Full Description
A challenge to common assumptions about the future of land warfare
Ground Combat reveals the gritty details of land warfare at the tactical level and challenges today's overly subjective and often inaccurate approaches to characterizing war. Ben Connable's motivation for writing the book is to offer an evidence-based approach to examining the future of war.
Connable created and analyzed an original dataset of more than four hundred global ground combat cases, showing that there was an evolutionary rather than revolutionary shift in the characteristics of ground combat from World War II through the early 2020s. Despite advances in military technology, tanks, artillery, and infantry remain central to how war is waged on land. This book asks readers to stop and think about the implications of these findings for force planning and future predictions about military-technical revolutions.
This book sets an essential evidentiary baseline for military officers, policymakers, and scholars who think about the future of modern war.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: American Forecasts of War and Ground Combat
Chapter 3: World War II Ground Combat Case Examples
Chapter 4: World War II Ground Combat Characteristics
Chapter 5: Interval Cases—1945-2002
Chapter 6: Interval Period Ground Combat Characteristics
Chapter 7: Modern Ground Combat from 2003 through 2012
Chapter 8: Modern Ground Combat from 2013 through 2022
Chapter 9: Observed Characteristics of Modern Ground Combat
Chapter 10: Conclusions on Ground Combat and on War
Appendix: Methodology and Source Insights
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author
