In German, Blitzkrieg means lightning war (Blitz-Krieg). Blitzkrieg was named so because it included surprise attacks, "Lighting fast" rapid advances into enemy territory, with coordinated massive air attacks, which struck and shocked the enemy as if it was struck by lightning. The German military in World War 2 achieved most of its great victories with the Blitzkrieg tactic.
The development of Blitzkrieg
World War 1 (1914-18) was a long static trench war in which artillery and machine guns made mobile ground warfare almost impossible, suicidal, for both infantry and Cavalry. The element of fire, from the machine guns and artillery, totally neutralized the element of maneuver, at least for the vulnerable infantry and Cavalry. But during the war, two new revolutionary weapon systems were invented and saw initial combat use, the armored tank, and the combat aircraft. Relative to the infantry and Cavalry, both were almost invulnerable to machine gun and artillery fire. In addition to that, their growth potential as powerful motorized vehicles was about to revolutionize warfare.
After the war, various military establishments gave various levels of attention to further study and developing these new powerful weapons, and to the new possibilities of combining their potential with other weapons. In maritime powers the aircraft was integrated with large ships to create the aircraft carrier, which thanks to its much greater strike range totally outclassed the big guns battleships which dominated the seas for centuries. In Russia, with its vast distances, a gigantic force of paratroopers was established to give infantry a whole new mobility, and a huge fleet of light fast tanks was established to give the military new mobility over the vast land. In Britain, well armored "Infantry tanks" were developed to provide the infantry with mobile fire support, and lighter "Cruiser tanks" were developed to replace the obsolete Cavalry.
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