World-War One is often seen as a mindless slaughter fest. It's a little tactical innovation No major improvements in doctrine. There are many reasons for this ranging from Anti-war literature to military writers that were Directly affected by the war and of course the so-called great war was overshadowed by its bigger brother the second world war Which saw the widespread and revolutionary use of tanks the rise of airpower and the end of the battleship. Yet many of these revolutionary tactics, doctrines, and vehicles can be traced back to World War one although in 1914 many tactics and approaches were quite blunt and obsolete By 1918 a lot of innovations took hold [or were] fully implemented already Let's begin prior to 1914 all sides envisioned a highly mobile war with a strong focus on offensive operations furthermore artillery was mostly seen as a direct fire weapon that would be brought forward with galloping horses at the crucial moment and Support the attack of the infantry that this wasn't possible at all because the increase in firepower was enormous Not only from machine guns, but also from regular arrivals because the ranges usually could reach artillery that was using direct fire furthermore the combined firepower of artillery rifles and machine guns forced the infantry into trenches But direct fire artillery against trenches doesn't work Hence its traditional artillery use in a direct fire rule was suddenly both vulnerable and quite ineffective in the early stages of the war so let's take a look at the different phases and Challenges the artillery faced during the first world war the four major phases as described by Bailey [are] as follows inadequacy experimentation and [build-up] destruction and finally neutralization in The beginning of the war the artillery was mostly an auxiliary arm that should support the infantry But there was little training or doctrine available in order to coordinate such efforts this often led to friendly fire incidents in terms of coordination of artillery itself, there were major limits too. The highest level for coordination was the division and in some cases it was only at Battalion level the massing of artillery was still performed like in the napoleonic time a Large number of guns was placed next to each other in an area as close to the front as possible The use of artillery as a direct fire weapon was still a common approach although the russo-Japanese War already showed that indirect fire was necessary to due to increased firepower of small arms And Force the artillery further behind the [frontline] Duty to focus on mobility and offensive operations prior to the war field artillery was first and foremost Light as a result these guns were too light to do real damage against few fortifications and trenches additionally they were set up for a low trajectory line of fire and limited range as Zabecky notes exemplary about the French pre-War French doctrine envisioned using the 75 [millimetre] gun to maximum ranges of only 4,500 meters. The gun itself could fire out to 9,000 meters But to conform to doctrine the carriage and fire control instruments were constructed for a maximum range of only [6,000] meters The adequacy was also problem in terms of supplies especially when it came to ammo. All armies had far too less ammo stockpiled. Let's take a look at the ammo consumption rates of a Tyrion's per month from 1866 onwards in 1866 During The Austro-Prussian war The German army used about [twenty] thousand rounds per month four years later It already used 81 thousand rounds In 1904 the Russians used 87 thousand rounds it only eight years later in 1912 in the first Balkan war the bulgarian army used two hundred fifty four thousand This number increased further during the first world war in the first year the french army used 900,000 artillery shells in one month two years later this number increased to four million five hundred Thousand and in the last year of the first world war the German army used eight million Shells in one month Yet in the beginning of the war the national stockpiles and industries were insufficient for this amount of ammo consumption The French assumed the consumption of one hundred thousand rounds per month, but used nine hundred thousand rounds, considering that in the first Balkan war 254 thousand rounds were used this number was either dated or didn't take into account the [latest] development Thus at the beginning of the war in 1914 the French Army had less than five million rounds in stock the Russians had 12 million and The German more than twenty million, but they also had more artillery than the french Besides the shortage of ammo there was another problem the main type of Ammo in 1914 was the Shrapnel round a Shrapnel and was filled with iron balls that extended in a cone shaped Pattern when it exploded so in a way, it acted like a flying shotgun it could cover an area of 25 meters wide and 150 meters Long Yet shrapnel was only useful against troops on open ground because it was quite ineffective against tuck-in troops and basically useless against fortifications the Alternatives were high-explosive shells which killed by tiny steel fragments and Air burst furthermore it allowed to destroy and damage field fortifications and Trench meant Something the shrapnel around was unable to do thus the high-explosive round became the most important round Although ammo was a