Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward
industrialism
Industrialisation ( UK) or industrialization ( US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for th ...
and the application of
mass-production methods to
weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...
s and to the
technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
of 1861–1865; this continued through many smaller conflicts in which soldiers and strategists tested new weapons.

World War I weapons included types standardised and improved over the preceding period, together with some newly developed types using innovative
technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...
and a number of
improvised weapon
An improvised weapon is an object that was not designed to be used as a weapon but can be put to that use. They are generally used for self-defence or if the person is otherwise unarmed. In some cases, improvised weapons are commonly used by at ...
s used in trench warfare.
Military technology
Military technology is the application of technology for use in warfare. It comprises the kinds of technology that are distinctly military in nature and not civilian in application, usually because they lack useful or legal civilian application ...
of the time included important innovations in
machine guns,
grenade
A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...
s, and artillery, along with essentially new weapons such as
submarine
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
s,
poison gas
Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal concentration) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious ...
,
warplanes and
tanks.
The earlier years of the First World War could be characterized as a clash of 20th-century
technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...
with 19th-century
military science
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing mi ...
creating ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. On land, the quick descent into
trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from a ...
came as a surprise. It was only in the final year of the war that the major armies made effective steps in revolutionizing matters of command and control and tactics to adapt to the modern battlefield and start to harness the myriad new technologies to effective military purposes. Tactical reorganizations (such as shifting the focus of command from the 100+ man
company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...
to the 10+ man
squad
In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of Military organization, military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and United States, U.S. doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a fireteam, ...
) went hand-in-hand with armoured cars, the first submachine guns, and automatic rifles that a single individual soldier could carry and use.
Trench warfare
Much of the combat involved trench warfare, in which hundreds often died for each metre gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during World WarI. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne,
Cambrai
Cambrai (, ; ; ), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.
A sub-pref ...
, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Germans employed the
Haber process
The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is the main industrial procedure for the ammonia production, production of ammonia. It converts atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3) by a reaction with hydrogen (H2) using finely di ...
of
nitrogen fixation
Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular dinitrogen () is converted into ammonia (). It occurs both biologically and abiological nitrogen fixation, abiologically in chemical industry, chemical industries. Biological nitrogen ...
to provide their forces with a constant supply of gunpowder despite the British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives.
Trench warfare led to the development of the concrete
pill box, a small, hardened blockhouse that could be used to deliver machine gun fire. Pillboxes could be placed across a battlefield with interlocking fields of fire.
Because attacking an entrenched enemy was so difficult,
tunnel warfare became a major effort during the war. Once enemy positions were undermined, huge amounts of explosives would be planted and detonated to prepare for an overland charge. Sensitive listening devices that could detect the sounds of digging were crucial for defense against these underground incursions. The British proved especially adept at these tactics, thanks to the skill of their tunnel-digging "
sapper
A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...
s" and the sophistication of their listening devices.

During the war, the immobility of
trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from a ...
and a need for protection from
sniper
A sniper is a military or paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with telescopic si ...
s created a requirement for
loopholes both for discharging firearms and for observation.
[Trench Loopholes, Le Linge](_blank)
/ref> Often a steel plate was used with a "key hole", which had a rotating piece to cover the loophole when not in use.
Clothing
The British and German armies had already changed from red coat (British army) (1902) or Prussian blue
Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue, Parisian and Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula . It consists of cations, where iron is in the oxidat ...
(1910) for field uniforms, to less conspicuous khaki
The color khaki (, ) is a light shade of tan (color), tan with a slight yellowish tinge.
Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms and equipment, particularly in arid or desert regions, where it provides camouflage rela ...
or field gray. Adolphe Messimy, Joseph Gallieni and other French leaders had proposed following suit, but the French army marched to war in their traditional red trousers, and only began receiving the new " horizon blue" ones in 1915.
A type of raincoat for British officers, introduced long before the war, gained fame as the trench coat
A trench coat is a variety of coat made of Waterproof fabric, waterproof heavy-duty fabric, originally developed for British Army officers before the First World War, and becoming popular while used in the Trench warfare, trenches, hence the nam ...
.
The principal armies entered the war under cloth caps or leather helmets. They hastened to develop new steel helmets, in designs that became icons of their respective countries.
Observation trees
Observing the enemy in trench warfare was difficult, prompting the invention of technology such as the camouflage tree, a man made observation tower that enables forces to discreetly observe their enemy.
Artillery
Artillery also underwent a revolution. In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire
Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and inclination, and may include correcting ...
with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably, aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone
Field telephones are telephones used for military communications. They can draw power from their own battery (electricity), battery, from a telephone exchange (via a Common battery, central battery known as CB), or from an external power source. S ...
