new weapons of war
- 1 RIFLES. The standard rifle of the British army during World War I was the Lee-Enfield .303, a variation of a weapon that had been used by the army since 1902. ...
- 2 BARBED WIRE. ...
- 3 MACHINE GUNS. ...
- 4 ARTILLERY. ...
- 5 POISON GAS. ...
- 6 AIRCRAFT. ...
- 7 TANKS. ...
- 8 AIRSHIPS.
1 RIFLES
The standard rifle of the British army during World War I was the Lee-Enfield .303, a variation of a weapon that had been used by the army since 1902. Fed by a magazine that could hold 10 bullets, the bolt-action Lee-Enfield was a robust, reliable rifle well-suited to the harsh conditions of trench warfare. A trained regular soldier could fire 15 rounds per minute with the weapon. In fact, it was so successful that further variants were used throughout World War II and, in some countries, for decades after that.
2 BARBED WIRE
Originally devised to corral cattle in the American West, barbed wire became a deadly defensive weapon on the Western Front during the Great War. It snagged on equipment and clothing and slowed attackers, who were often prime targets for snipers as they desperately tried to disentangle themselves. Coupled with the deadly stopping power of the heavy machine gun, barbed wire, often deployed in double rows or in intricate traps, made advancing even short distances over no man's land a nightmarish proposition.
MACHINE GUNS
The machine gun was not a new weapon in 1914 – the American Hiram Maxim had invented the gun that bore his name in 1884 – but it was refined and made easier to carry during World War I and used to even deadlier effect across the expanses of no man's land that separated the two sides on the Western Front. Germany's standard heavy machine gun, the Maschinengewehr 08, was derived from the Maxim gun and could fire 400 rounds a minute. The British equivalent was the Vickers machine gun, which could spit between 450-500 bullets a minute.
ARTILLERY
The majority of casualties on the battlefields of World War I were inflicted by artillery shelling. Artillery barrages to “soften up” enemy lines before an infantry assault could last for weeks – a bombardment of German trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 lasted a fortnight, with 4.5 million shells fired from 3,000 guns.
POISON GAS
Chlorine gas was first used by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, killing hundreds of French troops
AIRCRAFT
When the war started, most of the belligerents had a few unarmed, wood-and-canvas aircraft, which they intended to use as aerial scouts. By November 1914, though, pilots were dropping grenades on enemy troops as they flew over them, or carrying pistols to take pot shots at other aircraft. Air warfare took a leap forward the following year with the adoption of the interrupter gear, which allowed a machine gun mounted on a plane to fire without damaging the propeller
TANKS
Originally called “land battleships”, then “thingum-a-jigs”, tanks were developed on the orders of Winston Churchill and first deployed on the Somme battlefield in September 1916. The tank was specifically developed to break the trench warfare stalemate – their armour would be impervious to machine gun fire, and their tracks would be able to cross trenches and barbed wire entanglements. But although the tanks at the Somme weakened German morale, they were slow and beset by mechanical problems
AIRSHIPS
Originally passenger airships, the iconic Zeppelins were commandeered by the German military in 1914, and began bombing missions over Britain at the start of the following year. There were just 20 of these airships in operation at any one time, but as they flew above the reach of British aircraft they bombed almost with impunity, until the introduction of the high-flying Sopwith Camel in 1917.