of an armys total firepower, in its earliest sense, the word artillery referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armour. In common speech, the artillery is often used to refer to individual devices, along with their accessories and fittings. However, there is no generally recognised generic term for a gun, howitzer, mortar, and so forth, the United States uses artillery piece, the projectiles fired are typically either shot or shell. Shell is a widely used term for a projectile, which is a component of munitions. By association, artillery may also refer to the arm of service that customarily operates such engines, in the 20th Century technology based target acquisition devices, such as radar, and systems, such as sound ranging and flash spotting, emerged to acquire targets, primarily for artillery. These are usually operated by one or more of the artillery arms, Artillery originated for use against ground targets—against infantry, cavalry and other artillery. An early specialist development was coastal artillery for use against enemy ships, the early 20th Century saw the development of a new class of artillery for use against aircraft, anti-aircraft guns. Artillery is arguably the most lethal form of land-based armament currently employed, the majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II were caused by artillery. In 1944, Joseph Stalin said in a speech that artillery was the God of War, although not called as such, machines performing the role recognizable as artillery have been employed in warfare since antiquity. The first references in the historical tradition begin at Syracuse in 399 BC. From the Middle Ages through most of the era, artillery pieces on land were moved by horse-drawn gun carriages. In the contemporary era, the artillery and crew rely on wheeled or tracked vehicles as transportation, Artillery used by naval forces has changed significantly also, with missiles replacing guns in surface warfare. The engineering designs of the means of delivery have likewise changed significantly over time, in some armies, the weapon of artillery is the projectile, not the equipment that fires it. The process of delivering fire onto the target is called gunnery, the actions involved in operating the piece are collectively called serving the gun by the detachment or gun crew, constituting either direct or indirect artillery fire. The term gunner is used in armed forces for the soldiers and sailors with the primary function of using artillery. The gunners and their guns are usually grouped in teams called either crews or detachments, several such crews and teams with other functions are combined into a unit of artillery, usually called a battery, although sometimes called a company
Artillery
–
French naval piece of the late 19th century
Artillery
–
French soldiers in the
Franco-Prussian War 1870–71.
Artillery
–
British 64 Pounder Rifled Muzzle-Loaded (RML) Gun on a Moncrieff disappearing mount, at Scaur Hill Fort,
Bermuda. This is a part of a fixed battery, meant to protect against over-land attack and to serve as coastal artillery.
Artillery
–
7-person gun crew firing a US
M777 Light Towed Howitzer,
War in Afghanistan, 2009.
16.
Biological warfare
–
Biological weapons are living organisms or replicating entities that reproduce or replicate within their host victims. Entomological warfare is considered a type of biological weapon. None of these are conventional weapons, which are deployed primarily for their explosive, kinetic, Biological weapons may be employed in various ways to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over the enemy, either by threats or by actual deployments. Like some of the weapons, biological weapons may also be useful as area denial weapons. These agents may be lethal or non-lethal, and may be targeted against a single individual and they may be developed, acquired, stockpiled or deployed by nation states or by non-national groups. In the latter case, or if a nation-state uses it clandestinely, toxins and psychochemical weapons are often referred to as midspectrum agents. Unlike bioweapons, these agents do not reproduce in their host and are typically characterized by shorter incubation periods. Offensive biological warfare, including production, stockpiling and use of biological weapons, was outlawed by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. Many countries, including signatories of the BWC, currently pursue research into the defense or protection against BW, a nation or group that can pose a credible threat of mass casualty has the ability to alter the terms on which other nations or groups interact with it. Therefore, biological agents may be useful as strategic deterrents in addition to their utility as offensive weapons on the battlefield. As a tactical weapon for use, a significant problem with a BW attack is that it would take days to be effective. Some biological agents have the capability of person-to-person transmission via aerosolized respiratory droplets and this feature can be undesirable, as the agent may be transmitted by this mechanism to unintended populations, including neutral or even friendly forces. While containment of BW is less of a concern for criminal or terrorist organizations, it remains a significant concern for the military. Rudimentary forms of warfare have been practiced since antiquity. During the 6th century BC, the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with a fungus that would render the enemy delirious, in 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa. Specialists disagree over whether this operation may have been responsible for the spread of the Black Death into Europe, the British Army used smallpox against Native Americans during the Siege of Fort Pitt in 1763. An outbreak that left as many as one hundred Native Americans dead in Ohio Country was reported in 1764, the spread of the disease weakened the natives resistance to the British troops led by Henry Bouquet. It is not clear, however, whether the smallpox was a result of the Fort Pitt incident or the virus was present among the Delaware people
Biological warfare
–
Shiro Ishii, commander of
Unit 731, which performed live human vivisections and other biological experimentation.
Biological warfare
–
Weapons of mass destruction
Biological warfare
–
Researchers working in
Class III cabinets at the
U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories,
Camp Detrick,
Maryland (1940s).
17.
Cavalry
–
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, an individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman, horseman, dragoon or trooper. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used animals, such as camels. Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a man fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent. In Europe cavalry became increasingly armoured, and eventually became known for the mounted knights, in the period between the World Wars, many cavalry units were converted into motorized infantry and mechanized infantry units, or reformed as tank troops. Most cavalry units that are horse-mounted in modern armies serve in purely ceremonial roles, modern usage of the term generally refers to specialist units equipped with tanks or aircraft. The shock role, traditionally filled by heavy cavalry, is filled by units with the armored designation. Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots, the chariot originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in Central Asia and spread by nomadic or semi-nomadic Indo-Iranians. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, Cavalry techniques were an innovation of equestrian nomads of the Central Asian and Iranian steppe and pastoralist tribes such as the Persian Parthians and Sarmatians. The photograph above left shows Assyrian cavalry from reliefs of 865–860 BC, at this time, the men had no spurs, saddles, saddle cloths, or stirrups. Fighting from the back of a horse was more difficult than mere riding. The cavalry acted in pairs, the reins of the archer were controlled by his neighbours hand. Even at this time, cavalry used swords, shields. The sculpture implies two types of cavalry, but this might be a simplification by the artist, Later images of Assyrian cavalry show saddle cloths as primitive saddles, allowing each archer to control his own horse. As early as 490 BC a breed of horses was bred in the Nisaean plain in Media to carry men with increasing amounts of armour. However, chariots remained in use for purposes such as carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The southern Britons met Julius Caesar with chariots in 55 and 54 BC, the last mention of chariot use in battle was by the Caledonians at the Mons Graupius, in 84 AD. During the classical Greek period cavalry were usually limited to citizens who could afford expensive war-horses
Cavalry
–
French 4th Hussars at the
battle of Friedland, 1807
Cavalry
–
African horseman of
Baguirmi in full
padded armour suit
Cavalry
–
Assyrian cavalry
Cavalry
–
Parthian horseman, now on display at the
Palazzo Madama, Turin.
18.
Chemical warfare
–
Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. None of these fall under the conventional weapons which are primarily effective due to their destructive potential. With proper protective equipment, training, and decontamination measures, the effects of chemical weapons can be overcome. Many nations possess vast stockpiles of weaponized agents in preparation for wartime use, the threat and the perceived threat have become strategic tools in planning both measures and counter-measures. Chemical warfare is different from the use of weapons or nuclear weapons because the destructive effects of chemical weapons are not primarily due to any explosive force. Under this Convention, any chemical, regardless of its origin, is considered a chemical weapon unless it is used for purposes that are not prohibited. About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical agents during the 20th century. The entire class known as Lethal Unitary Chemical Agents and Munitions have been scheduled for elimination by the CWC and these may only be produced or used for research, medical, pharmaceutical or protective purposes. Examples include nerve agents, ricin, lewisite and mustard gas, any production over 100 g must be reported to the OPCW and a country can have a stockpile of no more than one tonne of these chemicals. Schedule 2 – Have no large-scale industrial uses, but may have legitimate small-scale uses, schedule 3 – Have legitimate large-scale industrial uses. Both have been used as weapons but phosgene is an important precursor in the manufacture of plastics. The OPCW must be notified of, and may inspect, any plant producing more than 30 tonnes per year, Ancient Greek myths about Hercules poisoning his arrows with the venom of the Hydra monster are the earliest references to toxic weapons in western literature. Homers epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, allude to poisoned arrows used by both sides in the legendary Trojan War, some of the earliest surviving references to toxic warfare appear in the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Laws of Manu, a Hindu treatise on statecraft forbids the use of poison and fire arrows, kautilyas Arthashastra, a statecraft manual of the same era, contains hundreds of recipes for creating poison weapons, toxic smokes, and other chemical weapons. Ancient Greek historians recount that Alexander the Great encountered poison arrows, arsenical smokes were known to the Chinese as far back as c.1000 BC and Sun Tzus Art of War advises the use of fire weapons. Other Chinese writings dating around the same period contain hundreds of recipes for the production of poisonous or irritating smokes for use in war along with accounts of their use. These accounts describe an arsenic-containing soul-hunting fog, and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a peasant revolt in 178 AD. The earliest recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the fifth century BC, There is archaeological evidence that the Sassanians deployed chemical weapons against the Roman army in the Siege of Dura Europos in the third century AD
Chemical warfare
–
The Art of War described the use of fire weapons against the enemy.
Chemical warfare
–
Weapons of mass destruction
Chemical warfare
–
Christoph Bernhard von Galen tried using toxic fumes whilst besieging the city of
Groningen in 1672.
Chemical warfare
–
Lyon Playfair proposed the industrial manufacture of cyanide artillery shells for use during the
Crimean War.
19.