.
At the beginning of the war, artillery was often sited in the front line to fire over open sights at enemy infantry. During the war, the following improvements were made:
* Indirect counter-battery fire was developed for the first time
* Forward observers were used to direct artillery positioned out of direct line of sight from the targets, and sophisticated communications and fire plans were developed
*Artillery sound ranging
Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, ...
and flash spotting
Flash spotting''Artillery Survey in the First World War''. Field Survey Association, 1971, Sir Lawrence Bragg, Major General A. H. Dowson, Lt Colonel H. H. Hemmings was a military method of detecting the position of enemy guns at long range wher ...
, for the location and eventual destruction of enemy batteries
* Factors such as weather, air temperature, and barrel wear could for the first time be accurately measured and taken into account for indirect fire
Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and inclination, and may include correcting ...
*The first "box barrage" in history was fired in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915; this was the use of a three- or four-sided curtain of shell-fire to prevent the movement of enemy infantry
* The creeping barrage was perfected
* The wire-cutting No. 106 fuze was developed, specifically designed to explode on contact with barbed wire, or the ground before the shell buried itself in mud, and equally effective as an anti-personnel
An anti-personnel weapon is a weapon primarily used to maim or kill infantry and other personnel not behind armor, as opposed to attacking structures or vehicles, or hunting game. The development of defensive fortification and combat vehicles gav ...
weapon
* The first anti-aircraft gun
Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...
s were devised out of necessity
Germany was far ahead of the Allies in using heavy indirect fire. The German Army employed and howitzers in 1914, when typical French and British guns were only and . The British had a 6-inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. The Germans also fielded Austrian and guns and, even at the beginning of the war, had inventories of various calibres of '' Minenwerfer'', which were ideally suited for trench warfare.
Field artillery
Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support army, armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement.
Until the ear ...
entered the war with the idea that each gun should be accompanied by hundreds of shells, and armouries ought to have about a thousand on hand for resupply. This proved utterly inadequate when it became commonplace for a gun to sit in one place and fire a hundred shells or more per day for weeks or months on end. To meet the resulting Shell Crisis of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines in the First World War that led to a political crisis in the United Kingdom. Previous military experience led to an over-reliance on shrapnel to attack infantry in th ...
, factories were hastily converted from other purposes to make more ammunition. Railways to the front were expanded or built, leaving the question of the last mile. Horses in World War I were the main answer, and their high death rate seriously weakened the Central Powers late in the war. In many places the newly invented trench railways helped. The new motor truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...
s as yet lacked pneumatic tires, versatile suspension, and other improvements that in later decades would allow them to perform well.
Poison gas
The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard are names commonly used for the organosulfur compound, organosulfur chemical compound bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide, which has the chemical structure S(CH2CH2Cl)2, as well as other Chemical species, species. In the wi ...
and phosgene
Phosgene is an organic chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic, colorless gas; in low concentrations, its musty odor resembles that of freshly cut hay or grass. It can be thought of chemically as the double acyl chloride analog of ...
. Relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks
A gas mask is a piece of personal protective equipment used to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft ...
. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a systematically organized and executed military attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers, long- or medium-range missiles, or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy' ...
(as opposed to tactical bombing
Tactical bombing is aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value, such as combatants, military installations, or military equipment. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, or attacking enemy cities and factories to cripple ...
) were both outlawed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.
At the beginning of the war, Germany had the most advanced chemical industry in the world, accounting for more than 80% of the world's dye and chemical production. Although the use of poison gas had been banned by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...
, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between ...
gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
. The unknown gas appeared to be a simple smoke screen
A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft, or ships.
Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as ...
, used to hide attacking soldiers, and Allied troops were ordered to the front trenches to repel the expected attack. The gas had a devastating effect, killing many defenders or, when the wind direction changed and blew the gas back, many attackers.
The wind being unreliable, another way had to be found to transmit the gas. It began being delivered in artillery shells. Later, mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard are names commonly used for the organosulfur compound, organosulfur chemical compound bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide, which has the chemical structure S(CH2CH2Cl)2, as well as other Chemical species, species. In the wi ...
, phosgene
Phosgene is an organic chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic, colorless gas; in low concentrations, its musty odor resembles that of freshly cut hay or grass. It can be thought of chemically as the double acyl chloride analog of ...
and other gasses were used. Britain and France soon followed suit with their own gas weapons. The first defenses against gas were makeshift, mainly rags soaked in water or urine
Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and many other animals. In placental mammals, urine flows from the Kidney (vertebrates), kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder and exits the urethra through the penile meatus (mal ...
. Later, relatively effective gas mask
A gas mask is a piece of personal protective equipment used to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft ...
s were developed, and these greatly reduced the effectiveness of gas as a weapon. Although it sometimes resulted in brief tactical advantages and probably caused over 1,000,000 casualties, gas seemed to have had no significant effect on the course of the war.
Chemical weapons were easily attained, and cheap. Gas was especially effective against troops in trenches and bunkers that protected them from other weapons. Most chemical weapons attacked an individual's respiratory system. The concept of choking easily caused fear in soldiers and the resulting terror affected them psychologically. Because there was such a great fear of chemical weapons it was not uncommon that a soldier would panic and misinterpret symptoms of the common cold as being affected by a poisonous gas.
Command and control
The introduction of radio telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies fo ...
was a significant step in communication during World War I. The stations utilized at that time were spark-gap transmitter
A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of transmitter, radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark."Radio Transmitters, Early" in Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the m ...
s. As an example, the information of the start of World War I was transmitted to German South West Africa on 2 August 1914 via radio telegraphy from the Nauen transmitter station
Nauen Transmitter Station (German: ''Grossfunkstelle Nauen'' or ''Sender Nauen'') in Nauen, Havelland (district), Havelland district, Brandenburg, Germany, is the oldest continuously operating radio transmitting installation in the world. Germany' ...
via a relay station in Kamina and Lomé
Lomé ( , ) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in Togo, largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437 in Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...
to the radio station in Windhoek.
In the early days of the war, generals tried to direct tactics from headquarters many miles from the front, with messages being carried back and forth by runners or motorcycle courier
A motorcycle courier, also known as a despatch rider or motorcycle messenger, is a courier using a motorcycle.
Motorcycle couriers are common in the major urban centres of Europe, South America (especially Brazil), Asia and North America.
...
s. It was soon realized that more immediate methods of communication were needed.
Radio
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
sets of the period were too heavy to carry into battle, and field telephone
Field telephones are telephones used for military communications. They can draw power from their own battery (electricity), battery, from a telephone exchange (via a Common battery, central battery known as CB), or from an external power source. S ...
lines laid were quickly broken. Either one was subject to eavesdropping, and trench codes were not very satisfactory. Runners, flashing lights, and mirrors were often used instead; dogs were also used, but were only used occasionally as troops tended to adopt them as pets and men would volunteer to go as runners in the dog's place. There were also aircraft
An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...
(called "contact patrols") that carried messages between headquarters and forward positions, sometimes dropping their messages without landing. Technical advances in radio, however, continued during the war and radio telephony was perfected, being most useful for airborne artillery spotters.
The new long-range artillery developed just before the war now had to fire at positions it could not see. Typical tactics were to pound the enemy front lines and then stop to let infantry move forward, hoping that the enemy line was broken, though it rarely was. The lifting and then the creeping barrage were developed to keep artillery fire landing directly in front of the infantry "as it advanced." Communications being impossible, the danger was that the barrage would move too fastlosing the protectionor too slowlyholding up the advance.
There were also countermeasures to these artillery tactics: by aiming a counter barrage directly behind an enemy's creeping barrage, one could target the infantry that was following the creeping barrage. Microphones (Sound ranging
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
) were used to triangulate the position of enemy guns and engage in counter-battery fire. Muzzle flashes of guns could also be spotted and used to target enemy artillery.
The impressive spread of telecommunications in the armed forces during WWIwhich extended commanders' command and control over distant forces and shipsalso led to the Intelligence branch assuming an ever greater importance. The growth of military telephone and radiotelegraphic communications encouraged all Intelligence Services to study how to extract the greatest amount of intel from the enemies' communication systems, by relying on some inherent weaknesses of those media. Radio interception was particularly easy, creating the need to invent World War I cryptography. Even the earliest episodes of the war showed, often surprisingly, what type of impact the eavesdropping and interpretation of the enemy's transmissions could have on military operations. As such, this period witnessed significant developments in the intelligence category today commonly known as signals intelligence
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...
, or SIGINT. Exploitation of intercepted
Russian radio signals contributed to the German victory at Tannenberg in August 1914. Even when messages could not be decoded, radio direction finding
Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a naturall ...
was used to track the motion of enemy units.
