Between Could 10 and 13, 1940, German Panzer Group Kleist superior by the densely wooded Ardennes Forest, which the French thought-about impenetrable to massive, mechanized formations. Numbering 5 armored and three motorized infantry divisions, totaling round 41,000 autos, your complete panzer group moved alongside simply 4 Rollbahnen, or axes of advance, creating the biggest site visitors jam in navy historical past.
When the main XIX Armored Corps, commanded by Gen. Heinz Guderian, converged on the French metropolis of Sedan, it epitomized the idea of Schwerpunkt, or level of foremost effort. Following his maxim “Klotzen, nicht kleckern” (hit with the fist, don’t really feel with the fingers), Guderian concentrated his three armored divisions on a entrance simply 10 kilometers large, additional narrowing the entrance to 3 kilometers for the preliminary crossing of the Meuse River. With the artillery caught on the clogged roads, the Luftwaffe compensated with over 1,200 sorties — its most concentrated bombing assault of the battle — in opposition to a sector simply 4 kilometers large.
After German infantry established a bridgehead, on Could 14, engineers constructed a pontoon bridge, the primary of three, enabling the crossing of some 600 tanks. For a quick however essential section, this bridge served as the only lifeline for the German advance. True to his maxim, Guderian massed over 300 anti-aircraft weapons for its safety. With their fighter safety closely outnumbered and solely round 150 bombers out there, the Allies misplaced a complete of 167 fighters and bombers within the counterstrike, with out scoring a single hit. This enabled the crossing and continued advance of XIX Armored Corps’ 60,000 males and 22,000 autos, with the operation serving because the benchmark for maneuver warfare to at the present time.
Navy historical past has lengthy been a invaluable supply of studying, but amid the quickly altering character of warfare, its relevance lies more and more within the contrasts it reveals. Simply how a lot warfare has modified since World Warfare II was demonstrated by the same Russian bridgehead at Kherson, Ukraine, within the spring and summer time of 2022. Just like the XIX Armored Corps at Sedan, Russian forces have been depending on three bridges for the logistical assist of 20–30 battalion tactical teams working on the western financial institution of the Dnipro River.
Not like Sedan, nonetheless, Russian floor strains of communication proved way more weak to disruptions, particularly after the arrival of U.S. Excessive Mobility Artillery Rocket Techniques. Between July 19 and 28, 2022, Ukrainian forces carried out a number of profitable rocket strikes, rendering all three bridges ineffective for vehicular site visitors. Though Russian troops resorted to pontoon bridges, these too have been shortly rendered inoperable.
Whereas Russian forces feverishly tried to restore the broken crossings, Ukrainian forces continued strikes all through the summer time. On Nov. 9, after months of sustained interdiction, Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu lastly ordered a withdrawal towards the jap financial institution of the river, which was accomplished two days later.
That is certainly one of many instances from the Russo-Ukrainian Warfare that exemplify how a lot warfare has modified for the reason that blitzkrieg years of 1940 to 1941. The flexibility to generate mass enabled success on the level of contact at Sedan however proved deadly throughout the failed Russian river crossing of the Siverskyi Donets in Could 2022. Past that, it offered the logistical sustainment for the continued advance throughout northern France, however its erosion slowly strangled the Russian bridgehead at Kherson.
Lately, elevated battlefield transparency has enabled a shift from direct to oblique hearth as a method of projecting fight energy, with shut fight steadily giving solution to standoff engagements. Lengthy-range precision strike techniques are actually broadly out there on the lowest tactical echelons, not solely increasing capabilities inside the deep space (past direct contact) but in addition radically remodeling preventing within the shut space (in speedy contact with the enemy), as outlined inside the geographical framework. Though battlefield transparency is conditional slightly than absolute, topic to climate and countermeasures, it’s the product of a number of, mutually reinforcing techniques, which makes it potential to degrade however tough to disclaim.
Consequently, the survivability of concentrated formations has diminished significantly, whereas the entrance itself has considerably expanded in depth, forcing dispersion all through the battlespace. As a result of mechanized formations are closely dependent on logistics which can be often centralized for effectivity, they’re disproportionately uncovered to interdiction. The relevance of mass on the level of contact is due to this fact declining and more and more tough to maintain, as either side intentionally search to isolate the fight space.
As historical past exhibits, technological developments that radically alter battlefield situations are, over time, often accompanied by corresponding conceptual and, finally, organizational changes. German armored divisions, for instance, have been well-balanced, combined-arms formations that bore little resemblance to the massed French and British tank formations of World Warfare I. Regardless of the apparent shift towards standoff engagements, medium and particularly heavy NATO brigades are nonetheless largely organized, educated, and outfitted for what Allied Joint Publication 3.2 describes as the power to “shut with the adversary forces whereas beneath hearth and interact the adversary with direct hearth,” counting on mass and a focus of forces as stipulations for maneuver.
