The Killing Machines of World War I Have you ever wondered where the weaponry of the modern era is derived from? In this editorial we will discuss in detail many weapons from the age of World War I. What will we learn from the weapons of the past? Read on to find out more!

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Written & Edited by: Zachary Mahan The Killing Machines of World War I 5/10/2013

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any people have wondered about the war and its contents. What many seem to forget is that the weapons of the war were one of the most, if not the most, important aspects of the war. They provided the means to take down adversaries and save the skin of their comrades. Weaponry is important for any war, but in World War I we witnessed the beginning of the modern era of warfare. The estimated total losses is about 8,000,000 million soldiers and 12,000,000 civilian deaths which means roughly 20,000,000 people lost their lives during World War I. These weapons used have a wide variety; they could be as simple as a gun or as complex as an airplane. The First World War had the deadliest weapons that the early twentieth century had to offer. From stick grenades to the Tank, these weapons

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were deadly, they caused soldiers to panic, forget their order, and break rank to save their own hides. With war brewing, nations had to make sure they had more efficient weapons than the enemy. As the course of the war progressed having more effective weapons than your enemy became more and more prevalent and both sides were searching for new advancements in the latest and greatest weapons available. Scientists were needed to produce these new weapons of warfare and their discoveries were vital to success of the war effort at large.

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ccording to the website “FirstWorldWar.com”, the most known or thought of weapon people think of when asked about weapons used in the First World War is the rifle for trench warfare conflicts. Rifles were very important for the war effort, because they were cheap to make and they were quite easy for any man to use effectively. They

The Killing Machines of World War I

were used to guard grenadiers from the enemy onslaught, as the grenadiers were used to clear out enemy entrenchments and they needed a form of reliable protection. The riflemen were there to provide protection for their fellow countrymen. They also were used for raids; they were light (unlike machineguns), and the soldiers had to carry less weight (carrying a lot of grenades would tire out the soldiers). The better infantry troops (who could aim better) were called snipers, who were an effective tool for eliminating key enemy targets. They were highly trained marksmen picked out because of their talents with a rifle. However they were not as an effective “killing machine” as one may think. Snipers were vulnerable in close quarters combat, limiting their effectiveness and they also were in limited quantity. Even though they had a low kill count they made up for this because they caused a very high moral shock to the enemy due to the fact that if you’re being shot at by someone you cannot see and there is little to nothing you can do, but just hide and hope you aren’t spotted. This is what made the sniper so effective and this is why snipers nowadays use specialized “sniper rifles” and aren’t just the same type of weapon that the normal riflemen carry. The sniper will still play a major part in warfare at large for years to come, perhaps for all eternity.

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tated above grenades were the most effective weapon used to attack entrenched enemies.

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Grenadiers were used to clear out trenches and large groups. The bombing parties (squads of grenadiers) were made up of nine men at one time; the group structure was as follow: a non-commissioned officer (or NCO), two throwers, two carriers, two bayonet-men to protect the throwers and carriers, and two spare men to take the place of any of the other men (except for the NCO). To set off a grenade they had two different types; impact and timed fuse. The infantry men preferred the timed fuse over the impact grenades because the impact had a chance of going off while in a trench causing fear to take over the soldiers. There were many types of grenades like the stick grenade, pin grenade, the cup grenade, the British ball grenade (labeled No. 15), and the famous Mills bomb. The Mills bomb was the dominate grenade used by the British. The Germans on the other hand preferred to use the stick grenade because it allow for a more natural throwing motion. Grenades played an important role in the battles of the First World War, but none so much as in the battle on the Poziers Heights starting on July 26th 1916 and ending on July 27th which lasted for twelve and a half hours with no breaks where the Australians with the British The Killing Machines of World War I

exchanged grenades with the Germans. The allied forces used somewhere around 15,000 Mills bombs during the night portion of the

supply lines. They used this for relaying messages between their allies and to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. In fact military staff thought that the airplane would have no combat use what so ever. For example, one unknown British general said that “The airplane is useless for the purposes of war”. Without any type of weaponry aerial combat was crude and deadly. The cockpits were so cramped that it made carrying parachutes impossible even if the officers allowed them. Most of the senior officers did not allow the pilots to have parachutes because they “The airplane is useless for the purposes of war”

battle. There were a lot of grenadiers lives lost in that battle alone, but so many more just collapsed just from exhaustion alone. In the end, the victors were the Allied Forces due to their superior grenades and pure will and determination of the soldiers who fought there. Today, because of the brave grenadiers who gave their lives grenades are now standard in every nation’s armory and this will be true for quite some time.

