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Industrial warfare[1] is a period in thehistory of warfare ranging roughly from the early 19th century and the start of theIndustrial Revolution to the beginning of theAtomic Age, which saw the rise ofnation-states, capable of creating and equipping largearmies,navies, andair forces, through the process ofindustrialization.
The era featuredmass-conscripted armies, rapid transportation (first onrailroads, then bysea andair),telegraph andwireless communications, and the concept oftotal war. In terms of technology, this era saw the rise ofrifledbreech-loading infantry weapons capable ofhigh rates of fire, high-velocity breech-loadingartillery,chemical weapons,armoured warfare,metal warships,submarines, andaircraft.
One of the main features of industrial warfare is the concept of "total war". The term was coined duringWorld War I byErich Ludendorff (and again in his 1935 bookTotal War), which called for the complete mobilization and subordination of all resources, including policy and social systems, to the Germanwar effort. It has also come to mean waging warfare with absolute ruthlessness, and its most identifiable legacy today has been the reintroduction ofcivilians and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying the enemy's ability to engage in war.
There are several reasons for the rise of total warfare in the 19th century. The main one is industrialization. As countries' capital and natural resources grew, it became clear that some forms of warfare demanded more resources than others. Consequently, the greater cost of warfare became evident. An industrialized nation could distinguish and then choose the intensity of warfare that it wished to engage in.
Additionally, warfare was becoming moremechanized and required greaterinfrastructure.Combatants could no longer live off the land, but required an extensive support network of people behind the lines to keep them fed and armed. This required the mobilization of thehome front. Modern concepts likepropaganda were first used to boost production and maintainmorale, whilerationing took place to provide more war material.
The earliest modern example of total war was theAmerican Civil War.Union generalsUlysses S. Grant andWilliam Tecumseh Sherman were convinced that, if the North was to be victorious, theConfederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological ability to wage war had to be definitively crushed. They believed that to break the backbone of the South, the North had to employscorched earth tactics, or as Sherman called it, "Hard War". Sherman's advance through Georgia and the Carolinas was characterized by the widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure.[2] In contrast to later conflicts, the damage done by Sherman was almost entirely limited to property destruction. In Georgia alone, Sherman claimed he and his men had caused $100,000,000 in damages.[citation needed]
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Conscription is the compulsory enrollment of civilians into military service. Conscription allowed theFrench Republic to formLa Grande Armée, whatNapoleon Bonaparte called "the nation in arms", which successfully battled smaller, professional European armies.
Conscription, particularly when the conscripts are being sent to foreign wars that do not directly affect the security of the nation, has historically been highly politically contentious in democracies. For instance, duringWorld War I, bitter political disputes broke out inCanada (seeConscription Crisis of 1917),Newfoundland,Australia andNew Zealand (seeCompulsory Military Training) over conscription. Canada also had a political dispute over conscription duringWorld War II (seeConscription Crisis of 1944). Both South Africa and Australia put limits on where conscripts could fight in WWII. Similarly, mass protests against conscription to fight theVietnam War occurred in several countries in the late 1960s.
In developed nations, the increasing emphasis on technological firepower and better-trained fighting forces, the sheer unlikelihood of a conventional military assault on most developed nations, as well as memories of widespread controversies over the Vietnam War, make mass conscription less likely, but still possible, in the future.
Russia, as well as many smaller nations such asSwitzerland, retain mainly conscript armies.
Prior to the invention of the motorized transport, combatants were transported by wagons, horses and by marching. With the advent of locomotives, large groups of combatants, supplies, and equipment were able to be transported faster and in larger numbers. To counter this, an opposing force would destroy rail lines to hinder theirenemies' movements.General Sherman's men during theAmerican Civil War, would destroy tracks, heat the rails, andwrap them around trees.
The mass transportation of combatants was further revolutionized with the advent of theinternal combustion engine and theautomobile. Combined with the widespread use of the machine gun, the horse, after millennia of use, was finally supplanted in its war time role. During both WWI and WWII, trucks were used to carry combatants and materiel, while cars and jeeps were used to scout enemy positions.
The mechanization of infantry occurred during WWII. Thetank, a product ofWorld War I independently invented by the British and French to break through trenches while withstanding machine gun fire, while discounted by many, came into its own. Tanks evolved from thin-skinned, lumbering vehicles into fast, powerful war machines ofvarious types that dominated the battlefield and allowed theGermans to conquer most of Europe. As a result of the tank's evolution, a number of armored transport vehicles appeared, such asarmoured personnel carriers andamphibious vehicles.
