Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War I during the American Civil War of 1861–1865;Compare: 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 and a number of improvised weapons used in trench warfare. Military technology of the time included important innovations in machine guns, grenades, and artillery, along with essentially new weapons such as submarines, poison gas, warplanes and tanks.Tucker, Spencer C. (1998) The Great War: 1914-18. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; p. 11
The earlier years of the First World War could be characterized as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century military science creating ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. On land, the quick descent into trench warfare 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 to the 10+ man squad) 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, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Germans employed the Haber process of nitrogen fixation 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 "sappers" and the sophistication of their listening devices.
During the war, the immobility of trench warfare and a need for protection from snipers created a requirement for loopholes both for discharging firearms and for observation.Trench Loopholes, Le Linge 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 (1910) for field uniforms, to less conspicuous khaki 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.
The Germans wanted better soldier head protection, so they hastened to develop new steel helmets in December 1915, replacing the old leather Pickelhaube.
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 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.Sterling, Christopher H. (2008). Military Communications: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 444.
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 and flash spotting, 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 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 weapon The first anti-aircraft guns 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 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, 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 trucks 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 and phosgene. Relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing (as opposed to tactical bombing) 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.Postwar pulp novels on future "gas wars" included Reginald Glossop's 1932 novel Ghastly Dew and Neil Bell's 1931 novel The Gas War of 1940.
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, Germany turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. The unknown gas appeared to be a simple smoke screen, 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, phosgene 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. Later, relatively effective gas masks 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 was a significant step in communication during World War I. The stations utilized at that time were spark-gap transmitters. 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 via a relay station in Kamina and Lomé in Togo 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 couriers. It was soon realized that more immediate methods of communication were needed.
Radio sets of the period were too heavy to carry into battle, and field telephone 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 (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.