Dig or Die: Trench Warfare in the 21st Century
Many people are surprised to see the images from the war in Ukraine of soldiers on both sides living and fighting in trenches. We think of trench warfare as uniquely associated with the horrors of Flanders and Gallipoli in the First World War.
Surely modern war is all about cyber and missiles – perhaps still with a leavening of tanks, the battlefield dinosaurs that refuse to die? Nothing could be further from the truth: a hole in the ground is as fundamentally important to success or failure, life or death in war today, as it has been for hundreds of years.
There certainly was a time, typically associated with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when armies faced each other at ranges of a few hundred meters in massed ranks of immaculate and highly conspicuous uniforms. The musket, cannon and cavalry dominated battle, as - by modern standards - wildly inaccurate fire was exchanged at very close quarters with devastating effects. Even then, wearing clothes that did not illuminate the wearer as a target and surviving by at least lying down struck many as a very good idea, though clearly also very bad form. It was the arrival later in the 19th Century of the rifle, the machine gun, and shrapnel artillery shells (each producing thousands of deadly splinters) that led to the definitive imperative to dig, dig hard and dig often.
This is above all a matter of physics. A modern rifle bullet sets off at 2000mph, it may weigh only a few grams but the energy it transfers to its target is catastrophic to the human body. A single bullet has been known to pass through 5 people, more usually a single bullet does terrible damage to the first person struck. A single machine gun will typically fire a heavier bullet at up to 1000 rounds a minute, delivering devastating effects at ranges up to a mile. A 155mm diameter artillery shell, weighing 96lb, has a range of perhaps 24km, a single shell is lethal to people at 50m from the point of burst. The fragments are designed to be tiny, jagged slivers travelling at 3000 feet per second, a battery of six guns will hit every square foot of an area the size of a football pitch in seconds.
Armour plate affords protection from bullets and shrapnel, which is why the armoured vehicle – including the tank - is very much still in fashion for safe movement under fire. But for the infantry soldier, the gunner standing outside an artillery gun, the engineer building obstacles, the field headquarters staff, logistic personnel and for many others the best protection from death or serious injury is still lots of earth and ideally some concrete too.
Digging to survive and fight was already a feature of warfare at the time of the US Civil War, 1860 to 1865. The advent of modern industrial weapons at that time showed that a well dug, well, defended position was almost unassailable by even huge numbers of people and horses as they moving over open ground into withering fire. The casualties from this type of assault were immense: there were around 50,000 casualties alone at the Battle of Gettysburg.
The tramping across open fields that signalled the start of the First World War in 1914 very quickly resulted in a line of trenches from the Channel coast to the Swiss border. It became clear that standing in the open in the face of modern weapons was fatal to life and operational success. The opening of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916 still saw 60,000 British casualties in the first 2 hours as large numbers of keen but inexperienced citizen-soldiers assaulted well-prepared German trenches protected by masses of uncut barbed wire. Today, the Russian forces grinding slowly westwards in the Donbas are experiencing the same shock: well held trenches are very hard to destroy and capture. As Ukraine thinks about where to attack next they are looking at Russian trenches with the same concern.
In Ukraine today artillery is by far the biggest killer on both sides. There have been around a third of a million military casualties overall to date, the majority caused by artillery fire. Once it is understood that an artillery shell can arrive at any point on the battlefield at any moment and that a sniper’s bullet can be the result of movement in the open at ranges of over a mile, a universal thought takes hold that getting underground as quickly as possible is the best thing to do. Digging is the most hated aspect of an infantry soldier’s life in peacetime training and the most instinctive and enthusiastic activity when the shooting starts. This can be just a scrape dug in minutes with a folding shovel as a temporary measure, or it can be an extensive complex of trenches and bunkers taking months and skilled engineering support to build, in which large numbers of people will live and fight for weeks at a time.
A trench is very much more than just a hole in the ground that protects the people occupying it. To be effective, there must be overhead protection typically, 3 feet thick of earth or sandbags but in many cases much much deeper so that people can eat sleep and survive immune to the effects of the pounding at ground level. This is also why you see soldiers and civilians heading into any cellar they can find, setting up headquarters and medical stations in concrete underground car parks, or living in underground stations. There is no substitute for a lot of earth between people and ammunition fired in anger.
The trench provides not just essential protection from bullets and shrapnel, but also enables the movement of people and material without being seen, and secure places for forward headquarters, medical facilities, and stocks of ammunition and food. Soldiers need safe places to sleep and eat when not keeping watch or called to fight. So thought also has to be given to sanitation, water and food, all of which has to be integrated into the protected environment that the trench provides.
The pictures we see often show one person in a trench, but these are often part of really big systems. Following the battle for Kherson, Russia withdrew East of the river Dnieper and now behind this substantial obstacle they are building at least two complex lines of defence. Each of these will be a thoughtful combination of trenches occupied by infantry, protected by belts of wire and mines and all professionally designed so that the direct fire of weapons like machine guns and the indirect fire (ie out of direct line of sight) from artillery and mortars is pre-planned and coordinated. All of this is merged with the stationing of infantry and armour reserves, ready to mount rapid counter-attacks should Ukrainian forces begin to breach the lines of trenches. The same is true for Ukraine forces in the Donbas around Bakhmut, where for some weeks now Russian infantrymen have hurled themselves against strong Ukrainian trenches repeatedly (baffling so) for very modest results and at enormous cost in lives and increasingly scarce artillery ammunition.
The trench in winter is obviously a much harder place to be than in warmer weather. The combined effect of rain and cold means the trench must also become a shelter from the environment as much as from the war. This is where will, training and proper clothing and equipment makes a vital difference. It is rare to see a picture of a Ukrainian soldier who does not look well equipped and healthy. It is rare to see a picture of a Russian soldier who looks as well endowed, indeed we know that some Russian families have had to find the equivalent of $1000 to buy basic winter clothing for sons mobilised and sent to fight.
Good commanders will find ways of rotating people through periods of duty in the risk and discomfort of the trenches, giving them time in more comfortable rear areas to warm up, eat and sleep. Where leadership is poor, young soldiers are left to fend for themselves for long periods as their commanders head back to find warmth and respite. These things make a big difference when battle is joined, the bewildered, worn out and ragged are much more likely to succumb to the motivated, well led and well supported. For both sides in Ukraine as 2022 becomes 2023 a key difference will be how well they have mastered 21st-century trench warfare.
This article was originally written by General Sir Richard Barrons KCB, CBE, Co-Chairman UDSS for the Sunday Times.
