Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
They certainly failed on reconnaissance. They got confused by a torpedo ram and underestimated the strength of terrestrial artillery. However, they were quick to change strategy and adopt a more careful approach after they lost the machine at Weybridge, and even then they were able to retrieve the remains and return them to the main pit at Horsell Common where it was probably repaired and returned to service. The only other machine that I'm aware of getting damaged before the Thunder Child attack was one at St Georges Hill but it was only light damage (one of the legs was hit) and after the St Georges Hill gunners had been disposed of the Martian was able to complete repairs to its machine and it returned to service.
It was the fact that the humans were now hiding artillery in forests which brought the Black Smoke into play which was then used at any possible location where artillery might be hidden, and then if the artillery was visible the Heat ray was used.
If it wasn't for the biological side of things, which I agree, was a failure in recon, then the Black smoke would have been air dropped on continental areas and somehow (damned if I know how) they would have gotten the Fighting Machines across the Channel and started moving eastward.
There's a lot of thinking that can be done in regards to the tactics employed in the War of the Worlds, after all, HG Wells himself was a dedicated wargamer, he wrote the book on that too, but I think that the chaos inflicted on the small area of humanity that they managed to conquer, and the fact that the whole events of the book took place in no more than a month should at least give the Martians a bit of a round of applause.
BTW, just found this:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3691/3691-h/3691-h.htm
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It's a shame we only see the events from the narrator and his brother's viewpoint, I would very much have liked to know how the invasion turned out in other areas.
For example, the narrator only witnesses attacks on the fighting machines by field guns and hears from his brother about the
Thunder Child, a torpedo ram, one of the weakest surface warships in existence at the time. How would they fared against howitzers, seeing as the martians don't really have an indirect fire weapon? Or the guns of a battleship, which might well outrange the Heat-Ray itself?
I think surprise was the main thing that allowed the martians their early victory, had they lacked that, they would have been either destroyed or at least driven to a bloody stalemate. In fact, IIRC it is practically stated by the narrator at the end of the book that because their first attack failed, they have lost the huge advantage that surprise gave them for any subsequent invasion.
Thanks for that link, I've heard a lot about Little Wars, but I always wondered how it compared to modern wargaming systems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TLAM Strike
Applause? Pfft! So what they conquered England in a month? We took out the third largest standing army in the world (on the other side of the planet) in a month taking less than 400 KIA back in 1991, and unlike the Martians we were prepared for biological warfare.  |
The British army at the time it would have fought the martians was nowhere near being 'large'. I wonder how well the martians would have done against the German army...