Electronic warfare
–
Electronic warfare is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack of an enemy, or impede enemy assaults via the spectrum. The purpose of warfare is to deny the opponent the advantage of, and ensure friendly unimpeded access to. EW can be applied from air, sea, land, and space by manned and unmanned systems, Military operations are executed in an information environment increasingly complicated by the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum portion of the environment is referred to as the electromagnetic environment. Within the information operations construct, EW is an element of warfare, more specifically. NATO has a different and arguably more encompassing and comprehensive approach to EW, a Military Committee conceptual document from 2007 recognised the EME as an operational manoeuvre space and warfighting environment/domain. In NATO, EW is considered to be warfare in the EME, NATO has adopted simplified language which parallel those used in the other warfighting environments like maritime, land and air/space. For example, Electronic Attack is offensive use of EM energy, ED is electronic defence and ES electronic surveillance. The use of the traditional NATO EW measures has been retained as they contribute to and support EA, ED, besides EW, other EM operations include ISTAR and SIGINT. Subsequently NATO has issued EW Policy and Doctrine and is addressing the other NATO defence lines of development, Electronic warfare is any military action involving the use of the EM spectrum to include directed energy to control the EM spectrum or to attack an enemy. This is not limited to radio or radar frequencies but includes IR, visible, ultraviolet and this includes self-protection, standoff, and escort jamming, and antiradiation attacks. EW is a tool that enhances many air and space functions at multiple levels of conflict. The purpose of EW is to deny the opponent an advantage in the EM spectrum, EW can be applied from air, sea, land, and space by manned and unmanned systems. EW is employed to support operations involving various levels of detection, denial, deception, disruption, degradation, protection. Expanding reliance on the EM spectrum increases both the potential and the challenges of EW in information operations, all of the core, supporting, and related information operations capabilities either directly use EW or indirectly benefit from EW. The principal EW activities have developed over time to exploit the opportunities and vulnerabilities that are inherent in the physics of EM energy. Electronic warfare includes three major subdivisions, electronic attack, electronic protection, and electronic warfare support, in the case of EM energy, this action is referred to as jamming and can be performed on communications systems or radar systems. Jamming is not part of EP, it is an EA measure, the use of flare rejection logic on an Infrared homing missile to counter an adversary’s use of flares is EP
Electronic warfare
–
RAF Menwith Hill, a large
ECHELON site in the United Kingdom, and part of the
UK-USA Security Agreement
Electronic warfare
–
A right front view of a
USAF Boeing E-4 advanced airborne command post (AABNCP) on the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator (HAGII-C) for testing.
20.
Infantry
–
Infantry is the general branch of an army that engages in military combat on foot. As the troops who engage with the enemy in close-ranged combat, infantry units bear the largest brunt of warfare, Infantry can enter and maneuver in terrain that is inaccessible to military vehicles and employ crew-served infantry weapons that provide greater and more sustained firepower. In English, the 16th-century term Infantry describes soldiers who walk to the battlefield, and there engage, fight, the term arose in Sixteenth-Century Spain, which boasted one of the first professional standing armies seen in Europe since the days of Rome. It was common to appoint royal princes to military commands, and the men under them became known as Infanteria. in the Canadian Army, the role of the infantry is to close with, and destroy the enemy. In the U. S. Army, the closes with the enemy, by means of fire and maneuver, in order to destroy or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat. In the U. S. Marine Corps, the role of the infantry is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy fire and maneuver. Beginning with the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, artillery has become a dominant force on the battlefield. Since World War I, combat aircraft and armoured vehicles have become dominant. In 20th and 21st century warfare, infantry functions most effectively as part of a combined arms team including artillery, armour, Infantry relies on organized formations to be employed in battle. These have evolved over time, but remain a key element to effective infantry development and deployment, until the end of the 19th century, infantry units were for the most part employed in close formations up until contact with the enemy. This allowed commanders to control of the unit, especially while maneuvering. The development of guns and other weapons with increased firepower forced infantry units to disperse in order to make them less vulnerable to such weapons. This decentralization of command was made possible by improved communications equipment, among the various subtypes of infantry is Medium infantry. This refers to infantry which are heavily armed and armored than heavy infantry. In the early period, medium infantry were largely eliminated due to discontinued use of body armour up until the 20th century. In the United States Army, Stryker Infantry is considered Medium Infantry, since they are heavier than light infantry, Infantry doctrine is the concise expression of how infantry forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. It is a guide to action, not a set of hard, doctrine provides a very common frame of reference across the military forces, allowing the infantry to function cooperatively in what are now called combined arms operations. Doctrine helps standardise operations, facilitating readiness by establishing common ways of accomplishing infantry tasks, doctrine links theory, history, experimentation, and practice
Infantry
–
Early 20th-century infantry: The
Royal Irish Rifles at the
Battle of the Somme (July–November 1916) during the
First World War (1914–18).
Infantry
–
Janissaries are a very important example in the evolution of the modern infantry.
Infantry
–
20th-century infantry: Australian infantry at Tobruk, Libya, in 1941, during the Second World War (1939–45).
Infantry
–
19th-century infantry: Brigadier General
Winfield Scott leads American line infantry into the
Battle of Chippawa (5 July 1814) in Canada, during the Anglo–American
War of 1812 (1812–15).
21.
Nuclear warfare
–
Nuclear warfare is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on the enemy. In contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time-frame, some activists had claimed in the 1980s that with this potential nuclear winter side-effect of a nuclear war, almost every human on Earth could starve to death. So far, two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II, on August 6,1945, a uranium gun-type device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium device was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 120,000 people, in 1974, India, and in 1998, Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons. Israel and North Korea are also thought to have developed stocks of nuclear weapons, the Israeli government has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, although it is known to have constructed the reactor and reprocessing plant necessary for building nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over 2,000 occasions for testing purposes, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers was generally thought to have declined. Since then, concern over nuclear weapons has shifted to the prevention of localized nuclear conflicts resulting from nuclear proliferation, the possibility of using nuclear weapons in war is usually divided into two subgroups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments. The first, a nuclear war, refers to a small-scale use of nuclear weapons by two belligerents. This term could apply to any use of nuclear weapons that may involve military or civilian targets. The second, a nuclear war, could consist of large numbers of nuclear weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic. Such an attack would almost certainly destroy the economic, social, and military infrastructure of the target nation. Some Cold War strategists such as Henry Kissinger argued that a nuclear war could be possible between two heavily armed superpowers. Some predict, however, that a war could potentially escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. Even the most optimistic predictions of the effects of a nuclear exchange foresee the death of many millions of victims within a very short period of time. However, such predictions, assuming total war with nuclear arsenals at Cold War highs, have not been without criticism. The authors of the study estimated that as much as five tons of soot could be released, producing a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America. The cooling would last for years and could be catastrophic, according to the researchers, either a limited or full-scale nuclear exchange could occur during an accidental nuclear war, in which the use of nuclear weapons is triggered unintentionally
Nuclear warfare
–
Nuclear weapons
Nuclear warfare
–
The
Titan II Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carried a 9
Mt W53 warhead, one of the most powerful
nuclear weapons fielded by the
United States during the
Cold War.
Nuclear warfare
–
Mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion over Nagasaki rising 18,000 m (59,000 ft) into the air on the morning of August 9, 1945.
Nuclear warfare
–
Convair B-36 bomber
22.
Psychological warfare
–
The term is used to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people. Various techniques are used, and are aimed at influencing a target audiences value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. It is used to induce confessions or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originators objectives and it is also used to destroy the morale of enemies through tactics that aim to depress troops psychological states. Target audiences can be governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, civilians of foreign territories can also be targeted by technology and media so as to cause an effect in the government of their country. In Propaganda, The Formation of Mens Attitudes, Jacques Ellul discusses psychological warfare as a peace policy practice between nations as a form of indirect aggression. This type of propaganda drains the public opinion of a regime by stripping away its power on public opinion. This form of aggression is hard to defend against because no court of justice is capable of protecting against psychological aggression since it cannot be legally adjudicated. Here the propagandists is dealing with an adversary whose morale he seeks to destroy by psychological means so that the opponent begins to doubt the validity of his beliefs. Since prehistoric times, warlords and chiefs have recognised the importance of inducing psychological terror in opponents, facing armies would shout, hurl insults at each other and beat weapons together or on shields prior to an engagement, all designed to intimidate the enemy. Massacres and other atrocities were certainly first employed at this time to subdue enemy or rebellious populations or induce an enemy to abandon their struggle, alexander left some of his men behind in each conquered city to introduce Greek culture and oppress dissident views. His soldiers were paid dowries to marry locals in an effort to encourage assimilation, genghis Khan, leader of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century AD employed less subtle techniques. Defeating the will of the enemy before having to attack and reaching a settlement was preferable to actually fighting. The Mongol generals demanded submission to the Khan, and threatened the initially captured villages with complete destruction if they refused to surrender, if they had to fight to take the settlement, the Mongol generals fulfilled their threats and massacred the survivors. Tales of the encroaching horde spread to the villages and created an aura of insecurity that undermined the possibility of future resistance. The Khan also employed tactics that made his numbers seem greater than actually were. During night operations he ordered each soldier to light three torches at dusk to give the illusion of an army and deceive and intimidate enemy scouts. He also sometimes had objects tied to the tails of his horses, so that riding on open and his soldiers used arrows specially notched to whistle as they flew through the air, creating a terrifying noise. Another tactic favoured by the Mongols was catapulting severed human heads over city walls to frighten the inhabitants and this was especially used by the later Turko-Mongol chieftain
Psychological warfare
–
Mosaic of
Alexander the Great on his campaign against the
Persian Empire.
Psychological warfare
–
Lord Bryce led the
commission of 1915 to document German
atrocities committed against Belgian civilians.
Psychological warfare
–
A report from a German
secret agent about
Lenin 's arrival to
Petrograd in 1917. This event was actively arranged by the German government in a bid to destabilize Russia.
Psychological warfare
–
An example of a
World War II era leaflet meant to be dropped from an
American B-17 over a German city. See the
file description page for a translation.
23.
Unconventional warfare
–
Unconventional warfare is the opposite of conventional warfare. The general objective of unconventional warfare is to instill a belief that peace, two original definition are claiming, The intent of U. S. The ultimate goal of this type of warfare is to motivate an enemy to stop attacking or resisting even if it has the ability to continue, failing this, a secondary objective can be to debilitate the enemy before a conventional attack. Limited conventional warfare tactics can be used unconventionally to demonstrate might, in addition to the surgical application of traditional weapons, other armaments that specifically target military can be used are, nuclear weapons, incendiary devices, or other such weapons. Special Forces, inserted deep behind enemy lines, are used unconventionally to train, equip and they can also spread subversion and propaganda, while they aid native resistance fighters, to ultimately cause a hostile government to capitulate. Tactics focus on destroying military targets while avoiding damage to civilian infrastructure, guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism, 1940–1990 Pentagon plans cyber-insect army
Unconventional warfare
–
Unconventional warfare structure by guerilla organizations.
24.
Military tactics
–
Military tactics are the science and art of organizing a military force, and the techniques for combining and using weapons and military units to engage and defeat an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology have been reflected in changes to military tactics, in contemporary military science, tactics are the lowest of three planning levels, strategic, operational, and tactical. The highest level of planning is strategy, how force is translated into political objectives by bridging the means, the intermediate level, operational, the conversion of strategy into tactics, deals with formations of units. Military tactics answer the questions of how best to deploy and employ forces on a small scale, some practices have not changed since the dawn of warfare, assault, ambushes, skirmishing, turning flanks, reconnaissance, creating and using obstacles and defenses, etc. Using ground to best advantage has not changed much either, heights, rivers, swamps, passes, choke points, and natural cover, can all be used in multiple ways. Before the nineteenth century, many tactics were confined to battlefield concerns. Nowadays, specialized tactics exist for many situations, for example for securing a room in a building, technological changes can render existing tactics obsolete, and sociological changes can shift the goals and methods of warfare, requiring new tactics. Tactics define how soldiers are armed and trained, each – constrained by his weaponry, logistics and social conditioning – would use a battlefield differently, but would usually seek the same outcomes from their use of tactics. The First World War forced great changes in tactics as advances in technology rendered prior tactics useless, list of military tactics Combat arms Johnson, Rob, Michael Whitby, John France. How to win on the battlefield,25 key tactics to outwit, outflank, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Muhm, Gerhard. German Tactics in the Italian Campaign, Gerhard Muhm, La Tattica nella campagna ass d’Italia, in LINEA GOTICA AVAMPOSTO DEI BALCANI, Amedeo Montemaggi - Edizioni Civitas, Roma 1993. Contemporary Marine tactics for war fighting Napoleons tactics and strategy Small Unit Actions during German Campaign in Russia
Military tactics
–
German World War I observation post disguised as a tree.
25.
Air combat manoeuvring
–
Air combat manoeuvring is the tactical art of moving, turning and/or situating ones fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. Air combat manoeuvres rely on offensive and defensive basic fighter manoeuvring to gain an advantage over an aerial opponent, military aviation appeared in World War I where aircraft were initially used to spot enemy troop concentrations, field gun positions and movements. Early aerial combat consisted of shooting at one another with hand held weapons. The first recorded aircraft to be shot down by another aircraft, the pilot, Feldwebel Wilhelm Schlichting, was shot with a hand gun wielded by observer Louis Quenault, who was riding in a Voisin Type 3 piloted by French Sergeant Joseph Frantz. The need to stop reconnaissance that was being conducted by enemy aircraft rapidly led to the development of fighter planes, roland Garros, working with Morane Saulnier Aéroplanes, was the first to solve this problem by attaching steel deflector wedges to the propeller. He achieved three kills but was shot down by fire and landed behind German lines. As technology rapidly advanced, new and young aviators began defining the realm of combat, such as Max Immelmann, Oswald Boelcke. A flying man may be able to loop and do all the stunts imaginable and this type of combat became known as dogfighting. Oswald Boelcke, a German fighter ace during World War I, was the first to publish the rules for aerial combat manoeuvring in 1916. He advised pilots to attack from the direction of the sun, most of these rules are still as valuable today as they were a century ago. New, and additional types of manoeuvres have emerged, intending to break radar lock by minimizing the Doppler signature of ones own aircraft, or to exhaust the kinetic energy of an incoming missile. However, close fighting with infrared guided missiles and aircraft cannons still obeys the same general rules laid down in the skies over Europe in the early 20th century. The master rule is still the same, do not let your opponent get onto your six, close-range combat tactics vary considerably according to the type of aircraft being used and the number of aircraft involved. There are five things a pilot must remain aware of when contemplating aerial engagement, of which, getting sight of your opponent. In Southeast Asia, over 85% of all kills are attributed to the spotting and shooting the defender without ever being seen. Structural limitations of both the attacking and defending fighters must be taken into account, such as thrust-to-weight ratio, wing loading, variable limitations must also be considered, such as turn radius, turn rate, and the specific energy of the aircraft. Position of aircraft must quickly be assessed, including direction, angle off tail, also, the pilot must be aware of his wingman’s position, and maintain good communication. A pilot in combat attempts to conserve his aircraft’s energy through carefully timed and executed manoeuvres, a manoeuvre such as the low yo-yo trades altitude for airspeed to gain closure on an enemy, and to decrease turn radius
Air combat manoeuvring
–
Indian Air Force 's
Sukhoi Su-30MKIs during a
Thach Weave manoeuvre.
Air combat manoeuvring
–
A flight envelope diagram showing V S (Stall speed at 1G), V C (Corner speed) and V D (Dive speed)
26.
Battle
–
A battle is a combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. A war sometimes consists of many battles, Battles generally are well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles take place on a level of planning, German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that the employment of battles. To achieve the object of war was the essence of strategy, where the duration of the battle is longer than a week, it is often for reasons of staff operational planning called an operation. Battles can be planned, encountered, or forced by one force on the other when the latter is unable to withdraw from combat, a battle always has as its purpose the reaching of a mission goal by use of military force. However, a battle may end in a Pyrrhic victory, which favors the defeated party. If no resolution is reached in a battle, it can result in a stalemate, a conflict in which one side is unwilling to reach a decision by a direct battle using conventional warfare often becomes an insurgency. Until the 19th century the majority of battles were of short duration and this was mainly due to the difficulty of supplying armies in the field, or conducting night operations. The means of prolonging a battle was typically by employment of siege warfare, improvements in transportation and the sudden evolving of trench warfare, with its siege-like nature during World War I in the 20th century, lengthened the duration of battles to days and weeks. This created the requirement for unit rotation to prevent combat fatigue, trench warfare had become largely obsolete in conflicts between advanced armies by the start of the Second World War. The space a battle depends on the range of the weapons of the combatants. A battle in this sense may be of long duration and take place over a large area. Until the advent of artillery and aircraft, battles were fought with the two sides within sight, if not reach, of each other. Conversely, some of the Allied infantry who had just dealt a defeat to the French at the Battle of Waterloo fully expected to have to fight again the next day. Battlespace is a strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea. It includes the environment, factors and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force and this includes enemy and friendly armed forces, facilities, weather, terrain, and the electromagnetic spectrum within the operational areas and areas of interest. Battles are decided by various factors, the number and quality of combatants and equipment, the skill of the commanders of each army, and the terrain advantages are among the most prominent factors. A unit may charge with high morale but less discipline and still emerge victorious and this tactic was effectively used by the early French Revolutionary Armies
Battle
–
The
Battle of Poltava between Russia and Sweden, by
Denis Martens the Younger
Battle
–
Battle Scene-Detail from Deccan miniature painting. c. 19th century.
Battle
–
The
Battle of Scheveningen of 1653: episode from the
First Anglo-Dutch War.
Battle
–
Battle of Gibraltar of 1607 by
Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom.
27.
Cavalry tactics
–
For much of history, humans have used some form of cavalry for war and, as a result, cavalry tactics have evolved over time. Tactically, the advantages of cavalry over infantry troops were greater mobility, a larger impact. Before the invention of saddle and stirrups, which riders to reasonably maneuver on horseback. The chariots advantage of speed was outdone by the agility of riding on horseback, the ability of horsemen to pass more difficult terrain was also crucial to this change. In Celtic warfare, light chariots persisted among mounted troops, for their ability to heavily armoured warriors. At first it was not considered effective to use weapons on horseback, mounted infantry would ride to battle, and then dismount to fight. For a long time, riders and charioteers worked alongside each other in the cavalry, the first recorded instance of mounted warriors are the mounted archers of the Iranian tribes appearing in Assyrian records from the 9th century BC. Mongolian troops had a Buryat bow, for showering the enemy with arrows from a safe distance. The aim on horseback was better than in a jiggling chariot, nevertheless, an archer in a chariot could shoot potentially stronger infantry bows. Javelins were employed as a ranged weapon by many cavalries. They were easy to handle on horseback, two to ten javelins would be carried, depending on their weight. Thrown javelins have less range than composite bows, but often prevailed in use nevertheless, due to the mass of the weapon, there was a greater armour-piercing ability, and they thus caused fatal wounds more frequently. Usage is reported for both light and heavy cavalry, for example, by Numidia and the Mongols light cavalry and the heavy cataphracts, Celtic cavalry, the Celtic horsemens training was copied by the Roman equites. A significant element learned from the Celts was turning on horseback to throw javelins backwards, modern historical reenactors have shown that neither the stirrup nor the saddle are strictly necessary for the effective use of the couched lance, refuting a previously widely held belief. Free movement of the rider on horseback were highly esteemed for light cavalry to shoot and fight in all directions, andalusian light cavalry refused to employ them until the 12th century, nor were they used by the Baltic turcopoles of the Teutonic Order in the battle of Legnica. An example of combined arms and the efficiency of cavalry forces were the Medieval Mongols, important for their horse archery was the use of stirrups for the archer to stand while shooting. This new position enabled them to use larger and stronger cavalry bows than the enemy, armies of horse archers could cover enemy troops with arrows from a distance and never had to engage in close combat. Slower enemies without effective long range weapons often had no chance against them and it was in this manner that the cavalry of the Parthian Empire destroyed the troops of Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae
Cavalry tactics
–
A 13th-century
Mongol saddle cover
Cavalry tactics
–
Battle of La Higueruela (1431) between
John II of Castile and
Muhammed IX,
Nasrid Sultan of Granada
Cavalry tactics
–
Polish hussar formation at the
Battle of Klushino 1610 - painting by Szymon Boguszowicz 1620
Cavalry tactics
–
The death of King Gustavus II Adolphus on 16 November 1632, at the
Battle of Lützen
28.
Charge (warfare)
–
A charge is a maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic, modern charges usually involve small groups against individual positions instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line. It may be assumed that the charge was practised in prehistoric warfare, the tactics of the classical Greek phalanx included an ordered approach march, with a final charge to contact. Initially successful, it was countered by effective discipline and the development of defensive bayonet tactics, the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century led to the bayonet charge becoming the main infantry charge tactic through the 19th century and into the 20th. As early as the 19th century, tactical scholars were already noting that most bayonet charges did not result in close combat, instead, one side usually fled before actual bayonet fighting ensued. The act of fixing bayonets has been held to be connected to morale. The shock value of an attack has been especially exploited in cavalry tactics. However, when cavalry charges succeeded, it was due to the defending formation breaking up and scattering. It must be noted, though, that while it was not recommended for a charge to continue against unbroken infantry. The cavalry charge was a significant tactic in the Middle Ages and these developments began in the 7th century but were not combined to full effect until the 11th century. The Battle of Dyrrhachium was an instance of the familiar medieval cavalry charge. By the time of the First Crusade in the 1090s, the charge was being employed widely by European armies. It became increasingly common for knights to dismount and fight as heavy infantry. The use of cavalry for flanking manoeuvres became more useful, although interpretations of the knightly ideal often led to reckless. Cavalry could still charge dense heavy infantry formations head-on if the cavalrymen had a combination of certain traits, however, the majority of cavalry personnel lacked at least one of these traits, particularly discipline, formations, and horses trained for head-on charges. In the twentieth century, the charge was seldom used, though it enjoyed sporadic. In what was called the last true cavalry charge, elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States attacked Villista forces in the Battle of Guerrero on 29 March 1916. The battle was a victory for the Americans, occurring in desert terrain, at the Mexican town of Vicente Guerrero, Chihuahua
Charge (warfare)
–
Romanticized painting of
O'Higgins ' charge at the
Battle of Rancagua during the
Chilean War of Independence
Charge (warfare)
–
Infantry charge with the bayonet during the
Greco-Turkish War of 1897
Charge (warfare)
–
Charge of the Light Brigade, Painting by
Richard Caton Woodville
Charge (warfare)
–
Richard Caton Woodville,
Poniatowski 's Last Charge at
Leipzig
29.
Counterattack
–
A counterattack is a tactic employed in response to an attack, with the term originating in war games. The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, a saying, attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte illustrate the tactical importance of the counterattack, the greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory. Counter-offensive Battleplan United States Department of Defense, Dictionary of Military, published by, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo
Counterattack
–
Closing the
Falaise-Argentan Pocket and the Mortain counterattack 6–17 August 1944
30.
Counter-insurgency
–
According to the U. S. Insurgency is the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify or challenge political control of a region. As such, it is primarily a struggle, in which both sides use armed force to create space for their political, economic and influence activities to be effective. Counter-insurgency is normally conducted as a combination of military operations and other means, such as demoralization in the form of propaganda, psy-ops. Counter-insurgency operations include many different facets, military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, to understand counter-insurgency, one must understand insurgency to comprehend the dynamics of revolutionary warfare. Insurgents capitalize on societal problems, often called gaps, counter-insurgency addresses closing the gaps, when the gaps are wide, they create a sea of discontent, creating the environment in which the insurgent can operate. He defines this distinction as Maoist and post-Maoist insurgency, caldwell wrote, The law of armed conflict requires that, to use force, combatants must distinguish individuals presenting a threat from innocent civilians. This basic principle is accepted by all disciplined militaries, in the counterinsurgency, disciplined application of force is even more critical because our enemies camouflage themselves in the civilian population. The third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado is probably the earliest author who dealt systematically in his writings with counter-insurgency, strikingly, Santa Cruz recognized that insurgencies are usually due to real grievances, A state rarely rises up without the fault of its governors. Consequently, he advocated clemency towards the population and good governance, to seek the peoples heart, the majority of counter-insurgency efforts by major powers in the last century have been spectacularly unsuccessful. This may be attributed to a number of causes and he showed as a prime example the French occupation of Spain during the Napoleonic wars. Whenever Spanish forces managed to constitute themselves into a fighting force. However, once dispersed and decentralized, the nature of the rebel campaigns proved a decisive counter to French superiority on the battlefield. Counter-insurgency efforts may be successful, especially when the insurgents are unpopular, the Philippine–American War, the Shining Path in Peru, and the Malayan Emergency in Malaya have been the sites of failed insurgencies. Hart also points to the experiences of T. E. Lawrence, in both the preceding cases, the insurgents and rebel fighters were working in conjunction with or in a manner complementary to regular forces. Such was also the case with the French Resistance during World War II, the strategy in these cases is for the irregular combatant to weaken and destabilize the enemy to such a degree that victory is easy or assured for the regular forces. However, in many rebellions, one does not see rebel fighters working in conjunction with regular forces. Rather, they are home-grown militias or imported fighters who have no unified goals or objectives save to expel the occupier, according to Liddell Hart, there are few effective counter-measures to this strategy. So long as the insurgency maintains popular support, it will all of its strategic advantages of mobility, invisibility, and legitimacy in its own eyes
Counter-insurgency
–
Police question a civilian during the
Malayan Emergency. Counter-insurgency involves action from both military and police authorities.
Counter-insurgency
–
U.S. Marines and
ANA soldiers on patrol during counter-insurgency operations in
Marjah,
Afghanistan, February 2010
Counter-insurgency
–
A
strategic hamlet in
South Vietnam c.1964
Counter-insurgency
–
A
7th SFG Special Forces medic gives a young boy a coloring book during a meeting with village religious leaders to gain their support and obtain information, Afghanistan 2008
31.
Cover (military)
–
In military combat, the concept of cover refers to anything which is capable of physically protecting an individual from enemy fire. An example of cover vs. concealment would be sandbags vs. tall grass, cover may be a naturally occurring feature, such as a rock or a tree stump, or it may be a constructed feature, such as a foxhole or a trench. In some military services, a hat is sometimes referred to officially as a cover, as in Hey soldier. Or Youre not in uniform without your cover and it is a convention in the U. S. Army that an armed soldier must wear cover while indoors to indicate that they are under arms. Many first and third-person shooter video games encourage the player to utilize cover and this gameplay mechanic is often referred to as a cover system
Cover (military)
–
Two American soldiers in 1864 take cover. One flattens himself against the wall while the other crouches behind a barrel
32.
Defensive fighting position
–
A defensive fighting position is a type of earthwork constructed in a military context, generally large enough to accommodate anything from one man to a small number of soldiers. The Tobruk name may have derived from its initial conception or idea by Rommel in the Siege of Tobruk, a foxhole is one type of defensive strategic position. It is a pit used for cover, usually for one or two men, and so constructed that the occupants can effectively fire from it. It is known more commonly within United States Army slang as a position or as a ranger grave. It is known as a hole in the United States Marine Corps, a Gun-Pit in Australian Army terminology. In British and Canadian military argot it equates to a range of terms including slit trench, or fire trench, during the American Civil War the term rifle pit was recognized by both U. S. Army and Confederate Army forces. During the fighting in North Africa Specifically in Tobruk - Libya and this was a very shallow excavation allowing one man to lie horizontally while shielding his body from nearby shell bursts and small arms fire. The slit trench soon proved inadequate in this role, as the few inches of dirt above the body could often be penetrated by bullets or shell fragments. It also exposed the user to assault by tanks, which could crush the man inside a shallow slit trench by driving into it. After the Battle of Kasserine Pass, U. S. troops increasingly adopted the modern foxhole, the foxhole widened near the bottom to allow a soldier to crouch down while under intense artillery fire or tank attack. Foxholes could be enlarged to two-soldier fighting positions, as well as excavated with firing steps for crew-served weapons or sumps for water drainage or live enemy grenade disposal. The Germans used hardened fortifications in North Africa and later in other fortifications, such as the Atlantic Wall, the Germans knew them officially as Ringstände, the Allies called them Tobruks because they had first encountered the structures during the fighting in Africa. Frequently, the Germans put a turret from an obsolete French or German tank on the foxhole and this gave the Tobruk enhanced firepower and the gunner protection from shrapnel and small arms. Modern militaries publish and distribute elaborate field manuals for the construction of DFPs in stages. Initially, a shell scrape is dug, much like a very shallow grave. Each stage develops the fighting position, gradually increasing its effectiveness, in this way, a soldier can improve the position over time, while being able to stop at any time and use the position in a fight. The fire step usually slopes down into a narrow slit called a grenade sump at the bottom to allow for live grenades to be kicked in to minimize damage from grenade fragments. When possible, DFPs are revetted with corrugated iron, star pickets, ideally, the revetting will also be dug in below ground level so as to minimise damage from fire and tank tracks
Defensive fighting position
–
U.S. Marine in a fighting hole, July 1958, in
Lebanon
Defensive fighting position
–
An
Indian Wehrmacht volunteer in a Tobruk DFP along the
Atlantic Wall, 1944.
Defensive fighting position
–
Tobruk protecting the entrance to the bunker that now houses the Channel Islands Military Museum. This turret from a
Renault R35 was originally employed on a Tobruk at Saint Aubin's Fort, Jersey.
Defensive fighting position
–
German VK 3001H prototype turret mounted on "Tobruk" at Omaha Beach, June 1944
33.
Guerrilla warfare
–
The term, the diminutive form of war in Spanish, is usually translated as little war, and the word, guerrilla, has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero if male, the term guerrilla was used in English as early as 1809, to refer to the fighters, and also to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the style of warfare. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, guerrillas usually carries positive connotations, and is often used by such fighters themselves and by their sympathizers, while their foes in many cases call them terrorists. Making an objective definition of the difference between a guerrilla and a terrorist has proven a difficult task, the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are preferred targets. All of that is to weaken the strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe, however, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves, at least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War with providing instruction in such tactics to Mao. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare and this directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics were employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. Evidence of conventional warfare, on the hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt. Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, because of the innovative tactics he used during his command, he made himself the name of Terror Romanorum. A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency operation involves actions taken by the government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it. Counter-insurgency operations are common during war, occupation and armed rebellions, the two most influential of scholars of counter-insurgency have been Westerners whose job it had been to fight insurgents. Robert Thompson fought during the Malayan Emergency and David Galula fought during the Algerian War, together these officers advocated multi-pronged strategies to win over the civilian population to the side of the counter-insurgent. The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert of the Malayan Emergency, thompsons underlying assumption was that the counter-insurgent was committed to improving the rule of law and bettering local governance
Guerrilla warfare
–
Spanish guerrilla resistance to the French invasion in 1808
Guerrilla warfare
–
Boer guerrillas during the
Second Boer War in South Africa
Guerrilla warfare
–
Female Soviet partisans operating under
Sydir Kovpak in
German-occupied Ukraine
Guerrilla warfare
–
Mass shootings of
Vendée royalist rebels in western France, 1793
34.
Siege
–
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. This derives from sedere, Latin for to sit, Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is not uncommon, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy, a siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by direct assault and refuses to surrender. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease and this form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. During the process of circumvallation, the force can be set upon by another force of enemies due to the lengthy amount of time required to starve a position. During the Warring States era of ancient China, there is textual and archaeological evidence of prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of city walls. Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman world, during the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design of fortifications as from his artwork, Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of sieges. In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of more powerful cannon reduced the value of fortifications. In the 20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined, with the advent of mobile warfare, a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, the Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified, by about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus River floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets, mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun-dried bricks. City walls and fortifications were essential for the defence of the first cities in the ancient Near East, the walls were built of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials, depending on local availability. They may also have served the purpose of showing presumptive enemies the might of the kingdom. The great walls surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained a widespread reputation, the walls were 9.5 km in length, and up to 12 m in height. Later, the walls of Babylon, reinforced by towers, moats, in Anatolia, the Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities atop hillsides, taking advantage of the terrain. In Shang Dynasty China, at the site of Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had dimensions of 20 m in width at the base and enclosed an area of some 2,100 yards squared
Siege
–
Picture of the
siege of Rancagua during the
Chilean War of Independence
Siege
–
The Egyptian
siege of Dapur in the 13th century BC, from
Ramesseum,
Thebes
Siege
–
Depiction of various
siege machines in the mid-16th century.
Siege
–
Medieval
trebuchets could sling about two projectiles per hour at enemy positions.
35.
Swarming (military)
–
Military swarming is a battlefield tactic designed to overwhelm or saturate the defenses of the principal target or objective. On the other-hand, defenders can overcome attempts at swarming, by launching counter-swarming measures that are designed to neutralize or otherwise repel such attacks, Military swarming is often encountered in asymmetric warfare where opposing forces are not of the same size, or capacity. In such situations, swarming involves the use of a force against an opponent, in a manner that emphasizes mobility, communication, unit autonomy. In nature and nonmilitary situations, there are various forms of swarming. Biologically driven forms are often complex systems, but have no central planning, simple individual rules. Current military explorations into swarming address the spectrum of military operations, an expert group evaluated swarmings role in the revolution in military affairs or force transformation. They observed that military swarming is primarily tactical, sometimes operational and rarely strategic, swarming is a logical extension of network-centric warfare, but the networks needed to make swarming routine will be available around 2010-2011. At present, the networking for swarming is only available in specific contexts, enthusiasts of swarming sometimes apply it to situations that have superficial similarities, but really do not qualify as swarms. While swarms do converge on a target, not every military action, other conflicts, especially historical ones, fit a swarming paradigm, but the commanders involved did not use the concept. Nevertheless, historical examples help illustrate what modern analysts do and do not consider swarming, bactrian horse archers surrounded various Macedonian phalanxes, staying out of range of their melee weapons, and fired arrows until they had no more. The archers would then withdraw to a point, but another swarm of horse archers would sometimes replace them. The Bactrians eventually caused the phalanx to break formation, and destroyed it, Alexander recognized his forces could not directly combat horse archers, but that the horse archers needed resupply of provisions, horses, and arrows. Alexander split his forces into five columns and began building fortifications in the areas where the Bactrians had resupplied, eventually, his anti-swarm tactics worked, cut off from resupply, the Bactrians had to meet the Macedonian phalanx, which were vastly superior in melee. Alexander made it priority to engage guerillas or other mobile forces. Spitamenes was effective as long as his force were mobile, once he was forced into direct battle with heavy forces, he literally lost his head. At the Battle of the Jaxartes River, Alexander once again faced swarming tactics from an army of Scythian horse archers, Alexander sent a unit of heavy cavalry ahead of his main line. As expected, the Scythian horsemen surrounded the detached cavalry, at the right moment, Alexanders cavalry reversed direction and pushed half of the Scythians straight into the main phalanx of Alexanders army, where they were slaughtered. Upon seeing this, the half of the Scythian army retreated from the battle
Swarming (military)
–
Chinese soldiers swarm a UN-held position during the decisive
Battle of the Cheongcheon River in
Korean War.
Swarming (military)
–
Biological swarming
36.
Trench warfare
–
The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire, mines, the area between opposing trench lines was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties, with the development of armoured warfare, emphasis on trench warfare has declined, but still occurs where battle-lines become static. Field works are as old as armies, Roman legions, when in the presence of an enemy, entrenched camps nightly when on the move. In the early modern era they were used to block possible lines of advance and they played a pivotal role in manoeuvring that took place before the Battle of Blenheim. The lines were captured by the French in 1707 and demolished, the French built the 19-kilometre-long Lines of Weissenburg during the War of the Spanish Succession under the orders of the Duke of Villars in 1706. These were to remain in existence for just over 100 years and were last manned during Napoleons Hundred Days, the French built the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra during the winter of 1710–1711, which have been compared to the trenches of World War I. They ran from Arras to Cambrai and Valenciennes where they linked up with existing defensive lines fronted by the river Sambre and they were breached in the 1711 campaign season by the Duke of Marlborough through a magnificent piece of manoeuvring. During the Peninsular War, the British and Portuguese constructed the Lines of Torres Vedras in 1809 and 1810, nor were fortifications restricted to European powers. British casualty rates of up to 45 percent, such as at the Battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, proved contemporary firepower was insufficient to dislodge defenders from a trench system. Fundamentally, as the range and rate of fire of rifled small arms increased and this was only made more lethal by the introduction of rapid-firing artillery, exemplified by the French 75, and high explosive fragmentation rounds. The increases in firepower had outstripped the ability of infantry to cover the ground between firing lines, and the ability of armour to withstand fire and it would take a revolution in mobility to change that. Trench warfare is associated with the First World War of 1914–18. Both sides concentrated on breaking up attacks and on protecting their own troops by digging deep into the ground. Trench warfare was conducted on other fronts, including Italy. Trench warfare has become a symbol of the futility of war. To the French, the equivalent is the attrition of the Battle of Verdun in which the French Army suffered 380,000 casualties, Trench warfare is associated with mass slaughter in appalling conditions
Trench warfare
–
Lines of Torres Vedras
Trench warfare
–
Trenches at the
Siege of Vicksburg 1863
Trench warfare
–
The
Boer trench at the
Battle of Magersfontein contributed to the surprise defeat of the Highland Brigade on 11 December 1899 during the
Second Boer War.
Trench warfare
–
German forward detachments guarding the entrance to a trench line in front of
Arras in 1915
37.
Blitzkrieg
–
During the Invasion of Poland, Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe this form of armoured warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in a German military periodical Deutsche Wehr, German manoeuvre operations were successful in the campaigns of 1939–1941 and by 1940 the term blitzkrieg was extensively used in Western media. Blitzkrieg operations capitalized on surprise penetrations, general enemy unreadiness and their inability to match the pace of the German attack, during the Battle of France, the French made attempts to re-form defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on. Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II, some senior officers, including Kurt Student, Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg, even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation. Student described it as ideas that emerged from the existing circumstances as a response to operational challenges. The Wehrmacht never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine, modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of manoeuvre warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation. According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern manoeuvre warfare on the operational level. The traditional meaning of blitzkrieg is that of German tactical and operational methodology in the first half of the Second World War, that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning lightning war, in its strategic sense describes a series of quick, the devices were largely removed when the enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940 and instead bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using Fifth columnists to spread rumours, the origin of the term blitzkrieg is obscure. It was never used in the title of a doctrine or handbook of the German army or air force. Both used the term to mean a swift strategic knock-out, rather than a new military doctrine or approach to war. The first article deals primarily with supplies of food and materiel in wartime, the term blitzkrieg is used with reference to German efforts to win a quick victory in the First World War but is not associated with the use of armoured, mechanised or air forces. It argued that Germany must develop self-sufficiency in food, because it might again prove impossible to deal a swift knock-out to its enemies, the author vaguely suggests that a massive strategic air attack might hold out better prospects but the topic is not explored in detail. Sternberg wrote that Germany was not prepared economically for a long war and he did not go into detail about tactics or suggest that the German armed forces had evolved a radically new operational method. His book offers scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won, in English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s. It was later applied to the bombing of Britain, particularly London, the German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the fall of France in 1940, hence although the word had been used in German, it was first popularized by British journalism
Blitzkrieg
–
The classic characteristic of what is commonly known as " blitzkrieg " is a highly mobile form of infantry and armour, working in
combined arms.(German armed forces, June 1942)
Blitzkrieg
–
Ju 87 Bs over Poland, September/October 1939
Blitzkrieg
–
British armoured car and motorcycle at the
Battle of Megiddo (1918).
Blitzkrieg
–
Heinz Guderian
38.