Railways
Railways dominated in this war as in no other. The German strategy was known beforehand by the Allies simply because of the vast marshaling yards on the Belgian border that had no other purpose than to deliver the mobilized German army to its start point. The German mobilization plan was little more than a vast detailed railway timetable. Men and material could get to the front at an unprecedented rate by rail, but trains were vulnerable at the front itself. Thus, armies could only advance at the pace that they could build or rebuild a railway, e.g. the British advance across Sinai. Motorized transport was only extensively used in the last two years of World War I. After the rail head, troops moved the last mile on foot, and guns and supplies were drawn by horses and trench railways
A trench railway was a type of railway that represented military adaptation of early 20th-century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of so ...
. Railways lacked the flexibility of motor transport and this lack of flexibility percolated through into the conduct during the war.
War of attrition
The countries involved in the war applied the full force of industrial mass-production to the manufacture of weapons and ammunition, especially artillery shells. Women on the home-front played a crucial role in this by working in munitions factories. This complete mobilization of a nation's resources, or "total war
Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all (including civilian-associated) resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilises all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare ov ...
" meant that not only the armies, but also the economies of the warring nations were in competition.
For a time, in 1914–1915, some hoped that the war could be won through an attrition of materiel
Materiel or matériel (; ) is supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commerce, commercial supply chain management, supply chain context.
Military
In a military context, ...
—that the enemy's supply of artillery shells could be exhausted in futile exchanges. But production was ramped up on both sides and hopes proved futile. In Britain the Shell Crisis of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines in the First World War that led to a political crisis in the United Kingdom. Previous military experience led to an over-reliance on shrapnel to attack infantry in th ...
brought down the British government, and led to the building of HM Factory, Gretna, a huge munitions factory on the English-Scottish border.
The war of attrition
The War of Attrition (; ) involved fighting between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and their allies from 1967 to 1970.
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, no serious diplomatic efforts were made to resolve t ...
then focused on another resource: human lives. In the Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
in particular, German Chief of Staff Erich Von Falkenhayn hoped to "bleed France white" through repeated attacks on this French city.
In the end, the war ended through a combination of attrition (of men and material), advances on the battlefield, arrival of American troops in large numbers, and a breakdown of morale and production on the German home-front due to an effective naval blockade of her seaports.
Air warfare
Aviation in World War I
World War I was the first major conflict involving the use of aircraft. Tethered observation balloons had already been employed in several wars and would be used extensively for artillery spotting. German Empire, Germany employed Zeppelins for re ...
started with primitive aircraft, primitively used. Technological progress was swift, leading to ground attack, tactical bombing
Tactical bombing is aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value, such as combatants, military installations, or military equipment. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, or attacking enemy cities and factories to cripple ...
, and highly publicized, deadly dogfight
A dogfight, or dog fight, is an air combat manoeuvring, aerial battle between fighter aircraft that is conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requir ...
s among aircraft equipped with forward-firing, synchronized machine guns from July 1915 onwards. However, these uses made a lesser impact on the war than more mundane roles in intelligence, sea patrol and especially artillery spotting. Antiaircraft warfare also had its beginnings in this war.
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft (in which a rotor mounted on a spinning shaft generate ...
were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya on 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...
for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other flight, airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.
Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wi ...
the next year. By 1914, their military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance
In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...
and ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...
were developed. Strategic bombers
A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...
were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp. 155� ...
as well. Perhaps the most famous fighter plane during World War 1 was the Fokker
Fokker (; ) was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer that operated from 1912 to 1996. The company was founded by the Dutch aviator Anthony Fokker and became famous during World War I for its fighter aircraft. During its most successful period in the 19 ...
as it was the first to include a synchronized machine gun. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS ''Furious'' launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tønder
Tønder (; ) is a town in the Region of Southern Denmark. With a population of 7,477 (as of 1 January 2025), it is the main town and the administrative seat of the Tønder Municipality.
History
The first mention of Tønder might have been in th ...
in 1918.
Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes, so that if there was an enemy air attack the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft (with their marginal power output), and smaller versions were not developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by the British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice.
Recognised for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets for enemy aircraft. To defend them against air attack, they were heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets Air-to-air can refer to:
* Air-to-air combat
* Air-to-air missile
* Air-to-air photography
* Air-to-air refueling
* Air-to-air rocket
* Air-to-air refrigeration
See also
* anti-aircraft and 'anti-air' (adj.)
*
* Air (disambiguation)
Air is the ...
were tried. Thus, the reconnaissance value of blimps and balloons contributed to the development of air-to-air combat between all types of aircraft, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines, and indeed the resulting panic led to the diversion of several squadrons of fighters from France.
