Name that strategy

[Commandingtripod]

I was wondering what people think of the Martians strategies?

Did they aim to first get rid of the military or disrupt us to a point where we could no longer function as a society? Did the places they landed the cylinders at have any benefit to them?

What are your thoughts? What were the Martian strategies?

[Lensman]

London at the time was the largest city on earth. If Great Britain was not the world's only superpower at the time (we've argued that point), at the least it was not exceeded in military, industrial, or economic power by any nation on earth.

It seems to me their strategy was primarily aimed at panicing the population and causing such chaos that authority broke down. There didn't seem to be any concerted effort to attack the military; rather, the army's resistance was brushed aside without any real effort. England's military might was primarily sea power, and Wells made it clear the Martians were confused by ships and didn't know how to deal with oceans or seas. Once they realized England's sea power was a threat, they would have targeted and destroyed it; flying machines armed with the Heat Ray would have made short work of British warships.

By conquering the British Isles, the Martians would have simultaneously destroyed their strongest opponent and given themselves a secure base from which to go on to conquer the rest of the world... or at least smash the armed forces and industrial bases of the other Great Powers. With their flying machines, they were not far from the other industrialized nations of France, Belgium and Germany. Once those had been conquered or destroyed, the U.S. and Japan would have been the only nations with any real ability to resist them. And Japan, with its small land area and densely packed population, would have been very susceptible to Black Smoke attacks.

Wells suggests a couple of times in the novel that the Martians had intended to send more cylinders, but stopped because smoke from the space gun obscured the atmospheric, stopping their observations; or perhaps because of some problem with the giant space gun. Certainly with the small numbers the Martians had, they wouldn't have been able to actually control that large an area. But if all they wanted to do was smash our military and industry, negating any real ability to fight back, then with some reinforcements from Mars I think they would have succeeded.

From their point of view, to succeed they needed to establish a strong base, set up some "farms" of humans to feed on, and reduce the ability of the rest of humanity to fight them to the annoyance level.

Given time, I think if they tried to move into other areas humans might have begun figuring out how to fight back. Suicide raids on their "pits" at night with sachel charges could have done a great deal of damage. But in England it's clear that their attack was so overwhelming that there was no time to organize an effective resistance.

Of course, one could write a scenario similar to Armageddon, 2419 A.D., the original "Buck" Rogers story, in which the downtrodden humans establish an underground network of hidden industrial bases which succeeds in researching, developing, and distributing enough new tech weapons to effectively fight the invaders. But I question that's a realistic scenario. If the Martians hit any nation hard enuff to cause economic collapse, the nation would fragment politically and socially, and once that happened it would be difficult or impossible to put together the force necessary to mount an effective attack on the Martians' base in England.

[sunnyrabbiera]

well the Martians probably did knock down Brittain for strategic value, but they could have done the same in other nations too.
however when you really look at it Brittain was in a weak state back then, the Brittish army was spread out all over the map and there was little on the home front...
I think Well's knew this, heck even if he was born in America or somewhere else he would have seen the stretch marks in the brittish empire.

[Commandingtripod]

What about the cylinders themselves?

I myself (Remember that I don't live in England) can find nothing tactical about the places that they came down.

Can anyone help?

[EvilNerfherder]

As for the initial landing sites, most of the areas were fairly rural back then. Close enough to London to get to the heart of the empire quickly, but isolated enough to provide the element of surprise factor.
Nowadays, if they tried the same thing, it would be a different story.
In the 1920's (I think) there was a big drive to develop suburban areas for commuters to the capital and lots of smaller towns and villages surrounding London found themselves growing rapidly as a result.
It's a different landscape today.

[Commandingtripod]

Cool.

Thanks for that Nerfherder.

Now I know why they might have landed there.

[Stewymartian]

You could compare the Martian strategy to operation market garden. Instead of launching somewhere completely unpopulated the Martians make a landing a short distance away from their principle target, hoping to be able to make a quick assault before defences or reinforcements can be brought up.

You could argue that landing the cylinders in Siberia would have been a safer option, the landing would most likely have gone unnoticed and the Martians could have built up their forces without fear of attack (There would of course be a food supply problem and the book would be a lot duller).

However, like market garden, insufficient intelligence (not knowing about the panzers in the case of the allies, and no understanding of microorganisms in the case of the Martians) meant that the initial successes could not be followed up.

The Martian stratagy was one of decapitation. The initial 3 landings form a mutually supportive triangle around the Woking area from which the initial attack can be made. Further landings then fall into a zone that is already under Martian control and a full scale attack is then made on the organisation and social centre, thus disrupting any chance of a coordinated counter-attack.

[Lensman]

stewymartian said:

You could compare the Martian strategy to operation market garden.
However, like market garden, insufficient intelligence (not knowing about the panzers in the case of the allies, and no understanding of microorganisms in the case of the Martians) meant that the initial successes could not be followed up.

I realize this is off-topic, but the failure of Operation Market Garden was due to many causes, not the least of which was that British intelligence discounted and ignored the highly accurate information provided by the Dutch resistance, which included the numbers and placement of German troops and armor. Other causes were the inability of the Allied parachute drops to reliably hit a precise location-- few units wound up where they were supposed to be-- and the necessity to restrict movement of Allied vehicles to the narrow roads atop the dikes in the area. This essentially meant they had to drive along straight exposed ridgelines, to avoid getting bogged down in the wetlands in between-- making them sitting ducks for German artillery and armor.

Most of the problems of Operation Market Garden should have been foreseen-- in fact, *were* foreseen by many, and there was a lot of opposition to it. But Montgomery was determined to push forward with the foolhardy plan, and the other Allied leaders were unwilling to give him a firm "no".

Who knows? Perhaps there were Martians who similarly decried the plan to invade earth and warned that earthly germs might be a problem despite the Martians' "more advanced" evolution.

stewymartian said:

The Martian stratagy was one of decapitation.

I think that sums it up quite well.