How Would Modern Equipment Handle Trenches?

The revolution, subsequent purges of the officer corps and administrative apparatus,

Yep, failure of leadership. Doing a purge like that with a hostile neighbor, is a gamble to head off a possible coup or counter-revolution.

And while the Basij did like their human wave attacks, did have tactics beyond 'Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle'
 
If you have infantry forces without tanks/armored cars, even with modern equipment, radios, weapons, etc all you have is a replay of WWI. Sure modern medicine, personal equipment, rations, and so forth will make life more pleasant in the trenches, prevent illness and so forth but assuming both sides have equivalent equipment, and neither side has a major advantage in leadership, then you'll end up with a stalemate. Time on target, rolling barrages and good communications will help, but the other side will be able to respond as well. I don't see how you'll get to a war of movement.

In WWI once you stopped having a battle of maneuver and had tranches you basically had a stalemate. The better German tactics later on helped but were not decisive. The addition of the American economy and a million troops by fall 1918 when everyone else was pretty exhausted is what finished off the Germans. Absent an overwhelming manpower/equipment advantage, or exhaustion on one side versus the other, you end up with a stalemate. Modern equipment absent those bits that can turn a salient in to a breakthrough and war of maneuver...
 
For information on what a semi modern fight in the style of WWI would look like, more modern then the Iran Iraq war, look at the last Ethiopian/Eritrean war 98 to 00. Although that conflict was limited by lack of resources on both sides. Still modern infantry weapons were used extensively in a stale mate brought on by extensive entrenchments despite both sides having relatively modern tanks and air craft.
 
Imagine these in your trench.

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Well Im not so much impressed by that (isn't a Helicopter weapon?) as I am with modern artillery and Mortars which would mean that 'Trenches' would have to be very well dug and protected - and the artillery itself would have to shoot and scoot after every fire mission to avoid the counter battery fire mission. Towed artillery would not last very long unless it was very well dug in with overhead protection.
 
Imagine you have a purely infantry army facing another purely infantry army. Both have WWI style trench systems. Both have artillery and modern equipment, but no vehicles or aircraft. Without these things, how does the fight go?
This is easy, without vehicles both sides run out of equipment very fast and any attack stalls, they would be wishing for even mule teams to stop them having to carry and drag 155mm guns forward........
 
Imagine you have a purely infantry army facing another purely infantry army. Both have WWI style trench systems. Both have artillery and modern equipment, but no vehicles or aircraft. Without these things, how does the fight go?
Same as in WW I just that the people die faster.Though the troops would be spread out due to the effectiveness of modern artillery.
 
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