Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Napoleonic Cavalry Combat \u0026 Tactics" video.
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First of all, the greatest change in warfare was the use of barbed wire which was totally impossible to get through without endless bombardment of high explosive shells, and even with huge bombardment it could be a dangerous project to attack across no mans land. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hQ-otfHZx8
Secondly, the machine gun had dramatically increased the firepower of the infantry so a few machine guns could produce the same wall of bullets flying around in the air as an entire regiment of line infantry.
And artillery now had new types of shells and they could hit targets beyond visable range - eventhough that was rarily practical since there was no radio that could be used to direct the fire onto the target. So even if you somehow manage to punch a big hole into the enemy land and take much terrain you would not be able defend yourself that well against an enemy counter-attack.
Your artillery don't know where to shoot because they cannot see the enemy. And dragging machine guns into position would take time. And if the enemy act swiftly you will not have the time to dig in and form an organized defence, but the men would rather being scattered just after the breakthrough and vulnerable to a counter-attack.
And the lack of communication would be problematic for the men at the front who don't know what to do. And the commander who is sitting miles behind the frontline didn't know what is going on at the front - since there was no radio communication and it took about 8 hours on average for an order from the General headquarters to reach the troops at the frontline, and it took an equal amount of time to get information back to the HQ. So the Commander could not exploit his succeful attack or sending in reinforcements to defend the taken terrain from an enemy counterattack.
So with other words, Technology were greatly biased in favour of the defenders.
And what retarded Generals did was to attack and attack again over and over, and thinking that just a little more men and guns would make the next attack likely to succed. And all this lack of imagination costed millions of lives for nothing.
Cadornas 12 Isonzo offensives are the most clear example of this failure to learn from past mistakes. And accusing the General of incompetence is simply a too mild accusation. They are really more guilty of a criminal waste of their own solidiers lives. And Haig, Hötzendorf, Cadorna and Falkenhayn all deserves to have their names thrown into the mud. I can excuse some gigantic failures on their part because of the huge changes technology and tactics, but at some point those idiots should have learned.
And their stupid shit never did anything to bring their own country to victory. The solution then came with the tank that could drive through the barbed wire, the radio that allowed the attackers to call in artillery support and reinforcements, and to get fresh orders that wasn't totally outdated.
And the German stormtrooper tactics also gave the solidiers at the frontline much more freedom to make their own decisions instead of following outdated orders that no longer made sense in the actual period of time. So the Germans could act with much more flexibility than their enemies, and the stormtroops also had much more firepower at their disposal in the weapons they carried, so they were much more flexible than the ordinary troops that had to make the trouble of coordinating things with the artillery and wasting time.
So the German army had turned everything upside down. Instead of bombarding an area for weeks and alerting the enemy, the Germans instead made a short bombardment and used the element of surprise. And instead of leading men from behind the frontline by a dumbass General who knew nothing about the war, they gave experienced NCOs who knew the war and knew their troops the task of deciding on how the war should be fought.
So the Germans could act much faster and their enemies, and the allied orders became more and more outdated as the German rolled up their defensive lines. And they were always a step ahead.
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