After the war ended, armored transports continued to evolve. The armored car and train declined in use, largely becoming relegated to military and civilian use as transportation forVIPs.Infantry fighting vehicles rose to prominence with the creation of theSovietBMP-1. IFVs are a more combat capable version of the APC, with heavier armaments (such asautocannons), while still retaining the ability to transport combatants into and out of battles.
Sealift is amilitary logistics term referring to the use ofcargo ships for thedeployment of military assets, such asweaponry,military personnel, andmateriel supplies. It complements other means of transport, such asstrategic airlifters, in order to enhance astate's ability toproject power. A state's sealift capabilities may include civilian-operated ships that normally operate by contract, but which can be chartered or commandeered during times of military necessity to supplement government-ownednaval fleets.
During WWI, theUnited States bought, borrowed or commandeered vessels of various types, ranging from pleasure craft to ocean liners to transport theAmerican Expeditionary Force to Europe. Many of these ships were scrapped, sold or returned to their owners after the war.
There are two different kinds of airlifts in warfare, a strategic airlift and atactical airlift. A strategic airlift is the use transporting of weapons, supplies and personnel over long distances (from a base in one country to a base in another country for example) using largecargo aircraft. This contrasts with tactical airlifts, which involves transporting the same above items within atheater of operations. This usually involves cargo planes with shorter ranges and slower speeds, but higher maneuverability.
Land warfare, as the name implies, takes place on land. The most common type of warfare, it can encompass several modes and locales, includingurban,arctic, andmountain warfare.
The early part of the 19th century from 1815 to 1848 saw a long period of peace in Europe, accompanied by extraordinary industrial expansion. The industrial age brought about various technological advancements, each with their own implication. Land warfare moved from visual-range and semi person-to-person combat of the previous era, to indiscriminate and impersonal, "beyond visual range" warfare. TheCrimean War (1853–1856) saw the introduction of trench warfare, long-range artillery, railroads, the telegraph, and the rifle. The mechanized mass-destruction of enemy combatants grew ever more deadly. In WWI (1914–1918) machine-guns, barbed wire, chemical weapons, and land-mines entered the battlefield. The deadly stalematedtrench-warfare stage was finally passed with the advent of the modern armored tank late in WWI.
One major trend involved the transition away massed infantry fire andhuman waves to more refined tactics. This became possible with the superseding of earlier weapons like the highly inaccuratemusket.
Rifling refers to the act of adding spiral grooves to the inside of the barrel of a firearm. The grooves would cause a projectile to spin as it traveled down the barrel, improving range and accuracy. Once rifling became easier and practical, a new type of firearm was introduced, therifle. It gave combatants the ability to specifically target an enemy combatant, rather than have large numbers of combatants fire in a general direction. It effectively broke up groups of combatants into smaller more maneuverable units.
Artillery are large guns designed to fire large projectiles a great distance. Early artillery pieces were large and cumbersome with slow rates of fire. This reduced their use to sieges, by both defenders and attackers. With the advent of the industrial age and various technological advancements, lighter, yet powerful and accurate artillery pieces were produced. This gave rise tofield artillery which were used on a tactical level to support troops.
Machine guns are fully automatic guns. In this era of warfare they only existed as mounted support weapons, as automatic firearms were not yet developed. Early machine guns as invented byRichard Gatling, were hand cranked but evolved into truly automatic machine guns byMaxim at the end of the era. Machine guns were valued for their ability to smash infantry formations, especially attacking enemy formations when they were dense. This, along with effective field artillery, changed tactics drastically.
Static defenses evolved from the use of permanent fortifications that were direct descendants of medieval castles. As artillery improved in destructive power and penetrative ability, more modern fortifications were developed, using first thicker layers of stone, then concrete and steel. After naval artillery developed the turret – a moving cannon platform – land fortifications started to use this method as well. Between the World Wars, France built an "impregnable" underground steel and concrete fortification that ran the length of the German-French border. ThisMaginot Line failed to stop German tanks in 1940: they bypassed the fortifications by invading through neighboring Belgium.
As artillery and rifles allowed the killing of enemy personnel at a longer effective range, soldiers started to dig into temporary fortifications. These included massive trenches as used in WWI, and individual soldier-sized "fox holes" which became more common in WWII.
Maneuver had existed throughout military history – from soldiers marching on the field to using horses in cavalry formations. It was not until the advent of mechanized transport over unprepared terrain, such as fields and deserts, using tanks and armored vehicles, that "maneuver warfare" became feasible. First used by the German army in Poland and France in WWII,Blitzkrieg or "lightning war" saw whole armies moved rapidly on tracked and armored fighting vehicles. During the war airborne movement was used, with soldiers dropped to the battlefield by parachute by both the Germans and the Allies. After WWII, developments in helicopters brought a more practical way to transport troops by air.
