Topic: Military Theory
The Modernization of Armies
Thoughts on War, Liddell-Hart, 1944
The modernization of armies is likely to take two forms, which are to some extent successive stages. The first is motorization; the second is true mechanization—the use of armoured fighting vehicles instead of unprotected men fighting on foot or horseback.
As the transformation proceeds, an army, having become as a whole strategically mobile, will re-group itself into two fighting parts with separate tactical functions: one a close-fighting part, composed of semi-mechanized infantry, and the other a mobile-fighting part, composed entirely of armoured-fighting vehicles. The close-fighting units would be employed to clear hilly and wooded country, to gain river-crossings, to evict the enemy from villages or trench systems, to occupy strategic points, an to act as general handymen. The mobile-fighting units would manoeuvre widely to turn the enemy's flanks and attack his lines of supply. If they encounter an enemy in a well-prepared position bristling with anti-tank guns, their tactics will probably be to harass the inert foe by fire while they cut off his supplies of food, petrol, and ammunition--until he is driven either to surrender or to expose himself in an attempt to get away. When acting in direct combination, the close-fighting part of an army would be used to pin and paralyse the opponent while the mobile-fighting part would carry out a decisive manoeuvre against his rear. (April 1930.)
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