The battle slowly smolders away, like damp gunpowder. . . . Gradually, the units engaged are burned out, and when nothing is left but cinders, they are withdrawn . . . 6 One can extend Clausewitz's evocative metaphor to gain insight into the essential physics of classical battle. Armies in battle burn, melt and vaporize. The heat of battle is calibrated in the temperature of casualties.
Armies enter battle in a solid state of cohesion, like a block of lead.
The heat and energy of combat attrition may be so great as to vaporize instantly the entire mass in a battle of annihilation and cause a great disintegration of morale and will to fight. These simple machines the lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley and screw can be characterized as point technologies because of how they focus or leverage mechanical force at a single point. Clausewitz made a similar observation concerning Napoleonic warfare of his own day. In contrast, technologies of the Industrial Revolution were dominated by innovations in distributed technology. The steam engine, the railroad, the telegraph, the dynamo, nitro-based explosives and the magazine rifle all changed the geometry of warfare from action compressed into a single point to action distributed in breadth and depth.