I am playing Iron Storm right now. A PC third person shooter set during 1964 in a world where WWI never ended.
But, in reality, it did. And whats more, its type of warfare became obsolete for WW2. But how was this? HWhat tactics and what weapons overcame the horrific meat grinder that was trench warfare, and how did they do so?
The return to mobile and offensive warfare due to the implementation of efficient and quick attack weapons (planes and tanks), able to cross/bypass/fly over defense lines.
This site gives an elementary exposition on trench warfare.
Basically, the trenches were finally defeated by using small units attacking by surprise and achieving a breakthough on a narrow front which was then rapidly exploited by mobile forces held in reserve for just such an event.
This same tactic was highly successful for the Germans in France in the summer of 1940.
The British and German armies developed different tactics that both worked - or would have, if there had been a way to exploit the breakthroughs. The Brits, after a few false starts, realized that adding massed tanks to the existing tactics of rolling barrages and aircraft as artillery spotters could deliver a breakthrough. The Germans developed the Stosstruppen - light units that could move fast, take advantage of available cover and clear trenches with grenades and submachineguns - apparently the first time that weapon was issued in larger numbers.
Both failed in actually exploiting the breakthroughs. Supplies and reinforcements for the attackers had to be brought through the fought-over ground that had just been chewed up by the assault, where defenders could maneuver on intact roads behind the line. Basically speaking, supplies had to be carried. The British did convert a few tanks to carry loads and personnel, but they were low in number and as unreliable as all tanks of the era.
Another reason was that high command was still locked into 19th century thinking in some respects. The British Army at one time planned to use cavalry to exploit the tank breakthroughs(!)
And a third reason was the low availability of reliable radio communications. Communications is of course essential in a war of maneuver.
After WWI, the Germans (and a few other with foresight - Liddell Hart, for instance) learned all the right lessons from what was achieved at the end of the war and how technology could be applied to overcome the problems still there. The French, to their loss, extracted another lesson entirely, namely that fortified fronts were extremely costly to attack.
The famous ‘hundred days’ assualt by British forces which pretty much concluded WW1 showed the way that fortified positions could be overcome.
It was a combined and most importantly, coordinated operation between artillery, tanks and aircraft that held the key.
The rolling barrage, was probably the most important of these tactics.
This was used extensively by Canadian troops who came to be regarded as the elite among British forces since their record of achieving objectives was second to none.
The idea was that there would be a short bombardment of enemey lines, to keep the opposing forces heads down, and then this would be followed by a bomabardments of no mans lands, especially among the barbed wire, and as the attacking troops made their way toward the enemy trenches the range of the artillery would be steadily increased to keep just in front of them.
The advancing troops changed from attacking in nice neat lines across the battlefield, to leapfrogging from shell crater to shell crater, using whatever cover they could find.
The use of tanks was probably more significant in their ability to crush paths through barbed wire than in any other aspects, as they were slow and unreliable.
Even though there was a rolling advance which was just about unstoppable during those last three months of Western front operations, the reality is that the allies actually suffered some of their highest casualties of the war, its just that the price of those lives was a real military advantage rather than the meat grinder stalemate of attrition which had preceded it.
Note that in some cases even during WWII, trench warfare was still as nasty and brutal as during WWI. For example, The Germans never got past the defences of Leningrad and they were exhausted trying to capture Stalingrad. (Wow, such old names.) The latter was basically a classic WWI battle fought in an urban setting.
The US also had a very difficult time finishing off the last Japanese stronghold in Okinawa. Despite US superiority in manpower, equipment and supplies, the Japanese caused the highest US casualties in the Pacific during the war.
The Iran-Iraq war of 25 years ago also had brutal trench warfare.
In today’s world, RPGs in certain situations can nullify a lot of tank power.
A well dug in enemy in terrain unsuitable for tanks and with a small perimeter results in trench warfare. Still.
No doubt about it. In WWII our lines and the Germans’ ran through the towns of Aachen and Duren for several months in the fall of 1944 and into spring 1945. The two towns are about 8 miles apart so they were in range of the larger artillery rifles. Lots of casualties and I don’t think there was anything left standing over shoulder high in either town when the 1[sup]st[/sup] Army finally got the Remagen bridge over the Rhine and the German front collapsed.