Deep operation
–
The concept of deep operations was a national strategy, tailored to the economic, cultural and geopolitical position of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of several failures or defeats in the Russo-Japanese War, First World War and Polish–Soviet War and this new approach considered military strategy and tactics, but also introduced a new intermediate level of military art, operations. The Soviet Union was one of the first countries to officially distinguish the level of military thinking which occupied the position between strategy and tactics. Using these templates, the Soviets developed the concept of deep battle, Deep operations had two phases, the tactical deep battle, followed by the exploitation of tactical success, known as the conduct of deep battle operations. The goal of an operation was to inflict a decisive strategic defeat on the enemys logistical abilities and render the defence of their front more difficult, impossible—or, indeed. Unlike most other doctrines, deep battle stressed combined arms cooperation at all levels, strategic, operational, Russian military thinking had changed little over the course of three centuries prior to the 1920s. The Russian Empire had kept pace with its enemies and allies, after the Russian Revolution, the new Bolshevik regime sought to create an entirely new military system that reflected the Bolshevik revolutionary spirit. The new Red Army combined the old and new methods, once this had been achieved, the Soviets turned their attention to solving the problem of military operational mobility. Primary advocates of this development included Alexander Andreyevich Svechin, Mikhail Frunze and they promoted the development of military scientific societies and they identified groups of talented officers. Many of these entered the Soviet Military Academy during Tukhachevskys tenure as its commandant in 1921–1922. Others came later, including particularly Nikolai Efimovich Varfolomeev and Vladimir Triandafillov, in the aftermath of the wars with Japan and Poland several senior Soviet Commanders called for a unified military doctrine. The most prominent was Mikhail Frunze, the call prompted opposition by Leon Trotsky. Frunze position eventually found favour with the elements that had experienced the poor command. This turn of events prompted Trotskys replacement by Frunze in January 1925, the nature of this new doctrine was to be political. The Soviets were to fuse the military with the Bolshevik ideal and this would define the nature of war for the Soviet Union. The Soviets believed their most likely enemy would be the capitalist states of the west they had to defend themselves against before and that such a conflict was unavoidable. The nature of war raised four major questions, Would the next war be won in one decisive campaign or would it be a long struggle of attrition. Should the Red Army be primarily offensive or defensive, would the nature of battle be fluid or static
Deep operation
–
Mikhail Frunze
Deep operation
–
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Deep operation
–
Vladimir Triandafillov
39.
Maneuver warfare
–
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy that advocates attempting to defeat the enemy by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption. Methods of war stand on a continuum between maneuver warfare and attrition warfare, the focus on achieving victory through killing or capturing the enemy, Maneuver warfare advocates recognize that all warfare involves both maneuver and attrition. Maneuver warfare concepts have historically been stressed by militaries that are smaller, more cohesive, the idea of using rapid movement to keep an enemy off balance is as old as war itself. However, changing technology, such as the development of cavalry and mechanized vehicles, has led to increased interest in the concepts of maneuver warfare, Military orthodoxy believes that with some exceptions, most battles between established armies have historically been fought based on an attrition warfare strategy. Closer examination, however, reveals that the view is not universally held, attrition warfare tends to use rigidly centralized command structures that require little or no creativity or initiative from lower-level leadership. Maneuver warfare doctrine sees styles of warfare as a spectrum with attrition warfare, in attrition warfare, the enemy is seen as a collection of targets to be found and destroyed. Attrition warfare exploits maneuver to bring to bear firepower to destroy enemy forces, Maneuver warfare, on the other hand, exploits firepower and attrition on key elements of opposing forces. Instead, in warfare, the destruction of certain enemy targets is combined with isolation of enemy forces. Bypassing and cutting off enemy strongpoints often results in the collapse of that strongpoint even where the damage is minimal. Firepower, which is used primarily to destroy as many forces as possible in attrition warfare, is used to suppress or destroy enemy positions at breakthrough points during maneuver warfare. Infiltration tactics by conventional or special forces may be used extensively to cause chaos, Leonhard summarizes maneuver warfare theory as preempt, dislocate, and disrupt the enemy as alternatives to destruction of enemy mass through attrition warfare. Clarification of the Clausewitzian center of gravity concept in maneuver warfare terms suggests the question, is a COG the source of strength or the critical vulnerability. The issue can be resolved using the game of chess as a model, is the Queen or the King the opposing players COG, once the opposing players King is knocked off, it does not matter how many other chess pieces are taken. Since tempo and initiative are so critical to the success of maneuver warfare, command structures tend to be more decentralized, with more tactical freedom given to lower-level unit leaders. The decentralized command structure allows on the unit leaders, while still working within the guidelines of commanders overall vision. War theorist Martin van Creveld identifies six main elements of warfare, Tempo. Schwerpunkt, the center of effort, or striking the enemy at the place at the right time. According to van Creveld, ideally, a spot that is vital and weakly defended
Maneuver warfare
–
JGSDF soldiers rush out of their LAV to counter an ambush.
40.
Military strategy
–
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the art of the general. Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, the father of Western modern strategic studies, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as the employment of battles to gain the end of war. B. H. Liddell Harts definition put less emphasis on battles, hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals. Sun Tzu is often considered as the father of Eastern military strategy and greatly influenced Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese historical, the Art of War by Sun Tzu grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society as well. It continues to influence many competitive endeavors in Asia, Europe, and America including culture, politics, the Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception. Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries, Strategy, which is a subdiscipline of warfare and of foreign policy, is a principal tool to secure national interests. NATOs definition of strategy is presenting the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve national objectives or those of a group of nations. Strategy may be divided into Grand Strategy, geopolitical in scope and military strategy that converts the geopolitical policy objectives into militarily achievable goals and campaigns. Field-Marshal Montgomery summed it up thus Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, tactics means the dispositions for, and control of, military forces and techniques in actual fighting. Put more shortly, strategy is the art of the conduct of war, carnot, during the French Revolutionary Wars thought it simply involved concentration of troops. Strategy and tactics are closely related and exist on the same continuum, originally strategy was understood to govern the prelude to a battle while tactics controlled its execution. However, in the wars of the 20th century, the distinction between maneuver and battle, strategy and tactics, expanded with the capacity of technology and transit. Tactics that were once the province of a company of cavalry would be applied to a panzer army and it is often said that the art of strategies defines the goals to achieve in a military campaign, while tactics defines the methods to achieve these goals. Strategic goals could be We want to conquer area X, or We want to stop country Ys expansion in trade in commodity Z. Were going to do this by an invasion of the North of country X, Were going to blockade the ports of country Y. In its purest form, strategy dealt solely with military issues, in earlier societies, a king or political leader was often the same person as the military leader. If not, the distance of communication between the political and the leader was small
Military strategy
–
Fortifications have been of great importance to military strategy. Shown here is the
Chittorgarh Fort in
Rajasthan,
India.
Military strategy
–
Military stratagem in the Maneuver against the Romans by
Cimbri and Teutons circa 100 B.C.
Military strategy
–
19th century musketeers from Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford, 18 June 1815
41.
Attrition warfare
–
Attrition warfare is a military strategy consisting of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and materiel. The war will usually be won by the side with such resources. The word attrition comes from the Latin root atterere to rub against, military theorists and strategists have viewed attrition warfare as something to be avoided. On the other hand, a side that perceives itself to be at a disadvantage in manoeuvre warfare or unit tactics may deliberately seek out attrition warfare to neutralize its opponents advantages. If the sides are evenly matched, the outcome of a war of attrition is likely to be a Pyrrhic victory. The difference between war of attrition and other forms of war is somewhat artificial since war always contains an element of attrition. That should be seen as opposed to other goals such as the conquest of some resource or territory or an attempt to cause the enemy great losses in a single stroke. Historically, attritional methods are tried only as a last resort, typically, when attritional methods have worn down the enemy sufficiently to make other methods feasible, attritional methods are abandoned in favor of other strategies. In World War I, improvements in firepower but not communications and mobility forced military commanders to rely on attrition, attritional methods are in themselves usually sufficient to cause a nation to give up a nonvital ambition, but other methods are generally necessary to achieve unconditional surrender. It is often argued that the example of attrition warfare was on the Western Front during World War I. Both military forces found themselves in static positions in trenches running from Switzerland to the English Channel. For years, without any opportunity for manoeuvres, the way the commanders thought that they could defeat the enemy was to repeatedly attack head on. One of the most enduring examples of attrition warfare on the Western Front is the Battle of Verdun, erich von Falkenhayn later claimed that his tactics at Verdun were designed not to take the city but rather to destroy the French Army in its defense. Falkenhayn is described as wanting to bleed France white and thus the attrition tactics were employed in the battle, attritional warfare in World War I has been shown by historians such as Hew Strachan to have been used as a post hoc ergo propter hoc excuse for failed offensives. Contemporary sources disagree with Strachans view on this, while the Christmas Memorandum is a post-war invention, the strategy of Bleeding France white was the original strategy for the battle. Attrition to the enemy was easy to assert and difficult to refute and that is not to say that a general will not be prepared to sustain high casualties while trying to reach an objective. The delaying tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus against Hannibal Barca during the Second Punic War, the Israeli–Egyptian War of Attrition from 1967–1970. The Soviet war in Afghanistan The later phases of the Iran–Iraq War The War in Afghanistan The Sri Lankan Civil War after 2005 The 2011 Libyan civil war is arguably an example of attrition warfare, the Syrian Civil War, in particular the Battle of Aleppo
Attrition warfare
–
French troopers using
periscope, 1915
42.
