| rdfs:comment | - Trench warfare is where the two opposing armies, 'dig in', creating a network of interconnected defensive positions, often fronted with barbed wire. These consist of trenches and dugouts which provide troops shelter from the danger on the surface. This form of warfare arose when advances in artillery where not matched by advances in mobility. Between the two lines is the area of 'No-Mans Land'. Attacks were typically bloody, however successful they were. Trench warfare occured during the American Civil War, the Russo-Japanese War and was particularly common and deadly on the Western Front of World War One.
- Trench Warfare is a four player and Commander's Challenge map that was used for both Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
- Trench Warfare is the third mission in Saints Row: Money Shot.
- Trench warfare is not nearly as old as warfare itself; however, because of the relatively small size of the armies and the lack of range of the weapons, it was traditionally not possible to defend more than a short defensive line or isolated strong point. Although both the art of fortification and the art of weaponry advanced a great deal as time went on, the traditional rule remained; a fortification required a large body of troops to defend it. Small numbers of troops simply could not maintain a volume of fire sufficient to repel a determined attack.
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| abstract | - Trench warfare is where the two opposing armies, 'dig in', creating a network of interconnected defensive positions, often fronted with barbed wire. These consist of trenches and dugouts which provide troops shelter from the danger on the surface. This form of warfare arose when advances in artillery where not matched by advances in mobility. Between the two lines is the area of 'No-Mans Land'. Attacks were typically bloody, however successful they were. Trench warfare occured during the American Civil War, the Russo-Japanese War and was particularly common and deadly on the Western Front of World War One.
- Trench Warfare is a four player and Commander's Challenge map that was used for both Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
- Trench Warfare is the third mission in Saints Row: Money Shot.
- Trench warfare is not nearly as old as warfare itself; however, because of the relatively small size of the armies and the lack of range of the weapons, it was traditionally not possible to defend more than a short defensive line or isolated strong point. Although both the art of fortification and the art of weaponry advanced a great deal as time went on, the traditional rule remained; a fortification required a large body of troops to defend it. Small numbers of troops simply could not maintain a volume of fire sufficient to repel a determined attack. Trenches did impede an attacking enemy's movement and provided a psychological benefit for the men manning them. With this in mind, it became common practice for early Roman legions to entrench their encampments every night. A fortified camp was extremely hard to assault directly, and a Roman commander who did not wish to engage an enemy could often simply remain encamped. Trenches were also used by the Persians. At the Battle of the Trench when the Meccans invaded Medina, Salman the Persian adapted this Persian concept to devise the tactic of engaging in a defensive battle by establishing deep trenches to act as a barrier along the northern front.[1] Once siege engines (such as the trebuchet) were developed, the techniques involved in assaulting a town or a fortress became well known and ritualised—the siège en forme. The attacking army would surround a town. Then the town would be asked to surrender. If it did not comply, the besieging army would invest (surround) the town with temporary fortifications to stop sallies from the stronghold or relief getting in. The attackers would then build a length of trenches parallel to the defences and just out of range of defending artillery. They would then dig a trench towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire; it also created a good vantage point from which to survey the enemy. Once within artillery range another parallel trench would be dug with gun emplacements. If necessary using the first artillery fire for cover, this process would be repeated until the guns were close enough to be laid accurately to make a breach in the fortifications. In order that the "forlorn hope" and their support troops could get close enough to exploit the breach, more zigzag trenches could be dug even closer to the walls with more parallel trenches to protect and conceal the attacking troops. In 1849 (a decade before the American Civil War) George Ripley wrote:[2] The construction of field works is as old as the existence of armies. The ancients were even far more expert in this art than our modern armies; the Roman legions, before an enemy, entrenched their camp every night. During the 17th and 18th centuries we see also a very great use of field works, and in the wars of Frederic the Great pickets on outpost duty generally threw up slightly profiled redans. Yet even then, and it is still more the case now, the construction of field works was confined to the strengthening of a few positions selected beforehand with a view to certain eventualities during a campaign. Thus Frederic the Great's camp at Bunzelwitz, Wellington's lines at Torres Vedras, the French lines of Weissenburg, and the Austrian intrenchments in front of Verona in 1848. Under such circumstances, field works may exercise an important influence upon the issue of a campaign by enabling an inferior army successfully to resist a superior one. Formerly the intrenched lines, as in Vauban's permanently intrenched camps, were continuous; but from the defect that if pierced and taken at one point the whole line was useless, they are now universally composed of one or more lines of detached redoubts, flanking each other by their fire, and allowing the army to fall upon the enemy through the intervals as soon as the fire of the redoubts has broken the energy of his assault. This is the principal use of field works; but they are also employed singly, as bridge heads to defend the access a bridge, or to close an important pass to small parties of the enemy. Omitting all the more fanciful shapes of works which are now out of date, such fortifications should consist of works either open or closed at the gorge. The former will either be redans (two parapets with a ditch in front forming an angle facing the enemy) or lunettes (redans with short flanks). The latter may be closed at the gorge by palisadings. The principal closed field work now in use is the square redoubt, either as a regular or an irregular quadrangle, closed by a ditch and parapet all round. The parapet is made as high as in permanent fortification (7 to 8 feet), but not so thick, having to resist field artillery only. As none of these works has a flanking fire in itself they have to be disposed so that they flank each other within musket range. To do this effectively, and strengthen the whole line, the plan now most generally adopted is to form an intrenched camp by a line of square redoubts flanking each other, and also a line of simple redans, situated in front of the intervals of the redoubts. Such a camp was formed in front of Comorn, south of the Danube, in 1849, and was defended by the Hungarians for 2 days against a far superior army. —George Ripley (1849)
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