Firepower
Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. (It is not to be confused with the concept of
Through the ages firepower has come to mean offensive power applied from a distance, thus involving ranged weapons as opposed to one-on-one close quarters combat. Firepower is thus something employed to keep enemy forces at a range where they can be defeated in detail or sapped of the will to continue. In the field of naval artillery, the weight of a broadside was long used as a figure of merit of a warship's firepower.
History
The earliest forms of
Later examples
Firepower of military units large and small has steadily increased since the introduction of firearms, with technical improvements that have, with some exceptions, diminished the effectiveness of fortification. Such improvements made close order formation useless for middle to late 19th century infantry, and the use of machine guns early in the 20th stymied frontal assaults. Military uniforms changed from gaudy to drab, making soldiers less visible to the increasing firepower. At sea, improved naval artillery ended the use of prize crews, and naval aviation brought an end to heavily armored battleships.
The use of firepower in achieving military objectives became one of several conflicting schools of military thought, or doctrines. The
Further reading
- Bidwell, Shelford and Graham, Dominick. Fire-Power: The British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904-1945 (ISBN 978-1844152162)
References
- ^ Berton, Pierre Vimy. See also Morton, Desmond When Your Number's Up for a discussion of combined arms tactics in the First World War.