Military deception
–
Military deception refers to attempts to mislead enemy forces during warfare. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial fog of war via psychological operations, information warfare, visual deception, as a form of strategic use of information, it overlaps with psychological warfare. To the degree that any enemy that falls for the deception will lose confidence when it is revealed, deception in warfare dates back to early history. The Art of War, an ancient Chinese military treatise, puts emphasis on the tactic. In modern times military deception has developed as a fully fledged doctrine, misinformation and visual deception were employed during World War I and came into even greater prominence during World War II. In the buildup to the 1944 invasion of Normandy the Allies executed one of the largest deceptions in military history, Operation Bodyguard, broadly, military deception may take both strategic and tactical forms. Deception across a battlefield was uncommon until the modern age. In a practical sense military deception employs visual misdirection, misinformation, the use of military camouflage, especially on a large scale, is a form of deception. The Russian loanword maskirovka is used to describe the Soviet Union and Russias military doctrine of surprise through deception, fictional units Creating entirely fictional forces or exaggerating the size of an army. Smoke screen A tactical deception involving smoke, fog, or other forms of concealment to hide battlefield movements, Trojan horse Gaining admittance to a fortified area under false pretences, to later admit a larger attacking force. Strategic envelopment A small force distracts the enemy while a larger force moves to attack from the rear. Deception has been a part of warfare from the dawn of history, at first it fell to individual commanders to develop tactical deception on the battlefield. It was not until the era that deception was organised at a high strategic level. Early examples of military deception exist in the ancient dynasties of Egypt and China, hannibal, widely recognised as one of the finest military commanders in history, made extensive use of deception in his campaigns. The Ancient Greeks were noted for several forms of tactical deception and they certainly invented smoke screens during the Peloponnesian War and later stories refer to the famous Trojan horse which allowed them to defeat Troy. In his 52 BC conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar successfully used tactical deception to achieve a crossing of the Allier river and his opponent, Vercingetorix, shadowed Caesars force from the opposite bank, contesting any attempted crossing. Caesar camped overnight in a wood, when departing the day he left a third of his force behind. Once the coast was clear, the hidden forces rebuilt a smashed crossing, one volume of Roman aristocrat Frontinuss Stratagems, written in the first century AD, deals entirely with deception
Military deception
–
Dummy airbase and aircraft
Military deception
–
Dummy
Long Tom artillery position deployed during the
Second Boer War
Military deception
–
World War 1 Australian troops carrying a dummy
Mark IV tank, intended to deceive German forces during the following day's assault on part of the
Hindenburg Line (September 1918)
43.
Containment
–
Containment is a geopolitical strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy. It is best known as the Cold War policy of the United States, a component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to increase communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. Containment represented a middle-ground position between detente and rollback, the basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U. S. diplomat George F. Kennan during the post-World War II administration of U. S. President Harry Truman. As a description of U. S. foreign policy, the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to U. S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, a report that was later used in a magazine article. It is a translation of the French cordon sanitaire, used to describe Western policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1920s, although the term containment was first used for the strategy in the 1940s, there were major historical precedents familiar to Americans and Europeans. In the 1850s anti-slavery forces in the United States developed a containment strategy for stopping the expansion of slavery, following the 1917 communist revolution in Russia, there were calls by Western leaders to isolate the Bolshevik government, which seemed intent on promoting worldwide revolution. In March 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau called for a cordon sanitaire, or ring of non-communist states, translating this phrase, U. S. President Woodrow Wilson called for a quarantine. Both phrases compare communism to a contagious disease, the U. S. initially refused to recognize the Soviet Union, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt reversed the policy in 1933, hoping to expand American export markets. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was an attempt to contain Nazi expansion in Europe, the U. S. tried to contain Japanese expansion in Asia in 1937-41, and Japan reacted with its attack on Pearl Harbor. After Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 during World War II, the U. S. the policy was rollback, to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan. Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close, harriman would later have a significant influence in forming Trumans views on the Soviet Union. In February 1946, the U. S. State Department asked George F. Kennan, then at the U. S. Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Kennans cable was hailed in the State Department as the appreciation of the situation that had long been needed, six months later, it would probably have sounded redundant. Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced a report elaborating on the Long Telegram and this report, which recommended restraining and confining Soviet influence, was presented to Truman on September 24,1946. In January 1947, Kennan drafted an essay entitled The Sources of Soviet Conduct, Kennan later turned against the containment policy and noted several deficiencies in his X Article. He later said that by containment he meant not the containment of Soviet Power by military means of a military threat, but the political containment of a political threat. After Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1946 elections, President Truman, in March 1947, he requested that Congress appropriate $400 million in aid to the Greek and Turkish governments, then fighting Communist subversion. Truman pledged to, support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures and this pledge became known as the Truman Doctrine
Containment
–
A 1962
nuclear explosion as seen through the periscope of a U.S. Navy submarine. The goal was to contain Communist expansion without a nuclear war.
44.
Military science
–
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing military capability in a consistent with national defense policy. Military scientists include theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, Military personnel obtain weapons, equipment and training to achieve specific strategic goals. Military science is used to establish enemy capability as part of technical intelligence. In military education, military science is often the name of the department in the institution that administers officer candidate education. In part this was due to the mystique that accompanied education in a World where as late as the 1880s 75% of the European population was illiterate. He suggested that this was primarily so because as Clausewitz suggested, unlike in any science or art. Few were bloodier than the fields of the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, fascinatingly the man who probably understood Clausewitz better than most, Marshal Foch would initially participate in events that nearly destroyed the French Army. It is not however true to say that military theorists and commanders were suffering from some collective case of stupidity, quite the opposite is true. Because only the offensive could bring victory, lack of it, Foch thought that In strategy as well as in tactics one attacks. In many ways military science was born as a result of the experiences of the Great War, Military implements had changed armies beyond recognition with cavalry to virtually disappear in the next 20 years. Tactics changed too, with infantry for the first time segregated from the horse-mounted troops, perception of military discipline too had changed. Currently military science still means many things to different organisations, in the United Kingdom and much of the European Union the approach is to relate it closely to the civilian application and understanding. In Europe, for example Belgiums Royal Military Academy, military remains a academic discipline. The United States Department of Defense defines military science in terms of systems and operational requirements. Develops optimal methods for the administration and organization of military units, in addition, this area studies other associated aspects as mobilization/demobilization, and military government for areas recently conquered from enemy control. Force structuring is the method by which personnel and the weapons and equipment they use are organized and trained for military operations, force structuring applies to all Armed Services, but not to their supporting organisations such as those used for defence science research activities. Force structuring also provides information on the mission and capabilities of units, as well as the units current status in terms of posture
Military science
45.
Philosophy of war
–
The philosophy of war is the area of philosophy devoted to examining issues such as the causes of war, the relationship between war and human nature, and the ethics of war. Certain aspects of the philosophy of war overlap with the philosophy of history, political philosophy, perhaps the greatest and most influential work in the philosophy of war is On War by Carl von Clausewitz. It combines observations on strategy with questions about nature and the purpose of war. Clausewitz especially examines the teleology of war, whether war is a means to an end outside itself or whether it can be an end in itself. He concludes that the latter cannot be so, and that war is politics by different means and it must serve some purpose for the state. Leo Tolstoys novel War and Peace contains frequent philosophical digressions on the philosophy of war and it was influential on later thought about war. Tolstoys Christian-centered philosophy of war was an influence on Gandhis Hinduism-centered non-violent resistance philosophy. However, discernible traditions of thought on war have developed over time and these are not the only possible teleological philosophies of war, but only three of the most common. Tolstoys view may be placed under the subcategory of global cataclysmic philosophy of war, there are two subsets of this view, the Messianic and the Global theory. The messianic eschatological philosophy is derived from the Jewish-Christian concept of a Messiah, crusades, Jihads, the Nazi concept of a Master Race and the 19th century American concept of Manifest Destiny may also fall under this heading. The Political school of thought, of which Clausewitz was a proponent, on page 13 Rapoport says, Clausewitz views war as a rational instrument of national policy. The three words rational, instrument and national are the key concepts of his paradigm, in this view, the decision to wage war ought to be rational, in the sense that it ought to be based on estimated costs and gains of war. He later characterizes the philosophy behind the Vietnam War and other Cold War conflicts as Neo-Clausewitzian, Rapoport also includes Machiavelli as an early example of the political philosophy of war. Decades after his essay, the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War begun by the United States under President George W, another possible system for categorizing different schools of thought on war can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, based on ethics. The SEP describes three major divisions in the ethics of war, the Realist, the Pacifist, and the Just War Theory, hence, a states purposes in war is simply to preserve its national interest. This kind of thinking is similar to Machiavellis philosophy, and Thucydides and Hobbes may also fall under this category, pacifism however, maintains that a moral evaluation of war is possible, and that war is always found to be immoral. Henry Ford and others were famous advocates of pacifistic diplomatic methods instead of war, nonviolence also holds that a moral evaluation of war is a duty, and that war is always found to be immoral. Gandhi said he disliked more cowardice than violence, Just War Theory, along with pacifism, holds that morals do apply to war
Philosophy of war
–
Carl von Clausewitz, painting by
Karl Wilhelm Wach.
46.
