Was there really a law in ancient China?
The tactics of the ancient army were mainly realized through formation. Because the means of communication is basically zero, the sound can't travel far, the flag can't be seen, the fireworks instrument is monotonous, and the messenger will be killed if he runs slowly. Mechanized formation is the only way to realize the general's intention. For soldiers, you just need to remember who the person next to you is and whether you should stand on a horizontal line or a diagonal line with others. As for the rest, the sergeant is sure, and the officer is in charge of a large area. Not sure whether the general can control the officers. Let's pray that everyone can play normally.
Not to mention the ancient army, if you go to see the primitive tribal war, there will be more than a dozen people, as well as enemies, forwards, backbones, two-wing harassment, remote output and material storage. That was tens of thousands of years ago.
Flank both sides. This is the simplest and most common formation. Any fool can use it. Whether it is used well depends on the control ability of generals and the quality of soldiers. Hannibal outflanked on both sides, but the formation confrontation in the first few hours was the real skill, so he was the father of strategy. Frederick the great fought all over Europe in a diagonal way, and its communication at that time was even better than Zhuge Liang's Eight Diagrams. Both cats and dogs use diagonal lines, which are effective. Someone asked if there was a formation in sports warfare. If it's to recover deserters, it's just a team formation. If it's March, you know the grain betting team. If you line up in disorder, you may not be able to change into a defensive formation when others suddenly attack.
The ancient army attached great importance to the role of morale. Once dispersed, soldiers can't pay attention to the front, and they will be killed by the enemy from the side. 10 people line up, 100 people cannot disperse, 10 people disperse. The other side can deal with you as long as 10 people. For a typical example, see Braveheart. /kloc-in the 0 th and 9 th centuries, cavalry was dealt with in a very rigid formation, and only specific geometric figures could disperse the impact of cavalry. See Waterloo for a typical example. The same is true of the change of formation. Look at the part of "The Kingdom of Heaven" where more than a dozen people take the lead. Christians change formations, and Muslims immediately change counterparts. Both sides have always been dynamic.
In fact, the fundamental significance of formation is to give full play to the firepower and defense of troops. The shield array of the Roman army is the most typical and easy to understand. The most extreme and difficult thing to understand is that muskets were fired in a row in the19th century. You may think that people at that time were stupid, but the muskets at that time hit the people next door to the target, not everyone shooting together. Maybe no one will die after a war. Don't laugh. This kind of thing is normal, because the musket at that time was very wrong. This also shows that the formation is closely related to the level of science and technology. Typical examples are Glory and The Last Samurai.
In modern times, formation is more important. Before World War II, only a dozen pages of the Soviet operational manual were about defensive formations. By the end of the war, half of the manual was about defensive formations. The change of Soviet position layout in World War II, from horizontal formation emphasizing impact force to vertical formation emphasizing defense force, is to prevent armored forces from concentrated breakthrough. Much like the ancient infantry against cavalry. Before mastering this formation, 1 0,000% of Soviet positions will be breached by blitzkrieg, and the enemy's strength can only be consumed by strategic depth. After changing the formation, the Soviet army can completely stop the tactical impact of the German army at the first time, and it is much more free in arranging strategies. See "Liberation" for details.
Many strange formations have complicated scientific designs behind them, such as the layout of Soviet anti-tank positions, which laymen may find very funny. Some details seem counterintuitive, and you don't know why this arrangement is made until you get shot.
In addition, when it comes to charging in World War I, people think that soldiers lined up in the Battle of the Somme, which has little to do with queuing shooting. The main reason is that the opponent's firepower is shot vertically when passing through the no-man's land, and standing in a horizontal line can minimize the hit range. If you enter the opponent's position, the machine gun will shoot horizontally, and then you have to detour the document. As for walking slowly, it was not to keep the formation, but that everyone was carrying 40 kilograms of equipment and could not run. The main characters in the movies we watch are usually British soldiers. At that time, the French army streaked and charged, all of them ran past, and the casualties were much smaller.
Actually, I suggest you go to the movies. Historians invited by Hollywood are much more reliable than Luo Guanzhong. Ancient historians have no conditions to go to archaeology, nor do they have the conditions to send troops to do textual research themselves. Thucydides is a general on the battlefield, but the written description is not intuitive enough after all. Modern historians have very rich historical materials and diverse expressions, and finally what everyone sees is an intuitive image effect. Movies are not as good as academic articles, but the directors and consultants who can queue up for hundreds of millions of dollars are all top historians in the world. Spielberg's adviser is Stephen Ambrose, the author of Brothers, and 74 World War II documentaries of BBC are also his advisers, which is one of the authorities of modern history. In some modern war movies, the historical adviser is the commander himself (such as Marshal Elemenko), so it is absurd to say that others are not authoritative.
In addition, it is not that "all the details of war movies must be reliable", but that "war movies with reliable details will go down in history". Movies that can be used as examples have been reviewed by countless history lovers all over the world all the year round, and can basically be said to be 100% pure gold.
Compared with the army, the navy and air force have stricter requirements for formation, because the number of troops in the navy and air force is less than that of soldiers, and they are all mechanized troops. The moving speed, turning radius and fire projection speed are basically fixed, which can be completely solved as geometric problems.
The navy is strict with 50 ships, and 49 ships have sunk. You have to stick to your post. Needless to say, running around to disperse fire is easy to cause accidental injury, and it will also lead to the biggest shame of the navy-the collision accident. The most typical understanding of geometry is T-array. Due to the weak longitudinal firepower and strong lateral firepower of warships, the horizontal position of the T-shape is a battleground for military strategists, and it can also form the effect of fighting more with less at the intersection of the two sides. In the naval battle at the beginning of the 20th century, whoever put on a T-shaped formation was equivalent to winning-the result was often that the two sides lined up for several days, and finally ended up in a cross-disorderly battle with no aesthetic feeling.
World War II was even worse. In the Atlantic War, in order to fight against German submarines, Britain demanded the formation of transport ships, relying on quantity for survival. However, Germany also used submarine formation confrontation, and the fleet theory almost went bankrupt. Britain and the United States almost fought for this, and finally defeated the German submarine with air escort and new radar technology. Therefore, the formation and the level of military technology are strictly corresponding. In theory, the formation that may be effective becomes completely useless because of the lack of an invention.
Three-aircraft formation, four-aircraft formation and two-aircraft formation in air combat all have strict corresponding relations with the aircraft performance and operational requirements at that time. From a tactical point of view, four planes are the most reasonable, and three planes are also acceptable. However, with the increase of aircraft speed, it is more and more difficult to maintain the formation, which is basically a two-plane formation. The attack aircraft are all multi-aircraft formations. Because of the concept of pilot plane, the Soviet-German battlefield also imitated Shangshan Jianxin to engage in vehicle suspension. The bomber formation is to cover the opponent's right fire and observe the dead angle. Large-scale air raid, the formation is not ready, you can report to the commander, ask for landing, cancel the battle, the commander will really agree-flying the wrong formation is equivalent to becoming the target of the other side's shooting, and the basic bombs can't get the idea. Formation is so important.