Strategy
The Balkans and Barbarossa
As the Germans had feared, the British began landing soldiers and aircraft in southern Greece as early as November 1940. Had Mussolini delivered on his claim that he would stroll into Athens within a month, then the Balkans (with the exception of Greece) would probably have remained an island of peace for most of the war. But with the planned…
![1916: Change of OHL’s Leader[s]](https://weaponsandwarfare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1916-Change-of-OHLs-Leaders-330x220.jpg "1916: Change of OHL’s Leader[s] 6")
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FLEET TACTICS WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS I
Type 001A aircraft carrier Having reviewed more intangible aspects of Chinese maritime strategy such as geopolitics, historical precedent, and strategic thought, we now turn to more prosaic matters. How will China put its strategy into practice using the implements it has assembled through fleet building? China’s navy is maturing and…
FLEET TACTICS WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS II
Chinese Type 039A (Yuan-class) SS Tactical Scenarios: Near Shore and on the High Seas Hughes considers two very broad categories of wartime contingencies: (1) U.S. forces might close in on the coast of an adversary that boasts considerable land-based defenses but lacks a fleet able to stand against the U.S.…
FLEET TACTICS WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS III
The South China Sea on the “Day after Taiwan” The South China Sea offers an ideal case study for future conflict off Chinese shores. Chinese and Western strategists once forecast that the Pacific Ocean constituted the most likely theater of twenty-first-century maritime competition between the United States and China. Admiral…
FLEET TACTICS WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS IV
Strategic Preference #3: Mao Zedong, Meet Alfred Thayer Mahan The strategic preferences we are discussing are not fixed; they are leanings. As the PLA Navy approaches parity with the U.S. Navy, Mao’s grammar of active defense will come to resemble the Mahanian scheme for concentrated fleet-on-fleet engagements. Recall that the…
BEF 1914: What If?
The futile encounter-battle on the Mons–Condé canal, the ensuing battle at Le Cateau and the subsequent retreat – these need not have happened if the BEF had concentrated at Amiens rather than Maubeuge, as both Sir John French and Kitchener had wanted at the 5 August war council (at which…
18 June 1815 – What If Part II
The Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler ‘On a perdu la France’ was Napoleon’s comment to d’Erlon, referring to Ney’s mistakes at Quatre Bras when he joined him there at midday on 17 June. The comment might equally well have applied to Grouchy. When on that same day Napoleon detached…