The Age of Modern Warfare

[Peter1469]

The Age of Modern Warfare

Here is an interesting article about the history of warfare from ancient times until today.

The archaeological record shows that humans have been fighting since we evolved, but for the first 95 percent or so of our time on Earth, our war-making was a ragged business. Putting together what we can excavate with what anthropologists observed among the surviving Stone Age societies of the 20th century, it seems that there were few real battles. After all, battles are dangerous: It takes fierce discipline — or even fiercer belief in some cause — to make men get close to other men who are trying to kill them, and Stone Age societies lacked the institutions able to instill such discipline or inspire such fanaticism. Consequently, pitched battles tended to take the form of long-range skirmishes — with bows, slings or javelins — that often broke off if anyone was seriously hurt (or even if it started raining).

This did not, however, mean that prehistoric warfare was some kind of harmless ritual. Rather, the real killing went on in ambushes, where half a dozen men might jump out and attack a single enemy, beating him to death, or the young braves from one clan might storm a sleeping enemy village in the hours before dawn, spearing and scalping defenseless men, women and children. Archaeologists have dug up the remains of such massacre sites dating back to 11,000 B.C.

fast forward

By the first millennium B.C., this vast area was dominated by mass armies of iron-armed infantrymen, fighting in serried ranks. There were differences among geographic regions, of course: Indians used elephants, while Iranians and other peoples living near the steppes made greater use of horses than did Europeans and societies farther away. But every civilization developed two surprisingly similar dimensions in how it fought.

The first concerned command and control on the battlefield, provided by officers who bullied their men to stay in formation, maneuvering in formations tens of thousands strong, protecting one another's flanks while seeking out the enemy's weak points. This took a lot of doing, because fighting face-to-face with iron weapons and without much in the way of medicine meant that battles could be very bloody indeed. It was normal for two men to be wounded for every one who was killed; and when troops were properly trained, confident in their leaders and expected to win, they would typically maintain order until about 10 percent of their number had been killed and 20 percent had been wounded. Though there were exceptions, such as the 300 Spartans who fought to the last man against Persia at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. (this is no legend; you can still find the occasional bronze or iron arrowhead on the battlefield today), panic would overwhelm even the toughest soldiers by the time a third of their comrades had fallen.

And to the 20th Century

In a way, the Modern System dismantled the Ancient System by looking back to the Prehistoric System. The Modern System dissolved the huge, rigid formations that had dominated battlefields for over 4,000 years and freed up individuals to act as they thought best. It could afford to do this because instead of prehistoric warriors, who tended to think about self-preservation first and winning battles only a very distant second, it made use of an entirely new kind of man. This individual was a unique product of 20th-century nation-states, with their systems of mass education and nationalist ideals.

If interested read the entire article. It is pretty good.

[resister]

We are perfecting the art of mutual destruction.

Would be nice to see mankind apply tech to advancement.

Most emerging tech comes from the military, after it is declassified.

[Peter1469]

We are perfecting the art of mutual destruction.

Would be nice to see mankind apply tech to advancement.

Most emerging tech comes from the military, after it is declassified.

Human conflict drives advances in technology.

[Dr. Who]

Human conflict drives advances in technology.

Formation type warfare was proven to be an inadequate strategy against guerilla warfare. Those formations just made them sitting ducks for more covert attacks.

[Peter1469]

Formation type warfare was proven to be an inadequate strategy against guerilla warfare. Those formations just made them sitting ducks for more covert attacks.

Right. But many armies used lighter formations on the flanks, the front and the rear to provide some protection. Had the Romans done that at Teutoburg, things could have turned out better for Rome.

[resister]

Human conflict drives advances in technology.

Sad state of affairs, imagine if we applied it in a constructive instead of destructive manner.

Sci Fi was right, we are a primitive, warlike culture.

[Peter1469]

Sad state of affairs, imagine if we applied it in a constructive instead of destructive manner.

Sci Fi was right, we are a primitive, warlike culture.

