Chapter 3

In the nuclear superpower age, it was all too easy to dismiss land warfare as of decreasing importance. High technology seemed to offer more and more for the world's navies and air forces, while armies remained equipped with weapons little different from those used in World War 2. Yet armies still make up the major element of nations' military might. Significant changes in army methods of operation have followed technical developments in the past, and an examination of these will indicate the most likely areas for future innovation.

In early days land warfare was comparatively small scale. One estimate of the total killed in war in France, England, Austria-Hungary and Russia between 1101 and 1599 comes to just over one million men. The comparative figure for the 17th Century alone was 2.5 million, rising to 3.6 million for the next century.(1). Weapon development was directed towards increasing the range of action of weapons, increasing the effectiveness of the weapons and increasing the rate of weapon delivery. The longbow gave the English at Crecy in 1346 a crucial advantage over the French forces. Yet the bow was not a novel technical breakthrough: its successes in the past had been largely ignored. Indeed it is surprising how often weapons which alter the whole conduct of land warfare are not the technological novelties, but the thoughtful application of well understood techniques. Gunpowder gave hand guns, cannons and rockets to increase range and firepower from the 14th century onwards. Experience in combat, progress in chemistry, mathematics and engineering, all improved armies' killing power. As with maritime warfare, the more significant technological advances date from the beginning of the last century.

By the early 1800s infantry were equipped with inaccurate and expensive muskets, which took a considerable time to reload between shots. Advances in chemistry at the turn of the century had produced fulminates of silver and mercury: explosives which detonated when struck. Their use for igniting the powder in the gun barrel much reduced the incidence of misfires in flintlocks. Once the cylindro-conoidal bullet had been designed in 1823, it could be coupled to the percussion cap to make the rifle bullet (2). A gun which fired a bullet which sealed itself into the bore, which was rifled, offered greater range and accuracy with quicker loading. Improvements in manufacturing technology allowed breechloading to become practical and dramatically increase the rate of fire. The industrial revolution was also changing the way in which such guns could be produced. Instead of the handcrafted individual weapon, the mass production of standard parts became the norm. The cost of weapons could decrease as their effectiveness was increasing. The American Civil War demonstrated the power of these new infantry weapons. The repeating rifle improved rates of fire yet further, but brought with it the penalty of much greater ammunition requirements. Already it was becoming apparent that the vulnerability of the horse and rider to long range rifle fire had made the cavalry obsolete.

The repeating rifle offered the prospect of yet more concentrated fire if the reloading requirement could be reduced, and if the rate of fire could be increased. During the second half of the 19th Century work was done on both these aspects. The French produced a 37-barrel gun, which weighed one ton, and could deliver its load of 10 shells per barrel in one minute (3). Richard Gatling produce the first machine gun in 1862. This multi-barreled weapon used a purely mechanical action to load, fire and eject spent cartridges. The energy to activate the mechanism was provided by a hand crank. Hiram Maxim contributed to the further development of the machine gun by adapting it so that the recoil energy from each shot was used to operate the mechanism. This was the first automatic machine gun. The century had seen rates of fire improve a thousand-fold.

The innovations in the design and the development of infantry weapons were also incorporated in artillery guns. Rifling of barrels and breech-loading improved accuracy, range and rate of fire from the middle of the century onwards. Science was providing a greater understanding of the physics of the guns, and better materials and manufacturing processes. The strength of the barrels was improved while the overall weight could be relatively less. Guns became more powerful and more mobile. It was late in the century before satisfactory recoil mechanisms were adopted, which allowed the gun to absorb the reaction to the firing of the shell and return to the firing position. Such mechanisms allowed increased rates of fire. Mathematical work on ballistics theory improved accuracy. Although Shrapnel had filled a hollow shell with shot in 1784, it was nearly another 70 years before a reliable fuse was perfected (4). One further development improved artillery effectiveness: the invention of smokeless powders. The lack of smoke from propellants such as cordite aided concealment of gun positions, and reduced obscuration of targets. More importantly, the new powders were slow burning. This meant that pressures rose progressively and barrels could be longer and bores be larger. Range, accuracy and firepower all benefited. The new opportunity to fill the projectile with a high explosive charge further increased the destructive power.

