Military engineering

“ It is a science so far as it investigates general principles and institutes an analysis of military operations; and an art when considered with reference to the practical rules for conducting campaigns, sieges, battles, &c. So is engineering a science so far as it investigates the general principles of fortification, and also artillery, in analyzing the principles of gunnery; but both are arts when considered with reference to the practical rules for the construction, attack, and defence of forts, or for the use of cannon. ”

“ Native corps of sappers or pioneers were formed later, and officered principally by engineers. The officers of engineers were employed in peacetime on the public works of the country, their services when required being placed at the disposal of the military authorities. The Indian Engineers have not only distinguished themselves in the operations of war, but have left monuments of engineering skill in the irrigation works, railways, surveys, roads, bridges, public buildings and defences of the country. ”

“ The training of engineer troops among the Allies for use in trench warfare was extremely limited; their work was confined generally to the operations of open warfare.
Trench warfare changed the whole course of events and rendered necessary wide and sweeping changes in organization, training, and equipment. It has been often stated that this is a war of engineers, and it is certainly true. Engineers and engineering problems are found in every branch of the service. ”

“ American engineers worked with their brothers-in-arms with the Allies to construct an inter-weaving system of wide-gauge and narrow-gauge roads that served to victual and munition the entire front and further serve to deliver at top speed whole army corps. ”

“ All the modern mechanical types of war appliances are characterised by their great structural intricacy, witness the Lewis gun with its innumerable complicated parts, the heavy and field guns with their wonderful mechanism, and the future tank with its anti-gas, anti-water, and general anti devices. This characteristic of great structural development has certain concomitants which are of considerable military importance. It imposes certain conditions on production, involving special factories for special parts and other factories for the assembly of those parts. ”

“ The mechanical arrangements are now so admirably adapted for facility of working that, unless in the rude shocks of actual warfare the nicely adjusted machinery is found to be liable to be thrown out of gear, these applications of the engineer’s skill may be considered as having done all that was required to bring our modern weapons to perfection. ”

“ Further than this, we believe that those nations which have proved their ability in the past as leaders of science and mechanical engineering will in the future be those which will produce the most efficient armies, for these armies will be based on the foundations of the commercial sciences. ”

“ In fact, the war has very properly been described as an engineer’s war, and such, indeed, it is, as the engineer is wholly responsible for the tremendous development in every warlike instrument which has taken place since 1870. He is responsible, too, not merely for the development, but for the invention of wholly new methods of offence and defence. ”

“ So an engineer is rather disabled from embracing a whole battle-field, with its endless casualties and space. Engineers are the incarnation of a defensive warfare; all others, as artillerists, infantry, and cavalry, are for dashing into the unknown—into the space; and thus these specialities virtually represent the offensive warfare.
When will they begin to see through McClellan, and find out that he is not the man? ”

“ That the machine has worked smoothly nobody for one minute will assert—but it certainly has run sufficiently smoothly to show that, with some alteration which experience alone could suggest to be desirable, our military engine may very easily be made as perfect as those of the Continental Powers are popularly supposed to be. ”

“ The influence of improvements in all kinds of weapons and machinery of war is further and further to complicate strategics. The more that invention, science, and discovery are employed in the development and perfection of implements of war, the more the use of those implements requires high inventive genius and high scientific skill. ”

“ The number of engineer troops will depend both on the nature of the country and on the probable amount of work which will be required from this class of troops. Each division should contain at least one company of engineer troops. It is usual, if there be none, to detail one or more companies of infantry to act as engineer soldiers; they are designated as “pioneers.” These engineer troops, or troops acting in that capacity, marching in the advance, make the roads practicable for the command by repairing them, removing obstructions, etc. ”

“ Lines of intrenchments may be made either continuous or with intervals. In adopting either plan, the engineer should avail himself of all the natural obstacles presented by the position, so as to diminish the labor of erecting artificial means of defence. ”

“ The developments of science applied to war, such as railways, telegraphs, and balloons, the importance of mobility for modern armies, which entails much road-making and bridging work, and the increased demand for field works in the attack, as well as on the defensive, have greatly increased the demand for Engineers with Forces in the field. ”

“ For on the screen the peaceful valley through which the narrow-gauge is being built is to masquerade as a field of battle. Camouflaged engineers, armed and equipped as infantry will march valiantly across the landscape, while other engineers in helmets, with their gas-masks at the alert, are plying their picks and shovels amid the smoke of camouflage shrapnel; the climax being attained when the helmeted engineers effect a lightning repair feat by bridging over a carefully dug camouflage shell-hole. ”

