How have modern warfare tactics changed since World War II?
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Tactics don’t really change in warfare. The biggest changes are the inclusion of information warfare, and cyberspace in the war fighting domains. The remaining tactics are tried and true fire and maneuver, though greatly different than what our grandfathers were familiar with.
The biggest conventional factors in fighting a war are the ability to move, shoot, and communicate. Of recent, we’d add Medicate to that as well. I addressed information and cyber, but those are whole other animals compared to WWII.
The ability to move, not just across the battlefield, but across the world has greatly increased. An Airborne Brigade in the United States could be anywhere on earth within 18hrs. Likewise, helicopters have made inaccessible terrain accessible along with the ability to rapidly move troops and vertically envelope battlefields. Other factors such as knowing exactly where we are on a map has greatly increased the ability to not just move, but effectively maneuver on the battlespace.
The ability to shoot has improved greatly with the increase in precision guided munitions, increased QA/QC lowering failure rates. Innovation with fire control systems, optics, sensor systems that identify targets, weather, account for low-light/no-light, etc. Utilizing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities from satellites to aircraft of both manned and unmanned variety, and ground and ship based sensors allows unprecedented engagement on the battlefield.
Communications abilities have greatly increased. At one time *maybe* you could catch a transmission bouncing off the ionosphere, long range communications have become increasingly reliable and effective. The ability to encrypt communication has made secured messaging across the battlespace more assured. Tying systems together has allowed unprecedented awareness of the battlespace and everything on it. Reverting back to the previous bullet, our sensor systems in ISR have made messaging more clear and concise by having real-time observation capability over targets.
And for Medicate, the ability to treat casualties in the field, move casualties to the rear, and then treat and reintegrate those casualties has greatly increased since the days of setting up field triage and moving casualties rearward occasionally.
In short….. the tactics haven’t really *changed* per se, they have just grown increasingly better.
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