Guns could fire shells weighing 12 lbs each at a rate of 20 shells per minute. There were large numbers of guns available as manufacturing processes became more standardised. The ammunition requirement for any campaign became a crucial factor in planning. One apparently non- military invention was to have dramatic strategic significance in the moving of men and materiel for war. The Stockton to Darlington railiway opened in 1825, and the railroad spread with a speed characteristic of commercial rather than military progress. The military were slower to realise the contribution that the railroad could make to their deployment and logistic support plans. The strategic use of railways in the American Civil War (1861-5) and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 showed that great advantage could be gained by the imaginative use of these fast supply lines, which can carry large quantities of cargo. In 1870 von Moltke, the Prussian chief of the General Staff, mobilised and moved three armies, totalling 384,000 men, to face the French west of the Rhine in just 18 days. With the railroad it became possible to envisage supporting massive operations at considerable distances. At the same time, armies could become dependent on these fixed and known lines, and hence were vulnerable to counter-measures taken against the railroads.

The telegraph paralleled the railroad in its development both chronologically and geographically. Once Samuel Morse had convinced the doubters of its merits, commercial interests ensured that the telegraph spread rapidly, particularly in expanding North America. The military advantages of instant communication are enormous. When communication is at the speed of the horse and messenger, plans must be rigid and rapid reaction to changing circumstances becomes impractical. With the aid of the telegraph, strategic information about the actions of the enemy could be passed in time for preventive action to be taken. Public information about the course of battles became available from war correspondents. Commanders could apply reserve forces at all levels in a much more effective way. Large forces could be controlled. Artillery fire could be directed on to targets by direct communication between spotter and battery. The telegraph and telephone (1876) quickened the pace of warfare by shortening response times and increasing flexibility. Coupling this speed of information communication with the effect of the railroad on speed of movement, the nature of land warfare is changed in scale by two primarily civil inventions.

Just as steam power, diesel engines and eventually nuclear plants transformed the nature of naval warfare, the move from animal power to mechanical drives revolutionised land operations. Steam power influenced strategy because the size of the engines restricted employment on land to the railways. Logistic support plans had therefore to follow the routes of the railway lines. Work in the mid 19th Century led to Nikolaus August Otto developing a four stroke internal combustion engine by 1876. The early engine-driven Benz four wheel automobiles were marketed from 1890 onwards. The motor car was a commercial proposition. Yet the application of this technology to warfare seems inexplicably slow in retrospect. All the components for the tank had been invented by the turn of the century, and the basic concept was centuries old, but it would be the middle of World War I before they would be assembled and fielded in battle. Artillery would continue to be dragged into position by horse, and men would march unprotected to their fighting posts.

The credit for the eventual production of the tank goes to the persistence of Colonel Ernest Swinton of the British Army (5). Despite War Office antipathy, but with the support of Winston Churchill (and the Admiralty), work progressed from 1914 onwards. The use of tanks at the battle of Cambrai in 1917 was every bit as significant in the history of land warfare as the longbow had been at Crecy. The stagnated trench warfare of the war could be ended by the new weapon system. Armoured vehicles with caterpillar tracks for cross-country capability, and integral firepower could provide offensive action which would break through heavily defended positions. Even these lessons were not absorbed quickly and the full potential of the tank was not exploited during the war. The 540 tanks of the British used at Amiens on 8 August 1918 made it a decisive victory, and brought an end to the stand-off debilitating warfare of the past four years (6).

What was it that made World War I the succession of stagnated defensive battles? The machine gun had been adopted widely by all combatants, and could be produced in large numbers. The industrialisation of society allowed armament to be produced in continuous and unprecedented quantities. The railways delivered men and ammunition endlessly into the war. As importantly, the low technology of preparing defensive positions had a critical influence on the nature of the warfare. Barbed wire had been patented in America in 1867, and the copious quantities needed to tame the West led to cheap manufacturing processes. The low cost, ease of emplacement and effectiveness in slowing infantry movement of barbed wire defences allowed the machine gun to prevent forward movement. With no counter to these prepared defensive positions, and the massive use of artillery leading to the universal use of trenches, offensive action led inevitably to casualty figures never previously contemplated. Mass production had led to mass destruction.

One technological approach to overcome the impenetrability of the defence was the use of disabling chemical agents. Despite the international prohibition on the use of poison gases in the Hague Convention, the first gas attack was made against the Allied forces at Ypres on 22 April 1915. 5000 casualties and the loss of 60 field guns was the result (7). The use by both sides of chemical killing and incapacitating munitions escalated rapidly (8). What was a novel technological breakthrough did not lead to a strategic advantage. The countermeasures of gas masks and protection reduced what was already an imprecise weapon to a level of effectiveness somewhat less than that of conventional artillery. The unseen killer gas did have profoundly greater demoralising effects on troops under attack, than did the more obvious - and lethal - high explosive shells.