While early air spotters were unarmed, they soon began firing at each other with handheld weapons. An arms race commenced, quickly leading to increasingly agile planes equipped with machine guns. A key innovation was the interrupter gear, a Dutch invention that allowed a machine gun to be mounted behind the propeller so the pilot could fire directly ahead, along the plane's flight path.
German strategic bombing during World War I
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
struck Warsaw, Paris, London and other cities. Germany led the world in Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp. 155� ...
s, and used these airships to make occasional bombing raids on military targets, London and other British cities, without great effect. Later in the war, Germany introduced long range strategic bomber
A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...
s. Damage was again minor but they forced the British air forces to maintain squadrons of fighters in England to defend against air attack, depriving the British Expeditionary Force of planes, equipment, and personnel badly needed on the Western front.
Mobility
In the early days of the war, armoured cars armed with machine guns were organized into combat units, along with cyclist infantry and machine guns mounted on motor cycle sidecars. Though not able to assault entrenched positions, they provided mobile fire support to infantry, and performed scouting, reconnaissance, and other roles similar to cavalry. After trench warfare took hold of major battle-lines, opportunities for such vehicles greatly diminished, though they continued to see use in the more open campaigns in Russia and the Middle East.
Between late 1914 and early 1918, the Western Front hardly moved. When the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
surrendered after the October Revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
in 1917, Germany was able to move many troops to the Western Front. With new stormtrooper infantry trained in infiltration tactics to exploit enemy weak points and penetrate into rear areas, they launched a series of offensives in the spring of 1918. In the largest of these, Operation Michael, General Oskar von Hutier pushed forward 60 kilometers, gaining in a couple weeks what France and Britain had spent years to achieve. Although initially successful tactically, these offensives stalled after outrunning their horse-drawn supply, artillery, and reserves, leaving German forces weakened and exhausted.
The mobile personnel shield was a less successful attempt at restoring mobility.[Gougaud, p.110] Several kinds of bullet-proof body armor were tested in use, but they more impaired movement than protected the body.
In the Battle of Amiens of August 1918, the Triple Entente forces began a counterattack that would be called the " Hundred Days Offensive." The Australian and Canadian divisions that spearheaded the attack managed to advance 13 kilometers on the first day alone. These battles marked the end of trench warfare on the Western Front and a return to mobile warfare.
After the war, the defeated Germans would seek to combine their infantry-based mobile warfare of 1918 with vehicles, eventually leading to ''blitzkrieg
''Blitzkrieg'(Lightning/Flash Warfare)'' is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with ...
'', or 'lightning warfare'.
Tanks
Although the concept of the tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...
had been suggested as early as the 1890s, authorities showed little more than a passing interest in them until the trench stalemate of World War I caused reconsideration. In early 1915, the British Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
and French industrialists both started dedicated development of tanks.
Basic tank design combined several existing technologies. It included armour plating thick enough to be proof against all standard infantry arms, caterpillar track for mobility over the shell-torn battlefield, the four-stroke gasoline powered internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...
(refined in the 1870s), and heavy firepower, provided by the same machine guns which had recently become so dominant in warfare, or even light artillery guns.
In Britain, a committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...
was formed to work out a practical tank design. The outcome was large tanks with a rhomboidal shape, to allow crossing of an trench: the Mark I tank, with the "male" versions mounting small naval guns and machine guns, and the "female" carrying only machine guns.
In France, several competing arms industry organizations each proposed radically different designs. Smaller tanks became favored, leading to the Renault FT tank, in part by being able to leverage the engines and manufacturing techniques of commercial tractors and automobiles.
Although the tanks' initial appearance on the battlefield in 1916 terrified some German troops, such engagements provided more opportunities for development than battle successes. Early tanks were unreliable, breaking down often. Germans learned they were vulnerable to direct hits from field artillery and heavy mortars, their trenches were widened and other obstacles devised to halt them, and special anti-tank rifle
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the vehicle armor, armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that ca ...
s were rapidly developed. Also, both Britain and France found new tactics and training were required to make effective use of their tanks, such as larger coordinated formations of tanks and close support with infantry. Once tanks could be organized in the hundreds, as in the opening assault of the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, they began to have notable impact.
Throughout the remainder of the war, new tank designs often revealed flaws in battle, to be addressed in later designs, but reliability remained the primary weakness of tanks. In the Battle of Amiens, a major Entente counteroffensive near the end of the war, British forces went to field with 532 tanks; after several days, only a few were still in commission, with those that suffered mechanical difficulties outnumbering those disabled by enemy fire.
Germany utilized many captured enemy tanks, and made a few of their own late in the war.
