In かつて神だった獣たちへ volume 5 I found these sentences, speaking about bayonets:
もちろん接近しなくては使いようもなく、ライフルの登場は歩兵同士が肉薄しての銃撃と突撃による戦術、つまり銃剣を過去の物にするはずだった
内戦末期、戦場に登場した回転式機関砲は十分な威力と連射速度を持っていたため、肉薄しての突撃を押さえ込まれ無力だった
I found that VてのN means that the noun is a necessary condition for the verb to be possible (here, here and here), but I'm not sure how should I read those sentences with that meaning: the first sounds like:
もちろん接近しなくては使いようもなく、ライフルの登場は歩兵同士が肉薄: naturally, they couldn't be used without approaching [the enemy], and speaking of the appearance of rifles the infantry approached the enemy
銃撃と突撃による戦術、つまり銃剣を過去の物にするはずだった: strategies by attacking and charging, in other words bayonets should have been made a thing of the past.
If VてのN means "Because N, then V"... because there were strategies using attacking and charging, infantry approached the enemy, in other words bayonets should have been made a thing of the past? It doesn't really sound right.
From the contest I guess that rifles should have made bayonets (or maybe melee weapons) a thing of the past, because they made harder to approach the enemy, which is a necessary condition to use bayonets; but I don't understand how that sentence works in its entirety.
Similar issue with the second sentence:
内戦末期、戦場に登場した回転式機関砲は十分な威力と連射速度を持っていたため、肉薄しての突撃を押さえ込まれ無力だった
Which sounds something like "In the last period of the civil war, since on the battlefield rotating machineguns appeared with enough firepower and rate of fire" and something about being powerless to contain attacks from the enemy, but again I can't really understand the sentence as a whole (also because rotating machineguns sound like something able to contain an advancing enemy, so I'm guessing I'm missing something).