Technology had provided one extra element to the land battle in the run-up to the first world war: the aeroplane. How that affected warfare is considered in the next chapter; but in the context of the land battles of World War 1, it was another potential war winning element which suffered from lack of exploitation. Inventions which had enjoyed success and development from civilian manufacturers for commercial reasons were not adopted with sufficient imagination to change tactics. Where science was applied, it was to increase the destructive power of artillery, the rate of fire of infantry, and the killing power of munitions. The need to harness and exploit already developed civilian novelties such as the motor car, the tractor and the aircraft was only slowly appreciated. Yet these devices held the key to new battlefield tactics, which could have broken the stalemate of trench warfare.

If limited use of tanks had ended the apparently unendable conflict, it was scarcely surprising that the next two decades would see much thought devoted to the role and improvement of the armoured fighting vehicle. It is interesting that there are a number of examples of such high priority development in the light of only slight combat experience. These include the pre-World War 1 battleships, the strategic bomber after the 1917 air raids on London, and nuclear weaponry after the 1945 attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The inter-war period saw strong advocates of the importance of armour in future conflicts (9). The western establishment was orientated towards peace and disarmament; views which did not sit well with the development of such an overtly offensive weapon as the tank. Emphasis was given to defensive measures and the use of the tank in support of the infantry. In Germany the climate of opinion was markedly different. Looking for a rapid offensive capability, they saw the use of tanks and motorised infantry as of first importance. The new tactical doctrine of Blitzkreig sought to achieve rapid breakthrough using armour supported by air power. Tanks developed through improvements in engines, guns, gyroscopic stabilisation of weapons, and armour.

What research was there into measures to counter the power of the tank? Field artillery had been used in this role in World War I, and specialist guns were developed with sufficient power to penetrate armour in the inter-war period. It was to be 1942 before the infantry began to gain an effective anti-tank capability with rocket propelled launchers. Land mines were made more effective, but still required laborious preparation and remained a defensive rather than offensive weapon. Indeed it was improvements in defensive measures which engendered most interest amongst the Allies. The Maginot Line of defensive fortifications in Europe used massive engineering works, in order to provide an inpenetrable wall against an enemy using World War I tactics. Technology could provide such a barrier, but when the nature of warfare was not as predicted, such a magnificent static system of defence had little relevance. In modern day jargon, the utility of the fortifications was very scenario dependent.

So what was technology offering the land forces for World War 2, and how did the promises match performance under combat conditions? Motorised transport had become universal in the inter-war period, and thus men and stores were less constrained to the straight lines of the railways. Communications had made great advances. While wireless telegraphy was widely available in the previous war, the full exploitation of radio had to await the development of radio transmission and reception techniques based on thermionic valves. The triode valve had been invented in 1906 and modulation of radio frequency carrier waves by audio signals demonstrated. The British Army formed its first wireless company in 1911; but the transmitter/receiver weighed 2 tons and was horse drawn. The rapid development of radio-telephony owed more to the commercial pressures of broadcasting than military research in the immediate post war era. Mass markets for radio receivers brought down costs as performance improved. Amateur and professional users explored the propagation characteristics of different frequencies under changing ionospheric conditions. By 1939 the radio receiver was a familiar household piece of apparatus, and the developments in thermionic valves had allowed both powerful transmitters and sensitive receivers to be mass produced. For the army portable radio equipment was standard.

The ability for higher formation to communicate with lower, and for commanders to talk directly to their troops, and all that at the speed of light, was the key to capitalising on the new mobility and flexibility of motorised forces. This was an area of development which was recognised to be important. Commercial exploitation of radio (and in time television) led to reduced production costs and improved reliability. Realising the advantages to land forces of radio communications, it would have been productive to devote equal effort to methods of denying such communications to an enemy. Nevertheless, considerable success was achieved through interception of radio messages as an intelligence gathering method. Technology had provided a new capability to control forces in short timescales, but was also to make armies dependent on a medium which could be intercepted, located and eventually disrupted. In the area of munitions, inter-war development was mainly incremental. Manufacturing techniques were improved and coupled with better designs improvements in accuracy and reliability were achieved. While radar was of great significance to both the sea and the air battles of World War 2, the problem of clutter from ground reflections of radar waves meant that it was not used for the detection of enemy land forces. One important use for radar over land was found. In 1942, the first tests were conducted of shells containing their own radar such that they could accurately measure their height above the ground. The altitude measurement was used to explode the shell at preset low height above the ground to give maximum fragmentation effect. Shrapnel s work of the 18th Century was coming to fruition. Such proximity fused shells proved extremely effective against German troops from the end of 1944 onwards.

