The Technology of War

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The Technology of War

Overview

World War I and World War II can be respectively described as the first mechanized, and first electronic, wars. Though warfare throughout the centuries had seen the development and improvement of weapons and other technologies of warfare, truly mechanized warfare, where advanced mechanical technology began to play a major role in how wars were fought, was only possible after the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of an advanced industrial base that included advanced refining, machining, and assembly-line techniques. In the First World War, such techniques were still in their infancy, while in the Second World War they reached their peak and were augmented by the new world of electronic warfare. For this reason, while the Second World War is often seen as a continuation of the First World War in political terms, it can also be seen as a continuation and refinement of First World War technologies, and their marriage to increasingly sophisticated electronic information systems.

Background

When war broke out in Europe in 1914, military strategy and tactics were still based in the nineteenth century, and the very basic idea that the overwhelming and breaking of an enemy line could be accomplished through the sheer onslaught of bodies. What changed this was the use of the Maxim machine gun by the German military, then the adoption of other machine gun types by the other combatants. The machine gun, in combination with the use of barbed wire as a defensive line, meant that those troops who survived the charge across no-man's land would then have to face becoming entangled in the wire, where they were easy targets for machine gunners and riflemen in the defending trenches. Artillery could be used in an attempt to weaken the enemies' defenses, and open holes in the wire, but this proved to be largely ineffective. What was needed was a vehicle that could afford protection to the men inside as they crossed noman's land, and which could then crush its way through the barbed wire and cross the enemy's trenches to reach the artillery and supplies in the rear area. In other words, what was needed was a tank.

The tank's earliest ancestor might be the war chariot, an armored vehicle carrying offensive weapons and capable of crossing the territory between the attackers and the defending line and breaking through. The problem faced by all such vehicles, however, is terrain; on soft, rugged, or uneven terrain, wheeled vehicles quickly bog down or break. In the First World War, this problem was compounded by the legendary mud of no-man's land, which had been churned and softened by years of small arms and artillery fire. What was needed to cross such terrain was a vehicle that could lay down its own track, a path-laying vehicle. At the same time, the vehicle needed to be self-propelled; if it needed to be drawn forward by horses, for example, then it would be a simple question of killing the horses to halt the vehicle's advance.

Throughout the eighteenth century, with the development of the steam engine and vehicles that used various systems to lay their own "railroad track" or similar paths, the basic construction of the tank came ever closer to being realized. From about 1900 until the outbreak of the war, various experiments were carried out with so-called "endless chain" track-laying vehicles, which featured a track-and-roller system similar to what can be seen on bulldozers and other tracked vehicles today. These vehicles also benefited from the development of the internal combustion engine. In the late nineteenth/early twentieth century in America, the Holt company developed the Holt tractor, was the design that would be studied and utilized for British First World War tanks.

The development of an armored fighting vehicle was first proposed in 1914 by Lt. Col. E.D. Swinton and Capt. T.G. Tulloch of the British army, and was supported by Winston Churchill, then first lord of the admiralty, but it wasn't until early 1916 that a vehicle had been developed that was ready for tactical deployment. In September of 1916, during the battle of the Somme, 49 of the new British tanks went into battle for the first time. These 49 tanks were of two types, one designated "male," the other "female"; while both models were nearly identical in weight (31 and 30 tons, respectively), and size (26 feet [8 m] long, 13 feet [4 m] wide, and 8 feet [2.4 m] high), the male was armed with a 6-pounder naval gun and four machine guns, while the female was armed with six machine guns only. Of these 49 tanks, however, the majority were afflicted with mechanical or other problems, so that only 9 actually fulfilled their combat missions. Despite this disappointing first "trial by combat," the usefulness of the tank became apparent to all combatants engaged in the conflict, and by the end of the war the British, French, and German forces had all developed and deployed tanks in combat, with only the United States lagging behind and having to use French tanks when American forces entered the conflict in 1917.

The actual impact of the tank on warfare in WWI is not as significant as it was in WWII, due to both the mechanical and operational unreliability of the vehicles in combat, and a lack of real tactical theory to support their combat use. The development of the tank, however, introduced a new age of European warfare, in which the onslaught of human bodies was replaced by the onslaught of armored, heavily armed, mechanized vehicles with the capacity to make deep drives into enemy territory. In WWII, the blitzkrieg or "lightning war" tactics of the German military would rely heavily upon the use of armored vehicles, and would represent the most advanced tactical thinking in the deployment of this new land warfare technology.

If the introduction of the machine gun and the tank began to change the face of land warfare in WW I, the introduction of the airplane during the conflict opened the theater of air combat. Airships and balloons had been used in late-nineteenth-century combat to fulfill reconnaissance roles, and when war broke out in 1914, the airplane, still in an early form of development, was used in the same way. Aircraft were small and unarmed, with a pilot and an observer, and usually flew on solo missions to observe enemy positions and maneuvers. If an enemy aircraft was encountered on the mission, combat between the two usually consisted of the two aircraft closing to a short range, then the pilot and the observer blazing away with whatever weapons they had on them at the enemy aircraft.