major problem for all nations [when] it came to heavier guns like howitzers there was a clear difference between France The German and the British Empire the French fielded an excellent 75 Millimeter gun, the M1897 but they assumed it would be able to deal with all targets thus there was [only] a very limited amount of heavy long-Range artillery available in Contrast the Germans took lessons from the russo-Japanese war and had a large number of heavy guns but the doctrine was lacking and thus couldn't really exploit the numerical superiority in heavy artillery the British had taken lessons from second boer war and had a large number of heavier guns yet the british Expeditionary Force that landed in France in 1914 had only a small [amount] of these heavy guns with them Hence every side had its own fair share of limitations, but let's take a closer Look at the numbers in 1914 the French had 3840 75 millimeter guns, but they only had 308 guns with a larger calibre than 75 millimetres in comparison the Germans in 1914 Had 5086 77 Millimeter Field Guns and 2,280 larger artillery guns where's the British in 1914 at 1608 light guns and 1248 heavy guns in Total, but only a small portion of them were with the British expeditionary force in [France] By 1918 these numbers changed white considerably the French in November, 1918 had 4968 Field Guns and 5128 Artillery Pieces above 75 millimetres Thus they had more than ten times the heavy artillery than in 1914 But let's take a look at the germans in 1918,they fielded 6764 for Field Guns and 12,286 artillery Pieces above seventy seven millimeter thus still out gunning the French and heavy artillery although if we add the British guns of 1918 for 3242 Light Guns and 3195 heavy guns in France the Gap in heavy artillery [gets] smaller, but it's still significant now back to 1915 after the war reached static Stalemate on the western front the armies Began to adapt the techniques The terror units also faced a major leadership problem. This was due to the [fact] that there was a rapid expansion in 1914 and 1915 this was especially true for the French artillery because many artillery nCos were transferred to Machine-gun units one of the major changes in these times was the shift to effective indirect fire Since [Napoleon] the basic technique was to Mass fire But to do increase in firepower from small arms and machine guns the artillery needed to be deployed behind the front Lines hence the only Possibility to mass fire was by using indirect fire basically two approaches for indirect fire were developed and used in the great war Observed an unobserved fire observed fire as the name suggests Needs an artillery observer he locates the targets and communicates the coordinates accordingly Furthermore if necessary information to a test range or [direction] is passed on. There were several disadvantages With this approach first the observer meets a line of sight to [the] Target Second any adjustment would result in sacrificing any surprise which will allow troops to either move out of the target area or take cover It should be noted that taking cover Considerably lower the effectiveness of an artillery strike Something that is usually not well portrayed in movies nor computer games Third the observer needs a reliable line of communication which was usually not possible Due to technical limitations or battle damage the alternative to observed fire was unobserved fire yet It relied on maps and was done without adjustment. This is one of the reasons when Modern military maps are usually way more accurate and full of elevation information But at the beginning of the war that information was usually not aware Another problem was that since no adjustments were performed the fire will also be Incorrect to [do] the fact that firing tables were based on Standard Data Which relied on standard conditions and well you don't have standard conditions in real life Factors like whether the conditions of the gun tubes and the different quality of ammo, led to inaccurate unobserved fire even if the maps were precise enough to address these challenges Various methods like registration, and other techniques were developed during the war to allow for more precise Unobserved fire another area of improvement was the change from the standing [Barish] to the creeping barrage In the beginning the basic Pattern was a standing bearish this meant that the enemy line was shelled for a certain period of time during that time the defending units often moved away [from] the defensive positions or into secured underground shelters After the artillery attack ended the units moved back into position. That's when the infantry began its attack Would usually still face a strong opposition [from] the defending infantry To counter these maneuvers the so called creeping barrage was Developed which slowly moved the head of an infantry attack first shelling the Target area and then moving to the next area The problem with the creeping barrage is that the infantry had to move through heavily shelter rain during the advance not a time period Of 1916 to 1917 sorry utterly becoming a blunt instrument of indiscriminate hammering of entire Patches of real estate The main goal during this period was to destroy enemy infantry and enemy fortifications Additionally the artery should serve as a vehicle by destroying enemy barbed wire through extensive shelling if you