The artillery itself had not increased in calibre, but new fire control systems improved accuracy and reliability. Motor transport ensured rapid resupply of ammunition, and gave mobility to artillery batteries. Fire control and radio gave much greater scope for accurate coordinated barrages using dispersed batteries against a common target. The Russians brought back the long out of favour rocket as a major contribution to artillery firepower. Trucks carried 12 or 16 rocket launchers which could be used to fire a salvo.

The tank had spawned special purpose variants to clear minefields, provide engineering support and some with light armour to improve speed and manoeuvrability. Infantry could be transported in armoured vehicles. Surprisingly, the development of the tank in the inter-war period had not generated a range of effective anti-tank weapons, apart from the tank itself. Indeed development of counters to tanks in general was an area in which research could have paid great dividends. Work on the shaped charge, with its high penetration ability against armour plate, and the use of high velocity guns and the development of the bazooka during the war redressed the lack of earlier work to some extent. However, in the early days of the war the combination of tanks and aircraft in fast moving coordinated offensive thrusts proved to be highly successful in achieving rapid advances. Technology had provided the wherewithal for a new tactical doctrine of Blitzkreig, and the defensive palliatives of the last war were inadequate to meet the new challenge (10).

Technology had also been able to provide improvements to defensive equipment. Mass production techniques had made large quantities of land mines available. Minefields could be laid rapidly, and were increasingly difficult to clear. They were used to slow enemy advance, or in the case of forces such as the Russians, who chose to ignore such obstacles, to inflict considerable casualties. Significant advances were also made in the field of camouflage and smoke screen generation, which gave forces higher survivability, and the possibility of greater tactical surprise.

In the transporting of land forces, the use of aircraft allowed new concepts of operations to be explored through the use of airborne forces. We shall consider this further in the next chapter. Specialist vehicles for amphibious operations were also developed. The legendary DUKW, a cross between a lorry and a boat, was not a great technological breakthrough as an amphibious troop carrier. Like the tank in the previous war, it was the bringing together of mature technologies in an innovative way. Again it was necessary to convince a sceptical military establishment of the military effectiveness of such an obvious and simple idea.

In many cases the application of already mature technologies is a characteristic of the more successful army equipment improvements. This may be a reflection of the large quantities of equipment necessary for any army re-equipment programme, and hence the attractions of lower unit costs through the use of technologies already proven in the civil sector.

While the nature of warfare had changed dramatically between the two world wars, ground forces still found themselves in attrition battles. Despite the strategic, technological and economic advantages which the US forces enjoyed over Japan by 1945, they expected losses numbered in hundreds of thousands in the final operations to defeat Japan. In the event, the Japanese surrender was brought about by the strategic use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. This winning of the land battle by the use of atomic air power led many to discount the future importance of non-nuclear land forces.

The early atomic weapons were large, heavy, expensive and scarce. Their delivery by air drop against major economic targets made the relevance of the land battle appear much diminished. Two developments were to change this premature assessment of the future of land warfare. Firstly, all conflicts since 1945 have been non-nuclear, and some have required very large ground force involvement. Secondly, nuclear weapons were not to remain the rare, bulky and impossibly expensive munitions that they were at first. The advent of thermonuclear weapons from 1952 onwards led not only to the possibility of ever more powerful strategic weapons, but also to much smaller tactical nuclear warheads. Coupled with progress in missile technology, armies could be equipped with short range nuclear armed rockets for use against purely military targets. Nuclear weapons became cheaper and easier to build, and initially the prospect of such devastating firepower appeared inviting to the armies of the nuclear states. The threat of a nuclear attack changed the traditional military virtue of concentration of force into a new vulnerability. If armies were to be able to survive a nuclear attack, they must disperse. Thus the possession of army tactical nuclear systems could force a potential enemy into deploying in a disadvantageous way without firing a shot.

