Halman said:
No, it was
roughly the primary intent. Lemme paste the good bit.
Deterrence theory is a defensive strategy developed after World War II and used throughout the Cold War. It also figures somewhat in the current War on Terrorism. Under the strategy, a government builds up or maintains military forces and weapons so that other powers will not attack it in fear of a larger retaliation.
I understand the reasoning behind deterrence theory, I'm not arguing its values or merits. I'm talking soley about the specific
primary purpose of a weapon. I stand by my earlier statement. Strategies as to how to employ a weapon and to what effects a particular weapon may have (other than its particular destructive/paralyzing actions) are neat to discuss but are purely secondary. Granted a weapons psychological effect may be far greater than its actual destructive ability, we see several examples of this in history as well. Flaming pigs were a great terror weapon to be used on enemy armored Elephants...the fear incited was far more destructive than the actual damage caused by the flaming pig itself. I would argue that this was created and intended to be a terror tactic, not to be used as would a traditional offensive weapon. This is a personal opinion, you dont' have to agree.
And you're right about weapons of war only being useful for killing. Someone should tell NASA to stop taking the explosive payloads off of rockets in order to put people in space. Since, you know, rockets exist to explode and cause widespread destruction.
I'm not sure you understand what a rocket is? Here's a helpful little link for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket.
You'll note the distinction they make between military purposes and civilian. I will also argue you further on this and say that the first successful idea and utilization of rockets was in fact to be used as a weapon (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket#Origins_of_rocketry). Further experimentation led to other useful deployments but the original intent was indeed as a weapon. I think your point here in invalid.
(I love when people say they're a student of history, because it makes me not feel bad for being a jerk)
I don't think you're being a jerk. You're arguing your opinion, you haven't insulted me, called me names, or thrown in wild harangues so I'd say you're being very level headed in your dispute.
You're right, it was downright stupid to use the only force available in any quantity(unmounted infantry, cavalry falling into disuse) to try and win the war.(Which is done by breaking through lines and taking objectives. But that is antiquated, and no one does that anymore)
No, I'm not saying they were stupid in using what they had available to fight their war, I'm saying they were stupid in that they didn't realize how ineffective their measure were soon enough. A good resource to read that covers this quite well is the "The War in Outline: 1914-1918" By Cpt. B. H. Liddell Hart (a respected soldier with some great experience on his side). In fact there were only two major offensives in World War 1 that didn't carry a higher attacker casualty rate than defensive casualties. The fact that the Allied commanders didn't recognize this vital statistic sooner was an oversight that has been universally criticized by almost every major historian since the first great war. Generals like Foch and Haig have had their actions and orders dissected a million different ways and their explanations as to why they stuck to their offenses remain pitifully weak even based in the light of knowledge available to them at the time.
I'd also argue that they, infact,
did see the might of the machine gun against infantry.
I think you'll note that if you read a couple of books, "The History of the Tank" and "The Tank in Action" you'll note how hard the army leaders fought against the introduction of the tank and measures they took to reduce its production. Sir. Winston Churchill was one of the few brilliant innovators that understood its potential and he fought for it tooth and nail. Had there not been that handicapping action the tank might have seen a much more powerful initiation. That is subjective reasoning however. My point here was that the allies threw massive charges of
infantry against the machine gun long after they realized how devastating it was. That stubborn clinging to the idea of an offensive war was often times nigh suicidal in most of their offenses were nearly turned into routs. Petain, when he became the supreme commander (of sorts), realized the difference and shifted the allies into a defensive mindset...the turning point in the war. From that point onward the Germans were forced to launch costly (although much more effective attacks because of their excellent planning and foresight) offensives that drained them of critical resources and manpower.
Yeah, even though the Maginot Line worked exactly as it was designed to do. The fact that the French would have had less than a week to mobilize their entire army and respond to the invasion doesn't factor in at all. (Also, the Germans invaded through a former ally of France, so the main bulk of the invasion came against a weaker and hastily built extension of the line. Also, the Ardennes forrest was believed to be a natural defensive feature. But the line did work, since it the Germans didn't actually attack it and break through.)
