Syria conflict: Troops 'mass before Aleppo battle'

[Adsos Letter]

Source: BBC

Syrian rebels in Aleppo have begun stockpiling ammunition and medical supplies as government forces prepare outside the city for a major battle.

Artillery and helicopter gunships have resumed attacking rebel targets and 14 people have been killed, activists say.

Troops and tanks are said to be ringing the city and reinforcements are reportedly on their way to join them.

In Damascus, activists said the army had pounded the capital's last rebel-held areas and 20 civilians had died.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18994124

[dimbear]

1. There was a time in history when armies would meet out in the country.

A little more gentlemanly.

[Adsos Letter]

2. I think a lot of that had to do with the nature of warfare in those days.

Large formations, need for room to maneuver, etc.

Siege warfare, practiced since ancient times, didn't normally spare civilian populations.

[dimbear]

3. WWI was mostly fought out in the open. Afterward

most of the cities were still OK. Compare WWII.

My point is these current conflicts are being fought in an especially destructive way so that most casualties are civilians. Not cricket.

[Posteritatis]

5. WWI was fought in the open because WWI generally *made* things open

Continuous-front wars tend to do that after a few years.

They certainly weren't meeting out in the open out of some chivalric sense or the like. The lines in the west more or less froze in place because of the weapons of the time, and the east was more open because the population density was so much lower.

[Odin2005]

4. the vast majority LIVED in the country back in the day.

Some parts of Germany lost half their population during the Thirty-Years War because of mercenary armies ravaging the countryside.

The kind of warfare you are thinking of is that of the professional armies of the 1700s before the French Revolution.