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ack in the dark days of aviation there were airplanes but nothing like the ones we use today. During World War I the airplane was seen as only a way to get information on the enemy. Airplanes allowed each side to take aerial pictures of enemy formations and

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thought they would take away their fighting spirit. The pilots were afraid of their planes catching fire more than anything. In fact British Ace pilot Mick Mannock is said to have carried a pistol on his plane just in case his plane was to catch fire so he could use it on himself to avoid a horrible death by burning alive. As the war went on more and more military powers thought that aircraft could help the war efforts and they started to think of more ways to use them. When it finally hit them that they could start to put guns in them and drop bombs from them to attack the enemy they made the fighter and the bomber. In 1918 there was no way to compare the aircraft used just four years earlier; from a flying picture machine to a deadly aircraft that could take down almost anything it encountered.

The Killing Machines of World War I

However, they were still vulnerable to AA guns on the ground and enemy planes in the air. The first fighter (the British Avro 504) was not only the first aircraft used by the military, but also the first aircraft to be shot down by the enemy, it was an unpopular model. A replacement for the Avro 504 was the Avro K which was thought to be a reliable aircraft that made itself an outstanding reputation. As popular as the Avro K was the Sopwith Camel got itself a mighty fine reputation as well, but no aircraft was as popular as the German Fokker Dr. Triplane. The famous German Ace Manfred von Richthoften otherwise known as “The Red Baron” helped this aircraft gain popularity. This is because he was fond of it and was his most used aircraft, and others took note of his merit with and started to use it too. In addition, the superior design made the aircraft more maneuverable and a higher rate of climb made it a better quality aircraft to any aircraft used by the Allied Powers. When the bombers of World War I came about they proved to be ineffective as pilots would just drop bombs near their targets; it is said that if a bomb did reach its target it was considered dumb luck. It became apparent that bombing enemy factories seemed impossible, but with the innovation of the bomber that impossibility became a common occurrence. When the war was nearing its conclusion anyone could recognize the aircrafts as long range bombers. They were much bigger and less maneuverable than fighters, but

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they had very specific task, to carry as many bombs to a target as possible and then to drop as many bombs on the target they could accurately hit. Bombers made almost any aerial attack possible. The airplane has become much more useful in today’s military forces as their overall effectiveness has increased. The advancements of modern technology have made them one of the greatest assets for any modern military force.

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he Landship (now called the Tank) was produced two years into the war and this was the starting point for the modern day tanks. They were called Landships because of their seagoing counterparts, the Battleship. They were largely pioneered by the British Navy starting as big armored awkwardly shaped steel machine with a side cannon and a machinegun armament. These machines of destruction helped break the stalemates along the western front of the war. At the end of the war the French had made the revolving turret seen on all tanks of the modern era.

The Killing Machines of World War I

The first Landship attempted by the French was the Schneider Char d’Assault. Its poor design prevented it from going across any uneven terrain. It had the most basic design of the early tanks in general. The Schneider could carry up to seven people. All of these design flaws were not noticed until it was put out on the battlefield. It proved to be a total disaster and it was quickly redesigned. The only Landship made by the Italians was the FIAT 2000, it was manufactured in 1916 and only two were made throughout the war. The battlefield for the Italians was mostly mountainous making it unsuitable for any vehicle to traverse. Even though their terrain had almost no way for military vehicles to be of use the Italians soon realized the need for armored vehicle and requested that the French give them a copy of their designs. The FIAT 2000 was considered a Heavy Tank with narrow tracks to allow it to move

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across Italy’s countryside. The FIAT had a crew of ten people, and it could move at an impressive speed of 4.3 miles per hour. The FIAT 2000 was not considered to be what was needed for mountain warfare. As a result of its size it could not move through the narrow mountain passes and it was much too heavy to go across the countryside bridges and because of the uneven landscape of the northern region prevented the Italians from ever using their only Landship making it so the only two Landships were never used in combat. The Sturmpanzerwagen A7V was the German Empire’s first attempt to crafting a Landship because of its overall faulty design it had few successes. The Germans had made their Landships to just support their infantry troops to march across France. When they were losing ground near the end of the war they did not consider using them in their strategies. As the war went on though the Germans saw how the British were succeeding with their use of Landships that they revisited the idea of using them. Because of The Killing Machines of World War I

this the Germans put an armored box on a Holt tractor suspension system, which was modified to have it perform better and increase the speed. This was how the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V was born. Inside this masterpiece it was cramped, smelly, and noisy. It could fit eighteen men (which was good because that is how many it took to make the Landship work). It was a heavy vehicle that was unreasonable to use on uneven terrain. It was too slow to help protect the infantry that it was designed to protect. Despite all this negativity it had the best armor available even better than the British Landships. Only twenty were available to German troops however and this limited its overall effectiveness. They were immediately involved in fighting because it was made near the end of the war. On April 24th, 1918, the first known Landship battle took place; it was three A7Vs versus three British Mk IV tanks. After the Landship battle

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was over the end result was two damaged Mk IVs and only one damaged A7V. Despite its advantages the A7V had too many negative factors to make it worthwhile.

