By Michael F. Duggan, Ph.D.
All periods of history are transitional, intermediary. This has been especially true in modern military history in regard to the development of weapons technology in great powers wars (and sometimes of high-intensity civil wars in powerful nations). This demonstrates the reality of scientific and technological progress (but not necessarily social progress).
The American Civil War and German Wars of Unification saw the shift from muzzleloader to repeaters (one can see the full transition from the Crimean War to the end of the Franco-Prussian War, with the added developments of smokeless powder and modern machine-guns following in the 1880s). Tactics were slow to catch up to the new technologies. World War I began as a 19th century war of mobility at the First Battle of the Marne, quickly transitioned into “trenchlock” and attrition as the modern Defensive Revolution arrived at tis apex, and arguably ended with something like a nascent combined arms campaign during the last 100 Days.
The Second World War saw the first jet combat aircraft (compare the fastest plane in the world in 1938 with the fastest planes in the world in 1948), the first cruise missiles (the V-1), the first long range ballistic missiles (the V-2), and assault rifles (the FG-42, MP-43 and MP-44).1
A new defensive revolution has been introduced in the Russo-Ukrainian War–a digital and drone revolution–that has rendered the sweeping “big arrow” offensive operations of WWII and Cold War planners all but obsolete (or at least problematic between powerful state-of-the-art armies), and has apparently reintroduced attritional impalement offensives vis-a-vis entrenched defense in depth. It has also seen the use of small unit tactics and raids, and the grinding “bite and hold” advances reminiscent of the First World War.
Note
1. The Russian Federov Model 1916, or “Automat,” is possibly first assault rifle (i.e. a selective-fire military rifle), but it was not produced in quantity. It was further developed by the Soviets as the Simov Model 1936, which proved to be unsuccessful. The German FG-42, MP-43, and MP-44 by contrast, are configured like modern assault rifles, and the MP-43-44 was produced in numbers. See W.H.B Smith and Joseph E. Smith, Small Arms of the World, 10th edition., New York, NY: Galahad Books, 1960, 1975. 420-427, 583.