# Examples of tactical or strategic game-changers, excluding the Bomb? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249 "2012-07-24T16:08:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/21 "2012-07-24T17:54:40Z")
The [Spencer repeating rifle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_repeating_rifle#History) gave the Union a distinct advantage late in the U.S. Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/22 "2012-07-24T18:08:06Z")
“All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?” ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/23 "2012-07-24T18:12:35Z")
Undoubtedly tanks which enabled France to be conquered by the Germans in six weeks. Probably the fastest and easiest defeat of a Great Power in recent times. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/24 "2012-07-24T18:24:53Z")
Though I think **Ethilrist** alludes to it, how about the development of [Bronze](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age) in a Stone Age world, and later, the development of [Iron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age) weaponry and armor? For modern developments, how about the use of [synchronized machine guns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupter_gear) for aircraft? (was quite the game changer, until the Allies developed a copy from, IIRC, downed German aircraft). Would the first tanks qualify? (Edit) It’s not their fault that the Allies hadn’t invented blitzkrieg doctrine yet. Similarly, in Qin Shi Huangdi’s example above, the French and British had tanks too, and comparable ones; it was their doctrine and deployment that were the fatal flaws in 1940, not the hardware. Stealthy aircraft, both manned and unmanned, are a giant game-changer and advantage that the U.S. still has over its opponents. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/25 "2012-07-24T18:33:48Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Undoubtedly tanks which enabled France to be conquered by the Germans in six weeks. Probably the fastest and easiest defeat of a Great Power in recent times. France had more and better tanks than the Germans did. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/26 "2012-07-24T18:39:19Z")
A very old major weapon advance - sword tangs. Swords were originally cast as a blade. A hilt was then attached to the blade. (This probably carried over from older weapons like axes, spears, and arrows where the sharp part and the part you hold were made separately and then attached together.) Because of this there was a weak spot where the blade met the hilt. When you gave somebody a strong chop with your sword, the blade might snap away from the hilt. The somebody came up with the idea of a [tang](http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/sword-making-diagram.jpg). This was an extension of the blade and the blade and the tang were cast as a single piece. Then the hilt was built up around the tang rather than being made as a separate unit. The result was that the entire sword was a solid unit without the weak spot where it could break in half. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/27 "2012-07-24T19:19:01Z")
> [@Lance\_Steele](#): > > Chariots, man. Absolutely, that’s what I came in here to suggest. The origin of the chariot is poorly understood, but historian John Keegan has proposed that since it marries the horse, first domesticated on the steppes of Asia, to the wheel-and-axle, developed by Fertile Crescent civilizations, the chariot probably developed on the borderland where the “irrigation societies” of Mesopotamia touched the nomadic herding cultures of the steppes. Horses at that time were still too small to be ridden on their backs effectively, but were able to pull a lightly-built chariot. Suddenly human movement speed over distance was multiplied by a factor of ten. The chariot was not a “battle taxi” as some have claimed it is depicted in the _Iliad_, nor was it a weapon of collision as in _Ben Hur_ – it was too lightly built. Chariots typically carried two men, a driver and an archer. Equipped with the composite bow, chariot archers could shoot arrows at footmen with impunity, retreating from contact if the footmen charged, and returning to shower them with missiles when they tried to fall back. Keegan has described the impact a small force of such chariots would have had: > [@](#): > > “Circling at a distance of 100 or 200 yards from the herds of unarmored footsoldiers,” Keegan writes, “a chariot crew–one to drive, one to shoot–might have transfixed six men a minute. Ten minutes’ work by ten chariots would cause 500 casualties or more, a Battle of the Somme-like toll among the small armies of the period.” And they were successful everywhere the terrain was level enough to permit the employment of chariots: > [@](#): > > At first massed chariot charges carried all before them, perhaps as much because of the terrifying effect on ordinary human beings of the approach of a thundering herd of galloping horses as because of the charioteers’ arrows. At any rate, chariot conquerors overran the Middle East, India, Europe, and China within no more than three to four hundred years of the chariot’s invention. Everywhere they set up aristocratic regimes in which political rights were reserved for the handful of warriors whose chariots, horses, and expensive armour gave them such an immense superiority in battle. Mutual obligation linked high king with followers in a fashion resembling the feudal system of medieval Europe. > > The chariot age, lasting from about 1700 to 1200 BC… [Cite](http://books.google.com/books?id=prICQ7IMlycC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=At+first+massed+chariot+charges+carried+all+before+them,+perhaps+as+much+because+of+the+terrifying+effect+on+ordinary+human+beings+of+the+approach+of+a+thundering+herd+of+galloping+horses+as+because+of+the+charioteers%27+arrows.+At+any+rate,+chariot+conquerors+overran+the&source=bl&ots=EHXtDWAtHe&sig=nfFtf0RtfjBXKHbilA4vHHMbfSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wfIOUIGKL4WW8gT-tYDABw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) _For five hundred years_ the chariot lords ruled much larger conquered populations with a (bronze) fist. That’s immensely longer than most of the weapon systems described in this thread have existed, and orders of magnitude longer than such advances as tanks, machine guns, and aircraft provided one side a lopsided advantage. Horse, chariot, and composite bow were one of humanity’s first “weapons systems,” and one of the most dominant in all of history – maybe THE most dominant. . ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/28 "2012-07-24T20:00:10Z")
