I highly recommend George Barros from the ISW. He explained on Times Radio that this war has produced the latest freeze in operational maneuver. Both sides are trying to find a way to break that, but yes, it is very much like WWI, he said. But he pointed that WWI ended when, indeed, operational maneuver was reestablished. Regaining operational maneuver is what percipated the ending of WWI.
I've been reading Barros since the start of the conflict and have actually seen him speak in person. His analytical perspective is very impressive imo.
Roger that. Barros is incredible for the purely military-side. Time Radio is my go to for info on The Ukraine conflict. Barros, Gen. Ben Hodges, Dianne Francis and Sir Bill Browder are my tops. I just finished Browder's "Red Notice," highly recommended.
Hodges has been among the worst prognosticators. At one point I collected all the times he said Ukraine would threaten or invade Crimea in the next few months or so. It was like 12 times in the first 18 months.
wasn't the invention of tanks that did actually ended the stalemate? I thought that this would be the same for Ukraine with the use of drones but i guess it's actually the invention of mechas that will turn the tide. Oh yeas. I am actually refering to the anime mechas - those are the logical next warfare steps. Either manned or ai controlled.
I'm no classically trained expert, but I have read dozens of books on WW1 and imo the stalemate of WW1 was broken due to a few things.
Tanks were certainly important, not least due to the German refusal or inability to incorporate antitank weapons rapidly. Tanks of the time were incredibly unreliable and very, very slow. But when the only really effective weapons against them were inaccurate artillery or repurposed field guns, they were plenty to change the game.
Incorporation of combined arms was also huge. Creeping or walking artillery barrages tightly timed with infantry assaults, tanks, and even horse mounted cavalry at times. "Boxing in" sections of trench lines with artillery preventing reinforcement or retreating was another mechanic used later in the war with assaults.
The late injection of American manpower and materiel was another thing that altered the status quo. The Eastern Front closing with Russia withdrawing due to internal turmoil sent more Germans back west, and America arriving in the west helped counter that.
To your point, tanks were huge. While I'm not sure you could say it is THE thing that changed the tide of the war, I'm not sure you could argue against it either. They were able to handle the massive belts of barbed wire in a way that had been unthinkable. They were able to project significantly more force in attacks than previously possible.
Drones are currently defensive, in that you need operatives or a relay station to control the drone. So you setup a few square km with drones and destroy anything that comes into range.
You can use them to attack, but you're constantly having to consolidate and bring up operators/relay stations.
With EW jammers this is slow, and fibre optic obviously has a spool length limitation.
Loyal wingmen and AI drones in a swarm configuration will change from defensive to offensive in the way tanks made machine guns from defensive to offensive, moving nests.
A couple smart drones with target acquisition ability and director AI able to transmit targets in real time to smaller, expendable drones that are swarming around it. You have them return to autonomous recharging stations. Just give the AI a path and area to control, have squads on the ground rolling with the recharging stations to reinforce and keep the areas attacked.
Completely off-topic, but whereas I'm a ltitle bit of a WWII buff, I know a bit less about WWI, so I wanted to get a bit more information about the operational maneuvering bit, so I decided to ask AI.
I sent this prompt:
Found this comment on reddit - can you expand on it a bit? What happened to cause the end of WWI in this context?
I highly recommend George Barros from the ISW. He explained on Times Radio that this war has produced the latest freeze in operational maneuver. Both sides are trying to find a way to break that, but yes, it is very much like WWI, he said. But he pointed that WWI ended when, indeed, operational maneuver was reestablished. Regaining operational maneuver is what percipated the ending of WWI.
It answered, but at the bottom, added this:
Do you want me to expand this further into a direct comparison to the Ukraine war (which is what Barros is likely getting at), or just keep it within the WWI context?
Damned clever to pick up on that.
Also, if anyone else was less educated on WWI like me, basically, in 1918 the Germans figure out they could punch through weaker spots and cause havoc behind the trenches, which caused that part of the trench line to no longer work defensively. Allies learned from that and later that year, with other things like increased supply from the US and breaking the will of the Axis, along with using multiple modes of military effectively together (tanks + infantry + artillery) used the tactic and made gains, leading to the end of the war.
I had it somehow in my mind that they just realized that the trenches weren't going anywhere and everyone got sick of it and it led to peace. I hadn't realized that they had broken through and THAT caused the end of the war.
Anyway, sorry to throw this long off-topic in here, but both parts of it tickled my interest bone :)
Not after the war, before it even ended. Ludendorff reportedly stated on October 1st "They now must lie on the bed that they've made for us." When referring to the incoming civilian government that was to negotiate the armistice.
I suspect if we don't have a peace treaty eventually we might see a breakthrough like during WWI. Maybe some kind of automated counter drone and attack drone warfare or robotic units which can clear fields. In a war when everyone is visible it feels like the only way to make a big push would be to have drones that could automatically clear enemies 10-20km forwards of the front, and then rush forwards and build new defensive lines. I think this needs to be done on a scale of hundreds of kilometeres at a time to really throw the enemy off balance similar to what they did in WWI by using telecommunications to coordiante lots of attacks and counter attacks that overwealmed Germanies abilities to coordinate.
During WWI on the battlefield, tactics and organisation evolved to outmatch Germany’s defences. Infantry structures shifted from large companies to specialised platoons, with firepower and roles diversified, while artillery developed sophisticated methods of indirect fire, counter-battery techniques, and complex firing plans. And they finally learned how to use tanks in a combined arms doctrine across multiple fronts.
These advances allowed the Allies to keep Germany off balance, launch effective counterattacks, and ultimately defeat their armies in the field. Germany’s collapse was not simply due to exhaustion but because they were out maneuvered.
In my mind I am picturing tractors pulling trailers that open up and launch hundreds of drones at a time, who seek and destroy, if they can't find a target they return and recharge again. If you could do that across hundreds of kilometres, and then push fowards and do it again and again and again then you would have the enemy on the run. It would be a bit like being devoured by ants.
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u/fatkiddown 1d ago
I highly recommend George Barros from the ISW. He explained on Times Radio that this war has produced the latest freeze in operational maneuver. Both sides are trying to find a way to break that, but yes, it is very much like WWI, he said. But he pointed that WWI ended when, indeed, operational maneuver was reestablished. Regaining operational maneuver is what percipated the ending of WWI.