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General Der Panzertruppen Guderian Campaign in Russia

出版	CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 1952-08-12
主題	Biography & Autobiography / Military
ISBN	19757783679781975778361
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=3A-9swEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋The origins of the crisis in warfare were both technological and psychological in nature. The former trace back to the middle of the nineteenth century with the appearance of first rifled and then breech-loading firearms, which made the battlefield more deadly. The psychological element has probably always been present. Military writers began to refer to the crisis as the "tactical problem of the day," particularly that part of it that pertained to the infantry attack. As Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian army's then little-known chief of the General Staff, explained in 1858, "improvements in infantry weapons necessitated a complete change in the tactics of all arms."The infantry, Moltke stressed, had become more "independent" than previously. "The skirmish fire of a platoon exceeds the range and destructive effect of the case-shot of a six-pound cannon." Although artillery still ruled the battlefield from 700 to 1,800 meters, the infantry had become its undisputed master at ranges under 700 meters. Moltke's observations were indeed astute, for rifled firearms had effectively tripled both the range and the accuracy of infantry fire. For instance, at the battle of the Alma River during the Crimean War four years previously, British troops armed with Enfield rifles had inflicted nearly three times as many casualties on Russian soldiers armed with smoothbore muskets. Similar results occurred at the battle of Inkerman two months later, where the Russians suffered casualties at a ratio of nearly three to one. Likewise, during the American Civil War, the use of rifled weapons by both sides not only resulted in high casualties but also often brought attacks to a standstill. Confederate rifle fire in the cornfield at Antietam halted an attack by the First Brigade of the Union Second Division. Soldiers on each side went to ground and continued shooting until, taken under fire in the flank by another Confederate force, the First Brigade broke, leaving nearly a third of its 1,100 men as casualties on the field.