Tactical body
A tactical body is a unit of troops that acts as a closed body in tactical operations, especially in combat itself. This concept, which originated in early antiquity , looks back on a highly changeable development and experienced its climax in antiquity and the early modern period . Tactical bodies in the real sense no longer play a role today.
shape
Since the first conflicts between people and the first conflicts to be called “ war ”, people fought in groups. The tactical body is distinguished from this type of combat by the fact that the fighters incorporated into it are completely integrated into it and are no longer capable of independent fighting (without the tactical body being blown up). In a fight of the tactical bodies against each other there are in a way no lone fighters, because even if every soldier holds his own weapon and also hits or parries independently (not even that in the firefight of the line infantry), he cannot make independent decisions about his movements and combat decisions . In combat, the entire tactical body acts as one unit, as one body.
Differentiation from the tactical unit or formation
Even today, groups of individual forces are formed, not only in the infantry, but in every branch of the weapon. These " units ", which is also to be understood here in the sense of troop units , are treated as closed formations , but it should not be assumed that they are tactical bodies. Although they can be regarded as "units" administratively and also in the course of battle management, they do not form a body in their fighting style. Every tactical body is such a formation, but a group of soldiers only becomes a tactical body when the individual fighter is decisively absorbed in his freedom of choice.
advantages
Compared to groups of lone fighters and looser formations, tactical bodies offer some advantages, at least in the age of edged weapons :
- Higher gun density
- Due to the close line-up of the fighters, more weapons are used in a smaller space, and accordingly more weapons are used. Especially in the late Macedonian, with the sarissa armed phalanx , the (six meters) and transferred these weapons density by the great length of arms still far ahead of the fighters was a "wall of spearheads" that was almost impenetrable.
- Mass printing
- The most important role in tactical bodies fighting in close combat is played by mass pressure. The fighters standing close together push each other into the fight, the back rows pull the front rows forward and the front rows pull themselves as well (in order not to let the line tear open , everyone has to follow his neighbor). Dense tactical bodies literally rolled down less dense enemy formations, “phalanx” (φἄλαγξ) originally means “roller, roller”. This effect later played an important role in the violence .
- Defensive properties
- Tactical bodies, especially if they are low enough, can hardly be breached, as a new fighter moves up from the back ranks of the body for each fallen. This also means that the loss of individual fighters is bearable. Tactical bodies are usually not blown up but consumed. If the tactical body is blown up anyway, this usually means defeat. In the phalanx, defensive strength increases as the fighters cover each other with their shields.
- Training effort
- The individual fighter in a tactical body does not have to be a superior fencer, but just move within the frame of the entire body and use his weapon, which is all the easier when the weapon is very long.
Virtually all of the above benefits were lost in the age of firearms . (see below )
history
Antiquity
phalanx
The first tactical bodies were most certainly the Greek phalanges. An important role in the ability to develop the tactical body was played by the fact that the Greek poleis had developed various concepts of democracy . The revolutionary development of the tactical body is only conceivable among comrades-in-arms with equal status.
Within the phalanx everyone covered his neighbor with his shield, who was standing so close to him that he could no longer move freely. The fighters in the phalanx voluntarily renounce their most important guarantees of survival and transfer them to the fighting community as a whole.
The last Macedonian phalanges were equipped with sarissas so long that the individual fighters, especially those who were not in the first rows, could no longer use them specifically. With that they were finally absorbed in the tactical body.
Manipel
The Roman maniples represented a modification of the old concept in that an army now consisted of several tactical bodies, while in the classic phalanx tactics all men of the army formed a single body, the phalanx. In addition, administrative and tactical corporations merged into one form for the first time.
Decline in the Middle Ages
The knighthood of the Middle Ages , which developed after late antiquity , no longer knew any tactical bodies. Knights were lone fighters. This has to do with the change in social structures: knights were nobles ; To put her life and fighting skills in the hands of others was unthinkable for her. Several knights fought together in a group, but were then no more than a group of coordinated lone fighters.
Another important role in this development was played by the fact that "knights" were now "riders". Cavalry is basically only able to form a tactical body to a limited extent, since the movements of the war horses prevent the required tight formations and, for this very reason, the most important advantage of the tactical body with edged weapons, the mass pressure, cannot arise. (see above )
Modern times
Heap of violence
When, at the end of the Middle Ages, Swiss warfare produced the violence, it was the revolution that marked the end of military chivalry. Not the firearm, but the tactical body defeated the knight.
