DougM
Donor
Actually I disagree. I think it is easy to look at the various wars leading up to WW1 staring with the obvious the American Civil War and the Crimean war but including things like the boar war and start to draw the conclusion that this was going to go ugly and turn into trench warfare. Add in the increase in firepower be it the modern riffle or the machine gun or the fast firing artillery and seeing how lesser improvements in these areas was having huge increases in casualties you could easily make the argument that things were going to be very very bad in the next pier to pier war.
Problem is that no one was learning from the past and projecting it forward, the military was notoriously bad at that (and arguably still is). Add in that many of these wars were fought by “secondary” powers and you add in the traditional ego issues so that the major powers turn Thier collective noses up at learning from the lesser counties wars. And you have a situation we’re historical you will never learn these lessons until two major European powers have a war.
So the lesson WONT be learned (even though the indicators were there to be seen)
Add in without the lessons no one will think there is a need for the new tech. Then don’t forget that the funding for the development of the new tech won’t be available and you just won’t see any noticeable changes.
On top of this you have at best a 5 year window for WW1. Beyond that any war that takes place will be radically different because the political situation will have changed, Most noticeably in the England won’t be as worried about German navel power and colonialism and Germany will not be in a rush to go to war because they won’t have the window to fight France while Russia gets its act together as by that point the changes Russia was starting to implement before the war would mean the could get up an army and get it to the front a LOT faster, it was fear of these changes that at least in part caused Germany to want to go to war. The figured get the war out of the way before Russia got its act together. Postponeing the war means Russia has made these changes so Germany is not going to be in a rush to fight Russia and France.
So the technology will not develop because no one will believe in the need for it and the politics will change the war beyond recognition.
So in short (ok to late for short) you can’t get your desired results
Problem is that no one was learning from the past and projecting it forward, the military was notoriously bad at that (and arguably still is). Add in that many of these wars were fought by “secondary” powers and you add in the traditional ego issues so that the major powers turn Thier collective noses up at learning from the lesser counties wars. And you have a situation we’re historical you will never learn these lessons until two major European powers have a war.
So the lesson WONT be learned (even though the indicators were there to be seen)
Add in without the lessons no one will think there is a need for the new tech. Then don’t forget that the funding for the development of the new tech won’t be available and you just won’t see any noticeable changes.
On top of this you have at best a 5 year window for WW1. Beyond that any war that takes place will be radically different because the political situation will have changed, Most noticeably in the England won’t be as worried about German navel power and colonialism and Germany will not be in a rush to go to war because they won’t have the window to fight France while Russia gets its act together as by that point the changes Russia was starting to implement before the war would mean the could get up an army and get it to the front a LOT faster, it was fear of these changes that at least in part caused Germany to want to go to war. The figured get the war out of the way before Russia got its act together. Postponeing the war means Russia has made these changes so Germany is not going to be in a rush to fight Russia and France.
So the technology will not develop because no one will believe in the need for it and the politics will change the war beyond recognition.
So in short (ok to late for short) you can’t get your desired results