World War 1 Weapons And Strat Essay

World War 1, Weapons And Strat Essay, Research Paper

Important Weapons and Stratagies of World War 1

World war was was indeed unlike any other war. Unique stratagies and new

technology made this war what it was, a slow moving advancement and retreat for a

period of 4 years. Important tactics and sweeps such as the Schliefen Plan, Plan 17 and

use of gases played the most important role in shaping the outcome, advancment and use

of weapons in the war. One of the biggest weapon advancements which differentiated the

war from past wars was the machine-gun.

In 1884 Hiram Maxim developed the worlds first automatic, light, portable

machine-gun. Maxim designed the gun as to use the recoil energy given off by each bullet

to advance the next cartrage out and load the next bullet into the chamber. This ment that

a person no longer had to reload a gun or waste time re-aiming the gun. Each

machine-gun had the fire power of 100 rifles, and were maned by a team of 3 to 6 men,

making it more labor efficient than a rifle also. With this effeciency the machine-gun was

able to fire an unprecidented 400-600 rounds of ammunition per minute. The machine-gun

would therefore fire until the entire belt of bullets was used up. In World War 1

machine-guns were set up all along the France/Germany border, known as the Western

Front. Germany decided to protect its much needed machine-gunners in concrete

blockhouses. Machine-guns were so deadly and efficient that they soon appeared on just

about every vehicle.

In order to protect and support the machine-gunners and infintry, artillery was

placed behind to give support and long-range firepower. Famous artillery such as the

howitzers were the most common on the battle field. The main artillery for the British

Army was this long-barrled field gun. However, it soon became clear there was a great

demand for howitzers to be used under cover or against hidden targets. These fired heavy

shells on a high trajectory through a short barrel and were the best type of artillery gun to

employ against fortifications. by the end of the war they could fire shells weighing 900kg

over 18km.

Some of the famous howitzers that were used on the Western Front include the

German Big Bertha and the Austrian Skoda 30.5. In 1900 Alfred Krupp’s factory in Essen,

Germany, started to preduce a 350-mm howitzer that could fire an 800 lb shell over

10,000 yards. In 1908 Krupp improved his version of this gun with the capability of

destroying even the heaviest of fortifications. By 1912 Krupp had produced a 420mm

howitzer that fired a 2,100 lb shell over 16,000 yards. Weighing 175 tons, it was designed

to be loaded and sent in five sections by rail and assembled at the firing site or battle

grounds. This concerned the German Army and they asked for it to be adapted to be

moved by road. By 1914 company had produced a mobile howitzer called Big Bertha

(named after Gustav Krupp’s wife). This 43 ton howitzer could fire a 2,200 lb shell over 9

miles. Transported by Daimler-Benz tractors, it took its 200-man crew, over six hours to

re-assemble it on the site.

On the outbreak of the war, two Big Berthas and several Skoda 30.5 howitzers

were erected outside the fortress of Liege in Belgum. The first shells were fired on 12th

August at the ring of 12 forts around the city. By the 15th August all the forts had either

been destroyed or had surrendered. News of the success of this new weapon at Liege

encouraged other countries involved in the conflict to produce large mobile guns.

Another new development that soon swept the war was the improvment of the

gernade. Grenades first began being used in the 16th century. Originally they were hollow

iron balls filled with gunpowder and ignited by a slow burning match. To be effective,

soldiers had to be able to throw them over 100 feet and the tall, strong soldiers selected

for this task became known as grenadiers.

In the opening months of World War 1 the British Army used Gernade number

1. This was a cast-iron canister on an 18 inch stick. Soldiers soon discovered that they

were dangerous to use when in a front-line trench. There were several cases of soldiers

being killed when the grenade hit the front of the trench.

The German stick grenade had a wooden handle about ten inches long that carried a metal

canister at his head. The head unscrewed to allow the detonator to be inserted. The screw

cap at the end covered a string which was pulled to ignite the fuse inside the head.

Several people became involved in producing a grenade that was safe to use but

created the maximum damage to the enemy. By 1915 the Mills Bomb was the most

popular grenade used by British troops. The bomb had a central spring-loaded firing-pin

and and spring-loaded lever locked by a pin. Once the grenade was in the air, the lever

flew up and released the striker, which ignited a four-second time fuse, allowing

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