I am a bit of a battle stategy and battlefield enthusiast. I love to study the tactics of Alezander the Great and Napoleon and all of those who are in their company. But my question is, do you think the way battles are fought today (and how they will be fought in the future) can ever actually use tactics?Sure you can always have a startegy going into battle, but once you are out there is there anyway that in todays warfare age that you can actually apply tactics.

-For he who sheds his blood with me is my brother.

Some general principles can I guess.
But in terms of specific tactics, no. I think the weapons have changed so much that tactics couldn't stay the same.

Originally Posted by WannabeRanger

I am a bit of a battle stategy and battlefield enthusiast. I love to study the tactics of Alezander the Great and Napoleon and all of those who are in their company. But my question is, do you think the way battles are fought today (and how they will be fought in the future) can ever actually use tactics?Sure you can always have a startegy going into battle, but once you are out there is there anyway that in todays warfare age that you can actually apply tactics.

-For he who sheds his blood with me is my brother.

general principle is always same, back to ShunWu's "the art of war". the 36 tactics basically cover all the principles in the war, I once read it, cool stuff.

The specific details, of course changed already.......

Sun Tzu is more like a grand national strategy on building troops, collecting intelligence, key points to consider (terrain and weather etc.), national mentality, and other basics.
Important basics that can determine the outcome of the war from day one.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

Sun Tzu is more like a grand national strategy on building troops, collecting intelligence, key points to consider (terrain and weather etc.), national mentality, and other basics.
Important basics that can determine the outcome of the war from day one.

AGREE!

Tutorial of "the art of war"

http://academic.bowdoin.edu/suntzu/c...tml?chapter=01

You need to click the right "sections" to view the details

Enjoy

I think wars today are alot more political and technological and rest more on the shoulders of the men fighting them than the generals and leaders at the top. Generals have to do alot of financial work and supplying the soldiers in battle but their days of standing proudly at the front or a few miles back commanding every moment with tactics he learnt from experience and time are over. Politicians decide where to attack, Generals decide how and the other smaller details are governed by officers and the soldiers fighting. sad really.........

Well, the general definition of Tactics vs Strategy is: Actual Opperational on the Battlefield vs Largescale view. Of course there is LOTS of room for tactics. Tactics have never been more complex or more needed. Helicopters, tanks, anti-tank weapons, mortors, better artillery, better snipers ... you have to sort out all that if you want any chance of winning a battle these days.

Yes but what im saying is there is no 1 general incharge using tactics himself, there are hundereds of people with the work load spread and so no 1 man can change the course of a war except for the President or Priminister, and as I said before it lies more in the lower ranking man/woman than it used to, a Private in WWII would have reatively no say but the actions of a private now can change the course or an immediate situation because their weapons are so advanced. If alaxander the great sent his spearmen into combat all flanks exposed agains high odds it was a 1/1000 chance of survival unless there was a highly unlikely twist of fate where as if you pitched a group of 5 men against 100 men now you could survive, Vietnam and especially Korea are both brilliant instances of massacre on the side of the UK and US, like 1 instance there was a British group of 50 or so men, dont know the exact figures and they had 2 or so Bren guns, and they literally held off 1000 or so Koreans who were suicide charging with AK-47s, thats a great achievment in the hands of a Junior Officer. Generals are less needed for the wars themselves like in Napoleonic times but for the poitics of war, these great achievments and victories in the 20th/21st century lie in the individuals hands.

Ah, I guess I misunderstood then. You are quite right that its the low level command, NCO's etc that have a TREMENDOUS impact on today's battlefield. Big-wigs aren't useless either since they keep the overall cohesiveness intact, but the low level command has a lot more to worry about than ever in history. Hats off to those that do their job well!!

When talking about Tactics today, it is only meaningfull when the 2 parties are basically of equal strength, then there will be a lot of warfare tactics to play with.

If one party is simply too strong for another party, then the other party can achieve almost nothing in modern warfare even if they plan tons of "tactics".

"tactics" are something spiritual, they need be applied on capable hardware platforms to be realized, without those platforms, "tactics" become meaningless fantacy.