It seems to me that the recent (and bloody) Erythrea/Ethiopa war was also mostly a trench war.
Not mentioned so far is the fact that a front has to be established in order for a trench line to be set up. Blitzkrieg was intended to capture ground so fast that stationary lines did not get set up. Let’s look at the major assaults of WWII…
Poland - Tanks and planes overwhelmed defenders before they even knew they were are war.
Holland, Belgium- Hey we’re neutral! Yow! We’re conquered!
France - The Maginot Line is impenetrable! What the hey? They went through Belgium? But our line doesn’t go that far! Crud. We’re conquered.
USSR - A delicate game of dealing with the Devil goes wrong for Stalin as the German’s break the feeble non-agression pact too soon after Stalin purges lots of officers. German tanks roll through the lines before they can form.
Stalingrad, Leningrad - Prepared defenses stop tremedous assaults.
Allies into Italy- Long slow slog through prepared defenses.
Late war - Germany had not enough manpower or resources to set firm lines.
Trench warfare wasn’t overcome in WWI; the Germans were beaten primarily because they ran out of fresh bodies and the ones still alive refused to continue fighting. The much-Canadian-ballyhooed “rolling bombardment” certainly helped a little here and there, but even the famed Canadian attack at Vimy Ridge took only a few miles of ground and had no significant impact on the German line as a whole, for the same reason all the other attacks failed; without radios, the exploitation of attacks was not possible. Furthermore, artillery of the sort available in 1914-1918 simply wasn’t, and isn’t, effective at killing troops in entrenched positions.
Trench warfare still works in many circumstances. Its utter domination of the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 was a unique circumstance where the dominant weapon, the machine gun, just happened to have no effective counter.
However, there are a large combination of developments that make it possible to break heavy trench lines:
Tanks. Machine guns no longer can be used to close an entire battlefield.
Volume of bombs. The artillery of 1914-1918 was primarily dependent upon fragmentation shells, which were most of the available shells and which are utterly worthless at attacking trenches. High explosive was not available in sufficient quantity and even monster artillery bombardments like the preparatory bombardment of the Somme were not really firing enough HE at German positions to do any serious damage to their trenches and dugouts. If you actually add up the HE fired per square kilometre, it’s shockingly low - anyone who added it up should have realized it wasn’t going to work.
However, by WWII, the ability to drop bombs with vastly more accuracy AND the vastly greater availability of high explosive made it possible to drop a horrifying amount of ordnance on a position for the purpose of breakthrough. See Operation Cobra.
Radio also VASTLY magnifies the effectiveness of artillery - I mean, makes it 10, 20, maybe a hundred times more powerful. People get hung up on shell size and volume, but the artillery of 1945 was nothing like the artillery of 1918. There is no comparison. Artillery bombardments in 1914-1918 were predetermined, wide-ranging attacks that preceded attacks and couldn’t concentrate on targets of opportunity. By 1945 the radio control of artillery enabled an army to throw a huge volume of artillery on a newly identified target, or in support of a breakthrough, and that’s on top of having guns with more HE, rocket artillery, better fuzes, and all that stuff. U.S. Army artillery was absolutely and without question the most effective and underrated weapon of WWII; it could throw so much so fast at a new target that a rumour started in the German army that the Allies had invented an automatic howitzer.
Whatever else is true about war, remember this; artillery is the god of war. Has been for a long time.
Airplanes. Able to attack fixed positions, interdict defensive troops regrouping behind the lines, etc. Consider the difference between German defenders in 1916 and 1944. In 1916 the Germans would have time to move reserves into position behind a threatened position. In 1944, any German vehicle moving in daylight was quite likely to be attacked by an Allied or Russian bomber. Trains were routinely blown right off the tracks. It was a constant struggle for them to fill holes in defensive lines.
Trucks. It’s not just tanks that allow an army to move around; wheeled vehicles allow for much greater freedom of movement.
Trenches have been a dominant force in warfare since 1854 and will be for a long time to come. They played critical roles in WWII on all fronts. They just happened to be really important in 1916, just as aircraft carriers were really important in 1942 or Minie-ball rifles were really important in 1863.