In the last year of the war, despite rapidly increasing production (especially by France) and improving designs, tank technology struggled to make more than a modest impact on the war's overall progress. Plan 1919 proposed the future use of massive tank formations in great offensives combined with ground attack aircraft.
Even without achieving the decisive results hoped for during World War I, tank technology and mechanized warfare had been launched and would grow increasingly sophisticated in the years following the war. By World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the tank would evolve into a fearsome weapon critical to restoring mobility to land warfare.
At sea
The years leading up to the war saw the use of improved metallurgical and mechanical techniques to produce larger ships with larger guns and, in reaction, more armour. The launching of HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS ''Dreadnought'' was a Royal Navy battleship, the design of which revolutionised naval power. The ship's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generati ...
revolutionized battleship
A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
construction, leaving many ships obsolete before they were completed. German ambitions brought an Anglo-German naval arms race in which the Imperial German Navy
The Imperial German Navy or the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for ...
was built up from a small force to the world's most modern and second most powerful. However, even this high-technology navy entered the war with a mix of newer ships and obsolete older ones.
The advantage was in long-range gunnery, and naval battles took place at far greater distances than before. The 1916 Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland () was a naval battle between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, durin ...
demonstrated the excellence of German ships and crews, but also showed that the High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet () was the battle fleet of the German Empire, German Imperial German Navy, Imperial Navy and saw action during the First World War. In February 1907, the Home Fleet () was renamed the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpi ...
was not big enough to challenge openly the British blockade of Germany. It was the only full-scale battle between fleets in the war.
Having the largest surface fleet, the United Kingdom sought to press its advantage. British ships blockaded German ports, hunted down German and Austro-Hungarian ships wherever they might be on the high seas, and supported actions against German colonies. The German surface fleet was largely kept in the North Sea. This situation pushed Germany, in particular, to direct its resources to a new form of naval power: submarines.
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive weapon placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Similar to anti-personnel mine, anti-personnel and other land mines, and unlike purpose launched naval depth charges, they are ...
s were deployed in hundreds of thousands, or far greater numbers than in previous wars. Submarines proved surprisingly effective for this purpose. Influence mines were a new development but moored contact mines were the most numerous. They resembled those of the late 19th century, improved so they less often exploded while being laid. The Allies produced enough mines to build the North Sea Mine Barrage to help bottle the Germans into the North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
, but it was too late to make much difference.
Submarines
Germany deployed U-boats
U-boats are naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Na ...
(submarines
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or info ...
) after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the Imperial German Navy
The Imperial German Navy or the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for ...
employed them to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges (1916), hydrophones
A hydrophone () is a microphone designed for underwater use, for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones contains a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potential when subjected to a pressure change, such as a ...
(sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...
, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines ( HMS ''R-1'', 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons
An anti-submarine weapon (ASW) is any one of a number of devices that are intended to act against a submarine and its crew, to destroy (sink) the vessel or reduce its capability as a weapon of war. In its simplest sense, an anti-submarine weapon ...
, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918). To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...
until World WarII revived the need.
The United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed its population and supply its war industry, and the German Navy hoped to blockade and starve Britain using U-boats
U-boats are naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Na ...
to attack merchant ships. Lieutenant Otto Weddigen
Otto Eduard Weddigen (15 September 1882 – 18 March 1915) was an Imperial German Navy U-boat commander during World War I. He was awarded the ''Pour le Mérite'', Germany's highest honour, for sinking four British warships.
Biography and ...
remarked of the second submarine attack of the Great War:
:
Submarines soon came under persecution by submarine chasers and other small warships using hastily devised anti-submarine weapons
An anti-submarine weapon (ASW) is any one of a number of devices that are intended to act against a submarine and its crew, to destroy (sink) the vessel or reduce its capability as a weapon of war. In its simplest sense, an anti-submarine weapon ...
. They could not impose an effective blockade while acting under the restrictions of the prize rules and international law of the sea
Law of the sea (or ocean law) is a body of international law governing the rights and duties of State (polity), states in Ocean, maritime environments. It concerns matters such as navigational rights, sea mineral claims, and coastal waters juris ...
. They resorted to unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchant ships such as freighters and tankers without warning. The use of unrestricted submarine warfare has had significant impacts on international relations in ...
, which cost Germany public sympathy in neutral countries and was a factor contributing to the American entry into World War I
The United States entered into World War I on 6 April 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Europe. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British and an a ...
.
This struggle between German submarines and British countermeasures became known as the " First Battle of the Atlantic." As German submarines became more numerous and effective, the British sought ways to protect their merchant ships. "Q-ship
Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchantman, armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the c ...
s," attack vessels disguised as civilian ships, were one early strategy.