As nuclear miniaturisation proceeded, nuclear warheads were fitted in artillery shells. The potential firepower effect of an artillery barrage was increased by many orders of magnitude. Science had given armies explosive power beyond all previous experience. It posed the nuclear armies with considerable problems in preparing for future wars. If nuclear missiles, mines, and artillery were available to both sides and were to be used on the battlefield, losses would be enormous in very short timescales. It was difficult to visualise armies being able to make cohesive progress in the aftermath of an exchange of battlefield nuclear weapons. In addition, the strategic implications of the use of these tactical weapons could not be forgotten. The high risk of escalation from battlefield nuclear weapons being used against military targets to strategic nuclear weapons being used against population centres, meant that even the lowest yielding tactical nuclear weapon would remain under firm political control. While science could provide weapons of great power for the army, the consequences of their use are so great that they become virtually unusable. This does not discount the role they play in deterrence, in that they provide a possible link from conventional conflict to a strategic nuclear exchange. In the conflicts which have been fought since 1945 around the world, they have had no part to play.

If the advent of the nuclear weapon has had less effect on armies than was originally anticipated, how have land forces used nuclear power technology? We saw in the previous chapter that nuclear power was an expensive option for navies, and its advantages only outweighed its cost in the case of the submarine. Heavy, expensive and in need of highly technical support, nuclear power plants have found no army vehicle to propel as yet. Indeed, power sources have changed little from the internal combustion engines developed at the start of the century. The gas turbine has been incorporated into some tank drives, but as yet offers no over-riding advantages.

Tanks have been developed in the post-war period to move at higher speeds, carry greater firepower, have more mobility and improved armour protection. These aspects of tank design are interdependent, and many modern changes in design reflect differing judgements on relative priorities as much as technological breakthroughs. New materials can offer improved protection without the consequent increase in weight of additional armour plate. Tank main armament has also improved in flexibility, rate of fire and accuracy both through gun design and fire control system development. Nevertheless, just as the motor car today operates in much the same way as the car of the 1920s, so the tank seems to have long passed the peak in innovative design. At the end of World War 1 it was a totally new concept which could break the deadlock of trench warfare. At the start of World War 2, the tank could make rapid advances possible through the use of imaginative tactics. By the end of that war, it had become a normal part of an army's inventory, and was no longer the decisive weapon. Little has happened to the design of tanks in the last 40 years to make them once again the battle winning weapon system.

Important research in this post-war period has been into ways of countering the tank. A tank can be destroyed by mines, missiles or guns. The mines can be laid by the ground forces, fired by artillery, or dropped from the air. Missiles can be fired from the ground, launched from aircraft or operated from handheld infantry systems. The guns can be high velocity mounted on other tanks, specialist air or surface systems, or handheld recoil-less rifles. The proliferation of anti-tank munitions of increasing power over a period of 40 years makes the contribution of the tank in future wars arguable. The land campaign of the Gulf War lasted for only 100 hours, but in that time some 8000 Iraqi vehicles( including 1300 tanks) were destroyed. (11).

The advent of the armed helicopter both as a tank killer, and a tank replacement is considered in the next chapter, as are the implications of the helicopter for land force mobility. Infantry transport has been developed to provide fast armoured personnel carriers, yet response times for forces have changed little. Armies need to transport enormous quantities of men and materiel, the bulk of which must travel on the earth's surface at speeds which reached their maximum half a century ago. However, the infantryman has gained many new capabilities over this time. His personal weapon has improved in rate of fire, portability and accuracy. He can carry his communication system with him, it is automatically encoded to prevent interception, and can change frequency automatically to reduce the effectiveness of electronic counter-measures. Radar allows him to pinpoint enemy artillery and mortar positions, and to a limited extent detect enemy ground movements. He can carry potent anti-tank and air defence weapons. Post-war technology, through reducing the size of weapon systems, has made the individual soldier a powerful weapon operator. Just as the torpedo and the missile threaten the capital ship, so the hand held anti-tank weapon can threaten the vastly more expensive tank.

In artillery, with the exception of the nuclear shells discussed earlier, recent advances have been incremental in nature. Fire control systems have benefited from the development of smaller and more powerful computers, so that accurate coordinated fire can be controlled from multiple artillery batteries. Inertial navigation systems have improved the accuracy of weapon aiming and of fire correction. The development of ballistic and cruise missiles for nuclear weapons has led to systems of sufficiently high accuracy for them to be considered as options for conventional artillery. The possibilities and the costs of these options will be examined in the final section of this book. Unguided rockets have reappeared as a useful addition to an army's firepower, when coupled to modern surveillance and targeting systems.