Wrong, France declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland in 1939, (I believe it was in October) Germany didn't invade France until 1940. (I would plug in some dates but not really feeling like hunting those dates down for you. Feel free to research them if you think I'm wrong). The line actually didn't work either, the southern arm of the German advance did, in fact, penetrate the Maginot line. The point in this facet of the argument was that a fixed position is pointless if the enemy can simply go around it. There was ample warning of a German advance through Belgium in advance thanks to several conspiratorial German officers providing notice to both France and England in advance, in addition to the capture of a German officer with the invasion plans by Belgium forces weeks prior to the attack.
Thats not really a clever observation. I can't say they were stupid, but I can the losers defeated! In many cases, it isn't even possible for the losing side in an uneven conflict to 'react and adapt'. How the hell do stone age south americans react to the rifle? I guess they all get the chicken pox and die. In most cases where the gap in tactics and equipment is large, it's so large as to negate any amount of responding and adapting they could do.
Well I can only respond to that as how I would react if I were in their case. I would switch to guerrila attacks at night, hit supply lines, commando raids and generally do everything I could to avoid a pitched traditional fight. The point is...if something is working after a couple of times you'd damn well better change something! As for inferior resources versus larger and better equipped enemies? Let's look at Israel in the war for independence of 1948. Let's see, 5 Arab nations against one nation that hasn't even been a nation for what two hours? Israel had no tanks, like three planes and just a few guns. Egypt, Syria, Jordan etc had trained equipped armies. What do you do against that? You make molotov cocktails and you use a hell of lot of shrewd tactics and you win! That's impressive even today. I've given scenarios that weren't flexible enough to adapt soon enough, but I can also give some sterling examples of flexible winning tactics as well.
I feel I need to bring up that Allied leaders were rather quicker than 3 years in their response to machine guns. Hence the massive artillery bombardments and the concentration of forces. If you have a better reaction, given the fact we're observers after the fact with all the information and the benefit of seeing how everything ended up, lets hear it. God Bless Armchair Generals.
True, they did learn...slowly. However they learned from the Germans and how they prepared for their (typically) superbly orchestrated attacks. Their own concentration of artillery however was usually wide spread along a wide front that was much too broad to be effective. Whereas the Germans would typically favor a three pronged assault on narrow engagements areas where enemy positions were believed to be weak, the Allies believed in the "one quick blow" solution. German assaults were typically well hidden in the weeks leading up to the attack, (i.e. troops moved under the cover of darkness, or in small groups during the day). Allies offensives were painfully obvious. Massing large numbers in certain target areas were huge warning signs to the defenders, allowing ample time for reinforcing to take place. The Allies (as a whole) were very slow to learn this despite multiple warnings from the commanding officers to their staff commanders.
It's rather impossible to prepare against something like the blitzkrieg when Germans haven't invented it yet. Training reinforces whatever the modern doctrine is, so now you're encouraging them to do what you argued against earlier?
No, I suggested that they train to engage the enemy weapons that they would likely face. Just how exactly did they expect the Germans to use their tanks? I'm not trying to say, they should have done this and they should have done that...but its obvious they should have done
something. There's lots of courses they could have taken. Quarto suggested one in a thread sometime back about challenging Germany earlier, say in 1936 when Germany reoccupied the Rhine. There's several theories that could be applied. I'm just saying, the French became too confident in their maginot line. In doing so they neglected a lesson from history there as well...WW1 started with Germany invading Belgium, they took the same route in WW2...
Wow, an example from the classical world in your argument about dropping antiquated things.
Anyway, that isn't really a good example. Greek phalanxes were as big a part of ancient greeks as eating olives and drowning mathematicians. Ignoring the fact that no one ever really developed a great response to the legions, this is more of a bronze age/iron age thing.
I think the German tribes came up with a pretty good answer to the legion. Hannibal had some success as well (though that was before the true formation of the "legion" created by the Marius reforms).