The Swiss violence bunch who later to all mercenary armies used and also by the mercenaries was used, presented in comparison to the parent phalanges and manipuli antiquity is a very primitive tactical body, the fighters simply crowded but together only tight. Their long skewers, however, which pursue the same idea as the Sarisse, made the narrow, weapon-stiff crowds almost invulnerable. It was impossible to blow it up with cavalry, and even heavy bombardment with small arms could hardly disperse it. The mass pressure of the fighters is even more effective in this formation than in the classic phalanx.
Significantly, the rediscovery of the tactical body went hand in hand with a democratization of the fighters. The origins of the heap of violence are the early at least partially democratic Swiss cities in which the citizens gathered to fight, a clear parallel to the development in the ancient polis. The mercenary armies of the early modern period are also shaped by an internal democracy.
Line infantry
In the second half of the early modern period, the tactical body underwent a transformation in the standing armies of European states. The concept was transferred to the line infantry . However, it was now equipped with firearms.
Outwardly, the line infantry had all the characteristics of a classic tactical body. The line-up of the soldiers was very narrow, the movements were carried out only as bodies, the firing with the rifle only took place closed. Everything happened on the orders of the commanding officers , the individual soldier himself had no freedom of choice. He was even banned from aimed shooting, so that he used his weapon even more blindly than the melee, who at least decided where to hit.
However, the tactical body armed with firearms lost almost all of the advantages of the classic tactical body armed with edged weapons: (see above )
- Mass printing
- The mass pressure was simply no longer necessary, since the formations were engaged in ranged battles and, in contrast to melee fighters who were pushing forward, shouldn't move. The narrow, deep line-up that used to be so important now became unimportant; on the contrary, in order to at least get the advantage of the high number of weapons deployed at the same time, the tactical bodies became increasingly narrow. In the 18th century, line infantry was typically only three, sometimes even two, deep.
- Defensive properties
- This thin, elongated line-up nullified the defensive strength-increasing effect of the tactical body. The thin lines of the infantry could now easily be broken in close combat, and cavalry regained importance, even if, due to their structural inability to form tactical bodies themselves, they were still only of limited effectiveness against infantry formations. With the advancing development of firearms, in particular, the close formation became a disadvantage, as the enemy could get hits much more easily.
- Training effort
- In the course of the formation of the standing armies, the training expenditure became higher and higher. The soldiers had for the complex maneuvers that were more difficult to carry out in long, narrow linear formations again, well drilled to be. More important than the maneuverability, however, was the drill to subject the soldiers to the authority of their superiors. In order to avoid desertion, the soldiers should only act on the orders of their superiors, but also promptly and without thinking twice. Because of the high level of training required, line infantry ultimately became almost too expensive to "use up" in combat; the fatigue strategy of the early modern period is a symptom of this fact.
In response to these problems, the military formation of the column developed in post-revolutionary France at the end of the 18th century . The soldiers did not form thin lines here, but bodies that were deep rather than wide. The background to this development was that the hastily and en masse recruits of the revolutionary mass army were not able to carry out the necessary maneuvers of the line infantry due to their short and inadequate training. The mass army, today most closely associated with Napoléon I , not only regained the advantage of the low training expenditure in the column, but also decisively improved defensive skills with this tactical body, because the massive columns were particularly against cavalry attacks, but also against fire, far less sensitive than the filigree lines.
Dissolution of the tactical body
Ultimately, it was the steady improvement in firearms, especially the increase in the rate of fire, that finally ousted the concept of the tactical body from military use. Even the introduction of the first breech- loading rifles, combined with the steady increase in precision of the weapons intended for the main combat infantry (line infantry did not have to be equipped with particularly precise rifles), enabled such a dense fire that the soldiers had to avoid it, if at all Wanted to come. The improvement of field artillery and, at the latest, the introduction of the first rapid-fire weapons made setting up in a tactical body in the open field and within reach of the enemy practically suicidal.
Already at the heyday of the line infantry, some troops of the " little war ", for example hunters , fought in loose formation, looking for cover and shooting with precise weapons. The main combat formation loosened up more and more, the line infantry turned into a rifle line , which increasingly fought out of cover.
Today tactical bodies are no longer used. It has been shown that infantry armed with sufficiently precise weapons is fundamentally more effective when it fires in a targeted manner and from safe cover. A plethora of new infantry tactics fundamentally changed combat during the late 19th and 20th centuries .
literature
- Hans Delbrück : History of the art of war in the context of political history. 4 volumes. de Gruyter, Berlin 1900–1920.