The period after theNapoleonic Wars was one of intensive experimentation with new technology;steam power for ships appeared in the 1810s, improvedmetallurgy and machining technique produced larger and deadlier guns, and the development of explosive shells, capable of demolishing a wooden ship at a single blow, in turn required the addition of iron armor, which led toironclads.
The famousbattle of the CSSVirginia and USSMonitor in theAmerican Civil War was the duel of ironclads that symbolized the changing times. Although the battle was inconclusive, nations around the world subsequently raced to convert their fleets to iron, as ironclads had shown themselves to be clearly superior to wooden ships in their ability to withstand enemy fire.
In the late 19th century, naval warfare was revolutionized byAlfred Thayer Mahan's bookThe Influence of Sea Power upon History. Mahan argued that in the Anglo-French wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, domination of the sea was the deciding factor in the outcome, and therefore control of seaborne commerce was critical to military victory. Mahan argued that the best way to achieve naval domination was through large fleets of concentratedcapital ships, as opposed tocommerce raiders. His books were closely studied in all the Great Powers, influencing their navalarms race in the years prior to WWI.
As the century came to a close, the familiar modern battleship began to emerge; asteel-armored ship, entirely dependent on steam turbines, and sporting a number of large shell guns mounted in turrets arranged along the centerline of the main deck. The ultimate design was reached in 1906 withHMS Dreadnought, which entirely dispensed with smaller guns, her main guns being sufficient to sink any existing ship of the time.
TheRusso-Japanese War and particularly theBattle of Tsushima in 1905 was the first test of the new concepts, resulting in a stunning Japanese victory and the destruction of dozens of Russian ships.World War I pitted the old Royal Navy against the new navy ofImperial Germany, culminating in the 1916Battle of Jutland. Following the war, many nations agreed to limit the size of their fleets in theWashington Naval Treaty and scrapped many of their battleships and cruisers.
Growing tensions of the 1930s restarted the building programs, with even larger ships than before: the Japanese battleshipYamato, launched in 1941, displaced 72,000 tons and mounted 18-inch (46 cm) guns. This marked the climax of "big gun" warfare, as aircraft would gradually play a larger role in warfare. By the 1960s, battleships had all-but vanished from the fleets of the world.
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Between the world wars, the firstaircraft carriers appeared, initially as a way to circumvent the tonnage limits of the Washington Naval Treaty (many of the first carriers were converted battlecruisers). Though several ships had previously been designed to launch aircraft, the first true "flat-top" carrier wasHMS Argus, launched in December 1917.
By the start of WWII, aircraft carriers typically carried three types of aircraft:torpedo bombers, which could also be used for conventional horizontal bombing and reconnaissance;dive bombers, also used for reconnaissance; and fighters for fleet defence and bomber escort duties. Because of the restricted space on aircraft carriers, these aircraft were almost always small, single-engined warplanes. The first true demonstration of naval air power was the victory of theRoyal Navy at theBattle of Taranto in 1940, which set the stage for Japan's much larger and more famousattack on Pearl Harbor the following year.
Two days after Pearl Harbor, thesinking of HMSPrince of Wales and HMSRepulse, marked the beginning of the end for the battleship era. Following WWII, aircraft carriers continued to remain key to navies throughout the latter 20th century, moving in the 1950s to jets launched fromSupercarriers, behemoths which could displace as much as 100,000 tons.
Just as important was the development ofsubmarines to travel underneath the sea, at first for short dives, then later to be able to spend weeks or months underwater powered by anuclear reactor. The first successful submarine attack in wartime was in 1864 by theConfederate submarineH.L. Hunley which sank thefrigateUSS Housatonic.
In both World Wars, submarines primarily exerted their power by sinkingmerchant ships usingtorpedoes, in addition to attacks on warships. All nations practicedunrestricted submarine warfare in which submarines sank merchant ships without warning, but the only successful campaign during this period was America's submarine war against Japan during thePacific War. In the 1950s theCold War inspired the development of ballistic missile submarines, each one loaded with dozens of nuclear-armed missiles and with orders to launch them from sea should the other nation attack.
The first use of airplanes in war was theItalo-Turkish War of 1911, when the Italians carried out severalreconnaissance andbombing missions. During WWI both sides made use ofballoons and airplanes for reconnaissance and directing artillery fire. To prevent enemy reconnaissance, some airplane pilots began attacking other airplanes and balloons, first with small arms carried in the cockpit, and later with machine guns mounted on the aircraft. Both sides also made use of aircraft for bombing, strafing and dropping of propaganda leaflets.