By 1915, the combatants on both sides began to arm their aircraft with rear-firing machine guns. This meant, however, that the weapons could really only be used for defensive purposes, in the case that an observation aircraft found itself under attack from an enemy. In the autumn of 1915, the German military introduced the Fokker E.I., a fighter plane with a forward-firing machine gun. A synchronization device allowed the machine gun to fire only when the propeller blade was not opposite the muzzle of the gun. This gave the Fokker an offensive, attack capability, and all combatants began to realize the need for specialized types of planes such as observation aircraft, fighters and bombers, and suitable tactics for the use of each type.

This led, in 1916, to the concept of formation flying, and what would later be called "the flying circus." Instead of lone aircraft flying out on missions, a formation of aircraft, flying together and cooperating with one another, assured mutual protection in combat. This meant that fighters would be put in formation with observation or bombing aircraft to provide those planes with protection. It was also realized that fighter aircraft could be used in an offensive capacity, and formations were sent out with the direct intent of engaging enemy air and land units in support of other land and air operations.

The principle developments in aircraft technology involved the design of the pilot and observer seating and armament—with the final designs incorporating a pilot who sat in the front of the plane with a forward-firing machine gun, and an observer who sat in the rear and utilized a rear-firing machine gun mounted on a rail that allowed for an arc of fire—and improvements in overall aircraft design that led to increased airspeed, cruising altitude, and diving capabilities. Unlike tank tactics, air tactics evolved rapidly, with the principal notion of formation flying carrying over into Second World War air tactics. The principal impact of the airplane on WW I combat was its use as an offensive weapon that could engage the enemy deep in its own territory. While bombers were used to a limited extent, due to problems with designing an aircraft that could carry a significant bombing load, fighters enjoyed an extensive combat role that ushered in the era of air warfare.

Finally, the First World War saw the development of an entirely new system of warfare at sea. While naval warfare for centuries was essentially an affair that took place between large, heavily armed, massed naval formations, WW I saw the introduction of a lone hunter that could not only inflict serious damage on enemy shipping, but could also function as a weapon of terror: the U-boat.

Like the tank and the airplane, the concept of an underwater vessel is centuries old, but only with the development of the electric engine, the internal combustion engine, and the screw propeller did the submarine actually become a feasible naval vessel. The internal combustion engine and the screw propeller gave all types of naval vessels improved speed and propulsion, but it was the electric engine that made it possible for submarines to run submerged without generating fumes that would eventually have poisoned the crew.

Though the first true submarines were developed and deployed in the late nineteenth century, their role in overall naval warfare was extremely limited; as they had no real ocean-going capacity, they were essentially limited to patrolling coastal waters and lacked the capacity to truly engage other naval vessels. During the First World War, however, the German military adopted a policy of "unrestricted submarine warfare," in which they actively sought out and engaged enemy merchant ships. This was generally considered to be in violation of international law, since it involved the torpedoing of what were normally considered to be unarmed civilian ships without any warning or attempt to provide capture and rescue operations. That passenger ships were also considered to be enemy ships led to a considerable outcry against the German policy, and with the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, resulting in the deaths of 1,198 men, women, and children, international outrage reached such a pitch that the German government was forced to suspend its operations against passenger ships.

The damage inflicted by the German U-boats, however, was so extensive that it threatened to carry the war in favor of the Germans. By the end of the war, the Germans had sunk 5,408 allied merchant ships, and had lost only 203 submarines. The German threat was countered only by the introduction of the convoy system, which gave armed naval escort to merchant ships. The introduction of American naval forces in 1917, provided a considerable naval fleet at the hands of the Allies for this very purpose.

The introduction of the submarine in naval combat demonstrated that a small, underwater vessel that could be cheaply manufactured could not only impose considerable damage on enemy shipping, it could also be used as a weapon of psychological warfare to terrorize civilian populations. The advent of the submarine, then, may not be as significant for its tactical and strategic value as for its significance in opening the theater of warfare to include civilian populations as a target, a strategy that would be extensively employed by both sides during World War Two.

If World War I can be described as the first mechanized war, then World War II might be thought of as the first electronic war. While improved manufacturing processes and a stronger industrial base allowed for the machines of World War I to be manufactured in greater numbers, and with greater degrees of structural integrity and strength, the major change in the quality of warfare in the Second World War was brought about largely by the development of electronic technology such as radio, radar, and sonar, which in turn meant that the primary ammunition of the war was no longer bullets, but information.

During the First World War, the coordination of units was still largely dependent upon communication through hand signals, voice, carrier pigeon, signaling apparatus, and, occasionally, telegraph. However, no real means existed for tanks or airplanes in a squadron to communicate with each other in tactical situations, and once an attack was launched, it was extremely difficult for commanders in the rear to change strategy based on prevailing battle conditions. The ability of forward units to communicate information to the rear was extremely limited, and thus the most aggressive attack could be blunted simply because there was no way to relay orders or information from the front to the rear or vice-versa.