Unsurprisingly, skilled Ukrainian drone operators have repeatedly participated as opposing forces in NATO workout routines with devastating penalties. As British navy theorist B. H. Liddell Hart as soon as wrote, “the one factor more durable than getting a brand new thought into the navy thoughts is to get an outdated one out.”
Whereas the German breakthrough at Sedan exemplifies fight energy predicated on a stage of mass and focus that’s now not attainable, a few of its underlying ideas stay instructive. The operation due to this fact affords a contrasting benchmark for analyzing how ideas reminiscent of focus, dispersion, and safety inform the applying of fight energy amid the altering character of latest warfare.
A Recurring Drawback, a New Constraint
A river crossing just like the one at Sedan is probably not the most typical tactical maneuver, however it does seize the essence of the up to date tactical downside, since offensive motion inevitably requires focus. Whereas dispersion will increase survivability, it additionally complicates command and management, impedes the massing of fight energy originating from direct hearth, and constrains logistics. These are well-known historic phenomena, as is the emergence of a steady, positional entrance, what Soviet navy theorist Georgii Isserson known as “frontalism.”
In Ukraine, near-total sensor protection coupled with long-range, exact, and responsive fires has offset low troop density, leaving no open flanks to use operationally, forcing models into frontal assaults that culminate prematurely. Consequently, maneuver transitions into positional preventing, and the ensuing entrance can solely be breached by a deliberate breakthrough operation requiring huge focus of forces and an enormous quantity of logistical assist. This brings the issue full circle, as a result of the rising transparency and sensor-to-shooter integration that created a steady and positional entrance additionally forestall amassing the forces essential to allow a penetration and breakthrough of that entrance, which is due to this fact more likely to persist.
Dispersion, nonetheless, doesn’t in itself result in decrease casualties, as protection analyst Branko Ruzic has argued. Precision weapons are typically not significantly efficient in opposition to enemy troop concentrations, however they’re in opposition to particular person targets, versus conventional unguided area-effect munitions, that are ideally suited to focus on dense enemy formations and clusters of autos.
Through the first section of the Ukraine battle, due to this fact, artillery was the dominant issue, its effectiveness being enhanced by using reconnaissance drones, which enabled the adjustment of fires in actual time throughout a lot bigger distances than earlier than. Consequently, models on either side, particularly Ukrainian models, given Russia’s artillery superiority, have been compelled to disperse with a purpose to survive. With the ascent of first-person-view drones, nonetheless, got here the rise of mass precision fires, providing precision strike capabilities at scale in opposition to which dispersion affords little to no safety.
Safety ought to due to this fact be aimed towards discovering the correct stability between focus and dispersion, with the smallest unit of unbiased motion being decided by the scale of the protecting cover that may be established by layered kinetic and non-kinetic, in addition to lively and passive safety measures. As historical past signifies, the bottom echelon able to unbiased motion all the time requires mixed arms capabilities natural to that formation.
Operating the Gauntlet
To allow focus, nonetheless, safety by itself isn’t sufficient. It’s important to actively disrupt, degrade, and suppress the parts that represent the enemy’s kill chain: command and management, sensors, and fires. What Jack Watling, Senior Analysis Fellow for Land Warfare on the Royal United Providers Institute, describes in his part “The Geometry of Maneuver in Positional Warfare” due to this fact capabilities like a protecting display, a modern-day creeping barrage, enabling assault formations to pay attention upon an goal.
Though Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare) has historically been almost synonymous with Auftragstaktik (mission command), this might turn out to be a degree of friction when a tightly orchestrated window of alternative requires swift focus. As navy analyst Franz-Stefan Gady not too long ago emphasised: “To ensure that convergence to work, it’s worthwhile to eliminate mission command to a sure diploma, as a result of … the foundational factor of convergence is synchronization.” Gady added that the shortage of synchronization enabled mission command to flourish within the first place.
A key query, nonetheless, is whether or not these new standoff capabilities at decrease echelons must be thought to be a part of the standard deep or slightly as an extension of the shut. Deep operations, based on U.S. Military doctrine, are primarily “directed in opposition to uncommitted enemy forces or capabilities earlier than they will have interaction pleasant forces within the shut combat.” In the meantime, multi-domain operations conceptualize convergence primarily on the operational stage, not on the decrease tactical echelons the place first-person-view and bomber drones function.