Total war
–
In the mid-19th century, scholars identified total war as a separate class of warfare. One can trace back the phrase to the publication in 1935 of the World War I memoir of German General Erich Ludendorff, Der totale Krieg. Some authors extend the back as far as classic work of Carl von Clausewitz, On War, as absoluter Krieg, however. Total war also describes the French guerre à outrance during the Franco-Prussian War, United States Air Force General Curtis LeMay updated the concept for the nuclear age. In 1949, he first proposed that a war in the nuclear age would consist of delivering the entire nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow. Utilizing every means available to ones enemy and any of their interests is an obvious strategy. Although cities had been sacked before, the nature and scale of these campaigns stand out. During the Middle Ages, destruction under the Mongol Empire in the 13th century effectively exemplified total war, both sides directed their actions not solely against warrior-combatants but against the people as a whole. Indeed, the taking of a scalp of a woman or child was considered honorable because it signified that the taker had dared to enter the very heart of the enemys territory. The French Revolutionary Wars introduced some of the first concepts of total war, the fledgling republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition of European nations. The only solution, in the eyes of the Jacobin government, was to pour the entire nations resources into an unprecedented war effort—this was the advent of the en masse. The following decree of the National Convention on August 23,1793 demonstrates the immensity of the French war effort, the wars merged into the Napoleonic Wars of the First French Empire from ca. In the Russian campaign of 1812 the Russians resorted to destroying infrastructure and agriculture in their retreat in order to hamper the French, the Taiping Rebellion was one of the deadliest wars in history. About 20 million people died, many due to disease and famine and it followed the secession of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from the Qing Empire. Almost every citizen of the Heavenly Kingdom was given military training, during the American Civil War, Union Army General Philip Sheridans stripping of the Shenandoah Valley, beginning on September 21,1864 and continuing for two weeks, was considered total war. Its purpose was to eliminate food and supplies vital to the Souths military operations, sheridan took the opportunity when he realized opposing forces had become too weak to resist his army. Union Army General William Tecumseh Shermans March to the Sea in November and December 1864 destroyed the resources required for the South to make war, General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln initially opposed the plan until Sherman convinced them of its necessity. Scholars taking issue with the notion that Sherman was employing total war include Noah Andre Trudeau, Trudeau believes that Shermans goals and methods do not meet the definition of total war and to suggest as much is to misread Shermans intentions and to misunderstand the results of what happened
Total war
–
The drownings at
Savenay during the
War in the Vendée, 1793
Total war
–
Napoleon 's retreat from Russia in 1812. Napoleon's
Grande Armée had lost about half a million men.
Total war
–
A scene of the Taiping Rebellion
Total war
–
Damage and destruction of civilian buildings in Belgium, 1914
47.
Military organization
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Military organization or military organisation is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defense policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in an armed forces. Armed forces that are not a part of military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces, often mimic military organizations, the use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. These in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command combat, combat support and combat support formations. Within each departmental agency will be found administrative branches responsible for further agency business specialization work, in most countries the armed forces are divided into three or four Armed services, army, navy, and air force. Many countries have a variation on the model of three or four basic Armed Services. Some nations also organize their marines, special forces or strategic missile forces as independent armed services, a nations coast guard may also be an independent military branch of its military, although in many nations the coast guard is a law enforcement or civil agency. A number of countries have no navy, for geographical reasons, most smaller countries have a single organization that encompasses all armed forces employed by the country in question. Third-world armies tend to consist primarily of infantry, while first-world armies tend to have larger units manning expensive equipment and it is worthwhile to make mention of the term joint. In western militaries, a joint force is defined as a unit or formation comprising representation of power from two or more branches of the military. It is common, at least in the European and North American militaries, to refer to the blocks of a military as commands, formations. In a military context, a command is a collection of units and it is not uncommon for a nations services to each consist of their own command, but this does not preclude the existence of commands which are not service-based. A formation is defined by the US Department of Defense as two or more aircraft, ships, or units proceeding together under a commander. The formations only differ in their ability to achieve different scales of application of force to achieve different strategic, operational and tactical goals and it is a composite military organization that includes a mixture of integrated and operationally attached sub-units, and is usually combat-capable. Example of formations include, divisions, brigades, battalions, wings, formation may also refer to tactical formation, the physical arrangement or disposition of troops and weapons. Examples of formation in such usage include, pakfront, panzerkeil, testudo formation, any unit subordinate to another unit is considered its sub-unit or minor unit. It is not uncommon for unit and formation to be used synonymously in the United States, in Commonwealth practice, formation is not used for smaller organizations like battalions which are instead called units, and their constituent platoons or companies are referred to as sub-units. In the Commonwealth, formations are divisions, brigades, etc, different armed forces, and even different branches of service of the armed forces, may use the same name to denote different types of organizations
Military organization
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A mixed aircraft and ship formation of military vehicles during an exercise with
USN and
JASDF vehicles.
Military organization
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In Japan, Lieutenant General J. Northcott CB MVO, Commander In Chief,
British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), inspects the guard of honour at HQ 9th New Zealand Infantry Brigade; April 17th 1946.
Military organization
48.
Command and control
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Command generally refers to the ability to dominate an area of situation. There are several definitions of command and control, according to older versions of U. S. The term may refer to command and control systems within a military system. The 1988 NATO definition reads, Command and control is the exercise of authority, Canadian defence scientists Ross Pigeau and Carol McCann discuss the issues and uncertainties related to the definition of command & control in their article in the Canadian Military Journal. The book by Vassiliou et al, the US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Defines command and control as, The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission, however, this sentence is missing from the command and control entry for the edition As Amended Through 15 August 2014. Commanding officers are assisted in executing these tasks by specialized staff officers and these military staff are a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units. The purpose of a staff is mainly that of providing accurate. The key application is that of decisions that effectively manage unit resources, while information flow toward the commander is a priority, information that is useful or contingent in nature is communicated to lower staffs and units. This term is also in use within the computer security industry. Here the term refers to the influence an attacker has over a computer system that they control. For example, a usage of the term is to say that attackers use command and control infrastructure to issue command. Advanced analysis of command and control methodologies can be used to identify attackers, associate attacks, there are a plethora of derivative terms which emphasise different aspects, uses and sub-domains of C2. These terms come with a plethora of associated abbreviations – for example, in addition to C2, command and control is often abbreviated as C2. Command, The exercise of authority based upon certain knowledge to attain an objective, control, The process of verifying and correcting activity such that the objective or goal of command is accomplished. Communication, Ability to exercise the necessary liaison to exercise effective command between tactical or strategic units to command, computers, The computer systems and compatibility of computer systems. Intelligence, Includes collection as well as analysis and distribution of information, Command and control centers are operated by a government or municipal agency. Various branches of the US military such as the US Coast Guard and Navy have command and they are also common in many large correctional facilities
Command and control
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美軍C4ISR海報
49.
Military education and training
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Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles. Military education can be voluntary or compulsory duty, before any person gets authorization to operate technical equipment or be on the battlefield, they must take a medical and often a physical examination. If passed, they may begin primary training, the primary training is recruit training. Recruit training attempts to teach the basic information and training in techniques necessary to be a service member. To achieve this, service members are drilled physically, technically and psychologically, the drill instructor has the task of making the service members fit for military use. After finishing basic training, many service members undergo advanced training more in line with their chosen or assigned specialties, in advanced training, military technology and equipment is often taught. Many large countries have several military academies, one for branch of the service. However, academy graduates usually rank as officers, and as such have many options besides civilian work in their major subject, higher-ranking officers also have further educational opportunities. Resocialization is an important aspect of inducting a civilian into a military, resocialization as a sociological concept deals with the process of mentally and emotionally re-training a person so they can operate in an environment other than what they are accustomed to. Successful resocialization into a total institution involves changes to an individuals personality, key examples include the process of resocializing new recruits into the military so that they can operate as soldiers – or, in other words, as members of a cohesive unit. Another example is the process, in which those who have become accustomed to such roles return to society after military discharge. Resocialization from the life of a soldier to a civilian member of society often involves difficulties because of soldiers have seen. In the transition from civilian to soldier, the individual is trained to follow the command of his superiors. In some cases commands would go against certain natural aversions of the based on ones moral and ethical principles. While leaders effectively train their soldiers to accomplish the goal of battle preparedness, the evident psychological problems in post-combat situations may pose a threat to public safety because of the conditioning of individuals who might be made unstable because of their actions
Military education and training
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5 Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force) of
Indian Army training with
82nd Airborne Division of
United States Army.
Military education and training
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Filipino soldiers during a training exercise.
Military education and training
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The
French Foreign Legion training in
France.
50.
Military engineering
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Military engineering is loosely defined as the art and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and communications. Military engineers are responsible for logistics behind military tactics. Modern military engineering differs from civil engineering, in the 20th and 21st centuries, military engineering also includes other engineering disciplines such as mechanical and electrical engineering techniques. According to NATO, military engineering is that engineer activity undertaken, regardless of component or service, Military engineering does not encompass the activities undertaken by those engineers who maintain, repair and operate vehicles, vessels, aircraft, weapon systems and equipment. Military engineering is a subject taught in military academies or schools of military engineering. The construction and demolition tasks related to engineering are usually performed by military engineers including soldiers trained as sappers or pioneers. In modern armies, soldiers trained to perform such tasks while well forward in battle, the word engineer was initially used in the context of warfare, dating back to 1325 when engine’er referred to a constructor of military engines. In this context, engine referred to a machine, i. e. A mechanical contraption used in war, in its place, the term military engineering has come to be used. Modern military engineering can be divided into three main tasks or fields, combat engineering, strategic support, and ancillary support, combat engineering is associated with engineering on the battlefield. Combat engineers are responsible for increasing mobility on the front lines of war such as digging trenches, strategic support is associated with providing service in communication zones such as the construction of airfields and the improvement and upgrade of ports, roads and railways communication. Ancillary support includes provision and distribution of maps as well as the disposal of unexploded warheads, Military engineers construct bases, airfields, roads, bridges, ports, and hospitals. During peacetime before modern warfare, military engineers took the role of civil engineers by participating in the construction of civil-works projects, nowadays, military engineers are almost entirely engaged in war logistics and preparedness. Combat engineers clear routes, repair airfields and harbours, bridge rivers all at top speed, the first civilization to have a dedicated force of military engineering specialists were the Romans, whose army contained a dedicated corps of military engineers known as architecti. This group was pre-eminent among its contemporaries, such military engineering feats would have been completely new, and probably bewildering and demoralizing, to the Gallic defenders. The best known of these Roman army engineers due to his writings surviving is Vitruvius, alexander the Great also used engineers in his army. In ancient times, military engineers were responsible for warfare and building field fortifications, temporary camps. The most notable engineers of ancient times were the Romans and Chinese, the Romans were responsible for constructing fortified wooden camps and paved roads for their legions
Military engineering
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Relief map of the
Citadel of Lille, designed in 1668 by
Vauban, the foremost military engineer of his age.
Military engineering
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Aerial view of
Mulberry harbour "B" (October 27, 1944)
Military engineering
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A
Bailey bridge being deployed in the
Korean War to replace a bridge destroyed in combat.
Military engineering
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The American 341st Engineer Company building a ribbon bridge