The adoption of wireless radio communications by the world's major military forces, and the development of small, mobile wireless sets, enabled two major changes in the conduct of military operations. First, it allowed for greater communication and coordination between individual tactical units (squad, individual tanks, or planes), which in turn allowed for a more rapid ability for the units themselves to adapt to changing battle conditions—command and control at the tactical level, in other words, became more decentralized. At the same time, however, forward units could more quickly communicate intelligence to the rear, providing commanders with up-to-the-minute reports on changing battle conditions. Radio, in other words, made possible the type of coordinated shock attack that the German military would perfect in the blitzkrieg attack, as well as the communication of important strategic information from forward units. World War One may have seen the development of the tank and the airplane as devices, but it was the radio that enabled these devices to reach their full tactical and strategic potential.

On the tactical level, radio provided a greater degree of coordination between individual units, and on the strategic level, it can be said to have given commanders a larger degree of remote control. A commander could unleash his units in a combat situation and expect that they would function in a coordinated tactical way among themselves, but would maintain communication that would allow for large-scale strategic decisions to be made in response to the fortunes of battle. Thus, for example, squadrons of hundreds of fighters and bombers could be dispatched on a bombing run, and while radio would allow the individual planes to communicate with one another during combat situations, radio would also allow air commanders in the rear to re-direct planes to targets as new intelligence information was gathered. Such technology was also critically important in communicating with naval units, and it was in the ciphers and decoding of German radio transmissions to U-boats that the true Atlantic naval war was fought.

Because radio allowed for remote control of large-scale operations, and because massive troop movements were carried out through radio signals, the interception of radio signals and decoding them became a major concern, as was the development of ciphers and codes. In many ways, information became the real medium of warfare in World War Two, as can be seen in the development of ever-more complex electronic systems, such as radar and sonar, for gathering information, and the attempt to develop other electronic systems, such as the German Enigma coding machine, to frustrate the gathering of electronic information. World War Two was a war that was fought in the conventional way with bullets and grenades, but it was also the first war which was fought with electromagnetic waves.

Because of the way it allowed for large-scale coordination and rapid communication, radio changed the scale and speed of warfare. It also changed the perception of war, as radio became the chief propaganda and psychological warfare weapon. Edward R. Murrow's live broadcasts from London during the Blitz, as well as the use of radio by the German propaganda ministry, are examples of the ways in which radio was used to solidify and win public opinion, and to manipulate the public's perception of the war. Both the Allies and Axis powers used radio broadcasts, such as those of Tokyo Rose, to undermine the morale of enemy forces.

Finally, World War Two also saw the deployment of weapons of mass destruction against civilian populations on a scale that had never before been realized. German rocket technology, coupled with radio control, enabled the German military to deploy a continuous rain of V-1 and V-2 rocket weapons against the civilian population of London, while the Allies responded with saturation bombing attacks against such cities as Dresden, where one overnight fire-bombing raid led to 35,000 civilian casualties. The most significant use of such weapons, however, would have to be the use of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where casualties continue to mount as Japanese exposed to the blast succumb to radiation-induced diseases like leukemia.

Impact

World Wars One and Two might be said to have given us both the technology and the infrastructure to support that technology, that are at the heart of modern warfare. But World War Two also showed that war, in the future, would be fought in a different way, that "total war" against entire enemy populations would now be the order of the day, and that the war of opinion, information, and misinformation would be as important as the war of bullets and grenades.

PHIL GOCHENOUR

LAUNCHING AIRCRAFT FROM SHIPS: THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS

Aircraft carriers have been in combat use for well over a half century, and the technology that makes them such effective weapons seems fairly well perfected. The technology and techniques that now seem almost routine, however, were developed laboriously over time, and the first attempts to launch aircraft from ships were awkward or amusing at best and disastrous at worst.

On October 7, 1903, a few months before the Wright brothers' first flight, Samuel Langley's aerodrome was launched by catapult from a ramp atop a houseboat in the Potomac River. According to the Washington Post, "It simply slid into the water like a handful of mortar...." Langley's second attempt, two months later, ended as poorly, as did all subsequent attempts to marry ship and aircraft for the next seven years.

On November 14, 1910, Eugene Ely took off from a wooden ramp on the USS Birmingham in a Curtis biplane, beginning the era of naval aviation, with a few caveats. The pilot did not land on the ship, he and his plane were civilian, and the Birmingham was stationary. But an airplane had successfully made it into the air from the deck of a ship. Two months later, Ely successfully landed on a wooden ramp built onto the USS Pennsylvania, marking the first successful landing on a ship. This landing is noteworthy for another reason—to stop the brakeless aircraft, Ely attached hooks to the bottom of the plane and strung 22 ropes, each tied to two 50-pound sandbags—the forerunner to today's arresting gear on modern ships.

P. ANDREW KARAM

Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery