Shock Tactics - Modern

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.