Танки-дредноуты
Так. Что мне осталось сказать.
В чём Уэллс видел возможный выход из сложившейся ситуации?
Его надежды и страхи были связаны танками, входящими в "первый род войск" - или, в наших терминах, с дредноутной парадигмой PGMV (Атака + Защита).
"War is a thing that changes very rapidly, and we have in the Tanks only the first of a great series of offensive developments. They are bound to be improved, at a great pace. The method of using them will change very rapidly...
Given that much, the Tank will enormously enhance the advantage of the new offensive method on the French front; the method that is of gun demolition after aerial photography, followed by an advance; it is a huge addition to our prospect of decisive victory. What does it do? It solves two problems. The existing Tank affords a means of advancing against machine-gun fire and of destroying wire and machine guns without much risk of loss, so soon as the big guns have done their duty by the enemy guns. And also behind the Tank itself, it is useless to conceal, lies the possibility of bringing up big guns and big gun ammunition, across nearly any sort of country, as fast as the advance can press forward. Hitherto every advance has paid a heavy toll to the machine gun, and every advance has had to halt after a couple of miles or so while the big guns (taking five or six days for the job) toiled up to the new positions..."
Уэллс ещё раз повторяет, как выглядит война, которую он застал. Самолёты-корректировщики вычисляют цели, артиллерия накрывает их огнём (Сбор информации + Атака), затем наступает черёд армии в традиционном смысле слова (Атака + Защита). Как выяснилось, танки способны нейтрализовать огонь пулемётов, а в перспективе - и более тяжёлых орудий. При этом, размышляет Уэллс, очевидное развитие бронетехники приведёт к установке крупнокалиберной артиллерии на танк, который, таким образом, объединит в себе и предельную Защиту, и предельную Атаку. То есть, в наших терминах, произойдёт переход от четвёртой парадигмы к первой ( от нижнего центрального луча - к нижнему левому).
Дальше Уэллс начинает фантазировать на тему гусеничных "дредноутов" первой парадигмы:
"What lies behind the Tank depends upon this fact; there is no definable upward limit of mass. Upon that I would lay all the stress possible, because everything turns upon that.
You cannot make a land ironclad so big and heavy but that you cannot make a caterpillar track wide enough and strong enough to carry it forward. Tanks are quite possible that will carry twenty-inch or twenty-five inch guns, besides minor armament. Such Tanks may be undesirable; the production may exceed the industrial resources of any empire to produce; but there is no inherent impossibility in such things... Tank will develop steadily into a tremendous instrument of warfare, driven by engines of scores of thousands of horse-power, tracking on a track scores of hundreds of yards wide and weighing hundreds or thousands of tons.... Such a structure will make wheel-ruts scores of feet deep; it will plough up, devastate and destroy the country it passes over altogether...
The machine will be perhaps as big as a destroyer and more heavily armed and equipped. It will swim over and through the soil at a pace of ten or twelve miles an hour. In front of it will be corn, land, neat woods, orchards, pasture, gardens, villages and towns. It will advance upon its belly with a swaying motion, devouring the ground beneath it. Behind it masses of soil and rock, lumps of turf, splintered wood, bits of houses, occasional streaks of red, will drop from its track, and it will leave a wake, six or seven times as wide as a high road, from which all soil, all cultivation, all semblance to cultivated or cultivatable land will have disappeared. It will not even be a track of soil. It will be a track of subsoil laid bare. It will be a flayed strip of nature. In the course of its fighting the monster may have to turnabout. It will then halt and spin slowly round, grinding out an arena of desolation with a diameter equal to its length. If it has to retreat and advance again these streaks and holes of destruction will increase and multiply. Behind the fighting line these monsters will manoeuvre to and fro, destroying the land for all ordinary agricultural purposes for ages to come."
Итак, в этом варианте у нас будут огромные, тяжелобронированные туши, увешанные всевозможным оружием; сухопутные линкоры, которые ползут вперёд, сокрушая всё на своём пути, перемалывая и наматывая на гусеницы поля-леса-деревни.
И на этом месте я слегка завис, поэтому - "продолжение следует...".
