Modern
After the introduction of firearms, the use of the cavalry charge as a common military tactic waned. Infantry shock action required the holding of fire until the enemy was in very close range, and was used in defence as well as attack. The favorite tactic of the Duke of Wellington was for the infantry to fire a volley and then give a loud cheer and charge. The culmination and downfall of the infantry charge was at World War I, when masses of soldiers made frontal, and often disastrous, attacks on entrenched enemy positions. The machine gun made this tactic a futile one and only with the invention of the tank did shock tactics once more become viable.
During World War II the Germans adapted the shock tactics to modern mechanized warfare. The Blitzkrieg was a shock tactic based on tanks which gained considerable achievements during the war and was afterwards adopted by most modern armies.
The US tactic of Shock and Awe at the Second Gulf War is a shock tactic based on a combination between land and aerial warfare.
Read more about this topic: Shock Tactics
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead of persuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Chaucer is fresh and modern still, and no dust settles on his true passages. It lightens along the line, and we are reminded that flowers have bloomed, and birds sung, and hearts beaten in England. Before the earnest gaze of the reader, the rust and moss of time gradually drop off, and the original green life is revealed. He was a homely and domestic man, and did breathe quite as modern men do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Through a series of gradual power losses, the modern parent is in danger of losing sight of her own child, as well as her own vision and style. It’s a very big price to pay emotionally. Too bad it’s often accompanied by an equally huge price financially.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)