military engineering

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.

Classical and medieval eras.

Evidence of the work of the earliest military engineers can be found in the hill forts constructed in Europe during the late Iron Age, and later in the massive fortresses built by the Persians. One epic feat of ancient military engineering was the pontoon bridge built by the engineers of the Persian king Xerxes across the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles), which, according to Herodotus, was accomplished by a mile-long chain of boats, 676 in all, arranged in two parallel rows. The greatest ancient defensive work ever built is the Great Wall of China, which was begun in the 3rd century bc to defend China’s northern frontier from its barbarian neighbours. Counting its tributary branches, the Great Wall is about 6,400 km (4,000 miles) long and dwarfs any other set of fortifications ever built.

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The Romans were the preeminent military engineers of the ancient Western world, and examples of their works can still be seen throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Romans’ castra, or military garrison towns, were protected by ramparts and ditches and interconnected by straight military roads along which their legions could speedily march. Like the Chinese, the Romans also built walls to protect their empire, the most famous of these being Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, which is 73 miles (117 km) long and was built to protect the northern frontier from Picts and Scots. The troops and engineers of the legions built many of the greatest works of the Roman Empire, including its extensive network of roads; the watchtowers, forts, and garrison towns manned by its troops; the aqueducts that brought water to cities and towns; and various bridges, harbours, naval bases, and lighthouses. The Romans were also masters of siegecraft who used such devices as battering rams, catapults, and ballistae (giant crossbows) to take enemy fortifications.

The Byzantine Empire, India, and China continued to fortify their cities with walls and towers, while in Europe urban civilization collapsed with the fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing Middle Ages. One sign of its revival was the motte-and-bailey forts that sprang up on the continent in the 10th and 11th centuries ad. These basically consisted of a high mound of earth (motte) encircled by wooden palisades, ditches and embankments (the bailey), with a wooden tower occupying the central mound. They were replaced from the 11th century by stone-built castles that served as both military strongholds and centres of administration. (See castle.) Medieval engineers became proficient at mining operations, by which tunnels were driven under the walls of castles and their timbering set afire, causing the masonry overhead to collapse.

The Renaissance and after.

The development of powerful cannons in the 15th century brought about a reappraisal of fortification design and siege warfare in Europe and parts of Asia. In China and India the response to the new siege guns was basically to build fortifications with thicker walls. Sixteenth-century Europe’s response was the sunken profile, which protected walls from artillery bombardment, and the bastioned trace, a series of projections from the main fortess wall to allow both direct and flanking fields of fire against attackers. This system was brought to a peak of sophistication in the 17th century by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban of France, whose fortifications and siege-warfare techniques were copied by succeeding generations of military engineers. The system perfected by him did not change until the second half of the 19th century, when breech-loading artillery and the use of high-explosive shells called for drastic alterations in the design and construction of defenses.

The 19th century.

Technological advances changed the nature of military engineering in the century following the Napoleonic Wars. British and French military engineers first used the electric telegraph in the Crimean War (1853–56). With the spread of railways, military engineers became responsible in theatres of war for the construction and maintenance of railway systems and the control of the rail movement of troops and military matériel. Military engineering schools offered the finest technical training in Europe well into the 19th century, and their graduates were among the technical elite of industrialized nations. As European countries colonized vast portions of Africa, Asia, and Australia, military engineers were often given responsibility for the exploration and mapping of these regions and for the construction of public buildings and utilities, roads, bridges, railways, telegraph networks, irrigation projects, harbours, and maritime defenses. In the United States, the Army Corps of Engineers led the way in developing the West; they explored, surveyed, and mapped the land, built forts and roads, and later assisted in building the transcontinental railway. The corps later specialized in improving harbours and inland waterways and constructing dams and levees.

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