A thick forest planted by humans (to maximize effectiveness) seems to me like a good way to protect against enemy invasions. Or at least provides significant advantages to the defender. What kind of geographical conditions are needed to maximize the strategy? Flat lands wouldn't be optimal, but could it work there too?
But how true is that? I don't think there is much cases where a defender created a natural boundary like that. Sure, it would take decades to create it and would require a lot of manpower, but you would force any enemy to stick to roads with any motorized elements and you could easily bog down infantry in the trees with simple defensive fortifications.
The Ardennes for example aren't particularly mountainous but have plenty of little hills covered with trees that were an effective natural boundary during the battle of the bulge. Not so much in the past but that had a lot of to do with terrible defensive planning against an already too great of an enemy.
The counterplay is as simple as burning it all down. But that means you just announced you are going to attack and they know where. And a large fire can last for weeks, create terrible issues for air forces, can be controlled by experienced firefighters (Hotshots)... Another disadvantage is that it provides cover for enemy moving infantry elements (good morning Vietnam) but in the era of modern technology and CCTV that more sounds like a bait than a smart think. Well, unless you are a Ukie.
Forrested hills in Belgium and the place where the Battle of the Bulge happened. It was also partially the way the Germans pushed into France in WW1 and the 1940 Invasion of France.
It being considered a problematic area for a large number of vehicles is why it often wasn't defended and that almost always turned out to be a bad choice.
Ethan Moore
look up the KD rate of winter war.
Dylan Perez
Daily reminder finland lost the winter war.
Angel Cruz
Static defense lines aren't effective anymore, the maginot line is probably the best example of this.
Bentley Morales
Daily reminder only after embarassing the then most powerful military in the world.
Jordan Long
Wat is napalm?
James Martinez
Fly over?
David Scott
>most powerful military in the world I mean I respect the fins but come on.
Jaxson Baker
It actually encourages infantry attack by providing cover. You need to occupy it to be an effective defense.
We tried that in Vietnam, remember? Didn't work all that well.
Isaiah Reed
>get shot down That's the American problem these days. Decades of fighting nobody but tribal sand people have left you with an assumption that you have a complete intelligence- and air superiority in every scenario you encounter.
Julian Anderson
Not all that important in the long run. The USSR had several times the resources of Finland. It should have been a sweeping victory like the Franco-Prussian war but because of an incompetent officer corps and undertrained enlisted the Red Army suffered massive casualties and led to the belief that the Russian army was weak.
Hunter Green
/his/torian here, and I need to clear something up about the Maginot line for you guys. The idea that France just went. >"Oh, well I'm sure they won't ivade through Belgium again, no sir" Is entirely fictitious. They knew they would and they tried to plan for it. For example there were actual defensive works constructed on the Belgian border, it's just that the terrain wasn't suited to the extensive fortifications of the German border. They tried countering this by stationing more men, and all their veterans at the Belgian line.
They still lost though, so how did it happen? Well the thing is something happened that neither the Germans not the French really expected, the Belgians put up a good fight, seriously slowing the German advance. In response to this both sides made a gamble, the French sent their reserve tanks and men into Belgium to reinforce the Belgians and hopefully keep them in the war for a little longer. While the Germans sent a tank battalion into the Arden to break though french lines and keep the push moving, and because the French had committed all their tanks in the north, they had no ability to halt the German push once the understaffed line fell, and thus infantry joined the bulkhead, and Paris fell a month later.
Easton Nelson
>an incompetent officer corps and undertrained enlisted the Red Army suffered massive casualties nope, just simple soviet style retroactive birth control for the unwanted ethnicities, mainly ukrainians
Angel Roberts
>ukrainians No such ethnicity.
Ian Adams
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians >Ukrainians (Ukrainian: yкpaїнцi, ukrayintsi, [ukrɑˈjinʲtsʲi]) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine
subject: >an incompetent officer corps and undertrained enlisted the Red Army suffered massive casualties -> >nope, just simple soviet style retroactive birth control for the unwanted ethnicities, mainly ukrainians
Brandon Taylor
>ukrainians No such ethnicity.
Jacob Robinson
>Look mom, i posted it again!!! XD
Russian shills are pathetic lmao.
Kayden Lee
u just still mad bro that you don't have real cheese in your supermarkets
Charles Butler
what are helicopters?
Thomas Morales
Something I wouldn't fly over a forest contested with enemy infantry with manpads in
Caleb Morris
Flying death traps.
Hudson Edwards
But that is wrong.
Jacob James
What about the dutch water line
Robert Cooper
Weak against windigo invasions
Jaxson Howard
Because you do retard. Barbarossa proved the importance of air superiority.
Jack Wood
Finland is still independent so no they didn’t lose
Michael Robinson
Windingo’s aren’t real
Jacob Moore
>t. Windingo
Levi Cruz
I wouldnt worry about it
Asher Evans
Just because they didn't win, doesn't mean they lost. Finland stayed independent and didn't fall under the red curtain as the soviets had planned.
A victory would be if they had acquired Soviet territory that they didn't have before the war. A white peace would be to go back to status quo ante, to pre-war borders, a tie if you will. They didn't even manage that. They lost territory that they held prewar. That's a defeat in any sense of the word.
Cameron Sanders
If Canada was invaded by the United States, but only lost small areas, that'd be a win for Canada. They fought hard enough to maintain their existence against an enemy 10x their size.
Gabriel Scott
they fucking lost
Cameron Bailey
So territory is the only factor when it comes to losing/winning wars? That's not how it works. Do you think North Korea won the Korean War because they gained control over Kaesong? Of course not.
Mason Parker
The Winter war was won. The Continuation war was a fucking mess they never should have entered and they lost it.
t. talked about this with finnish gf's parents and grandparents 100 times
Andrew Brown
You absolute retard.
Charles Hughes
non motorised militaries aren't relevant to the discussion.
that said, that terrain is very much a deathtrap for vehicles.
Samuel Torres
> It actually encourages infantry attack by providing cover. You need to occupy it to be an effective defense.
For example, the Ukies fighting Russia and forested border areas making the Russian forces be mostly infantry is a clear win for the Ukies in terms of strategic importance because of the absolute equipment superiority of the Russians.
I mostly started thinking about forests as a deterrent for places like the flat-as-fuck Ukranian-Russian border or Northern Germany. These countries based (or should base) their entire military doctrine on geographic features, so it makes me wonder why not try to make the geographic situation more favourable to them.
Kevin Cox
They did not lose their independence like Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. So no, they didn’t lose
Oliver Lopez
Not seeing how forests will stop a competent combined arms m,ilitary.
Tanks will be 200 m behind sappers clearing your gay trees as they obscure your AT fire.
Matthew Russell
Easy targets for ZSUs, Manpads and every asshole thats able to hide underneath the comfy cover of leaves and branches
OP: Forests are - along with urban areas - the most problematic terrains.
Military history is full of examples, where an attacker, even if he had air superiority, nummerical superiority and whatnot, had massive problems to overcome forested areas.
Lets start easy: Tanks can ram a tree. But if theres thousands of trees and thicker ones, you will be slowed down to a stop.
Then camouflage is easy in a forest. Especially against pesky things in the sky.
Then navigation becomes a problem, when everything looks the same. And if youre really unlucky, your GPS wont find a signal because lol branches and leaves
If you want to see the epitome of forest warfare, go check for the Hurtgenwald campaign. It took the US half a year to cross an area thats about 30 miles deep
Christian Garcia
Polders and controlled floodplains. Just open the floodgates and watch the fuckers swim for their lives while you shoot them from pillboxes on the surrounding dykes
Julian Gutierrez
>Terrain is very suitable for defense >Defender assumes the attacker will not try anyway >Assigns extremely poor forces to defend it >Place becomes very easy to attack
