With the rapid development of modern firearms, the pattern of warfare has changed beyond recognition after a large standing army has completely replaced the army dominated by a small number of elite knights and expensive mercenaries. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

In the ancient feudal period, the battle between the two countries mainly looked at the victory or defeat of large-scale battles and the strategic planning of famous generals, because the feudal period admired the foreign army policy, and often the real elite could destroy several times or even ten times the rabble of their own, but it was precisely because of the rarity of the elite that these feudal armies became extremely precious, and also represented the real strength of this feudal empire!

Once in a battle, the loss of this feudal elite is too great or even completely annihilated, even if the defeated country still has a huge population base and national strength in the rear, it is difficult to turn over, although they can quickly organize a large number of recruits, but it is difficult to train the disappeared elite!

This will undoubtedly greatly reduce the combat effectiveness of the feudal empire!

As a result, the side that loses the elite gets weaker and weaker, and the side that retains the elite often wins at a very small cost!

This phenomenon has made ancient wars more 'expensive', and more important to the strategy of generals, a general who can preserve vitality on the battlefield is a valuable asset for any feudal empire!

However, after the popularization of firearms, soldiers became easy to obtain and cheaper, and gradually, the kings and generals of various countries found that they no longer had to find ways to preserve their vitality, as long as they could win, even if they paid more than half of the casualties, it was a profitable deal!

Because elites are rare, but civilians have them, the main force of musketeers that is simple and easy to use and only requires discipline also increases the replenishment speed of the army geometrically!

Even if after a few major wars, all the regular armies of the entire country have been wiped out, but as long as the territory is still there and there are enough financial resources, it only takes less than a year for the modern country to pull out a large number of standing armies!

It is true that this kind of recruit is inferior to the veteran, but everyone uses muskets with great lethality, and the recruit is killed if he is hit, and the veteran can live if he is hit?

At most, veterans can reduce their own casualties due to their rich battlefield experience, but in a battlefield full of artillery fire, this casualty reduction value is really not large......

In fact, in the tactics of queuing and shooting, the survival rate of recruits and veterans during the shooting period is about the same, and it does not depend on how accurately the musketeers shoot, but on whether God favors them......

Only in bayonet hand-to-hand combat, the huge gap between recruits and veterans will be reflected, and bayonet hand-to-hand combat is also the most morale-testing time!

It's a pity that if you want to fight hand-to-hand with a bayonet, you have to cross at least a range of nearly 100 meters of firepower, even if it is a brainless Ula charge like Lao Maozi, you have to cover all the corpses all the way to meet the enemy!

This situation makes the veteran also a kind of consumable, when the elite becomes a battlefield consumable, the war is often no longer to see the victory of one or several battles, but to see the national strength of both sides!

Countries with strong national strength and developed industries can even train new troops while fighting, even if the front line is repeatedly defeated, but as long as there are enough financial resources, the production of a large number of new recruits on the assembly line can be replenished, and the war can continue!

In the world when Zhao Dutian came, the several large-scale wars that occurred in Europe often ended not with the defeat of one country, but with the exhaustion of one party's financial resources!

In particular, as soldiers became cheaper, the number of troops involved in the war also increased, although the number is not the key to determining the victory, but the numerical advantage is unavoidable by any famous general!

Even Napoleon, a first-class figure in Zhao Dutian's previous life, used his own march to maneuver quickly as much as possible in every battle, annihilating the coalition forces of the anti-French alliance one by one, and avoiding the complete gathering of enemy troops!

And the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's command from beginning to end was even more impeccable, fully showing his military talent, and he had been beating the British Duke of Wellington, and the defeat was only because the Duke of Wellington survived and did not collapse in a short time, waiting for Prussian reinforcements to arrive!

It was this reinforcement that made all the advantages that Napoleon could build by command lose and be swallowed up by the enemy's living sea of people!

In the war of the firearms age, when the number of troops on both sides reached tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, tactical surprise attacks and ambushes and other clever actions became insignificant, no matter how powerful they were, they successfully surrounded tens of thousands of enemy troops, and they must at least have about the same strength, otherwise, the enemy's concentrated main force to fight a hard breakthrough battle is completely possible to turn defeat into victory!

Moreover, if you want to surround an army of tens of thousands of people in a battle, it is an extremely difficult thing in itself, tens of thousands of people spread out, that is dozens or hundreds of miles of land can be occupied, can it be said that it is impossible to surround with cavalry?

With the suppressiveness of muskets and artillery, the cavalry unit will be easily stopped by a well-trained rearguard infantry unit!

Unless, there is such a big killer as a tank!

Before the large-scale appearance of tanks, thermal weapons wars were always accompanied by high casualties and long fighting time, and it was often fought to the end of the mountain before the real defeat and surrender, even the victor would be exhausted in the long war!

Of course, the exception of asymmetric warfare, modern countries beat feudal countries, but there is no need to fight perennial wars, only need to win a few battles, and it is enough to win the elite troops of the feudal countries to the fullest!

This is not only a gap in weapons, but also a generation gap in the system, and the feudal countries simply cannot be like the modern industrial countries, crazy and violent soldiers!

But when two modern industrial countries pinch each other, it will be a catastrophe between mankind!

Since with the expansion of the scale of the war, there are fewer and fewer places to take tricks on the battlefield, and more and more tough battles will be fought, and the casualties on both sides will become larger and larger!

This is a battle of national strength, but also the grasp of local geographical advantages, even if there are so many elites, can temporarily obtain local advantages, but they will also become consumables in the future continuous wars.

However, modern industrial countries also have ways to maintain the size of their elite troops, and they will continue to draw veterans from the past to fill the battle losses of the elite troops, maintain their numerical stability, and then use new recruits to fill in the loopholes of those conventional troops.

Therefore, often after a war, although the number of elite troops is not weakened much, the old faces inside will become fewer and fewer!

This is the cruelty of war, the cruelty of soldiers and soldiers!

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