Are we building battleships?
At the beginning of the American Civil War formations of Federal and Confederate armies faced off in pseudo-Napoleonic battles where officers trained in Napoleonic doctrines maneuvered closely packed formations against the rifled musket and the minié ball. By 1864, trench warfare, mines, and mortars defined the terrible battles of Cold Harbor and Petersburg – foreshadowing the trenches of World War I. In the battles of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Prussian Guard Corps attacked with frontal assaults against prepared French defensive positions – winning the battles of Wissembourg, Spicheren, and Gravelotte at enormous cost. Across the imperial armies of Europe large cavalry units filled with sons of the aristocracy prove worthless against the coming storm of steel. Strategies to break the stalemate persisted in using the frontal attacked even as artillery, machine guns and other technologies of the industrial revolution stripped Europe of a generation of men.
Soldiers of the Second World War II suffered lessons unlearned from the First World War. World War I saw the first use of submarine warfare by the Imperial German Navy against the British Isles, but Britain failed to invest seriously in anti-submarine technology until after it began to grapple with Nazi Kriegsmarine in the late 1930s. Battleships being the pride of the Royal Navy, prevented the Admiralty from investing in corvettes, frigates, and coastal defense aircraft - anti-submarine weapons. Even the tried and tested tactics of defeating U-Boat operations with merchant ship convoys was discarded in favor of creating “hunting groups” that appealed to the ego of the Royal Navy, until the tonnage lost to submarines threatened the survival of Great Britain. It took time, tonnage sunk, and the lives of many sailors before the technologies of radar, sonar, aircraft carriers and long-range aircraft were recognized for their value in the war.
Warfare evolved in all of these conflicts. Some of the evolutions resulted from the advent of new technologies on the battlefield and new tactics to accommodate them, or vice versa…
Therefore, it is worth asking: Is the US Military committing the same sins as our military predecessors of the past 200 years? Is the MRAP the modern-day equivalent to the pre-World War I mounted cavalry?…
Are we building battleships?
