Manufactory Wars

The manufactory period of the history of military art is the period from the 17th to the 19th centuries , when the widespread use of manufactory allowed the mass production of firearms for that time to equip permanent regular armies and navies. The massive equipping of armies with firearms had a huge impact on the development of military art and was one of the reasons for the development of linear tactics. The outcome of the battles began to be decided not only by an attack of manpower, but also by the power of fire.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries, regular armies were finally formed, staffed by professionals. The main means of armed struggle was a technique based on the use of the muscular strength of a man and a horse, the virtuosity of the hands of a soldier and the eye of an officer. The use of weapons was based on the individual art of a soldier in the army or a sailor in the navy. There was a process of standardization of weapons, uniforms and equipment of soldiers and officers, standardization of defensive structures and military convoys. This made it possible to improve the tactical and technical data of weapons and especially the quality and quantity of ammunition.

With the improvement of weapons, the separation of functions of personnel within the military branches has changed. With the invention of the bayonet, the infantry ceased to be divided into pikemen and musketeers , with the strengthening of naval artillery, ramming and boarding began to go back in time. Military activity was complicated, qualitatively distributed among various specialties. The army began to represent the aggregate mechanism of the arms of service, between which quantitative proportionality began to be developed. This division of labor contributed to the growth of technical virtuosity in the activities of an individual soldier, but this one-sided specialization turned him into an automaton, mechanically fulfilling the will of the command. Learning became a drill.

The growth of armies, the improvement of their technical equipment increased the hierarchical ladder of commanding officers, obliged to train, educate and provide material support to subordinates. The systems of barracks and military camps were formed, where the rank and file were systematically trained; To educate and train officers, a network of military schools was developed.

A change in the quality of soldiers and officers, as well as in the number of troops, and the improvement of weapons determined the development of methods of warfare and combat. In the XVII-XVIII centuries, cordon strategy and linear tactics took shape; at the end of the 18th century , the strategy and tactics of mass movements of troops in the theater of war and on the battlefield began to take shape. The prevailing desire of the belligerents for decisive offensive actions and for activity even in an environment of forced defense by strategic and tactical maneuvering.

The supply organization acquired its specificity because of the need to regularly supply a standing army with food, fodder, uniform, equipment, weapons, and ammunition. In the XVII-XVIII centuries, troops received everything they needed from stores; a five-transition supply system arose and took shape. In the 19th century, this system, which no longer corresponded to the nature of the troops' actions, was supplemented by the organization of the use of local funds, with a sufficient number of which the commander refused shops.