Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!amdcad!military From: jeffm@uokmax.uucp (Jeff Medcalf) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: The death of mobile war Message-ID: <26784@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 16 Aug 89 06:15:26 GMT References: <8033@cbnews.ATT.COM> <8803@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Lines: 28 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: Jeff Medcalf >From: bnr-di!borynec@watmath.waterloo.edu (James Borynec) > >With the advent of long range guns and rockets, tied together into >an effective communications network, and equipped with weapons (ie. >projectiles) which will destroy (or at least immobilize) armoured >fighting vehicles, warfare will once again, become a matter of >siegework. I disagree. Any time that you limit your forces to a specific place, and say that they cannot move, you have committed suicide. The reasons are many: for one thing, what about nuclear weapons? If your enemy decided to employ them, I daresay that you will not have any troops left. At least with your forces spread out, you have a chance of some troops surviving. Second, a fixed defense can be bypassed (can you say Maginot line?). Third, there is no flexibility in static warfare. What happens if all of a sudden there is a breakthrough in some place that you have no fortress, or if all that money that you sank into the building of fortresses means that you have not enough troops and equipment to stop even a localized breakthrough? I do not think that artillery and rockets are a cure-all. NATO certainly does not have enough guns to make this true, and with modern artillery spotting radar, I submit that ANY power facing a modern opponent will not have enough artillery after the first few days of conflict. After that time, even assuming that you are correct on artillery 's power, fortresses will be useless.