Ranking of U.S. Presidents by historians

[August]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

I don't think 3-1 worked too well against interlocked machine gun fire.

Machine guns are indeed force multipliers that would change whatever attacker/defender ratio there was beforehand, but so would any new weapon or tactic.

For example, interlocking machine gun fire was not effective at all against poison gas and MG fire was not as effective if aircraft are strafing and bombing their position keeping the crews heads down while the attacking troops advance across the kill zone.

Even changes in doctrine for existing weapons change the ratio. For another example: Pickets charge might have achieved it's objective if the rebels had been able to keep their artillery barrage going right up until the leading ranks reached the stone wall.