Re: Strategic Reserve.

[dave pierson <pierson@mail.dec.com>]

B.Rumary wrote:
> 
> > I suggest that the abilty of railways to deliver the munitions required
> >  by industrial wars, by rail, right to the big gun line and lighter
> > muntions
> >  almost to the front line trenches may well have had something to do
> > with it.

> It was the machine guns and wire that created the unbreakable front line,

	Uhuh.  Amateur mil history is another hobby of mine.
	And those mg are little use wihtout LOTS of ammunition.
	And it's a lot easier to replace the wire if you can get it
	to the front.  Hence the need of RRs, including NG, to do the
	logistics...
 
> not the heavy artillery.

	Welllll.
	It was real dandy at shooting up supply dumps & troop concentrations
	stalling out attacks.

> The artillery was used to try to smash a way  through the wire and kill the
> enemy machine-gunners,

	...and to do that required tonnes of shelles, which moved a 
	LOT better by rail...

> so making a hole in the front line. It failed until the generals finally learnt
>better tactics and also used tanks.

	Well, someone needed to invent the tank first.  8)>>
	(If anyone asks, I'll explain the link between railroaods and the
	invention of the tank...)

> By the time of the cease fire the front had  become mobile again, firstly with
> the big German break-through in early  1918

	That would be the one that took Paris and ended the war?

	How far did they get?
	Roughly one days man/horse haul from their _rail_heads.  AND a lot
	closer to the Allies railheads (So Allied supplies were more
	available.)  I suspect the advance (in addition to allied heroism,
	fresh US troops, etc) stopped beacuse It was Too Far from its logistics
	tail. 

	Simultaneously it brought the allies close to theirs.  Also, since the
	Big Guns were (to some extent) railmobile (on both sides) the
	Germans ran ahead of the rail mounted guns.  Yes, they had (and started
	the war with large roadgoing guns, however they needed both Roads
	(lacking thru no mans land) and _time_.  Thus, both by rail and
	road, they ran from under the big guns influence...

> and then the steady pushing back of the German front in the last few
> months of the war.

	I suspect the 'steady' was based, among other things, on how fast the
	_rail_ heads could be advanced.

	best
	dave p