Modern Day Tactics

[Sir Chauncy]

Thanks everyone,

Mercian Billman: I do think that I know "quite a bit" about military tactics of the ancient and medieval world, I just love the stuff but I get hazey when Gunpower starts coming into it I just don't feel the excitement for that kind of warfare when people line up and just get shot: it just makes me irritated, things change at around about the 2nd World War though, when commanders realised that they needed a total change to adapt to Blitzkreig and a far more mobile form of warfare with far more potent weapons.

The thing is that phrases like: "take defensive positions" and "high ground is good ground" are bandied around without much thought these days. What actually are defensive positions? Lie flat on the floor or behind some cover (sufficient to stop a bullet maybe or at least line of sight)?
With a missile or at the very least a rocket propelled grenade you can liquify anyone in a building, so why are buildings so hard to take? Any sort of explosive inside an enclosed space is more than lethal.

I do know that what is drummed in to soldiers during their training is that individually, they cannot acheive very much, that is why there is more than one of them, you fight as a unit and as an Army. Relying on your buddies almost as much as you rely on your gun.

Could this be the decider? Individual skill is less important and the entity being more powerful than the sum of it's parts?