Trench Clubs (World War I)

Trench clubs weird weapons World War one the trench club was a handheld melee weapon similar to the medieval maces of the past and was used as a weapon for close combat trench raids trench rating was the tactic of using surprise attacks on enemy trenches in order to take over their positions eliminate a machine-gun nest or create the feeling of unrest amongst the enemy raids were performed during the night by soldiers who crawled over no-man's land into the opposite trenches once there they attack the enemy with close combat weapons since the attack needed to be as silent and as stealthy as possible in order to evade the rest of the enemy soldiers being alerted soldiers on the raid used quiet weapons such as daggers shovels and clubs which were more effective for this task than revolvers and bombs trench clubs were effective because of their dimensions although many different models were made on average there were around 40 centimeters long and 2 to 3 centimeters wide with an average weight of 600 to 700 grams with these dimensions trench clubs were perfectly designed for fighting in the narrow trenches one sharp blow to the head was enough to incapacitate the enemy which was often not the case with a dagger trench clubs were easy to construct as soldiers could improvise with materials they found in their trenches because of their simplicity trench clubs didn't require industrialized production but were being made on the spot right in the trenches and in great numbers and types by either soldiers or unit carpenters the simplest version was a plain piece of hard wood such as an entrenching tool handle with an improvised metal end such as an emptied Mills bomb another version was the nail Club these clubs had grooved grips in a wide hand with various spiky metal protrusions rivets hobnails nails are iron studs were hammered into the club for this purpose making these types of trench clubs lethal trench clubs with molded metal heads were more difficult to produce but were still as widely used as other types these clubs resembled medieval maces and had wooden handles on top a metal head was slotted into a handle and fastened with a screw spring clubs were considered the most advanced type the spring Club consisted of a leather wrapped handle connect to a metalhead on top by a flexible metal coil spring their club head's varied from small balls to star-shaped heads trench clubs were popular with troops from the Allies and the Central Powers present in almost every army engaged in the war while the first world war was a war of many technological innovations trench clubs were throwback to medieval times that found its usefulness on the modern battlefield watch our other videos to learn more get your copy of simple history World War one available on Amazon now pay simple history fans thanks for watching if you're looking for a way to support the channel and help us create more epic content consider checking out our patreon page you can see upcoming episodes before anyone else and continue to feed your hunger for history thank you for being part of this amazing community

Channel: Simple History

Views: 1,371,726

Keywords: simple history, animated history, trench clubs, trench raider, german, british, no mans land, education, educational cartoon, history, trenches, nail club, spring club, moulded club, head, knobkerrie, royal engineers, carpenter, technological innovations, medieval, throwback

Id: uvMNyGpPeBw

Length: 3min 7sec (187 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 05 2018