Does an “ordinary layman’s understanding of actual history” include knowledge of how tanks are used in combined arms warfare to create breakthroughs in “blitzkrieg” style warfare? Seems like “don’t attack until you have tanks and a good idea of how to use them in coordination with infantry and artillery, and also don’t antagonize America” is sufficient for near certain victory.
The biggest problem with proposing tanks is convincing military leadership that they need them. They didn’t expect trench warfare at all (and yes, some writers predicted it, and nobody believed them).
It certainly seems that a mastery of tank warfare would have helped a lot. But the British experience with tanks shows that there was a huge amount of resistance within the military to new forms of warfare. Britain only had tanks because Winston Churchill made it his priority to support them.
New weapon systems are not impressive at first. The old ways are typically a local optimum. So the real question here is how to leave that local optimum!
I guess it’s hard to keep “they are experimenting with / building huge amounts of tanks” and “they are conducting combined arms exercises” secret from France and Russia, so they would have a lot of advance warning and could then also develop tanks.
But if you have lot more than a layman’s understanding of tank design / combined arms doctrine, you could still come out ahead in this.
Does an “ordinary layman’s understanding of actual history” include knowledge of how tanks are used in combined arms warfare to create breakthroughs in “blitzkrieg” style warfare? Seems like “don’t attack until you have tanks and a good idea of how to use them in coordination with infantry and artillery, and also don’t antagonize America” is sufficient for near certain victory.
The biggest problem with proposing tanks is convincing military leadership that they need them. They didn’t expect trench warfare at all (and yes, some writers predicted it, and nobody believed them).
It certainly seems that a mastery of tank warfare would have helped a lot. But the British experience with tanks shows that there was a huge amount of resistance within the military to new forms of warfare. Britain only had tanks because Winston Churchill made it his priority to support them.
New weapon systems are not impressive at first. The old ways are typically a local optimum. So the real question here is how to leave that local optimum!
I guess it’s hard to keep “they are experimenting with / building huge amounts of tanks” and “they are conducting combined arms exercises” secret from France and Russia, so they would have a lot of advance warning and could then also develop tanks.
But if you have lot more than a layman’s understanding of tank design / combined arms doctrine, you could still come out ahead in this.