В чём Уэллс видел возможный выход из сложившейся ситуации?
Его надежды и страхи были связаны танками, входящими в "первый род войск" - или, в наших терминах, с дредноутной парадигмой PGMV (Атака + Защита).
"War is a thing that changes very rapidly, and we have in the Tanks only the first of a great series of offensive developments. They are bound to be improved, at a great pace. The method of using them will change very rapidly...
Given that much, the Tank will enormously enhance the advantage of the new offensive method on the French front; the method that is of gun demolition after aerial photography, followed by an advance; it is a huge addition to our prospect of decisive victory. What does it do? It solves two problems. The existing Tank affords a means of advancing against machine-gun fire and of destroying wire and machine guns without much risk of loss, so soon as the big guns have done their duty by the enemy guns. And also behind the Tank itself, it is useless to conceal, lies the possibility of bringing up big guns and big gun ammunition, across nearly any sort of country, as fast as the advance can press forward. Hitherto every advance has paid a heavy toll to the machine gun, and every advance has had to halt after a couple of miles or so while the big guns (taking five or six days for the job) toiled up to the new positions..."
Уэллс ещё раз повторяет, как выглядит война, которую он застал. Самолёты-корректировщики вычисляют цели, артиллерия накрывает их огнём (Сбор информации + Атака), затем наступает черёд армии в традиционном смысле слова (Атака + Защита). Как выяснилось, танки способны нейтрализовать огонь пулемётов, а в перспективе - и более тяжёлых орудий. При этом, размышляет Уэллс, очевидное развитие бронетехники приведёт к установке крупнокалиберной артиллерии на танк, который, таким образом, объединит в себе и предельную Защиту, и предельную Атаку. То есть, в наших терминах, произойдёт переход от четвёртой парадигмы к первой ( от нижнего центрального луча - к нижнему левому).
Дальше Уэллс начинает фантазировать на тему гусеничных "дредноутов" первой парадигмы:
"What lies behind the Tank depends upon this fact; there is no definable upward limit of mass. Upon that I would lay all the stress possible, because everything turns upon that.
You cannot make a land ironclad so big and heavy but that you cannot make a caterpillar track wide enough and strong enough to carry it forward. Tanks are quite possible that will carry twenty-inch or twenty-five inch guns, besides minor armament. Such Tanks may be undesirable; the production may exceed the industrial resources of any empire to produce; but there is no inherent impossibility in such things... Tank will develop steadily into a tremendous instrument of warfare, driven by engines of scores of thousands of horse-power, tracking on a track scores of hundreds of yards wide and weighing hundreds or thousands of tons.... Such a structure will make wheel-ruts scores of feet deep; it will plough up, devastate and destroy the country it passes over altogether...
The machine will be perhaps as big as a destroyer and more heavily armed and equipped. It will swim over and through the soil at a pace of ten or twelve miles an hour. In front of it will be corn, land, neat woods, orchards, pasture, gardens, villages and towns. It will advance upon its belly with a swaying motion, devouring the ground beneath it. Behind it masses of soil and rock, lumps of turf, splintered wood, bits of houses, occasional streaks of red, will drop from its track, and it will leave a wake, six or seven times as wide as a high road, from which all soil, all cultivation, all semblance to cultivated or cultivatable land will have disappeared. It will not even be a track of soil. It will be a track of subsoil laid bare. It will be a flayed strip of nature. In the course of its fighting the monster may have to turnabout. It will then halt and spin slowly round, grinding out an arena of desolation with a diameter equal to its length. If it has to retreat and advance again these streaks and holes of destruction will increase and multiply. Behind the fighting line these monsters will manoeuvre to and fro, destroying the land for all ordinary agricultural purposes for ages to come."
Итак, в этом варианте у нас будут огромные, тяжелобронированные туши, увешанные всевозможным оружием; сухопутные линкоры, которые ползут вперёд, сокрушая всё на своём пути, перемалывая и наматывая на гусеницы поля-леса-деревни.
И на этом месте я слегка завис, поэтому - "продолжение следует...".