|
Plan 1919 was a military strategy drawn up by J.F.C. Fuller in 1918 during World War I. His plan criticised the practice of physically destroying the enemy, and instead called for tanks to rapidly advance into the enemy's rear area to destroy supply bases and lines of communication, which would also be bombed. He suggested a lightning thrust toward the command center of the German Army: :''... every available bombing machine should concentrate on the various supply and road centres. The signal communication should not be destroyed, for it is important that the confusion resulting from the dual attack carried out by the Medium D tanks and aeroplanes should be circulated by the enemy. Bad news confuses, confusion stimulates panic .... (then) a carefully mounted tank, infantry and artillery attack should be launched, the objective of which is the zone of the enemy's guns: namely the secondary tactical zone some 10,000 yeards deep.''〔Fuller (1936) p329〕 :''so does an army depend for its power on the will of its Commander and his Staff: cut that will off and the army will be paralyzed.'' He proposed using Medium D tanks ''to disorganise the enemy’s Command in rear of the entrenched zone.''〔Fuller (1936) p321, 334〕 The Allied advance and German retreat across France and Belgium in 1918 had begun to show some of the pace and aspects that would mark later mechanized warfare; British tanks played an increasing role, and German rear-guard defenses focused on stopping their advance. Although never implemented, Plan 1919 would have carried these trends forward earlier, and can be said to have formed the basis for later blitzkrieg tactics and the Soviet theories of Deep Battle and Deep Operations ==Background== By 1918, the German, French and British armies had been through years of trench warfare and were getting close to the breaking point. Both sides realized that a new form of warfare was needed for the successful conclusion of the war. Tanks, although used unsuccessfully at the Battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, were used in the Battle of Cambrai and demonstrated their usefulness. Although the main objective was not achieved and the German artillery made short work of them after the initial shock wore off, they inspired military theorists to try to incorporate them properly. In the spring of 1918, J.F.C. Fuller submitted a study titled "The tactics of the attack as affected by the speed and circuit of the Medium D tank",〔Childs, D ''A Peripheral Weapon?: The Production and Employment of British Tanks in the First World War'' 1999 Greenwood Publishing p156〕 a bold new plan involving tanks and air support that aimed to target the German leadership and supply lines, as opposed to the then current tactic of grinding away at the main forces. Fuller's plan had three elements. The first was a fast attack by medium tanks and aircraft against the German headquarters, removing its ability to control their forces. Then the main assault by heavy tanks, infantry and artillery would make break the German lines. Finally cavalry, light tanks and infantry mounted on trucks would follow the retreating Germans preventing them from reforming or counterattacking.〔Childs p156〕 His plan was to be used as the blueprint for the spring offensive the next year and was titled Plan 1919. The German surrender that November precluded the implementation of the plan, but it was studied extensively by the Germans and used as the model for their Blitzkrieg attacks during the next war (Fuller) . Plan 1919, although never carried out, laid the “groundwork” for numerous upgrades in military equipment, technology, and tactics of modern warfare . Fuller's ideas were largely in line with papers put forward by other members of the Tank Corps such as by Capper and Elles' paper "The future of tank operations and production requirements" which envisaged tank forces of several thousand light, medium and heavy tanks and the means and time it would take to produce them and deploy them to the front.〔Childs p155〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Plan 1919」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|