We do apply military tech to civilian needs and wants. GPS as one example.

Most people who grew up in the GPS age could likely not function without it, should it disappear today.

[Hal Jordan]

Sad state of affairs, imagine if we applied it in a constructive instead of destructive manner.

Sci Fi was right, we are a primitive, warlike culture.

That may be part of the push for Cold War 2.0. The conflict was used to push technology in a constructive manner.

[Dr. Who]

Right. But many armies used lighter formations on the flanks, the front and the rear to provide some protection. Had the Romans done that at Teutoburg, things could have turned out better for Rome.

Military strategy should always be evolving. While I think that two armies meeting on a battlefield and bashing at each other until one was victorious was probably pretty efficient in its day, it was pretty hard on the ultimately disposable soldiers. Where it became really silly was after the invention of the musket, where soldiers were compelled to kneel in rows and shoot when faced with an enemy that was able to take cover and pick them off like ducks in a row. That kind of robotic warfare exemplified the disregard that nations/monarchies had for the soldiers in their armies. How ridiculous was it to have two armies kneeling and firing at each other. Winning and losing was simply dependent on who could reload faster and which side were marginally more accurate at kill shots than the other. The injuries and fatalities sustained were atrocious. Add to that an enemy that didn't play by the toy soldier rules and it was simply a suicide mission. I think that experiences in North America and Africa/the middle east ultimately changed battle strategy to one that valued soldier's lives more, measuring success not only in defeating the enemy but doing so without sacrificing 95% of your troops in the process. Of course, there have still been horrific losses of lives, but overall we have at least moved from the soldier as cannon fodder model to one that is somewhat more conscientious and not essentially two firing squads facing off.

[Mister D]

Military strategy should always be evolving. While I think that two armies meeting on a battlefield and bashing at each other until one was victorious was probably pretty efficient in its day, it was pretty hard on the ultimately disposable soldiers. Where it became really silly was after the invention of the musket, where soldiers were compelled to kneel in rows and shoot when faced with an enemy that was able to take cover and pick them off like ducks in a row. That kind of robotic warfare exemplified the disregard that nations/monarchies had for the soldiers in their armies. How ridiculous was it to have two armies kneeling and firing at each other. Winning and losing was simply dependent on who could reload faster and which side were marginally more accurate at kill shots than the other. The injuries and fatalities sustained were atrocious. Add to that an enemy that didn't play by the toy soldier rules and it was simply a suicide mission. I think that experiences in North America and Africa/the middle east ultimately changed battle strategy to one that valued soldier's lives more, measuring success not only in defeating the enemy but doing so without sacrificing 95% of your troops in the process. Of course, there have still been horrific losses of lives, but overall we have at least moved from the soldier as cannon fodder model to one that is somewhat more conscientious and not essentially two firing squads facing off.

Military strategy is always evolving.

Pitched battle (i.e. two armies meeting on a battlefield) limited the death and carnage inherent in war for most of recorded history. It also limited its impact on the civilian population.

Soldiers fired muskets in long rows because they were terribly inaccurate. Volley fire was considered a much more effective means of engaging the enemy.

Soldiers wore bright uniforms, kept in close formation and followed the flag because once the shooting started it became increasingly difficult to see what was going on. Moreover, formation and discipline is what ultimately separates an army from a mob. An undisciplined mob is dead on arrival. That was true in the past and it's true now. I understand that their methods of warfare may look strange to you but your ancestors weren't stupid. On the contrary, I sometimes wonder what they would have thought of the unrestrained, no rules warfare characteristic of 20th Century barbarism. Indeed, I'd say the horse and musket era compares rather favorably.

Casualties were relatively few during the period in question and soldiers were typically professional. There existed codes of honor and chivalry as well as mutual respect. The "enemy" was not the enemy in an existential sense.

You were born in the midst of the most violent and barbaric century in recorded history. If there was ever a "cannon fodder" model of warfare it was unknown to your ancestors but should be somewhat familiar to us.