WWI TECHNOLOGICAL/MECHANIZED WARFARE The last major-power war in Europe had been 45 years before. Then technology had provided generals with trains for maneuver, and rifles to compete with cannons in killing. (In Napoleons battles, 50% of casualties had been by cannon fire; Franco-Prussian War, 10%.) Now the internal combustion engine was gradually redesigning the battlefield. There were still millions of horses pulling, carrying, and dying. But cars and trucks were speeding transporting and supplying armies. When the French (with a British presence) halted the German invasion, all the Parisian taxis were enlisted to each carry five soldiers to the battlefield, making three trips apiece. French general Joffre moved constantly among his armies, with a race car driver behind the wheel. Airplanes took over reconnaissance from the cavalry, which couldnt survive machine guns. Observation balloons, tethered to the ground, were quickly winched down if hostile planes appeared. Another development - tracer bullets (developed to see where bullets were going in night fighting) burned a chemical in flight. It was enough to set gas filled balloons and bombing Zepplins on fire. Communicating with planes aloft, first with Morse code, then voice, magnified their effectiveness and lethality, especially once an interrupter gear allowed bullets to fire thru the whirling propeller blades. The British Navy developed the tank (a landship) to cross no-mans land. Dug in machine guns firing hundreds of bullets a minute now had a steel shelled, mobile machine gun/cannon attacking them. Artillery, by now an old weapon, were larger, far more numerous, firing explosive shells farther, more quickly, and more accurately. To the ferocity of the killing were added flamethrowers (incinerating opponents) and poison gasses (to slowly, painfully eliminate enemies). At sea, steel ships containing thickly armored boxes protecting engines and massive guns threatened all comers. But the new, small, sneaky torpedo firing submarines could sink the floating fortresses. And they slaughtered the merchant ships supplying food and industry. Hydrophones were developed to locate the pests. Depth charges were dropped overboard to explode (hopefully) on or near the unseen foe. Another revolution, the aircraft carrier, intended for fleet reconnaissance, would become the submarines most lethal adversary: pilots could see them submerged. But the greater the killing power, the more heinous the maiming, the more horrifying being aware became, none of it made them stop. Maybe run away for awhile, go insane; but the targets persevered.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:51:49 +0000