The German air force carried out the firstterror bombing raids, usingZeppelins to drop bombs on Britain. By the end of the war airplanes had become specialised intobombers,fighters, andsurveillance aircraft. Most of these airplanes werebiplanes with wooden frames, canvas skins, wire rigging andair-cooled engines.
Between 1918 and 1939, aircraft technology developed very rapidly. By 1939 military biplanes were in the process of being replaced with metal framedmonoplanes, often with stressed skins and liquid cooled engines. Top speeds had tripled; altitudes doubled (andoxygen masks become commonplace); ranges and payloads of bombers increased enormously.
Some theorists, most famouslyHugh Trenchard andGiulio Douhet, believed that aircraft would become the dominant military arm in the future, and argued that future wars would be won entirely by the destruction of the enemy's military and industrial capability from the air. This concept was calledstrategic bombing. Douhet also argued inThe Command of the Air (1921) that future military leaders could avoid falling into bloody World War I-style trench stalemates by using aviation to strike past the enemy's forces directly at their vulnerable civilian population, which Douhet believed would cause these populations to rise up in revolt to stop the bombing.
Others, such asBilly Mitchell, saw the potential of air power to neutralize the striking power of naval surface fleets. Mitchell himself proved the vulnerability of capital ships to aircraft was finally in 1921 when he commanded a squadron of bombers that sank the ex-German battleshipSMSOstfriesland with aerial bombs. (SeeIndustrial warfare#Naval warfare)
During WWII, there was a debate betweenstrategic bombing andtactical bombing. Strategic bombing focused on targets such asfactories,railroads,oil refineries, and heavily populated areas such ascities andtowns, and requiredheavy four-engine bombers carrying large payloads ofordnance or a single heavy four-engine bomber carrying anuclear weapon flying deep into enemy territory. Tactical bombing focused on concentration of combatants,command and control centers,airfields, andammunition dumps, and requiredattack aircraft,dive bombers, andfighter bombers that could fly low over the battlefield.
In the early years of WWII, the GermanLuftwaffe focused ontactical bombing, using large numbers ofJu 87 Stukas as "flying artillery" for land offensives. Artillery was slow and required time to set up a firing position, whereas aircraft were better able keep up with the fast advances of the German panzer columns. Close air support greatly assisted in the successes of the German Army in theBattle of France. It was also important inamphibious warfare, where aircraft carriers could provide support for soldiers landing on the beaches.
Strategic bombing, by contrast, was unlike anything the world has seen before or since. In 1940, the Germans attempted to force Britain to surrender through attacks on its airfields and factories, and then on its cities inThe Blitz in what became theBattle of Britain, the first major battle whose outcome was determined primarily in the air. The campaigns conducted in Europe and Asia could involve thousands of aircraft dropping tens of thousands of tons of munitions over a single city.
Military aviation in the post-war years was dominated by the needs of theCold War. The postwar years saw a rapid conversion tojet power, which resulted in enormous increases in speeds and altitudes of aircraft. Until the advent of theintercontinental ballistic missile, major powers relied on high-altitude bombers to deliver their newly developed nuclear deterrent. Each country strove to develop the technology of bombers and the high-altitude fighters that could intercept them. The concept of air superiority began to play a heavy role in aircraft designs for both the United States and the Soviet Union.
With the invention ofnuclear weapons, the concept of full-scale war carries the prospect ofglobal annihilation, and as such conflicts since WWII have been "low intensity" conflicts,[3] typically in the form ofproxy wars fought within local regional confines, using what are now referred to as "conventional weapons", typically combined with the use ofasymmetric warfare tactics and applied use ofintelligence.
The use of nuclear weapons first came into being during the last months of WWII, with the dropping ofatomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the only use of nuclear weapons in combat. For a decade afterWorld War II, theUnited States and later theSoviet Union (and to a lesser extent theUnited Kingdom andFrance) developed and maintained a strategic force of bombers that would be able to attack any potential aggressor from bases inside their countries.
Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around the use of a large number of smaller nuclear weapons used in a tactical role. It is arguable if such use could be considered "limited" however, because it was believed that the US would use their own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the USSR deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets.
A revolution in thinking occurred with the introduction of theintercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the Soviet Union first successfully tested in the late 1950s. To deliver a warhead to a target, a missile was far less expensive than a bomber that could do the same job. Moreover, at the time it was impossible to intercept ICBMs due to their high altitude and speed.