But these techniques, left unaddressed on the division and corps ranges, mainly deny motion and focus within the shut, making it unlikely that multi-domain operations will by themselves allow company- and battalion-level advances. Consequently, suppression must be carried out concurrently throughout all echelons, together with brigades and beneath, utilizing sensors and oblique fires to create an overlapping internet of protection spanning the contested shut, the standard deep, and the not too long ago termed “center battle space,” from which the shut might be supported and engaged.
Notably, armies have diminished significantly for the reason that Chilly Warfare, whereas in Ukraine, frontages in any respect echelons have elevated at the least threefold, in contrast to Chilly Warfare doctrinal norms. A comparable advance towards Sedan immediately would thus contain a division at most. This contracting force-to-space ratio displays a broader shift from mass to the mixture of results, with inevitable organizational penalties. Simply as German armored divisions have been well-balanced combined-arms formations reflecting the requirements of the day, the composition of contemporary brigades ought to likewise be reconsidered.
Most NATO heavy brigades embody three to 4 maneuver battalions, with often only one artillery battalion in assist. Against this, Chinese language and Russian mixed arms brigades discipline significantly extra natural fires, air protection, and digital warfare techniques. Moreover, Ukrainian brigades discipline one to 2 drone battalions, with natural drone capabilities in any respect echelons beneath. Russia intends to comply with swimsuit, reflecting a view of drones as a everlasting characteristic of mixed arms warfare.
To supply the required suppression, reconnaissance-strike parts ought to due to this fact account for a proportionally larger share of natural functionality inside NATO brigades, both by including sensors and fires, together with drones and loitering munitions, thereby rising brigade measurement, or by lowering the variety of maneuver models. Whereas maneuver models maintain frontages, sensors and fires deal with the elevated depth. The reply, then, is a matter of scale. Both approach, whereas brigades ought to retain three or ideally 4 maneuver parts, the predominance of standoff engagements justifies at the least one further artillery battalion and a substantial variety of drones and loitering munitions.
What Historical past Provides
How the French and Germans approached the dynamics of frontalism at Sedan bears resemblance to, and relevance for, the present dilemmas in a number of methods, with either side’s prewar considering main towards a distinct final result. Satisfied that technological developments throughout the interwar interval had elevated battlefield lethality, the French anticipated a return to positional warfare. The French methodical battle due to this fact emphasised defensive firepower over maneuver, intentionally searching for attrition. As a result of the variability and complexity of contemporary weapons sophisticated coordination, with artillery at increased echelons enabling the infantry’s ahead motion, command and management was extremely centralized to synchronize results. Avoiding encounter battles, they sought to attrit an attacker from ready positions earlier than a tightly choreographed counterattack.
As such, it intently resembles NATO’s Jap Flank Deterrence Initiative — a preconstructed, fires-centric method designed to disclaim an attacker’s capability to mass, penetrate, and obtain momentum. Though this method finally failed to resist the velocity and shock of the German breakthrough in 1940, Ukraine’s Delta battlefield administration system demonstrates that trendy means can obtain synchronization with out reproducing that very same rigidity. Defensively, due to this fact, a centralized fires-centric method is justifiable. Whether or not the identical holds for the tightly choreographed counterattack, nonetheless, stays an open query, as complexity will increase with scale.
German navy planners, by distinction, aimed for a swift choice, utilizing mobility and mass directed in opposition to a weak a part of the enemy’s protection. This, nonetheless, required an amazing focus of firepower and a considerable quantity of logistical assist. To maintain the advance, your complete Panzer Group Kleist was made partially self-sufficient by the Rucksack-Prinzip, or backpack precept, with each automobile carrying its personal ammunition, rations, and particularly gas. Moreover, Guderian’s XIX Armored Corps was deployed as Panzer Group Kleist’s vanguard, using all 4 roads concurrently, reminiscent of Prussian military chief of workers Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s dictum that “extra is misplaced in depth than is misplaced by extending the entrance.”
Moltke, in his personal day, divided his military into a number of independently working discipline armies and subordinate military corps deployed abreast, enabling fast maneuvers alongside totally different axes of advance, thereby easing logistics, rising mobility, and permitting versatile focus throughout battle. Guderian’s advance towards Sedan exemplified that converging on a degree of focus is achieved extra quickly from formations deployed abreast than from these advancing in column. Moltke’s method ultimately turned generally known as “Getrennt marschieren, vereint schlagen,” or “March individually, strike mixed.” At current, the worth of Moltke’s maxim lies not in restoring the situations for an operational breakthrough however slightly in enabling dispersed forces to converge and quickly think about the target.