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ea battles during World War I were not what one might think, there were not a lot of battles where the Battleship was used because nations did not want to pointlessly waste money they would have to spend building these huge vessels. The two great naval powers were the United Kingdom and the German Empire; before the war they had an arms race to see who could have the most warships and the British had more by a ratio of 2:3. Both forces had thought prior to the war that using submarines were an underhanded, unfair, and cheap means to fight. However as soon as it became apparent to the Germans that the British had superior ships and

The Killing Machines of World War I

there was little in the way to break the stalemate for them to be victorious with conventional sea battles they adopted the use of submarines because they were cheaper to produce, and sneakier than a large amount of Dreadnaughts. The Germans then made the famous Uboats, to counter this, the British made the K class submarines. The K class was a giant submarine that was designed to move with the fleet to counter the U-boats. However the K classes were usually not able to keep up with the fleet and often suffered from a large number and often fatal amount of technical failures. The German U-boats were more reliable and could, without any trouble, takeout the British subs. At the beginning of the war both the Allies and the Germans had no idea of the capabilities of the submarine, but because of Germany’s economic problem and having 60% of what the British navy was they turned to sub warfare out of desperation. Not even the Germans could have seen how close the U-boats would come to turning the tide on the British. To counter the U-boat’s destructive power the British had started arming every cargo ship and liners, and instructed the skippers to run down any U-boat they saw, and because of this the Germans started firing, without warning, stealth torpedoes at any non-friendly. All in all the Germans U-boats were a destructive force that almost leaded the British to nearly lose the upper hand of the control of the sea. Today, the U-boat

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is still in use in Germany today, in which it has been redesigned and drastically improved upon. As time has passed, other nations have adopted the use of the submarine and technological advancements have boasted their effectiveness; as a result they have been enhanced greatly for the use of modern navies.

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uring the war perhaps the most feared weapons used were the gases used by both sides. It was not because of the fact that they caused a lot of casualties (they didn’t), but they had adverse

effects on the soldiers that were caught in its path and would render them incapacitated. Now when most people think of the nation that started the use of chemical weapons first they would say the Germans were the first

The Killing Machines of World War I

to use gas weapons. However, it was in fact first used by the French, this gas being tear gas (a non-lethal substance). Tear gas was used primarily to render the enemy incapacitated from fighting and it did so very effectively. After the use of tear gas by both sides, the Germans would use a gas that caused the soldiers to sneeze allowing them to break the enemy lines. It was not until later in the war that the Germans used lethal gases. After the Germans started to use these lethal gases, both the British and the French copied them soon after. From the gases used by the Germans three stand out from their arsenal. These gases were chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas. Chlorine and phosgene gas were both lung irritants that were used to suffocate the poor souls that were hit by these deadly gases. The other deadly gas was less lethal but probable the most hate chem. used by both sides, mustard gas. This chemical weapon made severe burns on both the skin and tissues appear on the victim’s body. Anyone who was

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unfortunate enough to be caught in the fumes and did not have on their gas mask risked death from breathing in the fumes or go blind as the gas destroyed their eyes. The gas masks the solders used to protect themselves from the gas bomb were crude but somewhat effective, (except for the cloth covered in urine they used if they could not get to their standard masks). Today, gases are still used somewhat in modern militaries, one form is the smoke bomb, but with the advent and improvements added to gas masks, chemical weapons have lost their effectiveness.

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he weapons of World War I proved to be crude but also effective. There were several complex designs that were made during the course of World War I and they required a lot of intense research to develop and produce. This is a major reason why the Allied Powers were victorious, they were able to produce far more than the Central Powers ever could in weaponry, and they had the manpower to fill the

The Killing Machines of World War I

production that the Allies were pushing out. The weapons had several defects, but despite all of the problems that the weapons suffered from they were the stepping stones to the modern weapons we have today and vital to their creation. Without their advancements that the war gave

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us we would be years behind in weapons technology and the world would be a very different place from it is now. In the end, World War I showed us the way of the modern era of weaponry and should be remember for what it was in history.

The Killing Machines of World War I

References "Char D'Assault Schneider (Schneider CA)." Military Factory. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2013. . "FIAT 2000 - Prototype Heavy Tank." Military Factory. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2013. . "Gas Warfare in World War I." Army Heritage Center Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2013. . "Infantry weapons in World War One." History Learning Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2013. . "M1917 6-ton - Tank." Military Factory. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 .

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"Poison Gas and World War One." History Learning Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2013. . "Sturmpanzerwagen A7V - Armored Fighting Vehicle/Tank." Military Factory. N.p., 20 July 2012. Web. 10 May 2013. . "Submarine Warfare in World War I." Cityofart. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2013. . "Tank Mk V - Heavy Tank." Military Factory. N.p., 27 July 2012. Web. 10 May 2013. . "WW1 Tanks." Military Factory. N.p., n.d. Web. .

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Adams, Simon. Eyewitness World War I. New York: DK Publishing, 2007. N. pag. Print. Loti, Pierre. "Horrors of Gas Attacks." New York Times Mar. 1915. N. pag. Web. 13 May 2013. http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/ww1_gas_warfare_information_pdf

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The Killing Machines of World War I