In the 1960s, another major shift in nuclear doctrine occurred with the development of thesubmarine-based nuclear missile (SLBM). It was hailed by military theorists as a weapon that would assure a surprise attack would not destroy the capability to retaliate, and therefore would make nuclear war less likely.
Since the end of WWII, no industrial nations have fought such a large, decisive war, due to the availability of weapons that are so destructive that their use wouldoffset the advantages of victory. The fighting of a total war where nuclear weapons are used is something that instead of taking years and the full mobilisation of a country's resources such as in WWII, would take tens of minutes. Such weapons are developed and maintained with relatively modest peace time defence budgets.
By the end of the 1950s, theideological stand-off of the Cold War between theWestern World and theSoviet Union involved thousands of nuclear weapons being aimed at each side by the other. Strategically, the equal balance of destructive power possessed by each side situation came to be known asMutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the idea that a nuclear attack by one superpower would result in nuclear counter-strike by the other. This would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in words widely attributed toNikita Khrushchev, "The living will envy the dead".[4]
During the Cold War, thesuperpowers sought to avoid open conflict between their respective forces, as both sides recognized that such a clash could very easily escalate, and quickly involve nuclear weapons. Instead, the superpowers fought each other through their involvement inproxy wars, military buildups, and diplomatic standoffs.
In the case of proxy wars, each superpower supported its respective allies in conflicts with forces aligned with the other superpower, such as in theKorean War, theVietnam War, and theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Non nuclear nations still fought industrialized warfare as the longIran-Iraq war that ended in a trench warfare stalemate.
TheRoyal United Services Institute stated that theRusso-Ukrainian War has proven that the age of industrial warfare is still here and that massive consumption of equipment,vehicles and ammunition requires a large industrial base for resupply.[5]
| Year | Battle | Country | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1854–1855 | Siege of Sevastopol |  United Kingdom | First use of thetelegraph in combat.[6] |
| 1859 | Austro-Sardinian War |  France | First major use of railroads at the strategic level. |
| 1861 | First Battle of Bull Run |  CSA | First battle in whichrailroads play a decisive role. |
| 1862 | Battle of Hampton Roads | CSA USA | First fight between two powered iron-covered warships. |
| 1864–1865 | Siege of Petersburg |  CSA USA | First example of moderntrench warfare. |
| 1898 | Spanish–American War |  Spain USA | Extensive use of steel battleships in naval conflict. |
| 1905 | Battle of Tsushima |  Russia Japan | Decisive battle between steel-covered warships. |
| 1911–1912 | Italo-Turkish War |  Italy | First use of airplanes in combat. |
| 1914 | First Battle of the Marne | France | First large-scale use ofmotorised infantry. |
| 1914–1918 | First Battle of the Atlantic |  Germany | First major campaign ofsubmarine warfare. |
| 1915 | Second Battle of Ypres | Germany | First large-scale use ofchemical weapons in battle. |
| 1916 | Battle of Verdun | France Germany | High point offixed fortification warfare. |
| 1917 | Battle of Cambrai | United Kingdom | First successful use ofmassed tanks in combat. |
| 1925 | Rif War | FranceSpain | First modern amphibious assault using tanks and aircraft. |
| 1937 | Bombing of Guernica |  Germany Italy | First major use ofterror bombing. |
| 1937 | Battle of El Mazuco |  Spain Germany | First major use ofcarpet bombing against a military target. |
| 1940 | Battle of Britain | GermanyUnited Kingdom | First major battle to be fought entirely in the air. |
| 1940 | Battle of Taranto | United Kingdom | First naval battle in which one side only employed aircraft. |
| 1941 | Battle of Crete | Germany | First major battle in which one side only employedairborne forces. |
| 1941 | Operation Barbarossa | Germany Soviet Union | High point ofBlitzkrieg warfare. Largest invasion in history. |
| 1942 | Battle of the Coral Sea | Japan United States | First naval battle in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon each other. |
| 1942 | Battle of Midway | JapanUnited States | Decisive battle betweenaircraft carriers. |
| 1942 | Battle of Stalingrad | GermanySoviet Union | Largest single battle in history. Decisive battle of theNazi-Soviet War. |
| 1942 | Battle of Guadalcanal | JapanUnited States | First major air-land-sea campaign in history. |
| 1943 | Battle of Kursk | GermanySoviet Union | Largest tank battle in history. |
| 1944 | Normandy Invasion | United KingdomUnited States Canada | Largest seaborne invasion in history. |
| 1944 | Battle of Leyte Gulf | JapanUnited States | Largest naval battle in history. |
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