(10) TRENCH & TUNNEL WARFARE

 

I quipped about trench warfare as a subterranean form of land warfare but that’s taking its subterranean elements too far – it is more akin to a form of fortification and the siege warfare from which it originated.

While it has those predecessors in pre-modern warfare, it particularly arose from the firepower in modern warfare, with the increased rate of fire in small arms, firstly breech-loading firearms and secondly machine guns, and the increased power of artillery.

“Trench warfare is a combat strategy where opposing armies fight from fortified, dug-in networks of trenches to seek cover from heavy firepower and artillery. It typically emerges when defensive weaponry—such as machine guns and automated artillery—outpaces mobility, often resulting in a prolonged, grinding stalemate or war of attrition.”

The archetype of trench warfare is of course famously the Western Front in the First World War, although increasing modern firepower saw it occur from the Crimean War and American Civil War onwards.

Ironically, the First World War saw both its famous archetype and its decline.

“The development of armored warfare and combined arms tactics permitted static lines to be bypassed and defeated, leading to the decline of trench warfare after the war. Following World War I, trench warfare became a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict.”

However, trench warfare has recurred in subsequent conflicts “where technological parity or drone threats restrict rapid troop movement, as seen in the Russia-Ukraine War”.

Tunnel warfare on the other hand is subterranean warfare, albeit overlapping with the semi-subterranean warfare of trench warfare, and it goes, well, deep into history, back to the Bronze Age “with recorded uses by the Assyrians”.

“Historically, besieging forces employed sappers to dig tunnels beneath a fortress wall, collapsing the tunnel to bring the wall down. Defenders would counter by digging their own tunnels to intercept the invaders in brutal hand-to-hand combat beneath the surface”.

A fascinating example of ancient subterranean or tunnel warfare is in the Roman-Persian Wars, with “well-preserved evidence of mining and counter-mining operations…unearthed at the fortress of Dura-Europos, which fell to the Sassanians in 256/7 AD”. From what I’ve seen or read of it, it looks literally hellish – not only hand-to-hand combat in cramped and suffocating conditions underground, but also at risk of accidental or deliberate collapse as well as burning sulphur and pitch to create poisonous gas.

If anything, it has been more commonly used in modern warfare – “a military strategy involving combat conducted underground, typically utilizing dug networks, natural caves, or existing urban infrastructure”, used to “bypass surface gridlocks, escape aerial bombardment, and neutralize the technological advantages of more powerful armies”. The focus of the latter two involves force protection but it’s also used for infiltration (as at Dura-Europos in the Roman-Persian Wars), logistics hubs, and tactical deflection. Perhaps the most famous use of tunnel warfare in modern warfare was in the Vietnam War.

“It includes the construction of underground facilities in order to attack or defend, and the use of existing natural caves and artificial underground facilities for military purposes. Tunnels can be used to undermine fortifications and slip into enemy territory for a surprise attack, while it can strengthen a defense by creating the possibility of ambush, counterattack and the ability to transfer troops from one portion of the battleground to another unseen and protected. Tunnels can serve as shelter from enemy attack…Tunnels are narrow and restrict fields of fire; thus, troops in a tunnel usually have only a few areas exposed to fire or sight at any one time.”

 

RATING: A-TIER (TOP TIER)