Patrick Porter, bachelor of this parish, has written an excellent post reflecting on David Richards’ thoughts about our impending horse and tank moment.
As Patrick writes:
Its true that the armour revolution was a major technological and doctrinal innovation in modern warfare. But there’s much more to it.
Actually the horse was never ‘replaced’ so straightfowardly. In the mythologised ‘Blitzkrieg’ conquests in 1939-40, only a small part of the Wehrmacht was mechanised. In the invasion of Poland, many vehicles actually broke down on the plains, while most of the Wehrmacht moved on foot, and supplies were often transported in horsedrawn wagons. In fact, the Wehrmacht, probably the most lethal land force of the century, was heavily reliant upon horses.
Horses remain vital. Who could forget our own special forces in Afghanistan in 2001-2, on horseback with laptops? That photo above was taken at that time, and is a warning against glib historical assumptions. The horse is not a premodern relic, but in some contexts, a remarkably effective vehicle.
The historical view of the horse as an obsolete tool of direct battlefield offensive is simplistic. Competent medieval commanders knew that a direct cavalry charge on a well-prepared and dense enemy line could be disastrous. The value of cavalry never fully rested on their ability to make direct assaults on enemy lines. They did many other valuable things. In combat, they were a tool of exploitation, thrust into a disorganised or fleeing enemy to hammer home success. Outside it, they were used for reconnaisance and supply. The Wehrmacht relied upon them extensively on the Eastern Front of World War Two, where mechanised units ran into many enviromental problems of their own, like extreme weather, primitive roads and stretched supply lines.
Liddell Hart’s own intellectual record on the issue is murkier than Richards allows. He was a prophet of tanks, but his ambitious vision of armour as a single, self-sufficient instrument was very wrong. As more cautious interwar experts argued, tanks were only effective when used as part of a combined arms system.
Actually, in Richards’ warning against the deleterious search for 100%, exquisite technological solutions, there is some common ground between the two analyses. I think Patrick is right to remind us, as does Biddle, that there are important continuities in warfare as well as cleavages. Both men would agree, I’m sure, that losing bathwater while retaining baby is a fine art.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
To start I have to admit I don’t get the saying. I assume it means to get rid of what you don’t need while keeping something important.
On the horses I’m not certain what can be done with them. Not many people in the U.S know how to ride a horse anymore, much less how to ride them into battle. We can assume that this can be somewhat offset by relations with Afghan’s, where horses are probably used just as often as tanks, but I don’t know how easy it will be to re-institutionalize them. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to use them, simply that I don’t see an easy solution.
I don’t know if mules count in this discussion (I always get confused when trying to understand the Mendelian aspects of mules vs. donkeys etc.), here is an interesting article about current efforts for some US forces to renew their lost experience in using 4 legged military vehicles.
http://www.marsoc.usmc.mil/news/MWTC.htm