think this might be quite loud and expensive way to cut wire well you might be right for 75 Millimeter field guns at a range of 2500 meters needed about 600 rounds to sufficiently destroy an area of 25 by 30 [meters] of barbed wire [of] course the number of Shell's increased at a range of 7,000 meters the amount of rounds doubled to 1,200 Notice during barbed wire was not some Maria objective the packet points out that the April June 1917 issue of the Field [Attributional] of the United States Field artillery Association gives a very good picture of the prevailing [doctrine] at the time it Summarizes the step for an attack the following way no attack is possible until after an intense and effective artillery preparation which has for its object a To destroy the enemy's barbed wire [B] to disintegrate and destroy enemy trenches dugouts and to destroy or annihilate the defenders C to prevent or at least to interfere with Hostile artillery action d to prevent the passage of the enemy's resource by curtain barrage fire and e To destroy the machine guns wherever they can be located In short the artillery should basically do almost everything besides moving into the enemy trenches Notice that the first objective was destroying the barbed wire only [the] third and fifth objective were the enemy artillery and machine guns the Problem was the success of these artillery attacks was limited any Surprise was lost during a long shelling of the enemy positions during that time the enemy could prepare countermeasures And move troops into position Additionally many troops moved in to secure concrete bunkers or left the attack positions Even if the bombed wire was destroyed the terrain was usually also hard to traverse for infantry Especially for any artery or guns that would be needed to support any deeper advancement into the enemy lines the limited effectiveness of a long preparation attack can probably best Illustrated by taking a look at the British attack at the somme in June and july 1916 the British Performed the Seven-day preparation attack which about 1,500 guns fired 1.6 million Shells at the German positions as a reminder the French started the war with about 5 million shells After the prolonged and extensive shelling some [channelers] believed that nothing could have survived the bombardment but after the artery stopped the Germans moved into positions and the British Army took the largest single-day loss in British history for more than 57,000 men wounded Dead or missing in The final Phase of the artillery of water that started around winter 1917 there was a shift towards How artillery was used to support an attack instead of trying to destroy the enemy troops and fortifications [it]? Shifted to its neutralizing the enemy was neutralizing in this case means basically suppressing the enemy The suppression should prevent the enemy from using his weapons effectively Does the destruction of the enemy troops and equipment was not the primary objective of the artillery attack anymore? The Aim was to stun the enemy by short preparation attack that lasted only hours instead of days To achieve this the germans use the free phase attack the first attack was against the communication command and control Infrastructure the second phase aimed at the enemy artillery and [the] third phase was directed against the enemy infantry defending the front the use of different types of gas shells and different types of a theory for specific targets increase the effectiveness of these attacks after the successful applications of these techniques on the Eastern front [they] were also used during the German offensives in 1918 soon all Western Allies adopted the German artillery techniques Generally the French usUal several steps behind the German innovations [widened] contours to the British which in certain areas were More advanced than the Germans the [British] [seem] to have developed Independently to determine similar ideas on neutralizing the enemy with the use of gas and other means Although some of these principles were not used or delayed to the diffuse of the command and chief of the british Probably most notable is the battle of compre in November 1917 where the British used the artillery in a new way [the] used gas and smoke to neutralize the enemy and At the same time [achieve] surprised by moving the guns at night with proper camouflage Unlike the Germans the British used large-scale tank attacks and adapted the tactics for supporting tanks accordingly To summarize the first world was an extensive change in the use of a theory First it was deployed and used almost like in napoleonic times it soon It was forced off the front lines to do the overwhelming firepower this resulted in a switch to indirect fire which the armies were mostly not adequately equipped not trained for After depth in indirect fire an artery was seen as a tool for everything from destroying the enemy obstacles to annihilate the enemy troops [a] task that it was not suited for When the final phase it was deployed and used with a clear focus on its abilities and usefulness against specific Targets which resulted in a major success and establishment of effective principles these principles to a large degree Are still the core of Modern day artery? thank you for watching please like comment share and subscribe and See you next time you
You got me at POSSIBLE SPOILERS, thanks for the video