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>Ofc there are significant exceptions, like the Alpine front in WWI, where Austrians and Italians faced each other in mountainous terrain for years, or the Hürt
by potato3732842 1y ago
>Ofc there are significant exceptions, like the Alpine front in WWI, where Austrians and Italians faced each other in mountainous terrain for years, or the Hürtgen Forest in WWII. But a remarkable share of all major mechanized battles of history took place in flat open fields, or something at least resembling that sort of terrain (gently sloping hills with good visibility etc. etc.)
Fighting through some portion of the Ardennes has been a fairly recurrent theme in central European land warfare since vikings did it in the 800s.
I'm sure if one digs they can find a reference to a roman general doing it too.
- inglor_cz 1y agoI haven't claimed that there were zero such instances, but my guess is that such battles in difficult terrain may be ~ 5 per cent of the total, if not less. People and animals get exhausted easily in bad terrain, and it is hard to supply the troops. Even mechanical equipment becomes less reliable and more prone to malfunction. Notably, the German operation Sichelschnitt in 1940 was very successful because the French command considered it unlikely that German Panzers would be able to cross the Ardennes in force, even though the French command was probably well aware of their own military history.