"It's just a single gatling gun; it can't stop us all!"
except it can, and it did
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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One might argue that that's just how industrial warfare works (in situations where one side is not heavily outmatched) and World War II was the exception rather than the rule.
Nah, WW2 went on way too long, with too many parties involved, to just be a fluke. The major powers genuinely learned from WW1.
I don't mean that it was a fluke in the sense that it was a random accident, but rather in the sense that it happened in the relatively brief time between the development of tanks and air power and the development of countermeasures effective enough to restore a large advantage for the defender.
Which countermeasures would give a large advantage to a defender against tanks and bomber planes?
Well, look at what is happening in Ukraine now. Even if we don't count the drones, my impression is that a combination of both long-range and man-portable anti-air missiles has made it impossible for either side to use manned aircraft for more than launching cruise missiles at standoff range or shooting down those missiles, also at standoff range from enemy air defenses. The missiles that do get through are usually terror weapons against civilians, with no direct effect on the front lines. Tanks are still being used but they are also so vulnerable to both man-portable anti-tank missiles and accurate artillery that they have generally not been able to achieve WWII-style breakthroughs for either side.
I know a lot less about the Iran-Iraq War than I do about the current war in Ukraine, but it's the other major post-WWII conflict between industrial powers and it was a bloody stalemate as well. I can't think of other relevant examples (as opposed to wars against insurgents or between the USA and far-weaker Iraq) but maybe I'm forgetting something? Should I be counting the Korean War? I don't think so - the technology hadn't advanced that much since WWII.
(The absence of direct wars between great powers has been attributed to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons, but maybe an awareness of the inability to actually achieve anything like blitzkrieg in the modern day played a role too.)
Hm, missiles being a large deterrent against combat aircraft makes sense. I'm surprised that artillery is so much more effective against tanks nowadays, though, since artillery was pretty important since before tanks were even invented. Is modern anti-tank artillery really that much more effective than it was during WW2?
Well, with the advances in live video transmission, artillery teams no longer have to use a middleman to get the info about positioning. they can physically watch the impact point and adjust as needed based off the video.
Because of these advancements, and increased accuracy of artillery systems themselves, Artillery has gotten scary effective, compared to previous use.
Some years later there were rockets, tank mines and explosive shells.