The Industrialisation of War

Animals do not wage war, but for one. War came into being soon after the dawn of man, first, it is said, with a stone, then sticks, sharpened sticks, stones on the end of a stick soon, developing into sharpened stones on the end of a stick and so on down through the history of man.  This development of weaponry was for one of two purposes only, one, to gain more of what man wanted, and the other, to defend and keep what he already had.

There are several stages in the development of weapons. bows and arrows, metal for swords , gun powder to throw projectiles farther  and so on down the line depending on the desire or necessity of man to efficiently kill other men.  One of the primary reasons the colonists were able to win the revolution against the most powerful nation in the history of the earth, is largely because of  two things,  The invention and development of what was to be known as, the "Kentucky" long rifle, and the gorilla tactics learned from war with the Native Americans. 

The Kentucky rifle was accurate up to two hundred yards, while the British rifle was good for about fifty yards, so using the Native tactic of hiding in the woods and picking off the Officers of the British army the colonists were able to prevail, but even then war was pretty much a cottage industry, with weapons  being made in small factories one at a time , or by individuals.  It wasn't until the American "civil" war, (I still prefer to call it something else entirely) that war was truly industrialised, the cartridge instead if the wad and ball the multi shot capacity gun, rifled barrels on canons and hand guns, not only increased the efficiency of killing and maiming, but provided more employment, more production, and, because of the numbers of casualties, many side industries.  Coffins, liters, medicine and drugs were all primarily necessities created by war.  They all created profit for the industrialists, the Robber Barons who intern kept buying up the "American Dream" with those profits.

This brings us up to "The Great War"  the war to end all wars. pardon me while I recover from the thought of how blind and stupid we can be at times.  In that war there were of course many new implements to feed the coffers of the industrialists trucks, cars, tanks ships of steel, submarines and of course medicine, drugs, and, new and ever more efficient guns, all now being produced in Giant corporate industries, the cottage industry was out of business and now working on the line in a factory still dreaming, of the American Dream.