Somme more restored by the sword
Have you ever been interested in how the WWI would look like with constant video coverage and drones? The solution is obvious, and it doesn’t require any gameplays or simulation hypothesis; simply check intermediate results of the so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive, long stalled almost to halt, against the offensive of the Somme throughout the summer and autumn of 1916, with its constant tests of relatively old, albeit robust, technology under assault of tanks.
This is what any supposedly post-modern war might degenerate into, when there isn’t enough aerial support from the start,
but commanders decide to trade mine-sown territory for human meat all the same.
Blue bulge still sits afar from outskirts of the biggest city behind the first two Russian trench lines, Tokmak, which isn’t even seen on the previous war map screenshot. Tokmak had been set as the main Ukrainian goal during the first couple of counteroffensive days in early June.
At the end of September, Russian territorial gains during counteroffensive, if accounted all over the front, still prevail over area reclaimed by Ukrainians (blue) in blood and futility, albeit in absence of mud. The mud will come into the night land of dead and living soon, when rains begin to fall over the steppe.
Yet again in military history, meticulous defensive plans trample audacity, (in)sanity, and courage.
