Warfare and the Future

Though the roots of future warfare are hidden in the past, the plant of war must be cultivated creatively. No stereotyped copying is likely to succeed. Victory is to be sought in the imagination. t& power of tbe tad rests in tbc padysing e$ect its mdi&ty bar 011 C6emy mind mediate, for within forty4 was pvalyvd WRhaCupan the bod?. of the Polish army fell to pieces. This t boun of tbe initial lcrack thc PdG.H.Q. sudden collapse was not only due to theuamcchanaed .

StateofthePolish but, as may tie sun in tk next great assault an the Netherlands and France, to correct tank tactia. for in May, 1940, the French had greater numbers of tanks than the Gamans, as well as ranks of a superior quaIity. In this second Geman invasion a British SraeoEuxr, at the rime sewing in France, on 19th May wrote: "The Panters still drive about at their own meet will.. . with 00 maill bodybehindthem. NoiPfiranywith-insixtymiles,justmooDc+and tpnlrs.. . sews that tk Panzus arc inAmiars. mislikesamcridiru-laus nightmare.. . The Gamvrs have taken every risk+rimidy foolish risl-tbey have got away with it . . . they have done epeTJrthipg that sbwld not bedoneby atbodar, book-aained,stereotypedsa)diersandthev have made no misrake. The F d

General StafFhavebeen ppnlyscdby this uIlOnhOdOx war of movement. be nuid m+ pcvliog pe not dealt with m the tm-bods ad the 1914 bnins of the French generals rr5pans'bk for ronnulating the phns of the Allied armies are incapable of functioning in this astonishing layout."

Stop Those Tanks!

Not only were the French G.H.Q. surprised, but also the German, for on several occasions during the assault à outrance General Guderian was ordered to halt his tanks so that the infantry might catch up! In thiscare it may be said chat the French ractical collapse was due to defect faulty *7 y cantnbuted to German ~ m o , in the battle of Tunis in 1943, when the British and Amai-cans were at clinch with the Germans and Italians identical re5ults are to besecn. At the time of the final Axis collapse a British war correspondent wrote: "Our tanks rolled past German airfields, workshops, petrol and ammunition dumps, and gun positions. They did not stop to take prisoners—things had gone far beyond that. If a comet had rushed down the road it could hardly have made a greater impression . . . the Getman perals gave up Fving orders since &cy were competely out of touch.. . in a contagion of doubt tail.. . and became a rabble. Again, it was the same in 1944 during the invasion of Normandy, when tanks were called upon to ope nte in a ditkult terrain and were f d by numerous and powerful anti-tank weapons. In August, when General Patton broke through at Amaches and sa out 011 his bead-bng advance, this is what we read: "'Halt for nothing' was the guiding pipciple of the armwed columns . . . Forward patrols [of anwur] sha up every&& battaia, headquar ras, strongpoints... . .DisarganiZatiorr robbed them [the Germans] of both a plan and the means tocarry it out." Surprise was as patent in 1944 as in 1939 or in 1917; therefore we may conclude chat it will remain SQ, though the means of e&cting it will have to be modified, not d y accar& with the terrain but ako with L to the anti-tank weapous tanks will becalled upon to face. Whatdoesallthispointto? That whatever tank o'ganizaeion is &be rated in the future, it will be defective unless it pennits of violent surprk, and the violence of rurprise will in the future, as in the past, be in direct ntio to the mobility tanks are able to devJop and mainpin.

Supply.-The above logcally induces the problem of logistics, that branch of the art of war which em bates transpo and supply a d which constitutes the ?.a& of mate-gyandtactia. Becauu,asNapdeoo truly said. "an amy marches on its stoma&,'' it follows that unless tk stmi4xsisgreata arms, the latter cannot make the m o ~ of their mobility. -Two examples taken from the last war sumce to illusbate this: namely, theinitialGermvlRussiancamplligp ad the 1914 Allied campaign in France.

Inthe6ISZthGamansWaCfXd -mil, 1 9 s and fear the German Army turned e at of equal its to that of its fightg