My contribution (already alluded to) is the combination of composite bow and horse used by the Mongols. They could move at (relatively) great speed, tactically and strategically, and their bows had a longer range than anything they came up against. It is a large reason they dominated Asia and Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/29 "2012-07-24T20:54:55Z")
I was wondering whether I too should mention stealth technology. I mean, it was a game changer for Osama, and other missions we don’t know about. But what about composite materials, then? But for the list, for sure, the profound power of the US computing, eavesdropping, cryptography, and satellite tech. We have no clue what’s going on there. Even the leaked, sparse descriptions of Stuxnet and its spooky more capable (and still active?) big brother Flame show them to be tactical game-changers. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/30 "2012-07-24T21:20:03Z")
More than stealth, the cruise missile is alleged to have been the piece that made the USSR crumble. The USA could deploy thousands of small, cheap(er), hard to detect and hard to stop little ground-hugging missiles. The whole cold war until then had been about matching ballistic threat to ballistic threat. The next step after highly computerized ground-huggers was a way to stop ballistic missles well before they neared their target - a sort of “star wars defence”, if you will. The fact that American tech could (a) threaten to hit the Soviets at will and (b) neutralize their defences meant the old balance of terror did not work. The fact that the US promised at first not to put nuclear wareheads on cruise missiles, and Star Wars never actually materialized, was irrelevant. At the outside edge of feasible but not impossible, both technologies neutralized what the Soviets relied on for defense and they did not have the tech to catch up. Something had to give. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/31 "2012-07-24T21:51:27Z")
Interesting. Of course, anti-ballistic missile technology (“Star Wars” is a political word) is well entrenched now, and its development is continuing apace. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/32 "2012-07-24T21:55:12Z")
When it comes to the code breaking systems, Colossus and the Bombes, they were not as asymmetric or a game changing as popular history usually suggests. Much is made of how the Enigma codes were broken, using the Bombes, however a tiny footnote, rarely mentioned is that the Germans had also broken the UK naval codes, which were much weaker. So there was not the level of asymmetry people imagine. The Colossus machines didn’t come into use until much the same time as D-Day, and thus it was only in the closing stages of the war the the German high command codes were broken. This was important, and allowed the offensive to proceed better than had the code not been broken, but it wasn’t a game changer. Indeed, the history of the code breakers is very much a case of the victors writing history. Not to diminish the phenomenal contribution of the Bletchley Park engineers and mathematicians, the British made some appalling mistakes. The biggest mistake was when Churchill wrote his history of the First World War. In it he revealed that Britain had broken the German codes. So, in response the Germans developed much more sophisticated code systems - Enigma and Lorenz. The game changing technology that was asymmetric in the war was probably Enigma and Lorenz, not Colossus and the Bombes. Given how the British had thrown such resources at breaking the German codes, it remains something of a puzzle, verging on scandal, that they didn’t seen to worry that their vastly less sophisticated codes were not secure. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/33 "2012-07-24T23:05:56Z")
The bow the leather shield the viking sword plate armor mounted archer firearms (including artillery) nitroglycerine armored ships armored vehicles war planes guerilla / assymetric warfare ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/34 "2012-07-24T23:08:42Z")
Unmanned Arial Vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/35 "2012-07-24T23:20:25Z")
The [Sarissa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa) pike, helped out Alex in his early days. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/36 "2012-07-24T23:57:49Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > Unmanned Arial Vehicles. I agree. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/37 "2012-07-25T00:05:41Z")
Not just UAVs but smart weapons in general. Desert storm was the first example of wholesale fighting that most citizens in the opposing countries just read about in the news or on tv. You wake up one morning and find out the enemy has dropped as many bombs as those used throughout WW2, and much of your major infrastructure has been destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/38 "2012-07-25T00:25:29Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > Unmanned Arial Vehicles. They represent a quantum leap over the Times New Roman vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/39 "2012-07-25T00:41:50Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > They represent a quantum leap over the Times New Roman vehicles. :rolleyes: :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249/40 "2012-07-25T01:02:08Z")
And Bach (the weapons designer?) wrote extraordinary canons. Church law has some too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-tactical-or-strategic-game-changers-excluding-the-bomb/629249.md?page=3)