Consolidating merchant ships into convoys
A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...
protected by one or more armed navy vessels was adopted later in the war. There was initially a great deal of debate about this approach, out of fear that it would provide German U-boats with a wealth of convenient targets. Thanks to the development of active and passive sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...
devices, coupled with increasingly deadly anti-submarine weapon
An anti-submarine weapon (ASW) is any one of a number of devices that are intended to act against a submarine and its crew, to destroy (sink) the vessel or reduce its capability as a weapon of war. In its simplest sense, an anti-submarine weapon ...
s, the convoy system reduced British losses to U-boats to a small fraction of their former level.
Holland 602 type submarines and other Allied types were fewer, being unnecessary for the blockade of Germany.
Small arms
Infantry weapons for major powers were mainly bolt-action
Bolt action is a type of manual Action (firearms), firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt (firearms), turn-bolt via a cocking handle, bolt handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the firearm (a ...
rifles, capable of firing ten or more rounds per minute. German soldiers carried the Gewehr 98 rifle in 8mm Mauser, the British carried the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield rifle, and the US military employed the M1903 Springfield
The M1903 Springfield, officially the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903, is an American five-round magazine-fed, bolt-action service repeating rifle, used primarily during the first half of the 20th century.
The M1903 was first used in combat ...
and M1917 Enfield. Rifles with telescopic sight
A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope informally, is an optical sighting device based on a refracting telescope. It is equipped with some form of a referencing pattern – known as a ''reticle'' – mounted in a focally appropriate p ...
s were used by snipers, and were first used by the Germans.
Machine guns were also used by great powers; both sides used the Maxim gun, a fully automatic belt-fed weapon, capable of long-term sustained use provided it was supplied to adequate amounts of ammunition and cooling water, and its French counterpart, the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun
The Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun chambered for the 8mm Lebel cartridge became the standard machine gun of the French Army during the latter half of World War I. It was manufactured by the French arms company Hotchkiss et Cie, which had been ...
. Their use in defense, combined with barbed wire obstacles, converted the expected mobile battlefield to a static one. The machine gun was useful in stationary battle but could not move easily through a battlefield, and therefore forced soldiers to face enemy machine guns without machine guns of their own.
Before the war, the French Army studied the question of a light machine gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridge (firearms), cartridges of the same caliber as the othe ...
but had made none for use. At the start of hostilities, France quickly turned an existing prototype (the "CS" for Chauchat and Sutter) into the lightweight Chauchat M1915 automatic rifle with a high rate of fire. Besides its use by the French, the first American units to arrive in France used it in 1917 and 1918. Hastily mass-manufactured under desperate wartime pressures, the weapon developed a reputation for unreliability.
Seeing the potential of such a weapon, the British Army adopted the American-designed Lewis gun chambered in .303 British. The Lewis gun was the first true light machine gun that could in theory be operated by one man, though in practice the bulky ammo pans required an entire section of men to keep the gun operating. The Lewis Gun was also used for marching fire, notably by the Australian Corps in the July 1918 Battle of Hamel. To serve the same purpose, the German Army
The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...
adopted the MG08/15 which was impractically heavy at counting the water for cooling and one belt of ammunition holding 100 rounds.[ In 1918 the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was introduced in the US military, the weapon was an "automatic rifle" and like the Chauchat was designed with the concept of walking fire in mind. The tactic was to be employed under conditions of limited field of fire and poor visibility such as advancing through woods.
Early ]submachine guns
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automa ...
were much used near the end of the war, such as the MP-18.
The US military deployed combat shotguns, commonly known as ''trench guns''. American troops used Winchester Models 1897 and 1912
This year is notable for Sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the ''Titanic'', which occurred on April 15.
In Albania, this leap year runs with only 353 days as the country achieved switching from the Julian to Gregorian Calendar by skippin ...
short-barreled pump action
Pump action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to cock the hammer or ...
shotguns loaded with 6 rounds containing antimony
Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
hardened 00 buckshot to clear enemy trenches. Pump actions can be fired rapidly, simply by working the slide when the trigger is held down, and when fighting within a trench, the shorter shotgun could be rapidly turned and fired in the opposite direction along the trench axis. The shotguns prompted a diplomatic protest from Germany, claiming the shotguns caused excessive injury, and that any U.S. combatants found in possession of them would be subject to execution. The U.S. rejected the claims, and threatened reprisals in kind if any of its troops were executed for possession of a shotgun.
