> watching documentary miniseries on French and Indian War

> watching documentary miniseries on French and Indian War
> first episode French use guerilla tactics and fire from behind trees at British column with great success
> second episode French dig a trench network to advance on British fort with great success

did France invent modern war?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Germans invented mechanised warfare, which is arguably modern war (up to the 00s at least)

    French invented early 19th century war, it's true. Napoleon's enemies by and large adopted his tactics. The exception is Wellington - he perfected them by adding more skirmishers armed with rifles. Unlike Napoleon he dispersed his artillery rather than massed them, I'm not sure if that's an improvement or not.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Napopo had the advantage of the French Revolution where every man was conscripted. So in a sense, the French invented modern war in a strategic sense of levee en masse which was the first form of industrialized warfare.

      As far as tactics, that's highly debatable. And Wellington was a little gay who camped spawn behind a hill, but the French had to go back to their roots by doing yolo cavalry charges like it was the Middle Ages.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's quite a bit more than that, but you have to dig deeper than a quick wiki of Waterloo

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Ney's charge was the final, mad act of a man who saw more horror and war than any one of us can even imagine. In a lifetime of service and battle, this one charge was his only real mistake. It's quite sad, really.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          shoulda spiked the guns instead of banging is saber against them

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Might be lore, but I heard that Napoleon had actual military logistics instead of having soldiers 'live off the land' by peasants being required to provide quarter or straight up looting

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          iirc he implemented the use and distribution of tinned food
          and also had some autism about measuring the dimensions of cannon balls to make sure that they comply with a standard

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            AFAIK he also got mad at an opposing army using Giradoni air rifles to hide in the grass and snipe his troops since they were so quiet and didn't give any indication of where they were being shot from (like smoke). Interesting times.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              The Giradoni air rifle is the wildest fricking idea ever actually implemented in warfare.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Lewis and Clark also brought one along. Showed it off at nearly any chance they got to seemingly anyone. And one of those times ended in a ND; the round ball went straight through a lady's hat. Sounds straight out a greentext but it's true.
                >August 30, 1803. “Left Pittsburgh this day at 11’o clock … went on shore and being invited on by some of the gentlemen present to try my airgun which I had purchased brought it on shore charged it and fired myself seven times fifty five yards with pretty good success; after which a Mr. Blaze Cenas being unacquainted with the management of the gun suffered her to discharge herself accidentally the ball passed through the hat of a woman about 40 yards distance cutting her temple about the fourth of the diameter of the ball; she fell instantly and the blood gushing from her temple we were all in the greatest consternation supposed she was dead by [but] in a minute she revived to our inespressable satisfaction … .”
                https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/the-airgun-of-meriwether-lewis/

                The fact that they had a fricking PRE CHARGED air rifle in the 1700s is just crazy IMO; we're only really getting to a point they're somewhat common and affordable today. I wish repros were a little less unobtainable (if available at all) and pricey. Also, I forgot, it's Girardoni. I spell it wrong every time.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        all these claims are dubious and debatable. mass conscriptions and 'mechanized warfare' existed in antiquity

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >dig a trench network to advance on British fort
    That's what european siege warfare had looked like since the 16th century.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >dig a trench
    You think trenches are modern warfare. As soon as people built defenses like walls tranches were used to aid in their defense or to breach them.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Between Napoleon and WWI french invented most of modern tactics. From concentrated artillery barrage to something like Time on Target from small unit combat maneuvers with LMG cover to the very concept of tanks.

    And they forgot it all by WWII.
    What's crazy in WWII was not France defeat but french military leaders repeatly telling that france was gonna lose during 15 years prior to the onset of WWII.
    It's a cautionary tale if there ever was one.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >What's crazy in WWII was not France defeat but french military leaders repeatly telling that france was gonna lose during 15 years prior to the onset of WWII.
      elaborate?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Different Anon. Charles De Gaule is famous for pointing out the benefits of armor divisions but the French military insisted tanks should only be used for infantry support. Imagine walking down country roads babysitting a tank slowed to your speed and 10 tanks appear on the horizon spaced 100s of meters apart and gunning for you.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Tbf though, that's not an issue of tanks being used for infantry support. Tanks in armor divisions were used for infantry support. Tanks generally spent like 90% of their time shooting things that aren't tanks. The issue was parceling out individual tanks and platoons to the infantry units, rather than concentrating them to form a mobile reserve or spearhead.

          And besides even that point, France's biggest problem in 1940 was less the employment of their armor and more the utter backwardness of their command and control, preferring to use runners for commanders to issue orders to their subordinate units even when telegraphs and radios were actually available. They had many opportunities to halt Germany prior to the breakout, their military just could not process information and act on it quickly enough for anything they did to matter. And Gamelin going for the Breda variant of the Dyle plan threw away some of France's best defensive positions and needlessly lengthened their lines to boot.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >And they forgot it all by WWII.

      They forgot none of it, their frickups were at the operational and strategic levels, both in terms of leadership and doctrine.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Tanks were the English. It's called a tank because it's code name while they were making it was disguised to be a water tank as misinformation. Everything prior to that was just an Armored Car.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    No France is moronic

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    maybe but not in the French Indian war

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    France invented failing in modern war (WW2, Vietnam, Africa)

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the American civil war (1861) and the Crimean war (1853) both had instances of rail lines being built to resupply the front with fresh disposable troops
    modern warfare is more about industrial might if anything, the actual tactics of war have not changed all that much over time

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