Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War (Hardcover)

Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War (Hardcover)
By Harold A. Winters

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Customer tags: strategy(2), geography(2), history of technology(2), warfare, intelligence, international security, climate, military science, war, military history, weather, interdisciplinary studies

Review & Description

Engrossing and informative, this book is a cogent analysis of dozens of battles to illustrate the complex, diverse, and often capricious effect of physical geography on war without oversimplifying this relationship or implying that environmental factors predetermine the outcome of a battle. 70 line illustrations. 60 halftones."Those who do not know the conditions of mountains and forests, hazardous defiles, marshes and swamps, cannot conduct the march of an army."

So wrote Sun Tzu in his classic treatise The Art of War. This stimulating book takes Sun Tzu's advice and examines what many others on military history ignore: the effect the environment (physical terrain, weather, vegetation, etc.) has on battle. Each chapter focuses on a different environmental problem, and reveals the various ways in which it can influence a battle's outcome. A section on storms, for instance, shows how the elements randomize success: in the 12th century, a typhoon ruined Kublai Khan's attempted invasion of Japan, yet relatively calm seas helped assure the Allied victory on D-day hundreds of years later. Another chapter compares and contrasts the dense forests of the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War with the intractable jungles of Vietnam. One lesson this book teaches is that bad weather usually favors defenders: the Germans used fog and precipitation to their advantage during the Battle of the Bulge, as did the Viet Cong during the siege of Khe Sanh. The authors draw a few predictable conclusions--planning, logistics, leadership, and tactics are all critical, they say--but on the whole they provide a fascinating look at how wind, clouds, waves, rain, snow, mud, sand, heat, hills, mountains, and islands (to name a few factors) affect war. --John J. Miller Read more

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