For munitions, high explosive remains the major component of weapon stocks. Shells are custom built to give greater effectiveness against particular target sets. Chemical weapons were developed extensively for use in World War 2, but neither side used them. The nerve agents available today are potentially very effective against an unprotected enemy, and technology has provided relatively simple operating systems for such weapons. Protective measures have also improved very significantly. With so little experience of chemical warfare, predictions about its impact on future conflicts is liable to be very speculative. The reluctance of nations to use such weapons in the past, for fear of retaliation or international criticism, may mean that they will continue to have little impact on warfare, provided both sides see it as in their interest to refrain from their use. They were used during the Iran/Iraq war, with extensive civilian caualties reported in 1988. It was expected that Iraq would use chemical and perhaps biological agents during the Gulf War of 1991. There is some evidence that deterrence operated and these weapons were not used for fear of nuclear retaliation by the West.

In one respect, it is possible to be confident that technology has changed the nature of future major conflict. Since war began, land fighting had been a predominantly daytime activity. Traditionally attacks are made at dawn, the fighting continues through the day, and forces regroup and resupply by night. Technology can now give the soldier (and as importantly the airman) the ability to see at night virtually as well as by day. Image intensifiers can now be produced which can be worn with little more incumbrance than spectacles. Night sights give a true night firing ability. The widespread use of night vision aids may be one of the most significant products of post-war technology for land forces. The implications of continuous fighting for manpower, ammunition consumption, logistic support and vulnerability of the supply system are profound. Yet again experience is limited.

The technologies which have most recently provided a new dimension to land warfare have been in the field of battlefield position information. The Gulf War was the first opportunity to use handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers as personal items of kit. For the first time in the history of warfare an infantryman could know exactly where he was and where he was going. Couple this with the advent of aerial surveillance systems (JSTARS) which could see ground movements on both sides, and the fog of war was significantly thinned.

Any analysis of what prospects technology holds for the land forces of tomorrow must make assumptions about the roles of such forces. The armies of the NAT nations are still largely equipped around the needs of the Cold War. For example, German forces lack deployable logistic support because they were structured to defend their home territory and could rely on the civil infrastructure. There is still a widespread desire among the armed forces to stay in the high intensity and large scale warfighting game. The experience of the Gulf War is used as an argument for this requirement. Others argue that security needs are changing. In an increasingly inderpendent world community, large scale war becomes less likely. Military forces will be needed, but more for reimposing order in internal disputes. These conflicts make take the form of terrorism as in Northern Ireland or Israel; or they make be peacekeeping in a benign environment such as the Golan Heights; or they may be policing an agreed settlement as in Bosnia in 1995/96 following the Dayton agreement.

Armies are needed for forms of conflict ranging from internal disorder, through terrorism and guerilla war, to small and medium scale international wars. The search must be for equipment and tactics to fit the land forces for the many roles which they may be called upon to undertake; and to do it at an affordable price.

This brief review of technological development in land warfare does not give much cause for optimism for the future. While the historian's benefit of hindsight is a great help, it does not appear that armies in peace have been able to spot the technologies which would give them major advantages in war. There has also been marked institutional pressures against changing to new tactical concepts to exploit the potential of new technologies. The lessons have certain parallels with the naval warfare cases examined in the previous chapter, in respect of those areas which produced qualitative changes in effectiveness. Early weapon developments were in rates of fire, and greater range, hence changing the nature of the battle. Changes in power sources gave flexibility and range to operations: the railway and the internal combustion engine revolutionised logistic support. Mass production brought mass destruction. The telegraph, telephone and wireless gave instantaneous communication and control, changing the way land forces could be used. Major weapon systems have become more vulnerable to much cheaper portable weapons. New technologies for pinpointing both friendly and enemy forces are changing the nature of the control of land war.

For the future land forces may be needed for all the roles which they have had in the past. They will need to enhance their capabilities in four areas. Firstly they will need timely and accurate intelligence both at the strategic and tactical level, if the forces are to be used effectively. Secondly the forces will need mobility to deploy to theatres of operations, and once there to fighting positions. Thirdly the soldier's firepower must be developed to provide the right effect at the minimum cost. Finally, as the enemy develops his ability to fight the land war, the survivability of man and machine will be an increasing problem.