Lastly, to substitute for the massed and weak artillery wanted for suppression on the level of foremost effort, the Germans deployed VIII Air Corps, the Luftwaffe’s main shut air assist formation. With German artillery unable to maintain tempo with the advance, VIII Air Corps supported the crossing itself. Its taskings due to this fact resembled these of latest devoted drone formations within the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces, albeit on a markedly totally different scale. What distinguishes Rubicon — Russia’s elite unmanned aerial automobile heart — and comparable Ukrainian drone regiments isn’t merely their technical sophistication and competence, however their operate as a centralized, non-organic functionality allotted to shut a structural hole that standard formations can not shut on their very own, a task that, in historic phrases, mirrors that of VIII Air Corps at Sedan. Rubicon detachments can equally set up a foremost effort shortly, with out weak massed fires and their logistical footprint, reinforcing important front-line sectors in assist of mechanized floor formations. All through 2025, Rubicon performed an essential function within the Russian military’s precedence sectors, together with recapturing the Kursk salient. Often, this has created situations conducive to floor maneuver, though exploitation has to this point confirmed inconsistent.
Conclusion
Given Ukraine’s current successes throughout the ongoing Operation Vivaldi, tactical variations seem to have matured into a brand new combined-arms method enabling profitable offensive motion in positional warfare. Nonetheless, these actions extra intently resemble the “bite-and-hold” ways of World Warfare I than the large-scale operational breakthroughs of World Warfare II. Somewhat than trying a hazardous however doubtlessly way more decisive breakthrough, the British Expeditionary Drive pursued restricted, well-defined targets, utilizing meticulous hearth planning and consolidating captured floor to defeat the anticipated counterattack.
Equally, present assault ways require a tightly orchestrated convergence of results, combining manned and unmanned techniques, to allow incremental advances and comparatively restricted territorial good points. Even so, by severing Russian logistics to isolate the fight space, Operation Vivaldi helps a key argument: focusing on logistics reduces the mass, and due to this fact fight energy, a military can maintain on the entrance. Though some will hail this as a return to maneuver warfare, from a historic perspective, we’re nearer to 1917 than to 1940.
So far, solely two operations have come near a breakthrough within the conventional sense: the Kharkiv offensive in 2022 and the Kursk incursion in 2024. In each instances, Russian defenses have been thinly manned by poorly educated troops, translating into low sensor density, weak integration, and due to this fact restricted responsiveness of fires. The place defensive networks stay intact, nonetheless, maneuver often stalls and reverts to positional preventing. Though Operation Vivaldi demonstrates that even firmly established defensive networks might be suppressed domestically, these might be shortly reestablished, bringing each advance inside vary of a reconstituted, intact a part of the community.
As George Dougherty argues in a current Warfare on the Rocks article, simply because the tank accelerated the tempo of battle throughout the interwar interval, restoring maneuver on the up to date battlefield requires one other leap in velocity and mobility, permitting the attacker to outpace the defender’s efforts to reconstitute its community. Till such networks might be suppressed at scale and for sustained intervals, or outpaced earlier than they are often reconstituted, good points will stay incremental. Drive design ought to due to this fact, initially, be tailor-made to offering adequate suppression. Moreover, whereas in 1940 the velocity of the German advance undermined French decision-making, these days it’s the velocity of turning intelligence into fires that determines whether or not a military can proceed to advance.
The lesson is evident: fight energy is now not derived primarily from maneuver formations participating in direct contact, however slightly from oblique, precision fires and standoff strike capabilities. Though floor troops will stay essential to seize targets and bodily destroy the enemy at shut vary, the mass and density employed for this function are now not fascinating or obligatory. In any case, the mass that may be sustained on the level of contact is bounded by the capability of the logistical pipeline that feeds it. Armies due to this fact must reevaluate how they consider massing fight energy and rethink how conventional ideas reminiscent of focus, dispersion, and safety ought to inform power design and command and management.
On this sense, Moltke’s dictum to “march individually, strike mixed” takes on renewed relevance for a battlefield now outlined by dispersion, standoff fires, and the convergence of manned and unmanned results.
Randy Noorman is an officer within the Royal Netherlands Military. He works as a navy historian and doctoral candidate on the Land Warfare Middle of the Royal Netherlands Military. He served within the Dutch eleventh Air Cellular Brigade for over 15 years as a noncommissioned officer and accomplished a number of excursions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bosnia. He holds a bachelor’s diploma in historical past from the College of Groningen and a grasp’s diploma in navy historical past from the College of Amsterdam. He has been revealed in Dutch and English, together with within the Fashionable Warfare Institute, Navy Overview, and Small Wars Journal.
Picture: Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}