Thursday, October 28, 2010
Nobody Was Ready For This
WWI. Machine Guns. Generals totally unprepared. Sounds like a mess. It was pretty clear from the onset of the war that old military strategies were not going to work anymore. With the new technology, namely the machine gun, the old strategy of massing troops at a weak point to break through became obsolete. Three guys on a machine guns could mow huge amounts of soldiers by themselves. You got to love the perseverence of the commanders. Despite learning early on that charging machine guns is a BAD idea, they continued to do so. I know it sucks to have your learnings become obselete but come on guys get with the program. We all know the definition of insanity. I guess WWI commanders missed the memo.
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I agree, but in a softer voice, perhaps. It's difficult to completely throw away old battle tactics in a blink of an eye that have worked so effectively for centuries. I can understand why it was hard, but I think that lack of adaption and innovative thinking caused so many more men to die than would have otherwise. This goes for both sides.
ReplyDeleteYeah i agree with Kaylan. I think the commanders were just naive. I mean since this time conflicts weren't put on this scale, the global scale, and i think that it was hard for any new strategies to arise. I think they just thought, "we'll keep doing what we've always done, just more intense and bigger."
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