Grenades
Grenades
A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade g ...
proved to be effective weapons in the trenches. When the war started, grenades were few and poor. Hand grenades were used and improved throughout the war. Contact fuzes became less common, replaced by time fuzes.
The British entered the war with the long-handled impact detonating " Grenade, Hand No 1".[Bull, Stephen (2002) ''World War 1 Trench Warfare; (1): 1914-16''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing; p. 27] This was replaced by the No. 15 "Ball Grenade" to partially overcome some of its inadequacies. An improvised hand grenade was developed in Australia for use by ANZAC troops called the Double Cylinder "jam tin" which consisted of a tin filled with dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
or guncotton
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
, packed round with scrap metal or stones. To ignite, at the top of the tin there was a Bickford safety fuse
The safety fuse is a type of fuse (explosive), fuse invented and patented by English inventor William Bickford (1774–1834), William Bickford in 1831. Originally it consisted of a "tube" of gunpowder surrounded by a waterproofed varnished jute "r ...
connecting the detonator, which was lit by either the user, or a second person. The "Mills bomb
"Mills bomb" is the popular name for a series of British hand grenades which were designed by William Mills. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades used by the British Army and saw widespread use in the First and Second World Wars ...
" (Grenade, Hand No. 5) was introduced in 1915 and would serve in its basic form in the British Army until the 1970s. Its improved fusing system relied on the soldier removing a pin and while holding down a lever on the side of the grenade. When the grenade was thrown the safety lever would automatically release, igniting the grenade's internal fuse which would burn down until the grenade detonated. The French would use the F1 defensive grenade.
The major grenades used in the beginning by the German Army
The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...
were the impact-detonating " discus" or "oyster shell" bomb and the Mod 1913 black powder '' Kugelhandgranate'' with a friction-ignited time fuse. In 1915 Germany developed the much more effective '' Stielhandgranate'', nicknamed "potato masher" for its shape, whose variants remained in use for decades; it used a timed fuse system similar to the Mills bomb.
Hand grenades were not the only attempt at projectile explosives for infantry. A rifle grenade was brought into the trenches to attack the enemy from a greater distance. The Hales rifle grenade got little attention from the British Army before the war began but, during the war, Germany showed great interest in this weapon. The resulting casualties for the Allies caused Britain to search for a new defense.
The Stokes mortar
The Stokes mortar was a British trench mortar designed by Sir Wilfred Stokes KBE that was issued to the British and U.S. armies, as well as the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, during the latter half of the First World War. The 3-inch trench m ...
, a lightweight and very portable trench mortar with short tube and capable of indirect fire
Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and inclination, and may include correcting ...
, was rapidly developed and widely imitated.[Duffy, Michael (2000-07) "Safe Surf". http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/mortars.htm] Mechanical bomb throwers of lesser range were used in a similar fashion to fire upon the enemy from a safe distance within the trench.
The Sauterelle was a grenade launching Crossbow
A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an Elasticity (physics), elastic launching device consisting of a Bow and arrow, bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar f ...
used before the Stokes mortar by French and British troops.
Flamethrowers
The Imperial German Army deployed flamethrower
A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...
s () on the Western Front attempting to flush out French or British soldiers from their trenches. Introduced in 1915, it was used with greatest effect during the Hooge battle of the Western Front on 30 July 1915. The German Army had two main types of flame throwers during the Great War: a small single person version called the Kleinflammenwerfer and a larger crew served configuration called the Grossflammenwerfer. In the latter, one soldier carried the fuel tank while another aimed the nozzle. Both the large and smaller versions of the flame-thrower were of limited use because their short range left the exposed to small arms fire.
See also
* List of German weapons of World War I
* Romanian military equipment of World War I
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
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*
* Deals with technical developments, including the first dipping hydrophones
A hydrophone () is a microphone designed for underwater use, for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones contains a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potential when subjected to a pressure change, such as a ...
*
*
External links
* Johnson, Jeffrey
Science and Technology
in
* ttp://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/node/33/World%20War,%201914-1918%20Technology/multilingual:1/showOnly:video Historical film documents on technology during World War I at www.europeanfilmgateway.eu
* Zabecki, David T.
Military Developments of World War I
in
* Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane
Weapons
in
* Pöhlmann, Markus
Close Combat Weapons
in
* Watanabe, Nathan
Hand Grenade
in
* Storz, Dieter
Rifles
in
* Cornish, Paul
Flamethrower
in
* Storz, Dieter
Artillery
in
* Cornish, Paul
Machine Gun
in
{{DEFAULTSORT:Technology During World War I
Military equipment of World War I
Science and technology during World War I
20th century in science
20th century in technology