Right on. The beauty of artillery is that it is repeatable in that if the gun is brought back to the same aiming point the shells will fall in a relatively restricted circle. Add a forward observer who can correct the aim point and you have a really devastating weapon.
The advent of accurate, guided, air-to-ground missiles has given aircraft the same advantage provided there is a forward observer to identify targets for the pilots.
But was that lesson wrong? The German Army evidently agreed with it, since they avoided a direct attack on the Maginot line. Wasn’t it the implementation of that insight by the French the problem? They should have extended the Maginot line all the way to the Channel, along the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands.
I think they couldn’t afford it. Much the same as we are spending huge amounts of money on often ineffective internal, or homeland, security methods while running large deficits. I just hope that those foreigners that many of our poster seem to scorn don’t decide not to finance our debt.
Sorry for the hijack but I’m mad as hell and getting more so daily.
I agree, the finances would likely have been a problem, given the length of the French border with BENELUX. But that still goes to implementation, not to the basic principle.
To re-cast the debate on this point: assume France could afford to build a Maginot line to the Channel, and did so. Would the German blitzkreig have been successful?
Well, perhaps not wrong per se, but the French High Command took a basically sound idea far too far. As Mr. Simmons says, it’s a matter of economy. The French fortifications swallowed an ungodly amount of resources that weren’t available to move the fight to where the enemy was. (Understand I’m not really blaming anyone, speaking with the benefit of hindsight - noone knew how to contain a blitzkrieg attack in 1940.)
Of course the Germans picked an attack route around the line (and through the Ardennes) when they had the option. Frontal attacks on intact fortifications are costly, even today. But there’s little doubt in my mind that the Wehrmacht could have breached the line if they decided it was necessary. It would have been costly, but the result would have been the same: The armoured columns would have roamed the countryside with near impunity, as long as they stayed out of gun range of the intact fortifications.
from what I heard, even if France could afford to extend the maginot line, it wasn’t diplomatically feasible since it essentially gave the message to Belgium that France would sit idly by while the germans rolled in.
What was the state of radio technology in 1915? If anyone had realized how useful they would be, could man-portable units have been available?
The first demonstration ofvoice communication by radio was in 1906 according to this site. Previous to this, and for a long time after, the primary mode of communication by radio was via Morse Code. The Titanic (1911?) for example only had code capability, no voice, and many ships didn’t even have that.
The means of voice communication in WWI, and often in WWII, was by field phones using land lines strung, operated and maintained by the Signal Corps. (A friend of mine was in the Signal Corps in SE Asia. Their platoon supported an infantry battalion so no matter which company was the lead in an action he got to go along. He still grumbles about it now and then.)
I suppose a portable radio for code could have been made but it would have been so large as to make the one who carried it an obvious target. The equipment was also quite fragile and mainenance in the field would have been a real nightmare.
One additional reason for the end of WW1: The 1918 Spanish Influenza.
Spanish influenza killed between 2 1/2% to 5% of the global population in 9 months.
It also disabled many of its sufferers for weeks or months afterwards.
That effected everybody. A trip to the library will get you a book on the subject, including the effect it had on war production & morale.
There was also an aftereffect–a long period of severe depression.
The German leadership contracted the disease in the weeks before the Armistence. Most of the got it all at once.
Exhausted, depressed & spent, they were in no emotional or physical condition to continue the war.
Allied leadership either caught it piecemeal, or after the truce.
in “America’s Munitions” [1919] the author gives an account of a demonstration of radio-telephony between U.S. aircraft in Dec. 1917 to foreign military and civil officials. They were amazed that it could be made to work. Of course the idea is mundane to us now but was revolutionary at the time.
French strategy in the '20s was based on the [reasonable] assumption that Belgium would be an ally in future hostilities with Germany. Building fortifications along the Franco-German border would have sent a signal that Belgium was being abandoned. It was only when the Belgians proclaimed neutrality in the '30s that a rethink was needed. In addition, the border contains flat country with few, if any, commanding features to construct works on, and the water table is high so that constant pumping would be required. Nonetheless a start was made on extending the Maginot Line but money was scarce in the Depression, especially as economic orthodoxy of the times demanded heavy cuts in public spending to balance the budget.