“ Airplane construction and use developed more rapidly than any other feature in the war. After the observation machines, came the battle-planes, whose first purpose was to clear the way and protect the observation planes. Later, heavy machines for bombing expeditions [Pg 110] were constructed; and squadrons of airplanes now took part in every battle, preceding the attacking party, and firing with machine-guns and bombs upon the enemy's trenches or his massed troops back of the line. ”

“ I state this not in detraction of the engineers, who always did well, but in justice to the infantry, who so often supplemented the many and trying duties of their own department with the accomplishments of the engineer corps. The quartermaster of the army had a large number of wagons loaded with intrenching tools with which to supply the troops when their services were required as engineers. ”

“ Owing to the facilities for observation that the aeroplanes and other air craft afford, and to the accuracy and effect of modern artillery fire, every possible means should be taken to conceal trenches, gun implacements, and other works. The aim should be to alter the natural surface of the ground as little as possible and to present a target of the smallest possible dimensions. ”

“ If, for instance, before the invention of ordnance, a man had described the thing by its effects, and said that there was a new invention, by means of which the strongest towers and walls could be shaken and thrown down at a great distance; men would doubtless have begun to think over all the ways of multiplying the force of catapults and mechanical engines by weights and wheels and such machinery for ramming and projecting ”

“ The advanced training, however, presented infinitely more difficulties. It was not nearly so simple to teach the more complex stunts, formation flying, aerial machine gunnery, bombing, and night flying, while at the same time the highly specialized equipment necessary required considerable time for manufacture. ”

“ An engineer, boys, is one who has a knowledge of warlike engines, and who directs the attack or defence of a fortification, building or repairing according to the circumstances of the case, such works 113as have been injured by the enemy. It takes a wise man, and one of quick apprehension, to make a good engineer ”

“ In the bowels of the warships the engineers and others had also been busy, coupling the various engines so that they might work one for another, attaching the power to the machinery that worked the big guns and to the electric circuit, for my young readers must remember that many modern guns are fired by electricity. ”

“ This institute instilled what Mr. Williston calls "mechanical gumption" into the enlisted men through short unit courses in mapping and surveying, topographical sketching, and map reading; gasoline-engine operation, repairing, and maintenance; portable steam-power plant construction and operation; electrical-power plant operation; field telephony; 107 electric-line construction and maintenance; timber construction, including pontoons, timber trusses, timber suspension-bridge construction, machine-gun shelters, dugouts, and dugout tunneling and framing; strength of materials ”

“ We fought on the blood-soaked decks and gun-turreted floors of battleships, in the fuselage, cockpit, bellies, and wings of flying fortresses, inside hot, cramped, fire-and-cannon belching tanks, in the putrified trenches and shell and fox holes of battle scarred beaches, on the sides of most inaccessible steep mountain precipices, and on deserts and in jungles where we lay day and night in putrid mud, water, and scum. ”

“ The Engineer Corps is charged with all construction, including light railways and roads. ”

“ The tank, thesubmarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use. ”

“ Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war. ”

“ He had enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each new intricate mechanism—metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine gun, oxyacetylene welder—he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical and initiated. ”

“ I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new--one which I, who has spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use.
That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development of the utmost significance to every one of us. ”

“ The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. ”

“ You all know how powerful and varied are the effects of which steam engines are capable; with them has really begun the great development of industry which has characterised our century before all others. ”

“ By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure. ”

“ PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply—the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion. ”

“ "The successful construction of all machinery depends on the perfection of the tools employed; and whoever is a master in the arts of tool-making possesses the key to the construction of all machines..... The contrivance and construction of tools must therefore ever stand at the head of the industrial arts."—C. BABBAGE, Exposition of 1851. ”

“ All weak men had been left to hold the rear, and those remaining were not only well men, but strong and hardy, so that he had sixty thousand as good soldiers as ever trod the earth; better than any European soldiers, because they not only worked like a machine but the machine thought. ”

“ And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips—'The foe! They come! ”

“ First--encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peace time uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that they had all the material needed for the conduct of all experiments that were appropriate;
Second--begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world's atomic stockpiles;
Third--allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first, rather than in building up the armaments of war;
Fourth--open up a new channel for peaceful discussion, and initiate at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations, if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear, and is to make positive progress toward peace. ”