MILITARY ENGINEERING

the art and practice of designing and building military works and of building and maintaining lines of military transport and communications. Military engineering is the oldest of the engineering skills and was the precursor of the profession of civil engineering. Modern military engineering can be divided into three main tasks: (1) combat engineering, or tactical engineer support on the battlefield, (2) strategic support by the execution of works and services needed in the communications zones, such as the construction of airfields and depots, the improvement of ports and road and rail communications, and the storage and distribution of fuels, and (3) ancillary support, such as the provision and distribution of maps and the disposal of unexploded bombs, mines, and other warheads. Construction, fortification, camouflage, demolition, surveying, and mapping are the province of military engineers. They build bases, airfields, depots, roads, bridges, port facilities, and hospitals. In peacetime military engineers also carry out a wide variety of civil-works programs. the art and practice of designing and building military works and of building and maintaining lines of military transport and communications. In its earliest uses the term engineering referred particularly to the construction of engines of war and the execution of works intended to serve military purposes. Military engineers were long the only ones to whom the title engineer was applied. The role of the military engineer in modern war is to apply engineering knowledge and resources to the furtherance of the commander's plans. The basic requirement is a sound general engineering knowledge directed to the technical aspects of those tasks likely to be encountered in war. Engineering work is influenced by topographical considerations and in battle also by tactical limitations. At times engineering factors will actually govern the choice of the military plan adopted; a military engineer must, therefore, possess a sound military education so that the best technical advice will be given to the commander. Additional reading Much of the history of military engineering is traced in the development of military architecture, both the building of defenses and the changes that were necessitated by the increasing power of artillery; these developments are chronicled in Ian V. Hogg, Fortress: A History of Military Defence (1975), from hill forts to the end of World War II; Quentin Hughes, Military Architecture (1974); Christopher Duffy, Fire and Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare, 16601860 (1975, reissued 1996), and Siege Warfare, 2 vol. (197985), covering the period 14941789; and Simon Pepper and Nicholas Adams, Firearms & Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth-Century Siena (1986). The classic work on artillery history is A.R. Hall, Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century (1952, reissued 1969). Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (1956, reprinted 1989), discusses the deployment of armament and equipment in the American Civil War and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's role in their use. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 15001800, 2nd ed. (1996), chronicles the change from medieval to modern methodsi.e., from decentralized to centralized forces, especially fortress construction. It may be supplemented by Clifford J. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (1995). The supply aspect of military engineering is detailed in John A. Lynn (ed.), Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present (1993). Todd Shallat, Structures in the Stream: Water, Science, and the Rise of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1994), chronicles the early history of this military and civil engineering group. The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica