Military history
When certifying military history instructors[1] the Combat Studies Institute deemphasizes rote detail memorization and focuses on themes and context in relation to current and future conflict, using the motto "Past is Prologue.
An important recent concept is the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which attempts to explain how warfare has been shaped by emerging technologies, such as gunpowder.
William H. McNeill points out: In recent decades University level courses in military history remain popular; often they use films to humanize the combat experience.
For example, Eugene P. A. Scleh, history professor at the University of Maine, has explored the advantages and problems of teaching a course of "Modern War and Its Images" entirely through films.
For this reason military history is periodised, creating overlaying boundaries of study and analysis in which descriptions of battles by leaders may be unreliable due to the inclination to minimize mention of failure and exaggerate success.
Historians use their knowledge of government regulation and military organization, and employing a targeted and systematic research strategy to piece together war histories.
Kimball reports that: People interested in military history from all periods of time, and all subtopics, are increasingly turning to the Internet for many more resources than are typically available in nearby libraries.
"[20] The actual bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan became the focus of an angry national controversy with veterans attacking curators and historians when the Smithsonian Institution planned to put its fuselage on public display in 1995.
[22] Next was Thucydides whose impartiality, despite being an Athenian, allowed him to take advantage of his exile to research the war from different perspectives by carefully examining documents and interviewing eyewitnesses.
The uniforms evolve, bronze gives way to titanium, arrows may be replaced by laser-guided bombs, but the heart of the matter is still killing your enemies until any survivors surrender and do your will.New weapons development can dramatically alter the face of war, the cost of warfare, the preparations, and the training of soldiers and leaders.
"Pots with wicks of flax or cotton were used, containing a combination of sulfur, saltpeter (potassium nitrate), aconitine, oil, resin, ground charcoal and wax.
[48] At the end of the 18th century, iron-cased artillery rockets were successfully used militarily in India against the British by Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore during the Anglo-Mysore Wars.
Joseph Needham notes "all the long preparations and tentative experiments were made in China, and everything came to Islam and the West fully fledged, whether it was the fire lance or the explosive bomb, the rocket or the metal-barrel handgun and bombard.
[citation needed] An illustration of a "pot-shaped gun" found in the Holkham Hall Milemete manuscript dated to 1326 shows earliest advent of firearms in European history.
According to Historian Michael Roberts "...a military revolution began with the broad adoption of firearms and artillery by late sixteenth-century European armies.
These changes included a universal adoption of firearms, tactical developments for effective use, logistical restructuring within the military itself, and "the emergence of centralized and political and institutional relationships indicative of the early modern order.
[57] Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) made a failed invasion of Korea, which lasted six years, eventually pushed back by the Koreans with the aid of Ming China.
"[56] After the Japanese were finally pushed back in 1598, sweeping military reforms took place in Korea, largely based on updating and implementing the volley technique with firearms.
[66] Egypt began growing as an ancient power, but eventually fell to the Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs.
After the decline of central imperial authority, the Han dynasty collapsed into an era of civil war and continuous warfare during the Three Kingdoms period in the 3rd century AD.
While successfully dealing with foreign opponents, Rome experienced numerous civil wars, notably the power struggles of Roman generals such as Marius and Sulla during the end of the Republic.
By the time of Marcus Aurelius, the Romans had expanded to the Atlantic Ocean in the west and to Mesopotamia in the east and controlled Northern Africa and Central Europe up to the Black Sea.
This invention coupled with technological, cultural, and social developments had forced a dramatic transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics and the role of cavalry and artillery.
The Islamic Arab Empire began rapidly expanding throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, initially led by Rashidun Caliphate, and later under the Umayyads.
While their attempts to invade Europe by way of the Balkans were defeated by Byzantium and Bulgaria,[67] the Arabs expanded to the Iberian Peninsula in the west and the Indus Valley in the east.
The period spanning between the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and the 1789 French Revolution is also known as Kabinettskriege (Princes' warfare) as wars were mainly carried out by imperial or monarchics states, decided by cabinets and limited in scope and in their aims.
Over the course of the 18th–19th centuries all military arms and services underwent significant developments that included a more mobile field artillery, the transition from use of battalion infantry drill in close order to open order formations and the transfer of emphasis from the use of bayonets to the rifle that replaced the musket, and virtual replacement of all types of cavalry with the universal dragoons, or mounted infantry.
Roberts linked these advances with larger historical consequences, arguing that innovations in tactics, drill and doctrine by the Dutch and Swedes 1560–1660 led to a need for more and better trained troops and thus for permanent forces (standing armies).
These changes in turn had major political consequences in the level of administrative support and the supply of money, men and provisions, producing new financial demands and the creation of new governmental institutions.
Many of the technologies commonly seen on main battle tanks today, such as composite armor, high caliber cannons, and advanced targeting systems, would be developed during this time.
